House Quilt Blocks

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am making a house quilt. Don't expect me to finish it anytime soon though because this is my first (and probably only) quilt and I have other projects going on right now too. With the design I'm doing, I needed to make two more houses (I was given 10 houses from David's mom who wasn't going to do anything with them). I didn't think it sounded too hard and I knew from looking up designs that there were lots of tutorials out there for making your own. My houses are all from different people (David's mom won them in some sort of drawing thing) so they are all different styles but basically the same (not that that makes any sense...sorry).

This is what I found to match them the best. The instructions even make two houses so it was perfect! I did have to tweak them a little bit (like when making the triangle squares) because I wasn't making two of the exact same house. The finished blocks are supposed to be 12 1/2 inches (with seam allowances, that gives you 12 inch blocks), which matches my other houses. However, I went wrong somewhere (probably in cutting because my cutting doesn't seem to be very accurate no matter what I do) and my houses are basically only 12 inches. I think I'm going to add a "border" to help my seam allowance so my houses aren't that much smaller than my originals. I know it's not my current seam allowances because David's mom approved of my houses and said that I'm getting really good at keeping those even.

These are my houses (sorry for the weird angle and the fact that they're in one picture).

Despite not understanding most sewing instructions, I was able to make these with minimal help from David translating what I was supposed to do. As you can see though, especially on the green and black house, not all my strips are the same length so I'm probably going to have to cut them straight before adding my border. I am pleasantly surprised with how they turned out though. What's funny is that when picking out the fabrics I thought for sure the one on the left would turn out prettier than the one on the right but now that they're done, I like the one on the right better.

Log Cabin Pot Holder

I'm sorry I was unable to post yesterday due to technical difficulties. I finished my log cabin pot holder though! I found the pattern in a library book. It was rather simple to make, although a little tedious with all the cut, sew, cut, iron but it was fun. It was also my first real binding, since the other binding I've done was on my brother's blanket and I cheated by zigzagging the edges instead of folding them under. This time, the binding was real easy (except for putting it on the pot holder. I did struggle with that a little bit) because I got to use my brand new bias tape maker! I had bought mine on sale, but even if you don't find a sale, they're still only a few dollars and totally worth it.

This thing couldn't be any easier to use and it works amazing. You put in your strip of fabric and pull the maker along it. Out comes your edges folded over so all you have to do is iron as it comes out! I did pin mine too but I think it was unnecessary. Here is a picture of it in action.

So you see, the strip goes in (right side down) and goes through the metal piece. You pull the little metal tab along (no resistance at all!) and it comes out with your edges folded up! They make multiple sizes and mine is an inch, which I think is pretty versatile but I would still like other ones. The thing is really small so storage shouldn't be an issue. I love this thing!

So back to my pot holder. I did top stitch the whole thing but I forgot to use the bigger stitches. I think it looks fine but in the future, I need to remember to switch the stitch size. So this is the front.

 As you might be able to tell, I had a hard time with one of my corners still exposing the raw edges after I sewed it. Like I said, this was my first real binding. So the outside is all cotton (measuring to an 8 inch square) and the inside is supposed to be batting but I don't really keep that around so I used leftover fabric from my tote because that was batting between two pieces of cotton and I figured that was basically the same thing. The back is also cotton.

You can see that my binding on the back is wider than my binding on the front but that actually made it easier for me to sew. I'll still have to practice my bindings but now with my bias tape maker, I don't dread them! You can also see my top stitching really well on this side.

So it was a pretty easy project to make but did take a little time (doesn't everything?). I think an experienced person could make this in an hour or less but it took me about an afternoon.

Designing My House Quilt

Okay let me start this off by saying I am not a quilter. I currently do not have any desire to make quilts. Mostly because I like to make useful things (even if they're just decoration, like my turtle or pumpkins). Quilts are very time consuming (I'm told it takes an experienced quilter about 40 hours to make 1 non-complicated quilt) and once you have a couple displayed and some on the beds, I'm not sure what you do with them. I suppose you could sell some but they seem rather hard to sell. Plus, I'm not really interested in selling my stuff either, especially when it takes 40 hours to make.

David's mom is a quilter. I have recently gotten her into more sewing things since we started doing our Sunday projects but her passion is still quilts. She has given quilts away, she has sold quilts, she has quilts displayed in her house, she has quilts on the beds, and then she still has totes in storage because she just has that many. I could never be like that.

However, when we were starting to clean out her sewing room (a few weeks ago, we rearranged and had to go through everything before it went back in the room. I got a bunch of scraps and some useful pieces of fabric she didn't want anymore), she gave me a 10 quilt blocks that all have houses on them. She didn't really like them and couldn't see herself making anything with them but she had won them and didn't want to just throw them out. I thought they were really cool and I thought it would actually make a pretty cool "Welcome Home" quilt to hang up in the foyer.

I took them home and didn't look at them for several weeks. Then yesterday, I decided that if I actually wanted to make this, I better get started soon since I don't think I'll have much time once Teeny gets here (this pretty much motivates me to work on any of my projects). So the first step was determining what I wanted the quilt to look like. I learned about sashing, cornerstones, borders, and all that good stuff from David's mom. She has a (very expensive) computer program that helps you design a quilt. After playing around with it for about 2 hours, I finally found something I like. The houses on it aren't my actual houses but similar styles and the coloring is just random (because mine will be too) but below the picture, I'll explain.

With the way this is designed, I need to make two houses of my own to make it work but this was the best solution. I like the inverted square colors on the two borders. The cornerstones in the inside (all the little squares) are going to be the same color to help tie the quilt together. The sashing (lines between the little squares) are going to be a mix of different colors and prints (what can I say? I like color). Then the black square is going to be a plain colored square (most likely) with a saying on it, such as welcome home or home sweet home or something like that with iron on interfaced letters in different colors. The final quilt is 72 x 72 so it's huge and will probably take up most of the wall but if I went any smaller, then I had to get rid of houses (out of the original 10) and I couldn't bear to part with any of them. Plus, I'm not really interested in a smaller quilt. There was the option of doing a 52 x 52 but I didn't like the way it turned out. Plus, on the big quilt, the black space is 26 x 26. That gives me a lot of different opportunities. On the 52 x 52, the space was only 12 x 12 and that doesn't give me a lot of room to play around.

I'll be sure to let you all know as I progress on it how it's coming along but for now, the first thing I need to do is make two more houses.

Finished the Blanket

The last couple posts have told you that I am making my (not so little--he'll be 17!) brother a blanket for his birthday. This blanket was much more work than the one I made him last year but I also had a sewing machine this year. Last year's is all hand sewn.

This blanket has one side of two fleece panels (the orange and grey side) and the other side with four flannel panels (I consider this the top and the fleece is the back). It has a wide cotton binding on it. This was my first ever binding! I also did some decorative top stitching so when he washes it, the fabric doesn't shift.

For the binding, I somehow miscalculated how much I'd need so now I have extra. I used a 3 inch strip. Then I ironed the whole thing, folded it in half and starched and ironed it again. I was then going to fold up the raw edges a half inch for each side but the ironing was already a lot of work because of how long the strip is so I decided to not fold the raw edges and do a big zig zag stitch around the whole thing. I did have to do some places twice because the two sides weren't perfect and the second side didn't get any stitches (if you know what I mean). That was still less work than if I had to do it the other way.

For the panels, I sewed right sides together with a half inch seam allowance. Then when I had finished my top and bottom and everything was cut to the same size, I did a basting stitch around the edge since I knew I'd be binding it.

Then I top stitched it with fancy stitches (which ended up a lot of work since it was in the middle of the blanket, not an edge, so you had to roll up the blanket to fit under the machine and it took us like 3 people to do it right...it was a mess. I wouldn't do it again.)

The finished product is 60 x 72 inches. I wanted it really big but I still have leftover fabric because I was unsure on what size I wanted. This is perfect. It can wrap around you with space to still move your arms and it covers your toes (even David's toes, and he's 6 ft 4 so most blankets are much too short on him). He's already asking if I can make him one for Christmas (he got to test out my brother's).

Here are the pictures!

So the top one is the flannel side and the bottom one is the fleece side. You can't see the decorative stitches very well from these but I was just excited to be done. This was a bigger project than I expected (like most of them are).

Since I am going home for his birthday weekend, I will return to blogging on Monday or Tuesday. Happy Halloween!

Prayer Blankets

Yesterday, I went to help tie prayer blankets at my church. They meet about once a month but this was my first time. I was the youngest person there by about 50 years or more but they made me feel very welcome and everyone was really nice. The quilts get made ahead of time but we stitch and tie so the quilt attaches to the batting and the backing. It actually goes pretty fast when you have enough people working on it. Then people take these home and cut off the extra batting and backing and then bind them. That's why they meet so infrequently, because of all the work done outside the meetings. It was really fun and made me think about starting to quilt but my mother in law quilts and I can already see it is a big job. Plus, the start up is kind of expensive (fabric, tools, space to work, etc) and I wouldn't know what to do with the quilts I make because we already have so many from her. I love having hobbies but I don't like the kind of hobbies where you have no use for the product or you end up with 100 of the same thing (even if the patterns and designs are different). So back to the blankets. After the blankets are finished, we send them off to people who need prayers. When placed on your lap (they're about that size) you are "covered" with the prayers people are sending your way. I think it's a really nice idea. They get sent to parishioners, nursing homes, and in some cases, people in foreign countries. I do wonder what people do with the blankets after they are out of crisis, like do they give them back? Do they keep them for the future? Pass them on? I'm sure I'll learn as I keep attending meetings.