Great-Nephew's Sea-Worthy Baby Quilt

the most recent quilt from my sewing room

One of my sister's daughters is expecting to give birth to her second child, a son, in mid-summer. As has been my habit over the past seventeen years for all of my children and those of my sister, I sewed a baby quilt for this newest family member. 

Usually I send the quilt shortly after the birth, but since Beloved and I are embarking on a cross-country move to the east coast in the near future, it was necessary I get this quilt done and into the mail sooner rather than later.

close-up of fabric and machine quilting

My niece requested a nautical theme (as did my niece-in-law earlier this year) and she sent me paint chips of the color scheme in their new home. (that was sooo helpful!)

In addition to her "Sand Beach" and "Embellished Blue"(Sherwin Williams #7529 and #6749 respectively), I took the liberty of adding a medium blue to the "Embellished Blue," and a tan and a dark brown to the beige "Sand Beach." Then just to make it 'pop' (as we quilters like to say), I added some aqua, which is a great color for sea themes anyway.

When I was creating the nautical-themed quilt for niece-in-law earlier this year, I was hard-pressed to find much water-sailor-boat fabric here in land-locked Colorado.

But just a couple of months later when spring fabrics starting showing up in the stores, all the nautical themes I could hope for were available in abundance.

We are taught in the quilting community to use both solids and prints, and those prints should be of varying sizes to add 'texture' (interest) to the project. The tiny polka dots, sea grass, anchors, lobsters and sea horses made all of that happen.

As for the quilting itself, I chose to do it myself this time, making absolutely straight lines of stitches diagonally in only one direction, consistently about half an inch apart. It was time consuming but fairly easy and immensely satisfying. This may be the best quilt I've made from start-to-finish in my quilting 'career.'

quilt front and back

My niece received the quilt last Thursday and immediately emailed to say she loves it. That was very gratifying to me.

With that said, this may well be the last quilt I'll make. The disability in my shoulder makes such projects harder as I grow older. My next-door-neighbor, a very accomplished quilter, was recently doing the machine quilting on a king-size project and made the comment that it was like "wrestling with an alligator." Yes, I feel that way, too, and even with smaller pieces.

I will probably restrict myself to table runners which take a lot less time and physical exertion. I love to make them for the various seasons and holidays.

Also, our next house will not have a fully dedicated sewing room because we are moving into some changes as we will be living closer to family members who will need a place to sleep when they visit us. Some of my sewing equipment has been given away and all of my fabric was donated to Fire House Quilts. But I still have the basic tools so I can mentor my granddaughters when they show an interest in this craft.

On the TV Set

In my post this past Monday, I mentioned I got to be in the audience for the taping of 2 TV quilt shows. 

My next-door neighbor is an avid quilter. She invited me to go with her to the studios -- something she has done before. We got there by 8am and left at about 4pm. It made for a long day, but it was very enjoyable.

Our TV hosts were Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson. You may remember Alex from her HGTV show, Simply Quilts some years ago.  When HGTV terminated her show, she teamed up with Ricky Tims to record quilting shows for the Internet. 

The Quilt Show is only available by a paid subscription ($40 per year, I think) and you get it on your computer.  I don't have a subscription and don't plan to get one, but it was fun being in the audience for 2 tapings and seeing how they do things behind the scenes.

The first of the 2 shows was about stained glass quilts -- quilts with black outlines between the pieces. Very pretty. Stunning, even. Here are some of the quilts featured in that segment:

After the first taping, we were released for lunch, which was available at a cafeteria in the building, or we could go out. Karren and I chose to go off property to a soup and salad place. 

When a taping was not in progress, we were invited to walk on the set to get a closer look at the quilts. Here I am with a microphone in hand, just goofing off (at their invitation).

Those who wanted were invited to sit in the control room during the tapings. 

The afternoon show featured author Meg Cox who likes to make memories with her family and friends using creative traditions and, in this case, with quilts. This quilt (above) was made for her granddaughter to remind her that her grandpa will love her forever, even though he has died. Meg made this quilt with fabric from her husband's shirts.

Ricky Tims and Alex had challenged each other before this day to create a quilt having to do with their favorite Broadway show. 

This yellow-gold quilt is Ricky's depiction of the hurricane described in the show Hamilton. If you look very closely in the pink area about midway in the photo, you can see the wording he wrote with free-motion quilting. That is very clever and we applauded him for that; however he humbly admitted he misspelled "hurricane" by leaving of the "e." 

Ah yes. Even the best make boo-boos!

This beautiful use of blues and aqua fabrics is Alex Anderson's expression about friendship from her favorite Broadway show, Wicked. I was especially interested in the straight lines of quilting within each squared off piece.

Here is another quilt by Alex that hung above the audience seating area. She does such beautiful work!

At the end of each show, the cameras were turned onto the audience. We were told to tuck away our coats and bags and to sit up straight. We were told when to clap with wild enthusiasm, when to look quiet and approving, and when to laugh heartily. It was fun (and fakey but in a good way).

TheQuiltShow.com

O Blogging, How I Have Missed Thee!

Many things took the place of blogging last week:

completion of my king-sized quilt

the very unexpected death of a friend

we nearly bought a new house ...

and then changed our minds

I was on an Internet TV show (TWO episodes!)*

we signed a contract to get a roof built over our deck
we bought new mattresses for two beds

Hmm. Have I left anything out? Probably. It was quite a week!

This is my completed king-sized quilt. It was begun just about a year ago when Robbie started the quilt group at our church. She suggested we all begin with Fons and Porter's "Thank You Stars" pattern. The pattern was for a twin-sized bed, but I needed a new quilt for our master bedroom, so I just made more blocks (49 total) for our king-sized bed.

For a project this size, I had a professional long-arm quilter do the machine quilting for me (Holly's Quilt Cabin). When I got it back, I still had to put on the binding. I began doing that in my sewing room, where space to spread out is sorely restricted.

Beloved, who knows a thing or two about quilting from watching me for so many years, suggested we move the quilt and my Pfaff (sewing machine) to the basement where I could spread out. This proved to be an excellent idea, well worth the time and effort it took to transfer everything.

All done! The quilt is square (7 blocks by 7 blocks). Beloved adopted one of the blocks which he says is to always be on his side of the bed...

... the one with orange, reminding him of his Denver Broncos.  So be it.

But enough of my project. Last Thursday my quilty girlfriends met for our twice-monthly meeting at the church. They allowed me to snap pictures of their current projects (I'm not sure if they knew their handiwork would show up at The Brown Bungalow).

Milinda's quilt top is from a Block-of-the-Month project at her quilt guild. The church custodian was good to pull out several large tables so she could spread out her backing, batting, and the quilt top. Christie helped her pin-baste the layers together in preparation for the machine quilting.

Brenna was working on her version of the Fons and Porter quilt using patriotic fabrics. On this particular day she was sewing her blocks together.

I didn't get the name of the pattern Suzanna was working on, but she was machine piecing together a lot of half square triangles using white-white and many jewel-toned fabrics.

Carole Lee was using great resourcefulness with her collection of fabric scraps to make these Dresden Plates.

Robbie brought this baby quilt for Show 'n Tell. It is a pre-printed panel. She free-motion quilted around all the figures, added the borders and called it done. It was a relatively easy quilt that still required a steady hand to outline the designs.

Robbie also shared with us one of the Easter-themed table runners she has made. Cute, cute, cute!!

Mary Ann was making a big stack of this complicated-looking block that impressed us all.

Robbie brought with her a Stripology Ruler that makes cutting strips very fast. This acrylic ruler has slits cut at regular intervals. You slip the blade of a rotary cutter into the slits and cut, making the process very fast and accurate.

Here is a close-up of the logo on this particular ruler.  I am told JoAnn's Fabrics and Crafts has a similar product to this one that is not quite as rigid and sells for $32.99.

This pretty well sums up the quilting aspects of last week for me.  The rest, well, things will smooth out with time and God's grace.

a partially original design from my
(now past) cross stitching days

* Okay, okay. I was in the audience during the taping of the TV shows. I was not interviewed or anything like that. (snicker)

Table Runner Tutorial for Mrs. T

revisiting my February dining table

A week or so ago when I posted about the Valentine decorations here at The Brown Bungalow, Mrs. T from Across My Kitchen Table left some very complimentary comments. 

In particular, she wanted to know about the table runner pattern on my dining table. I had said I use that pattern a lot and she wanted to know more about it.

Please forgive the awkwardness of the camera angle here. I was trying to get a close-up of the entire runner and therefore had to tilt the camera like this. I tried turning the photo around and that just made it worse. This makes me dizzy!

Anyway, I have lost count of how many of these runners I've made over the last 17 years or so.  It's really simple, made up of as many squares as you need to make the size you want (forgive me. That sounds like my mother's recipe for potato salad: "Use as many potatoes as you need to get the amount of salad you desire.")

For most of my runners, the squares are cut to 3 1/4 inches, which means that after sewing with a 1/4-inch seam allowance, each finished square will be 2  3/4 inches square.

Autumn/Thanksgiving table runner

The finished runner is about 12 inches wide by 50 inches long, but of course you can lengthen or shorten it by the number of squares you use. This brown runner has 44 squares, backing, batting, and a binding.

I like to lay out my squares so I can get them arranged the way I want for a real "scrappy" feel. Sew the squares together in rows, then sew the rows together, staggering them so the finished product is "on point" (diagonal). 

I like to use sticky dots that I've numbered to keep my rows straight in my mind. After you've sewn the rows together it will look a lot like the above picture.  Then you have to get your long acrylic ruler (or a yard stick) and line it up carefully along the longer outer two edges of the runner and cut off the outer squares so that it's straight on those edges. (does this make sense?)

Then the top is done. You make the quilt "sandwich", layering the top with batting and backing (using your top piece as the cutting pattern for the batting and backing). 

Quilt it all together using free-motion stippling as I did with the brown/aqua example, or simply "stitch in the ditch" (straight seams in the "ditch" where the fabrics meet).

The last thing you do is to sew on your binding and it's done!

pattern made with smaller squares

This last photo I'm sharing is a runner I made with this same method except that my squares are cut smaller, probably something like 2  1/2 inches (for a finished 2-inch square). Again, you cut all the squares the same size and cut as many as you need for the size you desire your finished table runner to be.

That's it!  Give it a try.  I think you'll like it. For me, it's a good way to use up scraps.

By the way, I said at the top of this post that Mrs. T wanted to know how to make this project. Go visit her blog. It is very homey and laid out so well. Click here to see it: Across My Kitchen Table

The Sailor Has Docked

fabrics for the Sailor's quilt

The little Sailor ran into some rough seas about 2 1/2 months before he was due to be born -- or maybe I should say Mommy was having a tough time of it. He was probably oblivious to the turmoil while doing inter-uterine somersaults. Anyway, Mommy had to go to bed to wait out the remaining time until his arrival. He showed up on February 15th (about 3 weeks early) and now he and Mommy are doing very well. (Mommy is my nephew's wife. Sailor is my 2nd Great Nephew born this year!)

pin-basting the quilt 'sandwich' on the large tables in my basement

I had been turning over in my mind what I might do for his baby quilt, but with this turn of events, I had to put myself into a speed boat to get the project done as close to his birthdate as possible. 

the quilt backing fabric

As it turned out, when I asked Mommy what she wanted for the quilt, her reply was along the lines of what I had been considering: a nautical theme for the nursery with the colors of baby blue, navy and white; with anchors, sailors and boats.

assembling the Nine Patch blocks

What I didn't count on was how hard it would be to find nautical-themed fabric here in the Rocky Mountain West.  However, with diligent shopping (such fun!!!) I did manage to find a few boats, some fish, star fish, and watery-looking prints. No anchors or sailors! But I had a special idea in mind that would help...

free-motion quilting 

I revived my interest in free-motion quilting. If you don't know what that is, it's when you use a special presser foot and drop the feed dogs of the sewing machine so you can wander all over the quilt in any direction, making scribbles or any design you want. I quilted this way over the 25 or so Nine Patch blocks, easily moving from one to the other without having to stop to clip threads -- just a continuous action.

Free-motion quilting the sail boats by following blue ink lines

After all of the colored Nine Patch blocks were done, I got into the more fun (and SCARY) free-motion quilting of sailboats in the remaining solid white blocks.

This is scary for a couple of reasons. To me, "free motion" is another term for "loosie goosie", which means even with lines to follow, I'm not good enough with the eye-hand-foot pedal motion to make smooth designs.

Also, I use a blue marking pen and I always hold my breath until it's time to remove the ink -- hoping it does indeed disappear! The pen is a wonderful tool. You draw the design, sew over it, and then to remove the ink you just spray it with clear water or run it through a washing machine cycle with no soap whatsoever!  If you use soap or stain remover, those products will actually set the ink permanently into the fabric, so only plain water will do.

one of the sail boats after the ink was removed with a squirt bottle of water

Thankfully, the ink did as advertised and came out completely. This is always such a relief every time I use the pen. It has never failed me but I always stress about it anyway.

sail boats with the ink and one with the ink washed out

With all that said and success to boot, I decided after this quilt was finished that my days of free-motion quilting are done. Ever since I shattered my shoulder in 2008, I have not been able to do this type of quilting nearly as well as I could before the accident. My future projects will have straight or wavy lines but no more "loosie goosie" for me. 

Me'n my Pfaff with the Sailor's quilt

Here is the finished quilt front: 

Nine Patch in Blue with Sail Boats

Here is the quilt showing the sail boat backing fabric:

front and back

And if  you read my blog post of this past Monday, you know how and why I put a personalized label on the back of all of my quilts:

quilt label with names partially blocked out
for sake of security -- you understand.

Would you believe that I have one more nautical-themed baby quilt to make this year? The next little sailor is due to be born in July, so I've got more time to scout out supplies -- although now that this one is done, I have begun to find fabric with boat anchors.

Maybe boats, fish, anchors, and sailors are more of a summer thing?