Hoppity Hooray!

I have been waiting for my sewing fatigue to fade so I could make this sweet softie bunny from Sew4Home, so I finally bought the chenille dot that I didn't have.  That was all the inspiration I needed!  By the way, Chenille Magic has the best clearance section, AND they let your order just a quarter yard.  That is nearly impossible to find!  I got the cotton yellow dot to go with the Amy Butler leftovers from Selah's quilt and a mint dot on clearance to go with my baby bedding for my future children (that's another story).

This was a perfect Saturday morning project because I could catch up on all the Olympics news and cut the pattern pieces.  It took me about 3 hours--4 if you consider the fact that I am terrible at slip stitching and had to watch like 15 YouTube videos and start over twice before kind of figuring it out.  This is a wonderful, simple pattern that is perfect for gifting.  It's just too cute!

Perfect Pinwheels

Well, almost perfect! This is my first attempt at a real quilt (sorry, Margaret, I had no idea what I was doing with Selah's!). I would rate this design a 4 out of 5 stars on the difficulty. I probably should have started out with something much simpler, but I am so proud that I made it work! (Typing that makes me remember all of the times my machine came to a screeching halt, and I would look up at Philip with my most pitiful WHY-does-this-only-happen-to-me-when-I-want-to-sew face, and Philip would do his best Tim Gunn impression and say, "Make it work.") By the way, in the last post on this quilt, I was getting wildly irritated by my machine not wanting to sew through four thin layers of fabric. Thanks to my dear friend who happens to be a sewing genius, Mrs. Rush, I realize I had the needle in backwards--so yes, it does matter which way the flat side is facing. This quilt is made of four main pinwheels each with two coordinating fabrics, plus the white cotton. Fabric.com has a Design Board that makes it easy to pick fabrics you like, narrow it down to what goes together, and easily order.  Plus, they always have online coupon codes for free shipping and 10-15% off.

 

The back is a floral pattern of green roses.

This is my favorite quilt square, which happened by mistake! I originally had a white fabric with tall pink flowers called Dandelion. It's hard to tell online that it is giant, making my 2 1/2" triangles pretty much just white with a random pink line somewhere. I had another "make it work" moment and used the back side of the stripe fabric from Margaret's quilt.  Her quilt was much brighter, so the "inside out" side worked just fine.

The actual "quilting" part of the quilt was the hardest for me since I hand quilted the last one.  I used a cardboard template to cut four stripes and a pattern marker to make tiny little scores in the fabric as my guide.  I quilted every other square in a left to right, top to bottom pattern because it would have been madness to do every square.  I pretty much would have died without the Diary of a Quilter's Beginner Quilting Series.  This girl is brilliant, and so very patient to explain so much confusion!

Pinwheels and Knots

I am tackling another quilt now that it's been long enough for me to have forgotten how much thinking is involved, as well as time. Last time I just made it up as I went, based on an etsy quilt that was similar. This time I am trying to follow the "rules" of proper quilting. I found this great pinwheel pattern (minus instructions) and decided to try it. This pink and green quilt is for my sweet friend's little girl, Ruthie, who will turn two this month. I am crossing my fingers that it will be ready! She has moved into her big girl room, and one day I would like to make the windmill quilt to match for her other twin bed (although I have already promised a zig zag quilt to Harper). Of course, I read up on all of the super handy tools that all the best quilters use, and I got started rotary cutting all of my 10" squares and 5" triangles just like a pro. THEN, after I cut everything out, I found a little tutorial video on youtube about the easy way to making pinwheels. OMG. I am so mad I cut the 168 triangles instead of sewing two seams 1/2" apart down the middle! Oh well. Now I'll know the trick for next time. I went with four main squares, each with two coordinating fabrics and a background of white. After sewing two sets of six large squares, I decided it would be easier to sew all the tiny triangles, press them and sew them to the white triangles, and then make the large pinwheels. Of course, with more pressing and pinning before sewing the six large squares together and sewing all of those together. Ok, now I am getting confused myself.

My only problem is that my top thread keeps looping itself at the needle, creating a strange triangle of thread with the bobbin thread also knotted up. What is going on??? This happens about every third seam--which is ALL THE TIME! Does anyone know why this is happening?

AND, for whatever reason, the underside of my fabric keeps getting tangled during the first inch of stitching. I am thinking that some of the upper thread is getting caught on the bobbin, but I really don't know. Thankfully it smooths itself out and finishes the seam just fine.

To get out of the house on this rainy day, I went antiquing with my husband and found this unique bedside lamp. Sadly it was $945, but I have never seen anything like it!

And I think I'll be making my own version of this sweet tone-on-tone linen Union Jack pillow. Without the vintage lace and linen, I am pretty sure I can make it for well under $225!

Also, when we finished packing up all of the Christmas decor and hauled it down to the in-laws' storage unit, we found this great pair of end tables that match the wood of my grandmother's china cabinet and our TV console perfectly! They were Philip's grandmother's, and his mom had them for sale at an antique shop that went out of business. I guess we are lucky they didn't sell! The tag said they are French provincial end tables with leather inlay from 1960. And the scale is perfect in our mid-century home. I am thinking we will need to put glass over the leather just in case.

It's a Charmer!

So I wanted to try my skill at quilt making, and I quickly became obsessed with Amy Butler quilts on Etsy [like this one here]. Side note: just buy one... it's probably worth it. Anyway, I figured a baby quilt would be the most manageable, but since I didn't have any friends who were expecting, I thought I'd put that off for a couple of years. Then Margaret announced she was having a baby!!! So, in honor of the upcoming arrival of Selah Grace, I completed my first charm quilt.

I'm pretty sure Margaret was not 100% on this color palette when I bought all of these fabrics!

The hardest part was cutting the strips that formed the outside frames and the inside squares.

(My favorite picture!!!!)  I sewed each square, pressed the seams, sewed each row, pressed the seams, and then sewed the rows to each other. After sandwiching Warm and Natural baby batting between the squares and double sided minky, I stitched it all the way around.

The last step was the real quilting part: hand stitching the quilt squares to the batting so it can be washed without losing its shape. I love this quilt, and I can't wait to see Selah playing on it on the lawn! Ok, maybe not outside with grass all over the bottom but maybe in the living room under a play mat.