Hawaii Quilt - Complete!

It's Done!  I can't even believe it, five and a half years after I envisioned it I have completed it!   I am thrilled.





A friend of mine owns not one, but two long arm machines, she has graciously allowed me to use one of them whenever.  I went over and began to do the tight meander that I had seen so many times.  The issue... childcare.  I am the childcare, and Isabella wasn't all that cooperative while I was trying to quilt, and a babysitter in the middle of the day seemed impossible.  I was still breastfeeding... So with the quilt about 7/8 done on the longarm I had to abandon it, sad sad day.  My friend offered to finish it for me, and a few weeks ago she brought it over ALL DONE!!  It is so flat and smooth, my straight line quilting has improved, but it's not as nice as this yet, I still get puckers.





I am so excited and I MACHINE bound this!! I'm learning!  It's not so horrible!  This is my fifth attempt at machine binding and I may have finally gotten the hang of it.  Hooray! It feels so good to have this completed.



Read Here and here and here if you want to catch the back story on this quilt.

Rainbow Quilt with Tutorial

For my birthday I received the Kona "Dark" Fat Quarter box, it was very exciting, and really until now I have hardly used it!  Then I saw the Crossroads quilts over at Red Pepper Quilts.  They were so cool!  Such a simple design!  So many colors!  I decided I could make one!  I also think I can explain it!  So everyone can make it!



On New Years eve I picked out 28 colors.  I wasn't looking for that many, I knew I wanted at least 24, and I settled on 28.  (They are listed below).  An even number will ensure that the middle color is different on either side, and odd will result in a solid strip across (if that's what you're looking for)

First cut two:  2"x 22" strips from each of the 28 fabrics, and line them up on your idea board.
Next iron them all with spray starch to help them stay straight.

From the top left: Navy, Windsor, Copen, Turquoise, Pacific, Surf, Deep Blue, Teal Blue, Emerald, Jade Green, Clover, Grass Green, Curry, Canary, Papaya, Orange, Coral, Red, Ruby Crimson, Brick, Chocolate, Pepper, Purple, Hibiscus, Cerise, Pomegranate, Bright Pink

Carefully sew them all together, and iron the seams open.
Repeat for the second side.

At this point I had alot of rough edges and selvedges that needed to be cut off, so I trimmed everything up.  RPQ made her sides different widths for interest, you could make four chunks and alternate them... I like the idea of this being divided down the middle.

I then pinned all the matching seams together and sewed down the middle.  I used a 3/8" seam allowance, not exactly sure why but it just seemed like a good idea. Pressed, and voila!  Quilt top!



The quilting is 3/8" away from all the seams on either side, including the one down the middle.   I debated making the grid like RPQ did, but I was running out of thread, and decided this was plenty of quilting. I used silvery thread that exactly matched the backing fabric (Kona Ash).

The finished size is about 40"x45"

I think this looks fantastic, and considering I started at 10pm on New Year's eve and finished on 2 Jan, I couldn't be happier! The back is Kona Ash, and it's bound in Kona Black.   I'm pretty sure there will be a baby Colorist quilt with these same colors arriving soon!

Happy New Year!

It's been a wonderful year, I have had a blast sharing my projects!  Here's a look back at some of the things I have accomplished!




I'll catch you guys next year :)

I Love Ikea Fabric

This past summer I picked up some bolts of fabric at Ikea, they are about 3 yards each and the fabric is 50" wide.  They were $4, I should have picked up more!  I got one stripe in both red/orange and one in blue/green.  I have now made seven pillows!  They are so bright and refreshing.  There is even more fabric leftover! 

Isabella is an excellent pillow model!

Red/Orange Stripe - 18" pillows

20" Pillows

Basketweave pillow -  20"

I went back to Ikea this fall looking for more fabric, I wanted to make some cute Amy Butler floor pillows, but it wasn't there!  Boo!  Hopefully it will come back.  Frankly I'm debating putting some wide stripes on Spoonflower so I can make more things. :)

I quilted the tops of the pillows and put fusible interfacing in the back, it's just a flap that I embellished with a smidge of the stripe.  The pillows are soft and feel very nice.  It is just the 2 sets of stripes that I manipulated in as many was as possible!

The backing fabric is all from ikea (save the orange flannel)  It's all adorable.

And to plug my triangle calculator. I used it to make all but the basketweave.

This blog post is a bit late because the floor pillows are causing me some trouble, today I was able to sort them out and I hope to be finishing them in the next day or so.  I tried something tricky... It will be OK, but it's taking forever.

The Colorist

So I got this done in 2 naps and one evening.  That is how I measure time. :)  That is CRAZY fast!!  My Parents are in town for the holidays and my Mom was able to help, which does speed things up significantly, but Wow, to have a completed beautiful top in 2 afternoons of work plus a little evening time is just madness!!  It looks amazing and I learned some new skills on this.




1. Spray starch is the greatest thing ever - and now I know what my Grandma smelled like.
2. Lizzy House knows how to write a legible, outstanding pattern - at no point do you need to google "tips on completing the pattern" which is an essential step with EVERY SINGLE Amy Butler pattern.  Love you Amy, but seriously.
3. Ripping fabric is how I'm cutting fabric from now on.  One little snip, and *rrrriiip* and a perfect line, so satisfying
4. Curved seams are OK, just go slow and ease it through and it will be just fine



So I'm totally thrilled.  I have some other things to work on while I wait for the backing fabric to arrive.  I hope to ship this out to a quilter, I've never done that before but I love the concentric circles and I really cannot do that on my sewing machine.

Merry Christmas and the Colorist

Merry Christmas!!

It was a happy one for me, under the tree I found this pattern!  (Actually times 2 due to some communication issues between husband and mother) But it's totally great since I want to make the baby and the big quilt more than once (depending on how hard it is...)



Anyway, after the baby went to sleep my hubby and I quick went to work picking out 30 fabrics to make the rainbow.  Here is the final selection!

Hubby wants me to make the baby one with only solids.  I think since he got me the Kona dark box for my birthday he's eligible to make requests :)

I have so many projects in the making!  I hope to share more soon.

Saturday Projects

After making myself a snazzy iPad cover, I decided to make my Mom a new one.  This one is fully washable!  It has some cute Ikea striped fabric in it, and at her request is of course lined with fleece

It fits more loosely but still cleans the front of her iPad. I have found this is a great quick project to whip on on the same Saturday that we purchased a ENORMOUS Christmas tree that we now need to decorate. It's 12 feet and amazing!

I also noticed that my husband's laptop was starting to take the finish off our kitchen table. Nothing serious yet, but I like that table and he likes to work there... SO I made him an extra large insulated place mat.


The fabric is Daisy Mae by DS for Joann, and I really thought that turquoise and navy print looked like a keyboard! It's moderately masculine and very soft.





I bought a quarter yard of the prints you see there and definitely have enough to make at least one more if not two. There is potholder material in the middle, and I just turned it right side out and zig-zagged the edges. It's not too fancy but it's getting the job done, and is machine washable.

A very productive Saturday!

I think I want to try and make a messenger bag.  Isn't it just a larger iPad holder, with a strap?  I think it's totally doable, so look for that soon!