Handmade Holidays

Now that gifts have been opened, it's time for hand made reveals! 

Thanks to the magic of internet I got to watch my mom, brother and sister in law open their gifts!

This Rock Candy table topper is made out of the remnants of one of my very first quilts, a bargello.

 

I need to photograph that quilt. It was pre-blogging. The border fabric is all wine labels. I had just enough left to make this table topper, a table runner for Shawna (my sister in law), and the plus table runner below, which is going to our landlord.

The second plus table runner is made out of a French looking fabric called Savonnerie.

 Funny story - about 10 years I made my dad a quilt. I gave it to him on his first trip to Germany. On his first day in the country. After a very long flight. When he got home he didn't remember where the quilt came from! He told me "SOME artists SIGN their work." LOL. So ... LABELS! I bought some fabric with pre-printed labels, so you just have to write your name in.

 I made this cat apron for a friend who did NOT want his face on the internet.

 I made the kids fleece PJ pants. Haven had picked out the robot fabric a long time ago, but I never got them made. So I ended up getting her some cat fleece and using the robot fleece for Ethan. But I had guilt for giving him her robots.

 So I made her some shorts. This photo says it all!

You want me to MATCH my brother?!?!?

For Rob I made the Jedediah Pants from Thread Theory.

 This is a really nice pattern!! I didn't really finish the pants because I thought they would need fitting, but they actually fit perfectly! Just need to shorten the legs to the right length.

 

I made this tester pair out of lightweight denim, so the next pair will need to be twill or something. So that means Rob has to go fabric shopping!! Mwahahahaha!!!

I helped Petrina with the pattern for her Quilt of Valor that she gave to her husband today. The stars glow in the dark!!!

 Megan was in the Kaleidoscope quilt class I taught in October, and this is her finished quilt top. It's beautiful!

 I made a new School House Tunic out of my favorite fabric from the 25th and Pine line from Moda.

 Here's a closeup of the fabric. I love it!

 

These cookies were supposed to look like a poinsettia, but I had a really hard time make red frosting. So I give you day glow hot pink poinsettia cookies!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! I hope to see all of your handmade gifts too!

X and + Quilt

Everyone is on the X and + Quilt bandwagon these days it seems! I actually started mine a year ago, but just finished it in May. My dear friend Ariane turned 50 and this quilt was for her.

 She loves orange. It's her favorite color! The fabric is from the Moda "Comma" line from last year (or was it the year before...). It's all punctuation marks, so it was fun to make a quilt that is X's and +'s with punctuation mark fabric!

This quilt is double sided! I actually started out with this side, which is a Zen Chic pattern for Moda called Card Trick, I think. I instagrammed this in March of 2013 saying I wasn't sure if I liked it and it might become a backing. And that's exactly what happened.

This is the "front" but really they are both stand alone quilt tops! This is the X and + pattern. This is also a Zen Chic pattern from Moda, but I found a free tutorial for the block here if you are interested. Apparently the block can be dated back to 1938!

Modern fabrics with a traditional pattern. That's how I like to quilt - bridging old and new.

And this was my favorite moment of handing the quilt over. Several of the ladies from the church swarmed as soon as we unfolded the quilt!

I love that so many young people are enjoying quilting and that we can all share a love for fabric and design even when our color and pattern choices are so wildly different than "traditional" quilting. I guess I'm not really a modern quilter. I'm not into improve, or crazy curves or any of that artsy stuff. But I'm not traditional either. I can't stand Thimbleberries or Civil War reproduction fabrics! (Sorry!) But somewhere in the middle is a happy place where I can combine modern fabrics with traditional quilt designs and be happy.

Layer Cake Quilt

Pattern: Honey Honey Layer Cake Quilt

Fabric: PB & J from Moda

I love this fabric line! It is so pretty. It has all the colors that I love. If you look inside my closet, all my clothes are these colors! I haven't put on a binding yet, but other than that this quilt is done. I serged the edges after quilting so that it would be ok to leave in the store until I can get the binding on it. 

This quilt is the one that I learned the hard way that you cannot leave the computerized long-arm alone. It "ate" a block of my quilt. Super big sad face. I stopped the machine and stared at it for awhile. I managed not to cry, but it's my worst quilting fear - that I will rip a quilt on the long-arm machine. Someday I MAY pick the quilting out and replace the little square with the hole, but I doubt it. My colleague suggested I put a label there. It might take a big label, but it was good idea! 

This fabric just called to me too much to only make one quilt out of it. I think this will be the first time I've ever made two quilts out of the same fabric! I have a Trip Around the World in progress with the same fabric line.

BONUS: Do you spot the mistake?? I just saw it!! Well, that's one more reason to make another one out of this fabric. : )

Trip Around the World

I love what I do for a living, working for the Army, but one of the sad things about what I do is that people leave. About every three years families pack up and move on to their next station. It makes it hard to get to know people when they leave so quickly. 

But every now and then someone makes a big difference. I have been lucky enough to have several of these people in my life - people who helped me become a better person. This month we are saying goodbye to one of those people. My dear friend Stacy (in the middle) is moving.

Stacy is leaving for a really great reason - she got a promotion to a division chief position! This is what she should be doing. She is absolutely incredible at what she does. She worked as the Financial Management Chief here in our garrison, and as such she helped SO MANY of us! We had to throw her a really great send off! 

I toyed around with different quilt ideas and settled on the Trip Around the World pattern. 

I had wanted to make this for a while and was planning to make it as a sample for the store. But after thinking about it I realized it was the perfect quilt for someone continuing her literal trip around the world!

The fabric is Soho Chic from Moda. (I'm making another sample for the store out of PB & J. I'm half way done with the blocks on that one.)

I used the jelly roll method of making the quilt using this tutorial. I used the scraps to add rows in between the blocks, creating an extra point. I purposely used the blue through the middle of each block to really draw attention to the diamond shape. 

Do you see the little floating blue squares in the first border? That was my favorite little detail. 

For quilting I wanted something travel related. And I wanted to use the Quilt Path and let the computer quilt it. I found some cool castle patterns from one of the digitized patterns companies and thought it was perfect! Can you kind of see the castle?  

The quilt is SO busy that the quilting pattern kind of got lost in the quilt. So blah, but at least she knows it's there. These are the two patterns so you can see how awesome they are!

I had a moment of inspiration when I realized the leftover fabric from the backing was the perfect size for a bag. I sort of used a drawstring bag tutorial from the internet, but I didn't have it with me at the time, so I kind of winged it. It worked out ok! 

Here's Stacy receiving the quilt at the farewell party. She loved it! 

XO Table Runner and Mini Quilt

I have been obsessed with these little blocks lately! They are so easy to make, and depending on where you put the print or the neutral you can completely change the look of the block. 

So this table runner is not a new idea, but I had fun making it, and I took pictures while I was sewing! So I'm sharing the XO Table Runner and Mini Quilt.

XO Table Runner Tutorial

Materials:

1 Charm Pack (I used Table For Two from Moda)

1/2 yard neutral (I used the white on white from the line)

1/2 yard for backing

1/4 yard for binding

Step 1: 

You need 40 squares of your print for the block. I pulled the two cream squares out of my charm pack and used the other 40 squares. If your charm pack comes with less squares you may need to supplement with some yardage, or a second charm pack. But anyway, you need 40 squares.

Cut those 40 squares down to 4 1/2"

And cut 80 squares from the neutral that are 2 1/2"

Step 2:

Put one small square in the corner of one large square (right sides together) and sew across the diagonal as shown below.

One thing that helps me with this is to put a piece of tape lining up with the 0 on my machine. Then I follow the tape with the bottom corner of the square. Pretty washi tape makes it fun! If this doesn't make sense, you can draw a line across the diagonal of the square and then sew on the line. 

 Do that over and over until you get through all 40 of your squares. 

Step 3:

Now, if you are crazy like me you can do this next step. If not, feel free to skip it. But really, why not go ahead and go for it?? 

Go back through your whole stack and sew another stitch 1/4" from your first stitch, closer to the outer corner. We can use these little scrap pieces later!

If you did this extra step your blocks will look like this now.

Step 4:

OK! Now switch your blocks around and repeat all those steps on the opposite side of the block.

Here's what you have now! If you skipped the crazy step then you'll only have one stitch on each square.

Now take a break and enjoy my kitty "helping" me sew! I swear they make fabric out of cat nip, because my cat goes CRAZY for it. Maybe in his former life he was a quilter... 

Step 5: 

In order to keep the block 4 1/2" I have a pressing trick. Line up the corners of the squares and press. Don't worry about the stitching line. Really. Just line up the corners. This way you don't have to square up the blocks later!

Do you see the yellow fabric there? I recovered my ironing board FINALLY. I made it myself! 

Ok, so now you should have a nice neat pile of squares that look like this.

Step 6:

Now snip off the scrap corner. Be careful that you only cut those layers and don't catch the top layer! Cut between the lines of stitching. You can use a rotary cutter, but I think scissors are easier here.

And here's your pile now!

Step 7:

Do yourself a favor and iron these little babies now. Trust me, if you don't do it now you'll be tired later and miss out on all the fun!

Blurry pile of tiny half square triangles.

I don't know if you are interested, but I thought I would share my sewing set up. I sew at the dining room table, and this is my little corner that I've taken over. I lowered my ironing board to sit next to me so I don't have to stand while I press blocks. When not in use, my board fits perfectly under the 3-seater sofa, and my big quilting mat fits under the 2-seater. It's my hide-away quilting room!

Step 8:

The reward for all your hard work pressing! Now you get to lay out your table runner! All 40 of your blocks are exactly the same, so all you have to do is rotate how you lay it down to make your X and O shapes.

Step 9:

Sew the pieces together. My method is to flip the right block over the left block,

and then make a pile of that column's blocks.

 Then I take that pile to the machine and sew them together on the right side. Then I lay those blocks back on the table so I don't have to worry about getting them out of order.

Step 10:

Repeat the piecing method, sewing the pairs together. 

When you get all the pieces sewn together across the row you'll end up with four rows that look like this.

Step 11:

Flip the quilt over to the back side and press each row in opposite directions. This will help your seams to nestle together when you sew the rows together. 

Closeup of how the seams go in opposite directions.

Step 12:

Sew your rows together, give it a good pressing, and you have a table runner! I am liking pressing my seams open these days to get a super flat quilt top. But feel free to press all the seams one direction. Whatever makes you happy!

Here's my table runner in action, sans quilting. 

Step 13: 

Quilt and Bind! I used a walking fit to echo the shape of the x's and o's, and also a stitch in the ditch between all the blocks. Then I bound it with one of the light pinks from the line. 

The backing is a panel piece from the line. It was too wide to use the whole width, and too narrow to just use one strip. But I went with one and added two pieces of fabric to the sides. I really like how it turned out!

Table for two please!

Valentine Mini Quilt

Now we get to use all your little scraps!! I had so much fun with this part!

You will have 80 little half square triangles to play with. You can use all of them, or only some. I had some fun playing with layouts.

Chevrons

Diamond

Pinwheels

Boxes

Here's the one I went with. I love it!

This little guy isn't quilted yet, but it will be soon. It's the perfect size for a placemat, but only having one I don't think I will use it for that. Could be a candle mat, or a table topper. But I think it will hang on my wall as a mini quilt. It's a little big for a true mini quilt, but I'll forgive it.