Wednesday, July 18, 2012

1001 Peeps - Magic Carpet Quilt - Purple Palette - Lizzy House


Last year, Andover Fabrics came out with this delightful 1001 Peeps - Lizzy House - Magic Carpet Quilt Pattern




My dear husband made the blue version of this quilt for our friends' son. He had so much fun, I decided to make the purple one for our other friends' 6 month old daughter.


Fortunately, after cutting, piecing, and doing buttonhole applique on all the circles, I talked my husband into FM quilting mine, too! 




I hope this gets through customs soon!

The Lorax - Quiet Book

The Lorax organic cotton fabric came out from Robert Kaufman awhile ago, and I just had to do something with it! I love Dr. Seuss, especially The Lorax book and animated TV special (1972).


I ordered the bright panel and fat quarters. There was plenty of seam allowance around each panel for cutting and sewing. They have some adorable free patterns, but there is so much white in them, I wasn't sure they'd stay clean for a toddler gift. With ten blocks in the panel, it was also difficult to decide to do 3 X 3 quilt blocks with 1 missing panel or 3 X 4 quilt blocks with extra panels, so I thought I'd make a soft, quiet book.


I kept trying to figure out the best way to make a quiet book, comparing tutorials and patterns online - sew RST and turn inside out? Stitch and pink the edges? Quilt and bind? One page at a time or two? How do you put the book together? What do you use to stabilize the pages?

Then, I saw this pattern and thought it would make a perfect gift. This pattern is so helpful, I hope to make a Ten Little Things quiet book soon! It has chalkboard fabric and zippers! Designed by the fabulous Angela Yosten.


It suggests using Soft and Stable by Annie. It has great body to it! I may never use batting for crafts or purses again!

For my first quiet book, I kept my pages simple and followed the same instructions for these panels.


I only wish I knew which order the pages go in. My memory fails me! 
I should have gone and looked in the book.


There was barely enough fabric to add borders and binding, but I squeezed out just enough from the fat quarters, using 2 1/2 inch strips. 


The grommets were difficult to hammer, so my dear husband helped.


This book will go to a dear friend, who has one tattoo on her ankle - The Lorax. I hope her son enjoys the story as much as she and I do.


I have not seen the new movie. Is it any good?

Friday, July 6, 2012

Delighted Pennants Banner - Riley Blake


Recently, I became smitten with Halloween fabric for making banners with pennants. I figured I should try out different techniques and then use my favorite technique on the Halloween fabric. For testing, I found this very cheerful fabric from Riley Blake, called Delighted.



It comes in a panel. I bought a coordinating fabric for the backs, because I figured it would be a short banner if I backed one pennant with another, unless I bought more than one panel. Each panel looks like this, with enough room for 1/4 seam around all edges:


I couldn't decide whether to use batting or not, sew right sides together and then turn inside out or not, quilt the whole panel ahead of time, or not, serge the edges? So many options and I'm not big on style, so I needed serious help. I found this video online:

After watching this a few times, I felt  woefully inexperienced at this. I decorate like a couch-surfing bachelor (without the beer and porn). Amanda's pennants were so adorable, I decided to get some pompoms and buttons and crochet trim to match! I got a cavity in my sweet tooth, just ordering the adorable trims and embellishments!



I decided not to quilt all the layers together, hoping the buttons and trim would be enough.


I chose to sandwich fabric right sides together with 1 layer of Warm and Natural batting underneath. I sewed around all edges, leaving a small slit in the top of each banner, with the hopes that the hole closed would not be so noticeable at the top where connected to a hanging ribbon or twill tape.


Pretty soon, I was in a cheery mood just making them. The only curses came when edge-stitching the pompoms, which tended to get crushed no matter what foot I chose to use.

 

I made another set with pennants sandwiched wrong-sides together, with batting in between, and serged the edges with a wave stitch. Sadly, I didn't turn the corners very well, so they look skewed. When hung up, it looks like they're bent, blowing in the wind, but it's just bad serging on my part.
[i will post a picture here of this disaster some day]

Next time, I want to try applying the edging while I'm making the sandwich, instead of adding trims after I've turned them inside out. That may or may not be worse. Any ideas?