I Ripped!

 I ripped!

You had to know that I would do this.  I ripped the quilt again and added the two t-shirts to the quilt.  Thank you for your encouragement to do what I wanted to do.

I couldn’t resist and I think it looks so much better now.  There is less blank space and the last two t-shirts have now been added.

I’m so glad i went with my gut instead of my head on this one.  My head was saying - it’s fine.  My gut and heart were saying - you know you want to add those two blocks and it won’t take a lot of time - just do it!

That cardinal block is hand painted and hand embellished so how could I not include someone’s art into the quilt?

Now - I’m just contemplating adding borders to make it more of a bed size.  I have a couple flannels I’m going to put on the back, so it will be nice an cozy, now, I just need to decide if I add borders - my gut is saying a huge yes to borders.

Christmas T-Shirt Quilt - Take 2

Christmas Quilt - Take 2!
 A while back I posted this Christmas T-Shirt quilt I was working on.  This one is just for me.  No deadline.  Not a commission quilt.  Just for us.  I put it together over Christmas and i was never really happy with how it turned out.  

Specifically - I wasn’t happy with the entire bottom right hand corner and the bottom row.  I really didn’t like the way that I had the spacer fabric in there and a lot of negative space; so, I put it away and slowly thrifted a few more t-shirts.

On the weekend I realized that I had enough shirts to fix some of it, so I took it apart and added in some shirts.

I am so much happier with it!  It makes so much more sense now and looks so much better. UNTIL - I found a couple of the shirts that I had pulled out under my chair - sigh!  Just like me LOL!

Now I’m thinking about taking apart this section here and adding in the two fallen blocks and getting rid of a little more negative space.  

What do you think?  Do I rip and re-sew again or leave it?  Help!

Silly Sloths - A Commission

Quite a while ago a friend asked me to make a quilt for her as a commission (a gift for her friend) and I agreed.  She chose the Silly Sloths pattern.  It was an appliqué quilt and a pretty simple pattern.  The pattern was raw edge appliqué, and, although this is quick it isn’t my favourite technique; so, I decided to make faced.

I enlarged the pattern and did the face and body faced but the features are all raw edge appliqué.  I have to say - it is really CUTE!

Seriously cute!  I decided on 12 enlarged blocks instead of the 20 that the original pattern called for - less appliqué ;-)  And, I really like the bigger sloths.

It looked like we might be getting a storm, the light was perfect outside for photos, so, I made my oldest hold the quilt up for a few pictures.  The grey light makes the colours pop just a bit more.

I used a yellow flannel for the back, cotton batting and a few different Glide threads to quilt this cutie.  Glide is a go to for me.

Now - let’s hope that she likes the quilt when she sees it!  What do you think?  Will she like it?

Soup and Stew Season

 Have you jumped on the bowl cozy train yet?  I did yesterday!  

Here’s a little back story - we are a crockpot family.  I make soups, chilli, stew, curries - etc - all in the crockpot.  In the winter, I pretty much have a crockpot going most days.  I bake bread -  my latest passion is gluten free sourdough bread, to go with all of the crockpot goodness.  We love leftovers and use the microwave quite a bit to reheat.

My boys’ birthdays are this week.  They are both early 20’s now and both currently live at home, well, one is in college, hello pandemic!  So, they don’t need much except cash as presents.  I figured a few bowl cozies would be a fun little gift I could make them.  Needless to say - I made a couple for us as well.

At first I started with the Sweet Red Poppy tutorial but I started modifying it to accommodate my 10.5” Studio Square die and I wanted the edges rounded, so I came up with my own variation on the pattern.  You can see the original with the squared edges top right on the below picture. 

The others are my variation.  They are slightly smaller and they fit our bowls better - plus I get to use a die instead of a rotary cutter so it’s a win for me!

Make sure that you only use 100% cotton everything in these - fabric, thread and batting.  I used Wrap and Zap as most 100% cotton battings aren’t really 100% cotton - they have a scrim that is polyester.  Yes, I know, not all of them do, but a lot more battings have a scrim than we would think!  So why take a chance, and cause a fire in your microwave?

We have already used them and we all LOVE them!  Even if you’re not using the microwave these are just nice to use when you get steaming hot food from the crockpot!

There is a Go! die for this, but I don’t own it - - - - yet!  

Do you have the die?  Do you like it?

What a YEAR!

 Happy New Year!

What a year 2021 has been!  It’s been a crazy busy year full of ups and downs, pivots and changes, learning and growing and just changes!

I have learned a lot and actually taught a lot.  I pivoted my fitness business almost entirely online and surprisingly I LOVE it!  I love offering classes online.  I’m actually really shocked about this; and, it has made me consider teaching quilting online and developing courses online - would this be something you would be interested in? 

I also have been sewing a LOT!  We took some time off over Christmas to head to the cottage and I took this simple T-Shirt quilting project with me to work on. 

Most of these shirts were thrift store finds and most were almost new!  I love giving new life to old items like this.  And, I am thrilled to have another Christmas t-shirt quilt.  I’ll take it home as is and auction fabrics for the borders next.  

I also managed to get a commissioned quilt done for before Christmas.

One lucky girl got this memory blanket user her tree for Christmas.  Sorry for the lighting!  This was being picked up and I wanted to finish it.  I love turning items taking up space in drawers into something beautiful and useful.

I will share more on a much more regular basis.

I wish you a safe and Happy New Year!

I Forgot I Die Cut!

 So, I brought some quilting to the cottage last weekend and I forgot a rotary cutter!  Can you believe it?  I got my sewing to a point and then I had to sub cut the strip sets.   It was also a long weekend, here in Ontario it was Family, and, the stores were closed so I couldn’t even buy a new rotary cutter!!  I was so disappointed.  

Well, imagine how silly I felt when I remembered that I brought my AccuQuilt Go! And a lot of the dies to the cottage!!  Wahoo!  

I arranged the strip-sets on my 1.5” strip die and wahoo - seconds later I had more sewing to do!

I cannot believe I forgot I had this LOL!  if I was at home I would have immediately die cut these; but, I am not used to having my Go! At the cottage.  Well, that will teach me!  Needless to say - I finished my blocks :-D

Star Wars T-Shirt Quilt!

 It is finally done!!  I finally completed this Queen size Star Wars T-Shirt quilt! 

Wahoo!  Seriously I cannot tell you how happy I am that this is finished.  Like everything else it was put on hold when the mask making frenzy hit our house but now it is quilted and done!  This quilt was a few years in the making.  A couple of the shirts I bought new for it.  Hello Mandalorian  shirt!  Some were ours - Abbey Road Droids, Darth Maul and Boba Fett.  But, the rest of these were all second hand - yard sales and thrift shops.

It took a few years to find all of these but so worth it!  49 shirts in all are in this quilt.  AND I have more that didn’t make it in because they were more kid-like.  But, these are going to go into a kids Star Wars T-shirt quilt - don’t worry!

Can you find that little shirt label in the last photo?  Bottom left.  I found a small hole in that spot, while quilting!!  I wanted to scream LOL!  But I usually keep the shirt labels if they look cool so I grabbed one and appliquéd and quilted it down after sealing the hole.  I figure it’s a feature of the quilt now right?

This is all quilted in 40 weight Glide Thread in Titanium, top and bobbin, using a wide back mottled black flannel and 80/20 batting.  I also used my new spoon foot to quilt this and wow what a difference getting over the seams!  So much easier - if you make T-shirt quilts you should grab one of these for sure.

One other person in this house loves this quilt too!  Don’t judge I could resist!!  So do you like my Star Wars quilt?