A Wedding Quilt

 My brother-in-law recently married and he is the last of my husband's siblings to do so. I had a brilliant idea, maybe crazy too, to create a big quilt for my brother and his fiancee for their wedding day. I started designing the quilt in January, before they announced their engagement in February, and collected different fabrics that reflected their likes and hobbies. Music is a big part of their lives and so there is music note fabric in a few of the squares. This was a longer undertaking that involved 4 months of work and my sewing machine parked on my kitchen table the whole time.

There are 12 inch half square triangle blocks on the whole thing and a 6 inch border around it. There's 7 blocks across and 8 blocks down. I made it for a queen bed with a nice drop on the sides. Only four color palates, but they look great in the diagonal. And there is black flannel on the back. She gets cold toes all the time.

Piecing the top was ok, but getting those half square triangles straight can be challenging when they're so big. This time I wanted to try spray basting, instead of locating 600 safety pins and hoping I don't put wrinkles in the fabric. I really like the 505 spray basting! You spray it on the batting, just in case it could do something odd to your fabric. But you have time to lift and reposition  your fabric to get it smooth. It really does stay put while quilting. I put safety pins along the border of the top as an extra precaution and to keep the fabric nicer on the edges. The spray basting doesn't gum up or slow down your needle and will release the tack when washed, but will not completely wash out..hence sprayed on the batting.

I have a regular sized sewing machine that has some quilting accessories like the detachable quilting table and some useful sewing feet, but shoving a queen to king sized quilt through the arm of a regular machine is no small feat! Good thing I only do straight line quilting on that machine. Every time I had to sew a new line, my hubby would unfold it and refold it along the seam or drawn quilt line so that it sits balanced in my lap and the one side will fit under the machine. Then, he would sit on the other side of the table and pull the fabric through smoothly so I don't get muscle cramps in my arm and shoulders. That took a couple weeks of just quilting the lines.

I did want to put an applique in the corner to emphasize their love of music, and did a satin stitch all the way around the notes. Then I tried my hand at free motion quilting around those notes. It's not my favorite, or I just need more practice. Don't look too closely at it.

I hope they like it and use it well.

Relief Society Birthday Gift Bags -- Year 2

Yeah, my ward Relief Society asked me to help make the birthday gifts, again. Here we have these adorable fabric mini totes!

The pattern for these fabric bags is from All People Quilt designed by Monica Solorio-Snow of Happy Zombie. You can get 4 bags from two fabric fat quarters and a couple yards of 3/8" ribbon.

I had a good time making these bags, and I'm still not finished. I had to cut fabric for 140 bags. Quilters cotton is best, but almost any cotton is best. Don't make the same mistake I did and cut 2 sets of fabric the wrong width and have to dive into my own stash and see what I could salvage. Auuggghhh!

You will need to press the horizontal seams, just like in quilting. After that, pressing doesn't much matter. I didn't hand stitch the inside seam closed as the instructions suggest, I just did a narrow top stitch to close up the end on my machine. It's on the inside, no one looks that close.

The Relief Society essentials that went in the bag were, a travel-pack of tissues, lip balm and mints. My birthday isn't until May, so I don't have mine, yet. 

Color Block Quilt

Hey! It's a new blanket for a baby shower...again. This time it's a co-worker.

This was a fast one. While finishing the crocheted blanket below, hubby cut all the fabric for me. Then we finished putting it together in two days. Let's not do that again.

This one is flannel backed with a stripe of color down the middle. Mostly because the fabric wasn't wide enough. If you must count, there are 12 different colors plus the backing. Had 6 of them and got the rest at K&H Quilt Shoppe. Oh, and the co-workers loved it.