Snowman Applique Part 3

Alright. I know it  has been FOREVER since I last posted and for that I am sorry. Life happens and between work and school, sometimes crafting gets placed only once a week.... Anyways, I wanted to update you on my snowman applique project!

I HAVE BEGUN QUILTING!!!!!

As you can see, I am doing a criss cross diagonal lines in the background of my snowmen and gloves. This will be the only quilting on the inside of the quilt. The outer border will be quilted in straight lines (I think). I have only done a small section of the largest snowman, but that is my goal to accomplish by the next time I get to craft with my mother-in-law :)

You can see that I chose to baste my quilt over safety pins, this was a recommendation from my mother-in-law. The stitch I used to basted is called a herring bone, and there is a tutorial for how to do this HERE. Now the tutorial is long, but she teaches how to sandwich and roll the quilt to avoid slipping or shifting of the back and batting during the basting process. I did not follow the steps she presented, I only learned to baste, found a large table and cutting mat and then layered by quilt. I used one hand to hold the fabric in place and one hand to baste. (on a larger quilt you may need to follow her full instructions). ** Also, I did not knot any of my basting threads, I chose to leave tails at both ends of the thread instead.

There you have it folks, my first attempt at hand quilting. I will keep the updates coming as I progress through the 6 squares and outer border of this little quilt!

As always, please feel free to comment and share any comments or projects you are working with :)

NEWEST PROJECT - Rhombus Quilt

Okay everyone! Exciting news :) I have found out what my next project will be!!!! The inspirstion comes from the video below. I will be making this Rhombus cube quilt (with my own modifications of course) for a friend as a wedding gift!!!

Below is a poor picture of the fabrics I have chosen for this project. They consist of a dark, medium, and light tonal fabric (using the Bride and Groom's favorite colors).  You can see in the photo below, that I have started to make some progress by getting all the white fabric cut (this was done a few days ago, but I am just now getting to write about it due to work schedule).

And here is the progress I have made so far ... All the white is cut into cut rhombus shapes using the Missouri Star Template, as suggested in the video above :) I got the template from their website on one of their fabulous Daily Deals with FREE SHIPPING! If you have not checked out what they have to offer, click on daily deals above to see what specials they have today!

I am hoping to get some more cutting done tomorrow, as it is my last free day before my final semester of nursing school starts and I will be plunged into 16 weeks of intense study :) Never fear though, I always make time for FUN or in this case, CRAFTING! 

As always, please feel free to comment below :) I love knowing if I have inspired anyone to get crafty!

Snowman Applique 2

Okay, so today is a light day for me as far as other commitments go, and I have time to post twice! This post will cover the process I went through to get that Snowman Applique Quilt ready to be hand quilted....

So this process was fairly simple for me, just cut the black sashing into 1" strips and then sew according to the diagram with a quarter inch seam.... Nothing can go wrong with that right???

 The picture above shows that the blocks were laid out according to the pattern and a sashing was added between the sets of 2 blocks to create 3 rows.... Not too difficult for me, just had to finagle that pesky quarter inch seam.... (This quilt led me to buy that 1/4" presser foot and I am so excited to sew the next project together and see if it is any easier to get the seams right!)

Next, you add the longer strips to frame the rows in a sense as seen below. This was a little harder for me to do, the seam was longer and harder to keep straight. As you can see it is a little wonky, but it works right?!? (Makes it look HOMEMADE - at least that is my mantra) I learned quickly after these first 2 longer seams that I would need PINS and LOTS of them :)

Then, you add in the other two columns. I will say that I did pin these, but you may not need to pin them, since there are no points to line up, which was a life saver for me (this being my first quilt to get to this stage of production). I also heavily recommend to press in between sewing the seams with an iron, not your fingers. I finger pressed them, because I was SO EXCITED to see the quilt top done, that I feel when I did get around to ironing it out, I had a little trouble making the seams go where I wanted them. 

I added the top and the bottom sashing next, not too difficult with the help of pins :) Oh, and when I finally remembered to stitch a few stitches and check to make sure that the thread was actually still in the needle, that made the process go a little faster.... I think I sewed 1 seam 3 times because 2 of them, the needle came unthreaded halfway through the row....

Anyway, a picture of  completed top and bottom is shown below:

Next, I added the last of the sashing and then gave it a good iron. Making sure to press from the back to make sure the seams were set and going the direction I wanted them to go. I did not follow the book for which direction to press the seams.... 

Last stage!!! The outer border which I believe I cut as 3" strips. The outer border was the only Christmas fabric I used and bought especially for the quilt. This same fabric is being used to back and bind the quilt :) Close up of that to come later.... When I cut the border strips, I went ahead and cut the binding strips as well... they were also 3" wide strips.

Well there it is folks! My first finished quilt top - wonky seams and all! But I am proud of what I accomplished :) And i do believe that from a distance you can barely notice the slight bending of those pesky thin sashing strips...

SIDE NOTE - The above pictures are not technically the finished quilt top, the finished quilt top does have faces on those snowmen :)

TIDING UP -

• I have found a link for an excellent buttonhole tutorial on youtube! 
• I am still looking for the name and author the book that I got the pattern from!

Next Blog will show (hopefully) part 3 of this process - the quilt sandwich and beginnings of hand quilting :)

Snowmen Applique Part 1!

 

 Okay so Today's post is all about that Snowman Applique Quilt I have been working on. Below is a picture of the inspiration for this quilt, my Mother-in-Law's own version of this quilt. This came about after a weekly visit where we were discussing what to do about Christmas gifts this year. I expressed the desire to hand make all my gifts this year, and that my mother loves snowmen and has her house themed in snowmen from the day after Thanksgiving until the last snow falls the following  year (even the Christmas tree). She then pulls this gem out of a chest and says, "how about something like this?" I was all for it, and set to work thinking of a color combination that would go with my mom's current snowmen collection.





Inspiration from Mother-in-Laws version of this quilt



This is what became of my hunt for fabrics and wanting a light and airy feel to my quilt! The best part about the fabric selection process was that this was all fabrics I already had on hand (I love to buy fat quarters whenever I see a good sale, even if I do not have a project for them at the time)! This process took me about 2 weeks to trace and cut the heat n' bond and then the fabric and then iron it all together.

Traced and Cut and Ironed

The third week in this process I learned how to button hole :) I'd say it is NOT perfect, but definitely has the homemade feel that I was going for and I am so proud that I have learned yet another new talent! I found that I really enjoyed the task of stitching each piece down. And I was glad I decided to hand sew this instead of attempting those curves on a machine being so new to quilting and sewing!
SIDE NOTE - My mother-in-law showed me how to button hole, so I have not looked for a good video tutorial, which is how I normally get inspiration and learn. - But I will look for one to post in my next post.

First Attempt at Button Hole

And this is 2 weeks worth of hand sewing in my free time! All the pieces were hand stitched down even the tiniest pieces like the flame of the candle and the little blue bird. Eyes and mouths have since been hand drawn on using a micron pen (Thank you again to my mother-in-law for loaning me supplies that I currently do not own!).
 

Yay! All the pieces are appliqued down!

Another post will soon follow with the next phase of this quilt - machine sewing the pieces together with sashing! That was a fun experience, since it was  the first quilt I machine sewed!


This quilt design came from a book I borrowed from the person who inspired me to give this a try! - I will work on getting the title and author.


Please feel free to comment below and let me know if this was inspirational to you!




Starting From?

Okay, so FIRST POST! Where to start? I guess I will start at the beginning....

The Beginning of my quilting journey is a very simple story :) A boy and a girl fell in love....

My journey started when I met my husband's mother for the very first time. We started talking to get to know each other and as we talked, she was hand sewing. This fascinated me because I had never seen something like it before. Well, I ended up sharing with her my history dabbling in crafty type things like knitting and crochet and asked her if she thought she would be willing to teach me how to hand sew. Since then, we have  tried to meet up every week to catch up and sew or knit or cook or whatever floats our boats.

So... My first official project with quilting was an English Paper Pieced flower made with 2 1/2" hexagons.

Currently I am working on:

•  EPP hexie quilt of my own design (when I feel the need to hand sew, in the process of basting the background hexies to start putting the quilt together)
• Applique Snowmen quilt for an Christmas gift (it is in the process of being hand quilted)
• A machine sewed Disappearing 9 Patch (Queen size to be used on my own bed in the cutting stage)
• A machine sewed Rhombus Quilt (Lap size to be given as a wedding gift in the cutting stage)
• A postage stamp quilt that will most likely be EPP (in the design process)

In future posts, you will probably hear about brainstorming ideas, fabric buys, notion buys/reviews, progress on the above mentioned projects, etc. I will try to post at least once a week... maybe more frequently if my busy schedule allows!

This blog is mainly for me to use as a journal type setting where I can return and see how far I have come, but you are more than welcome to use my posts as inspiration if you see fit. I will try to post links to everything that I used for inspiration, and if that fails, then I will at least mention where the ideas came from to give proper credit and also to keep my journal complete with a reference guide! 

I will try to blog on each individual project in the next week or so with pictures and where the ideas came from :)