String quilt

I've been working on this quilt for a while. It's for someone special, but I won't say who yet. This type of quilt is called a string quilt.
If you'd like to see how it's done, I'll show you! Start by choosing a bunch of random fabrics and cutting strips of varying widths. Mine ranged from .5" to maybe 3".

It uses paper piecing, which I was sure would be really complicated. I really ended up loving the method. You start with a square of paper the size you want your final blocks to be. I used old computer paper that was going to be recycled. At first I was going to make bigger blocks, but then I realized I didn't want them to be bigger than my sheets of paper or I'll have to tape sheets together. It was just easier to make them 8.5" square.
After cutting your papers into squares, draw a line on the diagonal from corner to corner.

Choosing one solid fabric that is used consistently and only on that diagonal will create a neat effect when the quilt is put together. I'll have to show you that later. I chose white. I believe these strips were 1" wide. Use a fabric glue stick to stick this first strip to the diagonal.

Randomly select a bunch of strips in differing prints and widths. Lay the first one right-side down on the white strip, with the right edges matched.

Sew a quarter inch seam allowance right through the paper. Use a small stitch length so that your paper will perforate well and you can more easily pull it off later.

Press the strip open.

Repeat with another strip on the other side of the white strip.

Add another strip to either side of those.

Keep on going until you have covered all of the paper. As you can see, as you approach the corners, you need smaller and smaller pieces. So I cut off any major excess and set it aside to use for these corners on future blocks. I barely had enough fabric for all of my blocks, so I'm glad I wasn't wasting long strips on these tiny areas.

In the end, your block will look messy, like this. Incidentally, I mostly tried not to use the same fabric twice on the same block, but here I did.

Now, to make it all pretty. Get your rotary cutter, square ruler and mat. Turn your block over so you can see the paper.

Line up your ruler so that the edges on the top and right sides match up with the edge of the paper. Use this opportunity to square it up as much as you need to.

Cut the top and right sides off.

Rotate your square and repeat.

And looky what you've got! A beautiful and perfect square. I'll show you later how to put them together to look purty. (And, yes, that's a different block than I showed above. I lost that one in the pile.)

A Mother's Day quilt

I made my mom a quilt for Mother's Day. Actually, I made my mom two quilts, but the first one was really ugly, so I started over.

This is the good one. I got the idea from Film in the Fridge.



It's the Rectangle Squared block pattern.



I used Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2 fabrics - one pack of fat quarters. I believe there were eight of them. I sashed it with white.



I used one of the Aviary fabrics, the purple one with the birds, for the backing. I didn't have quite enough, so I pieced it with scraps. I like the effect better than an all-one-fabric backing anyway.



And, finally, I stippled it. I love the texture of stippling, so I almost always use that form of quilting on my projects.


Here's the quilt top I originally made. The pattern was Oh, Fransson's Mixtape pattern (although this link is to an updated version of the pattern), and I was so proud that I selected a dozen fabrics to go together. Only, they didn't. And my sashing choice was just awful, it turns out. Oh, and I made tons of cutting and sewing mistakes, so it was quite wonky.

A gift for my Brocky Boy

I was visiting Emily's blog, So Much for My Plans, and saw this adorable quilt that she made. I hope she doesn't mind that I posted it here.



It appeals to me because my sewing time is limited and it's just made with a charm pack, or pre-cut squares. No cutting = saving a lot of time. It's simple and beautiful. And I'm a copy cat, so I'm making one for Brock as a gift, maybe for his first birthday.

I'm using the Max & Whiskers collection from Moda.



I'll keep you posted! I'm excitedly watching the mailbox for my fabrics.

14 months later ... a finished quilt!

Over a year ago, I posted several blog posts expressing my excitement to make this clothesline quilt from Oh, Fransson. I searched high and low for vintage linens in thrift and antique shops, even online.

Then I got started. Then it quickly stalled. I don't know why. I think part of it was that cutting up old sheets and pillowcases is not as easy as cutting crisp, smooth fabric off of a bolt. So I had a bit of a hard time.

Then I found that sewing old fabrics together accurately wasn't as easy as sewing new fabrics together accurately. Some were really worn, some were crisp.

Well, I finally finished it! And I do love it, even if it's not perfect.





It's interesting how the texture comes out so much more when you don't use the flash. But you also can't see the fabrics as well, so I did photos each way.





The back is nine different vintage fabrics -- I like the orange ones the best





I'm so glad to have the project completed. It's been sitting around my sewing room cluttering everything up for over a year. Now I have a pretty quilt instead of a mess!

More gifts

Two more items from this giveaway post went out this week.

To Kerry, I sent this pleated paisley handbag:




And to Kathy, I sent two quilted place mats, reversible:




For anybody interested in making a handbag, I do have several tutorials listed on the side column of my blog if you need some help. I was going to make a tutorial for the quilted place mats, but I had to do so much adjusting as I went that I would really need to do another set to make sure all my notes are correct. I may get around to that eventually.

Time machine

Oh, man. Did I ever hit vintage sheet paydirt at my mother-in-law's house! I don't know why I didn't think to ask earlier. Maybe because I have enough damn vintage sheets, and I've yet to use them for much.

I was over there today to help with a garage sale. I got there late because I'm no early bird. It was slow all afternoon, save a few lonely people who talked our ears off. Mark and I made less than $20, and I've already spent it all. I bought lunch at Blake's Lotaburger up the street, and then I stopped in at a nearby thrift store while I was on that side of town. I needed more vintage sheets, see. And I found a set of canisters still in the box that looked unused for $10.

OK, so I'm figuring my MIL is in her 80s AND she is a packrat holds onto stuff. They all like to hold onto stuff, that family. I ask her if she has any vintage sheets she doesn't need anymore, stuff older than the 1980s. And she finds all these perfect pillowcases! Some of them are a bit bland, but some are fantabulous!

Warning: if you think my normal photography is bad, I used my phone for this here.



Would you like to see them up close?

The top one is a set of two pillowcases, and I think I'll use on my bed. They're pretty:



These two have three each, and they are so vivid! I love them. Actually, the second one also has a pair still in the package.




These are thrift store finds:




These are from MIL, but a bit bland:





And this one looks just like a pink version I found at a thrift store. I've also seen it on eBay a lot. It must have been popular:



I guess this means I need to start making a quilt out of this great collection. But who to make it for? That's the question.

It's not ghosts, it's the wind

Do your doors suddenly slam shut? Mine do. I'm pretty sure it's not apparitions, but rather the air flow through the house on windy days. So I made these door stoppers from a free pattern featured on Oh, Fransson. This is one of my scrap-busting projects. You can use them in front of doors to keep them open, or behind them to protect something. Our bedroom balcony door wants to bang into our brand-new dresser, so I placed one between the two.










The white one I gave to a friend today. I felt like a weirdo presenting a random door stopper as a gift, but as it turns out, they'd actually been in great need of one. Weird, indeed.




There's a zipper on the bottom, and you just fill 'em up with dried beans. If you ever get hungry enough, you could eat them (I never get hungry enough to eat beans).

Vintage sheets and gory gum tales

I'm feeling great one day after my gum graft surgery. I have really had very little pain. Yesterday, after the shots wore off, I felt fine all evening. Right before bed, I bent over to get my purse and remembered immediately that I'm not supposed to bend over, because allowing the blood to rush to my mouth is a really bad idea. I then went and did my first rinse with Peridex, which is prescription antiseptic. It hurt really, really bad for several minutes afterward, but ever since then I have had no pain.

I felt good enough to eat real food, albeit very carefully. I found out on facebook that a high school classmate has to go tomorrow and have the same thing done, PLUS a bone graft and a tooth extraction. So she has a lot more to go through and I'd like to send good vibes or prayers or whatever to her.

So today, I felt like getting out of the house a little bit, and what is more fun than rummaging through stinky thrift stores for old, used sheets?

I usually go to Savers, a big, monster of a thrift store near my house. There is a Goodwill a little further away, but I think most of the other thrift stores are way across town (**whisper and shifty glance**you know, where all those poor people are). So today I went to Goodwill and found absolutely nothing. I stopped in at Savers on the way home, and every time I think that surely I have cleaned that place out of the good vintage stuff, they have more!

I was really excited for this yellow one, and it's a whole sheet, so besides making for a more colorful Clothesline Quilt (aka Nine Pillowcase Quilt) when I get to it, it may make a cute skirt or top, too. I'm also thinking of selling the leftovers of my vintage sheet collection on eBay or etsy, because they seem to fetch a pretty good price.



I bought this pillowcase on eBay today for $3.50, and at Savers they are only 99 cents. But I figured, what if I grab the ones I don't really want or need and then can't unload them? And if I do, it's just a few bucks profit and all the trouble of packing and going to the post office.



For fun, lets look at all the ones I got before: