Category Archives: Quilting

March 23, 2011 · 5:31 pm

Party Time Quilt

Here’s a detailed look at another HST quilt I finished recently.

I was inspired by this quilt by Kaffe Fasset:

And I drew this:

And then I whipped it up!:

I call this quilt, “Party Time, Excellent!” There are at least two blocks that are flipped the wrong way, I discovered while quilting. If this quilt is a party, then these two blocks are your drunk friends who are apparently going to spend the night on your couch.

Detail on the quilting:

You can’t tell from this picture, and it’s not even that obvious in the actual quilt, but the bright red fabric is this really cute print from Eric Carle showing the Brown Bear animals. Many of the other fabrics are by Marcia Ders.

Here’s the back:

And some detail:

I’ve got this one packed and ready to go in my hospital bag for birth. Should be sometime in the next two weeks (I hope!).

2 Comments

Filed under Inspiration, Quilting

March 23, 2011 · 1:11 pm

Work in Progress #9

It’s time for another WIP Wednesday hosted by freshly pieced!

My biggest WIP is finishing up this pregnancy, but I have managed to finish a quilt:

Work in Progress #8

I had to miss out on last week, due to everyone in my family getting an end-of-winter cold. But I’ve made up for it all this week with many accomplishments! Here we go, linking up with freshly pieced!

The biggest thing I’ve got “in progress” is my Party Time Excellent quilt. It’s loaded up into ol’ Kenny and I hope to make a big dent in the quilting tomorrow. I really want to get this one done before the baby comes so that I can take it with me to the hospital. It was nice birthing Lloyd under my husband’s old freebie fleece blanket from his work, but a handmade quilt by-me for-me would be sweeter : )

The other “in progress” I’ve got is a my first ever mug rug! I’m so happy to have joined the brand-new Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild. I’m sad that I won’t be able to attend the next couple of meetings and get-togethers, but I want to remain active in the group remotely. For the next meeting we were supposed to engage in a mug rug swap, so I’m hoping to make one and mail it to a fellow member so that at least I can gift my buddies a little something.

Those are my main WIPs, but let me take a moment to share two completed projects!

My Henry Quilt is done (more on that HERE):

And I made myself a little nursing cover (using this tutorial, although I made mine smaller):

Yay for not having to show my boobs to elderly family members and the community in general!

That’s all I’ve got. Thanks for stopping by and please check out the other WIPs!

10 Comments

Filed under Challenges, Crafts, Quilting

March 15, 2011 · 1:51 pm

HSTs for Henry

After seeing THESE THREE GORGEOUS quilts, I knew I wanted to make some HSTs for my baby-boy-to-be, Henry.

So I picked out some fabrics (the beige in the middle got kicked out and some others got added in):

Made a little coloring page:

I Used THIS TUTORIAL for curved edges and bias-tape binding and made this quilt:

And here’s the back:

With a love note from Mommy:

Cat kept the quilt warm while I made the binding:

Baby’s just 2 or 3 weeks away (here’s hoping)!

4 Comments

Filed under Quilting

March 4, 2011 · 7:25 pm

HST Coloring Pages

Hello everybody! I’m currently working on two HST (Half-Square Triangle) Quilts and am loving it! They come together fast and there are so many possibilities for design. Anyway, part of my planning has been to sketch-out my layouts and color them in. I don’t follow my drawings completely during assembly, but it’s a nice test to see if my fabric color choices are going to jive and to give me an idea for how many pieces of each color fabric I’m going to need.

So if you’d like to use any of these coloring pages to plan your own HST quilts, feel free! They’re not perfect, but if you want them, just click on any of the images below and you should be able to drag them onto your desktop or left-click “save as” them onto your computer. Let me know if you have any problems! If you post your colorings on your blog, please don’t crop-out the little “howtobejenna” tag I’ve included on the drawings. Other than that, these are yours! Thanks!

Work in Progress #7

Yay, it’s Wednesday! Time for me to take a step back and evaluate all the sewing projects I have in the queue, and to get inspired by everyone else linking up over at freshly pieced!

I finished a quilt-top (it’s folded over – sorry I am in a little bit of a fluster today!):

The gray, white, and yellow fabric peeking out behind the quilt is for a nursing cover I need make for myself. I bought the boning and the d-rings so I can follow this tutorial.

And I am currently in progress sewing HSTs (half-square triangles again!) for another quilt top that will look something like this:

Other than that I hope to make a couple more pillow covers to get the rest of my couch throws in the mood for spring (I already have these out!).

That’s what I’m up to… what about you? Thanks for stopping by!

5 Comments

Filed under Challenges, Quilting

February 25, 2011 · 8:10 pm

Old Post…

This is the old post for back-to-front binding. This tutorial has been updated and can be found HERE!

4 Comments

Filed under Quilting, Techniques

February 23, 2011 · 2:15 pm

Work in Progress #6

This has been a busy week! Thanks to a winter storm keeping us indoors and grandparents playing with my son, I’ve been able to finish up a couple of projects.

I made these cute pillows for Spring! More on them HERE.

I finished my Project Modern Challenge 2 quilt. More on that HERE.

I assembled the large hexagon for the quilt I’m making with my pal. I still need to turn it into a rectangle. I’m going to post how we assembled our quilt-tops in the very near future. Unfortunately I think I’m going to set this hexagon aside for a while so that I can crank out two baby blankets I want to make. Baby #2 is just about 5 weeks away (egads!) so I need to prioritize.

But I’m making good progress on one of my quilts for baby. It’s going to look like this:

Whirlwind Romance

Well I’ve thought it over, and it seems silly to withhold pictures of my recently completed quilt. This is “Whirlwind Romance” – my entry for the Project Modern Challenge 2 – Monochromatic Challenge.

In the spirit of romance, I designed a quilt filled with passion. A crashing wave, created by inserting strips into rectangles of varying shades of red fabric.

I quilted using a free motion loop-de-loop following the curve of the wave.

A simple back.

Hope you enjoy! It was fun to make something completely different. At times I’ve been deeply in love with this quilt, and other times completely ambivalent. It’s been a “Whirlwind Romance!” Regardless, I’m really happy I took the challenge. I definitely learned a couple of new things, as I do with every quilt.

4 Comments

Filed under Challenges, Quilting

February 21, 2011 · 7:50 pm

Lucky Me!

I’m so thankful to be such a lucky gal. I’ve got a wonderful husband, an incredible toddler, a healthy baby on the way (6 more weeks to go – yikes!), a good job that allows me to work from home, great family, friends, and a house.

Lucky me! And that’s the name of this pillow that is one of my two entries into the Great SMS Pillow Contest! (My other is the V-shaped Marca-Relli pillow):