quilting

Shimmer Mountains Quilt


on

I wanted to sew a quilt for a housewarming gift for a friend and I had this idea that I wanted it to be mountains. I used the Moda Bakeshop Sunnyside Diamond Zig Zag Quilt pattern and arranged my colors from light to dark so each chevron looked like a mountain peak.

Spring has come to Portland!


 About halfway through making this quilt I bought myself a 45 quilting ruler from Fabric Depot. I wish I had one when I started! It would have made everything faster and more accurate. Definitely recommend!

The chevrons are all Jennifer Sampou’s Shimmer2 collection.  This pattern requires 3 strips of the same pattern for each strip set so I had to use 2 jelly rolls,  but that just means I’m going to make another one for myself.

The background is Kaufman Quilters Linen in Platinum. I like the subtle texture and color over using a plain white.

Since this is a nap quilt I used flannel for the background. I didn’t want to have to piece it so I used the 60″ wide Essentials Criss Cross flannel. I made a scrappy binding with the leftover jelly roll strips. The batting is Tuscany Wool from Hobbs Batting.

When I make the one for myself I’m going to change the pattern a bit. I will fill in the bottom part of each chevron with a triangle of dark fabric so the mountain forms a whole triangle instead of a chevron. I may need to see what fat quarters of Shimmer 2 I can track down for this!

 

 

 

Chevron Baby Quilt


on

Since everyone is having babies these days I’m making lots of quilts! I made this quilt for one of my besties who lives in Germany. I wanted to get it done before Christmas so I could pass it along to her mother to deliver it for me. The last quilt I had to ship to Europe cost $50 to mail!

IMG_2754

Almost done hand sewing the binding on!

Making a chevron quilt has been on my to do list for awhile and I really like the ones with white stripes. So all I had to do was find some fabric. Since I’m lazy I went for a charm pack.  I knew it was a boy but I dislike things that very gender specific, so I ended up buying The Boat House by Sweetwater for Moda. I needed 2 charm packs because the chevron blocks required 2 squares. I was also super lazy and got a Kona white charm block.  Yay for precuts!

Chevron blocks are super easy to make. It’s just a bunch of half-square triangles. Although if I made another I’d definitely invest in one of these nifty Half Square Triangle Rulers, that my sister Natalie only told me about when I was almost done.

IMG_2727

Magi says “I’m not sure this navy polka dot block should go here.”

For my block layout I was trying to get an ombre effect as from red to navy.  My cat Magi was super helpful in figuring this out.

IMG_2749

Is it too late to shorten my last name to Vosky?

One of my special touches on my baby quilts is a hand embroidered quilt label that I sew into the corner of the quilt backing. Whenever I do one of these I wish my last name wasn’t 11 characters long. 🙂

IMG_2755

I totally forget what the name of this fabric is, but the lady at Modern Domestic was brilliant in suggesting this. I had something totally different in mind when she pulled this one out and I instantly knew it was perfect. The design and colors totally complement the quilt front. I forget your name but thanks!

IMG_2753

My other cat, Cleo, was also very helpful in the making of this quilt. Her she’s keeping my lap warm while I hand sew the binding. On a side note, Cleo loves hanging out under blankets. Every morning she greets me by trying snuggle up under the comforter. It’s adorable.

Cut Chenille Baby Blanket


on

I’ve had Aesthetic Net’s Cut Chenille Baby Blanket tutorial pinned on Pinterest for AGES! I’ve made some other baby quilts in the meantime, biding my time for the right little munchkin to sew one up.  Then I find out my British bestie Alex is expecting a little girl.

cutchenille-3 The first thing I had to was find the perfect print fabric. Alexi is a graphic designer and has a love for cute animal prints.  I was at Fabric Depot during a 40% off sale and spotted this adorable animal forest print from Kokka.  Next up was finding 3 colors of flannel to use for the chenille. This was a bit harder since Fabric Depot didn’t have a wide color choice in flannel. I should have waited and gone to Joann’s, which I later noticed, stocks tons!

cutchenille-1

I followed the tutorial except for not rounding my corners and making my own bias tape.  One thing to note is that you should have  max of 1/2″ between your lines. Even using my walking foot it was hard to get perfectly straight lines and after washing the places where I was over 1/2″ didn’t look so great.

cutchenille-2

I would also change one more thing…in the places where the chenille is spaced further apart you can see the back of the print fabric. Just in case this happens again I think I would layer a piece of coordinating solid cotton wrong sides together with the print fabric and then do the flannel.

This is not a hard blanket to make but it takes time to do all the sewing an the cutting, so be sure to give your self a few sessions to get it done.

Good news is that Alex & Baby Evie love it!

 

March Sister Challenge: Lorene


on

March was our first Sister Challenge. When Natalie and I came up the idea for this blog, I thought it would be fun to do some sort of month challenge where we both make something using the same pattern, fabric, theme, etc.  SInce we live 2800 miles apart, it would be interesting to see what we come up with when we have no idea what the other person is doing!

For this first challenge I bought 3 fat quarters of St Patrick’s Day fabric from Fabric Depot. I sent it to Natalie with the challenge to make something awesome by March 17.

My inspiration for this challenge,  were the fabric decorations my mom used to make. She has them for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, Valentine’s Day…even my hometown Parsippany Day!  I think many were from fabric panels but I know she made some from scratch too.  I can’t really hang anything from my door,  so I decided to make a table topper.

Quilt Sketch

My original concept for my abstract clover mini quilt

I was rather time crunched making this quilt, as I had recently had surgery and then had a snowboarding trip. However I was determined to complete this on time! So as I was cutting my strips I realized that putting my stripes on the diagonal would be much more complex. I decided to simplify this by doing stripes that ran parallel to the edges instead.

Lorene's Modern 4 Leaf Clover Mini Quilt

Lorene’s Modern 4 Leaf Clover Mini Quilt

Other than the stripes, I wanted everything to be very random and freeform. So I just eyeballed it when I cut the angle slices off the stripe blocks. This formed the negative space between each clover leaf. When it came time to quilt I used my walking foot and put some randomly spaced lines radiating from the center of the quilt. This came together very quickly for me. I guess I’m getting better at quilting! My only hiccup was that I used metallic thread and my walking foot to finish my machine binding and it definitely didn’t turn out straight. Oh well!

The final quilt measured around 18″ x 18″ and I finished it right before work on St Patrick’s Day.  In addition to the 3 prints, I used gold and black Kona cottons.

I hope you enjoyed the March Sister Challenge! Be sure to check out Natalie’s awesome Boyle’s Law Mini Quilt!