Quilt Block Pillowcases

I made pillowcases to match S's quilt, which now sits at the bottom of her bed for decoration.  The blocks were already made when I made the quilt, because I was considering making the quilt larger, so the pillows were relatively easy to make.  I used extra fabric that I have from the quilt - all organic fabric from Cedar House Fabrics.

The quilt block designs are from a Red Pepper Quilt design - the Quilter's Palette Quilt.  I was VERY happy with the pattern and love all of Rita's quilts!  It is my favorite quilting blog.

The pillowcase inspiration is from here and I used her tutorial for the envelope pillowcase.  My pillow inserts are 50cmx50cm (from IKEA).

Rainbow Baby Quilt

This is a quilt I made for S when she was born.  It is a crib-sized quilt - 34" x 50".  The pattern is from Rita at Red Pepper Quilts - it is the Quilter's Palette Quilt Pattern.  I loved working with this pattern - I love all of Rita's work and the pattern was very clear and easy to follow and I learned a bit about her techniques :)

The fabric is all organic from Cedar House Fabrics.  It was harder than I expected to choose semi-matching fabrics.  Some of the ones I ordered didn't really go and I had to order a few more.  I'm happy with how the blocks turned out.  The fabrics are a mix of brands - Daisy Janie, Monaluna, Cloud 9, and Birch.  The backing is a thin organic flannel.

I'm very happy with the quilt!  I love the colors.  

Quick and Easy Baby Quilt #4

Just finished my fourth "Quick and Easy Baby Blanket" from "Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson.  It's listed as a 2-4 hour project, which is about right.  The cutting always takes me a long time (this is my fourth one - here's one, here's one and the other I forgot to take a photo of) and at the end, you make little embroidered stitches every 4" to hold it together (see last photo) which takes a long time to first measure and mark the locations and then to do all the stitching (by machine, but still slow...)


The front fabric is Cloud 9 Organic cotton, backing is organic cotton (front and back from Organic Cotton Plus); batting is organic cotton and thread is organic thread from Near Sea Naturals, so it's truly a 100% organic blanket :)

This one measures 34" x 45" - I used up all the cloud fabric I had.

I honestly don't love the fabric, but it's sleepy-themed and organic and there's nothing else I can think to do with it other than a baby blanket, so it had to be done...

I know it needs to be ironed!  But I'm afraid to do it until the vanishing marker marks vanish for fear that heat might cause them to set.

Baby Blanket

I made a little baby blanket for a friend who just had a baby.

The pattern is the "Quick and Easy Baby Blanket" from "Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson.  It's listed as a 2-4 hour project, which is about right.  The cutting always takes me a long time (this is my third one - here's one and the other I forgot to take a photo of) and at the end, you make little embroidered stitches every 4" to hold it together (see last photo) which takes a long time to first measure and mark the locations and then to do all the stitching (by machine, but still slow...)

The front fabric is Harmony Art Sweet Jane organic sateen, backing is organic cotton (front and back from Organic Cotton Plus); batting is organic cotton and thread is organic thread from Near Sea Naturals, so it's truly a 100% organic blanket :)  I love how it turned out - the fabric is so soft and the pattern is gentle and the colors are lovely - perfect for a baby blanket!

The blanket is 33"x53", quite a bit bigger than the recommendation, but I had that much fabric and the batting is that size, so it seemed better to use it than to have a thin scrap to save indefinitely...

I want to get some sweet gender-neutral baby fabric to make a few of these as standby gifts so I don't find myself doing blindstitch at 1 in the morning again (ah, I just realized that the name of the book is Last Minute Gifts, so I guess it makes sense that I was making this blanket at the last minute!)...  I like that this gift is fun to make, practical, can be made fairly inexpensively if cheaper fabric is used, and is enough of a gift by itself (ie, I don't feel compelled to make several things when I give this blanket).

Baby Blanket

Just finished this little baby blanket. The pattern is from "Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson. The front fabric is Harmony Art Silent Stumps (organic cotton), backing is 4.5oz organic flannel (front and back from Organic Cotton Plus); batting is organic cotton and thread is organic thread from Near Sea Naturals, so it's truly a 100% organic blanket :) I love how it turned out - the fabric is so soft and the pattern is gentle and the colors are lovely - perfect for a baby blanket!

The blanket is a lot harder than it looks because it has 99 (!) little satin stitch ovals to hold the batting in place. Next time I'll make them 4" apart instead of 3.25" so I don't have to do so many. It's important to start the ovals from the center of the blanket and smooth the blanket as you move outward or you get lumps of fabric between the ovals...

Another difficulty was that I made a mess cutting the flannel - I was listening to a podcast and ended up cutting the fabric three times and still didn't get it quite how I wanted, but the final size is fine. It ended up 31x38" (final blanket).

Yoav helped pick out the fabric, although he actually preferred Harmony Art Whispering Grass, which I think is too shimmery - I actually have no idea what to do with it, but that's another story... He also helped cut the fabric (not while I was listening to the podcast).

Baby Quilt Design

I've been totally off the sewing wagon for months I think. I've been trying to focus on our rhythm, food and, of course, the holidays...

Meanwhile, I'm missing the sewing. I've been knitting, which helps, but it meets a different need. I like to knit while the kids are playing. That way, my Presence is felt, but I'm not involved in the play. It's perfect. And it's very calming for me, especially to do simple projects with natural yarns. I just finished these little hats for my nephews who are due in May and June. I used Blue Sky Alpacas organic cotton, my favorite yarn to knit - I love the way it feels between my fingers as I knit.

I just finished these little hats for my SILs who are both due with boys in the next two months! Note that one is much bigger than the other even though I used the same newborn pattern for each - that's what happens when Yoav sees a cute baby hat and decides to attach a string to go under the neck and try to get it on his own head! Oops. So no longer newborn, but still for a baby ;)



There's a baby blanket I really want to make from the Louisa Harding book as well. Of course I have the problem of where to buy the yarn. I found this online yarn store that has organic cotton yarn, but I'll probably get some o-wool balance (blend of organic cotton and wool) for the blanket.

Anyway... So as much as I love knitting, I'm missing sewing. Last night I started thinking about making a baby quilt for either a SIL or a friend who's due in June. I really love thinking about how to put the fabrics together and quilt patterns. I had been thinking about making myself a skirt, which would probably take me no more than an hour or so, but I find myself drawn to quilting. I feel like sewing clothes is more "productive", but there's also the issue of my mental health and since I find peace in quilting, I'm going to try going back to that for a bit. Clothes are so cheap these days, it's not even worth making your own clothes unless you enjoy it.

So.. I designed a baby quilt and planned out the fabrics. On my hand-drawn pattern, the blue represents the turquoise polka dot pattern fabric and the green is the greenish polka dot. Then the inside squares will be the bird fabric and mushroom fabric. The striped fabric will be the border. The fabric is Cloud 9 organic cotton that I purchased on Etsy from Modern Organic Fabrics (I highly recommend it - the woman who runs the shop is really nice and offers free shipping and even said she's split up shipments for me in $50 increments since I get hit with customs tax for imports over $50).
Here's the pattern and fabric plan:





I'm hoping the kids will fall asleep at a reasonable time today so I can start cutting. Jeremy is in NY, which means I can make a simple dinner and have less clean-up...

How cool is it that the boys are upstairs playing together while I wrote this?!??!? :)

First Block of Pinweel Baby Quilt

I made a trial block for my baby pinwheel quilt. The pattern is from "Material Obsession" by Sarah Fielke and Kathy Doughty. It was a birthday gift from my SIL and has several beautiful patterns and some helpful tips in the back. I might do another test block because the white inside the pinwheel is actually off-white/natural and it bothers me :( I don't have any white fabric :( For some reason I thought I only needed natural color, since i prefer it, but if I need to match to white, I guess I need white :( I might have to cut the rest and order some white. We'll see. Anyway, the fabric is from the Cloud 9 Organic collection - I got it all on Etsy from ModernOrganicFabrics.

Update: I just found some organic white Michael Miller fabric for $7/yard, so I'll get everything cut and wait for that...

Completed Square in Square Baby Girl Quilt!

I finished the quilt! I love how it turned out, especially since I just used fabric from my stash, and girly prints at that, which I don't have much of. I think the duck fabric is a little too orange, but it's close enough to work. I used this tutorial and I stitched in the ditch to quilt it - I stitched around each big block and around each smaller one inside.

For my next baby quilt, I want to do this same pattern, but no offset blocks - just all centered. I also want to add another border like on this quilt. And I want to make the back nicer, with a bit of patchwork using fabric from the front.

I had so much fun with this - I'm dreaming of all the future quilts I can make - and hopefully NOT on such a tight timeline - that's the only part that's not fun...

Square in Squares Baby Girl Quilt

I got the crazy idea to make a quilt for a friend who had a baby. It started because I have two friends who had baby girls and only enough girl-colored ribbon to make one of the little ribbon blankets, so, practical woman that I am, I started on a quilt :)

I'm actually amazed how fast I've been able to do it. With the help of chain stitching and setting my machine on the fastest speed , I've gotten pretty fast sewing pieces together. The slowest part for me is actually the cutting. I do NOT have good technique with cutting. I'd love a bigger cutting mat - mine is 18"x24", which is great for small projects, but too small for quilting. Although also it's on a desk - it'd probably go better if I just set it down on a hard floor.

I don't have much girl-y fabric, so I did the best I could. I'm pretty happy with the way it looks and love the basic design. I have some beautiful organic fabric I want to do a similar quilt out of. I used this tutorial.





Yoav helped me with the design and fabric choices. He got into the design process and designed one himself :) My design is (obviously on top - just included for comparison) and then his is below.

Finished: D9P Doll Quilt

I finished this little doll quilt for Y. I have to say I had SO much fun making it and I love how it turned out. I used this tutorial for the D9P (Disappearing Nine Patch), but as I said before, I generally like more ordered quilts, so I came up with this - I did the four numbers from a Japanese Cosmo fabric, the flowers are all Windham Story Book fabric - I started with blue in the top middle square and bottom middle square, green in the left and right middle squares and pink in the middle. The back is a yummy natural colored organic flannel. Hopefully it won't get too dirty. It'll be really soft for the dolls LOL. And I used a thin bamboo/cotton batting. I quilted it with stitch-in-the-Ditch. Last time I did stitch-in-the-ditch was with a little nine-patch quilt so I didn't have to start/stop, just stitched end to end. This time with the border, I had to do some starting and stopping, which I did by setting the stitch length to 0 and doing a few stitches in place to secure the stitching. Binding I used a pre-made double fold bias tape. I thought it would make it much easier since I wouldn't have to make it, but it was a bit thin and stretchy and hard to work with. I like making it myself better. I'm going to try to get a label on one of the days using this tutorial. I just need to get some freezer paper.

I entered this little quilt into a Virtual Quilt Festival hosted by Amy of Park City Girl. It's really fun to look through the quilts for inspiration! Thanks Amy for hosting this!

And I figured out a great trick to offset the late-night sewing! I listened to an Aldort CD (the Raising Competent Children one, always a favorite for me) as I was doing the hand stitching for the binding, so I woke up revved up for a fully-connected day which seems to be really and truly offsetting the sleepiness. Oh, and the cup of coffee :)

DNP Doll Quilt Top

So Y wanted me to make him the random quilt, but it's not quite right for me - I only have one yellowish Story Book fabric, so there's three big pinks, one big yellow and two big greenish ones - I want to order some more fat quarters so I can mix it up better before I make it. So, meanwhile I spent hours searching for a pattern I liked and wanted to try. I'm falling fast for this quilting stuff! I really want to try different types of blocks. The doll quilts are perfect for learning. I found this tutorial. I love the way her quilt looks, but I don't have enough of the Story Book fabric to have nine squares that would look good in this format. So then I came up with a layout that I love! The quilt top is done, just gotta sew on the back. I turned the squares just the way the woman did in the tutorial, so the 2 and 3 both started out turned ninety degrees - so the tops of the numbers were to the right.

Done with Doll Quilt #1

All done! This is for my niece, K.

Done with Doll Quilt #1

All done! My sister liked the ordered one best and this one is for my niece. I'm going to make the random one for Y. Thanks to everyone who voted! I don't like the random one as much so it helps to see that other people like it before I make it - that's the one Y wanted and he did most of the layout. The tutorial is here.

I have to say, I LOVE having a sewing room. Sewing is SO much faster and more fun now! This was my first time turning on the sewing machine - I had to bring the transformer from the kitchen. I plugged the sewing machine and iron into the transformer and put the iron on a small wooden table perpendicular to the sewing table with a piece of insul-bright and dishcloth on top, so I could easily iron after each step. In my apartment, ironing meant I had to get up and walk into the kitchen where I had the iron set up, so I wasn't as good about ironing in between each step. And before I barely had any space on my table, so as my sewing fabric went behind the machine, it would bunch up and knock into all the other things I was using. Now I actually have space on my table for the cutting mat and rotary knife on the left half of the table and sewing machine on the right and plenty of space behind the machine for the fabric. I LOVE it!! Oh, did I say that already??? I'll take pics of the sewing room in action another day. Quite a pleasure. I have a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot more time sewing now :)

Doll Quilt for my niece

I finished my doll quilt for my niece. I must say that I love it :) The basic idea was from this I-Spy quilt. I couldn't deal with the randomness of a quilt like that, so I decided to make an organized I-Spy quilt with the "Hello My Friends" line of fabric from Cosmo Textiles. The front is Hello My Friends and a blue/white dot fabric (Caramel Town line from Lecien). All the fabric was from Superbuzzy.com. The back is a different Hello My Friends pattern, but with the same little characters. I used this tutorial for the binding, which was really clear and came out perfectly IMHO :)

Coaster - Basic Quilting

1/27/09
Originally uploaded by jmilikow
So I finished my first super basic quilting project. Well, not project even LOL. I made a coaster. Maybe doesn't seem so exciting, but I had to use a walking foot, which I'd never heard of until I started reading about quilting. The pattern is from "Last Minute Patchwork & Quilted Gifts" (which is a beautiful book - it was a gift from my sister for my birthday). The fabric is "Ingredients" by Lecien. I did the stitches that go around and around in concentric squares. They're not perfect, but they're fairly close to it. I'm going to make six as a housewarming present for my cousin - I think I'll get more used the the quilting guide on the walking foot as I do more. It's really cute and I'm very happy with it.