The Making of an I Spy Quilt - Part 1

With a baby on the way, I find that I'm drawn to more children's quilts. Duh, yeah, obvious, I know.

Anyway, I decided to document the process from start to finish for a friend or two, ahem, who might have been saying they want to learn to quilt. No pressure, though. Just some step-by-steps.

First, I love the idea of quilted learning so an I Spy quilt makes perfect sense as a crib-sized quilt. (Although I'm not too fussy on the finished size as long as its in the ballpark.)

Keeping the I Spy idea in the back of my mind, I noticed our LQS (local quilt store) was carrying packs of novelty fabric cut into 8" x 10.5" pieces. Perfect. With 10 in a pack, I picked out two with more masculine fabrics for our baby son.


I cut these down to 8" x 8" and have 20 of them so I can make a quilt of 4 x 5 blocks.

Knowing that I didn't want anything to0 fancy or complex, I started looking for fabric for a simple sashing between the feature fabrics. Digging through my stash, I found a nice brown textured chunk that would work and cut it into 8" x 2.5" pieces. There are 48 of them.


I decided I need some brighter corner pieces so using this orange piece of fabric, also from the stash, I cut it into 2.5" x 2.5" squares. After cutting 30 of them and realizing that I have another piece of orange fabric, I decided to make the corner squares into corner stars.

This means I needed to have 196 little 1.5" x 1.5" squares ready for seaming, too. (Don't be intimidated by the big number. They go pretty fast with a rotary cutter.)

Once finished with these little ones, the cutting process was complete and I was ready to start sewing.

The first step of the seaming process is to attach a 1.5" square to each corner of the 8" x 2.5" brown sashing strips.

The little squares need to be attached diagonally to each of the corners. I just place the fabrics with wrong sides together and sew from one corner of the orange piece to the other. (Feel free to draw a diagonal pencil line, if this is more comfortable for you. You could pin it, too, if that helps.)

I do one after another, after another, as this helps to speed things along, as well as save on thread. It's called chain piecing because you create a long chain of pieces.

Once the first corner of each brown piece has a little orange square attached to it, I did the opposite diagonal corner. So by the time I was finished with this step, each brown piece had been through the machine twice and had two smaller orange squares attached to it.

Okay, that's where we're ending today because that's as far as I've gotten with the steps, and thus the photos. Tune in later this week for more.

And for our furry cuteness intermission, here's Stella giving Sailor a bath.

She sure likes to keep everybody clean, that Stella cat!

Hope you had a crafty weekend! M

The Cuddling of Cats and Dogs

It's easy to see in our house that world peace is a real possibility. I mean, if ancient, instinctual enemies can cuddle and share space, why can't the rest of us?


Molly and Stanley have it all worked out.

Emmett and Stella have it cased, too.

In fact, most days, I catch Stella giving Emmett a bath, but they were too modest to do it for the camera this time.

That's it for my soapbox today. World peace - it can happen.

In crafty news, I bring you another found-time project. This one is a cradle quilt for the baby's nursery that I pieced mostly in those minutes I keep finding in the basement.

It's a four-patch in blues and golds, with a contrasting soft red fabric that features prams and babies on it. I still have the hand-stitching on the binding to do but that's for movie night.

Once I get all the pieces done for the cradle, I'll take an ensemble photo and tell you all about it.

Hope you're having a crafty kind of Thursday, M

Activity Abounds

Okay, that might be a bit misleading. When someone says "abounds" it implies that there is a lot of it. In reality, there is just some activity around here. So I guess it would be more appropriate to say "stuff happens."

What kind of stuff? Knitting baby slippers kind of stuff. Teeny, tiny baby slippers.


Then there was the baking with chocolate chips kind of stuff. Mmmmm. Cookies and banana bread.

And finally, kitty bonding kind of stuff. My first photographic evidence of sibling snuggling.

There's more stuff, too. I just don't have photographic evidence at the moment. We're moving slowly around here these days but we're still moving!

Happy Tuesday, M

Found Minutes

Since the misplacing of my sewing room, my sewing space has been relegated to the basement. This has turned out to be a not-so-very-bad thing.

First, sewing in the basement in a Saskatchewan summer is a pleasantly cool place to be. Secondly, I'm in the basement every day for something else anyway. This means that I get to see my sewing area and my current project on a daily basis. This also means that I keep "finding" five or ten minutes to spend at my projects.

Need to feed the dogs? Oh, I'll just do a couple of quick seams while they eat their breakfast. Need to put in a load of laundry? Oh, I'll just iron a couple of seams here. Need a loaf of bread from the freezer? Oh, I'll just cut a few pieces while I'm down here. It really has been like finding time.

The first result of my five or ten minutes is this little Christmas piece I stitched up in less than a week:


It has an adorable fat quarter in the middle that I got in a fabric grab bag ages and ages ago. I could never bear to cut it up because it's just so cute. I also had a pack of 6" red squares that I stitched into hour glass blocks. And voila!

(This shot is a bit washed out but you get the idea.)

I think it's very festive and can't wait to quilt it and bind it and wrap it up for it's intended recipient.

And now for our latest furry update, we have a tiny Stanley kitten playing in his crinkly pants, being cheeky as all get out!


He's becoming such a little love. Considering how wild he was when he first arrived, he's decided that he quite likes this cuddley gig he's got going around our house.

Now, if I could just get him back to sleeping at night, instead of wrestling with the girls at all hours! Yawn.

Happy Monday, M

Another Sewing Helper

In all the years I've been sewing, I have never had as help much in the sewing room as I have this last year. Sailor loves to sit on fabric while I'm stitching, or ironing, or even just organizing. Photographic evidence here.

Stanley is also fascinated by the process.


Fortunately, he didn't get in the way too much and I made good progress on the mitten quilt. Here's a shot of one of the blocks with the blanket stitch completed. So cute!


And before too long, there was a quilt top hanging on the fence.


The finishing will be a little slower in the making, I'm sure. Mostly because I've moved on to making bedding for the cradle. But I'll get there, honest!

Hope your Tuesday is productive!

M

Out With The Pink, In With The Blue

We finally found out on Wednesday that we're expecting a baby boy! Yay! It's nice to know, at last, so I can really get some sewing and knitting underway, as well as start putting a nursery together.

The pink baby blankets I made so far will go in the gift pile for future babies. Not that I have anything against men in pink; I find them quite attractive myself. But until the boy can make up his own mind, I won't push the matter.

So in the drive to get a nursery together, I started making these blocks:

Mittens, mittens, and more mittens - for a winter baby they seemed appropriate.

I got the pattern from the winter 2007 Quilts and More magazine, but I can't find a link to that specific issue at the moment.

I modified the pattern a bit in that I'm using only the mitten applique for this quilt and omitting the snowflakes shown in the magazine. I just couldn't face cutting out all those little, tiny edges and corners.

I know. . . I wimped out. I admit it. It's still gonna be awfully cute, though!

Sailor Kitten has decided she needs to start helping around the house more, what with a new baby on the way. So here she is, supervising food preparation in her own way.

She really is quite the character, this one!

Hope you're having a crafty week, M

The Salvation of a Quilt

Once upon a time, a pretty little quilt called Butterfly Garden was created. Such a pretty, pretty little quilt.

Not long ago, a wee pup (who shall remain nameless for his own protection) was feeling sad and insecure when he left his northern home. He did the only thing that made him feel better. He chewed a pretty little quilt to smithereens.

Poor Butterfly Garden.


Had it's guts chewed up, too. Poor, poor Butterfly Garden.

Fortunately, the wee pup's mommy understands fabric obsession (though she expresses her fixation a little differently).

After some digging and some pondering, the matching fabrics were found and a plan devised to save the pretty little quilt from the rag bag.

It can hardly be told where the old ends and the new begins.

Unless the back is showing the little quilt's bandaid. Awwww.


But some might say the pretty little quilt is even prettier now thanks to a few strategically-placed, garden-themed appliques to complete its restoration. .


Hurray for the pretty little quilt! May she last for many years to come!