Shattered Ceiling

I am proud to be a Wellesley Alumna.  There are many famous Alumnae, but right now possibly the most famous Wellesley Woman is Hillary Clinton.  Wherever you stand politically, Hillary securing the Democratic Nomination was a historic, glass ceiling shattering moment.  All across campus there are banners that read "Women Who Will / Make a Difference / In the World."  I think that all of us embody this in different ways.  I wanted to commemorate this moment that is significant for me both as a Woman and a Wellesley Woman (who is hopefully making a difference raising her two boys and here on ChemKnits).  I want my boys to always learn that, "When any barrier falls in America, it clears the way for everyone."  - HRC

When my fellow Chemistry Alumna created a Hillary "H" quilt block I knew that I wanted to try to make it for myself.  I thought it would be fun to pair it with a Wellesley "W" appliqued on a bed of the class colors (red, green, yellow and purple.)  I'm still undecided if I want to turn these into pillows (and make custom pillow forms) or if I want to turn them into hot pads to hang in my kitchen.  I'm going to make the blocks and then decide.  

"I'm with Her" Square

When I'm crafting something I plan to share on the blog, I tend to keep rigerous notes as I go.  Not only are these notes my "lab notebook" helping me repeat a project, but they help me finish up a post textbefore I have edited the pictures.  Unfortunately a lot of my in progress notes went missing, so I'm going to have to use my best recollection when sharing some of this project.

For the Hillary square I thought it would be fun to stick with patriotic colors.  I found the navy stars in a section of 4th of July fabrics and loved it.  I then went and tried to find some patterns that might work with it.  I love the white on white stars!

I am a new quilter, but I knew that my friend's instructions were excellent. (Unfortunately they are not currently published anywhere.) I haven't followed many quilting patterns, but she labeled each piece with a letter for the layout and then gave dimensions in a list.  I'm sure this was standard practice but I found it SUPER easy to follow.

She also wrote out instructions on the order to sew the pieces together!  

I was only nervous to sew together one section.  I really wanted to make sure the arrow point lined up.  

My first attempt was not very successful.  I ripped it out and tried again and was much closer.  I didn't try a 3rd time.  

The H block is a 12" square, a little large for a pot holder.  I think that I will incorporate it into a pillow somehow.  I don't want to lose the point of my arrow so I'll have to think about this a bit more.

I did it!  This is the most complicated piecing work I've ever done.  Wahoo!

The Wellesley Square

When I added some Wellesley W's onto tshirts for my boys I drew the W's freehand.  This time I'm going to print out the W for applique.  Not only should it be easier but it will also be symmetrical.  

For the Wellesley block, I cut out a total of 16 - 3.5" squares, 4 in each of the class colors.  The Wellesley W will be in blue and I think I'll stitch it down with white to really make it pop if it doesn't pop well on the background.  If I were going to do more than 16 block I would have strip pieced the blocks, but it wasn't worth it for this project.  

I printed out some official Wellesley W's to trace for this square.  I think that I will adjust them slightly but this is a good starting template.  I traced it on to  EZL12 Pellon Lite EZ-Steam II fusible webbing, adjusting the W slightly.

I was nervous about how this would show up on the square since the lines are so thin.  I don't want the thread to overpower it.

To test the thread choices (for this project and the Stripes Name Pillows), I fused some of the blue fabric onto a colorful background.  I practiced appliquing with white and didn't love the contrast so I'm going to stick with a matching blue.  

You can't tell when you look at the finished product, but I had a lot of issues with my satin stitch.  The thread kept bunching up and my needle would get stuck.  I had to start and stop MANY times over the course of the W.  Maybe my blue thread was thicker than normal?  I'm not sure what the issue was because I had no trouble on the stripes name pillows.

Applique done!

Pillows!  

I now have two 12.5" squares that looks AWESOME.  I think these will make great throw pillows, I just have to decide what to do to complete the transformation.  I want all of these designs to be visible so I will need to plan carefully.

I framed each of these 12" panels with some 2" strips of matching or complementary fabric.  .

Next, I cut out two pieces of Pellon TP971F fusible thermolam plus in 15.5" squares to fuse to the front of the pillows.  Like with Stripes Name Pillows, I wanted to give some structure to the front so I thought this would make it stiffer. 

For each pillow I cut two pieces of quilting cotton (15.5" x 11.5" and 15.5"x8.5").  I hemmed one side and then put together a pillow sham sandwich.  

I made a few mistakes as I rushed to finish these pillows before the debate.  I put the sandwich in the wrong order for the Hillary pillow. i miss cut the back (14.5"  versus 15.5") for the Wellesley pillow so I would have to wait until tomorrow to recut.  Thankfully I have enough fabric!  I just can't do it now because the iron is sleeping with Rowdy.  

I planned to make my own pillow forms for these pillows.  Unfortunately I only had one extra cheap bed pillow so I had to make my other pillow form from scratch.  At the regular price of $4/pillow it is a great source for stuffing and fabric.  I went into my stash cut 2 15.5" pieces and made a pillow form.  I stitched around the edges in straight stitch and then zigzag and stuffed the pillow with extra stuffing from the bed pillow I cut down today (and one I cut down in the past.)

Now I just have to snip the corners of the pillow cases and give them a final press.  

I finished the Wellesley pillow the day after the first presidential debate. Even though it wasn't quite done I still had an awesome seat to watch!  

The back of the pillows are simple.  I sort of wish that I had some more fabric in the overlap but if I need do I can add some velcro closures after the fact.  (I don't think I'll need to.)  I love my pillows so much!  I hope these will be part of many epic pillow forts for many years to come.  

"Hillary and I share a few things in common. We both went to Wellesley College – so I know where she got her study habits." -Madeleine Albright

"When there are no ceilings, the sky's the limit." - HRC

Reversible Gameboard

I may have finished my first quilt, but I am just getting started with my learn to quilt book.  I've really enjoyed working on the 1, 2, 3 Sew series to learn how to sew so I thought it would be worth checking out 1, 2, 3 Quilt.  The first project is a reversible game mat.  The project seems a little simple after I reverse engineered and sewed a big quilt for Rowdy, but I want to get some more practice with techniques.

5 fat quarters are plenty of fabric for this project.

We had a big storm which knocked out power out.  Once the electricity came back on we discovered that our FIOS was blown.  To pass the time without internet I had a little cutting party.  I cut the fabric for multiple projects so I could be ready to go and start working once I had access to the internet, and my blog, again.

I didn't make an error in cutting but I do wonder if I should have reversed the game board sides.  Maybe I should have had the big squares out of the forest fabric and the small squares be the more geometric fabrics.  The fabrics I chose for the strip piecing are directional so you will tell when they get reversed.  Oh well, I'm not going to let this bother me too much.  I also think it is good that I had to cut up a big pattern.  I have been so hesitant to do this that it is a good exercise for me.  Hopefully I'll like some of the animals in tiny sections when I see the finished product.

Sewing these blocks together should be a piece of cake.  I don't even need to pin the smaller squares and with my 1/4" presser foot it was so simple.  My instinct is to press all the seams open but the book wants me to try nested seams so I did that for the tick-tack-toe board.

It is convenient to iron nested seams... but I don't like using them.  I found it harder to line up the squares than it would have been if I pressed it open.  Plus I think you can tell that the seams aren't flat.  I can see where this might be handy, but I decided to press out the seams on the checker board strips.

I did take the time to pin the longer strips together, I didn't want the pieces to slip too much when sewing it together.  I really REALLY need to move the iron out of Rowdy's room.  I finished the stitching while he was asleep and then needed him to wake up so I could press the fabric and cut the strips.

I was worried I wouldn't like how the fabric went in different directions but I actually think it looks pretty nice.  You have to look closely to see where the different strips fit together.  Maybe I should have mixed up the strips when I sewed it together so it would be less obvious when a character was split in half but that is something to keep in mind for next time.  There was only about 3/4" left over from my strip piecing.  I will hang onto this and use it in another project.  (It occurred to me that I should make drawstring or zipper pouches to keep the checker and tick tack toe pieces in.  Maybe these fabrics could be an identifier of which project is in which bag.)

When pinning these strips together I lined up the seams as closely as I could.  It won't be perfect but hopefully I was close enough.

Stitching the self binding rectangles to the outside of the tick-tack toe board finished up super fast.  Now both sides of the game board are complete and I just have to assemble it.

The batting is cut to size so there isn't any extra.  The quilting on this project is hand tied so I'm going to want to take extra care things line up when I make my quilt sandwich.

I pressed over 1/2" of the tick tack toe board but found that there wasn't enough to fold over to bind the project.  I redid this with only folding over 1/4" hems.  Now there should be enough to bind onto the checkerboard with a 1/4" seam allowance from the checker squares.

Before adding my basting pins, I used some sewing pins to try to line up the center ties of the tick tack toe board with the intersections of the checker board.  It was easier than I thought.  I'm so glad that I have the 1/4" foot for my machine!  This is my first time trying to make squares of different sizes line up.  

I have some DMC 25 embroidery cotton in color 3865.  This is bringing me back to the days of friendship bracelets and winding the floss onto little cardboard bobbins.  This soft white goes well with the letters on the checkerboard and the white lines on the tick tack toe board.  

I've tied off a quilt once, but I only went through each side once before tieing the knot.  I like how it has you go through twice before tieing off.  Unfortunately my needle is too small to get through the fabric.  I purchased some larger needles (chenille needles from the embroidery section) and was able to tie off the quilt top.  

I didn't tape one layer to the ground before pinning it and you can sort of tell.  Things are a bit bunched between the pins and self binding edge.  I will remove the basting pins before pressing and hand stitching down the binding.  

You can barely even see the knots on the checker board.  Success!  

I hand sewed the binding on the checkerboard side using blue thread.  I'm not excited about doing some hand sewing, but at least this is some practice before I work on my next quilt.I only bled on it once, but I think I got the blood out.

In one afternoon I finished hand stitching the binding.  I really prefer machine binding as a technique, but for something like this game board where the wrong side is also a right side it will get more notice than the wrong side of a quilt.  I think the hand binding looks great but I'd prefer to be able to finish it faster.  Maybe someday I'll feel differently about taking shortcuts, but I find myself sewing more than knitting these days because my crafting time is so limited with a baby and a toddler in the house.

I am really excited about the game board.  The colors are very Rebecca and it should be fun to use to teach my children some basic games.  Sure, you can play tic-tac-toe with paper and a pen, but maybe a kid can pick up the game before they know how to write.  Plus it makes a great other side to a checker board.  Now I just need some game pieces to be ready to go!

In the book 1, 2, 3, Sew I am trying to do every project even if I'm not excited about it.  I will not be able to do that with 1, 2, 3 quilt because some of the quilts require too much time and money just for practice. I do plan, however, to do as many of the small projects as possible to try to expand my comfort levels.  They may not be done in order (I am still collecting fabric scraps for the pixel pouch) but I hope to get to them eventually.

Now I have two new projects to do.  1) I need to make some game pieces so we can take advantage of this fun gameboard.  2) I need to make some kind of bag to hold the pieces.  Maybe I'll create some kind of zipper pouch or drawstring bag.  It is really fun when one craft spawns some more!  

7/20/16 pieces cut
8/5/16 Finished