Project: Aunt Lap Quilt #2

Here it goes: Penny chose this quilt for her second aunt (on my husband's side). Thankfully, this quilt came with a free pattern (Pinterest is just sucking me in, you know):

Now, to make this a lap sized quilt, I just made this a 3x4 instead of 4X4 (making it's approx. final dimensions of 60"x75"). This sister in-law prefers florals, pastels (with a few exceptions on certain colors), and I had a great stash to work from. I was able to pull together these colors (with the final approval of colors from her):

(not pictured here is a black on black color that I thought would finish off the 12th color)

I got to work (not really straight away) cutting all the little squares out of these colors and then the different sizes of the white.

I think the white was the most difficult to cut out because I needed 3 different sizes (2 different block sizes and then strips). Next, the instructions said to draw a line diagonally on half the accent colors.

I then pinned the diagonal lined squares to the big squares...

And the rest of the squares with the small squares and the strips and set up an assembly line again to chain piece all these and press them. The big squares with the little accent colors would be sewn ON the line drawn (not a 1/4" in).

Then cutting the excess off and leaving 1/4" from the seam.

All stacked neatly.

And pressed open. 

And here's the quick picture of how it would go:

(after seam allowance, everything lines up- don't you worry).

I chain pieced the top and bottom and then added the middle row, lining up as best as I could so the white and accent color meet. I have to admit, I'm no longer that perfectionist that I was when I was doing the baby pinwheel quilt.

(see, it lined up better- this is BEFORE I sewed the top to the middle to the bottom).

This is the quilt top laid out before sewing the sashings and rows and blocks together:

Now I have to be honest and tell you this was not the original set up. I had laid them out with like colors in one row (as much as possible) and then turned to my 4 yr old daughter and said "Ok; which blocks should we move?" and this is what SHE came up with. She's got such a great eye!

 We decided that the stencil theme for this quilt would be flowers (as this Aunt is into florals). This first one going on the border,

And this one going in the four corners of the blocks. Don't worry- I have a plan for the middle of the block and the sashing in-between the blocks.

Sewing the rows together!

And the quilt top all FINISHED!

An example of how the stencils would be (I broke down and bought a new marker so I wouldn't need to use paper again). This is a corner block so it has patterns on the outside border and in the 4 corners of the block. 

For the middle of the block, I decided that I would sew on the line to outline the "+" mark and that for the inside sashing, I would outline the grayish square. Now, to show you the beginnings of the quilting:

(Don't worry- the blue will come off)

Back view:

(weird lighting around the house but I hope you get the idea).

(You can faintly see the plus mark "+" in the middle of this)

Starting on the border!

So beautiful.

All done and ready to bind!

I decided on this sky blue for the binding. I use 2 1/2" strips for binding.

Full view before trimming the excess of for the binding.

Binding started and finished in less than an hour. I did a zig-zag stitch (not much selection on my machine).

After the wash with the color catcher. So beautiful.

The back view. This was my first time making the backing (I'm usually able to find a sheet and never had to do that).

Zoomed in a bit.

Zoomed by the border.

Penny smiling and showing this off. She is SUCH A HAM!

Close up on the front.

This was a fun quilt to make. I would say that it took about 10 days again from start to finish but I do admit that I had to stop working on it from Tuesday through Friday to do a baby quilt (that'll be the next post right after this one). So if you don't count those days I had to stop, it was about 10 days. I'll be shipping it out tomorrow (missed the post for today) and I hope it fines her Auntie very happy.

Project: "Aunt" Lap Quilt

Penny is a very sweet, giving girl. With no current quilt projects pressing, she picked out 3 quilts from my pinterest board for her two aunts and her grandma (Chris' side). So, after coming back from a long trip I decided to start with the easiest quilt to do. I honestly think picking the fabric was the longest part of this process (besides the actual quilting). Here's what the pinterest quilt looks like:

You just use 42- 10" squares and sew them together and cut in the middle to get half square triangles and sew them together again and cut to make a block. Chain piecing was so great for this.
But before I get too ahead of myself, let me show you the colors I (along with my sister in-law) picked:

I separated them into darks and lights (as suggested by the instructions) and this is what I came up with. Some of these prints I just LOVE so much and was so excited to use. So, first you make combinations of one light square and one dark square and put them right sides together (I did this in an assembly line set up and staged them to get everything done at one point and them move to the next step).

I used a regular pen to do this- You just draw a line from one corner to the next and then sew your 1/4" seam on each side of the line (and chain piecing here was such a time saver as I just punched these things out so fast.

 After both sides are done, you just use a rotary cutter and cut down the middle.

Next, I pressed the seams to the "dark" fabric. Then I got to mix and match the squares with lights and darks on opposite sides (which is so much fun). Then the same thing of drawing a line down the middle and doing seams on either side again:

Then here's the finished product:

The best part was for Penny and I to lay the blocks out together on the floor:

I then chain pieced the block into row and then rows into the quilt top.

Then the next part was to pick a border color. I decided to go with the dark blue:

I cut 5" strips width wide (The pattern says to have 8 but I only used 6).

Finished quilt top!

 Now the fun really started- how to quilt this bad boy. Penny suggested hearts for the border and I was thinking keeping it pretty simple for the quilt top.

Here's how the border turned out:

First I traced the stencil onto parchment paper with a pencil. (I couldn't find my marking pencil or marker to do this or the block quilting design so if you have them, USE THEM!)

Then I pinned it down onto the borders one at a time, making sure that the corners turned at the right point.

Then comes the AMAZING free-motion presser foot (that I got for Christmas!). I also bought quilters gloves that made a HUGE difference when using this presser foot. 

Here we go!

First part of a border done.

One entire row done (quilters gloves in the top right corner).

This is by far my favorite part- The quilting makes perforations in the paper and tearing it away is so much for me (like popping bubble wrap).

So here's the stencil for the blocks.

Laying them out and pinning them down again like the border.

Seeing the quilting from the back.

With the border.

Time to tear!

Back view before binding.

All trimmed up and ready to bind!

With help, I chose this teal color for the binding. I only needed 1/2 a yard and used 2 1/2" strips and did a zig-zag stitch to complete the binding.

All done.

One happy girl to give this bad boy away. Finished dimensions are 68" x 60" (a nice sized lap quilt). I wash it and dry it (I use a color catcher so that colors won't bleed instead of pre-washing my fabric). I hope this finds it's way to happy Aunt from this cute little niece who picked out the design.

Project: Navy Quilt

I have a great friend (maybe I'm biased that I have great friends) and her fiancé is about to leave on deployment into a submarine. With that, there are very specific dimensions for the officers' cots and what kind of fabric can and cannot be used. At first, we were thinking something easy like a fleece blanket with the knots tying them together. Then we found out that we could only use cotton. So, with the dimensions of 30" by 90" (a couple feet longer than the size of the bed so he can have some fold over), we came up with this idea of 3 10"squares by 9 10" squares. The hope for the middle squares was to have the lyrics of a lullaby put on that my friend had written him (so cute, right?). Because there are 3 versus and 3 chorus', there would be 3 extra squares in the middle to do with what we wanted. My mom has some pretty cool stencils for quilting and even though we're far away, I was able to take pictures and ask which she liked best and what not. 

(My daughter looks for photo opportunities, especially when I'm doing a quilt.)

I just chain pieced my way through this quilt top with no problems (after seeing all the practice I got with the Hello Kitty quilt, lining these squares up came with such ease) and ironed the seams the same direction on one row and then the opposite way for the next row. Now, we had originally thought to had embroider the lyrics on but due to some time constraints, I decided to go with iron-ons onto the blocks:

The stencils we decided to go with in the empty squares was a heart and a moon with a star:

After such a detailed stencil, we both agreed that just outlining the rest of the squares (the outer ones) would be best and would keep the eye drawn to the middle. We used a flannel for the back to keep him warm when he goes off to sea.

All folded up and ready to be shipped off. (They got it just after Christmas but in time before he was to leave).