Baby Blanket

Wine of the Day: Vendage - Sauvignon Blanc

I have finished piecing the baby blanket! 

This quilt is for my friends Kristy and Wes who are about to have their first baby.  They don't know I am making it so I am really excited to get it finished and give it to them before their little girl comes.  The nursery is two tone orange and Kristy wants to incorporate some teal accents.  Wes also informed me that they have a jungle theme, Kristy doesn't care for pink but does like purple.  All of this was taken into account when selecting fabrics.

I had the orange on the far left and the purple at home already.  The rest are fat quarters I found at  Joann's.  I was thrilled to find the jungle theme fabric and the colors are perfect.  

The original idea was a simple horizontal stripe quilt.  I did some research on sizing though and found that my fat quarters weren't quite wide enough for that.  The ideal baby quilt size is apparently 32" x 52".  This will allow for the sides and the bottom to be tucked under a crib mattress without covering the baby's face.   So, the new idea was a vertical striped quilt that was more pieced than just my original simple idea.  For this I decided I could just make up the pattern.  I went with 1.5", 3" or 4.5" wide by 6" or 9" tall.  There was a lot of math involved, probably more than necessary but I finally figured out how many pieces to use.  I laid it out on the floor and played with the location of the colors until I finally settled on this:

The right side is actually going to be the top.  This was decided so that all of the animals were facing up.  Then I sewed each strip.  This went very quickly and I actually finished it up Thursday night before Brian came home.  Lucy helped...

With all of my strips sewed and laid out in order, Saturday morning I set out to finish it.  The whole thing went smoothly and quickly and before I knew it I was sewing my final piece.  I hadn't decided yet if there would be a border or not so I pulled out the white on white zebra print I had left over from my first quilt.  No competition, this NEEDED to be added.  Not only did it brighten up all the colors but the zebra pattern was a perfect fit for the theme.  I went with a 3" border to keep the portions the same as the other strips.  It is just about the right size at about 32" x 56" And here it is:

All pieced together and ready for the next step.  With Hurricane Sandy pounding down on us, I will not get to the store for a while but I have already decided that I want the back to be the large orange and white pattern.  I am thinking that the edge might be white too, or purple.  That hasn't been decided yet.  For now, I will be inside riding out the storm...

kara

Ornaments

Wine of the Day: nothing yet :(

Today, I came across this:


What a cute idea!  Thank you Say Yes to Hoboken!  This has inspired many ideas for Christmas ornaments for gifts and for me.  Being a mom to three cats means constant Christmas tree climbing.  I bought a fake tree the same year the girls came into my life but that has not stopped them.  Luckily only one ornament has been sacrificed so far but after that I have vowed to stick with what I consider "cat safe" ornaments.  This basically includes plush or plastic, non breakable, non shatterable ornaments.  These will be perfect! 

More ideas: 

This comes from Memi the Rainbow.



And then this:

which comes from Feeling Stitchy.

 Thank you fellow bloggers for such cute ideas!  Can't wait to get sewing :)

kara

The Beginning of the Patriotic Quilt

Wine of the Day: Vendage - Sauvignon Blanc

My quilting essentials: fabric, sewing machine, wine, a cat.

Before I had even finished my first quilt I knew I wanted to create a red, white, and blue one.  When Brian and I were at his church auction I saw one that was really well made and I just loved the patriotic theme.  With Brian being in the Air Force too, I thought it would be nice to have in the house.  I bought a pattern of all stripes at Capital Quilts.

Radio Way by Jaybird Quilts

 I think this was a perfect choice.  This one is going to be a full size quilt.  I figured I didn't need another throw just yet and we have a full size spare room bed so it seemed logical.  The pattern includes the exact number of pieces needed for a few different sizes so it can be reused in the future I hope too.  Twelve different colored fabrics are being used, all of which are either red and white or blue and white. 

Lucy was making sure my piles stayed organized.

 Then I used white fabric to border the smaller squares like shown in the pattern pictures.

Kahlua's turn to supervise.

Cat toys

They got caught sleeping on the job.  Clearly, Bria couldn't care less.

So, this is where I am now.  Lots of squares, ready to be ironed and then sewn together.  

The tricky part will be getting all the corners of the squares to align.  Maybe I should work from the middle out?  I'm sure a few options will be explored and I can't wait to get back to work on it. 

But, it is on hold at the moment so I can make a very exciting baby blanket.  In the mean time, looks like I should do some research for this one...

kara

First Quilt

My first quilt was designed to be a throw in my living room.  I went to Joann's and got all the necessary supplies for a beginner: rotary cutter, cutting mat, transparent ruler, all of it.  Fabrics were selected, money was spent, I was ready!  I bought this pattern online from FortheLoveDesigns on Etsy.  It looked simple enough; just straight lines right? Wrong!  Turns out there is an art to aligning and pinning the pieces just right.  Now, remember I was a beginner, but I will admit that I sewed quite a few pieces front to back rather than front to front.  Then, finally, there was progress.

It was pieced, it was batted (is that a thing?), it was backed.  Lucy loved it!  NOW comes the hard part; the edging.  I thought all of this was frustrating and time consuming (but still awesome), I was wrong again.  The edge was by far my least favorite part.  Until yesterday I honestly believed it was always that hard and people are just better at it than me.  Yep, still wrong.  I have now learned that I did the edging the hard way and that normal people actually sew on one side at a time rather than pinching and cursing and sticking your fingers with pins while trying to keep everything together and straight inside 2 sides of double fold bais tape.  See, we are learning things!

I finally finished it though. And what do you know... Lucy still loves it.



I love it too!  It looks great in my living room.  It is the perfect size for a throw.  I made it!  Yes, there are some mistakes but I prefer to think they are just quirks of a handmade quilt.  And, they most certainly provide lessons learned. So here's to the first adventure of many! 

Cheers,
kara