Wait, it's October?

Life has certainly been busy recently. Moving, campaigning, crafting, unpacking, travelling. It's left me with little motivation to add to this little blog, but here we go.

We have two dear friends who are adopting from Uganda (read all about it here), and I wanted to make quilts for the two additions to their family before they left. Two quilts. At the same time. I really adore a baby quilt pattern that I have used in the past (the small quilt at the end of the post), but it just wasn't going to work for this project. I wanted to incorporate fabric from the previous two quilts that I made for their homegrown children into the two quilts for their heart grown children, but unfortunately, the fabric pieces I had left just weren't big enough for my go to pattern (one that I have made 4 times now... I really love that pattern!).

So, what do I do? I go and find some inspiration.

The first nudging of an idea came when I was watching a new PBS special on the Quilts of Valor program (which is something I would love to do at some point). Eleanor Burns (of Quilt in a Day fame) was featured on the program doing a Tossed Nine Patch pattern. She made it look so simple. So very, very simple. So, I thought that these two baby quilts would be the perfect way to test this pattern out. Small, quick, easy. Simple, right?

In theory.

So, the basic pattern of a tossed nine patch is pretty straight forward:
1. Sew a nine patch block (9 equal sized squares sewn in three rows of three)
2. Cut the nine patch block into four equal squares.
3. Toss all the new squares and reassemble them into a beautiful quilt that looks much more difficult to sew.

Simple, right? (I even found a YouTube video of how "simple" Eleanor makes it out to be).

Well, the problem is that I have a really hard time matching fabric. Well, really, matching anything. It was fun to go shopping in my stash for all the fabrics, reliving memories, thinking about the different projects that I had sewn. I found fabrics that I felt coordinated with the two from the original quilts and complimented each other without actually making the same quilt for both children.

I decided to make 4 inch squares to sew into the nine patch pattern and make 12 nine patch blocks. Using a standard 1/4 inch sew allowance, this would give me a finished quilt of about 31" x 42" which, I've been told, is a pretty ideal size for a child's blanket. So I cut lots of fabric and figured out which fabrics went with what. And tried to balance the use of flannel and cotton in the two quilts.

But then I over thought the process. Or maybe under thought? Either way, step three for quilt one took waaaaaay longer than I expected.

I think in the end, though, the quilts turned out quite nicely.

This was the first quilt that I did. For this one, I did not take Eleanor's advice to use the same fabric for the center square of each nine patch. I had some convoluted way of arranging the fabrics in the nine patches and working through some sort of pattern that made sense in my head but was extremely chaotic after the whole jumbling process. The arranging of this quilt to make sure that the colors were well distributed and none of the same fabrics were touching took me two days. Really. Ask Jeff.

And here's the second quilt. For this one, I did use the same fabric for each of the nine patch blocks and arranged the other eight fabrics in a much more intuitive way (I figured out which ones looked nice next to each other, and then just rotated the eight fabrics around the center block for each of the 12 nine patch blocks). This made the post-jumble layout of the quilt MUCH easier.

Jeff picked out which backing went with which quilt since I forgot what I was thinking in between buying the fabric and actually attaching it to the fronts.

And blanket binding. How I hate thee! But, in my opinion, no baby blanket is complete without that satiny finish along the edges, so it is always worth the bother. No matter how many times I do attach this blanket binding, I always forget what I did the last time. My favorite tutorials are here and here. The key is getting your zig zag stitch just right to minimize bunching.

I am not a quilter that actually quilts her quilts, so these are just tied with coordinating floss. The batting is 100% cotton which is the perfect weight for Florida.

I was so worried that the quilts would be too busy and crazy, but when I delivered them to their new home, they seemed to fit right in. The coolest thing, too, was that I had no hint on nursery theme for these puppies, so I started with the animal fabrics (thanks, Mom. Those are from your stash!), the two fabrics from the other quilts (which are the green palm tree and the light yellow polka dot), and went from there. Turns out the two babies will be welcomed with a circus theme! And blanket number one has a fabric that coordinates almost perfectly with the crib bumper for the bed. God was certainly in the sewing room with me on these ones to make sure they turned out just right for this very special project.

The tossed nine patch really was a fun pattern, but I'm not sure if I would do it again. Or if I did, I would probably have the nine patches in all one color family. The next quilt will be back to my favorite again :-)

(p.s. Thanks for the photos, Karissa, since I completely forgot to take some in the rush of finishing the quilts on time. You can see them featured in her virtual baby shower here)

Quilts big and small

I promised that I would soon post a post (redundant?) about a large project on which I was working, and because I waited long enough, you'll get a two for one deal. If you stay until the end, you may even get a bonus project.

Quilt number one (drum roll please....)

My SIL commissioned me to make this quilt for her niece that will be attending FSU this Fall (Congrats, Brianna!!). This was the very first full size quilt that I have ever completed... or really attempted for that matter, so I was a little intimidated. I didn't really have many guidelines for the quilt, just make it FSU and preferably a twin size rather than a lap blanket. The finished product is about 90" x 60" (its shown on our queen size bed and reached the edges).

I didn't really take pictures as I made it since, quite frankly, I was flying by the seat of my pants on design. To start, I based my design a bit off of Nancy Zieman's "fat free triangle" method. It made the sewing part go super fast, but I still hate all the cutting. I had to go back to the fabric store a few times since I miscalculated material amount (hey, I'm an English major, not a math major). I also didn't realize how difficult it would be to find coordinating fabrics to match the FSU licensed stuff. The yellow (or gold or whatever the "official" color is called) is really a bizarre color, so I found it was actually easier to find material that matched the crimson color (which I thought would be really difficult to match). If I were to do something like this again, I would probably make the double blocks of the crimson FSU fabric actual rectangles to save some time.

I did some basic machine quilting which you can see in the first small picture. I chose to go around the diamonds as the simplest design element. This was my first experience machine quilting something this large, and my machine and I exchanged quite a few words. I definitely recognize the benefit of having a long arm machine, now. In addition to the machine "stitching in the ditch," I also tied with crimson and gold floss around the solid squares. The one thing I discovered with this is make sure you have a needle with a large enough eye so that you're not killing your fingers trying to pull the floss through all of the layers.

For the binding, I cheated a little and used a self-binding technique. I researched many different sites on the internet to find some help with this, but I liked the binding help on Annie's Attic and Ludlow Quilt and Sew the best. There was also a series of videos on YouTube by the Missouri Star Quilt Company that was great, too (be careful, though. I got lost for quite some time watching all of their fantastic tutorials). I also machine sewed the binding rather than hand slip-stitch since I was on a bit of a time crunch. I think that it turned out quite nice.

The other tip that I found while layering this quilt was that you need a large space (thank you living room floor). A hard floor is nice. In order to make the backing nice and tight, you really need to tape the backing fabric to the floor (if you have carpet, you can also pin it into the carpet). I never knew that, but I'll admit that it took me a few frustrating hours before I caved and looked up why my backing fabric wouldn't stay smooth during my layering process. Let my frustration be your learning experience. And if you're curious, I used a 100% cotton batting that isn't as fluffy as polyester batting but is just perfect for Florida.

Also, since I didn't use all those scraps left over from the fat-free triangle method, I do have more FSU fabric for anyone interested :-) It's probably not enough to make another full size quilt, but we could work out something.

Quilt number 2 is much smaller and in a pattern that I have done several times before:

It's a crib size quilt I made for a friend who will soon be blessed with a little boy. As you may have guessed, the theme is dinosaurs (ROAR!). The fabrics are a mix of 100% cotton, cotton flannel, and fuzzy-material-that-should-not-be-manufactured-because-it-is-a-nightmare-to-use-and-makes-a-huge-mess (although I think the official name is warm & cuddly). I declared that the little pieces of green fabric it left behind should be dubbed fabric poo. I love using the satin binding on these baby quilts because I feel that every baby needs a little oy-oy (as my brother used to say) in their lives. I just wish that I would remember how I attach it so that I don't have to rethink the process everytime I make this pattern. For this quilt, I did a little hand quilting around all the fuzzy fabric. I found that it was so much thicker than the cotton, that it just needed a little something to help ground the whole thing together.

And the bonus project is fancy burp clothes for the same baby. What baby doesn't need some camo in his life?

Back to Crafty

Let's just call the last month and a half of silence a Summer break and get this thing rolling again.

Life has been keeping me busy with future planning at work, future planning with the Florida & Caribbean Chapter of SLA, and a little future planning at home. Unfortunately, all that future planning didn't leave me much time or desire to reflect on what's happening in the here and now. I'd just like to take a moment and update what few faithful readers I may have left on my current crafting project.

Back in 2003, my mom thought it would be a great idea to make matching Christmas pj's for me, my sister, and her. Aren't we cute?

For the next few years, she continued this tradition, expanding her repertoire to include my nieces, sister-in-law, brother, dad, and husband. After a few years, it was just too many pajamas. A while back, I started thinking about all that flannel going to waste in her drawer. Florida climate being what it is, there isn't much call for long sleeve flannel nightgowns even in the dead of winter. She was glad to make room in her drawers and gave me her nightgowns to turn into a quilt.

You probably thought I was going to post a picture of the completed quilt next. Fooled you!

I finally have all the squares cut from the three nightgowns. Can I also just say at this point that I detest cutting fabric. I'll even go one step further and say I loathe cutting fabric. I am convinced I am not an avid quilter simply because of the amount of fabric that one must cut before sewing begins. So. There you have it. I also have additional fabric from another year that I didn't even bother cutting plus a pair of pj pants that Jeff no longer wears, but with over 300 squares, I think I'm good for now. I didn't really think about making a tutorial for this until I was just about done with all my cutting, so bear with me a bit.

The first step was deconstructing the nightgowns to get the most use of the material without loosing my mind. I decided to just cut off the seams rather than rip them out. I started by cutting up the sides, cutting off the sleeves, and cutting the shoulder seams. I didn't bother trimming off the hem of the sleeves or shoulders, but I did cut off the neck line. The finished product looked something like this:

I chose to make 5 inch squares for my quilt mostly because of the the width of the sleeves (just over 15 inches at the narrowest point). I wasn't too concerned with grain and all that since I'm using scrap fabric. Just make a straight cut somewhere, and go from there. There are about a million tutorials online for cutting fabric, but I found this one on Make and Takes pretty useful.

Oh, and since you're using old nightgowns, be sure to iron the fabric really well after you detach all the seams and before you start cutting your blocks.

I started with the sleeves, cut long strips 5 inches wide and then cut the strips into 5 inch blocks. For the body of the nightgown, I folded the fabric in half to create a straight edge before trimming. While folded in half, I cut the material into the 5 inch strips. I layered these strips on top of each other (I only did 2 layers) and then proceeded to make my 5 inch squares. Twice as fast, twice as fun? Maybe. All of the scraps, I set aside to make my 1 inch squares. I followed the same method to do the inch squares, but they are just tinier. Here are my piles of squares:

Each nightgown gave me over 100 5 inch squares, but your results would all depend on the size of the nightgowns and the size of the squares you cut. I have no idea how many 1 inch squares I'll get because I'm still cutting them. Did I mention my feelings toward cutting?

I am now working on sewing together the 1 inch squares into several mini postage stamps quilts so that I can imbed them in the quilt. I am using a denim quilt I made many years ago as a model.

That's me, my sister, and dad a million years ago. You can see that the seams are frayed and fuzzy. I chose this method since flannel is nice and cozy, will fray in a similar way as denim, and you rarely need anything any thicker than a single layer quilt in Florida.

Here is the process I am using for the postage stamp portion of the quilt. I did a little geometry and figured that I would need to make these 8 x 8 squares with a little less than a 1/4 inch seam between each block. That gets the square down to the 5" x 5" size so that I'll be able to sew them easily into the quilt. Here we are in process and with my first completed block:

You can see on the right, the last row I've already sewn the blocks together. I am doing this part of the sewing by hand (I'm pretty good at judging the 1/4 inch seam allowance). Sew the blocks WRONG sides together (I know, it's a bit counter-intuitive) so the seams will be on the top of the quilt. My sewing machine is a bit... persnickity, and I didn't want to deal with the hassle. You can see how much the size of the block shrinks after you sew it. Once all the rows are sewn in this method, I took them upstairs to iron them. Alternate the direction of the seams so the rows will fit nicely together. Sew the rows together wrong sides together with the same size seam on your machine that you used while sewing by hand. The completed block is on the left.

I am taking the time to arrange each block, but as you can see, since only about 1/2 inch square is visible after everything is sewn together, you can pretty much just combine the blocks in any way you wish. I haven't quite figured out if I'm going to make the completed quilt 10 x 10 or 8 x 8. We'll have to see. I was hoping that I could submit it to Joann's Quilt Your Colors Contest since my mom did buy all the fabric at that store. After reading the entry requirements, though, you have to show the receipts of purchase. I doubt that she still has those :-) Besides, this will be more country comfort than work of art.

I'll be sure to post pictures when I'm done. Hopefully before Christmas.