Kaffe Scrappy Log Cabin Top

I've been fighting a nasty bug for a few days. I would have much rather been behind my sewing machine than on the couch.  I have have felt a bit bad passing this beauty hanging on the curtains. Today the sunshine came out and backlit my beautiful Kaffe top. I felt inspired to get up and get sewing. I first had hubby take it outside so I could get a proper photo.

He loves crazy socks and can't wait to play in his now super muddy garden.

It needed a bit of yellow. So border went on with mitered corners.

I think I need a bit more energy to tackle the batting, backing and binding. I am exhausted just thinking about it. Thanks for coming out sunshine, its been along while.

Sewing Machine Cover

I made this awesome cover today for by beautiful new-to-me Bernina. She was missing her original case when I purchased her. I don't feel the need to have a hard case since I don't plan to be moving this door stop often.
Lucky I bought this perfect fabric a few years ago in North Carolina. "Sew Happy" Monaluna for Robert Kaufman was created for my Bernina! I had always wanted to make accessories for my sewing machine. It just took me the inspiration to create. So I set off to make a machine cover.

I wanted it to cover the attached table, since I always have it on the machine. So the cover need to be an odd shape. I measured the machine twice and wrote down my measurements on a small sketch of the cover. It ended up being three rectangles on the front top and back while the two ends are large trapezoids. 

I even put this awesome pocket on the end. I used a high-loft batting and quilted it to create stiffer plannels so it would stand up on its own.

I put a simple loop on the top along with a wide trim.  I simply wanted to get all the fabrics in there but found the black and white super distracting.  I need to cut it up smaller and decided to brake it up with a trim.  The stripe down the middle of the front and back plannels came about because the white fabric was not wide enough by only 2 inches.  Therefore I threw in the red button strip. I find that working with 3 complementary fabrics are easier to design with than 2 or 4. I am so happy with this awesome item. 

I liked making this cover because I created the pattern and I was able to use many different stitches on the machine and I practiced the free hand quilting. I quilted the black Saftey pin pocket with a simple straight stitch but for the other pannels I used the darning foot and did some tight curly cues around the buttons on the red fabric. For the white fabric with the sewing machines I whent a bit bigger with my loops and curves. I used and awesome zigzag for finishing off the bottom edge. 

The machine did great piecing together the pannels. My old machine would have binded up in the corners. The Bernina never faultered. I am in love. 

Baby Quilt

I recently moved into a much larger rental and have so much more space to quilt. I have an entire loft space in which I can make a mess and never have to clean up when people are coming over. Now, I can just close the door.
I have been putting off making this quilt due to lack of space. My dear friend is having her first child. She originally said she was going to have a gender neutral baby room. After preliminary photos were sent to me, I realized her idea of gender neutral was different than mine. I am thinking primary colors, or yellows and teal or grey and orange. She went for a country chic look. I love it. I was able to use some of my favorite fabrics I have been hoarding for years. The white with tiny purple flowers is from the first set of fabrics I ever purchased at the ripe age of 13. The solid yellow is from vintage sheets I got from my grandfathers house when he passed, they are ohh sooo soft. The yellow with tiny flowers is my absolute favorite fabric in my entire collection. I have many items in my life made from this fabric; top, bag, pillow, jewelry roll. I still have 3 or 4 yards left even after making this quilt. I started with strips. The chambray is timeless, a true favorite of mine. I love denim or denim looking items. Gotta **~ LoVe~** the stories that fabrics hold.

Then I struggled with my initial design intentions. I wanted to do the plus pattern, unfortunately I cut all my green strips the wrong direction. So, when I laid it out, the direction of the birds on the lines drove me crazy and the pink popped too much. I realized it wouldn't easily be pieced together, even if I changed the direction of the plus.

I left my quilt laying out for a few days while I pondered over its fate. I totally scrapped the whole idea and when for something else. I HAVE to get it finished this weekend, the baby is due in a week so...hopefully I'll have a pic for you soon.

Instead of a finished shot of the quilt, I leave you with a beautiful image of Crater Lake, OR and Wizard Island in the middle, from last weekend. Vacations get in the way of my quilting often, maybe if I didn't live in such a beautiful state. Nawwhh.

Nana's Quilt

Here is my 92 year old grandmother, I call her Nana. Nana is a piece of work. Her body is failing her but, she is very sharp. She remembers so much and lead a super interesting life. She started getting super fixated on things lately. He has always been feisty, but her fixation is the newest thing the family has noticed with her age.
She wanted these fabric curtains panels made into a light weight bed covering. She ripped out the old seams herself a year ago and started trying to pin it together. When I got to her house it was all laid out on the bed.
She had apparently asked everyone about who to take it to. They all told her that I might be able to help her. So right before I left NC I made this quilt for her.
It was quickly made and super basic. I simply pieced together two curtain panels and added a solid back and thin cotton batting . The cornice board is still up on the window in her bedroom from when she picked out the sweet birds in the 70's.
The heavy drapes panels had been taken down along long time ago.
She had a heavy comforter on the bed and couldn't move it around with her weak wrists. She didn't want batting but I convinced her otherwise.
I tried to tell her that the black acidic ink in the birds beaks were eating through the fabric. She did not care, she wanted the blanket. I did however spend quite a bit of time trying to patch some holes.
I think that it lightens the room and I have since heard her say so many nice things about it. I am concerned about it being washed and worsening small holes. I just hope that it lasts and my aunts don't wonder why it's so hastily done.

This is my Grandfather holding my Dad, Nana and Aunt Elayne
I would say 1952. I recently learned that women purposely would pose like this in the '50. I think it is awesome and I would look this amazing too.

Quilting as a Job

I have thought more and more about how thankful for the fact that I have a job and actually really love it. I worked in a very stressful job for years prior to this one. I very rarely get stressed about work now. Generally, its more about dealing with my staff, the 19 and 20 year old girls that work in the stores. Don't get me wrong they are wonderful ladies, but there is always some silly stuff going on. I find that it is generally boyfriends, parties, or school that keeps them focused on thing other than being at work.  I have gotten to a stage in my job where I have made mistakes, learned from them and mostly perfected a routine. There are always things like staff and shipping that you can't control completely.
I am truly amazed everyday when my husband walks in the door at work to surprise me. I love seeing his bearded smile. I am one lucky girl that he works across the street. I mean directly out the store door is his office on campus.
I know that I cant keep doing my job forever. I have nowhere to move up. I occupy the top position with out being member of the family (I work for family owned and operated businesses).
All these factors makes me want to find a business that I can run myself. Something that I could do out of my home. I really want to do something while having a family. I love making quilts. I think that I want to buy a really high quality long arm machine. Then I would be able to help people with their quilts. I could finish my own quilts much easier and sell them. I think I could really do this and make enough money off of it.

Now, I have to figure out how I can afford to buy the long arm.

Kaffe Quilt

 Here is the quilt top taped to the hardwood floor. I was preparing to add the back and batting. I do not use binding. It is not traditional or a particularly good way of making an amazing Kaffe quilt. I honestly am afraid of using a binding. I have never seen anyone put one on, I think that would be all it would take. I am a visual person and I grasp things if I can watch someone. I don't do well with written or spoken instructions.

 The quilt on bed at the house we rented this weekend in the NC mountains near Brevard, NC.
The sky light highlighted it perfectly.

 I stitched in 'the ditches' on this one between the diamonds. I like the way it turned out. It allowed the patchwork to show off. Creating the patchwork is seriously my favorite part of making a quilt. I hate putting them together. It is heavy and alot of effort. I am not a perfectionist so it never is as good as it should be, its the love I put in it. I think of the person that I am making it for a lot and send them my love as I make the item. It is easy to think of my amazing Mom!

Here is my happy Mama with her quilt. Happy Birthday Mom! I love you! She absolutely loved it.

Kaffe in Pieces

I made this Kaffe quilt for my Mom's Birthday this past weekend.  I was unable to share the process of making this quilt for fear she would see. I picked out the fat quarters for the most part back in February. I have been thinking about and planning this quilt for quite sometime. Of course I left the task of quilting until the morning of leaving for the trip. I am a major procrastinator. It is a genetic thing I believe. I am however more proud of the work that went into this quilt more than anything I have ever made. I absolutely love this quilt. Here area few shots from construction.
Rough rectangles that I pressed, starched and trimmed to perfection.

My two different sides of the triangles

Here are my triangles laid out on the futon. The instructions in the Kaffe Fassett book made it impossible to mess this quilt up. They were simply detailed instructions.

 

I love this shot on the clothes line, even if I forgot to rotate the picture before uploading. This is just the top no borders, no backing. My diamond points do not match up perfectly, Kaffe may not be as proud as I am of this quilt. Hey, it was my first of hopefully many more.

Tornado, Earthquake, Hurricane...Time to Quilt

We had a tornado had a back in the spring that was life changing, on Tuesday the earth shook beneath our feet here in Raleigh from the earthquake in VA. Today, I am sitting here huddled on the couch with my hubby watching footage of the hurricane Irene battering our NC coast line. We too are seeing affects of the storm. Lots of debris on the road, bands of heavy rain and super gusts of wind. Overall a grey nasty day. We are not suffering here only the poor palm on the deck has been pushed over twice.  There has been many reports of flooding on the Pamlico Sound near New Bern. People are in their attics with 12 foot storm serge in their bottom floors. It is heart breaking to watch.  Sand and debris  is blowing in some places while it is being washed away in other areas.  It is really hard to think about all the clean-up that it will require. We are feeling very fragile, small and vulnerable. It is challenging for me to watch the world around me crumbling and changing. I want to think of things as static, but days like today remind me how little I can control on this earth and how ever changing they are. The one thing I can count on, is how much I enjoy making quilts and how calming it is to me. So, it is time to go quilt and turn off the TV.

I leave you with two  more lovely shots of  last weeks North Carolina State Flea Market. I Love NC!

Texas Quilt

Here is the finished Texas quilt. I worked on it right up until Christmas. The Star part was very daunting task. It is still too small in my opinion. Hubby's parents came to our house from Texas the day after Christmas and we had a great time with them. They seemed to really like the quilt. I wish I had time to take better pictures of the quilt. This is the only picture I took.  I am still trying to figure out my new camera. The shots in this series is all yellow. See the process of this quilt here.

Saturday Off?

I never have Saturdays off. This is a very exciting day for me. I have already accomplished alot, am hike, laundry, dishes, sewing, brunch,  and we are hoping to go to the party in downtown later. Here is Kuma today after the walk...she loves any time she get to go with... thank goodness it was cool.
She does not have blue eyes... the flash just reflects funny.

My final, largest sunflower is fading. I am sure it will soon be attacked by the wood pecker just like the other ones. I have enjoyed every aspect of growing these beauties. I will definitely be growing them again next year.

I also finished the blue section of Texas. Check out the teal barbwire fabric. I am so happy with the ease of this project. I know it will be greatly appreciated too. Working on the white and red next.            

Went faster than I thought!

I started putting my blocks together for the mountain fence rail quilt. I got my self set up really well and utilized the diagram I made back in the beginning.

This really made the process go super quickly. I think that I would have gotten myself really confused had I not done this. The colors on the diagram are very close to the colors on the blocks. I was able to keep track because I used the actual color. I was also able to visualize what the final product would be. As I put the blocks together I kept them in chains so I could match them up later on.

I got quite a few rows together. I really like my color combinations of teal, purple, green and yellow. I have placed in a few embroidery blocks in rows. I am trying to be very conscious of where I am putting them in the quilt. I am even marking them on the diagram. I started doing rows on the left side of the quilt, then I jumped over to the right side to make sure that the embroidery pieces are throughout the whole quilt.  Below are the two sides of the quilt. The long rows are folded up on themselves. I am super happy so far.

Hand Sewing

I am trying to finish up the embroidery on a handful of the blocks for the fence rail mountain king size quilt. (There has got to be a better way to describe that quilt, for consistency concerns I need to come up with something). I decided on using small flowers/ leaves in threes for the Mountain Quilt ;  )  . I seemed to balance on the block nicely. I was attempting to make it look like a crazy quilt. However, it has ended up being more refined. I just stitch whatever comes to mind. I have completed most of them while Hubby watches NBA finals. I do actually like all levels of basketball, though I do find it hard to watch 3 games tailed on to each other.
Meanwhile, I threw this hand pin cushion together very quickly. It was more out of necessity, I lost a quite a few needles and pins recently. I actually found one in my nightgown... while in bed... in a not so great spot... just waiting to stab me.

Ultimately, I will be putting the Mountain quilt with the crochet afghan above. I beginning to think that it might just be too many stripes. What do you think?

Kaffe Quilt

Look, I finished it! It ended up working out great. The perfect size for a throw. About 60x60. I debated and debated over what to do about the quilting. Again, I could see myself messing up the fabric. Finally, I decided I would  just simply stitch in the ditches. I was super happy with that choice. I washed it and it came out so soft almost a little puffy. I am super excited. I love the Kaffe fabrics together. It really works with what I have in the living room (the yellow matches the dyed curtains perfectly). The backing is the yellow from the trim and a few scraps. I think that was the fastest I have ever completed a quilt. I did not want to use super thick batting. I am excited too because I have left overs of this fabric. More Pillows??

Silver Flower Bag and Kaffe Quilt

 I made this bag for my sister awhile ago. I forgot to take a picture before I gave it to her. I used the waste band of a pair of wrangler jeans for the inside. It made a nice set of pockets for the bag. I made it rather large so that she could get some books in it. I used silver vinyl for the bottom to make it stronger. I would love to make a few more like this to sell at some point. I was so thankful that she sent me these images. I this was fairly easy one day project.

I also worked on this quilt for the living room. I love this Kaffe fabric. I cut large squares from the fat quarters and then I used the leftovers to make a long binding. I am going to use a yellow to finish off the quilt. I think it will be a nice blend and contrast.  I am really excited by this fabric and hurried through this project. I just could not cut up these awesome prints. I wanted to leave the squares as big as I could. Cant wait to see the finished quilt.

A little late

Here is the awesome tree skirt that I made my Mom for Christmas! I cant believe that I am just now getting around to sharing this with everyone. When I first got interested in sewing, my Mom bought me a kit with fabric to make her a tree skirt. She must have given it to me almost 10 years ago. I was still in middle school. It was a giant UFO looming over my head every time Christmas rolled around and she pulled out the same piece of red fabric. I had use some the fabric in prior projects so I pretty much came up with the idea on my own.  It is not quilted, I hand tied it with yarn and bells. I really liked the Christmas fabric with the snowmen, but it was very bold and loud. 

I used Christmas ribbon to just tie up the back. I used some sentimental fabric for parts of the hearts and stars.

 I enjoyed looking through Christmas theme flickr for inspiration. I really love blogging for fiber arts. I cant imagine what I would do with out this outlet and inspiration. I learned a lot of skills and a tried some new things. I did my first heart and star patches. I appliqued my first complicated design on the snowmen with metallic thread(first usage). So she flipped out and cried when she realized what it was. I like it a lot too and really want one for my self. This is a very memorable project and gift to give. Love you Mama!

Baby quilt done!

So I was able to finish the rest of the quilt today. I had to attend court this morning from an incident that was a witness to. I thought that I was going to be there much longer than planned. I came home and cleaned the house, we are leaving this weekend for a wedding. I enjoy returning from a trip to a clean home. I settled on doing a very basic machine quilt on my co-workers. I feel certain that I will put much more detail in to the one for my cousin. 

I also printed out some handmade tags. I took me about 20 min on the computer. I have really enjoyed the new printer that I got. I printed it out on some really heavy cardstock. I was very happy with my work when it was completed. I sat down and did the math about $8.50 a piece and I feel better giving something handmade. My repurposed ribbon looks a bit sad in the picture, better in reality. I will get back to the fence rail/mountain quilt when I return from the wedding.

Baby Quilts

So i found a really great idea on how to cut down three yards of fabric to make three quit toppers for baby/crib blankets. You simply fold a yard lengthwise( as it was on the bolt)and then widthwise. Then orient the folded edges to the bottom left corner. Trim fabric size to 18x21 0r 18X20 as long as all three yards are cut the same. Then from the both raw edges measure in 9 inches then cut. When done three different fabrics it yields interchangeable pieces.

Well here is the quilt put together with batting and backing. I haven't pressed it or quilted it together. Wow! I am impressed how fast this has gone, So far! It was much more cost effective for me since I needed three blankets. I will post final quilt before I wrap it up for mom.

Quilting as a job

Wow, wouldn't it be wonderful if someone would pay me to quilt. I know that people do this but, I don't think that I have the skill yet. I saw on tv this lady in Kansas was doing free machine quilting (i am sorry, her name escapes me). I was in awe, she has my dream life. Her set-up was incredible. I can't wait until I have the time and the space to create things like that. I know that I  have it in me me. I just need the resources. Right now, I am enjoying drooling over the things that other quilters are creating. Even though, there is a slight pang of jealousy.  I would even go as far as saying that I would like to own my very own quilt shop. I can see myself in there giving classes, helping customers pick out my fabulous fabrics. Oh, I am in such a dream world.