Alex's Winter Quilt

I bought half of the fabric for Alex's winter quilt today. I'm just using 16 different flannel prints. I'm doing that trip to the country pattern but with his flannel instead.

I was cutting some of the fabric up tonight and Alex kept running a marathon in his crib and making noise so I went in and got him so he wouldn't disturb Grandma anymore. I'd have finished cutting the 8" wide strips but Alex insisted he needed to help and kept trying to grab the rotary cutter from me and my ruler so I had to put it up for the night.

This quilt is going to take me a little bit longer than the last trip to the country one because I'm actually going to draw the 1/4 inch seams on the back of the fabric pieces.

Winter Quilt for Alex

I'm planning on making Alex a winter quilt to take along in the car to keep him warm. I'm planning on doing the same pattern as in this picture except I'm going to use flannel. I'm planning on leaving the squares 8 inches instead of trimming them down like I did with this quilt.



In other quilting news. I showed my MIL the two quilts I made and the one I am currently working on and she told me I should try to enter my quilts in a contest. I told my mom what she said and she agreed with her. I don't feel like my quilting is quite that good yet though. I'm working on it. :) The hardest part is getting a 1/4 inch seam allowance since I don't have that marked on my sewing machine. The first seam allowance marked on my machine is 3/8ths.

Applique

At some point in my quilting "career" I want to learn how to do applique.

I tried last night but I don't think my machine is good for machine applique. Or maybe I'm supposed to be turning the edge under and THEN doing the sewing. I was just trying it out last night without looking anything up.

Maybe the buttonhole feature would work for the sewing?

I was just trying to look up at the local community college what a basic quilting course teaches to see if it would be about my skill level or not.

Okay I looked up the beginning quilting at the community college. This is what the description says

How to create a beautiful and durable source of
warmth and comfort. Come and learn this traditional
American art. You will be introduced to basic quilting
techniques. Students practice during class and
furnish all materials. You will complete a quilted wall
hanging composed of six different quilting patterns
and techniques.

And that's really broad. :)

Union Square Blocks

I got my 2 3/8 squares cut earlier and cut them into HST's. And then I started sewing them together. I've got 18 of them done, 16 of them ironed.

There's 56 to make and I'm at 18. LOL.

I still have to make up the centers of all union square blocks. And then make the "borders" for the blocks.

Homeward Bound Blocks Done!

I have my 8 homeward bound blocks done! Okay so I have to iron the seams on the back of the last 4 but the hard part is done!

Now I move on to the harder blocks! I hope there won't be a lot of cursing with the union square blocks :)

This is what my homeward bound blocks look like :)

And if anybody can tell me how to use images already uploaded to blogger? When I insert an image it says its uploading it to blogger. Do I have to keep uploading the picture or is there some way to insert it again without having to upload it yet again?

Amy Butler Fabric

I bought some Amy Butler fabric from a co-op a bit back and don't have any plans for it. I had originally bought it to sell on Ebay but by the time I got the fabric I had shut down my Ebay business.

So now I have 4 yards of fabric with nothing to do with it. It's so luxurious, so soft. Feels nicer than the normal fabric I buy! :)

Kaleidoscope Picture

This is the picture I'm working from. Well there are cutting instructions and such but for some reason I just cannot get the pieces to line up right. I don't think I was cutting straight, it seemed like it but I think the fabric wasn't lined up just right.

Kaleidoscope Quilt

I bought fabric tonight to try and make a kaleidoscope quilt but I don't think it's going to work. I don't think I got the fabric just right. And I only need 21" tall of fabric. Guess I could always measure out 21" tall then rip the fabric across.

Joann's Blocks of the Month

We went to Joann's tonight looking for fabric to do a kaleidoscope quilt, and I saw the blocks of the month had finally come in. They've had the clearanced ones for what seemed like forever but they finally got the next set in.

I asked Eric if I could get the first one and then I figured out the price on my phone.

$6.99 for one block, times 12 blocks.

Add in $34.99 for the setting kit.

And that's $118.87 BEFORE TAXES!!! And even at the size it will end up being it still isn't big enough for a queen sized bed. I'd have to buy more fabric to make it big enough to fit our bed.

Maybe I'm being cheap? I've earned enough money from my online thing that I could just about buy it all but $118 for a not even queen sized quilt seems expensive to me.

The quilt I'm making now is supposed to finish at 46x64 inches and the total yardage I need is 8 yards and that includes the backing and binding. At $2.99 a yard that will cost me less than $25 for all the fabric.

4 Union Square partially done

I have 4 of the union squares partially done. I have the center square and then the 4 triangles on each side of that square. I still have to add more triangles around the outside of that newly formed square. Plus I have 3 more of them to make.

I have 4 of the homeward bound squares done. I have the rest of the left and right parts of the block ready to go through the machine, I just have to sit down and do it. Then I put in the center part of the blocks and send them through the machine again and then those will be done.

I have to make a bunch of HST's for the union square block. See instead of telling me to cut them into triangles in the directions it tells me to layer the 2 different color strips together, cut out the squares, then cut them diagonally and sew the triangles and I'll end up with I think it's 56 HST's.

I prefer to do all my cutting first. Unless it's a big quilt or just a lot of cutting. I took a few nights before I started this quilt and worked on all the cutting but since I hadn't read through all the directions I didn't know I'd be doing any more cutting.

Homeward Bound Block

I have 4 of the homeward bound blocks done. Only 4 more to go until I'm done with them. Then comes the harder block, the union square one.

I just laid it down on the scanner to take the picture of it. I haven't ironed all the seams open yet, I just wanted to get it up here. :)

I'm pretty proud of how my stuff lines up! Granted stuff might not be lined up exactly and might be just a smidge off as far as lining up goes, but it looks pretty good! You can tell from the picture what I mean about the edges not being even due to the squares being shorter than they were supposed to be due to the seam allowance I used.

But I'll square them all up after I'm done and get ALL the blocks done, both homeward bound and union square.

Ah Crap!

I was trying to figure out why my squares weren't lining up with both edges of my strip and I figured out why. It's because I cut the strip longer than the square.

I'm not using a 1/4 seam on my sewing machine, it's the first line on the plate to the right of the needle. I want to say 3/8ths?

Steps are as follows.

1. Join 2 of the 2" wide black strips and the 2" wide blue strips to make 2 strip units as shown. Cut the strip units into a total of 32 segments each 2" wide.

2. Join the remaining 2" wide black strips and 2 of the 3 1/2 wide blue strips to make 2 strip units as shown. Cut the strip units into a total of 16 segments each 3 1/2" wide.

So step 1 the strips are supposed to end up 3 1/2" by 2". Except since I didn't use a 1/4 inch seam my strips ended up 3x2"

Step 2 my strips are supposed to end up 6 1/2" by 3 1/2". And since I didn't use a 1/4 inch seam my strips ended up 6" by 3 1/2".

Step 1 creates the white and blue squares that are next to each other.

Step 2 creates the blue strip, white square, blue strip.

All of this is on the left of that red square.

Since step 2 ended up wider than step 1 I'm going to have to trim the squares down once I'm done. Hopefully this won't be too difficult!

Help With Blogger

Is there some way to make like a favorites list so I don't have to bookmark all the blogs on here I like? And maybe also some way to see who has updated their blog and who hasn't?

The Union Square Block is Hard

This is the block I'm making. My directions say to start with that purple square in the middle, then add the 4 blue triangles onto each side. Then you add 4 purple triangles that are bigger than the blue ones.

Except I'm trying to get the blue triangles perfectly lined up with the center of the purple square. So that is what is making it hard. Sometimes I'm not getting it perfectly right. And when I did is I started folding my purple squares to find the center point and I folded the triangles so I could line up the center of the triangle with the center of the square.

It works. And I'm using a bigger stitch so that if I do mess up on lining everything up it is easy to rip it back out.

What to do with quilts?

So once you have made enough quilts for you, what do you do with the rest? My son has his own quilt, I have a lap quilt, I have an Amish like quilt in the making. I like making quilts, but I surely won't need more than just a few around our house, so what do you do with the rest of them?

I guess I could always make one for my mom (she's been wondering lately if I could make her one), one for my MIL just as a gift, one for my FIL and his wife.

But even after those people then what?

Awww :)

I just put Alex to bed for the night. I kept telling him to lay down and I was holding up his quilt. He kept laying his head down on it and I told him that I can't wrap his head up.

So I just handed it to Alex and told him to lay down. I was getting ready to close his bedroom door and looked back at him and he was laying down on his tummy with the blanket in his arms or underneath him. :)

Awww he loves the quilt I made him! :) My mom has been putting him to bed recently because she's staying with us while her house is finished and she said he likes to hold it when he goes to bed.

Next Quilt Project

I still have to finish quilting the Trip to the Country quilt but that is pretty close to being done. I've already bought the fabric for my next project. :) I've always wanted to do an Amish like quilt, just plain colors.

Trip to the Country Update

I finally have all the rows sewn. The top isn't completely sewn together yet but all the blocks are in their rows finally! I already know how I'm going to quilt it, I just have to get the rows all sewn together first. :)

More Pics of Alex's Quilt

This is before I washed the marker off of it.




This is how the quilt looks after the marker was washed off and it was loved some by Alex. The outer border (green) was a bit darker before it was washed but it still looks nice. And the blue inner border stayed the same color from what I can tell.

Alex's Quilt

Alex is my one year old son. I made this quilt for him from extra 4" squares I had laying around and I used a pattern I really liked online. I need to take a finished picture but haven't had the chance yet.

In the sections where the 4 big squares meet I quilted a heart. I googled heart outline, found one I liked then cut it out and pinned it to a piece of cardboard. I then traced the design with a red crayola marker onto the fabric and quilted around the hearts then threw the whole thing in the wash and had no problems with the marker coming out. It came out on the first wash and the quilt looks beautiful.

Alex really seems to enjoy it!