WIP Wednesday: Giant Retro Patchwork Flower

Hey guys! Bit of a slow week quilting-wise - we are really ramping up our wedding planning now that it's a month and a half away. If you knew how much I still have left to do you'd think I was insane. I just happen to think relaxing with a book in the sun, quilting, watching hours of Battlestar Galactica#nerdalert, and gardening are more fun ways to spend my time than choosing napkin colors and centerpieces! 

(I'm finally getting around to reading "Insurgent", by Veronica Roth, if anyone is curious. I've also just finished an amazing book called "Below Stairs", by Margaret Powell. The true life story of a kitchen maid born in the early 1900's. It reads like a funny grandmother is telling you stories about the good old days. If you like Downton Abbey, you would really love this one!)

Many of you showed support for my starting yet another project, thank you. :) I started sewing up the patchwork quilt I was dying to get going on, and out of the blue an idea fell into my head to use The Sometimes Crafters "Retro Flowers" pattern, but huge. (It should end up being slightly larger than throw sized, about 70" square.)

I had to draft it out and blow it up, and print out a large template. If I had thought this through, I'd have realized that it would have been better to make this block out of four pieces, as in the pattern, but I thought I'd save some time and just sew one big curve around the whole thing.

It did work, but I think it resulted in more wrinkles than were necessary.  (I've since ironed it out and it looks much better than these initial photos, and the wrinkles that are left will probably just blend in like usual after the quilting process.) Now I have to decide if I should keep going with this method, or do it the right way for the rest of the blocks. (Always a learning experience!)

And here is an approiximation of how it might look finished, through the magic of photoshop!

So that's in on the quilting front. I've been getting outside a lot more lately, now that the weather has become more bearable. We have so many neat things growing this year! I've made some chamomile (second photo below) tea and it's wonderful. Some of our corn (a special, decorative variety) is over nine feet tall right now! We have peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, bush beans, onions, carrots, peas, and hopefully soon the cucumbers and watermelon will be ready.

And just to get even more off topic...a cat. :)

I am linking this post to Freshly Pieced, though as usual I am late to the game and have a pitiful showing this week! Lol. Thank you for coming by! :)

1st Mario Block & The Discovery of Starch

Summer is a hard season for sewing. There is so much more going on with family and friends, so much more temptation to be outside enjoying the sunshine that is such a rarity in Michigan after October.  A lot of my weekends are reserved for having people staying with us, or for traveling to visit family. This is a wonderful thing, I just wish I felt like I have made more progress this month!

Another wish of mine would be for some rain. In the city I live in, we haven't had rain since May. Okay, we got 1/2" of rain in June, but that is nothing! And no rain so far in July. Temps are soaring into the 90's on a regular basis. My grass is dead, my plants are thirsty - come on rain! It'd sure give me a good excuse to spend a large chunk of time in the sewing room. ;)

Last night I started working on my Mario quilt! My fiance and I are big time Mario fans - it's the only game we play on the Wii together. Making this quilt is something I've been really excited about. After making the first block, I'm a little.. worried. Here is how the process of making my first Mario block went down. If you aren't participating, it might not be that interesting, but you might skip down to the part about "cutting the squares", where I talk about starch!

(Wow, this turned out to be a long post!)

Supplies
I bought most of my fabric supplies online, but I didn't pick up the fat quarter pieces, because I knew I was going to get this big package of Kona layer cake sized solids in the mail, from a swap I participated in. This is such a treat! I just want to stare and sort and re-sort these babies. So pretty. :) I was thinking I'd be able to pull some of these to make up for the fat quarters I didn't buy.

I couldn't find the wash out stabilizer that Angela recommended for using with this quilt a long. I ended up buying the lightest weight Pellon fusible they had at JoAnn's. This is supposed to  make sewing these tiny 1.5" square blocks together a breeze. Unfortunately I didn't have that experience, which I'll talk about more further down the post. I am really worried that this quilt is going to be... Very heavy. And very stiff.  Hmm!

If this quilt gets finished, I am toying with the idea of using something besides batting for the center, to cut down on the weight. Flannel? Has anyone tried using an alternative to batting, and what was your experience? By the time this quilt is finished, it will be winter, but I don't want to get smothered by video game characters in my sleep! Lol.

Cutting the fabric into squares
1.5" squares need to be very accurate. I recently heard someone say they use starch every time they quilt, to get a very crisp, flat fabric when ironing, and to stiffen it up for accuracy when cutting and sewing. I figured this would be the best time to try it out, because of the tiny pieces I'll be using, so I picked up a can at JoAnn's.

I cut small sections (like 9 or 12 inches wide) off my yardage, so I wasn't cutting 1.5" strips off a 3 yard stretch of fabric. I would lay the small section out on the floor and spray it down with starch, holding the can about 6" - 8" from the fabric. I didn't soak it, I just did a light, even spray. I don't know what starch will do to the carpet, but I don't really care about mine personally, as it's already somewhat trashed as a result of being in the sewing/craft room!

I would flip the fabric over and iron the other side that I didn't spray. I don't know if it matters, it just made me a little nervous to press an iron onto the wet side. It probably doesn't matter. Press the iron down, but try not to "push" the fabric around, because the starch will stiffen the fabric into a stretched position. Just press.

Cutting was definitely easier with this starched fabric! I was really impressed. I plan on continuing to use the starch for this quilt, I think it really helped with the accuracy of my block cutting. But boy, it took a LONG time to cut these squares! And cutting is my least favorite part of quilting. I just may take a day to cut a LOT of the squares out all at once so I can just get it over with. :P

Layout out the squares
This was the fun part, though it took a lot longer than I thought it would. Make sure to double check your work, because it's easy to place the wrong square down - I did it half  a dozen times! I only ended up laying out as many blocks that would fit on the width of interfacing I had.

I drew a grid onto the stabilizer this time, but I might not do it again. If you draw one straight line down the center, and then one perpendicular line across the width, you'll have your start lines and you can work from the center out. Everything should keep square if you get the first blocks right.Though I'm not sure I should be giving this advice, as you can see the white gaps between the blocks above!

Fusing the squares to the stabilizer
Ugh. This was.. almost disastrous. I've used interfacing before, but not in this way, with all these tiny pieces. I should have followed the directions more carefully.

The directions say to get another large piece of fabric wet and lay it on top of your work. I didn't do that because I was afraid it would mess up the squares and move them out of place. I now actually think it might help keep them in place, but I could be wrong.

I just took a spray bottle and dampened my squares. Whoops! This made the squares curl up on the edges - all my hard work was compromised! I had to be extremely careful with the iron to flatten out the squares without shifting them.. it was really hard. And it didn't turn out "perfect", but it was pretty close to perfect. But I wanted it to be perfect. You know how that goes - it's our hobby, we want to get better at it, we want to be proud of what we are doing. The little gaps between the squares drove me crazy. But it's okay. What's that saying? Keep calm and quilt on...

Sewing the rows
Halleluiah! Finally, an easy step. Right? Not so much. For the first round of sewing, yes, it's easy. The interfacing wants to fold along the rows, so just fold, sew, repeat.

Shave just enough of the seam allowance off to separate the interfacing and you are ready to sew the other direction.

The other direction turned out to be SO HARD! My sewing machine did NOT like sewing through all those layers of fabric and more fabric and interfacing and more interfacing. I needed my walking foot, but as that doesn't have the 1/4" edge on it to make sure my seam allowance is accurate, I couldn't really use it. The result was that my rows got really wobbly!

Finished block

I am disappointed. I can't use this interfacing again, that's just not going to happen. It's too hard to sew through everything on my machine with enough accuracy to make me satisfied. And the block is very stiff. It takes a long time to put this block together, so to end up with wobbly rows and a block that is so heavy - I need to make some changes.  

I'm going to try to sew the next block with NO interfacing. It might be really difficult. I'm going to stay positive! I want a finished quilt that has straight rows and doesn't weight 30 pounds, so I think this is the solution. The wash out interfacing is an option, but I'd have to find it (which is apparently kind of difficult) and it's expensive. So it's probably not really an option.

Another possible outcome is that these blocks might turn into throw pillows. Sigh.. On the bright side, I'll have a huge stash of solids!  All that un-used blue. Lots of possibilities!

Thank you to anyone who is actually still reading this, I didn't mean for it to turn into such a book! I don't know if I would even read a post this long, so I don't blame you if you just skimmed through to look at the pictures!! :D

Another big thank you to Angela, from Cut To Pieces, for organizing this quilt-a-long.  It really is an amazing quilt. :)

P.S. We've been watering our garden like crazy because of the drought - just look at this little watermelon! Oh my gosh it's so cute!!!

What is better than a little watermelon? A BABY watermelon! Ahhh!! Things in miniature are always adorable.

An entire post on.. wait for it... a hotpad! :P

Over the weekend, I made tremendous progress on my wonky square rings quilt. I'm really excited to say that I've finished the top! Woo hoo! :D It feels really great to have the top done, but for now I thought I'd share a small project that just sort of happened when I took a break from the quilt top.

 Random, I don't use pincushions - I just toss all my pins in trays! 

I started to think that I might run out of the red and blue pieces I cut out of the quilt top from the antique shop. While my fiance and I were out running a couple errands, we stopped at my local quilt shop and I picked up a charm pack that had lots of reds and blues. Amazingly, that's all I left with. Go self restraint, go!

I cut most of the charm pack up for my quilt top, and when I was done I had a pile of the most adorable little square scraps! Tiny little things, but so freakin cute I had to do something with them. What is it with things in miniature that is so irresistable?

I didn't really have a plan, I just started making little nine patches. They weren't exact squares, so my patchwork isn't perfect, but since I was just messing around I didn't really care. And now I have a hot pad!

There wasn't enough scraps to make a matching set, but whatever, it was just a fun little project. I got the chance to piece, quilt and hand bind all in a little over an hour! :) Kinda like a mini-mini quilt.

So yea, not the most exciting post ever, but later this week I'll share the quilt top I finished. Maybe I'll even have a finished quilt! :-O !! Lol, maybe..

I'm going to link this post up with Megan, at Canoe Ridge Creations, for Sew Modern Monday - I feel like since it's my first time linking up I should have started with a bang,  but nonetheless - here I am! :P If you are stopping by from the linkup - hi! It's nice to meet you!

Thanks everyone for stopping by! :)

Irish Hills Patchwork Quilt

I posted this yesterday, and only recently found out about the Bloggers Quilt festival, hosted by Amy's Creative Side. I hope it's okay to enter this quilt! :) I thought this might be a good way to get out into the blogosphere and meet some new quilting bloggers. So thanks for stopping by - here we go!

Mom mom lives in an area of Michigan that people call "the Irish hills". I don't know why it's named that. Well, it does have rolling hills, and I just googled it - apparently it was settled by the Irish. Now I know! In any case, it's really beautiful and the downtown area is charming, but if you get outside of town it's sort of "country", if you know what I mean. (Nothin' wrong with country! I'm actually living in the burbs, wanna-be-country style - I swear we are starting our own farmers market in the backyard, but that's another story..)

One of the first times my fiance and I drove there together, we stopped at a somewhat decrepit gas station/"everything" store to get some beer. We were the only people there, except for one guy at the register buying a case of Budweiser and having a very intense conversation with the cashier about night crawlers. I guess we looked like outsiders or something, because the guy eventually turned around and said to us (rather creepily, through the few teeth he had left) WELCOME TO THE HILLS! (Mm, thanks?!! lol) We felt like we were in a movie, but I guess you had to be there!

So yeah.. how does this all relate to the quilt?  It started it's life in "the Hills" - you could say that's where it was born, aww. I found a quilt top, in an antique store, that somebody (I wonder who?!) had started and never finished, and the price was right so I grabbed it and eventually used parts of it to make this large patchwork. I guess I'm taking someone else's history and pushing it forward?

Inspiration? Well, I gotta give some love to Film in the Fridge, as this quilt is one of my favorite's of hers!

I realized I didn't really care for this green color on the backing much too late, so now I just live with it.

Most of the fabric on the top didn't come from the found quilt top. I'd say only about 20% is from the antique store find.

So I'm left with much of the found quilt leftover - I am starting to think of how I can use the rest of the fabric. There is some WHACK fabric in there. I mean look at those neon stripes.

But there are some real gems in there - I especially love this aztekky looking print on the top left:

Maybe I will cut the rest into jelly roll type stripes, along with some solids and sew up one of those race-type quilts. Or maybe it'll sit in my craft room closet for a few years. :P

If you are still reading, thank you for checking out my quilt. I will be clicking on as many of you as I can this weekend!

3rd time's a... wedding gift!

 Another quilt from last year (2011), a wedding gift for my cousin. I was totally coerced into making this for her! A couple months before the ceremony, my mom and Aunt said to me "Wouldn't it be nice if you made a quilt for Colleen's wedding? That would be sooo nice!" Well, what was I supposed to do? :P

It wasn't that I didn't want to, it was just that it was only the third quilt I had ever made! I was nervous it wouldn't turn out very well and that everyone would notice every little mistake. In the end it turned out okay, but I was a bit rushed and the binding looks a little sloppy in some areas. That just adds to the homemade charm, am I right? :)

I looked at her registry and chose a color scheme based on what she had on her wish list. I went with a bundle from the Fat Quarter Shop.

When in doubt... patchwork.

Start at the beginning

I made my first quilt (almost two years ago) in a tiny apartment on a rickety little table in the dining "nook". There was barely enough room to spread it all out, and nowhere to stick my two cats to keep them out of the way.

  

I had no idea what I was doing. I don't think I used a rotary cutter, I chose the worst batting possible, and for some reason decided free motion stippling was the only way to go. LOL, oh past me, you crack me up.

I also didn't know anything about binding, so I just went to Jo-Ann's and bought some of that cardboardy pre-made stuff! Did I read any tutorials on how to miter the corners? Nope. I'll spare you the close ups of that hotness!

All in all it was a bit of a nightmare, but it could have been worse. Ignore those two purple squares next to each other. I'm going to go ahead and assume I was drunk. :)