The Gift That Went Missing

Wonder clips holding binding in place. While it was foggy outside, it wasn't raining on this sunday for a photo shoot. I work during daylight hours, so this was my opportunity to get the whole quilt photographed.

 I made a quilt for my son and his girlfriend. A huge gingham style flannel throw.

A while back, he sent me a photo of their living room and the used rug his girlfriend had just bought on ebay.
A few days later, I saw my inspiration quilt over at SOTAK's site and I started planning a quilt.

What could go wrong?

Other than the fact that I don't quilt. ahem.

I carefully worked out the yardage and then grabbed Pencil Girl for a Fabric Depot visit.
We found the gingham colors of black, grey and white right away. The backing fabric in a deep red was easily located as well.
But then it took an hour and a half to decide on the binding fabric.
(this is number one of my reasons for why I don't quilt - endless fabric decisions that take hours).

Pencil Girl saved me by reminding me there isn't an even amount of squares of each color. We had to find an actual gingham and pen out a mini-map of the squares.

Then I washed  my flannels - cuz they shrink. Even though they were quilter's flannels, they still shrunk and not in the same way.

I cut my first squares with no problem. The 2nd fabric wasn't long enough to yield the same squares because the stupid fabric shrunk widthwise instead of lengthwise.

I left plenty of time for this quilt . I started it in October for a christmas finish knowing how busy I am during the holiday season at work.

This super easy large-block quilt required way too many overnight decisions. I decided to piece my squares on the 2nd and 3rd colors to get the right amount instead of going back to the store and hoping they still had the same fabrics.

It's flannel and no one would notice.

Uhhh...did I mention that flannel stretches? Each time I handled it, or ironed the seams flat, it stretched. It was a fun party attempting to get my squares to line up as I sewed the rows together.

 I wanted to add a small gingham motif to the backing to break it up but because of the afore-mentioned piecing of the squares, I barely had enough scraps to create a smallish motif.

I thought I had pieced my backing to the same size as the front. 70 inches x 70 inches across for a square quilt. But I didn't.

More overnight decisions. It's coming on Thanksgiving and I need to be further along on this project.
I decided a square throw is over-rated and decided to lop off one column of the gingham. Each square is 10" wide. So now my throw will be 60" wide x 70" tall. Better all around.

I finally get my quilt sandwich together and because of the stretching I encountered while piecing, I decide to hand-quilt this puppy. Machine quilting would probably result in wonky and wrinkly on the other side.

The hand-quilting went very well - probably the only thing in this darn quilt that did. I was contemplating stitching on both sides of the seams but it's flannel and there's enough nap to hold the fabric layers stable.    And the christmas time-crunch.

 I used a sashiko stitch which is really just a running stitch but a tad more refined.
For instance, in sashiko, you don't meet at intersections. There's a little space left in the middle, by design.

 For the binding, I used pillow ticking fabric to recreate the stripe
This fabric behaved as expected.

I hand-stitched the binding down. I zig-zagged my edges of the quilt to compress the layers.  I machine-sewed one side of the binding down and then folded it over to hand-stitch and finish.

And got it finished in time to ship to ds and girlfriend to arrive before christmas. Which  the tracking showed it did.

But it didn't.
Stay tuned for part two of why I don't quilt.

Sewing, Sewing

 I finally finished these QAYG (quilt as you go) bags.
Finally.

 I added a pocket specifically for essential oil storage. I have been on a scrap clean-up in my sewing room. I was guilted into sorting my scraps by color by two very OCD sewing friends and it came in handy when I needed four clothesline bowls in a hurry for gifting.

I figured I would sew together these turquoise and purple scraps too and enter Elm Street Quilt's Bag It   competition. Like, maybe, try to win some awesome prizes....

This project used up (not enough) scraps, one thread spool and one bobbin. 

 Last Saturday, I was able to hook up with Pencil Girl and I made her one of these super quick Pyramid Pouches. They are the size of a coin purse or a small  special pouch to hide some candy. (or a check for the 1/4 beef she lugged over for me)

We met up at Fabric Depot. They were running their warehouse sale. Pencil Girl was looking for fabric for Simplicity 1108. She almost suckered me into buying these two fabrics for the same cardigan. The floral would be the very drapey cardigan with the aqua blue being the bands.

Except I have little time to sew and this cardigan would force me to go buy a black/white tshirt and black jeans. Or something.  She is such an enabler.

I had a hankering for my Apple Cider Caramels. Recipe is from Smitten Kitchen.  ( I might come back and laboriously cut & paste all the hyperlinks in, or not)

 These are THE BEST caramels. They always turn out. They have that apple cider flavor from boiling down a quart of fresh northwest apple cider for 45 minutes to a thick syrup. The recipe is awesome.

 We were at Fabric Depot to buy materials to make this gingham flannel throw.

It's gonna be 70 inches square and we found the fabrics very quickly. But then, I remember WHY I DON"T QUILT. It took nearly an hour to pick out the binding. Not to mention the backing.
Good golly.

 

I washed all the flannel when I got home. Hung it to dry and started cutting my big 10.5" squares right away. No problem on the 'white' which is actually a textured light gray. 

 Then I started on the black and realized it had shrunk widthwise. Instead of 44" wide material, I had 40" wide material. Grrrr,... The "white' had shrunk lengthwise (which is typical!!!)

Screaming texts to Pencil Girl found a solution. Piece the squares. No one will notice - it's flannel.

And the Gray - the medium gray - did the same thing.

I spent most of today sewing all 49 squares together - see - that was the appeal of this throw. Only 49 squares. What could possibly go wrong?

Let's just say my seam ripper and I had a bit of closeness today.

And did you know that flannel stretches when you rip a seam out? And also when ironing? grrr.
Note to self: No more quilts.That's when I found this:

 

Yes, a gray gingham Pendleton throw. At the church rummage sale.
Alas, when I got home and shook it out, it had wool bugs. With some minuscule munched holes.

It did not save me from making this throw.
However some interesting texts back and forth put the thought of felting it into my brain for an unknown at present project. Felting it would take care of any lingering bugs. It's sitting in the garage while I catch my breath from all this sewing inspiration.

 Anyway, my quilt top is finished. All seams sewn, and pressed open.

Leaving you with some more stunning photos from the kids.

Photo credit: DS, Donner Lake, Nevada 2017

Photo credit: DS, Lake Tahoe 2017

Photo credit: DD's friend. Cloud's Rest, Yosemite, California

Star Baby Quilt

This baby quilt is destined for my substitute carrier (on my mail route). She's got about 5 weeks before she pops and I wanted to make her a little quilt.

 I keep some baby ideas in my Pinterest folder and this Star quilt jumped into my head. Fortuitously, Joann's fabrics had 60% off their crappy flannel.

I was trying to pick six colored flannels with the same size motif at Joann's and that was difficult as most of the flannel was most definitely for girls (frozen princesses anyone?). They also had a zillion blues but hardly any greens or reds.
 
I went for an I-Spy type of fabrics. These squares are 9" when sewn (HST's half square trangles) as this pattern was written using a layer cake cut of fabrics.

I bought enough extra for super shrinkage. This is one of my nicer point intersections where the flannel did not stretch out of whack.


 

 

For quilting, I sewed straight lines along the star shape and then tried some free motion quilting on the middle and sides.

First up is my pretty good FMQ of random lines. I did pretty good once I figured out my machine hated the thread I already had on my machine and reducing the thread pressure helped too. There are some skipped stitches here and there but I'm pretty sure babies eyesight up close isn't good enough to spot it.


And then, I tried some circles. I even drew on the fabric good - round - circles. A little wonky. Oh well. I know certain readers will have a good laugh over my crazy circles.

 I am over halfway sewing my binding down and then it will be finished. This new boy has an older sister named Olivia which is also fortuitous because my niece is named Olivia. I still  have some cute Olivia the pig fabric leftover to make a small purse to carry.

I still need to quilt the four corner squares. No idea what yet unless I repeat the squiggly line thing again. I'm pretty sure I won't be trying circles again....

Oh and Thank you for all your kind comments on my last post. My flu ended up going into bronchitus as in cough, cough, cough. I am feeling better on the energy front and am able to do my normal too many things in one day better.

Star pattern is here.

Plaid Flannel Fringed Scarf

A couple of weeks ago, I jetted over to Fabric Depot.   I was only there to get a small rotary cutter but ended up with a lot of inspiration as well.

As I was cruising to the side of the store where they keep notions, I spied this glorious flannel and next to it, a project sheet for making a fringed scarf. A collaboration between Sew4Home and Fabric Depot.

It looked simple. I knew immediately who it was for (creative friend) and it turned out to be very therapeutic, sitting on the couch, watching Harry Potter and then Gilmore Girls on Netflix, mindlessly extracting one thread after another to create the fringe.

I was so tired from working so much, that this project helped me be creative without taxing my brain. It probably took about 8 hours to fringe this. This is not a quick project, but it is simple.

Rocket Baby Quilt Finished

One quilt finished. Need to tackle my pink one still.

 A very windy and blustery Pooh day. 
Yesterday was stormier, today we get intermittent sunbreaks.

 The backing is a mini-check flannel. You can see the scraps in the binding.
Which makes my heart sing. That piece will not be added to stash.

I was able to hit FabricDepot yesterday for the backing fabrics after work and a doctor's appointment. There was an estate sale nearby that made driving out there worthwhile. I found some pinking shears that are the coolest ever.

I machine quilted using a wavy line found in my machines' hundred stitch library - very simple. 
Rows four inches apart. I'm not a fan of every inch needs to be quilted. I like the quilt to be more plush and soft.

Inside is Hobb's Heirloom Cotton Batting - another garage sale acquisition and mostly gone making these two baby quilts. Yay!

My Son's Flannel Quilt

 My son came home for a four-week break to intern at Fred Meyers and also sew a quilt.
He and his roomies have not turned on the heat at their house in Corvallis (--would not want to be his landlord) and run around at home all bundled up sitting next to electric heaters.
Actually, none of them are really ever home as they are all going to school or working.

You may remember last Christmas when he made this cool bottlecap coffee table.

This Christmas, he shopped with me at Fabric Depot. He chose manly flannels that went together quite well. Before we hit Fabric Depot, we decided on a simple strip quilt with a flannel sheet backing.

 Most of the flannels were printed with warm wool suiting motifs/checks - visually keeping you warm as well.

He sewed it all by himself, mastering my temperamental walking foot along the way.
I helped him with the mitered corners on the striped flannel and expert advice via texting as I was at work while he was sewing.

 He finished it off with a double layer of cotton batting and a flannel sheet backer.
For quilting, he tied it off.
Not in enough spots for me but enough for him.

My son had never sewn something of this magnitude and it turned out exactly how he wanted it to.