Gift Sewing

I've been sewing a lot (but blogging little) lately.  I didn't make a lot of Christmas Gifts this year, but I have resolved to make special birthday presents for friends and relatives in the coming year.

The two pieces I did end up sewing for Christmas were for my mom and Nana.  Aylin posted some gorgeous Christmas paper-pieced projects over on her blog.  The patterns are free from Sewing Under the Rainbow's Last Minute Christmas Sampler.  I'm really not a fan of the process of paper-piecing, but man I love the results!

So the Saturday before Christmas, I decided it would be a good idea to start making some trivets for presents... famous last words right!? Good thing I had eggnog and brandy and rum to keep me company!

I estimated each segment took an average of 10 minutes to piece, trim and press.  Each snowflake has 16 sections x 2 trivets...  I was literally sewing right up to the moment we had to leave to go to my Mom's on Christmas morning.

Both trivets are 12" square, and are made with Insul-Bright batting so they can be used as big pot holders.

My favorite part of my mom's trivet is the Cotton and Steel metallic netorious binding :)  I just want yards and yards of this stuff in all the colors!

Last year I made little fabric baskets for the my fellow full-time librarian ladies in the reference department.  Since then we have hired another full time staff member, so I asked her what she wanted handmade for her desk, and she asked for a "thingy to put her mug on."

Jodi, my co-worker, has her bulletin board upholstered with a lime green canvas, so her criteria had to be that it went with the lime green.  The stack of 1.5"x3.5" AMH scraps I had laying on my cutting table definitely fit the bill :)

This was a super easy and quick gift to stitch up.  it's just 3" rail fence blocks made completely out of scraps.  The back is the AMH Postage Due print I used for my Aeroplane bag that I wanted to use up because I am so sick of having that fabric around, lol.  And I used the leftover binding from the Medallion baby quilt I made last month.

Lastly on my gift sewing marathon, I promised my sister a double zip pouch ages ago.  She was visiting over the summer when my first order of Cotton and Steel and she fell in love with Rashida's Tangram print and asked me to use it for her pouch.

I couldn't resist the Neon yellow zippers that match the yellow in the print.  I used this tutorial and the pouch came together really quickly.  It's a super cute and useful pouch and I can definitely see myself making a lot more in the future!

(sorry night-time photo!)

Right after I finished this pouch, I decided I wanted to make a few more. 

The top Vintage Happy pouch went to my other work friend, Abigail, for her birthday; I sent the middle C+S pouch to my Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt swap partner; and the bottom pouch is still sitting in my sewing room waiting for a good recipient.  It might turn out that it turns into Craft Show inventory if that goal becomes a reality!

Next up on the gift agenda is a Noodlehead Supertote for my friend and co-worker, Christine's birthday.  I ordered this fabric from Spoonflower which will hopefully arrive in the next few days :)

Medallion Baby Quilt

So far, 2015 is off to a great start for me in my quilting pursuits.  True to form, I work better under a deadline and managed my first finish of the year in a mere 3 days :)

 I found out several months ago that a good friend and co-worker's wife was pregnant with their first baby and had been planning to make them a quilt since they made the announcement  Of course with me binge watching Gilmore Girls and Orange is the New Black slacking off, and with Holiday crazy-ness, I didn't get a start until after Christmas even though I knew the baby shower was quickly approaching.

I got a copy of of Angela Pingel's A Quilter's Mixology and from the moment I picked it up, I wanted to make every single quilt in it.  I thought the Medallion Baby Quilt would be a good start and perfect for a gift for the expecting couple.  Angela's instructions for how to sew the curves and the patterns are fabulous.  I will definitely be making more quilts from this book :)






Keeping #SewMyStash2015 in mind, I took stock of my fabric stash and did an initial sketch and pull.

The hardest part for me was cutting the templates accurately with the curves.  I purchased "heavy weight" template plastic from Joann's several months ago, but it was total junk and my rotary cutter sliced right through it and my pieces weren't accurate at all.  Frustrated, I broke down and bought Marti Mitchell's Drunkard's Path templates which made the job so much easier!  I ended up getting all the sizes available so I can make other quilts in the book more easily :)  The proportions aren't exactly the same as the templates Angela has in the book, but I think it still looks great.

Other than the difficulty cutting, the quilt came together so quickly.  Ryan actually made a comment that if I could finish this in 3 days, why had I been working on our bed quilt for a year and a half (because this quilt only has 72 pieces and is baby sized!)  The top is made of a variety of prints, entirely from my stash.  Each block finishes at 7" square.

For the quilting, I decided to go simple and just concentric circles using my walking foot.  The circles are randomly spaced over the quilt at 1/2" or 1 1/2" increments.  I used a lovely blue, white and pink variegated Aurifil from the Tula Pink collection.

After a quick poll of my Instagram friends, I chose a print from Anna Maria Horner's Field Study for the binding.  It's completely by chance that the print contained all the colors that I used in the quilt.  I had just enough to finish off the binding (another 1/2 yard used from the stash!)  I machine stitched the binding down since I was on a deadline and for durability.  I found a dark purple Gutterman I had in my thread stash that blended really well.

The backing is the only fabric I purchased for the quilt.  I knew the baby's room was a minty green, so I thought this large scale Heather Bailey Up Parasol print would be perfect.  The pattern calls for 2 1/2 yards for the backing, but I only ended up using a yard and a half since the quilt finished at 42"x42".

I gifted the quilt at the baby shower and soon-to-be mommy and daddy both loved it.  I hope the baby will love and use it for a long time :)

Specs at a Glance:
Top: 7 inch Drunkard's Path blocks in various cotton prints
Finished size: 42" square
Pieced and Quiltied with Auriful 50 thread
Batting: Quilter's Dream 100% Cotton Batting
Pattern from A Quilter's Mixology
Finished: January 3, 2014

Linking up with TGIFF and #sewmystash2015on Instagram