FITF: Film in the Fridge | modern quilts, clothing, fabric, and photos

Yes, more baby quilts!

Posted on April 7, 2009

This really only came about due to some excess batting… After cutting batting for a few ‘throw’ sized quilts, I was left with strips of batting about 38″ wide. Not wide enough for most quilts I make, but certainly appropriate for a baby quilt. I didn’t want it to go to waste, nor did I want to have to store these pieces, so I decided to make a couple really simple baby quilts.

I love a simple strip quilt, and I was reminded of that after making a backing for my scattered mini blocks quilt this weekend. I pulled out a bunch of my favorite fabrics (and yes, you’ll recognize the color schemes – nothing new there!) and cut strips in a variety of widths. I sewed them together and cut to the size of my batting.

blue-strips

I think I’m going to use them to try out some different quilting – I’ve always loved the loopy quilting shown on a lot of Denyse Schmidt’s quilts in her book, and this might be a good way to test it out!

pink-strips

And, unrelated, but must be mentioned – I received my order of Heather Ross’s new fabric, Far Far Away… I don’t even know what to say – it’s gorgeous! I have no plans for it, I just knew I had to have it. I think I’ll just sit and stare at it for a while. I bought some from Kathy at Pink Chalk Fabrics and some from Cynthia at Fabricworm. I think they both still have a bit left, so if you’re looking, you may want to try there. I’m not sure I can pick a favorite, though I am loving the green and blue colorway (although I’m really dying to have a bit in all the colors and all patterns – you know I’m a fabric hoarder!)

far-far-away

Posted in Household Sewing - bags, napkins, pillows, Posts about Quilts | Tagged baby quilt, Far Far Away, handmade, Heather Ross, lightning bugs, quilt | 20 Comments

sunday with my seam ripper

Posted on April 6, 2009

Do you have days like those? I was so productive on Saturday and got a couple quilt backs sewn up, and some quilt sandwiches made. We had a rainy and gray weekend, so I thought I’d see if I could get a couple quilted, and maybe even one completely finished by the end of the weekend. No such luck.

I started in on the scrappy borders quilt (temporary name only – I don’t like the sound of that one!) and thought that maybe instead of stippling, I’d go for concentric squares inside each block. It started out well enough, but after doing a few of them, I realized that the adhesive wasn’t doing its job and the center of the quilt was going to end up with a lot of puckers if I kept going.

quilted

Unfortunately, I like this quilt a lot, and I couldn’t bear to see it ruined, so out came the seam ripper. And as you all know, what takes only half an hour to sew, takes about 3 hours to rip out! And to top it off, I managed to snag the top of the quilt and make a little hole.

I’m not letting it get the best of me though. I got it all ripped out and patched up, remade the quilt sandwich, and got it quilted by the end of the night. And it looks good. If I hadn’t told you, I don’t think anyone would realize how trying this was!

Oh, and little peek at the back. I’ve had the book Material Obsession for a while now and ever since I saw the photo on the cover I knew that I wanted a quilt with a lot of this green Flea Market Fancy on the back. This scrap quilt seemed like a perfect choice!

fmf-backing

I’m off to pick a binding…

Posted in Household Sewing - bags, napkins, pillows, Posts about Quilts | Tagged flea market fancy, free motion, quilt, quilting, scraps | 22 Comments

same scraps, different quilt

Posted on April 3, 2009

Instead of putting away all the remaining strips and scraps from the string quilt, I decided to use them to make up this new quilt top. You may recall this quilt pattern – it was the first quilt I completed in 2009. I knew I wanted to make another one, and I kept picturing it with brightly colored scraps.

scrap-quilt

I typically try to avoid using the exact same fabric combo in more than one quilt, but in this case I’m going with it, since I think the end result will be quite different. As opposed to the last quilt which used just a tiny bit of white, the majority of this one is white. So even though they use mainly the same fabrics, I don’t think you’ll you notice.

scrap-quilt3

I sewed all the scraps together to form strips, cut them down to 3″ in width, and sewed these to solid white blocks. The measurements and info about the blocks can be found here.

scrap-quilt-2