impulse shopping leads to impulse sewing

I was naughty toward the end of August. I had already overspent on fabric, but when a Botany jelly roll showed up as the Quilter's Daily Deal for only $22 plus $5 flat-rate shipping, I really just had to have it. I couldn't really afford it, but it was a really good deal!

Anyway, while sitting on my couch Friday drinking coffee after waking up a good four hours earlier than usual, I decided to be as impulsive in using the jelly roll as I was in buying it.

I took inspiration (and some basic construction info) from this Moda Bake Shop tutorial and this doll quilt on Flickr.

I originally wanted to lay out my blocks like this:

But I didn't like it as much after laying it all out. The decision was made for me when I realized that the way I squared up my blocks meant that some of the seams would be impossible to line up using this layout.

So I played some more and wound up with this:

I'm much happier with this layout. I think the values work way better, and it's easier to see the effect. My roommate helped me brainstorm the top and bottom border.

One of my favorite parts about this quilt top is that it cost less than $30! That's pretty incredible. I think I'm going to bind it in the brown print I used for the ¾" mini-border between the blocks and the piano keys. Thoughts?

ps: Sorry for the less-than-stellar pictures. My camera has been acting funky, so I'm using my cell phone for the time being.

When motivation strikes

So for some reason it seems that when I commit to Amy's One Thing, One Week Challenge, I tend to flake out. I know Amy isn't trying to make anyone feel guilty for not meeting their goal, and I don't really feel guilty. I had an awesome week — I just didn't get any sewing done. (To quote Jaybird's last post: "as often happens... plans end up just plans.. and life happens."

My goal was to finish the top of the Garden Windows quilt and my August bee blocks. Well, all that's left on Garden Windows is the border, but in truth I had reached that point a week ago. I did knock out a bee block though!

(Sorry for the less-than-stellar quality. My camera was dead and I was running out the door to work, so I snapped this with my phone.)

Last night a switch flipped in my brain, and I went into productivity mode. I stayed up late and read half of a 300-page book that's been sitting on my nightstand for months. That felt amazing, and gave me some good stuff to think about. This morning (I use that term to loosely define the few hours after I wake up, though it's technically afternoon), my roommate, our friend Alex and I did a yoga dvd in our living room. It wasn't quite my kind of thing, but after doing that it was impossible to sit around and just hang out. (I think I'm going to try going to a local yoga studio tomorrow afternoon!)

So I busted out the graph paper, made a quick sketch, did some math, and whipped out Julie's first block for the Bee in my Bonnet. It felt good! Julie asked for interesting squares inspired by these two quilts. I had been putting these off, waiting for inspiration to strike, and this one just came to me today. I think we create better things using that process, so I'm trying not to force myself too much. If I don't feel motivated to work on something, I know I won't put as much care and attention to detail into it.

ETA: Speaking of bee blocks, pop over to Deanna's blog and see the first finished Bee in my Bonnet quilt!

I'm going to leave you with a somewhat-depressing (sorry!) quote from the book I'm reading, because it really resonated with me. That's all I'll say on the matter. here ya' go:

Many people want desperately to believe, but just can't. They may feel tortured that their faith has evaporated, but they can't will it back into existence. If an autopsy could be done on their spiritual life, the cause of death wouldn't be murder or suicide. It would be natural causes — the organic death of a belief system that collapsed under the weight of experience and reason.

inside corner binding tutorial

   

When I finished quilting my Hexagon Quilt-Along quilt, I was determined to have cool funky edges across the top and bottom. This, of course, meant some awkward corners on the binding. I did a few searches online and found this tutorial. That helped me sew the binding on to the front of the quilt easily enough. My big problem came when I went to attach the binding down to the back. Try as I might, I couldn't get a nice-looking miter on those inside corners.

So in this post I would like to show you my technique to get from this...

... to this:

NOTE: If you don't yet have binding attached to the front of your quilt, first make sure you're using bias binding (cut on the bias to allow some stretch) and follow the first part of this tutorial. Then come back here for more details on getting the binding attached to the back!

The first thing you want to do when attaching binding to the back of your quilt is press the binding from the front. The "outside" corners miter nicely, but the inside corners stick straight up and sort of curve (see the picture above). Going from right to left, I used one hand to hold the binding down flat on the right side of the corner, and pressed that side flat:

Next, I aligned a ruler to the mid-point of the inside angle. With this quilt, it lined up with the seam between my hexagons. I used this as a guide and finger-pressed the left side of the binding up, like this:

Then I pressed that fold with my iron to set it and get it nice and flat. Notice how the fold starts just a bit away from where the binding meets the quilt top:

Once you've pressed your corners from the front, it's time to flip over to the back. It will look something like this:

I use pins rather than binding clips simply because I don't have binding clips. I think for these purposes, pins would be beneficial at least on the corners. This time, we'll move from left to right, first pinning down the left side of the binding, a bit away from the corner:

Now, pin the right side down, again just a bit away from the corner. You should have something like this:

See how the middle wants to stand up a bit? Fold your quilt over some so you can get to the front. I found it helpful (especially since I clipped the corner a bit to sew the binding to the front) to sort of squeeze the corner together a bit, to get the miter to fold properly. Then you'll put a pin from the top down through the front miter:

Fold your quilt back over and put another pin in the back miter. Keep in mind that your miter will start a bit above where the binding is sewn to the quilt.

Once you have your corners pinned, you can start sewing the binding down. I learned this technique from this tutorial on Amy's Creative Side. Amy has some great tutorials on attaching the binding to the front and mitering your typical right-angle corner, too.

This is where I differ a bit from the tutorial I linked to above. Once I got to the "point" of my corner, I made a stitch that came out along the crease of the miter, then sewed a few stitches up along that fold, using the same technique as you would to attach the binding to the back of your quilt:

   

When I got to the top, I took a couple stitches that I can best describe as a sort-of whipstitch, coming out at the fold, down through the lower layer, then up again at the fold:

   

Those stitches are only that visible because the thread isn't pulled taught. If you do it right, they'll hardly show at all. After a few of those stitches at the top, I continued to sew down the miter on the front of the quilt:

When you get to the end of the fold (which will be a bit before the binding meets the quilt top) insert your needle in through the binding and into the batting, then flip to the back. Maneuver your needle so it comes out the quilt back just barely below the binding:

Give your needle a gentle tug, making sure all the stitches in your corner are pulled taught (they should all but disappear when you do this), then continue along the binding as you were before.

And that's it! I recently washed my Hexagon Quilt-Along quilt, and was very happy to see that the miters stayed in place using this technique.

This is my first real tutorial here at Thrifty Quilter, so any feedback is greatly appreciated. I'm always available to answer any questions — just leave me a comment and make sure you aren't a "no-reply" blogger so that I can get back to you.

Happy quilting!

I may have forgotten to mention...

...that (after many struggles attaching the binding) I finished my hexagon quilt last week!

(Thanks to my lovely roommate for helping me take pictures!)

I quilted it with zig-zags following the horizontal rows of hexagons. I used a variegated thread that picked up all the bold, beautiful colors. I like the finished effect, but it was really hard to keep the tension consistent, especially around seams. I don't know if I'll be using variegated thread again any time soon...



I really like the back. I used some of my leftover hexagon pieces and solids to piece it. Now all I need to do is make a label! Where do you put the label when the quilt doesn't necessarily have a top or bottom?

Oh, and my inside corner binding tutorial is in the works for y'all. It should be up sometime tomorrow!

I need to work on my sewing/cutting posture...

(Would you believe it took me more than an hour to make that stack of trimmings?)

So for a little while now I've been annoying all my friends about how my birthday is coming up "soon." It's actually 30 days away, but it's a milestone birthday so I guess it's been on my mind. What didn't occur to me until this week, though, is that if my birthday is soon, my mom's birthday is sooner! You'd think after almost 25 years I'd have that down... Anyway, I was really struck by the design of this quilt featured (with full pattern/tutorial) on the Burgundy Buttons blog last week. I had a layer cake of Glam Garden by Josephine Kimberling (purchased, of course, from Burgundy Buttons!) and some yardage of Kona Hibiscus just waiting to be made into a quilt. Of course, my mom's hobby of choice is gardening, and her favorite color is purple. I think you know where I'm going with this...

(ninety-nine 4½" blocks!)

For the Friday Night Sew-In, I decided I'd better get cracking on my mom's birthday quilt, which I'm thinking will be called "Garden Windows." I love the way the sashing looks like windowpanes, and the bright colors in the fabric line remind me of stained glass. I was a little upset to find out that my set of forty 10" squares wasn't exactly made of 10" squares... They were a little wonky, and some edges only measured 9½"! Luckily, this pattern calls for creating a bunch of triangles, sewing them to a diagonal sashing strip, and then trimming them to 4½". This was lucky in the sense that my not-quite-10"-squares worked well for the project, but unlucky in the sense that I spent something like five hours sewing, pressing, sewing again, and trimming all ninety-nine blocks. Don't they look pretty all neatly stacked up there?

I realized two things after the sewing and trimming marathon: First, I tend to hunch over a bit at my machine... I think I was trying to get a better perspective on the fabric going under my ¼" presser foot, because with ½" finished sashing, you have to be painfully exact. Second, all that trimming is hard on your back, too. Spending that much time hunched over my machine and then hunched over my cutting table has left me very sore today!

(first three rows)

But as I started laying out the rows, I decided it was all worth it. Also, it seems the worst is behind me. It only took me a few hours this afternoon to assemble seven of the eleven rows. I'm hoping to have the top done by the end of the week. I'm pretty excited about this quilt... the one I gave my mom for her birthday back in 2005 is getting a bit ratty.