If you’re looking for a blog that was created by an expert quilter, you've come to the wrong place.
I got my first sewing machine in August of 2012. This is a chronicle of some of my quilting successes, failures and lessons learned.
If you're anything like me, I procrastinate until the very last minute. This was the case this year, when making Christmas presents. Unfortunately for me, I didn't remember to take pictures of everything. Here are a couple highlights:
Craftsy offers a few free classes for novices like me. I recently took the Bag Making Basics Reversible Tote and Zipper Pouch class. Kristen Link of Sew Mama Sew fame taught the class. Before the class, I had never sewn a zipper or used interfacing. I can now whip up one of these bags in about an hour.
My first attempt was a zipper pouch/make up bag I made in a Michael Miller Eiffel Tower Print. I tweeked the second and third attempts so that they would be the appropriate size for a Kindle Fire case. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of those particular finished projects.
After making pouches for everyone else, I made this make-up pouch out of left over jelly roll strips in Moda Spa print. I put a layer of fusible fleece between heavy weight sew-in interfacing.
Here is the final product. I have to say I am really happy with the results! My husband tells me I should put these on Etsy.
If you have searched for quilting tutorials on Youtube, you have no doubt run into any number of the Missouri Star Quilt Company tutorials. This is one the few videos that Jenny does not star in.
This is a really easy (even for me) tube quilt made from jelly roll strips.
I chose Moda's Spa by Deb Strain for this particular quilt. My sister doesn't read this so I can say to the world wide web that it's her Christmas gift.
You start by sewing alternating jelly roll strips. In this case I sewed blue-white-blue and another strip of white-blue-white. Now this is where the "tube" part comes in. The next thing you do is sewing these strips together (face to face).
As you can see from the video, you need a quilting ruler to get the correct angle to create a square.
For the quilt backing, I chose Spa Tonal Cobalt Damask Yardage, which I purchased from the Fat Quarter Shop. What I liked about the Fat Quarter Shop is that if they don't have what you're looking for in stock, or there is a note that says "coming soon", you can enter your email address and be notified right away when your product is available.
After piecing all the blocks together, I had an excess number of triangle shaped scraps that I turned into a series of squares. I then created a striped line down the back of the quilt, two thirds of the way accross. I have already "stitched in the ditch" but I want to fill the white areas with free-motion designs. I am learning as I go that miss-matching the thread is a bad idea. Even on my new Janome, I having having tension issues that are magnified by the fact that the bobbing thread is dark blue and the top thread is white. I think I'm going to have to rip these stitches and start again. I put this down last night and plan to come back to it.
