What Did You Call Me? Holiday Fun

Festive holiday quilting is one of my favorite things to do. I love to create new wall hangings and quilts that can be displayed each year for others to enjoy. I can't lie, I'm a bit selfish with my quilting and find it very hard to give away anything I've made. When I make items other people get to enjoy but I get to keep it's like the best of both worlds for me. 

My days quilting have been greatly modified into minutes or hours of quilting now that I'm a parent. Don't get me wrong I LOVE being a parent and could play with C all day, but when I want to quilt it happens in about 2 hour blocks while he's napping or after he's gone to bed. 

Last night I decided to just go for it and take on the "What did you call me?" Witch Wall Hanging pattern from Happy Haunters by Kelly Mueller. My husband, C and I spent the afternoon at a pool party with family, so when we got home everyone was exhausted-- except the baby! Even for skipping his nap he just wasn't ready to sleep. 

At about 5pm my husband made us dinner. While he was working on that and C was in his high chair I started on the applique tracing to the heat n bond, precutting, and ironing. Before dinner was ready I had all my shapes ironed on. 

About 7pm we put C in bed and he finally caught on that it was time to sleep. At that point I was ready to pass out, however quilting tends to give me a second wind so I headed back to my quilting room. I cut out all my appliqué pieces, which for this pattern was actually a lot. This was one of the first patterns I've done that has required a lot of layering of the appliqué.

 I was able to use my appliqué pressing sheet which was a life saver. I placed it on my ironing board and then layered my appliquéd witch on top.  Once I was happy with the placement of all the pieces I ironed the witch down. Then I was able to pull her up in on piece for easy placement on the backing fabric. 

I had already added my preliminary border to the quilt background fabric so next I started placing the witch and the letters for "what did you call me?". Then I added the batting and went to town sewing down the appliqué. I was able to get this all complete by 11pm!! Including about a 15 minute break where I seam ripped an entire section of sitching I had done on the witches head but also caught whole other part of the quilt top. WHOOPS! 

In the morning C got up at 7am so we played in his room for an hour and then I took him to the quilting room where he listened to Old McDonald on Baby Einstien and watched my quilt while playing with toys in his high chair. 

I had a short timeline to get the wall hanging finished as we were leaving the house at 9:30am to head to breakfast with family. 

MISTAKE ALERT: 

I always buy extra fabric thinking I'll need it for additional projects. Really my brain must just think it's for backup because without fail I almost always cut at least one piece completly the wrong size. And well this wall hanging was no different. 

I cut my background and borders perfectly, however my backing fabric I cut too short the first time, grr! I had decided to increase the backing measurements from the pattern so I could bring the backing to the front and have a built in extra border and mitered corners. Well my first cut I cut at the shorter of the two lengths I needed. Thankfully though I had bought almost an entire extra yard of fabric. So I did my second cut, success--- or at least I thought. 

I ironed the lines I needed so I'd know where to sew and create the borders/mitered corners but there was about an inch extra lengthwise so I had to readjust placement of the quilt top and re iron. Then I sewed the first corner. It seemed really off so I didn't cut it, I just flipped it to take a look. Sure enough it wasn't going to work. The side borders were an inch wider than the top and bottom and it wasn't making the corners got correctly. So I had to take an inch off the sides. :( Scraps for the future I guess. 

With that in order I sewed all my corners, clipped them, and turned them... To find that my magic border/mitered binding trick covered the border I already sewed onto the quilt top! Oh my.  

This would not have been a problem if the hat for the witch didn't go into the border for the quilt top. So I took out my trusty seam ripper. 

This was my first time undoing appliqué and I wasn't sure how it would go because of the heat 'n bond. However it came up fine and I was able to applique it on the new border. Woo!! Finally success. 

After that dibacle I was able to wavy stitch the border/backing down and add a hanging sleeve.

Even with all of those snafus before my morning coffee I was able to complete my wall hanging by 9am. 

I am so happy with the finished product and want to make another one which I can send to my Grandma Y. 

Since I was young Grandma Y has had a sign in her garage that says something to the effect of "this isn't Burger King, so you'll have it my way" which makes me think she will think this is pretty funny too. 

Scrabble Jack

At Black Bag Saturday (Aug. 2013) I picked up this awesome pattern by Happy Hollows Design for a pumpkin wall hanging, the pumpkins teeth read "Happy Fall Y'all". 

This project brought a new element into my quilting because it used fusible grid paper. And let me start off by saying how awesome this stuff is!! It makes your piecing look so precise when really you don't have to do much. 

For the pattern your working with 1 7/8th inch squares. Over 200 of them! So the start of this quilt for me was a huge cutting session. I had about 12 fat quarters in orange hues, 4 in black, 3 in brown, and one in green. After I cut what seemed like a billion squares I laid out my fusible grid and got to work.  

The great thing about the grid is you can lay everything out and play with placement to make sure where you like items before you commit to sewing or even fusing the items in place. For me once I laid everything out I actually did my first ironing on my dining room table (don't tell the husband please!). I did put batting under the grid to protect the table. This allowed me to move the whole piece to the ironing board for a true press. 

 

When pressing you're adhering 1 7/8th inch squares to 2 inch fusible grid so there is some exposed glue. Because of this the ladies at my new favorite quilting store introduced me to an appliqué pressing sheet. You place it over the quilt squares and iron right on top so it gets the glue, not your iron. 

Once all your squares are fused you fold the grid paper row by row and sew across horizontally. Then once all the horizontal rows are complete you move on to vertical rows. However there is a step in the middle. You need to go through and snip at the seam allowance between squares to help the grid paper fold and sew vertically. Once this is done you can move on to the vertical row sewing. 

Once your pieces are sewn to the fusible grid you cut out your shape and lay your backing on top, RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER-- I emphasis this because I did it wrong sides together and spent an hour seam ripping later. Once your pumpkin and backing are right sides together your batting is place over the backing. Then you sew your 1/4 inch seam around the outside of your pumpkin, leaving an area for turning it inside out at the bottom. 

Once sewn you cut off the excess backing and batting and clip the corners. Then turn inside out. Once inside out you will use a point turner to refine the corners and then finally see the bottom opening closed. 

The original pattern has a set of decorations that can be purchased including the scrabble teeth, raffia, and button eyes. It ran about $20 but I still bought it. Because I had so much fabric left I actually made a second Scrabble Jack and for it I found similar items to the buttons and raffia at Hobby Lobby and used them.

The end result was fantastic and those I know who quilt were impressed with my piecing accuracy! I let them in on the fusible grid secret and they loved it. I truly look forward to getting to hang these year after year now.

Learning to Make a Rag Quilt

My first project of 2013 was a rag quilt for my nephew. I decided on a rag quilt because I received a great rag quilt pattern book for Christmas, and my nephew lives in Washington state and would need something warm. 

A rag quilt is great because it is usually 2 layers of flannel and one layer of batting, and it gets more cozy with every wash. And with kiddos there is certainly going to be many washings ahead. 

For the fabric I picked three colors of green, three colors of blue and then yellow for the sashing. To make the quilt I had to cut a front, back, and batting square for each piece. Then I sewed them together with a half inch seam. 

When it came time to make the rag part of the quilt the instructions to clip the seam allowance didn't compute correctly in my mind. So I made a BIG MISTAKE, I tried to trim away all the seam allowance! If you've ever made a rag quilt or read a pattern for one you might now that seam allowance is what you need to clip to make the quilt rag. WHOOPS! Well not all was lost I was still able to cut the seams enough to get the rag effect (as you can see in the photo). 

From this process I found that I really need to invest in some scissors meant for cutting rag quilts. It seemed to take forever to cut all the seams, and my scissors had a hard time cutting. Hopefully if I attempt a rag quilt in the future I will pre-plan and take care of this. (UPDATE: While making my second rag quilt over one year later I still did not have rag quilt scissors, as soon as I finished that quilt I purchased a pair ASAP via Amazon). 

After I had the quilt washed and ready to go I added a iron on quilt label. This was the first label I've ever used and it was super easy since it was one you could print on your home printer. The only thing I would change with labeling the quilt was that I waited until the quilt was done so the sewing that held the label in permanently shows through on the back. 

This is the finished product that was sent to Washington just in time for Mr. Ephraim's 1st Birthday: