Mission Impossible?

I can't believe my last post was 16th February. I won't bore you with the tales of illness, injury, madness and mayhem that have plagued this house over the past month and a half. I'm just going to jump right in. I haven't done any sewing at home since I last posted and I'm going to try and make up for that this evening.

Here's a question... What's the fastest time you've ever made a quilt in?

Kim at The Fat Quarters has been collecting quilts for a charity all week.

Tiny Lives is a local charity, based in the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, that raises funds for all sorts of things to help premature and special needs babies in the area. From research into new medical techniques to helping families with travel costs to and from the hospital, they provide an invaluable service in the North East area.

Kim has been trying to collect as many incubator sized quilts as possible for Tiny Lives and I really want to help out but, due to the aforementioned illness, injury, madness and mayhem, it just hasn't been possible until now.

Here comes the crunch. The deadline is tomorrow and it's now 9.45pm. The quilts only need to be 16" x 20" so I don't think I'm entirely insane. Maybe just a little.

I've pulled out every bright and fun piece of fabric I could find and I'm going to dive in. Wish me luck!

Baby quilt finished and handed over

I finished the baby quilt in plenty of time and mum-to-be Jenny loved it.  Apparently the blue in it is almost identical to the colour she's painted the nursery walls so I'd call that a win!

I love the way the pieced binding looks, I will definitely be using it again in the future.

I'm moving on to a quilt using a Mill House Inn jelly roll.  The pattern is Strip twist from the Quiltville website which is a wonderful resource for scrappy quilt patterns.  I'm not very good at scrappy but I thought this would work well with these fabrics.

Only 5 weeks til I go back to uni.  I have a lot of sewing to fit in before then...

How to sew a pieced binding

While staring into space concentrating at work today I decided to go for the pieced binding because I wasn't sure how I would be able to accurately measure the sides so that the binding changed colour at the corners.  I know that's a little obsessive but it's my engineering side creeping back in.

I pieced the strips together staggering them each by 2" to minimise wastage when they are cut at 45 degrees.  The seams were pressed open to make less bulk when sewn to the quilt sandwich.

I used the 45 degree line on my ruler to trim off the staggered ends and then measured the width I wanted my binding.  I use a 2 1/4" doubled binding so I cut as many 2 1/4" strips as I could.  You should get 13 out of a width of fabric.

The short strips were sewn end to end and the seams pressed open.  The binding was then pressed in half and voila!  A gorgeous pile of pieced double binding ready to be sewn to my quilt tomorrow.

Be careful when you're pressing the binding in half because it is now cut on the bias so it's quite easy to distort the strips.  Make sure to press straight down rather than pushing the fabric along the ironing board.

Binding dilemma

I've been sewing like a demon for the last couple of nights and managed to get the top finished, layered up and quilted. Now I'm stuck with the problem of binding.

I have six jelly roll strips left.  They are all the same pattern but 2 each of 3 different colour ways. I don't know whether to pick four and use one on each side or to cut them up and piece them together somehow to get a scrappy binding. Maybe sewing them in a diagonal would set off the braid.

I'm pleased with the piecing and quilting so far.  My braid ruler from creative grids was wonderful and made everything very simple and quick.  I'll definitely be using it again.

On a roll, moving onto the baby quilt

I don't seem to be able to get on top of all my deadlines.  I just made the wedding deadline, I just made the block swap deadline and now I'm down to the wire for my step-sister's baby quilt.  However, my new braid ruler is a God-send.

10 mins this evening with the rotary cutter got me these lovely stacks of chisel shapes out of 15 jelly roll strips.  I spent a long time faffing around trying to get the balance of colours and patterns right but eventually I think I got it right.  Here's the first strip put together.

The baby shower is on the 29th August so I have a week and a half to get it done.  One of these days I'll do some thing in a leisurely time frame or maybe not.  I have 6 weeks left until I go back to university and I need to squeeze all my sewing into that!

Babies and bunnies

I've finally decided on a quilt for my step-sister's baby.  I fell in love with this pattern at The Fat Quarters when I feigned illness last week so I could go with mum instead of going to work.  Don't judge me until you've had to temp - it sucks!

How could anyone resist those bunnies?  They are so adorable and as gender neutral as I could find.  I opted for less pink in my fabric choices to try and make it a little less girly so I think it will work for either boy or girl.

Well back to the wedding quilt.... This little beauty will have to wait until I have the silk monster all layered up.

Surprise visit from the stork

Not much I can blog about at the moment because I'm working on a quilt for a wedding present and I don't want to ruin the surprise.  However, I've just found out about this little cutie:

So when I get to the hand quilting of the wedding quilt I'll have another project to distract me if it gets a little tedious.  Yay!  I get to go shopping for baby fabrics.