Film in the Fridge

a ‘use what you have’ personal challenge quilt

Posted on April 8, 2013

This quilt got its start because I was really feeling the urge to sew with my Nani Iro stash. Periodically I take the fabrics out, admire them, and then end up stumped as to what to make.

I took a peek at my Quilts of Gee’s Bend book to look for inspiration, and came across this quilt, made by Annie Mae Young. Inspired by it, as well as the idea of using what you have, I decided to try my hand at a little something similar.

So the Nani Iro stash went back, and instead I grabbed some scrap Nani Iro pieces left over from a Washi top I made (and I guess never blogged about!). I tend to have trouble using up the scraps left over from making clothing. I hate that they’re always weirdly shaped, and washed while the rest of my fabrics are not, and consequently they tend to sit. So I decided to issue myself a little personal challenge – to use up some scraps left over from recent clothing projects. These aren’t necessarily fabrics I would select to go together – I had the dark purple Nani Iro pieces, plus a few small pieces of new Nani Iro gingham in pink left over from a pair of baby pants I made recently, and some aqua voile, which I used for a shirt (which ended up not fitting, and looking far too much like scrubs for my liking!). I allowed myself to add in some extra aqua solids in order to have enough for the background, and I added in a few small pieces of an orange Oakshott solid for some accent pieces.

(apologies for the poor iphone photos – I need to remember to get out the real camera for progress photos!)

I had the most of the purple Nani Iro, so those became my main squares. I decided to cut it all with scissors without a ruler. As I cut the squares I put them up randomly on the design wall and then started to fill in with the aqua background.

I sewed them into columns and then sewed those columns together.

And here it is as a completed top! It’s fairly small – definitely baby sized – but certainly a fun little experiment. It was interesting to see what I could make out of these clothing scraps. I’ve even decided to go all out and hand quilt it. This will be the first quilt I’ve hand quilted, so we’ll see how that goes!

Posted in baby, Fabric | Tagged Fabric, fabric scraps, gee's bend, improv, nani iro | 12 Comments

marcelle plus quilt

Posted on April 2, 2013

I must say, I’m in love with this quilt! I made it on a whim, after seeing so many people working on the Marcelle Medallion quilt from Alexia Abegg’s book, Liberty Love. As I mentioned before, I decided to use a portion of her pattern – the 7th border – and use those pluses to make up my entire quilt top.

I enlarged the block just a bit to make the pluses stand out even more and raided both my stash of brightly colored prints for the pluses themselves, and my stash of low volume prints for the background fabrics.

And how fun, right? Alexia has a great pattern here, and I love that I could find inspiration from her quilt to make up something I absolutely love!

I thought I’d concentrate the quilting around the pluses, but a quick survey on Instagram said straight line quilting, so straight line quilting it was. I went with horizontal lines this time around and again did some random spacing about 1/4″ to 3/4″ apart.

The backing is a print from Aneela Hoey’s Sew Stitchy line (great sale prices here, by the way!), and then I used the gray crosshatch from Carolyn Friedlander’s Architextures line for the binding. I decided to use one of the low volume prints for binding since I wanted it to blend in with the background, allowing the pluses to be the only bold bright spots.

We lucked out with a really lovely day on Saturday and found ourselves down at the beach to throw stones in the lake (Max’s favorite pastime!). It’s so nice to start to see signs of Spring again – I do love quilt photos at the lake!

Posted in Fabric, Posts about Quilts, Quilts, [search] Other Quilts | Tagged handmade, Liberty Love, low volume, marcelle medallion, plus quilt, quilt | 31 Comments

a handmade maternity wardrobe

Posted on April 1, 2013

Lately I’ve been sewing lots of tops. I haven’t found too many maternity tops I like in the stores, so I decided to sew up a few of my own. It’s been nice to use up some of my voile stash, and I’m hoping that these tops will work both as maternity wear and then also as a looser, flowy (and concealing!) top after the baby’s born.

First up, these simple 3/4 sleeve tops. I didn’t have a pattern for these – I just traced (and enlarged and lengthened) a favorite top I already own.

And this one is the same pattern but with a slightly altered neckline

This next one is a top from the Stylish Dress Book. I’m embarrassed to say how long I’ve owned this book, yet up until now hadn’t done more than just flip through it for the photos. I suppose not having instructions in English was kind of intimidating. I went for version B, which is a simple design with a gathered neckline and a two piece gathered sleeve. I had to lengthen it quite a bit, and if I made it again, might even add an extra inch or two. I also discovered that this book has now been translated into English, making it that much easier to sew these patterns.

Lastly, I had a chance to be a pattern tester for Toni Coward of Make It Perfect. (You may recall my love for her Shearwater Kaftan – a few of the tops I’ve made here and here). Anyway, Toni is currently pregnant and designed the Waterfall Blouse, which is a maternity friendly pattern. I made up one in rayon, as seen above, and also this lighter weight one in voile which will be perfect for the warmer weather which must surely be coming.

I love how quickly these came together, and especially love that they work for the pregnant and non-pregnant alike (you should go take a peek at Toni’s blog to see how it looks on Toni at 28 weeks pregnant and also on her sister, who’s not pregnant). I also like how you can change up the look by making the yoke and the main shirt portion in different fabrics.

So as to not be totally selfish, I also made a few new pieces for Max’s wardrobe. These Treasure Pocket Pants are a favorite (right up there with Anna Maria’s Quick Change Trousers!). Max selected the prints for these pants, and happily they’re in constant rotation over here.

This shirt, The Easy Linen Shirt, is from the same book, Sewing for Boys, and I’ve been waiting for him to be big enough to fit into the size 2. I made one up in some baby wale charcoal corduroy (the remains from a Tova dress I made for myself), along with a bit of a car print for the inside collar. The fact that there are cars on the shirt makes it a winner in Max’s book!

It’s been fun expanding our wardrobes, and it’s certainly fun to look in my closet and see so many handmade tops, but now it’ back to quilts for me! I have a couple new ones to show you this week, and several more which are just waiting to be finished!

(*book links are Amazon affiliate links)