quilting – Page 20 – the long thread

January 9, 2008January 15, 2008

Checkerboard Quilt

Since I updated our playroom, I wanted to make something that the girls could use so I decided to make a checkerboard quilt using this flower fabric from IKEA and some striped fabric that I had on hand. I quickly realized that a checkerboard has 64 squares! I cut 3″ squares and made the top. I then decided to make things more difficult by making the reverse side a tic-tac-toe game board. This was a little tricky, so I decided to just use one piece of fabric and delineate the squares with the stitching. There is a lot of math in quilting. Argh.

But I am enjoying my first attempts at quilting. I love to come up with a design and piece it together. I’m having a little trouble putting it together and finishing the edges. You can see on this project I finished with the fabric from the reverse side. I can see why this is not the recommended quilting method because you would be much less likely to get puckering with a separate piece of fabric. But I was too lazy to cut binding.

We went to the craft store and bought some unpainted wooden chips for the checkerboard pieces, which we painted green and blue. We couldn’t find Xs and Os, so we went with hearts and stars instead and painted those as well. I think it would be nice to make a pouch for the game pieces and ties to roll up the board and take it with you.

January 4, 2008January 15, 2008

Playroom Update

So I managed to get a large number of toys to Goodwill before the onslaught of birthdays and Christmas, and I think we have it pared down pretty well. But our playroom has always been a mish-mash of furniture with toys thrown in baskets. I got some great storage from IKEA last year and I decided to finally put it all together last week. I had a few yards of the fabric pictured above (also from IKEA) that I had been planning to use for another project. Since it looks like there will be only female children around here, I went with the flowers.

I made these felt stool covers (for IKEA stools) with appliqued flowers. I made a few floor pillows and some quilted chair cushions. We painted our table and chairs by mixing up some leftover house paint (which sort of came out as weird colors), and now I need to add a coat of polyurethane. I say “we” because I let my very young children help. Oh how frustrating, but they enjoyed it. I’m also working on a checkerboard quilt and hope to have that completed this weekend. I really didn’t have to buy anything new, we just rearranged and renewed what we already had, which was nice.

December 31, 2007January 15, 2008

Doll Quilt

My daughter came to me with an urgent request that I make a quilted blanket for her doll bed as the one she had was LOST! I knew we would find it, but I embrace any opportunity to make a project with her. So she selected her fabric and drew the picture below (of course I somehow managed to spill water on the corner there). She was very specific that the blanket be the exact size of her doll bed and that it have ties at the bottom so it wouldn’t get lost. Wouldn’t that be a good idea for adult beds so you wouldn’t have all those problems with covers wiggling around?

So anyway, I made this for her and I had so much fun with it that I then made some quilted chair covers and am working on another quilted project that I’ll post later this week. I can see how quilting is so addictive, but I don’t think I’ll ever try anything that takes longer than a week to make. Goodness.

December 26, 2007January 15, 2008

Merry Christmas!

I finally finished this table runner just before Christmas Eve. I am still just piecing together fabric and am satisfied with the pieced work without the additional step of quilting. I designed this runner to resemble a tree with triangles of descending size that meet in the center.

December 16, 2007January 14, 2008

Hawaiian Quilts

Well, I haven’t been posting in a while because we’ve been in Hawaii! We apparently managed to be there for the rainiest weather the islands have seen in 20 years. There was still some sun and lots of rainbows. So I thought I’d do a post about Hawaiian quilts. Since I didn’t want to drag the kids around looking at quilts, I’m showing this photo from Roseberry Quilts in the UK, which shows a nice variety of designs.

I love the graphic, organic designs of the traditional quilts and the use of solid colors. The amazing thing is that the quilt designs are cut in one piece and then hand appliqued. I bought a pattern for pillow covers that requires something similar to snowflake-making in that you fold the fabric over and cut through 8 layers! I thought that I might try a winter version with wool felt. I would have to just trace the design and machine applique.

Here are some other nice designs from Quilts Hawaii.