Archive | March, 2011

I finally finished this quilt! I had the quilt top done about a month ago, but didn’t quilt it until early March, and finally buckled down last Sunday and binded it. For my next quilt I’m going to treat myself and bring it in to have someone else finish it 🙂

The fabric collection I used is called ‘Meadowsweet 2’ by Sandi Henderson. I was drooling over the fabric collection last February in one of fabric-hoarding posts. Although I mentioned in my last post that my favorite batting is by The Warm Company (Warm &White, and Soft & Bright), I admit I used ‘Soft N Crafty low-loft batting’ for this particular quilt. It was all they had left and I was desperate! Though it looks okay in the pictures, I wouldn’t use it again. It was hard to work with and I got a lot of uneven bunching. After that experience, the very next day I ordered myself a jumbo roll of Warm & White batting – 40 yards all to myself! >:-)

Here’s how the back looks. Instead of buying 3 yards to cover the back (which can get expensive at $10.50/yd), I compromised. I bought 1 yard of printed fabric and cut it in half lengthwise to make the middle strip, and then I used white muslin for the sides (which is usually $4-5/yd).

This is a great quilt for displaying your favorite fabrics! You can find the pattern for the New Wave Quilt here, by Oh, Fransson!

Happy Quilting!

Yesterday after work I came home to this sweet little fabric treat in the mail…what a way to make my day! I’m totally psyched about it and can’t stop looking at its cuteness! Kirsten N., all the way from Australia, made this iPhone sleeve as a thank you for my last fabric giveaway. A huge perk about this sleeve is now I have an adequate excuse to finally get an iPhone! (the phone in the picture actually belongs to my husband ;-p) If it weren’t for Kirsten I’d still be living in the stone age, so thank you for that as well!

Not to change the subject so suddenly, but I wanted to give you all a heads up about my next project. I’m on a mission this weekend to finish a quilt for Japan. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the recent earthquake, tsunami and potential nuclear disaster in Japan; well, here’s a small way you can help AND get a quilt in the process. The company I work for is having a fundraiser where they match donations 100% and all proceeds go towards disaster relief in Japan. My mission this weekend is to finish a quilt and then auction it off via a blog post. I will ship the quilt to the highest bidder, and then have my work match your donation 100%.

I will be using the Sunkissed collection by Moda. Please stay tuned for my quilt for Japan so you can participate in my little fund raising auction. Every bit helps. Also, I will be posting Facebook updates this weekend as I make the quilt, so if you haven’t already, you can ‘Like’ my Facebook page by clicking the link to the right :).

Thanks for stopping by…and happy Friday! Wish me luck on my mission… 🙂

The clouds were kind enough to part for a few hours so I could snap some pictures of my finished Rainy Days quilt 🙂 I thought I’d do a quick post on how I finished it up. Above is when I was binding it… I was able to use scraps from the quarter yard cuts to make up all the binding. When binding a quilt I use to throw the yards and yards of binding up and over both of my shoulders; however, now I suggest wrapping it around a ruler, or something (other than your neck), so you don’t get tangled up… death by binding would be a sad way to go.. :-}

Here it is on my quilting frame. If you follow my blog you’ll notice I like to post pictures of my quilts set up on the frame because it’s not something you get to see often. I got a few comments asking what my frame is and how it works. The frame I have is called the Imperial Quilting frame and is compatible with my sewing machine (i have a Pfaff Grand Quilter and love it!).

Basically, I can plop my sewing machine onto the frame and secure it onto a carriage that glides up and down the frame. Since the carriage can glide up and down the frame, it allows the sewing machine to easily maneuver over the quilt sandwich (which you don’t need to baste), as shown above. It’s not computerized quilting, as I still need to use the handle bars to guide the sewing machine. For those of you that don’t have a quilt frame and do all your quilting on a table top, I admire you! It’s something I just couldn’t get use to! Anyway, I promise to post a video soon of me using the frame so you can get an idea of how it really works. 🙂

As always, I quilted stipples. 🙂 I just can’t get myself to do anything other than stippling. I started with loopy-loops, but a split second later had a change of heart. :-p

And here it is, quilted and binded! 🙂 I’m really happy with how it turned out. Don’t forget to make one yourself, here’s the pattern!

Happy Quilting!