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

Alyssa: part 2

Click here to get to Alyssa: Part 1

Click here to get to Alyssa: finishing it up

With the Miss Kate line, setting aside 8 strips of light fabric (I'm only using the brighter fabrics for this quilt) I created 72 strip blocks 4 1/2" x 8 1/2".  The current quilt I am making only needs 20 blocks, leaving me plenty for future projects.

Now on to our next steps

Step 6:

Our blocks are going to go together like this, one neutral strip sewn to each side of a strip block, making it a 8 1/2" square block.

 It will work much faster if you will chain piece them together.

 We create this by first sewing a neutral strips onto the edge of a  strip block.

After sewing one neutral piece onto each block, iron that side with the seam towards to neutral strip.  I left my blocks linked together until after I had ironed the.  It makes the process much faster and more organized.

Next, stitch in the other side and iron it just as you did the first side.

Step 7:

Square up your blocks to all be 8 1/2" square

Step 8: 

Lay your blocks out into the desired pattern

Step 9:

As you complete this step, you will have to iron as you go.  This will keep your seems laying flat and not making bulk behind your quilt.

Sew your quilt together in rows, 1 at a time.  Iron towards the neutral strip.  

Now you get to do the fun part :). 

Sew two rows together!

Here is my tips:  1: make sure the seams kiss when they meet 2.  When ironing I used the Eleanor Burns method, for the seam shown see how they are going counter clockwise, iron your row joining seam that way. Then 3: pop the seam and flatten it so that it will lay completely flat leaving no bulk and allowing you front to lay perfectly.

This is what the quilt looks like until Part 3, which is to come soon!

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

Alyssa quilt: part 1

Everyday I get an email from the Missouri quilt company, showing their deal of the day.  A few weeks ago, the deal was a jelly roll line made by Moda, Miss Kate.  Of coarse it was designed by Bonnie and Camelle and so I had to look into it, them being some of my favorite designers. 

Guess what I did, I had to order it!  The colors and patterns are so much fun!

I also knew the perfect pattern to make this quilt into.  I drew up a pattern in July to make with Riley Blake, it's a Beautiful Thing line, and called it my 'Alyssa quilt' as it's for my daughter Alyssa.  This Miss Kate fabric and my Alyssa pattern, will make a fun baby quilt for an upcoming baby girl in my family.  

 (Like how I'm using my old scrapbooking paper to design quilts on?)

Supplies for Alyssa quilt:

1 Jelly Roll

Neutral Fabric (need 5" for every 5 blocks) Baby quilt: 2/3 yd, Twin quilt: 2 1/2  yds

Border fabric: Baby quilt:1/2 yd;Twin quilt 1 1/2 yds

Background fabric:  Baby quilt 1 1/2 yds; Twin 4 1/2-5 1/2 yds 

Binding: Baby 1/4 yd; Twin 1/2 yd

Sewing Maching

Aurifil Thread

Batting

You can get to part 2 here

Step 1: 

Sort your jelly roll fabric into groups of 4 fabric that will go together.  Try to mix your colors up so for example green won't be on the outside edge of each strip.

Step 2: 

Chain stitch each group of 4 together

One of my favorite tools it The Cutting Gizmo by www.thegypsyquilter.com, that I found at a local quilt store.  It's a great way to cut all those chained pieces apart quickly.

Step 3:

Iron hour strips, I prefer to iron all seams in one direction

Step 4:

Cut your pieced strips into 4 1/2" strips

  

Each combined strip of 4 jelly roll strips sewn together, will give you 9 block pieces to work with.

Step 5:

First, cut your neautral fabric into 2 1/2" strips, so that they will be fabric with @ 44" long by 2 1/2" wide.

Second cut those 44" x 2 1/2" strips into 8 1/2" long strips, one of these strips will make 5:  8 1/2" x 2 1/2" strips

I'm linking this to Needle and Thread Thursday and Let's BEE Social

Sneak Peak of Alyssa Quilt Part 2:

Hour Glass Pillow (plus tutorial)

This is all about firsts this year!  This is my first pillow ever and it turned out beautifully!  I really love this Robert Kaufman fabric line that I have been making a quilt with for the past 10 months (did I really say that).  It was a great way to use up lots of scraps on this fun pillow.

This hourglass pillow is made to fit a 16" pillow.  I cut 26, 4 1/2"  blocks, 13 are Robert Kaufman print and 13 are Kona cotton solid white.  If I were to make this again, I would have cut my original square blocks 1/2" smaller, making the pillow and blocks smaller.  

All seams are 1/4" seam allowance.

1.  Cut your blocks

2.  Put a print and a solid facing each other.  With a disappearing ink pen, draw a diagonal line from one corner to the opposite corner.

3.  Sew 1/4" seam on the left side of the marked line, and then turn it around and sew 1/4" on the opposite side of the marked line.

4.  Cut from corner to corner along the marked line through the middle of the two lines you just stitched.

5.  Cut from corner to corner of the opposite corners.  

This will give you 4 triangular blocks

6.  Press them open with the seam towards the colored (or darker) fabric.

7.  Lay your pieces together placing the blocks correctly and then sew these together to form the blocks

8.  Press flat and use starch to stiffin up the blocks.

Repeat until all blocks are sewn and pressed.

9. Lay all your blocks out to the desired pattern.  Sew them all together!

10.  I made a quilted top on my pillow, so next I placed the pieced top on a layer of batting and backing.  Baste them together and quilt with the desired pattern.

I quilted in all straight lines and so I used my walking foot.  This helps the machine feed both the top and bottom layers evenly through the feed dogs.  I highly recommend you use a walking foot when machine quilting (in straight lines).

I also highly recommend you used aurofil thread.  It speaks for itself in quality.

Here my top is after the quilting.

11. (No picture) cut the back material 6 inches longer than the top piece.  This will allow overlap and rolled seam.  Cut the fabric in half where you would like the pillow to slide in.  On line where you cut, iron 1/2" seam down, roll and iron another 1/2" seam down.  Top stitch this seam.  Repeat with second piece of back fabric.  Inside out, lay the back fabrics on top of quilted top.  Make sure the top stitched seams are overlapping by at least 2".  Cut off excess fabric and stitch around the pillowcase.  

Insert your pillow and you have a fun pillow!

I linked to:

http://www.blossomheartquilts.com

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