Lunch bags and Salt Water

Sewing has taken a back seat to yard work this week.  But in anticipation of going back to work and the school year starting, new lunch bags were in order.

Using Ayumi's tutorial, I made 5 lunch bags.  My mom took hers to her house before I took pictures.  Someone in this house might have watched The Incredibles this summer and has a bit of a super hero fascination.  The saga of Lightning Girl and Thunder Boy has been a common story this summer.  

Then I needed to make some sandwich and snack bags to go inside the lunch bags.  I have more of these cut out but haven't put them together yet.  I tried finding all the random cuts that were mixed in with my stash and use them for snack bags.  

And, for a green loving resident of this house, I cut into my Salt Water FQ and am making him a lap quilt using the Road to Tennessee block.  My Salt Water squares are 4.5" and the green squares are 2.5".  I like that proportion I think.  I did sew 1/2 inch away from the diagonal and am saving all the HST from that for some unknown project.  This one will probably be backed in minky so there is a minky quilt for each child and fighting over the Fruitcake one can stop.  

I'm not looking forward to drawing the double lines on each of the 400+ squares left.  But, I might be more excited about that than pressing and trimming the extra HST.  

Besides quilting, I've been sewing

lots of clothes for 2 six year olds.  

An Oliver and S. Family Reunion dress.  

 There are pintucks on the front which intimidated me for a long time.  They weren't as bad as I thought they would be.  I need to find different buttons for the front since they blend in so well that they aren't noticeable.  The fabric is a Timeless Treasures print bought last summer.

Oliver and S Badminton Skorts.

 Two of the skorts have the scalloped hem and two do not.  I like the detail but since my daughter is living in these this summer, I didn't want her to wear exactly the same design every day of the week.  Starting from the top left and going clockwise, Hex Bee in Yellow from Briar Rose, Goodies from Alexander Henry, Felicity (perhaps?), and Boho.  I made one more skort but that is 60 miles away with the other 6 year old.  There is a wide variety in the feel of different quilting cottons.  The Alexander Henry print seems a lot more sturdy than Briar Rose.  We'll see how well it stands up to quality testing over the course of the next year or so.

Class Picnic Blouse from Oliver and S.

This was coveted by my own 6 year old which led to the skort above in the same print.  Goodies by Alexander Henry.

Now that the Family Reunion dress is done and the two skorts, I need to gather my guts and try to sew with knits.  No excuses.  No projects that have to be done right now to give my reasons to procrastinate sewing with knits.  And one more week before work starts again.

Cat Challenge

A guild member was inundated with cat fabric for charity quilts.  We posed a challenge to the guild to take a 10" square, use 30-40% of it, and try to update it.

First, I went through the fabric I had and tried to find something that coordinated.  That wasn't too successful.  Instead I figured I could just cut the square into 10 one inch strips and use some slice and insert to make the block.  Just looking at the multicolored lines, you might be able to figure out what my original idea was.  At the end of my strips, I was about .25 of an inch too short and I wasn't so excited about the product.  I added in the yellow and blue strips and trimmed it to size.

I wish I would have added a navy strip in the middle before trimming but I decided to just stop at this point.  I was a little scared I would cut too many times and end up with a block that was too small again.  75% of the cat fabric was included in the block and it was always my intention to try to use as much of it as possible in the design.  Imperfect, but now there are only 2 creepy looking eyes left instead of more than 6.

Curious

Joelle asked for word blocks this month.  I chose the word "curious."  After Kris was nice enough to write about her challenge with keeping her block within the size parameters that Joelle desired, I knew I needed to pay attention to that.

Rather than carefully plot and plan, I chose to make letters and figure out later whether I was making an 18.5" or a 12.5" block.  18.5" won.

The block currently is a bit larger than it needs to be but figured that Joelle could complete the final trim.  She has about a half inch from top to bottom and a few inches on either side.  The "s" slightly irritates me, but it also looks fine as is.  And I tested this with the resident 6 year old to make sure she could read what it said.  No hesitation for her to read what it said so I count that as successful.

Balance block

For my quilt guild, Melissa and I are planning a block of the month with a variety of techniques represented.

Since Kathy of Eagle Nest Designs presented her Balance quilt pattern at last month's show and tell, I've wanted to try using crazy piecing for the sections.  Originally my plan was to have two lines going through the block, but a couple of math errors made me annoyed and unwilling to put together more small pieces.  The guild has representatives from all skill levels so I think only one bar going vertically will be a better choice anyway.

I still need to finish the measurements, try a new version with those measurements and write the tutorial, but here is the finished mini-quilt.  When I quilted it, I marked the second, left out line and densely quilted it as well.  I wish I would have just quilted waves throughout the rest of the white space so the second line stood out more.  Next time.

A quilt, quilting and binding

Not too long ago, I started cleaning up my sewing mess and decided to make Ribbon Stars with the assorted HST that were leftover from previous projects.  It was intended to be a long term scrap project and the way I would use my leftover HST until I had enough to make a quilt.  

I did start pulling out white scraps and scraps from the bins to make more HST and have more completed stars.  It was starting to no longer be a long term project.  Then came last Sunday when my mom found out that she was going to go visit her sister and nephews today.  She's been working on quilts for the grandnieces and nephews but hadn't finished 3 of the 4.  I offered the stars as an option for one nephew.  So here is Bry's quilt.  

It is a colorful mix of hourglass blocks (the blues are leftover from a failed attempt at Bizzy Kid by Cluck, Cluck, Sew when the fabrics were just too dark), Ribbon Stars, stars made of hourglass blocks and Friendship Stars.  I wasn't going to use Friendship Stars but quickly decided that 8 HST for the two blocks sounded a lot better than 24 HST for 2 Ribbon Star blocks.  The blocks are 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 6.5, 8.5, 12.5 and 18.5 unfinished.  

The backing consists of a car and truck print by Jenn Ski that my mom had, some random and unlabeled solid blues, and a blue print from Flats.  

I based the layout design on Starfall II by Faith of Fresh Lemon Quilts.  Unless you make the exact same size quilt as the design you are basing it on, it really doesn't work to attempt to use the same measurements as the original quilt.  After a few minutes of staring at her design, I just went for it on my own graph paper.  I plan on taking a picture of my diagram and posting it as I think it is safer for record keeping than on a loose piece of paper in my house.  

It is quilted all over with a meandering stitch and bound with Asterisk in Black from Constellations by Lizzy House.  Unwashed size is approximately 48 x 60". I failed to measure it after it was washed and it is now 1000+ miles away.  

In preparation for my mom's trip, I quilted her Eva quilt with loops.  She makes jam for me, I quilt her quilts.

And the big difference between my mom and me as it pertains to sewing is her precision.  I'm ok with imperfections.  Looking at the picture of the backing she pieced, can you see where the seam line is?  I would have just lined up the edges as is and thought it was good enough.  She figured out where to match the pattern.  

 Finishing the three quilts in less than a week made her consent to machine binding all three quilts.  All I did on this last one was to finish the machine binding for her.  But I'm including both of her quilts so we have a record of what she made after she gives them to my cousins.  Three more WIP for her to complete and then she might have a guilt free clean slate.

And now back to quilting without deadlines...