Blogger's Quilt Festival: Converging Corners Charity Quilt

I'm excited to enter this quilt into the Bloggers Quilt Festival! This is a Converging Corners pattern that I made with the Faith Circle of do.Good stitches.

I chose this pattern for my month and everyone in the group made 2 squares in the color palette of purple, aqua, and periwinkle blues. For a slight twist on the regular pattern I asked members of the group to use some gray along with white for the background colors.

After I stitched the top together, my friend Rachel at 2nd Avenue Studio generously quilted it for me. Then it was off to our charity, Restore Innocence, which helps girls that have been rescued from human trafficking.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Mini Modern Art Quilt

I've decided to enter this quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, by Amy's Creative Quilts, one of my favorite quilting blogs!

This Mini Modern Art Quilt was for round 7 of the Mini Art Quilt Swap on Craftster. I organize this swap once or twice a year and love doing so! We each provide our partners with 5-10 themes and we go to work, making a quilt with dimensions anywhere between 12" x 12" and 24" x 24." This one is about 18" x 21", I think?

My partner listed modern, modern/traditional, and funky and bright as a few of her themes. I decided to play with all solids and a few other techniques like string piecing and foundation piecing. I also bought a really cool tool to make the quarter circles, the Corner to Corner Curve Strip Ruler by Creative Grids. I picked this up at Fabric Depot and was really pleased with it.

The colors are all a little brighter in person and the coral/orange is a wonderful color, very bright but at the same time just a bit muted so it's not quite obnoxious. It's a Bella Solid.

 
I found this fabric in my stash and decided it was perfect for the back. It's a little heavier weight than regular quilting cottons, but not quite home dec weight. I'm not sure if it's a vintage fabric I got from The Knittn' Kitten or maybe it's an Ikea fabric? Either way I really like it.

My swap partner had this quilt pinned on her Pinterest and I started with that for some inspiration. From there I drew a sketch and refined it and fiddled with the measurements and colors until it was just how I wanted it. The actual quilt is fairly similar to my drawing, although some changes ocurred due to measurement issues and my whims.

I quilted it with some paralell pairs of diagonal straight lines. I like the way this seemed to bring the quilt together and made the disparate sections of the quilt seem a little more cohesive.

Quilted French Memo Board

I was putting up all my art up last week in my sewing room and came across a few mementos I decided I wanted to hang up. A french memo board seemed the best way to display them, but I only have one and it's in use in another room. I thought briefly about buying one, then said "screw it" and decided to whip one up.

Materials Needed:

--Fabric panel or pieced fabric
--Piece of mid to heavy weight, iron-on interfacing, 1/2 inch smaller than your fabric panel
--Piece of low loft batting 2 inches bigger than fabric panel
--Piece of backing fabric the same size as the batting (it can be crappy fabric, it's not going to be seen)
--Spray Baste (if you don't use this, you're gonna have a bad time, and it's gonna suck, and then I'm gonna do my "I told you so" dance)
--Approximately 3 yards of ribbon, bias tape, whatever you want to create the french memo part. 3 yards was exactly perfect for my 19 inch square project, if your panel is bigger you'll need more ribbon
--Contrasting strips of material for binding, 2 1/2 inches wide and enough to equal the perimeter of your fabric panel plus about 12 inches.

1.) Trim your panel to a square size. Mine is 19 inches. Take the slightly smaller iron-on interfacing (mine is 18 1/2 inches square) and iron carefully to the wrong size of your fabric panel. I'm using an awesome Laura Gunn panel. I have one more too!

2.) Place your backing fabric, which is 21 inches square in my project (slightly bigger than the panel fabric) right side down on your surface. (you may want to cover surface with newspaper first, since spray baste can be messy). Place the 21 inch square piece of low loft batting on top of the backing fabric and line up carefully. Pull the top half of the batting backwards and fold it halfway, exposing half of the backing fabric. Spray the backing fabric carefully and lightly with Basting Spray. Fold the batting back into place, smoothing out from the middle to the sides. Rotate and baste the second half of the backing fabric.

3.) Place your panel fabric, right side facing down, in front of you. Place the batting/backing on top of it, centering carefully (remember we have a couple extra inches now). Fold back halfway as before and spray baste, smooth carefully, then rotate and complete second half in same way.

Congratulations, you've basted the quilt sandwich! Now we're going to quilt in a wavy, crisscrossing lines pattern. It's easy and you don't need to use a special foot or drop the feed dogs or anything.

4.) Beginning in the middle top of your fabric panel, begin stitching while using one hand on each side of the quilt sandwich to "drive" the fabric back and forth. As you wiggle and turn the fabric, you'll quilt a wavy line down the middle. When you get to the end, cut your threads and start back at the top, about an inch to the right. Continue quilting, moving to the right until you get to the end. Turn your quilt around so the bottom is now the top, and begin quilting your wavy lines again, moving each line an inch to the right and frequently cutting your threads so they don't make a big mess.

(oops I seem to be missing this picture. The next picture is slightly in progress, the middle is criss crossed but the sides are still just parallel wavy lines)

5.) You can stop there, or you can now make another set of lines, crisscrossing the ones you already made. This time, start just to the left or right of a line (about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch) and make even bigger wiggles and turns so with each wiggle you're crossing back and forth over two of the lines you just created. Keep moving right, crossing over two lines. Sometimes I cross over three lines, or go back and do an extra line if it looks like it needs to be filled in a little more. Play with it and have fun! When you get to the edge, flip it around and work on the other half.

6.) Using a ruler and rotary cutter, trim off the excess backing and batting.

7.) Take the ribbon or bias tape and spread a piece out, diagonally corner to corner. I'm using some vintage polka dot bias tape. Trim so it overhangs the corner just a little bit. Pin in place. Do the same with the other corner. At each corner, stitch down and back stitch. Also stich in the center over the top of where the ribbon overlaps itself.

After stitching the corners, trim the excess ribbon carefully, so it won't be a problem later when we bind the memo board.

8.) Now fold the quilt in half and mark the mid points at top and bottom with a disappearing marking pen. Fold the opposite way and do the same thing. The mid point of each side should now be marked.

Take your ribbon and lay it from the top midpoint to the right midpoint. Pin in place. Continue around the memo board, putting a total of 4 pieces of ribbon on and pinning carefully, especially where it overlaps the diagonal ribbon we already stitched on. Make sure that the ribbon sticks out over the edge a tiny bit.

Stitch these pieces of ribbon down at the edges and every place they overlap the diagonal ribbons.

9.) Bind your memo board in whichever way you like best, or use my machine binding tutorial

10.) If you like, sew buttons or something else decorative over the intersecting ribbon to cover up your stitching. I was going to but I got too excited and hung it up.

11.) Hang your memo board using pushpins and add your pictures or mementos!

Complete Machine Stitched Binding Tutorial

It's ok to machine bind. Or any other "rule breaking" quilting technique you want to do. It's ok. I used to be a bit ashamed that I don't hand bind, but I'm letting go of that.

My crafting philosophy is about how to get the most done with the least time/effort. I like short cuts. I'm ok with that. If I were to hand bind my quilts like you are "supposed to" I would have precisely 0 quilts completed, rather than dozens. I have come a long, long way in machine binding and have finally developed this method after tons of practice and experimenting.

This tutorial is going to assume nothing about your quilting skills, please excuse any simplicity in the interest of full clarity. And, actually, if you want to hand bind, just follow the tutorial up until the last step (and also attach your binding to the front, rather than the back).

Materials needed:

Quilt sandwich
2 1/2 inch strips of fabric to equal the perimeter of your quilt sandwich plus about 12 inches (more for seaming)
1/4 inch foot for your machine (not a total necessity, but it's nice!)
steaming iron

To start with we'll do a little math and cut our binding strips. My quilt sandwich for this project was 19 inches square. 19 x 4 =76
76 + 12 =88
WOF (width of fabric) is about 42-44, let's say error on the lower side and then say 41 after cutting the selvedge off. So, to hit 88 inches we'll need 2 strips of fabric. I went nuts and decided to do 2 1/2.

1.) Cut your fabric strips 2 1/2 inches wide. I fold my fabrics selvedge to selvedge, and then once again and slice off the end through 4 layers. You need to be careful doing this so it's not crooked, but it's another one of my shortcuts/something I don't do "exactly right."  

2.) Once you have your strips, piece them together on a diagonal. A diagonal seam will help the bulk be spread out in the final binding, rather than all on top of each other making a thick spot that looks weird and is tough to sew over.

Lay 2 strips right side together perpendicularly to each other, and pin on both sides as in the picture. With a pencil and ruler, draw a diagonal line from corner to corner.

Using a standard foot, stitch along the line and cut off the excess fabric, leaving a 1/4 seam allowance or so.

Press the joining seams open.

3.) Press your binding. Fold in half, wrong sides together, and press, using some steam if you like (I like).

Yay, pretty binding!

4.) Now we'll attach it to the backside of your quilt sandwich. That's right, the back. Usually when binding you start on the front. Start by changing to your 1/4 inch foot, if using one.

Pin your binding to the back of the quilt sandwich. With one pin, it's the only pin we're going to use. Pick the middle or right side of any one side of your quilt sandwich and pin the binding. Leave about 6-8 inches of binding dangling, we'll use that later. The raw edge of your binding should align with the raw edge of your quilt sandwich.

5.) Begin to stitch, using a 1/4 inch seam. I use my 1/4 inch foot for this, again, because it's easy and consistent. Back stitch whenever you start and stop in the following directions. Stitch until you are 1/4 inch from the first corner.

Back stitch and pull the work out. You may cut the thread or let it dangle, whichever you prefer.

Now we are going to fold to create the mitered corners. Fold the binding to your right, creating a diagonal crease. Sadly my fingers are kind of in the way so you can't see the fold very well, but you can see the angle that I folded the binding.

Now, holding that first diagonal fold in place, fold the binding straight down, so it is now parallel with the next side we will be sewing.

Rotate your work as we are now sewing a new side and carefully ease the folded binding back into your machine. Starting at the very edge (not 1/4 inch in like when we stopped sewing), begin sewing and go ahead and back stitch.

6.) Continue stitching all sides and work each corner as described above. When you round the fourth corner*, stitch a couple of inches on the new side (the side you started on), back stitch, and remove from the machine. Now we are going to connect the binding beginning to the end.

*This is a small quilt, if you're working on a big one then maybe you want to stitch halfway down the side or more, usually having 1-2 feet of working space is ideal. More than that and your binding might be too loose, less than that and it's a nightmare to sew together.

7.) Usually we're told to overlap the ends of the binding as much as their original width. I've found that that makes my binding a little bit too loose, so I subtract 1/4 inch from that. Since we started with 2 1/2 inch wide binding, we want to overlap 2 1/4 inches. Lay a ruler on top of the dangling binding from the beginning (remember how we left a piece unstitched before our first and only pin?) and the piece you rounded the corner with. Overlap them 2 1/4 inches and cut off any tails. If you center this as well as you can it will be easier for the next step.

8.) Attach the ends of the binding together. (You might need to switch back to your regular foot for this step, I always do). To do this, you want to open up the binding and put the two pieces right sides together in the same perpendicular manner as we did earlier. The more room you have to do this, the easier, so if you have several inches of not stitched down binding on each side, all the better (this is why we left the binding dangling at the beginning and stopped stitching soon after we came around that final corner).

Pin, draw your diagonal line, and stitch as before. Before cutting your seam allowance however, be sure to fold the binding back together, just to make sure you've stitched correctly. I can't tell you how many times I stitched on the wrong diagonal or had the binding twisted. As long as you haven't cut off the excess seam allowance yet, it's not too hard to rip out your stitches and start again.

Ok, once you know you're good you can trim and iron the seam allowance, and then iron the seam in your binding fold again since it's probably a little messed up.

9.) Finish sewing the last side of your binding. Back Stitch. Yay, your binding is now attached and you have done a continuous binding! Go ahead and switch back to your regular foot, we're done with the 1/4 inch foot now.

10.) This step insures a crisp fold and an even amount of binding showing on the front side. Take the folded side of the binding and fold it again so that the original fold is perpendicular to the raw edges. We're going to iron this on all four sides. Don't get too close to the corners, leave them alone for now.

11.) Go ahead and flip your quilt over to the right side. We're going to machine sew the binding to the front now, using the regular foot for your machine. I would advise changing to a color of thread that closely matches the color of your binding if you want it to blend in. I usually do so, but didn't this time. Starting in the middle of one side, fold the binding over to the right side of the quilt. The fold we just created with the iron will line up with the edge of the quilt and fit snugly.

12.) We're going to being stitching very, very closely and slowly to the edge of the binding fold. If your machine has a speed regulator, I recommend slowing it down. Begin stitching 2 needle widths or so from the edge of the fold of the binding (maybe a millimeter? If you're very far away from the edge it will stick up and not look good). Only take 1 or 2 backstitches as you begin. Like I said, pins aren't needed. Just fold a few inches over at a time, going slowly, and stitch them down. The folded binding will easily cover the 1/4 inch stitch line we used attaching the binding.

13.) When you get a few inches away from the corner, fold and smooth the next side down a few inches from the corner (the binding that is currently horizontal to your machine). Use your finger to fold all the way to the corner. When you get to the corner, fold your current side (the side your are currently stitching) down. Hold the corner in place as you stitch to the corner. (the next 4 pictures probably show this better than words)

Stop with your needle down in the corner, raise your presser foot, and pivot the work beneath you. Sew the new sides, slowly and carefully until you get to the next corner and proceed as above. When you get back to your starting place, backstitch just two or three times. Carefully cut your thread ends. Do a little binding dance, because you're done, baby!

Wip Wednesday--Blocks and Swaps

I managed to get a bit of sewing done this week. I have a few more things I want to get to, but I started with the most time sensitive. What I'm actually working on next is a baby quilt for a friend. His baby girl was just born yesterday, and on his birthday! I have the top 75% completed already, so I just need that final push.  I always consider once I've got it basted that I'm home free, since that's my stumbling block and I can quilt and bind so quickly.

After that baby quilt, my next project will be to work on my July quilt top for do.Good stitches. I picked a Greek cross block and asked people to use plum, coral, emerald, and navy.

 

 

I think I've received all of my blocks at this point, but knew there was no way I could get to work on it until the meetup was done.

So, what I finished this week was my August block for my Faith circle of do.Good stitches. The block was designed by my group leader and the tutorial can be found here.

I also finished a swap for Craftster that is going out in the next day or two. It was a fat quarter swap, you took two fat quarters and made whatever you thought your partner would like out of them using up as much of the fabric as possible. So, maybe it would be one bag, or 3 small things, or some other combo, but it was less about size/number of items than most swap requirements tend to be.

I ended up making a little clutch from Noodlehead, a zigzag mug rug, an offset square wrist pincushion (which did not really come out correctly), and then I played slice and dice with the scraps, stitching and cutting and then turning the results into a little drawstring pouch.