Birthday Quilt

by alwaysacraftylady

Oh hi! I didn’t mean to disappear for 2 weeks. I went back to work on March 2nd full time, and then DD1 had her birthday the very same week and my life went a little crazy. But I’ve been hard at work with many things. I still have some clothing items for me to share, but in the mean time I bring you a quilt made for my pretty little birthday girl on her 3rd birthday.

As you might remember from my Quilt Layout post I’d been struggling with how to fit together all the little triangles I’d cut out. I could never get things to line up in a perfect way. I took it to a vote with some of my crafting friends and they overwhelming voted for a more random placement.

I tried to finish it for her actual birthday so she could take it to school, but I was too busy making 3 dozen cupcakes. So she opened it on her birthday party instead. And then at her party it was the very last gift opened and the immediately threw it aside so she could play with her new tea set and doctor kit and OMG Mulan doll instead.

But that’s okay because the next day when she went to school her snuggly blanket went with her and my heart filled at the thought that her momma’s love was wrapping her up tight while she’s away from me during the day. That kid. She’s a cute one.

This quilt was made with fabric from the Princess Life line by Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman. Such cute fabric, but a little hard to pick a pattern that actually showed off so many larger scale prints. I hate needing to decapitate princesses to make the blocks. The backing is some minky leftover from making the Fairies Quilt. Both came from the fabulous Hawthorne Threads. I have to admit I often look there before any other online shops because they have such a large selection and usually have things available by the yard as well.

15Feb2015

Quilt Layout

by alwaysacraftylady

Whew, this week has been interesting. Exhausting. DD2 is not sleeping as well at night all the sudden and we’re all feeling the effects after several nights of less sleep.

What was I say? Oh yes. Quilt layout.

So someone asked in the comments of this blog about how I decided to place my fabrics in the Fairies Quilt. Really it isn’t all that hard, just takes some thinking. For this quilt I had nine different fabrics. The first thing I did was look at the scale of the prints.

White – 2 – both large scale

Teal – 2 – 1 large scale, 1 small scale

Yellow – 2 – 1 medium scale, 1 small scale

Burgundy – 2 – both medium scale

Pink – 1 – small scale

In order to best show off the prints, anything large scale needed to be a corner. The small scale needed to be in the center. The medium could fill in where needed. So I place the white and one of the teals in the corners to start and the pink in the middle. Then I played around the the remainder of the colors until I settled on the arrangement you see above. The goal was to make sure no two prints of the same color were right next to each other. In the end you have stacks of blocks that look like this.

Then I just needed to place with the orientation of each square so see what looked best to me. There really is no perfect way to do it. Just a personal preference.

Here you can see two slightly different layouts I tested. The one thing I would do differently next time is to do all the 9 patch squares exactly the same. For this quilt I wanted to be “fancy” and switched the placement of the burgundy fabrics in half of the squares and then when I went to lay everything out I didn’t have each fabric in the right amount for what I wanted. Oh well. Making my own quilts is about the process as much as the product, but perfection is not my goal.

In new project news, I do have a little something I’ve started working on using Princess Life by Ann Kelle. It’s another day care nap blanket for DD1, but I haven’t been able to land on an arrangement I like yet. Have thoughts? Let me know! I am stumped.

9Feb2015

Ruby, Pearl, and Opal Quilt

by alwaysacraftylady

Finished and happily has been snuggled under for a couple of days. This is the quilt I made for me.

And oh it was worth the work. I love this quilt even if it is riddled with mistakes. Notice how it was left very wrinkled. That is on purpose.

There are puckers in the quilting. I hated the batting I bought! It seemed to stretch and stretch no matter how much it was pinned, but I also learned so much as I went along. Especially about machine quilting something beyond top to bottom lines. On this quilt I stitched two lines down every single white stripe. It seemed to take for-ev-er.

Anyways, here are the details. Fabric is mostly the Folklore Collection from Camelot Fabrics. I added a few others to round out the colors. The pattern is Ruby, Pearl, and Opal from Moda Bakeshop. I feel a little like this was a giant leap from my first quilt in terms of difficulty, but it seems to have worked out well in the end.

Next time I’ll talk about how I arranged the color blocks in my Fairies Quilt.

30Jan2015

Try and Try Again

by alwaysacraftylady

This week I feel like nothing is going quite right. Our three month old has only been taking cat naps, so I haven’t had much time to work on my projects. My Story Time Sampler hasn’t made much progress. I tried to make a dress to fit my postpartum shape and it was a miserable fail (more on that later). But I did get this beautiful quilt top pinned into its batting/backing sandwich today so tomorrow I can start quilting it all together…if I can pick a pattern.

I’m feeling so indecisive. Anyone have a suggestion? Part of me wants to hand quilt it, but I think I would lose steam quickly. So I will most likely machine quilt it. Hopefully tomorrow I will wake up inspired.

Moral of this story…not every project turns out perfectly the first time and not everything has to be made quickly.

27Jan2015

Fairies Quilt

by alwaysacraftylady

Why buy something when you can make it with a skill set you already possess? One thing I’ve learned over my lifetime is that what I make for myself lasts a lot better than what I can buy in the store so when I realized Darling Daughter #1 really needed a bigger blanket for nap time at school I decided to try my hand at making one.

As I posted a few days ago, last fall I took up quilting. So DD1 and I set off looking
for fabrics she would like for her blanket. Choice #1 was the Girl Friends ballerina print from Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman.

But I didn’t love it for a blanket.

So we looked again and found the perfect collection, Fairyville by Heather Rosas from Camelot Fabrics. I also found a tutorial for making disappearing nine patches on Cluck Cluck Sew. It worked out perfectly.

And she loves it.

This project has a couple of firsts for me too. First time machine quilting, first time binding a quilt, and it was my first time sewing with minky. But all want together smoothly and I am so pleased with her little nap blanket. No more baby blankets for my big grown up preschooler.

24Jan2015

Doll Quilt

by alwaysacraftylady

When I went to the quilt store to buy notions for the Rainbow Quilt I couldn’t help but also buy notions to make a doll sized quilt for the big sister.

Same fat quarter set and block pattern, but a little different look.

I love this little quilt. It was so sweet to put together and a great way to practice before I tackled the larger quilt.

I put it away intending for it to be a Christmas gift, but then my older daughter received too many things and I knew this would get lost in the shuffle. So I held onto it until last week.

Its now a wrinkled mess, but so so loved as my older girl insists on using it as a blanket even if it is much much too small for that purpose.

And so here is the pair. My first quilts that have started an obsession.

22Jan2015

In the beginning

by alwaysacraftylady

Last year I got bit by the quilting bug. Hard. Call it a crazy pregnancy thing as I decided to take up quilting when I went to visit the Purl Soho warehouse in Orange County, California. I found a package of 90 fat quarters in rainbow shades and just had to buy it to make a quilt for my then unborn second child. Problem was…I didn’t actually know how to make a quilt. But, no worries! I’d figure it out.

And then the fabric sat. And sat. And sat just waiting for me to you know…get started. So when I went on maternity leave last October I finally got around to starting the quilt. The blocks went together quickly and easily.

I went and bought backing fabric and notions.

And then it sat around until a couple of weeks ago when I finally did the hand quilting. Having a 2 year old and a newborn will delay craft plans sometimes.