(Re)Started Quilt Blog

This blog started as a way for us to share with our family what we were up to after we moved out of state. But over time, as we remodeled our craftsman home in Laurelhurst, it morphed into a historic house remodel blog. It was a way for me to save info I had researched and as a way to record progress on our projects. But I have shifted a lot of my leisure activities to fabric crafts now and they don't really fit into the Laurelhurst Craftsman house theme. I will still use this blog for our gardening and woodworking projects since they still benefit this house.

Once the weather warms up we do hope to do another round of woodworking. I would very much like to finish my master bedroom closet. We decided to try and make the cabinets ourselves but the pandemic brought our progress to a halt. I'm hoping we'll get back to work on the project later this year.

Anyway, since I am seriously considering starting a long arm quilting business, I decided I should shift my sewing-related posts over to my long-abandoned quilt blog. Once I figure out a new name, I'll change the name of the blog, but I will leave it as it is for now.

If you're here primarily for the quilt posts, I would encourage you to follow that blog. I will start using that blog to post about project progress and challenges I am participating in.

I have posted a new post over there.

Fire Dance Quilt Finished

For this month's Friday Night with Friends, I decided I wanted to try to finish the binding on my Fire Dance quilt. I started at about 5:30PM and I was done by 9:30PM. I don't think I'll ever go back to sewing bindings by hand; I used to take weeks to finish them. (The trick is to sew the binding to the backside of the quilt and then flip it to the front so the "messy" side is on the back. I found several good videos showing how to do it, but this is the best one.)

I made two sets of matching pillowcases for this one.

I had it quilted with the Lorien's Dragons pantograph, which I love.

This quilt pattern was inspired by the quilt of the same name from the Batik Beauties book by Laurie J. Shifrin. I designed some half-blocks to make it larger for my bed.

This was the quilt flimsy laid out on my bed before it was quilted.

Jan Friday Night With Friends

I joined Cheryll, et al. again for the first Friday Night With Friends of 2021.  I got started early and worked through Friday night and then continued Saturday morning until I finished assembling the 64 blocks for the center portion of the Snake River Log Cabin quilt. 

Now that I've finished assembling them all, it's ready for the border. That is another 32 blocks I'll need to make.

Dec Friday Night w/Friends

I got my sewing machine back from the shop on Friday morning, so it gave me the opportunity to again join the virtual sewing gathering: Friday Night With Friends. I got started early in the day and continued through the evening. During the day, I finished binding the train quilt.

I also spent several hours sewing down the edges on the denim circle panels.

Then I spent a couple hours on Saturday, sewing them into tubes.

The goal with these panels is to make more tote bags, like this one I finished in spring.

Aug Friday Night w/Friends

For this month's Friday Night with Friends I decided to make more progress on my WOOFA list and work on Xmas placemats out of the leftover fabric strewn throughout my sewing room.

I originally planned a very complicated set of Xmas placemats but when I saw how much of the poinsettia border I had leftover it reminded me of some placemats I had seen ages ago on etsy.

I thought I could probably figure out how to make these so I started with scraps to test the process.

I am happy I had a 60° triangle ruler.

It went together pretty well with the poinsettia border but because the border was only about 5"-wide it was too small.

I decided to add some of the leftover holly border fabric around the outer edge. It was a bit of a process to do all those mitered corners.

Finished. The first one has a bad corner with a small crease that I will rip out and resew.

The second turned out better. The hardest part of these was figuring out the pieces. If I were to make more I would cut out pattern pieces and then they would go together quite quickly.

The two fabrics I'm debating on for the backing. I'll probably choose the cheap one on the left just because I think the poinsettia fabric on the right is too nice to waste on a backing.

July Friday Night w/Friends

I started assembling the Xmas Log Cabin quilt for this month's Friday Night with Friends. I had planned to finish putting it together today, but then I remembered it's the 4th of July. For those who celebrate, I hope you all have a great day. Time to BBQ!

June Friday Night w/Friends #1

I joined Cheryll for Friday Night with Friends again. I decided to work on my oldest WOOFA project this week. I started a quilt in around 2002 (yes, eighteen years ago) and I got as far as partially sewing some of the green blocks before I set it aside.

I spent Friday afternoon cutting strips into pieces for FNWF in the evening.

As planned, I spent Friday evening working on the blocks but then I got up on Saturday and continued sewing the blocks. By Saturday evening, I finished all 49 purple blocks.

This is my original planned layout for the quilt.

But then last week I fiddled around with the design and I am considering assembling it with the "center" offset.

I'll lay it out on a bed before I actually decide for sure how I want it assembled.

Update on Sunday: This is the likely layout. I decided that it would likely bug me having the "center" off-center when it was on the bed.

May Friday Night With Friends #2

I decided to get an early start on my Friday Night With Friends and spent the afternoon ripping apart my failed placemats from a couple weeks ago. It took me a couple of hours, but I managed to trim down the pieces and reassemble the placemats and make them right.

The quilting portion has been a bit of a learning process for me. Up until now, I have only ever done stitch-in-the-ditch, but the center of these placemats was too large a space to leave unquilted. I thought about how to finish it and I didn't have any interest in freehanding some design. Eventually, I decided to fill the opening with a Double Infinity outline. I downloaded a drawing from the internet then printed out six copies that were sized to fit in the opening.

I carefully sewed around the edges then spent about 15 minutes trying to remove the paper. Obviously, it would have been better if I used some sort of tear-away stabilizer, but I didn't have any so I just used regular printer paper. I found if I folded the paper along the perforation, it seemed to tear off more easily. There are still a few scraps of paper stuck in the stitching but I'm sure they'll disappear when I wash these after I'm finished.

After I finished sewing the center medallion, I went through and sewed stitch-in-the-ditch around the knotwork.

I spent a good part of Saturday continuing work on this project and I've finished sewing two of the placemats, but I still have four more to finish. And I still have to put on the binding.

I used a William Morris fabric for the backing.

May Friday Night w/Friends

I decided to join Cheryl's Friday Night With Friends again this month. I decided to give the gold and navy placemats a second try. The second time around I was able to build them with more of an assembly line process and I nearly finished them before I had to go to bed on Friday Night. I spent about two hours adding the small borders on Saturday.

I obviously still need to assemble and quilt them, but that will have to wait for another day.

I chose the colors to coordinate with our Wedgwood Cornucopia dishes.

I made this placemat design in Electric Quilt. It was inspired by a square knotwork block. I uploaded the file to google if anyone else would like to make the design.

And now that I've finished these I believe I can rip out four seams on each of my earlier versions and fix them by trimming a small amount from the wider portion. Then I'll end up with a total of six placemats though the gold will be different. I didn't have enough gold fabric to use the same one for this second try. I have got to stop buying one-yard pieces.

Friday Night with Friends Fail

My project for Friday Night was to finish one of the cushions for my Living Room Reupholstery Project. I looked over the old covers and tried to sew the cushion the same, but it has weird puckers on the corners.

The original covers weren't snipped and they looked fine, so I'm reluctant to cut them more than I already have. I'm worried if I deeply snip them they'll eventually rip out at the corners with use. Perhaps the difference is the old fabric was much lighter-weight.

I tried stretching it out tightly to see if it would look better once I've stapled it on, but I don't believe it will. So, I'm debating tearing it all the way apart and reducing the width of the seams.

Anyway, by the time I got to this point, I was frustrated and ill-equipped mentally to take on the trouble-shooting so I called it quits after a short night. This is a difficult project for me, but I am determined to figure it out. I just need a bit more time to figure out the solution.