Batting Woes and Other Stuff

Well, a few days ago I went to Joanns to get backing and batting for my baby quilt. I like to buy flannel backings there because they are always about $3 a yard, and they have tons of cute designs. I usually batting there too because I can get it for cheap. But this time the batting I got may be too cheap!

I still really don't get battings. I like quilts that are really puffy and softs, so I always want high loft battings, but those are always hard to find. In this case I was in a rush, couldn't find that many battings in crib size anyways, and grabbed this high-loft crib batting:

It cost about the same as all of the other battings, so I didn't think of it as cheap (maybe the word "crafty" should have been a hint). But when I took it out of the bag today and laid it out on my backing for pinning, this is what it looked like:

 This is it lying flat. It is a lumpy mess. When I try to smooth it, it just bounces back to this lumpy shape. So what do you think? I can return it (the bag says "unconditionally guaranteed") or maybe let it sit a day and see if the shape relaxes out? Or I can pin the backing to the batting to stretch it out and do a second layer of pins to pin the top to the backing/batting? (Big danger there of sewing over pins...)

Not sure what to do and I would love any advice. Also, what battings do you use? I just don't know.

In the meantime I have been doing some needlepoint. Here is where I am now:

 I am working on the yellow fishies. Below is a shot held up to the light so you can see what has actually been stitched so far.

I also found a new game that I am currently in love with. It is called "blendoku" and you basically just put colors in order. Great practice for quilters and artists.

Here is an example level: It gives you the placement of two squares, and you have to figure out where the rest go.

And here it is all complete!

Baby Quilt Top Finish

Quilting remains slow here...life has been very busy! But today I got some time to finally finish off this baby quilt top.

I did not use pattern, but instead based my design around the fabric. I browsed a long time on the interwebs through so many adorable baby fabrics, deciding that I wanted something with a panel for  a quick and easy (and cute) quilt. I ended up with the fabric line "Life in the Jungle." The panel pieces are actually for a little fabric alphabet book, but they work fine on a quilt top too.

 Here is the fabric that came in the mail:

 One thing I found really cute about this fabric was the selvedge - check out the little owls!

I also discovered a new use for selvedges - cat toys! Turns out my cat loves anything remotely stringy, so she got a kick out of these leftover fabric scraps. She also liked playing with my little measuring tape.

I wanted the sashing to be spruced up a little, so I made little stars in each corner using the method from the Moose on the Porch Quilts layer cake BOM. Now I looked around a bit on the internet for no-waste methods of flying geese, but couldn't really find any for flying geese on a on a long rectangle like this. So I used the 45˚ method where you sew little squares to the corner and trim half of them off. Now I have a big pile of miniature orange and white triangles that I would really like to use!

I originally bought the orange fabric for the binding and just figured "oh add in a little for the stars," not realizing just how much fabric these flying geese blocks would take! So I suspect I will have to order additional orange fabric to have enough for the binding.

And as you can see in the photo, these guys didn't always turn out square. I amaz myself with how bad I continue to be at sewing straight lines!

Okay in addition to not ordering the right amount of fabric, somehow I completely failed to cut on the grain. Check out how off this piece is in the photo below!

So normally I find the straight grain by ripping a big tear in my fabric, but that is a semi-wasteful method and leaves the edge of the fabric all ripply. So I looked online and tried this method where I folded it in half and wiggled it around until it lay straight, but obviously it didn't work right.

So, how do you find the straight grain in your fabric? I know it's a really basic question, but obviously one I need help answering!


Aaaaand here is the finished top! The kitty was wondering why I was quilting and not giving her attention. :)  I'll be honest, that fancy sashing method added a ton of time to this quilt. I do think it came out looking pretty nice as a result though.  There are some portions of the panel that I wasn't able to use, I am planning on doing flannel on the back so I guess I will just have to save them for some other scrappy project.

I think for the quilting I will go really basic, just stitch-in-the-ditch. I feel like I always get too ambitious with my machine quilting and as a result the finished quilts aren't very fluffy. So on this one, I want to maximize fluffiness! Any tips on that are appreciated too :)

Now, revisiting my countdown-to-move list, which I am going to try to include in each post from now until I move:

1. Charity wholecloth - no progress
2. Quilted Jacket -  no progress
3. Block of the month - no progress
4. Stairway to Cat Heaven #2 - no progress
5. Layer cake bargello - no progress
6. baby quilt - top done!
7. birthday quilt - Okay this is new. I need to make a quilt for my dad's birthday. Not sure how I will fit this in with everything else on this list, but I am excited about working on it and have a pattern chosen.

Not a lot going on here!

Yep, lack of posting means lack of quilting. I'm in an April rut just like I was in a January rut. I think part of the problem is starting "short term" projects without thinking them through enough, and then realizing they are more work than I thought and feeling bogged down.

Well a few weeks ago (on time, although I neve got around to posting about it...) I finished the top for the Connecting Threads Mystery BOM.

I like how it turned out. Personally the lavender border called for in the pattern seems too wide to me - it dwarfs the actual meat of the quilt in the center. I added the different color for the four corners which I think helped.

I have no idea what to do with this top. I have definitely reached the stage in my quilting career where I am making more stuff than I need for myself. I think I have three options:

1. Give the top to my guild for charity - the advantage here is that I don't need to bother to finish it
2. Give it to a friend - how do I pick who? I thought about just posting on facebook asking if anyone wanted it but that could lead to favoritism or something (or what if someone I'm not actually that close to says they want it?)
3. Start a little etsy storefront and sell it at cost. 

I like the etsy idea for future quilts, because quilting is expensive and it would be nice to make what I wanted and not stress about costs because I would be recuperating them. But even if I tried to sell these quilts at cost, I'm not sure anyone would want to pay for them. I don't think people realize how darn expensive quilting is!

For this one, I got the fabric really cheap so I could probably post it for $40. (I'm guessing about $20 for the batting plus I would need fabric for the backing and binding, the fabrics used in it cost less than $10 total). But would somebody want to buy a quilt that isn't perfect? This definitely has some wobbly lines and such.  I just don't know! Also, is it worth the time and effort to buy the batting, make the binding, quilt and finish it, just for 40 bucks? Hmm, probably not.

So, what do you do with spare quilt tops?

Okay, onto what I (should be) working on right now...

I am moving over the summer, which is coming up soon! We have already started to sort and get rid of excess stuff from around the house. My goal between now and then is to finish ALL my UFOs and not start any new big projects, because I would just have to box them up anyways.
If I end up with spare time, I want to get pieces cut and prepped for hand applique and EPP projects for the period during my move when my quilting supplies are boxed up.

Okay so here is my personal countdown-to-move list:

1. Charity wholecloth - I HAVE to finish quilting this thing! I think my initial design was way too ambitious...I've only gotten to that navy blue and white area.
   
   
2. Quilted Jacket - This is going to take a good amount of time...I need to piece the sleeves, then probably do some decorative quilting on the whole thing, then assemble. 
   
3. Block of the month...well here is a thought. I was planning on doing quilt as you go. But frankly that sounds stressful and maybe too ambitious for a project that I just need to go ahead and finish up. I haven't cut up the batting at all.  I have cut up the backing pieces. But maybe I'll just make a quick pieced back. So I think I should go ahead and pick some darn sashing (it's hard to find a color to unite all of these) and just quilt this like a normal quilt. Sometimes you have to scale it back....
   
4. Stairway to Cat Heaven #2...this is another one I don't know what to do with. It was a commission that kind of failed. Should I finish it and post on Etsy? Finish it and give it to someone? Not sure...
   
5. Layer cake bargello. I started this without a plan. It's fun. I figure once I complete the center bargello I'll do a fancy border with blocks.  There is no time rush on this and it folds up small so maybe I don't have to finish it before I move. However, I might want to be yardage from this fabric line while it's still available.

Those are all the main ones. Guess I should get going!  Just writing them down and thinking about them helps me wrap my head around what I need to work on next.

Totally Awesome Applique Book

Today (National Quilting Day) I have had no time for sewing, but did manage to put in a few hours reading through my newest quilting book: "Simply Successful Applique" by Jeanne Sullivan.

That crazy complicated block on the cover? Instructions for making it inside!

I ordered this book online after being very impressed by the positive review Michelle at the Quilting Gallery gave it. I was intrigued because one of my sewing goals this year is to do some hand applique, which I have yet to really try (I took a class once but never finished my sampler project that I started in it). I have a few different applique books, but most just cover the basics and are more of "here is a really simple project"which is great, but I want to do cool stuff like Baltimore blocks! I actually aspirationally bought some American Album patterns (CA and AK) a few months ago, my goal this year is to do one of them.

Now I was planning on just flying by the seat of my pants for this intricate hand applique that I don't know how to do, but this book solves that by going beyond basics and into the nitty gritty of how to do Baltimore-style tiny pieces. It assumes you know nothing about applique and in painstaking detail goes through every step of the applique process. Seriously, painstaking detail.  I should definitely be able to mimic these stitches by following Jeanne's meticulous instructions.

Forgive my awful book photography. This shows  step-by-step photos  of how to stuff mini berries for a trapunto look.

Check out the thought that went into adding an example like this...really impressive.

And detailed stitch guides for many common shapes...

Jeanne goes even beyond the basic, into some really cool details like making a teeny tiny trapunto ladybug. And then to top off this tome of knowledge, she includes a cd of 9 really detailed and intricate patterns! Like, seriously intricate. And not just the patterns, but instructions and tips for each one! I am seriously over the moon. My boyfriend has had to sit through me showing him all of the best parts of the book (look at this!! and this!! That's a DIME next to that teeny tiny leaf!!) because I am just that excited.  In fact, I am so excited that I am writing an entire post about lol.

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In other news, I am still chugging along on my mystery quilt blocks....photos tomorrow!

Here is a project list I have made for myself, mostly for my own purposes of keeping track:

In Progress:

1. Mystery quilt - I will probably just finish the top and give it to my guild. I'm enjoying working on it but am not invested enough to actually buy backing, batting, binding and go through the whole quilting process on it.  Although the solid fabrics could show off some very pretty fmq...hmmm...
2. Layer cake bargello- I am excited about this one! But it might go into the ufo pile because I just sort of started it on a whim and it's not that important.

UFO:

1. Charity wholecloth. I should get on this, it's hogging a lot of space in my sewing corner
2. QAYG block of the month blocks.  This is kind of in progress, but I am not super psyched about it so it will probably become a UFO
3. Quilted Jacket - I want to work on this thing to get it finished and out of my life. I am mighty close, if I don't quilt it (which I probably should...arrrrrg....)
4. Stairway to cat heaven #2 - the person who commissioned it disappeared off the face of the planet so I have slightly lost steam.

Not Yet Started:

1. Baby quilt. I have a tentative pattern picked, no fabric chosen yet though.
2. Hand applique projects! I should probably do something simple before I tackle my American Album blocks...
3. Quilters Wallet - I bought this pattern a while ago and all the supplies for it, so I just need to sit down and do it.

Bargello Options

In my last post I discussed some options for a quilt with my newset layer cake. I decided to make the bargello, because it's so pretty and clearly not what you would anticipate being made from a layer cake. It is very small, but you can easily buy a second layer cake and just double the size of the thing if you want. I was also thinking of doing one of those round robin borders around the central bargello to expand on it.

Anyways, I have spent the day playing with colors. The trick is that this layer cake has a lot of very pale tan/light brown shades, and less pink and dark brown shades. It comes down to whether I want to stick all the tans together and have the colorway be tan/brown/pink, or split the tans in two and have the colorway be tan/brown/tan/pink. I was able to play around in photoshop with a photo of the colors lined up to approximate what the quilt would look like under each option:

Below is my original photo of the two colorway options I developed.

Here are imitation bargellos I made from that photo in photoshop:
Here is option #1: tan/brown/pink

And here is option 2: tan/brown/tan/pink

So which do you like? I am definitely stumped. I think I will have to sit on it for a few days before deciding which to use. In the meantime I can cut all 40 of these blocks into 2.5" strips!

A New Mystery Quilt!

One of my goals this year was to do some of these online group projects...quilt alongs, BOMs, etc. I didn't quite get around to it, but this week I saw that Connecting Threads was hosting a pretty straightforward Mystery Quilt Quilt Along. And it only required four fabrics, in sizes that I actually had available in my stash! It's only in 3 parts, here is part 1:

My color selection. Solids I bought for very cheap at my guild's quilt show this past summer.

Pieces for the first part all cut:

Then we were supposed to make squares. Except as you can see I made about half facing one way and half facing a different way...oops. I just assumed since it was a square it wouldn't matter what order I put the pieces together in!

And here are all the bits for part 1! I am excited and having fun. :)

On a side note, my new layer cake came in the mail! Isn't it great? "Mocha Kiss" by Timeless Treasures.

Now I am deciding what pattern to use it with. I want something complicated, not quick and easy. I found this really cool pattern, "I used to be a layer cake":

However, the finished quilt is only 41"x57". I could certainly add a border, but it would still be only something like 50x70 unless my border was HUGE. I have made a lot of lap quilts in my day and they never reach my toes when I am trying to lie under them! So I would prefer something a bit larger.

There is also this pattern:

But it would require purchasing of fabric for the background, small pinwheels, and borders, which I might be okay with.

Finally, I am looking at this one:

"Antique Etoiles" from Moda bake shop. Again, this would require purchasing a lot of additional fabric.

Thoughts? Which do you like? Any others you've used with success?

Figuring Out QAYG

So today I finished my last block from my BOM quilt.

Here's yesterday's block, with it's new mini-border. It looks like an afterthought but it does tie the block together a bit.

And here is today's block! The block that got lost in the mail was a star, but I didn't want to do the exact same one, so I browsed the the "Oh My Stars" quilt-along from Thought and Found (which I really really want to do someday, these quilts are so cute!) and picked this star, which incorporates all the rainbow fabrics in the line.

So here are all the blocks laid out (March is missing because I gave it to another member of my guild to present on my behalf at the next meeting since it will be in the morning). Frankly I think it's a bit of a mess.  This to me is the downside of precuts: they often include ALL of the fabrics from a line, when including all those fabrics in a single quilt might not be a good idea.  Color to me is one of the most important aspects of quilts, and this quilt has no color consistency whatsoever. Boo. My fault for picking this particular layer cake; the new one I just bought has only shades of pink and brown so I think it will make a much more consistent looking quilt when I decide to finally use it.

Now it's time to figure out how the heck to quilt it.  I previously decided I was going to do "quilt as you go" and bought backing fabric and batting, and even cut some backing fabric...but didn't write down notes anywhere of what I was doing.

So now I'm not quite sure which QAYG method I had decided to use and why I cut my backing fabric at the particular size I did. I'm also confused about the method in general, as there are definitely multiple, very different ways to do it, which require different prep from the start.

Looking back at the size I cut my backing pieces, I think I was going to do the method where you add binding strips to connect the different blocks, thus I would quilt it now with no sashing and add that later. Most things I have read want a tiny sashing, but I am going to go ahead an try for a wide sashing (3") to create 2.5" of sashing between the blocks.  Now with such a wide sashing I'll have to cut the batting bigger than the block...err...guess I'll try this with only two blocks first and attempt to stitch them together and see how it goes.

The other thing I can't figure out is how to add a border under QAYG. Is it even possible? I guess I could quilt a really long strip and stick it on? I measured out my blocks and I estimate that without a border my finished quilt will be 45" x 60."  This is pretty small, so I think it will definitely need a border. The BOM suggests adding a 7" border to each side to get a final quilt of 59"x 73", a much more reasonable size (although I guess by my calcs mine would be only 52"x67"...can I not do math or something? EDIT: DUH it's 7" to each side so 14" added overall...so turns out I can NOT do math!) But I am not sure how to add a border using QAYG.

Anyways, I guess I will just dive right in and figure it out.  Anyone have experience in QAYG and have any helpful tips?