quickie quilt

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Alison

A few weeks ago, we were invited to the baptism of our friend’s daughter. We’re not very religious, but were still honored to be invited to share the special day with our friends and their daughter. I thought a lot about what I wanted to take as a gift. I went to a few Christian bookstores to look around. All the gifts in there were, well, too religious. It was two days before the baptism and I still hadn’t found a gift. Then my husband said, ‘why don’t you just make her a quilt?’ Duh. Why didn’t I think of that? So I asked my neighbor and good friend Andi (who happens to own this store) what she had that would be good for a little girl. She had a charm pack of A Walk In The Woods by Aneela Hoey. I made a very simple tumbler quilt.

I cut out the charms and pieced the top on Thursday night. Friday after work, I stopped by my LQS and got the border and backing fabric. I used red minky on the back. Friday evening, I sewed on the borders and quilted it.

I went ahead and threw it in the wash with a color catcher. I was worried about all the red and kept my fingers crossed that it didn’t run. It came out beautifully. It was all ready for the baptism on Saturday. I think that was the quickest quilt I’ve ever done! I’ve been told that she loves the quilt and uses it every night. I was thrilled to hear it!

Also, here’s a cat on a stack of quilts.

52 weeks of pinterest-week one

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Alison

I think by now almost everyone has heard of pinterest. Have you joined yet? You should, it’s awesome! It’s like a huge, on-line filing cabinet. Instead of having a million bookmarks saved to things you want to go back to, you can easily find them on your pinterest boards. I currently have 880 pins on 18 different boards. I have a ton of quilts, sewing tutorials, craft projects and recipes. There are so many great projects and ideas, I have decided to try a new pin every week for a year and share my experiences here on my blog!

The first thing I decided to do is an upcycled sewing case made from an old train case. This is the original pin (sorry, source wasn’t available)

This one was cute, but I didn’t want to completely cover the case. So I started scouring the local antique stores to find a case that didn’t smell too bad inside! I finally found a blue Samsonite train case for $12! I didn’t take a before picture, but this is basically what it looked like.

I had some old patterns that belonged to my husband’s aunt. Most of them were from the 70s and had great primary colors on them. I picked out the ones I wanted to use and went to Michael’s to get a few other stickers to fill in. This is how it turned out.

I used a combination of mod podge, craft glue and hot glue to get everything to stick. I hot glued the buttons on the latches and the measuring tape around the top. I added the tiny rick rack around the top with fast drying craft glue.

Here’s a view of the top. I used pieces I cut out from the pattern sleeve and stickers I found at Michael’s. The sit, sew, swear saying on the top is my sewing version of live, laugh, love.

Side view.

Other side view.

This is a view of the back. I used more of the stickers and added some buttons. I also added my name on the back so no one would try and steal my awesome case! (and because I had A LOT of letter stickers left)

I used some of the actual pattern pieces on the inside. My case didn’t come with the tray that goes on the top, so I am looking for one of those. I LOVE how my sewing case turned out. It is the perfect size to put all of my sewing accessories in. If I pack carefully, I can fit my iron and a small project in it too! It’s a great size to tote everything to sewing days, guild meetings and retreats. For $12, I think I got a bargain! Stay tuned for next week’s pinterest post!

Alison

guild retreat

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Alison

The Atlanta Modern Quilt Guild sponsored their second retreat on Saturday. It was so much fun. We had a great space, great food and great people. Here are a few pics of the day.

This was my work station. We sat in groups of four and everyone had a ton of space to spread out and work. I got all of my blocks done for a top that I’ll be showing later.

This was one of our ironing stations. Chris’ husband built her this great ironing table…I’m jealous and totally want my husband to make me one. At the table is the lovely Pam. She was able to finish about 4 projects! She’s a quilting machine.

No quilt retreat would be complete without a little shopping! Andi is a literal travelling quilt store. She brought all of these goodies for us to shop from. It was really ~~dangerous~~ nice to have things so readily available.

The theme of our retreat this year was ‘Hey Girl’. We had our mascot, Ryan Gosling set up to greet everyone as they came in. We had a ‘hey girl’ caption contest. It was fun.

We also played the LCR dice game with fat quarters. I totally won all of these awesome fat quarters! I was so excited. You can never have too much in your stash!

Everyone had a great day and I think we were all really productive. We are planning a whole weekend retreat in the fall and it can’t get here fast enough!

Also, the boys got their quilts in their Easter box today and I got these super cute pics on my phone this afternoon. It makes me smile so big!

Alison