"Quilting for Babes"

My good friend JK sent me an interesting email the other day. It was a link to a Winnipeg Free Press article about a very kind and caring young woman in Winnipeg who decided to make baby/ preemie quilts for a hospital in Winnipeg after her own little baby was in care there for 3 weeks after his birth last July.

Here's the link for the Free Press article: ("She's Caring for Babies Like Others Did for Hers")

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/shes-caring-for-babies-like-others-did-for-hers-91892684.html

I emailed this very busy lady offering my help and she took the time to promptly email me back and thank me profusely! So yes, I am going to make a baby quilt for her wonderful altruistic project. The deadline for her "Quilting for Babes" is July 16th, her baby's birthday. I am in the process of chosing fabric from my stash and deciding on a pattern for it right now.

I went to her blog, "Magnolia Designs" and read some of the latest ones. The photos seem to indicate that the quilts are all in the pinwheel design, but I'm wondering if I can make my own design.....

Okay, the answer is YES. Just got a reply email! :) Thanks Kathy. (I wonder if she ever gets time to sleep???)

If you are interested in helping, you can reach Kathy Murray at magnoliadesigns@shaw.ca or just check out her blog.

Today I finished the outer border on the quilt top that I'm making for my sweet daughter's wedding memory quilt. I mitered the corners of the outer border, but had to take them apart several times and redo them before I was satisfied with them. Mitered corners look really nice ( the 2 sides meet at the corner on an angle), but are so much more work than regular corners. But I'm happy with it now!

I also am in the process of machine quilting my niece T's baby quilt. She is due in early June so I want that one done ASAP, just in case....

All for now! :)

Wedding Memory Quilt

wedding quilt with inner border only

This weekend I am working on the next stage of my daughter and son-in-law's wedding quilt. It consists of a combination of 20 solid message squares and 30 "log cabin" blocks assembled and sewn together "on the point" (meaning like diamonds) with setting triangles on the edge and at the corners.

I brought the 20 six inch squares of fabric with us to our daughter and son-in-law's wedding in the Dominican Republic in November for the wedding guests to write a message on for them. First I ironed the fabric squares onto freezer paper to give it stability and then bought a set of fabric pens to write with. We got a wonderful variety of comments and congratulatory wishes from the guests and family members.

The blocks have all been completed, now that Grandma has written her message on the last block. I had previously made border strips out of 2 1/2 inch squares of all the different fabrics used in the quilt blocks. Next I sewed the border strips together into a multicolored inner border, and sewed it on, around the outside of the blocks. Then the 4 1/2 inch sand colored outer border will come next. (See photo thus far at top of post.)

The back will be the same dark green fabric as used in the log cabin blocks and I plan on flipping the excess back fabric over to the front to make what I call a "cheater edge" or mock binding.

The finished quilt will be about 52" by 60" in size. Then I'm going to make a hanging sleeve on the back, something new for me, but the directions are in a couple of my books and it looks simple enough to do.

I'll add more photos once the entire quilt is completed. :)

2010 First baby quilt

T's new baby quilt top

I really enjoyed the reactions of pleasure when the recipient unwrapped the pink butterfly quilt on the weekend! I spent a lot of time on it and liked how it turned out. And talk about serendipidy... the little recipient just happens to be getting her new bedroom decorated with butterflies! So appropriate...

Now I have completed and sandwiched the next little baby quilt. This quilt is 44" x 44" in size and mostly green, blue and animal print fabrics for a little boy coming into this world in June of this year. I adapted this pattern from one called "Baby Signs" found in The Quilter Magazine, July 2009 edition. It was quite easy to make with only 4 large slightly complicated 9 inch blocks, 9 fussy cut blocks so the top came together quickly. It is quite an interesting design and looks harder than it is.

The back is a solid green animal print. The binding edge will probably be solid green like some of the quilt top squares.

The next step for this little quilt is to decide how to machine quilt it and then proceed with that.

Finishing and Labeling your Quilts

Finished quilt with green binding edge

incomplete quilt note the batting (and back material) sticking out on the sides

I have narrowed down the 4 quilts I have ongoing in various stages to 3 now. Yup, I finished one of them yesterday! I finished the first birthday quilt for a very adorable little girl whose birthday is fast approaching. It's one of the sawtooth star quilts that I mentioned in my earlier blog (march 27..."Right Now").

I guess I could add a new up dated photo here! LOL! Oh, there it is, at the top now! (Wish I could figure out how to put the photos in the middle of the posts or at the end, instead of always at the top...)

After you have chopped the excess batting material and backing fabric off (cut it even with the edge of your quilt top), you need to measure your quilt to make sure it is straight. Measure it across the top and the bottom and also across the middle in 2 places. Are the measurements the same? If not then use your ruler and cutting wheel to trim the sides a tiny bit. Make sure you trim a little off both sides so the border stays relatively even. Then measure it again. Turn the quilt sideways and measure it again the same way, trimming a bit off the side edges if necessary. If it's less than 1/4 inch difference, I'm satisfied. (No, I'm not a perfectionist... if you are, then good luck to you!)

Now comes the job of making your long binding strips. Some patterns say to cut 2 inch strips , but I find that 2 1/4 inch strips work best, (about 6 cm for you people who think in metric.)

How many do you need, you might be wondering?

Measure your quilt perimeter, (all around the outside). Then add 8 inches or 20 cm, (2 inches to turn at each corner) and then add about 6 inches more (15 cm) as you will be overlapping the binding at the end somewhat. That's how long of a binding strip you need to make!

Sew the binding strips all together in a long, long snake. There are 2 methods that I know of to sew them together, but at this point, just put right sides together and make the usual 1/4 inch seam. Now heat up your iron and get out your ironing board!

Press the narrow strip in half lengthwise with wrong sides together. (Now your long, long strip is only 1 and 1/8 inch wide.) Pin the strip along one edge of your quilt with the raw edges of the strip pointing out, even with the raw edge of the quilt. Don't start pinning the strip at the corner, though. Start about halfway down the first side. (You'll see why when you get all the way around.)

Start sewing the binding about 3 inches down from the top of the binding strip (not at the start). Make a couple of back stitches and then sew the strip to the side with 'scant' 1/4 seam (a little less) till you get within 1/4 inch from the corner, then back stitch and stop, cutting your thread. Remove the quilt from the machine. Now comes the tricky corner.

Fold your binding strip straight up away from the quilt at a 45 degree angle. Then fold it back down along the next side to be stitched. You have created a little fold at the corner.

Now pin the binding to the next side and sew it the same way, to within 1/4 inch of the corner, then back stitch a couple stitches and stop. Do the diagonal fold at the corner again and keep going. When you get close to where you started, overlap the binding about 2 inches over the beginning. Cut the excess binding off. Then fold the raw end of the binding under itself so no raw edge is showing, and back stitch a couple stitches.

There! You're almost done. Now comes the part that some people dislike.

After turning the binding over the raw edges of the quilt, you need to pin it and hand stitch it to the other side! Yes, I said "hand stitch". Some books will tell you to sew the whole thing on by machine so you could do that if you get lazy, but your beautiful quilt deserves the best so why 'go cheap' now? But that's entirely up to you. No quilt ghosts will come to haunt you or anything. It's your quilt so you can do whatever you want!!!

Once you have the binding edge on your quilt it looks different than it did before when the excess binding and back fabric were still hanging on. You will feel so proud of your beautiful new quilt!!!

There's one very last thing to do, though. You need to put a label on your quilt with your name and the date on any corner at the back of your quilt. You can also put the name of the person you are giving it to and the name of the pattern if you want, but like I said, it's your quilt, so do whatever your little heart desires!

I find it easiest to make a label out of a rectangle of leftover fabric. Iron the raw edges in with 1/4 inch seams, then I sew the seam with the machine. Next you need something to write with that won't fade or run when the quilt gets washed. Buy a fabric pen, whatever color you think will look good on your label. Now hand stitch your label to the back bottom corner of your quilt and then you are REALLY done!!!

Now, if you're anything like me, you're already planning your next quilt project, or if you're really "gung ho", you will already have started a new project! Most quilters have a few projects going on at the same time at various stages of completion.

Welcome to the ranks of obsessed quilters! :D

Bazoople Animal baby Quilts

Bazoople Bay Quilts

The next 2 baby quilts I made that winter ( 2009) were more neutral colors because neither of the mothers-to-be wanted to find out ahead of time what the sex of their baby was. That was prefectly fine with me! We never knew the sex of babies ahead of time when I was a young mother. It somehow doesn't feel right to know ahead of time.... And what if the doctor is wrong???!!!

I used the directions for the "As You Like It" quilt again since I love how it turns out.

This time I used Bazoople Animal print fabric . One quilt had green and one had yellow for the accent color. I like how these 2 turned out so much that I went and bought more Bazoople fabric so I could make one for my own grandchild who is still just a figament of everyone's imagination at this time .... :)

Each of these 35 inch square quilts took between 20 and 22 hours of work.

Quilted Diaper bags

Baby diaper bags that I designed and quilted.

First baby diaper/ tote bag

Second baby tote bag

A few months earlier I had taken 2 evening quilting classes to learn how to quilt a tote bag (which turned out well, I think... :) (photo later.) I still had quite a bit of fabric leftover after completing baby quilts # 1, 2 and 3. And , as I mentioned, I don't like for things to go to waste, so I decided to use up some of the spare fabric and make a diaper/ tote bag.

I cut out a bunch of squares mainly from the 'Princess' quilt fabric and put some of them side by side to see how it could look. Then I used the same directions to make my first tote bag only smaller. It turned out really cute, don't you think?! (It was also completed in March of 2009.)

I made a second diaper/ tote bag this time out of the leftover flying geese blocks from the pink 'Flying Geese baby quilt and other left over fabric from that quilt. It was completed in April 2009. The bags actually are easier to make than the quilts and I really enjoy creating them! :)

The 'Flying Geese' quilt (and bag) is the only one that I still have of the 7 baby quilts I made last winter (2009). Couldn't part with it for some reason....

Well, okay the other reason is that the next few babies born to family and acquaintances were all boys.

The next 2 baby quilts I made that winter were more neutral colors because neither of the mothers-to-be wanted to find out ahead of time what the sex of their baby was. (Photos in next blog)

Baby Quilts #3, 4 and 5

"Princess" As You Like It quilt

Pink "Flying geese" quilt

My own design-

Animal ark blocks and rail fence blocks

As I mentioned previously, I liked making the "As You Like It" baby quilt pattern and it was easy to make. I had now ironed the bugs out, so I decided to use the same pattern, but completely different fabric for baby quilt #3.

This quilt was for a little princess to be and so I went with princess fabric, a turquoise print with princess crowns pearls and heels along with purple butterfly and pale blue heart fabric as accents. The back was a fabric of purple and pink bunnies. I made this quilt the same size as the other two, 35 inches square. The binding was made from a combination of strips of the fabrics in the blocks. (It was actually the second baby quilt that I completely finished, and my first photo of it was taken back on January 30/ 09.)

When I'm out shopping I enjoy browsing through the fabric department to see if there's anything there that tickles my fancy which I might want to get to add to my 'stash'. (Your 'stash' is a fabric or pile of fabrics that caught your eye at some point in your shopping travels and which you bought even though you didn't have any immediate plans for it. It marks a true addiction to quilting I might add! Lol!) If you do run across such a fabric or a really good deal at any time on a fabric that you like, it's a good idea to buy at least 2 meters ( or 2 yards) and preferably 3m or yd. or more if you really like it a lot. It's also good to have a few solid colored or neutral colored fabrics, too, that could work in conjunction with a lot of other fabrics as accents, backing, edging and so on.

I'm the type of person who doesn't like to be wasteful, so I try and use everything including left over fabric or quilt blocks. I had a number of animal ark quilt blocks left from the first quilt and some red and pink striped fabric from quilt #2 . I had recently bought some "Bazoople animal" fabric at a local store just because I really liked it, ( see above paragraph) and so I decided to use all of that and create a new baby quilt out of it.

The result of that is the red, white and yellow rectangular baby quilt above. It's 38 1/2" by 30 1/2" inches in size. (My first non-square baby quilt...) This one was finished in early March (yes, March was a very busy quilting month that year, LOL!) and it was sent to friends back in Manitoba who were adding a new baby boy to their already handsome family.

I love to brows through quilting magazines at the store to see if there's anything that jumps out at me. If not, I don't buy the magazine even if it is the latest edition. If I do like at least 1 quilt pattern, I'll often buy it and put a place marker in that page before I add it to my shelf or better still, I'll write the name of the quilt and the page number on the front cover of the magazine for easier reference later. I saw such a quilt in a magazine that I thought I'd like to try. I had been intrigued by a block design called "Flying Geese" which is a traditional quilt block, but which I had no idea how to make. And as you may have noticed, if you have been reading any of my blogs, I do like a challenge and love to learn something new.

(Keeps Alzheimer's at bay, or so they say! Hey, I'm a poet and don't even know it... LOL! That's the thing about blogs, you can say silly things and likely no one ever reads them anyway! )

So long story short, I decided to try my hand at creating some flying geese blocks.

First I looked on the internet and printed up a few different directions for flying geese blocks and tried to figure them out. Was a little unsure, but I figured, what the heck! I have lots of fabric, so what if I screw up. I'll just keep trying till I get the hang of it.

(I forgot to mention that my sister-in-law had given me a big stack of fabric with baby / child type of prints which she had had kicking around her storage area collecting dust. Of course I washed it all and ironed it first.)

(Did I mention that you have to like or at least not mind ironing to succeed at quilting?)

So I read over the pattern, which as it turns out was very straight forward and I followed the directions, cutting the fabric stripes out, then cutting those strips into rectangles and squares, then sewing them together into individual little flying geese blocks. Put simply, they end up looking like a row of triangles, all pointing in the same direction, like a flock of geese flying in formation. It was so easy, too and I can't figure out why it seemed so hard when I read the directions on line.... I guess sometimes new things take time to get used to, till you catch on, then they seem simple.

In between the rows of flying geese blocks, I put the left over little triangles (which get cut off the flying geese blocks) sewed sideways in rows with pink fabric strips in between each row. That's not what the pattern asked for, but I liked the effect. (I have yet to follow a pattern exactly to the letter. I often change it to suit my needs as I go along. I hope the designers of the patterns aren't offended by that because I certainly don't mean it to be disrespectful!)

This quilt is still in my closet along with it's matching diaper bag ( did I mention I make bags, too?) and it hasn't found a home yet.

New Challenge

I received a new challenge tonight. My sister-in-law phoned and asked if I could quilt her a hat for our family wedding reception next weekend. She has had radiation treatments for cancer and has shaved off most of her hair. I'll admit my first reaction was not positive. It was more like, "Yah, right. I'll add it to my list of things to do in the next 7 days. Besides I wouldn't know where to start." Then I whined about having had the flu for the last 3 days.

But after hanging up the phone I thought about it. I knew I didn't have a hat pattern in any of my books or magazines so I went on the internet to see if I could find a pattern for a hat. After much going around in circles, I found some patterns where you had to either send them money or you had to be a member. I tried signing up to be a member but got an error message. Then when I tried again it said that my email address indicated that I was already in their system, but hadn't activated my membership. If I wanted to activate it, click on the link!

"Bonus!" I thought.

However after clicking the link I got another error message. But I can be pretty stubborn when necessary so I started over, changed the wording of the request and BINGO! I found 2 free patterns that looked simple enough which I thought might work.

I printed the directions and phoned my sister-in-law back to tell her to measure her fat head so I could make something that might have a chance of fitting. Now for the fabric. I have all kinds in my stash. Did she want something staid and ordinary or something wild and funky. She's a wild and funky kind of gal, but she nixed the green turtles with red hearts fabric that I suggested and went with the plain brown or green.

"Okay let's give this a whirl," I thought. My helpful husband helped me to decode the directions and also suggested a pot lid to use to trace the circle for the top of the hat. I was on a roll!

When on a roll, however, it's important not to get too carried away and look carefully at your creation as you go from step to step. The reason I say this is because I didn't! I was so thrilled about getting it all sewn together before supper, that I ended up sewing it inside out the first time, but I had the general idea now, so I quickly dug out my trusty seam ripper ( getting dull quickly with frequent use, I'm ashamed to say...) and sewed it right side out.

Hmmm! The finished product looked more like a surgeons hat partly due to the green color, I think, but not really what one would want to wear to a reception.

"Okay time for pattern B," I thought. This pattern is more of a beret. To heck with the boring solid colors. I cut the pieces from a turquoise and beige bird of paradise kind of print and I'm almost finished that now. It took a while to draw two 13 inch circles for the beret and cut a 6 inch hole in one of them as I have no pot lids that size. I wanted to trace the fabric circle on some cardboard to keep for possible future hats before I sewed it together.

Then I had a Eureka moment! I could use 2 of these very same 13 inch circles with the donut holes in the middle as a hat brim (put fusible web in between to give it some body) and then make the middle hat part the same as in pattern 1!

Okay now I'm becoming obsessed again! Guess I won't be finishing the edge trim this weekend on the pink butterfly first birthday quilt I've been working on all week. I'll be making hats! LOL!

Baby Quilts "As You Like It"

Baby boy twin's quilt "As You Like It" pattern Baby girl twin's quilt

Last winter there was a rash of pregnancies among our family and friends so I decided to try my hand at baby quilts. One of our nieces was expecting twins so I was planning on making at least two for her and a close friend of my daughter's was also expecting.

I flipped through my quilting magazines and after much contemplation I decided on a quilt called "As You Like It" from the Better Home and Gardens Creative Collection, Fast and Fabulous Quilting Ideas magazine June 2008 edition.

I used 3 fabrics for each quilt. The first had an animal ark print, green dotted print and a soft yellow with little lambs on it.

I used the same animal ark fabric for the back and the same green dotted one for the binding around the edge once it was all done.

This one was the experimental one. I "fussy cut" (meaning individually cut each one out) 16 of the arks in squares according to directions and made up a number of blocks with the animal arks in the centre. TheN I measured them, but they were all a bit off, a bit too small, so I took them apart ( like I said I've become good buds with my seam ripper...) and tried resewing them with seams a tiny bit shy of 1/4 inch but it was still hit and miss. Then I decided to increase

the size of the fussy cut arks in the block and try again. The individual blocks looked fine, but once I sewed then together with surrounding blocks the seam lines didn't really work out to make the pinwheel pattern...

Back to the drawing board! Next I increased the size of the squares from 2 7/8 to 3 inches and sewed them together with the original fussy cut arks and that was pretty much foolproof! It gave me a tiny bit of leeway to trim each block to 4 inches. I liked how the green stars jump out at you in this little quilt.

The other twin's quilt was made from a combination of the animal ark fussy cut blocks together with a red and white striped fabric with tiny red hearts and a medium green fabric with tiny red and white flowers on it. In this quilt the red and white pinwheels really stand out more than the stars. I used the same animal ark fabric for the back and the trim around the quilt was the green fabric.

These two baby quilts were complete in january and February 2009.

I liked this pattern and it was easy to make now that I had ironed the bugs out, so I decided to use the same pattern but completely different fabric for baby quilt #3.

Learning to Machine quilt

9 Patch Pillow sham

Making a beautiful quilt top is only half the battle, so to speak. Putting all the layers together successfully and QUILTING it is just as important, hence the name, " a quilt".

Chosing how to quilt your quilt has a huge affect on the finished product. Quilting it in a pleasing manner can enhance the entire quilt, but the opposite is also true. I have seen a few quilts in the last 3 years since I started going to quilt shows where I felt that the manner in which it was quilted, detracted from the actual quilt top itself. Personally I don't like the quilting to be too narrow or too busy on a quilt. I prefer that the quilting stitches and pattern complement the quilt top, not compete with it for your attention.

In the past, most batting was such that it was necessary to make rows of quilt stitches quite close together, a minimum of 2 or 3 inches apart, I believe. Today's quilt batting is such that you can get away with quilt stitches up to 10 inches apart. The old batting would shift with time and/ or washing and bunch up if the quilt stitches were too far apart. Hence the machine quilting style called "stippling", (one type of machine quilting I dislike.) With stippling you sew curving lines all over the quilt, working in small sections.

Meandering is similar, but the rows of stitches are further apart and I find it more appealing. Stippling reminds me of the diagrams you used to see in your science books as a child of the brain with all the convoluted bumps, creases and crenullations. I always found that quite ugly.

One way to quilt your blocks are, as I mentioned, the style called 'in the ditch" where you follow closely the stitches on the quilt top, hiding them in the 'well' of the fabric pieces. Use a 'walking foot' and start by back stitching several short stitches at the beginning of each stitch line to secure the thread.

(See "9 Patch Pizzaz" March blog for further details about how to roll your quilt and start machine quilting. You can use any type of sewing machine to do this. It doesn't have to be the coveted long arm machine.) :)

A similar form of quilting is echo quilting where you quilt rows of stitches about a quarter inch outside of your quilt top stitch lines. Some blocks look good with that method especially applique.

Another quilting method that I have seen on quilts is 'channel quilting' where you stitch parallel quilting lines across your entire quilt. I have never tried this so I really can't tell you much about it.

Template quilting is another method where you mark a design on your quilt with a marking pencil (which wipes off or fades) and a plastic stencil. Then you quilt along the stencil lines.

You can also do template quilting with tear away paper stencils.

After I hand quilted my huge queen size sunflower quilt, which took 3 years to complete, I decided I needed to learn to do something that went faster.

I had designed and sewed 2 pillow shams to match the sunflower quilt after that and decided to try machine quilting with them. The 'in the ditch" quilting went well on the blocks, but then I came to the border.

"Hmmmm... maybe a nice stencil pattern," I thought, so I bought a book of patterns. I paged through it and found several I liked that looked relatively easy.

"Maybe I could scan a pattern on the computer and print it , then cut the strips out and pin them where I want to quilt that pattern", I thought.

So that's just what I did. I meticulously quilted all along the pinned pattern on the border of the first pillow sham. Then it was time to get the paper off. It resisted my pulling and so I tugged harder. Bits and pieces of paper came off around the stitches, but many of the stitches ripped too! It took a long time to remove all the paper and I had to re-sew a lot of sections.

This really wasn't working very well.

"Now what?"I thought.

I looked for advice in some of my quilt magazines and realized that I had to make tinier stitches for one. I tried that and it worked better but still not 100%. Then I realized that maybe computer paper was too strong.

The next time I drove to town, I went to the quilt shop there and asked the proprietress. She told me you had to use a special thin paper that ripped off easily. It's called "Golden Thread quilting paper". It looks a lot like tissue paper only a bit stronger. You have to trace your design on it manually which is very time consuming. But that's what I did all around the inner border of the 9 Patch pillow sham ( see above) and it worked well.

After that I took a Saturday class on free motion machine quilting and I really like that method for doing large areas like borders. Maybe one day I'll get a long arm machine and get really fancy, but for now, free motion serves its purpose. It does use a LOT of thread, but it's quick, it's fun, sometimes frustrating, and you can be quite creative.