Lovely March finish

I finished! My March goal was to start and finish a big quilt for a friend who just had a baby. The quilt is called Whales and Sails. You can read more about it in my other recent posts. Here is my goal setting post.

It isn't washed and it is wet and rainy out so you don't get any good pics. Next month I have to pick a less lofty goal. whew. I promise I will show you the quilt in all its glory when it washed up and not covered in dog fur.

Oh I am really into machine blanket stitching down my binding for kid quilts. Sturdy and cute. Linking up with a few hours to spare.

Ironing board Re-cover-y

The internet is a loving and caring community that never judges. Therefore, I feel safe in showing you the shameful state of my ironing board:

Pretty sad. This was my husband's from before we were married. I didn't own an ironing board or iron. Why would I? A few extra minutes in the dryer and my shirts are passable. Of course, since I started quilting the board is out in our living room 24/7. 

A new cover has been on my to do list for a long time now. The last straw was when my old cover refused to stay on the board because the last bit of elastic gave out. I whipped a new one over the weekend using these pretties:

 

The print is a home dec weight fabric that I have had in my stash for two years (read: I have no idea where it is from) and I chose the birds and the bees stripe for binding/elastic casing. EDIT: You can use quilting weight cotton for the cover. I used the home dec fabric because it is wider. With the home dec fabric, I was able to make my cover using 1/2 yard of fabric. If I had used standard quilting weight cotton I would have had to cut into some fabric that was longer than one yard. The home dec fabric was a lot less cutting and waste.

I loosely followed a tutorial from Sew Much Good. I made a few changes. 1) I didn't cut my binding on the bias. Sheer laziness and it worked just fine. 2) I used a drawstring weight twine instead of 1/4" elastic as suggested because that is what I had on hand. 3) I sewed the binding onto the cover before adding the drawstring. Then I fed the string through the casing using a safety pin. It is more fun and you don't have to worry about catching the elastic/string when you sew (How to if you don't know what I am talking about). 

Leuko plays it cool in the background

After fitting the cover over the board I tied the drawstring tight. If you are wondering, I started the binding in the middle of the short end of the board so that I could tie it tight and not worry about strings hanging down while I am ironing. You can see one end of the string hanging from the bottom of the board in the picture above.

View from the bottom. The elastic would probably have given an even tighter fit but I think the drawstring is more than adequate. I haven't had any shifting issues as I have used it. And I can switch it out for elastic in the future if it becomes an issue.

Side by side comparison of the old and new. YUCK. Bye, bye crusty cover.

The whole process took about an hour and that is including the time it took to select the fabrics. It's so nice to have a cheery ironing board to look at when I press.

I hope I have inspired some of you to give your ironing board a face-lift.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

WIP Wednesday - Quilting a monster

First a few finishes:

Quick 7" zipper pouch with 2" gussets for a coworker who recently helped me out. I didn't follow any pattern. Just a standard quilted pouch. Main fabric is from the New Leaf line from Daisy Jane.

I recovered my ironing board. Can I get a hallelujah?? Full blog post on that soon.

Whales and Tails top is done and being quilted. I quilted about 5 rows and then got tired. I really need to push to try and get this done for my March finish. I should probably stop getting distracted with small side projects like the ones above.

This is the quilting design I tested in a bit of scrap batting. We are going nautical to the core.

Check out all the WIPping at Freshly Pieced. Happy Hump Day everyone.

Middle school poem

Stumbled upon this gem sorting through some old papers. Looks like I've been interested in quilting for a while.

I'm Robert F'in Frost

Also featuring an excerpt from an obligatory emo-teenager poem and a nature poem about snow or winter or something.

Clearly I was searching for a word to rhyme with "hold" but, red, orange, blue and gold? Sounds awful...or maybe not:

Ok, 13 year-old me, how did I do? Should I buy these? Am I crazy. Yes. But, seriously I am not buying fabric right now.

For those curious fabric lovers: 

Red = Hydrangea in Red, Katharines Wheel by Nel Whatmore

Orange = Fishscale in Orange, Gilt Trip by Dear Stella

Blue = Ocean Flower in Blue, Maritime Modern by Marin Sutton

Gold = Anka in Gold, Sardinia by Jessica Gonacha Swift 

All available (except the gold which arrives in May) from Hawthorne threads.

Quilts. In action.

It warms my heart to see my Simpatico Monsterz quilt being used as intended - on the floor with a happy and cute baby on top.

Why don't they make giant pillows like that for adults? and don't get me started on the dino footy pjs. He looks super comfy.

WIP Wednesday - Secret progress

Very productive week turning this...

Into this...

The top is not complete. I still need to sew the rows together. As you can now see, I am making a huge jungle paths quilt designed by sewcraftyjes and available on Moda bake shop. I made the baby sized version last year.

 The centers are a mix of All Hands on Deck and fabrics gathered from the family. Some are minky, some are from old clothes of loved ones, some are even legit quilting cotton (but not many!). I placed them sporadically around the top. It has been tricky working with these fabrics but in the end it makes the quilt so special.

This week I am in love with the fussy cut fishermen. He looks dapper surrounded by metro dots don't you think!

And lastly, a sneaky peak at my pouch for the stash bash. It's technically not a WIP because I finished it lightning quick after hearing about the pouch swap. Not to toot my own horn (honk, honk) but whoever goes home with this baby is a lucky duck. I put a lot of love into it. Full post after the stash bashing.

WIP on WIPpers. Check out everyone's progress over at Freshly Pieced.

WIP Wednesday - EPP update

I haven't had a free weekend to sew the last two weekends. Serious withdraw!  However I did make some progress on my EPP stars.

These new slippers are really making me happy this week.

What is making you happy this week?

Sewing day with the B'ham MQG this weekend so there is sure to be a more fulfilling WIP update next week. To follow other WIPpers check out Freshly Pieced.

Mockingjay Mini

Feels good to finish a project. It has been a few weeks. I showed you my Mockingjay mini WIP on Wednesday and here it is all done:

 

First I hand quilted around the mockingjay pin with gold thread. Then, I quilted in straight lines all around the borders (you can see i much better on the back in the next photo) with black Aurifil (50wt) as the top thread and white for the bobbin.

 

I added some corner triangles for hanging and chose a blanket stitch for the binding using Pat Sloan's tutorial. The black binding thread blends right in on the front but shows up on the back. I think it looks really cool. Even Pat herself approves :)

Happy Friday everyone! Check out all the other Friday finishes at Crazy Mom Quilts. 

WIP Wednesday - Beach!

I didn't get much done last week due to being here all weekend:

 

Beach trip with the girls for a bachelorette party (I am getting too old for this). I brought some english paper piecing. Other attendees brought their knitting. It was loads of fun. There was also drinking and debauchery as expected.

I took this opportunity to take some pictures of a recent WIP at the beach. Three cheers for a photo background that is not my backyard fence.

The bachelorette is a huge Hunger Games fan. She is even known to sport the Katniss braid sometimes all the time. I wanted to make her a mini quilt using a paper piecing pattern from Fandom in Stitches. The center is a 10" square. I bordered it with 3" strips to bring up the size a bit.

 

The yellow fabric is something I had in my stash. I think it is from connecting threads. The black is chicopee. I was careful to avoid the large black dots in the paper piecing portion. I like how they are sprinkled around the border. I plan to do some hand quilting around the pin and machine quilting in the border. 

Go check out all the other WIPings at Freshly Pieced.