Piecing It Together

Wrapped in Love

2011-06-09T19:13:00.005-05:00

Rob's sister passed away a month ago today. It's hard to believe it's already/only been a month.

As part of their grief counseling, it was suggested that each of her young daughters pick out a few items of her clothing to have made into blankets to snuggle with. I was given the honor--truly, I'm honored--to make the blankets. My brother-in-law gave me the shirts a few weeks ago but I was too nervous to make the first cut until this week.

I think they turned out very sweet. All the materials are a tight knit and won't fray so I didn't bother to back or hem it; leaving each shirt at its full cozy softness. I tried to keep necklines and any other identifying details as much as I could. There's something deeply moving about running a finger along the buttons or neckline; so much more than just seeing a series of small squares and remembering a shirt once upon a time that used that fabric.

After stitching each seam I pressed the seam to one side, top-stitched it close to the edge, and trimmed the edge for a relatively polished looking back, but it's still not as pretty as the front.

I read a tutorial (here) for making these little wrapped flowers out of a ribbon or any fabric, really, and decided to use the hems of each non-green shirt to make a few flowers.

The green shirt had a collar on it that was trimmed with a delicate crocheted edge so I cut off each end of that into a triangle and gathered them into a leaf.

That would have been it, but as I was sewing down the last seam my machine was possessed. I blame my sister-in-law. Because after it finished sucking a solid inch or so of fabric into the feed-dogs and I had to completely dismantle the machine to remove it, it ended up with a bite out of it. Here I was thinking I was nearly done.

Desperate, I grabbed one of the extra sleeves that were too small to make a square from and cut a heart-patch. I lined up the stripes to make it less obvious but let it overlap into the adjacent square to make it somewhat easy to find, too. I thought it turned out beautifully. And, of course, then I added one to the other blanket so both sisters could have a little extra love in their blanket. It gave it the little something extra it needed; thanks Debi.

Quilt: done!

2009-06-01T23:39:00.004-05:00

I got the border put on (a 3" wide strip of 2" wide bars; sort of like fat piano keys; a little of each fabric) and tonight we pencil-ed on the quilt pattern and sandwiched it and then I promptly folded it up and packed it into a shipping box to get to the mom-to-be for her baby shower this weekend.

And then realized I forgot to take a final picture. Doh!

From some of the leftover fabric I pieced a scrappy doll quilt. The border of the main quilt is the same as each row of this quilt.

It's about 18" x 30" and will be a nice blanket for a baby doll or even to toss over the car seat. I sent it off with the package but will probably request it back so I can actually quilt it.

The only details left for this project (aside from all that actual quilting) is to make the binding. For what I have in mind I need about 1/4 yard of the strawberry colored fabric which, apparently, no one carries anymore. I guess that's what I get for using something out of my 2+ year old stash.

Oh, right, I have this blog, too

2009-05-25T11:36:00.005-05:00

It's been almost 2 years since I posted anything here, due entirely to lack of quilting time.

But my dear cousin, Michele, is expecting at the end of the summer. She's the other quilter in the family and between the two of us we carry on Grandma's tradition of making quilts for all high school graduates, newlyweds, and first-borns. When you have 35 cousins to cover, that's a lot of quilting. Given she's the one expecting a baby, I was tasked with making this particular quilt.

Michele is also the creative one who makes the embroidered animals for all of the baby quilts. Thankfully between the two I have photos of and the ones I've helped assemble I managed to figure out a few animals. Those took an hour or two each, but made for nice busy work during TV watching.

Then it was a matter of figuring out some sort of design that would allow me to fit in a few 6x6 squares for the animals. I landed on this for inspiration. After a particularly frustrating week at work I was sorely in need of a project that stayed done, and so this weekend I shut myself up in the basement for a few hours of therapy.One trick with working off of just a photo was first figuring out the pattern, then the sizing, and finally the most efficient way to put it all together. This one wasn't too hard to pick out the pattern: each color grid consisted of 4 blocks, and each of those was a large square, bordered with a rectangle 1/3 its width on either side and another square in the corner. But to make it fast, I took a little time to figure out the easiest way to do it with strips.

[Originally I only saw the photo from the inspiration quilt, not the site, so I had no idea what the pattern was called. I found the original site for the link in this post and read it, then googled "Disappearing nine-patch" and found a tutorial that would have been really really helpful. For anyone else considering it; look here.]

Here was the first step: joining the 6" blocks to a long 3" strip, then cutting those apart and ironing them. First step: Done.

Lots of strips and cutting, then joining to make the 9" blocks; joining those to make the 18" 4x4's, and I had these:

The spot where the four meet doesn't look all that pretty, so (based on my inspiration picture) I put a spacer piece between them and added more color blocks at the intersections. I also added a border to pull the design out a little more.

As it stood Sunday night:

The last step will be to add a colorful border. Since this is already way too huge for normal baby quilt standards, the border will be a little scaled down from the inspiration picture.

Then I just have to pick a backing, pencil on the quilt design, sandwich it, make the binding, and ship it all off to the family to present to her (un-quilted) at her shower in early June. It'll go in the frame to be quilted in the fall and hopefully she'll have it ready for the baby's room before the baby's first birthday.

Sara's Baby

2007-06-11T16:11:00.001-05:00

My sister is expecting in August and this weekend was her baby shower. As such, the last 2 weeks have been spent piecing together a quilt in the stolen moments between thesis and Katie.

The pile of fabrics: bright colors, alphabet on white, and 4 embroidered gingham animals, courtesy of my beautiful talented cousin Michele.

Starting to piece the blocks.

Not bad...not bad...needs a little something to make those diagonals pop.

Maybe if I just add a few more blocks...

Perfect! Now to hand it off to the quilters to work their magic.

Welcome Maria: Done!

2006-12-15T11:05:00.000-06:00

The quilt for Maria is done. Rob designed the quilting pattern and did the majority of the stitching since I have been so busy with schoolwork that, left to me, this would become a first birthday gift.

The design is esentially a star pattern inside the pink regions, with just small X's tacking down the center of each green square of the chain. I hand embroidered Maria's birthdate onto the binding before stitching that down.

Maria 11-29-2006

And for big sis Julia, I did this little shirt with felt appliques. Yep, I'm going to be that aunt.

Welcoming Maria: Day 2

2006-11-16T10:39:00.000-06:00

Wow, that came together really fast! It took me less than an hour to finish the top today.

(4' x 4')

When I'm working on this quilt I can't help thinking about when we might have a second baby. Ideally I'd like to be pregnant right now, as a matter of fact, so our kids are about 2 years apart. But with the job market this year, and starting a new job next year, the timing just isn't very practical. I want to be able to take a few months off with our next baby, like I did with Katie, which would not be possible if I were due next summer or fall--right in the middle of moving to a new city with new doctors and changing to a new job with new insurance and such. So we'll wait. Hopefully we'll be able to have another baby sometime around Katie's 3rd birthday.

The fact that the quilt came together so fast may be God's way of telling me to stop thinking about it so much.

I found a pastel jungle print that will go with the room and works with the quilt. I think. I'm still debating on just using a cream or white muslin. The jungle print may be too busy. I had really hoped to find a soft flurr or faux fur or such to do the back, but the washing instructions were pretty tedious and I'm all about practicality here. Plus the color options were terrible.

For the quilting, I'm tempted to use the 25 green blocks to do alphabet blocks, doubling up Y&Z in the last block. I'm not sure if I'd want to embroider those or just quilt them for a more subtle effect. Or quilt them in a colored thread, like a brighter green or a pink. One large pink area will have "Maria" and her birthday embroidered into it, but I'll wait until she's here to be sure the name and date don't change. The large pink diamonds will probably have concentric diamonds quilted into them, unless inspiration (or readers!) strikes with a more interesting pattern.

Welcoming Maria: Day 1

2006-11-15T12:06:00.000-06:00

My sister-in-law is due in 2 weeks and the quilt is just now getting started. Real life is such a distraction sometimes!

They found out early on she's a girl, and the room is done in pinks, greens, and jungle animals. So her quilt will be pink and green on the front. The back, yet to be purchased, will most likely be some sort of animal print, unless I get really excited and go buy some chenille or flurr.

The design will be a large single Irish Chain. 9-grids of pink and green are coming together, and will be alternated with solid squares of the pink to make a mostly pink quilt with a green chain running through it. The finished quilt will be about 4'x4'. Each block is about 16.5" square.

Katie approves! Soft and comfortable, good enough for Katie means good enough for her new baby cousin.

9/11 Tribute

2006-09-11T11:03:00.000-05:00

I participated in the 2,996 project to honor the victims of 9/11. See my tribute
to Philip V. Calcagno on my AKM3 blog.

Covering Cindy: Month 3

2006-08-17T23:01:00.000-05:00

Quilt in a day? No. Quilt in a quarter of a year? Sure.

The top is fully pieced, including the borders. Cindy starts her senior year of high school next wednesday so I'm, amazingly, still ahead of the game.

The back will be cherry red with a black cherry border. The actual quilting is being done by my aunts and cousins and I'm leaving the design of it to them.

I am so grateful that my sisters were here a few days this week. They gave me a chance to get a lot of work done and that gave me a little time to also take a break and get this done.

Next on the sewing block: Baby G's quilt. But not for a few weeks.

Covering Cindy: Day 60 Something

2006-08-06T22:36:00.000-05:00

I am a piecing Queen. In a matter of 3 hours of "break" time from my coding, while Katie napped and then played with Rob, I added the last 3 pinks and 17 greens. I pieced all 18 squares together. And this, this beautiful stripey goodness, is the final pieced design.

The finished pieced top is only 37"x 78" and the final extra-long twin quilt needs to be 72"x108x so I still have to add about a yard of border to each dimension. I am off to the store today to try to find some of the black cherry, light floral, medium pink, and dark
green to finish it off.

My middle sister is coming to visit in a week and if all goes well I'll get a break before then and be able to finish this so I can send it home with her. The tradition has always been that every grandkid gets one of these when they graduate highschool. Since my grandma passed away the task of making the quilts has been assumed by a few of the cousins and some of the aunts. This year three other cousins graduate with Cindy and so there's a bit of a rush to get it into the frame and started before it gets too close to the graduation dates. Plus, with me, the 2 hour process of cutting and adding the border strips will probably take 3 weeks.

"Quilt in a day" my @$$

2006-08-02T13:00:00.000-05:00

What kind of day do these people work under? Obviously a toddler free one. And while we're at it, one devoid of potty breaks, email checks, realizations that the third green fabric hasn't been washed, the second pink is a few strips short, a block has fallen behind the ironing board and was missed for a few rounds, the quick project you tossed on the machine between blocks changed your settings and you forgot to change them back and now all the blocks are out of wack and need to be redone, and, yes, that would be yet another telemarketer calling.

I haven't touched the quilt since early June. Brides are piling up thanks to a referral on theknot.com and school is flashing huge red warning signs about deadlines and graduation and conferences. I need a quilting break more than ever and can't afford one more than ever. I may have to just force myself to take the break later this weekend.

This, right here, is why I start my "quilt in a day" projects over a year before they're intended gifting. Quilt In A Day. Ha.

Covering Cindy update: Day 6.

2006-06-04T20:56:00.000-05:00

The debate between diagonal and zig-zag is going pretty heavily in favor of diagonal at this point. I really like the color shades of the pink and purple with the green. It's going to get a lot darker when I add the last shade of green to the squares.

(oops, one square is turned 90* on here. It's in the bottom purple line. Oh well, at least it's just for a photo, not stitched down!)

The blocks aren't done yet, not even really close. I have to add the third pink edge to 4 blocks and then the third green to 17 of the 18 blocks. Only one block on this layout is actually done. And it's....um...it's on there. Somewhere. Oh, there it is. Bottom center of diagonal, 2nd one from the bottom on the left in the zig-zag. It has three shades of green, with the noticeably darker green border.

I'm going to have to put this on hold until I get back from my trip. I have too much school work and packing and house keeping details this week to do anything else. I tend to need a lot of time to do a quilt (note, this is a "quilt in a day" pattern and it's now been almost a full week and I'm still at least 14 hours of work from done), but it's the process that counts.

Quilting interrupted by baby crafts

2006-06-04T00:15:00.000-05:00

I guess I should admit that as much as I love to quilt, I do have a multi-purpose sewing room. I make wedding veils for decent cash and devote a lot of time to making fun things for Katie. Yesterday we went to Jackman's Fabric store for veil fabric and to find the last green to finish out the squares for Cindy. Katie did some shopping of her own and found a cat print. She all but climbed over me to get to it, muttering "ki-ee-ka. ki-ee-ka. ki-ee-ka" like she was possessed. Possessed by pretty kitty cats.

Naturally, the fabric found its way home with us and today I turned it into an activity book to, hopefully, make the flights easier on us all next week.

The cover is just two iron-on cats from WalMart that Katie found and talked to for 30 minutes straight today. They match the cats in the print perfectly.

Page 1-2, the cats wake up and have breakfast. The flannel blanket is the same fabric as one of Katie's sleepers.

Page 3-4: Playtime! The cats are playing with yarn and the adjacent page will have yarn tied to it.

Page 5-6: Play with Ribbon.

Page 7-8 The cat playing under a piece of paper is filled with crinkle paper and lifts to show a cat sleeping on newspaper. The purple fleece pulls back to see 2 sleeping cats.

Page 9-10: More playtime! Outside fun. The green "grass" ribbons move to reveal a cat in the grass. A panel opens to see another cat. The cat climbing the tree finds a friend under the leaves, which are also full of crinkle for extra fun.

Page 11-12: Relaxing inside. The cat looking out the window sees two birds, but sees them clearer if you move the lace curtain. The cat under the dustruffle plays with a spool, and another spool is in the pink pocket.

Page 13-14: Dinner and playtime before bed. Magnets are sewn behind the yarn balls in each picture and the pom-poms have magnets so you can give the ball to the cat.

Page 15: End of the day...sleep!

Covering Cindy: Day 3

2006-06-01T10:27:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure I'll get to quilt today as there are three veils that need to be made first. I've decided on the zig-zag pattern and it's going to fade through the quilt, so the top will be a light pink "zig", then a light green one, then a darker pink, darker green, light purple, even darker green, and finally the purple. Hopefully it'll look cool. And now that I've done all the planning for this quilt and how to build the squares to do a design like that, now I'm excited to do another one like that. I want to build a quilt with color bands in the stripes or zigs.

As I build this quilt, Cindy is on her way to Mississippi for two weeks with her church youth group to help rebuild hurricane damaged areas. I'm so excited for her to have this opportunity to be part of something so big. Of course I worry about her, though. She's so much like me, that I just know we'll be hearing about her stepping on nails, wacking herself with a hammer, or even just something as common as totally forgetting to put on sunscreen and frying herself in the intense southern sun.

Covering Cindy: Day 2

2006-05-31T13:34:00.000-05:00

I added the second green to 12 of the squares today. The last 6 require another fabric which I have to cut and do, and little miss cranky sleep-be-damned Katie squashed any hopes of getting it done during my quilting time. I let myself work on quilting during her first nap of the day, since it's a highly variable nap and is usually too short to be worth working on schoolwork. And I need a break after 4 hours at school followed by an hour of Katie. It's my little oasis of quiet and creativity in an otherwise stressed out, studious or Katie-chasing day.

The greens are coming together nicely and I think the colors will really flow. I'm debating on a few layouts and will have to make a decision before I add the third (final) round of colors. I also have to look for more of each fabric to do the borders or the borders will end up looking pretty unplanned. Nothing like an unplanned mismatched border to ruin an otherwise cool quilt. Take my word for it.

The quilting today was more stressful than fun, which irritates me. Katie refused to fall asleep and I was frustrated so I let her work it out herself, meaning I let her yell at me from her room on the "other side of the house" which sounds impressive but is actually about 30 feet away. I finally gave up on her nap and put her in a sling but then she was wiggly and kept grabbing at no-nos, like the hot iron, rotary cutter, scissors, etc. I set her on the floor and offered her a basket of scrap fabrics to unpack, but she insisted on pulling out all my patterns and shredding a few covers instead. Stressful. And messy. I finally just dropped her back in her crib with a handful of toys before I snapped at her and now she's peacefully playing, but I'm still ticked off.

So this is all I got done today. I hope to finish the rest of the greens tomorrow and plan the final layout so I can start adding the last round of pinks. So far I really like the diagonals of greens and purples/pinks grouped like this, but I may opt for a zig-zag design. Both patterns will be much more distinct with the third round of color added.

Covering Cindy: Day 1

2006-05-31T00:56:00.000-05:00

Cindy, my sweet baby sister, will be graduating high school a year from now. It's bittersweet for me, as I started my undergraduate studies the same day she started Kindergarten. Now she's graduating high school just as I will, hopefully, be finishing my PhD. We've both come a long way, Cinders.

So in honor of our transformations, I will be transforming this pile of pinks, purples, greens, and one really awesome black cherry print into an extra-long twin-size quilt.

I'm going to do another log-cabin square design. It involves adding layers of two shades, which I've complicated by using multiple prints of each shade. Here is what I have so far. The cherry print is the center square, since she loves cherries and I couldn't think of a better way to personalize it for her than to showcase some Bing cherries. I've pieced two of the three layers of pinks/purples/reds onto one side and have started the three layers of greens on the other. When I'm done there will be 18 squares with 3 layers of pink and 3 layers of green each to make a 3x6 design for the quilt. And with any luck it'll look cool.

Quilts thus far

2006-05-31T00:33:00.000-05:00

I made this quilt with the help of my mommy group. A dear friend was moving away so all the babies had their handprints added to squares and their names embroidered underneath. The squares were pieced together with fun bright prints to liven it up. It was a total surprise to the departing friend and I know she gets a lot of use out of it with her son and enjoys knowing her friends miss her as much as she misses us.

This is a hodgepodge collection of tshirts from Rob's and my college and highschool days. It's still just in a pieced top form, I have to sandwich it and quilt it. It's fun to look back on all of the trips, concerts, games, and plays we were involved in. Rob and I were so different in high school I don't know if we would have ever spoken if we'd known each other then. The classic sports vs. music divide. We were both geeks above all else, though, so I'm sure we would have known each other, but I probably would have dismissed him as a sports geek and he would have written me off as a music-geek hippy chick. Thankfully college opened our minds a little before we found each other.
I made this baby quilt for my sister-in-law when she was expecting her daughter. It has pinwheels in the corners and chicken-scratch lace embroidery work of two pigs, two chickens, and two cows. Blocks around the quilt contain the alphabet, the family name, and the word "BABY". It was such a labor of love to piece the squares, knowing they were going to be a family heirloom someday. I pieced the quilt and finished some of the embroidery, but the majority of the embroidery, the marking, and much of the quilting was done by my awesome cousin Michele and my extended family.

My first real pieced quilt. It's a log-cabin style throw. Rob helped me piece it one cold winter day in 2000. He ironed the pieces and kept me company while I sewed the strips on my ancient White sewing machine. He agreed to help me iron "just for a few minutes" and ended up doing almost every seam, God bless him. Ah, to be newlyweds again and be willing to put up with each other's annoying hobbies.

It's not actually finished here, the edging is raw and the quilting isn't done. It did finally get finished in 2001 and is probably the most used blanket in the house. Rob curls up under it every morning while he dozes during the morning nap shift, and it's frequently spread out for a picnic or playtime in the yard or just to soften the floor where Katie is playing.