Quilts - In progress

I sewed some of the blocks together and laid them out to show Sean. I think he’s now questioning my sanity.

…if a quilter sits and quilts all day?

Three.

All pinned. I need to get some red thread for the back before I can quilt it. I’m scared to go to the fabric store for just thread. Last time I did that I came home with 24.5 yards of fabric.

I’ll probably quilt this later this week or this weekend and mail it out next week.

I finished up the Maypole and Cowboy Rodeo quilt tops.

Normally I would work on pinning these tonight but I fell this morning while mowing (ok, so that sounds ridiculous but if you saw our yard, you’d fall too) and my back is bothering me so perhaps pinning is not the best thing to do tonight. Instead I’ll start working on this quilt:

Yup, just three colors. Any guesses? Or have I already said what it is?

And I bought some of this fabric the other day. Isn’t it just the coolest print?

No quilting tomorrow. We’re headed to the zoo!

The blank spots are where the small diamond patches are going to go. Usually I would have sewed them first but I had to get this off the floor before Maevezilla came home from school.

I put paper in as placeholders when I stacked it all up.

I try to be random in my quilts but sometimes (ok, most all the time) I just can’t do it. I have to lay it out first to make sure all the colors and patterns are evenly distributed. So this means all my quilts get laid out on the floor block by block (or in some cases piece by piece) and then stacked up to sew.

My sewing room is our bonus room. It measures about 20′ square and is supposed to by my room. My computer, my books, my lounging room and my space for me. The kids object to this. They have a playroom. Neither one of them plays in it. They play in my room.

So whenever I need to lay out a quilt or pin a quilt I need a shovel to clear all the toys out of the way.

That’s the Maypole quilt so far.

Progress on the other projects for this week:

The Cowboys got ironed, cut patterns, and started cutting fabrics.

The video game quilt fabric that I ordered last week just now shipped. Note to self: don’t shop there anymore.

Pants? Yeah, haven’t even started.

1. New Maypole quilt.

2. Start another custom quilt (a remake of this one).

3. The next video game quilt. I ordered the fabric and it’s not here yet. Hopefully it will be today.

4. Embroider a pair of pants for Liam.

No problem. Heh. Right.

Sean had the kids so I got a ton of sewing done. I got two quilts - Posh (by Chez Moi) and Swell (by Urban Chiks) - pieced, sandwiched, pinned and ready for quilting. Also got the quilting on the Monkey quilt done.

Step 12. Quilt.

Step 7. Keep on sewing until it’s all together.

Step 8. Iron the top.

Step 9. Sew together the backing fabric and iron.

Step 10. Lay out the quilt sandwich.

Step 11. Pin.

All folded up and ready to go.

Step 5. Sew together the rows.

Step 6. Sew the rows together.

Another custom quilt. This one is full of the lovable sock monkeys.

Step 1. Iron.

Step 2. Cut lots of diamonds.

Step 3. Assemble the puzzle. I could do this randomly but I’m too much of a perfectionist to be a quilter sometimes.

Step 4. Each diagonal row gets a number pinned to it and the diamonds are stacked up. If it were just me using this room I’d just leave the pieces on the floor until I sewed them. I’m sure the kids would love it if I left all this over the floor.

Sewing starts tomorrow!

Step 14. Quilt.

Almost done!

Step 15. Trim.

Step 16. Cut binding strips and take a blurry picture of them.

Step 17. Attach the binding to the quilt.

Step 18. Flip the binding over and sew to the back.

All done! I’ll do a full set of pictures once it’s washed.

Off to sew some shams.

Step 7. Trim the blocks to 12.5″ square.

Step 8. Start laying it all out. It’s like a really big puzzle.

Step 8.1. Take a picture of Maeve because she sees you taking pictures of other things and she wants in on it too.

Back to Step 8.

Step 9. Sew all those blocks together.

Step 10. Sew your backing fabric together.

Step 11. Back to the iron.

Step 12. Pinning! I pin baste my quilts. A bent safety pin goes in every 4″. That means there are over 500 pins in this quilt.

Step 13. Trim the excess backing and batting.

All done!

To be continued…

Step 5. Keep on sewing some more.

Step 6. Iron. Iron a lot. The pile isn’t so fluffy anymore.

To be continued…

(Sorry for such dark pictures. I do a large majority of my sewing in the evenings when, well, it’s dark.)

I’m working on a custom quilt that was requested through Etsy’s Alchemy. It’s a queen sized quilt with shams in Heather Bailey’s Freshcut line.

Step 1. Buy fabric. Buy a LOT of fabric.

Step 2. Cut the fabric up into a million little pieces. Ok, not a million, more like 540.

Step 3. Sew all the fabric that you just cut up back together.

Step 4. Keep on sewing.

To be continued…

I’ve noticed that when I’m in the middle of piecing a huge quilt I tend to babble less here. The current quilt is 110″ x 50″. That’s pretty big. I should be able to finish the piecing on that this morning assuming Liam takes his morning nap.

And thanks to Etsy’s revived Alchemy feature I have two large custom quilts to make. Do you want a custom quilt? I can make you one too!

Celebrate Spring!

Friends & Flowers

Blue & White

I hope to finish up these three this week and then start on a new video game quilt.

That’s a lot of money! Does anyone happen to know what this amounts to in USD?

Started this one on Sunday. It’s a pretty complex pattern to piece… not hard, just a lot of steps. Mark, sew, flip, sew, cut, sew, cut, sew. Repeat 255 more times. And then sew those 256 blocks together.

A pile of about 130 unironed blocks.

And the pieces waiting to be sewn.

We celebrated Valentine’s Day this evening with a dinner at The Melting Pot… with both kids. Yes, apparently we’ve gone crazy. They (thankfully) behaved very well. Maeve went a little berserk after the chocolate (can you say sugar high?).

Liam slid over and just continued munching on his toys like nothing happened.

Maeve slid over and said, “I love you Daddy.”

I’m sure Liam would say the same if he could talk. Instead he just drooled on me and blew raspberries.

I’m finally getting around to decorating our guest room. It’s not just the decorating that I was ignoring (ya know because I bought all the fabric last summer), it was the huge queen sized quilt that went along with it. All the blocks are done and I’ll start putting them together today. I hope to start quilting the behemoth Wednesday or Thursday. I should check if I have thread for that because it’s going to need a lot. The quilt is done in the same pattern as this quilt on Etsy in the fabrics of this quilt on Etsy.

This is what the room looks like right now. The ceilings are a whopping 10 feet tall. We have all the decorative crap needed for a pretty room, it’s just all sitting in boxes and bags. I must nag the husband to paint for me.

Hopefully it will be looking a little more presentable in about a month or so.

New quilt in the works using Moda’s Fresh Air by Chez Moi fabrics. The blocks are done so it’s time to assemble those, quilt, bind and then it’s all done!

A snippet of Sean’s quilt.

Any guesses as to what it is? The winner gets… well, nothing really. Hopefully this will be up on Etsy within the next couple days.

I’ve been itching to make something with reproduction fabrics. Picked up a bunch and decided on a Pineapple block. The colors are not set in a traditional layout but my quilts tend to not be traditional anyways.

… of pretty variegated swirlies. The binding still needs to be done so no big pictures yet. Patience, grasshopper.