Last Project

I finished a quickie project last night. I bought a clearance-priced gray and white striped shirt for my daughter. It was from the boys' section, but it was pretty gender-neutral, and I thought maybe I could applique something on it that she would like. When I got it home, though, I found it was way too big for my daughter and just barely right for my son. So I let him wear it for a few months until she could grow into it.

Unfortunately after my daughter saw it on my son, there was no convincing her that it was a girl shirt without some modification.

Easy peasy.

I didn't even sew it...it's just wool felt and Steam-A-Seam. I had intended to sew them on to provide some extra security, but I wasn't sure that a ball point needle would go through the felt. They seem pretty secure as-is.

This is my last project for spring break. It's been so nice to have a week off and get some sewing done too. On Tuesday I go back to work, and it'll be tough to go back!

Appliqué done!

I'm finally done with the applique portion of my Dresden block quilt!  I wound up sewing the middles on by hand.  When I sewed the big circles on I had to rotate the entire quilt to keep the edge I was sewing under the needle.  I wasn't sure if I could turn the quilt enough to make a circle with a smaller radius.

I don't like hand sewing, but I parked myself on the couch and fired up my Netflix and just did it.

I'm pleased with it so far.  It's really imperfect, but I'm proud for my first attempt.

I used this tutorial to make the circles in the middle.  They didn't come out perfectly - I got the impression that it's easier with bigger circles - but they're good enough.

So now it's on to basting and quilting.  It feels weird to have two quilts in the quilting stage.  I also need to figure out how to quilt this thing...I was thinking about just doing loose, curved lines to suggest wind.  I'll have to think about it.

First round of applique done!

Tonight I finished my first round of applique - I got all of the circles onto my background fabric.  Next I have to applique all of the middles on.

I still have to trim the background fabric to be an exact fit for the circles - I wanted them to go from one corner to the other, so there's some trimming to do.  Here's a poorly lit iPod photo of my progress:

Appliqueing the circles made me wonder how on earth I'm going to quilt this thing.  I've never quilted a quilt this large.  I did make a queen sized quilt once, but I tied it instead of quilting it.  I'll figure it out...generations of women before me quilted on the machines I have in my basement.  Also, I appliqued using my Kenmore 52, which has a smaller harp than my Singers.  The bigger harp space might help too.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though.  First I have another round of applique to do along with basting...then I'll worry about the quilting part.

Continuing the applique

At this point I've appliqued (that doesn't look right) four of the eleven circles.  If I keep going at this rate I'll be able to finish the initial applique by mid-week!  Then all I have to do is:

1. Cut and make the circles for the middles
2.  Applique the circles
3.  Baste
4. Quilt
5.  Bind
6.  SNUGGLE

I can do that!

I didn't get a chance to quilt my double slice quilt this evening, but I have been working on it a little and I think I'm getting the hang of it.  I'll post pictures tomorrow if my good progress continues. 

My husband works the next two nights so I hope to get lots of sewing time in.  Not that I don't enjoy having him at home during his nights off, but...hey, silver lining for the nights he does work.  I can get a lot done in the two hours between when the kids go to sleep and when he comes home.  I hope to have all the applique done on this quilt before I go back to work on the 29th.  We'll see if it happens.

Foray into appliqué

I went to the Milwaukee Modern Quilt Guild sew day for a couple of hours today and was pretty productive.  I finished all but one of my Dresden plate blocks.  When I got home I quickly cranked out the last one.

This quilt is going to be big - the top, without borders, is 77" x 90" - so I couldn't get a picture of the whole thing.  Here's most of it:

Now here's where I run into trouble: I don't know how to applique.  I'm going to try to do it by hand, but I generally hate hand sewing so we'll see how it goes.  I might break down and try it on the machine, not that I know how to do that either.  We'll see!