Day 1

Yesterday I decided it was time to do a 25 day challenge and get all these UFO's finished!  I will try to post my progress each day.

Day 1:  I finished sewing the blocks, sashed it all, sewed the blocks together, and added the border.

I also got the back all sewn together and used the scraps to make modern strip across the middle.

I will apologize for this being a little shorter, but the main detail was in the prior post for making this quilt top. You can see the prior instruction post here

To put the top together I made vertical strips: 2 strips were 5: 3x3 blocks and 2 strips were 1: 3x2 then 1: 3x3 block repeated twice.  Each of the blocks had 2 1/2" strips of sashing between them.  When the strips were made, the strips with only 3x3 blocks is 2" shorter than the other strips.  Because of this, I added a strip of sashing to the bottom of those two strips.  

Next, put sashing on the sides of the long strips you just made and sew them together.

Last, add 5 1/2" border around the outside edge.

Now your top is finished.

I'm linking up to:

Freshly Pieced // MyQuiltInfatuation  // Quilt Story // Free Motion By The River // Blossom Heart Quilts // Sew Fresh Quilts

Day 2

It's Day 2 of my Cleaning Out the UFO challenge.  I

  For Christmas I am making my older two daughters quilts for their new rooms  (they will be moving into during Christmas break).  In prior posts I showed an Alyssa quilt, you can find the tutorial starting here.  The true reason for me making that quilt was a trial to see how the real twin sized quilt for my daughter Alyssa would work out.  She picked this 'Beautiful' fabric, made by Riley Blake, out last summer while we were driving through the Midwest on our family vacation and just happening to come upon the Missouri quilt company store.  Of coarse, I had to make the family stop and the rest is history.

Today I added the white to all 80 of these blocks, ironed the white down and trimmed them to perfect squares.

My older daughter also  got her braces on today and so I spent a whole 2 hours at the orthodontist wishing I had my sewing machine with me!

She is just starting 4H again after making this quilt last year.  This year she will be making the Piece of Cake 3 quilt , by thimble blossoms.

Here is some of the fun fabric she has picked out to make this quilt, it's the new Cotton&Steel line by RJR fabric.  If you haven't seen it, you need to its gorgeous!

I'm linking up to:

Freshly Pieced // MyQuiltInfatuation  // Quilt Story // Free Motion By The River // Blossom Heart Quilts // Sew Fresh Quilts

Sassy!

About a year ago, my daughter and I found a fun jelly roll of Moda Sassy fabric at our favorite store, Cotton Shop on a great clearance price!  I quickly drew up a pattern and planned a quilt to make.  

Problem was, clearance fabric is hard to find.  Finally a few months later I found the perfect fabrics at a long forgotten store (the mending shed) not far from my home.  They were just what I wanted from this Sassy line for the binding, border and backing. 

To make this quilt I needed:

1 Jellyroll

4 yards backing fabric (pink)

1 1/4 yrd border fabric (green stripe)

1/2 yrd binding fabric (blue)

Cream fabric for sashing and inner border

My first step was to stitch 2 jelly roll strips together, repeat this until you have 20: 2 strip sets.  Next, cut each of these strips into 4 1/2" squares.

Each strip will make 9 squares and so after cutting the 20 strips, you should have 180 squares.

Now we put the blocks together!  We will want to make 16: 3x3 blocks and 6: 3x2 blocks

Chain stitching really comes in handy putting these blocks together, it will save lots of time and keep your blocks organized.

If you keep them in order and get your rows together correctly (as pictured above) you can just fold one row over another to sew the rows together.

 When you get these all sewn together, iron, starch & square up the blocks to be 12 1/2" 

Because of the way the quilt flows, we will sew our blocks together in columns.  Next sash top and bottom of block with cream fabric.

Sew them together into long strips.  I have 5: 3x3 blocks in one column strip (Make 2 of these) and then 1: 3x2, 1: 3x3, 1: 3x2, 1: 3x3, 1: 3x2 & 1: 3x3 for the other column strip (make two of these)

Hope you are enjoying this, I will continue on with this quilt in the next few days.  Check back soon :)

Alyssa Quilt: part 3 (finishing it up)

Today it's time to finish up this quilt!

You can check out Step 1 and Step 2 in prior blog posts

Step 1:

 Last time we pieced the blocks together so the first step today is add your border.  On this quilt I added a 3 1/2" border of a coordinating Miss Kate fabric.  On the twin Alyssa quilt I will be adding two borders, the inner border will be a 2 1/2" white border (my light color will be white on that quilt) and the outer will be a 4" colorful border.

Step 2:

Baste your quilt.  (I duck tape my individual pieces to the concrete floor in my basement and then pin them together.)

Step 3: 

Quilt your quilt.  

Step 4:

Bind your quilt (sorry on this post I'm not going into much detail on this)

Most quilts I stitch the binding to the front and then hand stitch the binding to the back, but baby quilts get washed more and need more strength so I stitch the binding to the back first and the stitch it to the front like this:

There you have it, these quilts are so easy to make!  

I made two of these Alyssa style baby quilts (and I still have fabric to make another quilt for a cousin having their first baby):

One had one floralish back and one has a polka dot back so they can be used for twins. They are both available in shop on etsy

I have linked up to:  Freshly Pieced // MyQuiltInfatuation  // Quilt Story // Free Motion By The River // Blossom Heart Quilts // Sew Fresh Quilts