Quilt for School

 My cloffice (closet/office) is directly across from one set of doors used for arrival and dismissal. Once outdoor temperatures dropped below 20 degrees Fahrenheit along with strong winds, my space's temperature also dropped. Aside from wearing a winter jacket indoors, I thought about other options. Ultimately I decided to look for small blankets and quilts. In one closet I found many forgotten blankets and quilts, many I had made before my third baby was born. They were all on the smaller side and perfect for a lap quilt. Before I had looked around my house, I did a quick search for interesting fabric. While the mini quilts I brought into school did serve their purpose, I kept remembering the cute fabrics I had found and wondered if I might be up for a sewing project. It has been years since I quilted anything. Finally after looking at the new fabric one more time, I found a panel that seemed like a quick and easy way to get back to some quilting without a bigger commitment of a pieced quilt. 

Because I teach English as a New Language, I was looking for fabric with the world on it. The winner ended up being a Michael Miller panel called "Wonderful World." Thinking back to my early days of learning to quilt, I considered different methods for putting this panel together. Instead of spending a lot of time planning or buying many materials, I bought the panel and later some matching fabric for the binding and was able to locate some fleece from my stash for the backing. One option was to just sew right sides together and flip it, but once I found the fleece, I decided to go ahead and pin it for quilting. After pinning the panel and fleece, it sat for a couple weeks. Fortunately, I had a school break coming up and that ended up being the perfect time to start quilting. 

I wasn't sure how I wanted to quilt it. Being out of practice and knowing I didn't want to baby my sit down quilting machine, I wondered if I could just sew lines on my regular machine. Remembering the specialty sewing machine feet I have made it easier. I started with the even feed walking sewing machine foot. Instead of just making straight lines along the world's oceans, I made wavy lines. It worked pretty well and I added more as needed. Then I needed to tackle the nine blocks around the world. Initially I sewed straight lines around each block. Remembering back to rules about how many inches apart quilting should be, but also taking into account that I wasn't using batting, I decided I did need more stitching. 

Another specialty sewing machine foot I have in my little box is for free motion quilting. I

remember really enjoying "doodling" with that foot and because this project is smaller, it wasn't difficult using my regular sewing machine. It was really neat to start right in on a white block and squiggle along without a real plan aside from getting from one side to the other and not sewing through any faces. After a short time I had filled up all nine squares. Checking the back of the quilt is a great way to see the stitching and check for any large unstitched areas. Some of the printed blocks have such large images or words, it seemed important to add a bit more stitching. When I was considering how to quilt this project, I was drawn to the words and wondered about stitching on them. Once I started squiggling, I didn't think I would revisit the words, but it was fun to highlight them after all.

I'm glad that I decided to buy new fabric and get back to quilting. Choosing a panel made it easier, but still allowed me to have fun free motion quilting. I used matching blue fabric from the collection for the binding and followed Heather Bailey's tutorial for continuous quilt binding. A 1/4 yard was more than plenty for the binding and two small loops for hanging.

This little quilt will keep me warm in the winter, but I already have plans to hang it from a shelf in the warmer months. Even if the world doesn't always feel welcoming or wonderful, I will continue to maintain a welcoming and wonderful environment for my students.

New Handprint Quilt Done!

Handprint Quilt

I'm thrilled that this quilt went together so smoothly and quickly.  Sunday was a big sewing day and I also spent Monday afternoon.  Tuesday I took off and got a lot done with few interruptions.  I spent time planning of course and two shopping trips for fabric.  Tuesday evening and Wednesday were when I hand sewed the binding.

I ended up using almost all the fabric I got, so the amounts were pretty close to what I needed.

• I had 6 accent prints (3 pinks & 3 blues) - 5/8 yd of each
• The multicolor off white I had over 3 yards.  Probably 2.5 yards would have worked.  That was used for the front, the back, and the binding.
• For the handprints, I used Kona ivory and had 2 yards.  That was perfect for 19 students with one mistake.  

I used a twin sized packaged batting and quilting thread.

The quilt size is about 48" x 60".

Back of quilt

New Handprint Quilt continued

I received the new handprints and got all of the top layer stitched together yesterday.






The next step is to make a quilt sandwich. The first layer down is the back, then the batting, and finally the top. With another mom's help we got the quilt sandwich pinned together quickly.









I planned to use my big quilting sewing machine to do free motion quilting. I often need to re-familiarize myself with it as I don't use it regularly. After changing the needle and cleaning and oiling the bobbin compartment, it was ready to go. Fortunately, the machine worked great!  Here's a little video of me doing the free motion quilting. It's like doodling on fabric.

Here's a close up of one of the hand prints quilted. As I worked, I read each name and and was thinking of each child and also of course of their teacher.








After quilting the layers together, I sewed on the binding.  I used a narrower 2.25" binding.













The final step is to hand sew the other side of the binding to the back side of the quilt.  It's almost done!

A New Handprint Quilt

I am excited to be working on another special project for my daughter's teacher. Many parents came together wanting to do something for her and I offered to make a quilt like I had for another teacher who was retiring.

Step one was to get painted hand prints from the children. Fortunately two moms were able to do that before the weekend. I purchased coordinating fabric and today got to work putting it all together. Two students were missing on Friday, so we will hope to catch them on Monday.

I cut apart the handprints into 8.5" squares and cut strips of the coordinating fabric into 8.5" x 4.5" strips and 12.5" x 4.5" strips.

Next I laid out the handprint blocks and the coordinating strips.

Then I  pieced together the back of the quilt.

More progress is shown in the next blog post.

The completed quilt blog post.

Kindergarten Rest Mat

For kindergarten, one item requested for school is a towel for rest time. I asked my daughter if she wanted to bring a towel or a blanket. She suggested a blanket with fabric of things she likes.  I loved the idea and started looking through my fabric stash.  I found quite a few, but also wanted to buy some new prints such as Barbie and more princess. Many of the prints have additional meaning or were used in other projects.

I started cutting the prints into strips of at least 5.5" long and 2-3" wide. Once assembled, I cut them down to 5". I thought of this design as wonky coins, but then made them into a rectangle not just stacked. I had turquoise for the background and borders. My goal was to make it the same size as a small beach towel. Once I put together the strips, I saw I had extra space at the top and bottom. My kids suggested making the top bigger and appliquéing Kessa's name at the top. 

I loved putting the prints together and working on this quilt. I haven't done much sewing lately and it was great to get into a new project. I decided to do wavy lines across the quilt and like the effect. I was careful to go around the princess' faces and other prints I fussy cut. 

For the binding, I used 2.5" strips for the binding and think I should experiment with 2.25" the next time I make a quilt. Part of the problem with this one was I was sewing on the binding with a sore wrist and didn't stay at 1/4" perfectly. My wrist started hurting during the quilting of the wavy lines. 

For the most part, this was a one day project. Those are my favorite kind of days. This day was unique in that I had plans for three parts of the day and everything was canceled. And somehow the kids didn't need me much either. I had done most of the cutting a different day and I finished up the binding the next morning.

Weighted Blanket

My four year old tends to like to sit squished up against us.  It's not exactly just sitting with someone; she likes to sit pushing up against a person and often weaves her legs in mine.  I wondered if a weighted blanket would benefit her at all.

As I was considering pattern for a weighted blanket, I found a pattern called the Road Trip Quilt and tutorial which I modified for size.

I used 4" strips and cut them at 2.5",  4", 7".

A four inch border was added to increase the size a bit.  

After seeing what other people do for DIY weighted blankets, I decided to add a thin batting to both the top and the bottom layers.  This helps soften the blanket and not feel all the plastic beads as much.

Many people noted challenges filling the blanket up.  I wonder if many people making these kinds of blankets are not sewers.  I felt pretty confident about sewing up the channels and adding the plastic pellets.  There was only one or two times that I even needed to move the pellets aside.

First I sewed channels down along my pattern.  This ended up being spaced 3.5" apart.  I then added a scant 1/4 cup of plastic pellets to each column and then pinned the channel closed to help keep the pellets in place for sewing.  I marked and sewed each section closed at 5".  For the final section seam, I sewed it once regularly and once with a zig zag seam.

I liked this tutorial for making a weighted sensory blanket.

The weight ended up being 3 pounds for this smaller lap blanket.  I could have put more pellets into each section, but I think it's ok this way too.

Here is the back.  I had some extra flannel backed satin from the Genie Halloween costume.  It's easier to see the sections here.

Halloween Fabric Postcard

My Modern Quilt Guild has neat activities throughout the year.  This Halloween we were invited to participate in a fabric postcard swap with another Modern Quilt Guild.

This summer I moved my sewing room from upstairs to downstairs.  Now I share the room with a lot of existing craft and office supply stuff.  There still needs to be a fair amount of reorganization and purging.

Due to the state of my sewing area, I have not been doing much sewing.  Certainly not any large projects.  But I signed up for the postcard swap anyway.

The goal of the postcards is for it to be a quick project.  I had an idea, but it wasn't until my recipients' postcard arrived in the mail did I get started.

First I looked for the stiff interfacing.  I know I have some from the last time I made fabric postcards, but I could not find it anywhere!  Plan B was to just use three layers of somewhat stiff interfacing and hope for the best.

It all worked out fine.  I am certainly influenced by the little people in my life and went with 5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate.

Ladybug Quilt

My four year old and I were shopping and she came across some ladybug fabric.  She wanted to buy it.  I asked her what we could use it for and she said a quilt.  I hadn't really planned to make her a new quilt, but do know there aren't enough quilts to go around on chilly evenings.  We looked around for coordinating fabrics and found a couple on the Christmas Clearance tables.  Finally I found the flowered print and felt that pulled everything together.  I bought enough for a back and for the blocks.

It did take me some time to decide how I wanted to make the blocks.  Finally I decided on wonky blocks and loosely followed this tutorial.

I started with 13" squares of the 5 different prints.  I made four cuts.  After shifting and sewing back together, it yielded 10.5" blocks.

After I got the blocks together, the quilt was too small.  Finally, with my guild members input, added the white sashing and a wonky outside border.

For the wonky border, I used 13" x 5.5" rectangle, layered 5 fabrics, then cut in half lengthwise.  The border is probably my favorite part.

Another decision which seemed hard at the time was how to quilt it.  I wanted to challenge myself to try something different.  I opted to make large free motion flowers with white thread.  It worked fairly well, but it's certainly not perfect.  

Sawtoothed Star and Colonial Days

The fourth graders have a Colonial Day at school and parents volunteer to help kids experience what life might have been like.  There were many different sessions for kids to chose from. They could make butter, create and play colonial games, do stenciling, tin punching, doll making, and my session on quilting.

A star block was not something I had made before. I had a mini quilt with wonky star blocks to show, but I also wanted to show a traditional saw toothed star block. I found a tutorial with a trick to make four flying geese at once.  

I had offered a quilting session when my first child had been a fourth grader and learned some interesting things along the way. First of all, quilting was not really done very much initially. Life was too hard to have time to quilt. When quilting was being done, it was more of whole cloth quilts, applique quilting, and then Medallion quilts. I shared information about each of these styles and provided 6" square quilt sandwiches for each student. 

In doing my research I also learned about some typical sewing projects from that time.  Most girls did an alphabet sampler.  Another interesting thing I came across was the pocket.  Pockets were not sewn into women's garments.  A pocket was made and tied around the waist.  It was accessible through an opening in the woman's skirts side seams.

Both times I did this, I provided examples and the kids seemed to enjoy coming up with something to applique to their quilt sandwich.









 It was interesting that many kids this year appliqued their initials.  Maybe they were thinking about the alphabet samplers.

More Doll Quilts

After making doll sized quilts for my girls and seeing how much fun a tiny quilt is to make, I decided to make another and then another to sell.  There is more flexibility in these sized quilts than a mug rug, but they are still quick to complete.

First I copied the wonky star quilt and used all the colors of my choosing.  This quilt ended up being about 13.5" by 20.5".

















I enjoyed more dense quilting as you can see on the back of the quilt.

Back of Wonky Star Quilt

Then I used the doll fabric I thought I was going to use for my older daughter's doll quilt and just added strips here and there to make up the size.  This quilt ended up being about 14" by 20".

Back of Doll Quilt

This time I made swirls in the white and used a verigated all over the rest.

Doll quilts

My girls received doll beds for Christmas and they came with boring light blue bedding. I offered to make doll sized quilts for the new beds. 

My younger daughter chose pink and purple and blue, but not green. She didn't have any other ideas, so I just tried things out. I started with a pink wonky star with 4" squares. Then I made a purple one. The two stars seemed to be enough.  I decided to add stripes in between and also on the sides. For the in between stripes, I sliced them into two pieces and inserted a white strip for something different. I like the pretty colors and the bright white. 

She also chose ladybug fabrics. I have two ladybug prints.  I suggested these would work well for the second bed in her bunk bed. We added red hearts and white. I snuck in a little blue and black also. I wanted to try wonky "flying geese."  I just started with a color and added a white strip on side and then another to form a triangle. I also made wonky log cabins (beginning with a 3" square) on the other side finishing with a strip of white. 

For my older daughter, I thought we might use leftover fabrics from her house quilt. But she requested that I match her bed quilt. Fortunately I was able to find all the fabric scraps and figured out the pattern again. I used a 4" square and 1.5" strips and a 1.5" mini square. I started with six blocks, then added another set, then added some more until I was up to twelve blocks. 

These small quilts were possibly even more fun to make than mug rugs. I also enjoyed planning out the quilting.  Beginning with the ladybug quilt, I tried triangles and lines around the flying geese. For the blocks, I did different things like zig zags, wavy lines, hearts, pebbles, and even drew a ladybug on the black.

The pink and purple star quilt was next. Starting in the center white strip, I made swirls and a few pebbles. Looking at each section and trying different patterns was neat. Knowing whatever I chose I wouldn't have to duplicate on a big quilt was liberating and allowed me to do more dense quilting. 

After getting my older daughter's input for her doll's quilt, I incorporated swirls, zig zags, and wavy lines as well as some details for the mini squares. It was really cool working on this mini quilt replicating her bed quilt as hers was really my first real quilt. It was so easy putting this one together and knowing the many steps instead of figuring it out as I went.  I had also just learned free motion quilting and only quilted some of the parts of her quilt with squiggles and butterfly outlines while others I just outlined the rectangles. 

Mini Mitt gifts

My sister in law introduced me to these small potholder mitts. I have made some in the past and wanted to make some more this year. I tried a slightly different size this time. I cut rectangles at 8"x5" and then curved the corners. The mitt part is just less than half and cut on the fold and then top stitched. Another new thing I tried was quilting the outside layer along with the thermal batting. I made four sets and used different quilting based on the fabric I was using. 

The musical mitts are for the band teacher. 

I often send a box filled with edible treats and snacks to my brother in law. Hoping he might be fond of mini mitts like his sister, I sought out fabric that might be right for him. I considered some New York Yankees fabric or even some navy, but there weren't many choices. The majority of navy fabrics were with patriotic fabrics. Then I saw this print with the United States sprinkled randomly. I found New York and it was actually near Colorado where he lives. Perfect. For the quilting, I sewed around both New York State and Colorado with white thread and then connected the two with what might be a flight path. For the rest of the quilting, I used navy thread and snaked around. 

The last two sets I made are for my sister in law. I had purchased the fabric before Thanksgiving and hoped to bring them along as hostess gifts, but that did not happen. She really likes these little mitts and appreciates multiple sets.