WIP Wednesday

Freezer Meals are some of my favorite things.  But, those of you that know me know that sometimes when i do projects, I go a little overboard.  Last week, I decided to make freezer meals on Tuesday.  I found the recipes, best sales, did my shopping and planned to make 27 meals.  One thing I forgot was that I can't stack things in my freezer until they're frozen!

I did make 25 meals yesterday and still have two more to make today.

After making all of these, I needed to sit down and what better place to set down to than the sewing machine!

I did finish this baby boy quilt and it binding.  This is the first quilt that I have ever machine bound and it turned out really good.  Thanks quilters for sharing with me how to do this.

It is made with almost all Riley Blake Fabrics and is available on etsy

And here is my Alyssa quilt which I also listed on etsy

It's made with Moda's Miss Kate line and has a aqua flannel back 

I will make a post on this later!

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:

Baptist Fan

I'm working on a broken herringbone quilt that I started 13 months ago, with Molli Sparkles in a QAL.  Of coarse I set my vision to big and eventually decided to put the quilt on hold and just made this Christmas table runner.

Well, 13 months after starting this broken herringbone quilt,  I have finally finished the quilt top and am ready to put this quilt together.  

I have decided for this quilt I want to quilt a baptist fan pattern but I have never done this.  I know I'm a little crazy to quilt a pattern like this on a home machine, a 72"x85" quilt, and never having tried the pattern before.  

My first issue is I  don't have a circular template to create the fan.  I looked at my local quilting store and they have 1" half circle patterns.    I really want the fans to be farther apart than 1" but not so far as 2", meaning they won't work.  Many tutorials out there show how you can freehand your circle, but that does not work for me!  Other blogs show how some used lids or other circular shapes.... Not what I want.

I decided to create a template for me.  After digging around in my untouched scrapbooking closet I found some thin plastic and a hole punch.  

At first I thought I would want my fans quilting with circles 1 1/2" apart so I marked and punched my template ever 1 1/2".

After drawing the circles and seeing how far apart they looked, I re-marked (notice the black dots) my template at every 1 1/4".

Here is my sample drawings to see how big my fans will be.

Before I quilt anything I have to draw it!  If I can draw something on paper I can learn to quilt it on fabric,  if I can't draw on paper then I'm crazy to think I can make it quilt perfectly on fabric. It's not perfect, but it works and I found how I wanted my baptist fans quilted.  I will be quilting from right to left so I drew my fans from left to right.  Make sure you know the direction you will be quilting before you draw fans on your quilt!  

Next I practiced quilting on scrap fabric, but you aren't going to see how that turned out ;).

Next I marked my quilt's lower half and started quilting it using Arofill, 50wt light grey thread.

Here is where I am to.