Category Archives: Quilting

I just finished this blanket I have been working on for months upon months!  It’s for my brand-new niece Kylie, who was born on June 23.

Why did this simple fleece blanket take me so long?

For one, I cut the fabrics out like an idiot – hacking away and assuming I’d have enough to make 12inch blocks.  I didn’t.  So this became the incredible shrinking quilt where the blocks are, I’m not sure, something like 9.5 inches squared all said and done.

It’s a super fun guitar and boom box flannel pattern.  I learned a lot about quilting with this fabric.  I learned that you must must must pre-wash it because it super shrinks (good think I learned that before I started this baby).  I learned that it doesn’t care for a steam ironing, in that strips and squares will soon become ambiguous amoeba shapes.    (I really should work on pressing rather than ironing my quilt pieces regardless of fabric choice).

I used a super light-weight denim for the back, and I love it!  It’s soft and flexible, and has a tiny bit of a sheen to it.

I quilted free-motion stars with a silver metallic thread, and bordered the sashing with a pink metallic.   Using these threads, I learned the importance of buying a proper metallic needle and using a bit of Sewer’s Aid on the spool.

I’m also so happy to report that I am finally using the proper tools!  I used a free-motion foot that my mom found in storage, and a walking foot that a friend leant me.  Let’s hope she doesn’t want it back anytime soon because I am definitely a walking-foot-believer now!

AND joy of joys my sewing pedal finally arrived!  After having not shown up for 15 days, I decided to track the order… only to find that FedEx didn’t have that tracking number on record… because my order had never been fully submitted by the sewing supply company I used.  WHOMP WHOMP.   Well they finally shipped it out, and I’m enjoying sewing freely without concern that a small electrical fire might combust at any moment.

I used pre-bought double binding for this blanket, but never again.  Time to be a big girl and learn how to make my own.

I do love my little embroidered patches, however : )   Yay for me being an aunt, and I hope my little niece spends lots of hours throwing awesome tummy-time parties on her new little mat (to be delivered at the end of this month when I meet my little squirt!).

These tricks are to go along with my tutorial on how to make a Quilt-as-you-go Orange Peel Quilt.

Keep Reading to learn how to make these circles out of scraps of fabric built together in a smarty pants fashion…

Continue reading →

I have previously blogged about this quilt HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE  : )

My friend came over yesterday to show me the finished product.  She bound the quilt in a beautiful solid green and it just POPS!  The blanket looks wonderful – and BOY is it big.

Here’s a picture of my 6’4″ hubby trying to hold it up in our messy kid’s room:

And nicely folded on the bench:

(I blogged about my inspiration for this quilt and provided a little tutorial HERE.)

Baby Irene’s quilt is finished!  I’m proud:

This was my first time stippling, and I couldn’t have chosen a more challenging time to try this technique.  For one, as you know if you’ve been reading, my pedal is broken.  I can still use it, but it explodes whenever I release pressure, and I sort of have to smash it in order to get it to start.  Needless to say the speed control is problematic.    (And I just realized that the replacement pedal I’ve ordered is lost in the shipping universe!  Oy!).   Also – my free-motion sewing foot is at my mom’s, so I had to try and do this with a normal pressing foot.   It resulted in the threads getting caught in the fork of the foot about every 8 inches of sewing, which resulted in a lot of swearing.    I also used this shiny rayon thread that was really pretty, and looks nice in the finished quilt, but it was a slippery snake to sew with!

BUT all the effort was definitely worth it.  I really loved the way it turned out, and so did Irene’s parents!

JENNA’S INEXPERIENCED LEARNINGS FROM MACHINE QUILTING FOR MAKE BENEFIT FELLOW SEWING FOLK.

Machine quilting THIS MONSTER was such a challenge, but also so rewarding!  I’ve learned so much!  It’s not that I’ve never quilting anything before, it’s just that they’ve always been smaller projects: table runners, small quilts for wall-hangings, etc…   This baby was about 6 feet x 8 1/3 feet.

I’ve already mentioned and linked to THIS POST BY SHELLY, but here it is again. Very inspiring words for anyone who needs psyching-up to take on an intimidating quilt.

But let me add some of my own advice… Continue reading →

I did it!  Oh, did you not think I could do it?  Well you must not have gotten the memo that I am awesome.

You can’t really tell much of a difference in this picture from my original picture of the quilt-top seen here.

I bordered each block about 1/5 of an inch out into the sashing.  Inside each block I followed a couple of seams, sewing in the ditch.

Here’s a look at the back!  The threads hadn’t been snipped yet; I had to hustle this baby out the door to give it to my friend who is doing the binding.

So we’ll have to take some quality pictures once this monster is completed.  It really is stupendous and I hope our friends treasure it.

I certainly treasured the experience.   I learned so much by making this quilt.  I’ll blog soon about all my new-found knowledge regarding machine quilt, but for now know this:   YOU CAN DO IT.

Don’t tell me what I can’t do!

I'm doing it!

People told me it couldn’t be done… they said I was crazy!  Eat it, nerds!  I’m doing it!

My biggest venture ever into machine quilting is going swimmingly.  I’m going slow, fixing my mistakes as I make them, checking the backing with almost every line of stitching, and yet – it’s going so much faster than I thought it would.

I’ve got about 8 blocks in the center completely done.   Wahoo!

THIS is a great post from over at Shelly’s Quilts blog that really inspired and informed.

This quilt is basted!

I followed the instructions posted on Oh, Fransson! for how to make a quilt sandwich. Except I screwed up and laid my quilt top down first, instead of the batting, resulting in me rolling it awkwardly backwards when it came time to place it upon my backing.

Regardless – it got done!

Here’s a picture of the top laid down (wrong side up) in the middle of my living room.  Please ignore all the toddler toys tossed about.  At this stage I ironed it to the best of my abilities and snipped the seams that weren’t laying flat.

I’m pretty excited and definitely scared about quilting this bad boy.    But I’ve been pumping myself up by LISTENING TO THIS – so grab your air guitar and put on your best snarl face and join me!