[completed] sassycat silhouettes

before

Remember these previously hideous frames that I spray painted satin nickel a few days ago? Well, I finally decided what I wanted to use them for - silhouettes of Assassionationcat!

after

 I have made silhouettes before, and the process is pretty easy. I took two photos of Sassy that I liked, made them black and white and printed them out on regular paper.

sassy is so regal

just look at that face!

Then I took a sharpie and drew an outline around her, making sure to capture some of the fluffiness. I cut out the sharpie-d shape (I found this was actually easier to do on the backside of the paper, where the sharpie had bled through), traced it onto blue cardstock, and carefully cut it out again. This method means that you lose some of the details - it's like playing telephone -but it's pretty simple and doesn't involve any fancy image software. 

I cut ovals out of a gray cardstock and glued the blue silhouettes onto the cardstock. These frames don't have any glass, but that doesn't bother me - I just popped the cardstock into the frame and reattached the back. Glass is overrated.

finished frames!

 I love love love the result. The nickel and the blue and the gray complement each other really well. These framed silhouettes are going to look lovely in my sewing room!

[completed] owl always love you

finished quilt!

For my younger sister's 24th birthday (can you believe it?), I made her a quilt. I was a little late getting it to her, but better late than never, right?

The idea for this quilt came about when I showed her the two snail baby quilts I made over the summer. She loved them and requested a birthday quilt from Boo Davis' awesome book. I showed her the options over Skype (which is basically the best invention ever!), and she chose the owl pattern shown on the cover. Through conversation, we decided that a snowy owl on a dark background would be neat.

This is the result!

closeup of the front

I took some artistic liberties and incorporated a range of white-on-white prints as well as one gray print for the owl's body and eyes. My sister did not like Boo Davis' mixing of prints, but I think a variety of prints helps give the quilt some depth and interest, so I chose to go with the more subtle white-on-white prints as a compromise. I added the gray print just to give the quilt a little more of a scrappy feel. I chose a rich dark purple solid as the background.

The quilt top came together surprisingly quickly, given all the many pieces. I had a lot of fun piecing it and watching the blocky owl shape emerge from the piles of carefully labeled strips of fabric.

quilt detail in the owl's head

I am really happy with how I chose to quilt this project. I stitched in the ditch around all the edges of the owl to begin with, and then filled in the owl's face and body with straight lines. Then in the owl's head, I quilted a herringbone pattern to suggest feathers. It took approximately forever, and my quilting got less precise as I went along. For the body, I just quilted the straight lines - I decided the herringbone "feathers" were more important in the owl's head, and continuing the pattern in the body would be too busy and too time-consuming.

So after I finished all my straight lines and herringbone quilting, I got to the fun part: the purple background. I decided to free-motion quilt stars, so that it would look like the owl was sitting against a starry night sky. I practiced the stars (inspired by this tutorial) in both white and purple thread, and decided I vastly preferred the stars in purple thread. The white would have made more literal sense, but would have dominated the quilt and I really wanted the owl to be the focus. So I quilted hundreds of stars in purple thread on the purple background. For the "whites" of the owl's eyes, I used stippling. I wanted the eyes to be different than the background, but also soft and not densely quilted.

The technique I used was pretty easy - I just created a star shape and then echo-quilted around it a few times before branching off and creating a new star shape. There were a few instances when I sort of forgot how to draw a star, especially when I was doing it at a weird angle, and so there are a few wonky stars. But since there are so many stars and no one star stands out, it doesn't much matter if a few are odd.

super wonky star

I backed the quilt in a super soft navy blue flannel. The white stitching of the owl's head and body stands out really clearly on the back of the quilt - so no matter which side is showing, the owl is present. There were about a million little threads to clip on the back, due to all the stopping and starting I had to do when straight-line quilting. Hopefully I got them all!

owl ghost on back of the quilt

The stars show up on the back of the quilt as well, but are not obvious. The purple blends nicely with the navy blue, and the texture created by the star shapes feels great with the flannel.

quilting on the back

The only thing I don't love about the quilting is how dense it all turned out. The quilt is still soft, but it isn't as pliable as some others I have quilted. I don't mind a slightly stiffer quilt, but I hope this one softens up a bit as it is washed and used.

I bound the quilt in a homemade navy and white striped binding. I chose the striped fabric because it coordinated nicely with the back of the quilt and the white owl, and it added a little visual interest. Once again, the binding was my nemesis on this quilt. Due to the inconsistencies of cutting, piecing, pressing and binding, the stripes got a little warped (as you can probably see above). I still love the striped binding - and overall I had an easier time attaching the binding to this quilt than I usually do - but it isn't perfect.

look at that tail twitch possessively!

sassy is going to miss this quilt!

I am happy to report that the quilt was well received!

[wip] scrap arkansas crossroads quilt

I've been working on a few projects here and there lately, trying to reduce my WIP pile, but nothing has been really grabbing my interest. I've been seeing a lot of scrap quilts around the blogosphere, so I started researching scrap quilt patterns. I found a few favorites, but ultimately gravitated towards the Arkansas Crossroads pattern because it was fun, looked complex but is actually easy to complete, and would use up a lot of my smaller scraps.

scrap quilt top so far

I spent the last few days sorting scraps, cutting colored scraps into 3.5 inch squares and my white scraps into 6.5 inch squares, and stitching it all together. I have way more colored scraps than I used in this quilt top - I decided to go for a calm, blue-black-brown-gray palette. These blocks go together pretty quickly, and I think I will make another one of these quilts with my more vibrant scrap fabrics.

The picture above is nine 12.5 inch square blocks carefully arranged to compose the Xs and star shapes. I have run out of white scraps, but I have quite a few little colored squares leftover, so I might cut into my stash of white fabric to make the quilt top bigger. I want to keep it a child-friendly size, since I plan on donating this quilt, but it's currently only about 36 x 36 inches. I am also considering adding a border (or two) to make the quilt bigger, but can't settle on what fabric to use for that. So for now, the quilt top is going to stay like this, I guess!

Any suggestions for how to finish this quilt are welcome!

[completed] brother-in-law sneaker quilt

front of the quilt

This quilt for my brother-in-law is one of my favorite Christmas presents this year. I finished it months before Christmas (which is always nice). I bought the fabric for this quilt at the same time that I got the fabric for Adam's anniversary quilt. 

look at those awesome prints!

My brother-in-law loves sneakers, so I had to get this bundle of fabrics that featured fabulous sneaker prints, music notes, cassette tapes and bright solid colors. I matched the bundle of fat quarters with some cut-up black cotton Ikea sheets, and used this tutorial from Oh Fransson! for the pattern. The pattern makes a queen-sized quilt (like this one), but I adjusted the pattern to make a large twin/lap size since I intended the quilt to be used in his man-cave rather than his bedroom. Doesn't it make for a fun man-cave quilt for a 13-year-old?

quilted ps3 controller and sneakers

To make the quilt even more special and fun, I quilted sneakers, video game controllers, headphones, music notes, and various other designs using this technique. Basically, I took cardboard or paper templates, pinned or just laid them on the quilt, and then free-motion quilted around the design. This was initially a pretty slow process, but I got faster and more creative with practice.

quilted initials and sneakers

All the quilting was done in grey thread (the same as in Adam's anniversary quilt), so that the painstakingly quilted designs would show up nicely on the front and back of the quilt.

back of the quilt

 This was my first time using Ikea sheets, and while the sheets were a pain to cut, the fabric worked well for both the front and back and the quilt (and was pretty cost-effective). I have another set (also black) just waiting for inspiration to strike. I got the idea of using sheets from the Oh Fransson! tutorial, and I'm loving the whole idea. (You might have noticed that I also used a sheet for the backing of Adam's anniversary quilt).

closeup of the backing

The grey thread pops against the black backing, while not being too obtrusive.

binding

I bound the quilt with a scraps from the prints on the front and a light lime-y green solid. It turned out pretty well.

I had fun making this quilt and learning a new way to quilt in the process. And my brother-in-law loved the quilt - which is ultimately the most important thing!

smiley face and wonky star

[today I learned] half-rectangle triangles

Today I learned to make half-rectangle triangles! I followed this tutorial (which I've read about a hundred times). It is surprisingly easy, except for the tricky bit where you have to hold pieces together strangely. But that could be easily solved with pins (I just don't do pins). So far, I've made like 24 half-rectangle triangles. The process makes two at once, so it goes pretty fast.

I'll be sharing more about this project in the future, but for now it's a secret!

[today I learned] how to make perfect pointy corners

I was browsing the internet today looking for a quick and easy way to make perfect placemats. My last attempt at quilted placemats did not turn out as nice as I had hoped. I found this video tutorial on how to make perfect pointed corners. Instead of pivoting the fabric and clipping corners, this method uses two intersecting seams and a bit of pressing to make perfect corners! I am definitely going to try this method!

I also learned that I should also really invest in a pair of chopsticks or a knitting needle to use as a turning tool instead of using closed scissors. Chopsticks or knitting needles seem to get the points pointer, and there isn't the danger of accidentally snipping the finished work.

[completed] summer skirts

first garment ever made by me

A few days ago, I found a pin on my mother's pinterest of great skirt tutorials. I decided to try one out - a (seemingly) easy gathered skirt. My attempt at a skirt failed miserably. I sewed and ripped out stitches and resewed and ended up with a confused pile of fabric. 

Undeterred, I googled "easy skirt tutorial", and found this tutorial on the Etsy blog. I decided to try it out, but instead of buying more fabric, I riffled through my stash, and found a one yard remnant in a pretty floral pattern. I followed the directions to a T, and found the instructions far simpler (and easier) to understand than the first pattern I tried.

I ended up with the skirt you see above - a simple gathered skirt with an elastic waist. Very casual and fun. 

Today, I bought a few more fabrics to try out some variations on the pattern. And I ended up with...

A lined brown polka dot skirt with pockets. It took me about an hour and a half to complete, from cutting to photographing. I adjusted the pattern to make the skirt slightly shorter (a change I did not like), and to add a lining and pockets. (I used the instructions from the first pattern for the pockets. The pattern does not include a template, so my freehand pockets are too shallow). I figured out how to add the lining on my own through trial and error.

it's lined!

In the end, I used just under a yard of the brown polka dot fabric and the brown lining fabric. I used knit elastic instead of woven elastic, which did made my life more difficult. But I managed!

The instructions say to stitch the hem just the once, but I did two lines of stitching 1/4 inch apart to make it look a little more "handmade, not homemade", as you can see below.

stitching

I will be posting a tutorial on how to make a lined, pocketed gathered skirt just like this one in a few days. For now, I am off to wear my new skirts (not both at once, of course) and enjoy the summer heat!

skirt! a little above the knee!

awesome tshirt and skirt

wip: hourglass scrap quilt

completed quilt top

 Remember the floral pinwheel quilt I completed ages ago? Well, I had a lot of little triangle scraps left over from making all those pinwheel blocks. I played around with different configurations of the triangles, sewed up a few trial blocks, and then put them all away for months and months. Well, I broke out that bag of scraps again recently and created this 32 x 32 quilt top!

I chain-pieced the triangles to make thirty-six hourglass blocks (a block I'd never done before), and arranged them randomly in a six by six grid. Today, I stitched up the rows of blocks and voila! A baby quilt top was born!

I think the quilt needs a border of some sort before it is really finished. However, since this is a scrap quilt, I don't have enough of the same fabrics to make a border. It's off to find something else in my stash that will work!

look at all those hourglass blocks

wip: super secret present quilting update

sneaker quilting

I am officially so bored of quilting sneakers. I've been mixing it up with different shapes, both tracing and free-handing. I have found that it is possible to trace a paper cutout as well as cardboard stencils, but requires a lot more careful stitching, as it is much easier to accidentally sew over paper than cardboard. (If you do make such a mistake, don't worry. It is fairly easy to rip the offending paper or cardboard out of the stitches).

It takes a lot of 3x5 sneakers to fill at 95x75 quilt. It also takes a lot of thread. There is a reason quilters will tell you to fill a bunch of bobbins before getting started free-motion quilting - it is so easy to lose momentum when you run out of thread and have to stop to refill the bobbin. That loss of momentum is the reason I am blogging right now!

new quilting technique!

quilted sneakers

For my current work in progress, I decided I wanted to do something different with the quilting and stretch myself beyond basic free-motion quilting styles such as stippling. I had several long conferences with Adam and my very creative mother, and ended up practicing quilting sneakers on some scrap quilt sandwiches. The WIP features a few sneaker prints (as you can see in the bottom left-hand corner in the photo above), so it seemed a fitting quilting pattern. I googled "sneaker outline", printed off two appropriate pictures, cut them out and then made cardboard stencils.

I've found two ways to quilt the sneakers (or any other shape your heart desires). The first is simply to trace the shape with a quilters' pencil, and then free-motion quilt over the pencil line. The second is even simpler: place the cardboard shape on the quilt, and hold it in place while free-motion quilting around it (being sure, of course, not to stitch on the cardboard). Easy peasy.

I am in love with the results - I go around each sneaker shape twice, so they are a little sketchy looking (and also to provide a little more stability to the quilt). The shapes I am using are about five inches long by three inches tall. On the actual quilt, I am placing them a few inches apart as opposed to being right next to each other, as they are on my black practice sandwiches.

So far, this technique seems to go pretty fast - although each sneaker shape takes a little bit of time to do precisely, the fact that I'm quilting so loosely makes the process go more quickly than any of the other quilting styles I've tried.