Banner Quilt

I have made a few quilts in my years of sewing, but this is by far my favorite.  Decided to research a bit, ask questions of my quilting friends, and do this right.  I am beyond happy with the result!

Last spring I bought these fabrics, just because I really liked them. I'll admit it, I'm a fabric junky.  The base fabrics are Heidi Grace prints from JoAnn's, and the rest coordinate. I wanted to make a baby quilt, but couldn't decide on a pattern.

Spent an hour or so looking on my pinterest quilt board, and chose an isosceles triangle design. See the third print from the left? It was a no brainer.  The pin linked to a blog post that was a quilt-a-long, so that was really helpful.  She used a triangle quilt template, I improvised with a 30, 60, 90 triangle handed down to me from my dad. He built homes for a living, and drew all his own blue prints. A couple pieces of electrical tape and I can start cutting.

Started cutting an even number of print and white triangles, laid them out and rearranged until I was happy.  I began sewing the triangles together, one row at a time.

I remembered a little travel iron my mom snagged for me at a garage sale. Set my sleeve board next to my machine, and I pressed each seam as I went.  

Once all the rows were stitched, I matched seams and sewed the rows together. Starting to look really good!

Time to lay out my quilt sandwich. I did it on carpet and tacked the back with pins to keep it nice and taught, then laid my warm & white batting, then the quilt top.  

This is the only picture I took of this process. This is the back, face down, pinned to the carpet.  After the layers were safety pinned together, I took these straight pins out and started quilting, 1/4" on each side of each seam. 

I used my walking foot, and if you have one, I would highly recommend it. The top foot feeds your fabric along with the feed dogs below, keeping your layers moving evenly. 

Forgot to take any pictures of the binding process, but used the method most of the directions suggested. Machine stitched to the top, and hand stitched to the back.  The angled edges proved a little challenging, but after a couple tries I got the hang of it.

Couldn't wait to wash it, and give it that crinkly, cotton batting quilt look. I wasn't disappointed.

The backing fabric is flannel, making it even more snuggly!

After washing it I remembered I wanted to sew a quilt label on.

Printed on a piece of fabric, sewed a little banner on, and hand stitched it to the back. 

A couple more pictures, just because.

Quilting might be my new favorite thing. Problem is parting with it when I'm done. Not sure about this one, I may have to hang onto it. The colors and pattern are really my favorites. 

Here is the link to the isoceles quilt along, if you'd like to try one.

Mommy by Day Crafter by Night isosceles-triangle-quilt-along

Thanks for stopping by!

Karilyn

Cargo Pants Messenger Bag via Pinterest

I finally finished what I thought would be a quick project.  I started it a week ago Saturday, ran out of matching thread, and it sat there until today.  Quite awhile ago I pinned a tutorial to make a messenger bag out of a pair of cargo pants. Lucky for me, my son had a pair of army greenish ones that he said were ugly, and would never wear again. I'm pretty sure they were his choice a year ago, but his loss is my gain. Saved myself a trip to the thrift store, and a couple of bucks.

I think it turned out awesome!  Here is the link to the original post. noodle-head cargo pant messenger bag

I have used her patterns before, and really like them. I won't bother with a tutorial, you can just follow hers. It was pretty easy, and made from stuff I had on hand. The only thing I changed, was I made the strap adjustable with buttons.

I wasn't sure if I would want it as a shoulder bag, or a cross body messenger bag. This way, I can use it either way. I used a rectangular ring from an old strap in my stash. Not much gets thrown away around here, never know when you'll have a use for something. It's a bit of a curse, but usually works out for us!

You cut the front flap piece from one of the sides of the pant with the cargo pocket on it. My pair had these pockets on one side, and one larger pocket on the other. Not sure if these pockets are super useful, but they look cool, so I chose this side. My cell phone will fit in the bottom one.

I lined the bag and the strap with this fun print in a reddish coral print. I really like this color, and have a jacket in it that will look great together. I chose another floral print with a lot of colors to bind the flap and make inside pockets. Hoping spring will hurry up.  :) 

Put one of my labels on the outside pocket, I just like how it looks.

So there it is, my new bag. Another pinterest idea finished successfully. Yea!! Pretty sure I'll never get around to trying all of them, but it's still fun to have lots of ideas to choose from. 

Keep pinning!

Kindle Keeper

My family gave me a Kindle Fire for Christmas this year, and today I decided it needed a case. I googled DIY  kindle case and got a few ideas. After looking around I decided I wanted one very similar to another item I make, a junior portfolio.  I'll admit, it's not my finest work, but it will protect and carry my kindle in style for now. I learned what to do and not to do next time.

I wanted an inside pocket to hold it snugly, and a frame holder to hold it and be able to use the touch screen.

The carrier pocket is on the left, the screen holder on the right.  I had some wide elastic that worked great!

The cover is held shut by velcro, and can be folded to the back and the velcro holds it there. Bonus!!

I had to make a separate piece to attach the elastic to, and I should have made it a bit smaller. My seam allowances on the top and bottom got a little small, but I made it work. If you look carefully at the pictures, you'll notice the velcro is in a different spot. I had to move it over to make it close. It ended up thicker than I planned for, and the velcro wouldn't reach. I made note of my errors, and will do better next time. In the mean time, I'm really happy with this one. When the laptops are being used for homework in the evenings, I can still browse pinterest.

The fabrics are from Hobby Lobby, and I love them!

Scrappy Brown Quilt

Wow, time sure flies!  I planned to blog at least once a week, or perhaps more, but the weeks go by without stopping to tell me.  Anyway, it's been a week and a half, and I need to get posting.  Last year, when I discovered the wonderful, addicting Pinterest, I starting pinning way more projects that I could probably do in a lifetime.  But, when I need inspiration, it's so fun to go back to my boards and find a project.  Some of the ideas just stick in my head, and won't go away until I try them.  Some are successes, some epic fails!

I have a friend I follow on Pinterest, who pins tons of quilting ideas.  Now, I sew constantly, but quilting has never been my cup of tea.  I have made a couple of quilts for my daughters bed, but that's about it.  One of her pins was for a Raw Edge Layer Cake Quilt, that looked so simple and quick, I was dying to try it.

So off I went to Hobby Lobby to buy and cut my own cake layers.

Here they are all washed, pressed and cut into 10" squares.  I decided to make a crib size quilt. (to sell, I won't be needing anymore crib size quilts!)  I cut 30 squares, 5 across by 6 down, and 30 of the polka dot fabric for the back.  I have a zig zag blade for my rotary cutter, so I used that.  

Then I cut 30 9" squares of fusible quilt batting.  The idea is to fuse the quilt layers together, quilt each square, and then sew the squares together.  I wasn't too impressed with the fusible batting.  It only stuck on one side, and by the time I was done pressing it, it was pretty flat.  It fluffed up again after washing, but I'll try something different when this package is gone.  

After this step, the squares went to my mom, who loves hand sewing.  She just moved to a retirement community where the ladies meet every other week to visit and sew.  So I thought I would supply her with a project to bring!  We decided to sew 2 squares in the center of each block, a 6" and a 3" inside it.  It only took her a couple of weeks to get it done.

I then laid the squares out on the floor in a pattern I liked, and started sewing the blocks together into rows, and then the rows together.

You stitch the pieces together with the seam allowance exposed on top.  Check out the tutorial here for much better directions. It went really quick!

I followed quilt binding instructions here. It worked really well.  I machined stitched it to the front, pressed it around to the back and then sent it home with mom to hand stitch it to the back.  She finished the binding, and then snipped the seam allowances every 1/2" or so.  Then all that's left to do is throw it in the wash a few times to "rag" it up.

It turned out so cool.  I love it!

If anyone is in the market for a crib quilt, let me know.  I have one for sale!!

Patch Clutch Tutorial

Today I'm going to share a tutorial for a sewing project.  It is a combination of ideas I put together to make a cute little wristlet/clutch.  It could be done many different ways, but I'll show you how I did it.

You will need
6 different fabric scraps 2" x 5" (you will sew together and trim to 8 1/2" x 4") 
From solid color fabric (I used laundered dropcloth, it looks like linen)
1 - 8 1/2" x 2"   front upper  
1 - 8 1/2" x 6"   back
1 - 3" x 11"    handle
From lining fabric (anything cute that matches)
1 - 8 1/2" x 2"
1 - 8 1/2" x 4"
1 - 8 1/2" x 6"
Fusible interfacing  8 1/2" x 4"
Fusible fleece cut 1/2" smaller than your exterior pieces
1 - 8" x 1 1/2"
1 - 8" x 3 1/2"
1 - 8" x 5 1/2"
and 1 - 7" zipper

Lay your fabric scrap strips out so you like how it looks, and sew them together on the long sides, with a 1/4" seam allowance.  Press your seams open.  My pieces are longer, so I could make 2.

Cut it, centered end to end, to measure 8 1/2" x 4".

Cut out the rest of your pieces.

Fuse the interfacing to the back of the piece of strips, and then fuse the fleece to that piece and the upper top and back pieces.  There should be about a 1/4" around the edges.

Lay your zipper, face down with the pull on the left, and stitch it to the front piece.  Move your pull up or down to get it out of the way of the presser foot.  You can use a zipper foot, or I just adjust my needle all the way to the left, and leave my regular sewing foot on.

Now lay the matching lining  piece face down on top of the zipper and pin it.  Flip the whole thing over and stitch it on the back side.  That way you can follow your first stitching.

Now you have a sandwich, with the zipper in the middle.  Press both of these pieces down, with the zipper sticking up.  

Lay your upper top piece face down on the zipper and stitch.  Flip it over and pin the lining piece on and stitch it just like you did for the lower front. 

Press these two pieces away from the zipper, and top stitch on each side of the zipper.  Your front is finished!

I zig zag the ends of the zipper together so it won't spread open or go wonky on me when I stitch the back on. 

Take your handle piece and press it in half longways, then press each side to the center. Edgestitch both long edges

  Fold the handle in half and pin then stitch it to the upper left of the front of the wristlet.

Unzip the zipper halfway or more.  Lay the back piece face down on the front, then lay the matching lining piece face up on top of that.

Pin and stitch around the edges, being careful to keep the handle free.

You can just leave the seams as they are, zig-zag them, or serge them.

Unzip it all the way, and turn right side out.  I put a 3" piece of narrow ribbon in the zipper pull with a slipknot and heat sealed the ends with a wood burning tool.

Ta Da!!  It's all done.

I hope this makes sense.  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I also have a couple other fabric choices, and they are all in my etsy shop if you'd rather buy one than make one.  

Have fun sewing!!