Sunday, July 8, 2012

Fine Print Pattern


This pattern came about when I was looking for an asterisk pattern and the only ones available weren't true asterisks because the lines would extend to the corners of the block. So I designed this pattern where all of the lines are the same length. Enjoy!

It can be purchased at my etsy shop.






Friday, July 6, 2012

Halloween Pillow Tutorial



This tutorial creates a 11.5" square pillow case but can be easily adjusted to any size. I used a 14" pillow form with some of the stuffing removed because it was what I had. :)




Supplies:

- Solid fabric for back of pillow and inside:
14.5" x 14.5"
17" x 13" (qty 2)

- Batting
14.5" x 14.5"
8.5" x 13" (qty 2)

- Iron-on Interfacing (I used Quilters Grid but you can use regular and draw a grid on it)
16" x 16"

-Assorted Printed Fabric (I used 8 different prints with 8 squares for each print)
2" x 2" (qty 64)

-Thread
Cotton thread with piecing and quilting.
Embroidery thread for decorative stitching.



Lay out 2" squares onto interfacing in a random configuration (the interfacing shown is bigger than 16", hence the slight over hang). I made mine so that I would have 1 square of a print in each column and row. This took awhile, I wouldn't recommend it. 

Press squares onto interfacing.


Sew rows together using a 1/4" seam allowance. Cut the folds of the seams open (I used a rotary cutter and took off a sliver).

Press seams open.




Repeat with the columns. Finished size should be 12.5" square.




Sandwich the pieced top, batting, and 14.5" backing fabric to get ready for quilting.


Starting at the same point, stitch lines out to the edges.



Using embroidery thread and a satin stitch, stitch lines between the previously made lines in a wonky circular pattern. When you reach one of the lines, pivot and change directions.



Stitch a line down from one of the other lines. Switch to a straight stitch and sew a circle (its ok if its a little wonky).


Going back to the satin stitch, sew the 8 legs out from the circle. Then sew a satin stitch circle over the previous circle.



Sew over the guide lines with the satin stitch. Start from the outside and stitch to the center. Continue sewing down another line towards the outside. If you have an odd number of lines, sew one line first with out continuing onto another.

Switch to regular thread and sew 1.4" around the border. Trim.




Place a piece of batting on the bottom half of a piece of solid fabric. Fold the top half of fabric over and top stitch across. Quilt as desired. Trim to 8.25" x 12.5". Repeat with the other piece of batting and solid fabric.




With right sides together, place one of the quilted solids on top of the pieced front. Sew together with 1/2" seam allowance.



Place the other quilted solid on the other half of the front. Stitch with the same 1/2" seam allowance. Reinforce corners, trim corners, and finish edges. Finished size: 11.5" square.



Turn right side out and poke out corners. Insert pillow. Done :)





Saturday, June 30, 2012

Bench Cushion



This was a bench cushion I made for my boyfriends parents. They said they wanted something traditional but I couldn't help getting a little creative with it. Since they are huge Auburn fans, I did an Auburn applique on one side :)


I didn't realize my machine could do a beautiful satin stitch!

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Engineering + Quilting

For a pattern I'm making I included fabrics requirements for multiple (14!) sizes. To avoid hundreds of hand calculations, I wrote a code using a program call Mathcad. It's a more basic program that I've used in a few of my classes.


Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Postage Stamp - Solids




I've been wanting to do a postage stamp quilt ever since I saw the quilt-a-long on ps i quilt. I would always go back and forth between which prints to use and which solid(s) to coordinate with them. I finally decided on using a variety of solids with random prints. This quilt was going to me for my mother, for both mothers day and recovering from back surgery, and she's been begging for a quilt with corals and lime fabrics. Those colors are hard to come by in a cute print so using solids was the way to go.


I pieced this quilt by using 2.5" strips of the solids and prints using the techniques in the quilt-a-long. I cut the strips into 4 shorter strips and divided them into sets of 9 strips (8 solids and 1 print). I sewed the strips into 3 sets of 3 and then cut them into 2.5" pieces. Then I pieced a strip from each set to make a 3x3 block containing each of the solids and a print. The finished quilt was 60x60 and had 900 little squares!


This was my first attempt at free motion quilting - I'm very happy with how it turned out :) I quilted a dense meandering pattern over the course of 3 days and 4 spools of 800m Gutermann cotton thread. Next time I'll try a less dense pattern.



 For the backing I used a lime floral pattern and for the binding I used a coral dot print. I machine stitched it and love how it turned out.