Finished: Pink & Gray Stripe Baby Quilts

After reading about Rachel's experience having a craft fair booth and talking about it with Mr. Pins, I'm going to submit an application for a handmade fair taking place later this fall. That means it's time to stock the Etsy shop with cute, crafted up goods at a variety of price points to see if I can get picked! Cue these two quilts with fabric from Ellen Luckett Baker's Quilt Blocks line for Moda.

I really LOVE these prints from this line, and I was pleased to find them locally in two colorways while I was test driving some sewing machines. (More on that another day!) The chevrons are completely adorable, and I had fun pairing them with Moda solids. Meanwhile, the other print reminds me of a Double Wedding Ring/Single Girl pattern. What can I say? Throw some squares in a circle, and I'm a happy gal ;-) Let's do a deep dive on these two babies.

Quilty Stats:
Pre-wash dimensions: 58.25" x 43"
Post-wash dimensions: 55.25" x 40.75"
Batting: SewPerfect by Fairfield (Poly-Fil) Cotton Quilt Batting. (100% unbleached cotton needlepunched, no scrim with a 1/8" loft)
Fabrics: Ellen Luckett Baker's Quilt Blocks line for Moda and a Moda solid
Binding: Scrappy binding made from main fabrics
Quilting: Done with my walking foot on the Bernina 1630.

In the spectrum of sewing, I consider myself primarily quilter, so of course the first thing to go up in the shop has to be a quilt! I haven't been very good at tracking how long it takes to make something, but to price things out, I have to figure in my time. I decided start with something simple and move up from there. This quilt took about five and a half hours to make. Yikes. Once you take materials into account, things get even more expensive. I wanted to see if I could be more efficient by pin basting and quilting less densely. Cue the pink version!

Quilty Stats:
Pre-wash dimensions: 58" x 43"
Post-wash dimensions: 56.5" x 40.5"
Batting: Machine 60/40 Blend by Fairfield (Poly-Fil) 60% cotton, 40% polyester, with scrim, needle punched, maintains its 1/8" loft
Fabrics: Ellen Luckett Baker's Quilt Blocks line for Moda and a Moda solid
Binding: Scrappy binding made from main fabrics
Quilting: Done with my walking foot on the Bernina 1630.

I was a smidge faster making this quilt. It came together in just over four hours. The pattern and 60/40 batting made it possible work out a larger scale quilting strategy. I really like both of these quilts. The scrappy batting is my favorite! If you need a quick quilt, feel free to shop away ;-) I need to keep getting my sewing on this week, since the application deadline is coming fast. I'll keep you posted, though!

Happy Crafting :-D

The Trouble with Batting

I picked up some new-to-me batting types at Remnants this week. 

As I was digging through my batting stash to make these little baby quilts this week, I was really disappointed with some of the pre-packaged batting I was pulling out. Have you ever pulled out some pre-packaged batting and seen something like this?

Come on. I can fit my head through there. Not that I'm planning on running around town in a batting poncho ;-) I'm just saying it's a ridiculously big hole. How does something like that get past quality control?

I would've graduated to better quality batting sooner, but I stocked up at Jo-Ann's or Hancock's early in my quilting adventures last year. I'm excited to make some baby quilts out of these three sections of batting, though, to see how I like it. Jessica at Remnants was able to tell me which was which, and luckily it's easy to tell them apart. There's a Warm & Natural, Hobbs Heirloom Natural, and a Hobbs Heirloom Bleached.

I'd love to use that 50% Jo-Ann's coupon today to stock up on a fat bolt of queen-sized Warm & Natural for $225 instead of $450, but yowza. That's a lot to shell out at once. It does dollar out nicely at the 50% off price, though. If you get 20 queen-sized quilts out of that roll, then it's only $11.25 for batting for each of those quilts. Sounds good to me :-)

I'd love to hear about your thoughts on batting and deals you've seen.

Happy Crafting!

WIP Wednesday: 15 Rose Star Blocks

I think fifteen Rose Star blocks is a good enough milestone to lay them all out and see where I stand, so let's revel in the pile o' blocks today! Yippee :-D

Ohhhhhhhhh, so purdy! I am loving how colorful it is. Quilty, quilty love. I don't know why I was so worried about making too many blue blocks. Who knew I had so much yellow fabric in my stash? Where did all of this yellow come from?

I think the blocks with the vibrant colors are my favorites. Doing some fussy cutting along the way definitely brings out the design of the blocks. I wish I had correctly positioned that chair in the "Furniture" fabric from the Daisy Cottage line. It will forever be tilted to one side or the other. I'm afraid you'll see a little more of that in upcoming block sixteen as well. Oops.

This layout of fifteen blocks measures 60"x50." I have no idea what I'm shooting for here, but I should probably let go of the idea that these are going to be a part of a finished quilt at the end of the year. Multi-year projects are NOT my thing. I guess I'll have to get over it for this quilt. At least this is the most fun handwork ever! If you haven't given these a go yet, hop on over to the tutorial on selfsewn and start :-)

I can't wait to see everyone's WIPs! Happy Wednesday!

English Paper Pieced Rose Star Block 15

Yay! Another one's done :-)

Boom! Thank you, road trip sewing. I knocked this one out on the way back from Denver. Don't mind if I do. I had planned to split up the time catching up on blogs and sewing this block together, but the data signal was quite limited as we drove through small towns in Texas, so I actually busted out the rotary cutter and used a tiny mat in my lap to design, cut, and baste Block 16. Aren't you sad there aren't any pictures of that crafty setup? Luckily, Mr. Pins was driving and in no position to be snappin' cell phone pics.

So what do you think? Fifteen blocks down. Time for a Rose Star Quilt WIP Wednesday to see how this growing collection looks all laid out? I think so, too :-)

See you tomorrow! Happy Crafting!

P.S. I'm so excited to be going to Sewing Summit with my Mom in October! Registration was a whirlwind today. If this is only Sewing Summit's second year, can you imagine what it will be like in five years? Get pumped!

Finished: X Marks the Spot Quilt

Hi! Wow, I've missed this. Sewing may be my ice cream, but sharing is the sprinkles.

I've got a big 'ole quilty finish. Wanna see?

Sha. Zam.

This is the inaugural quilt for the Cheer circle of the do. Good Stitches quilting bee. I'm the host and was the first quilter for our circle. We're donating to Project Linus. 

This beautiful block is from a tutorial on SewCraftyJess's blog. She calls it the X Marks the Spot block. My only modification from her tutorial was to have everyone add borders. That way, when the blocks were slightly different sizes, I could skim off of the borders instead of having to slice away at points or add borders myself to account for variations. You can find our border measurements here.

For the back, I just scrounged together some Kona solids yardage from my stash that I knew had been washed. I was a little nervous with all the blue and white. I used three color catchers when I washed this quilt, though, and that seemed to take care of any lingering dye. Many thanks to Jessica at Remnants and the Friends of Annie charity fabric stash for the binding fabric. Austinites making charity quilts can peruse the donated fabric for your goodwill quilting :-)

The quilting is pretty much just straight lines with a zig here and a zag there. I could have gotten it longarmed for free, but I needed to get it knocked out. I was down for doing some FMQ, but I couldn't find the thread I needed in my sewing space. (Time to clean again.) There was no time to waste. I needed to get started. I've got a queue building after all ;-)

Quilty Stats:

Pre-wash dimensions: 103.5" x 67.5"

Post-wash dimensions: 100.25" x 65.5"

Batting: SewPerfect by Fairfield (Poly-Fil) Cotton Classic Batting. (100% unbleached organic cotton needlepunched with a 1/8" loft)

Front Fabric: Blue scraps from the stashes of Cheer do. Good Stitches circle stitchers and Kona White

Back Fabric: Kona solids

Binding: Scraps from Remnants' Friends of Annie charity fabric stash

Quilting: Done with my walking foot on the Bernina 1630.

I hope this twin-sized quilt will see a kiddo through recovery and onto many healthy years!

Happy Crafting!

August 2012 Recap

Happy September! Blogging on vacation is tricky. I snapped some photos before we left, though, so I could share what I got done in August. You'll get a peak at some things I haven't been able to share yet, so get pumped!

Terrain Summer Sampler Series Quilt

The quilt top is well underway. I knocked out the last two blocks while at the Wimberley Quilt Ranch last weekend. I had to make a run to Jo-Ann's for some more Kona White, but the end is in sight for this quilt top.

Rose Star Block 14

Blurg. I guess I gotta get crackin' on some more of these, because I wanted to have more to show for the month of August. I've picked up some fat quarters with this quilt in mind, though, and I'm excited to  work on more blocks in the next couple of days.

Laminate Zipper Pouch with Lining

I'm so glad the Austin Modern Quilt Guild did this pouch swap, because it really forced me to get over my zipper fear. I used canvas as interfacing in this bag, but I really wish I had a better variety of interfacing weights floating around the Clubhouse.

Cascading Quilt Pattern

Boy was this a big one to get off the WIP list! I'm so happy that I finally finished the pattern and put it up on the Craftsy website, I've been so thrilled with the interest in the pattern, and I can't wait to put out another pattern ASAP.

BB Bags - Teeny BB

I grabbed this super cute pattern at Valli & Kim's quilt shop in Dripping Springs, TX. The pattern was really tough to get through, but it makes more sense to me now that I've made one of these. This is a good little purse to help you keep your phone with you throughout the day. I'd like to make one in the other sizes as well. I started making a much more streamlined phone purse based on my own design last summer. I'd still like to give it a go, since you can never have too many ;-)

Cheer Circle Sixteen Patch Sawtooth Block

This is the August block for the do. Good Stitches Cheer circle. The idea was to make a block with a gray background, then use hot pink, navy blue, and golden yellow for the other components. There was an interesting tutorial for how to assemble this Star of Virginia variation.

X Marks the Spot do. Good Stitches Donation Quilt

I love the way this quilt is turning out. I got it pin basted before we headed out for Denver, but I'll have to re-do some of it due to bunching on the back. It's a generous twin size, and sandwiching a big quilt on carpet is enough to make you want to bang your head against the wall.

Frost Bank Mini Quilt

This was one of those ideas floating around my head, and I had to take a stab at it. It was kind of a paper piecing disaster, but I think it could be enlarged and streamlined. This little guy based a building in downtown Austin didn't fulfill its destiny as a QuiltCon challenge block, but I'm very happy with it as a densely quilted mini.

I'm thrilled with my August progress, and I can't to see what everyone else has been creating!

Happy Crafting!