July Lovely Year of Finishes Goal Complete!

I posted back at the beginning of the month that my July Lovely Year of Finishes goal was to sew a zafu meditation cushion for my lovely friend Diane. 

And...drumroll, please...I finished! 

I used this tutorial and the home dec fabric that Diane chose. It was great practice in making pleats and sewing circular shapes. I made a lining pillow out of muslin first--a trial run for using the more expensive outer fabric. I also got "fancy" and put a zipper in the lining pillow as well. The cushion gets filled with buckwheat hulls, and this way Diane can adjust the fullness as she likes. 

(Not the most exciting photos; sorry! But the cushion is quite comfy!)

 Six months of fulfilled goals; six months to go!

Lovely Year of Finishes July Goal

Popping in on the last day of a relaxing 4th of July long weekend to post my July goal for the Lovely Year of Finishes. I've been 6 for 6 so far this year, so this whole monthly goal strategy has worked really well!

A couple months ago my good friend Diane asked me to sew her a zafu meditation pillow. I did some fabric reconnaissance and she picked this home dec weight fabric, which I then ordered.

I found a pattern here, and this is what the pillow looks like.

I know she's looking forward to (finally) using this pillow, so I'm looking forward to getting it done during July!

p.s. I received an email that I was selected as one of the winners from the June Lovely Year of Finishes winners! My prize? A $25 gift certificate to Superior Threads. How cool! I do not pretend to be a thread connoisseur, though. Suggestions? What would you use it on? 

Ready for July 4th! (including tutorial)

It's July 2nd, which means it's time for me to get inspired to create another last-minute 4th of July project. You can see last year's here, as well as in the background of the photo below.

This year's project?
I'm taking my two boys (4 and almost 2) to a local July 4th parade on Thursday, and on Sunday, I decided they needed flag shirts. But I wasn't going to buy them at Old Navy. So Monday when Hobby Lobby opened (I understand why they're closed on Sundays, but it's rough on a spur-of-the-moment crafter!), I bought a few red, white and blue t-shirts ($3.99 at Hobby Lobby, and then 30% off!).

Here are the finished shirts; the tutorial for how I made them is below.

You'll need:
1 red shirt (to wear)
1 each blue shirt and white shirt (to cut pieces...or cotton jersey fabric)
Fusible Web
Featherweight Interfacing

First, decide how big you want your flag to be (based on t-shirt size). On the size small t-shirt (the red one), I went with a 6" x 9" flag. On the 2T t-shirt, I went with 4" x 6". For the remainder of the tutorial, I'm going to use the measurements for the larger shirt and put those for the smaller shirt in parentheses. 

I sketched out the rectangle and decided on a stripe width: 1" (1/2"). Cut 1" (1/2") strips from the t-shirt and then cut them into 9" (6") lengths. Lay the t-shirt out flat and cut strips that are loops, starting at the bottom.
Cut fusible web strips that measure 3/4" x 9" (3/8" x 6"). Center and adhere a fusible web strip onto each white t-shirt strip.

Cut a 3-1/2" (2-1/2") blue square from the blue t-shirt. Cut a 3" (2") fusible web square. Adhere the fusible web square to the center of the blue square.

Cut a piece of light interfacing larger than your intended flag. Mine was 7" x 10" (5" x 7"). Turn the t-shirt inside out and fuse in place, centering it right to left and a little up from center top to bottom. Turn t-shirt right side out.

Position the white strips in place. You can eyeball the spacing for the red stripes to show through (I did) or measure. Position the blue square and slide the top couple white strips to the right. Trim the strips with a scissors to create a straight right edge for the flag. Fuse the square and strips in place.

Topstitch the stripes and square to the t-shirt to secure. Tip: I used a walking foot to avoid stretching issues. Stitch 1/4" in from the edges of the white stripes and the blue square, which will allow the jersey material to curl up a bit.

To make the star, I googled "star shapes" and picked one I liked. I sized it to measure 1" smaller than my square and printed it out. I traced it onto fusible web and cut it out on the line. Then I fused it to the white t-shirt material and cut it out just past the fused edges (again, to create the nice curl on the fabric). Fuse to the blue square and stitch near the edges.

My next step: wash the shirts to enhance the curl of the jersey material. My two boys will be sporting their flag shirts Thursday morning!

(For the blue shirt, I cut red stripes as well as white, and did not cut a blue square--I just added the white star to the opening in the upper left corner of the stripes!)

And another photo of my flag door quilt, on my beautiful newly painted front door!

If you're the last-minute type as well, making a shirt only took me 45 minutes. You still have time!

Sharing this on Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday.

June Lovely Year of Finishes: Complete!

Nothing like quilting that is pure texture!

My June Lovely Year of Finishes goal was to machine quilt this polka dot log cabin quilt I'd pieced last summer.
I went with my original thought on this--to do one large spiral quilt design. I purposely didn't center it--the center (which is the traced circle from my pin holder) is in the third row, on the left side of the center block.
I decided to quilt this freehand. A) because I wanted to, just to see if I could and how it would turn out, and B) because I try to avoid marking quilts if I can. Mostly because I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a hard time staying on the line I drew, and then I'll just feel like I did a worse job.
This way, I can just call it freehand!

It's definitely not perfect, but I do like the overall look.

The most frustrating part for me is how the needle would jig jag (well, that's how I describe it) after I would stop to remove a pin, shift the quilt, or adjust my hands. I'd stop with the needle down, and after doing necessary shifting, it was like a game to see where the needle would come back down again when I started stitching. But with a good wash and dry, most of those spots will nestle in nicely.

This is probably my favorite shot because the spirals really show!

The back: also a polka dot fabric (of course!)

What are your thoughts for a binding color? I'm thinking either black or scrappy dots.

Now to decide on my July goal...

Curve should be a four-letter word

Tonight my studio was block central. And the curves almost did me in, wonky or not. 

Let me explain. I signed up on the wait list to join do. good stitches back in February or March. In May, I was invited to join the Believe group. (If you're not familiar with do. good stitches, click here. In a nutshell, quilters come together through Flickr to contribute 2 blocks each month for charity quilts. It's very cool and seems to be well-organized, as well as churn out a steady flow of charity quilts, which is fantastic.) Needless to say, I was excited! 

Here are May's blocks, which I never got around to posting. 

The June block request was for a wonky bullseye based on a block in the book "Fat Quarterly Shape Workshop for Quilters." Doing more curved piecing has been on my to-do list. Wonky curved piecing--even better, right?--it hides mistakes! Here are my blocks:

Nowhere in the directions for this month's blocks did I see the requirement that the block had to be flat, so I think I'm okay. This was tough! Add to that the color combo--a very cool gray, yellow and white palette was requested--but my stash is a little short on those colors, so I was afraid I wouldn't have enough! (Yes, it's a little ridiculous that someone who hosted a Shades of Gray fabric swap would be short on grays, but a) I used all of those up and b) they were only 5" squares!)

By the second block I was having more fun, and I definitely want to do some more curved piecing--will be looking for a class at one of my local quilt shops or perhaps Craftsy? I know there's room for improvement! If you tackle this block, here's my (learned-the-hard-way) advice: don't be stingy on fabric. Cut generous pieces for each curve and just deal with the waste/scraps. More wiggle room/room for error makes piecing these much more pleasant! I have seen a few of the other members' bullseye blocks on Flickr and I can't wait to see this quilt put together!

And the last blocks of the night, my Bowtie blocks for the Great Lakes Modern Quilt Guild. I volunteered to put together the online guild activities every other month when we don't meet. I posted this month's project last weekend and thought it might be nice to offer a visual aid, so here we go:

The assignment: Bowtie blocks using white solid/print/text backgrounds and warm colors. Confession time: I purposely picked warm colors because I gravitate toward cool colors and wanted to make myself work with something different. Thanks go the guild for unknowingly forcing me out of my color comfort zone! :) 
Can't wait to see everyone's at our meeting in a month! 

Back in April I showed my converging corners blocks for the guild meeting. Here's a quick floor picture of everyone's blocks together--looks great, doesn't it? One lucky person won these blocks and will be bringing back the quilt to show when she finishes it.

p.s. Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. 

Dino Baby Quilt

June is the service project month for the Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilt Guild, and the project was baby quilts. I'd known about the deadline for quite a while, but due to a few out-of-town long weekends in May/June and my general habit of last-minute-ness, I started my quilt the day before the meeting. 

So it needed to be quick! I went with simple strips--I'd purchased this dinosaur fabric (Oh Boy! from Free spirit, several years ago) and coordinating prints back in 2011, and this seemed like the perfect time to finally use it! 

I pieced the top on Monday and spent a few hours on Tuesday quilting it. I decided to stitch a different motif on each type of strip. You can see a few of them close up here:

And then you can see them even better on the back.

A great quilt to practice on, and I think it turned out cute. Plus...I still have enough fabric left to make a second one! Now I just need a deadline, preferably a tight one, for motivation! :)

I machine stitched the binding on one hour before the meeting started. The group collected something like 130 quilts for two organizations in Kalamazoo: Nurse Family Partnership and the Healthy Babies, Healthy Start Program. Here's hoping the recipients enjoy them!

Linking up with Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Can I get a whoop whoop Friday, and Crazy Mom Quilts' Finish it up Friday!

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