Secret Sewing

 It's been a while since I've written a blog post.

Part of the reason is I've been doing some secret sewing

and the other part is I haven't felt like sewing much

beyond the secret sewing.

The secret sewing was gifted yesterday, so I can show it now.

 

We had a baby shower for my daughter yesterday

and, of course,  I had to make some baby girl things.

Before quilting I made clothes for my daughters

and their dolls and my nieces and their dolls

and my goddaughter and her doll.

Now I can make clothes for my granddaughter

and her dolls. (Someday!)

 

I found this green fabric in a quilt shop in

Hilton Head and knew I needed to make a little

outfit for Baby Girl.

This pattern is so quick and easy to make.

The back is so cute with it's crisscross.

I had these fabrics in my stash.

The bloomers are pink flamingos, too.

I had these fabrics in my stash, too.

 

Because of the times we are in,

masks and distancing were necessary for the baby shower.

The nursery is being done in a Snoopy/Charlie Brown theme

because my daughter LOVES Charlie Brown.

  

 

I was able to order Charlie Brown fabric and made masks

for everyone!

 

 Yes, they did have elastic before they were given!

It was a wonderful shower.

 

I picked up two quilts from my LAQ,

so should have those to show soon. The binding is almost

done on one.

 

Happy Quilting!

Back From the Beach

For many of us, vacation plans have been canceled for this year.

We had a couple of trips planned that went by the wayside,

saving us a lot of money!

One place we could go and be safe was the beach.

We were able to reserve a condo right on the ocean,

I prepared and froze a lot of meals before we left,

and we were able to safely distance ourselves from others.

Two weeks on Hilton Head Island was heavenly!

This was our view while we were away.

 

And this is what we did a lot of while we were there!

One afternoon we took a drive through a wild life preserve and 

saw so many birds in the sea grasses.  Just beautiful.

We did arrange to have some family photo's taken on the beach.

Over the years I have been so bad about having photos taken of my family

and am so glad we could do it this time.

 

While looking at this gorgeous view,

I worked on a stocking for baby girl.

 

 

It was hard to not look at the ocean the whole time,

but Santa's face did get finished.

We have been home for 3 days and I haven't done one thing in my Hidey Hole yet.

I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do, 

but will get into the groove soon.

Happy Quilting!

Kaffe Scrappy Blocks

With Covid things are taking longer to arrive when shipped.

It's a good thing I have lots of things to work with in my hidey hole!

The white with yellow polka dot fabric arrived

and I cut the sashing strips for the Kaffe Scrappy blocks.

This is exactly what I had in mind for these blocks.

I used 2" squares for the corner stones and have the blocks all sewn together.

The sashing strips really help calm the chaos.

The pattern did not have sashing,

but these blocks were way too busy for me without them.

 

So many fun fabrics!

 

Now I need to find some fabric for the border.

I'm thinking larger polka dots.

You know me and Kaffe with polka dots!!

Happy Quilting!

Christmas Knits

I like to order my sock yarn from

Simply Socks Yarn Company.

(No affiliation)

Last month they had Christmas in July

and I had to buy some of the yarn.

Such pretty stripes and colors!

With one of the yarns I made a Christmas gift

for a dear friend. (She doesn't read my blog.)

I started with the mittens, then made the hat

and had enough yarn left for the socks!

I matched the stripes intentionally for the mittens and really

like the outcome.  The pattern was for fingerless mitts,

but I found out this friend doesn't like fingerless mitts.

Good thing I asked!

I just kept knitting and made them into mittens.

This hat is a slouchy hat... her favorite style.

I like the red band on this and wish I had done this with the mittens.

 

 

As you can see, I didn't bother matching the stripes on the socks.

In fact, the stripes are going in opposite directions!

I'm not sure how that happened, but it did.

One Christmas gift finished!

Happy Quilting!

Tucker's Stocking

My daughter and son in law have the best dog.

He is a rescue and is so gentle and well behaved.

I say this as someone who is NOT a dog person.....

at all.

I would take Tucker if something happened to them, though.

My daughter and son in law each have a felted stocking.

Well, actually, they have two!

One at their house and one at mine.

Tucker needed his own stocking.

These Bucilla Kits are so much fun to make.

 

The details are amazing.

 

Down to the bows in this doggies hair!

 

The kits come with a piece of felt for the back,

but the stocking would not hold much of anything if I used

that to finish it.

I quilt a stocking and then stitch the felt to the front.

 I posted a blog post a while ago here that shows how

I make the stocking.

This can now be packed with squeaky toys and rawhides!

I have a kit ready to start for my granddaughter,

who is due on January 1st!

Happy Quilting!

The Great Quilt Expansion

As I mentioned a few blog posts ago,

my daughter and son-in-law bought a king size bed and

asked if I could make their queen size wedding quilt big

enough to fit their king size bed.

I ordered fabric, bought thread and took the binding off of the quilt.

 

I had a plan in my mind to add a piece of fabric on the top and the bottom

and sandwich the batting in between the two. After this the quilting would be done.

Well, what a disaster that was!  Adding unquilted fabric to a quilted piece

made for a big mess!  It almost looked pleated along the edges...
NOT the look I was going for with this quilt!

Off came the two pieces of fabric and plan B came to mind.

Instead, I would quilt a panel for each side

 and add it with a strip of fabric on the front and the back.

So the quilting began.

For some reason I have the hardest time quilting straight lines

with the guide and my walking foot.

If you don't know, using Frixion pens on solid fabrics leaves a mark

like the fabric has been bleached.

Out came my Clover chalk marker with the little wheel at the top.

It worked like a charm and as I quilted, the chalk came off

and could not be seen at all.

The panels were quilted and trimmed to size.

I cut two pieces of fabric with which to attach the panel to the quilt.

The top piece was cut 1 1/8" wide and the bottom piece was cut

1 5/8" wide and pressed in half length wise.

They were sewn onto the panel with 1/4" seam allowance.

The top strip was then sewn to the edge of the quilt with about a 3/8" seam allowance.

After sewing the panel to the quilt,

I pulled the panel into place and turned the quilt to the back.

 

Dots of glue were placed down the inside of the seam,

 

 

 The folded strip sewn to the back of the panel

was pulled over the glue,

And ironed to seal the glue.

 

The quilt was turned back over to the top

and I stitched in the ditch to catch the backing strip.

(All the different colors of fabric in these photos is

so interesting.  All photos were taken with my iphone, too.)

 

 

VOILA!!

The binding was then added and it's finished!

 I am so excited that my plan worked.

(The quilt is flat! For some reason I didn't take

the time to pull it flat before taking these photos.)

 

I really like the cross-hatch quilting along the sides with

the swirl quilting in the body of the quilt.

 

I do not have a king size bed,

but this was after washing and drying the quilt.

It was a bit crumpled after taking it out of the dryer,

but will straighten out when it's on their bed.

 

Its all folded and ready for delivery.

This expansion took another 11 yards of fabric

and 6 small spools of thread.

If I'm ever asked to do this again,

I think it would be easier to make a new quilt!

Happy Quilting!

Vintage Chenille Baby Quilt

It's been a while since I've made anything from
"my cabinet".

For those who might be new to my blog,

at the beginning of COVID, I began pulling projects from

my never ending supply in my cabinet and getting them done.

I was able to complete quite a few projects and make some space.

This project was made from leftover pieces of vintage chenille fabrics.

A few years ago I made a baby quilt for a great niece from

6" blocks I had purchased at the mid-Atlantic quilt show.

The quilt was so soft and cuddly.

The leftover squares had waited long enough to be made into something.

I didn't have a lot of precut squares, but did have a little yardage, 

so cut the yardage to size.

One problem I had with these squares that I didn't have with the first quilt

was I couldn't use my walking foot to quilt them.

It kept getting stuck and wouldn't go over the bumps and puffy parts.

 

I ended up tying the quilt in the center and at the intersections of the blocks.

 

It's a soft and cuddly quilt,

backed with vintage looking cotton from my stash.

 

I don't know that I would buy squares like this again

since they were a challenge to sew together and quilt,

but they make a pretty quilt.

 The true colors are brighter then what is shown here.

 

This one will go into the donate pile.

Happy Quilting!

Finished Scrappiness

I have this big plastic jug that originally held big pretzels.

It's the Costco size pretzel jug.

At one point I started putting 2 1/2" squares in this jug

and at the beginning of the isolation it was full.

It was time to do something with these squares.

I had no idea where this quilt would go,

but I started sewing them into 16 patch blocks.

It was fun...put a 16 patch block together and sew.

Do another and sew.

It was the mindless sewing I needed at the beginning

of this isolation time.

I had made a bunch of the blocks and decided it was time to 

move them to the next step.

Onto the design wall they went.

At first I was going to use just white 2 1/2" strips for sashing,

but then this idea came to me to use 9 patch cornerstones

and rows of 2 1/2" squares in between white strips.

(This way I would use up more 2 1/2" squares!)

The top was coming together!

I figured the border would be a solid piece of fabric

and call it done.

However, the 2 1/2" squares said "Not so fast!"

I made more nine patches and sewed those together

to make the borders.

The top was completed.

Then it languished.

Finally, last week I pulled it out to quilt.

Grid quilting was the final decision.

Here is the finished quilt.

I am not one to design my own quilts, for the most part,

but it was fun to see where this one would lead.

 

 There are so many fun fabrics in these blocks.

For the binding,

I pulled out my binding scrap box and used

some darker red pieces.

 

My sewing machine was giving me fits while I was quilting it,

but I finally got it finished.

 

I may have to start filling that jug again!

 

Isn't this backing fabric awesome?!?

I was going to piece a backing from scraps,

but that is my least favorite part of quilting.

Wide backing it is!

This quilt is going to a special couple.

Hopefully it will be delivered this week.

Happy Quilting!

Scrappy Kaffe Blocks

Well, I think it's official.

I think I've turned into a scrappy quilter!

This box of Kaffe scraps is sitting on the floor here in

my Hidey Hole, screaming "Use Me! Use Me!".

 Rectangles were cut from a bunch of different fabrics

and blocks have been made.

Here is what I have!

This is a small sampling of the fabrics I cut into 2 x 3 1/2" rectangles.

The rectangles were sewn into blocks like this.

I do not do random scrappy,

so I had the fabrics on a tray by my sewing machine

and picked each one as I went.

Even with controlled scrappy, I still ended up with

two of the same fabrics in one block.

Oh well...

The pattern I saw had all of the blocks together with

no sashing.  I put them on my design wall like that first,

but it was total chaos.

Not the look I was going for here.

Sashing strips will be added with corner stones.

I'm thinking of finding a white with tiny yellow polka dots

for the sashing and more Kaffe for the corner stones.

The sad thing is, this hardly put a dent in my box of scraps.

There will be more Kaffe scrappiness in my future!  :)

Happy Quilting!