WIP Wednesday: New Project

What's this? A new project? I didn't take the vow of finishing old stuff that the rest of the quilt blog universe did, so I feel totally unrepentant about this. :) I started sewing this together while streaming the "Tupperware" American Experience documentary from PBS after I was on a documentary high from the great "Henry Ford" feature they aired last night. I loooove American Experience so much. You go, PBS. Did you know that you can see many of their documentaries for free in their commercial-free entirety on their website? You can. Give them a look!

I am super excited for this quilt, because it's the first one I'm making to keep for myself. This makes me extremely happy! Sneak peak, my inspiration is this one by Rita. Pretty traditional, but I'm going to love it. I'm using Ruby and Vintage Modern for it, so it's going to be one girly quilt. But that's ok. Because it's mine! :)

Linked with Freshly Pieced.

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Matt and Kim Pillow

This is the Matt and Kim pillow! Probably the easiest pillow on the planet, but hey, it's cute, right?

Why Matt and Kim? They sing this fun song called "Block after Block" which I always think about when sewing. It's such a peppy song, it always makes me happy. So here's a happy pillow named after a happy song.

You will need:

--1 20" pillow form

--3/4 yard background fabric (that's the cream color in this one)

--22" by 22" square of muslin

--22" by 22" square of batting

--3/4 yard pillow back fabric

--32 2 1/2" squares of fabric (mini charm packs would work great!) You might also want to have two 2 1/2" x 1" scraps for the end of the middle row. They'll barely show.

Pretty.

Prettier.

Sew together two rows of eleven squares. Sew together one row of ten squares and add the small scraps to each end of that row. Use a 1/4" seam allowance, and press open.

After your rows are sewn together, arrange them like this, with the eleven-square rows on the top and bottom. 

Stagger the squares so that the seams of the middle row line up with the middle of the blocks above and below them.

Stitch the rows together. You should now have a pretty ribbon 6.5" wide and a little over 21" long.

Cut the background fabric into two pieces that are each 8" x 21." Sew one rectangle to the top of your rows with a 1/4" seam, and the other rectangle to the bottom row.

Trim your patchwork piece to 21" square. (Note: this will result in a 20.5" finished pillow cover, so there is a little bit of room in the pillow case. If you want it more snug, trim to 20.5", but I'm just nervous about stuff like that.)

Baste your patchwork with the batting and the muslin on the back. Quilt as desired.

Out of the pillow backing fabric, cut two rectangles, each 21" x 26". Fold them in half so that they measure 21" x 13". Sew 1/8" along the folded edge. 

Place your quilt sandwich face up on a flat surface. Take one rectangle of backing fabric and align the three unfinished edges with the edges of the quilt sandwich. (The folded, stitched edge should run parallel to the pretty squares section.) Repeat with the other rectangle on the other half of the pillow. (Note: if your backing fabric is directional, pay attention to that now.)

Pin the edges of the backing to the sandwich, and stitch 1/4" all the way around.

Turn the case inside out, sharpen the corners with a corner turner or a chopstick, and press the edges to make them crisp.

Ta-da! A happy, pretty pillow to make you happy.

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Bunches of Bags!

Well, the purse-making frenzy has finished for the week. In reality, the frenzy was really just yesterday afternoon and this morning, but we're all entitled to a little dramatic license. Let's survey the fruits of this labor, shall we?

First up, after finishing my first Margaret bag as a gift for a friend earlier this week, I decided that I needed one for myself too. When I wore a gray dress yesterday and found I had only packed a single purse and it was brown, my need for this purse became desperate. So, I stitched it up yesterday afternoon! Having already completed it once, this went much more quickly (it took me about three and a half or four hours.) I used some aqua fabric from Bonnie & Camille's "Vintage Modern" line.

Can we all admire how perfect that button is for a moment? Maybe this isn't the best photo of it, but trust me, it's perfect.

After finishing the first Margaret bag, I was a little annoyed with the time and expense that resulted from the many layers of interlining. So this time, I tried it with just a single layer of heavy weight interfacing. I'm happy with how it turned out, but you can see here the difference in how stiff the finished bag is.

No, I haven't mailed the gift bag yet. I'm working on it. :)

The second purse I made was something I was inspired to try by Amy's Fat Quarter Bag. But really, the only thing I did that was similar was use fat quarters as my starting point and use grosgrain ribbon for the handles. Amazingly, I managed to make it reversible with no major issues on my first go-round. It took me about an hour and a half start to finish.

Side one!

Side two!

Pretty cute, I think! Maybe someday there will be some little girls in my life to make these for.

Update: I found a home for this little bag! We went and visited my boyfriend's family this weekend and we gave the purse to his five-year-old niece. Perfect! He (boyfriend) has been so sweet about the purse-making enterprise, by the way. He keeps showing off my aqua bag to people and telling them that I made it. :)

All in all, I've enjoyed this little foray into purse making!

Linking my bags with Amy Lou Who's Sew & Tell.

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More Bags!

I picked up a little more fabric yesterday for a couple more bags. I'm trying to make a couple of little girl purses based on Amy's Fat Quarter Bag. I think I'm going to tweak the instructions a fair amount, and if things go as planned (big if), I'd like these bags to be reversible! We shall see...

 How adorable is this fabric? I hate real birds, but I love this bird fabric. Both are from a line called "Happier" for Riley Blake. Apparently, it came out last year, so it may be scarce, but I lucked into it in a store.

I also caved and got myself some fabric to make a bag like the British-themed Margaret Bag I just finished for my friend. Mine won't be British-themed, I chose some cute little flowers from Bonnie and Camille's Vintage Modern line. I love this fabric, but you may be interested to know that the aqua matches NOTHING. My original vision was to have matching plain aqua for the lining, but the store stocked Robert Kaufman solids, not Moda ones, so everything was just a teeny, tiny bit off. (Here's something I don't get about the quilting world-- are all of these lines of solids really necessary? Goodness.) Anyway, I decided to go with contrast in the end. Finding thread to work with the aqua was another fun (and fruitless) adventure. Oh well. Close enough is good enough in this case. :)

Some fun flowers from "Vintage Modern" by Bonnie & Camille.

One change I'm making this go-round is that I'm only using a single interfacing layer, rather than the two interfacing and one interlining that the pattern calls for. I got slightly heavier interfacing though. We'll see how that works.

Programming Note: Why are there all of these bags on a quilt blog? Because I have been away from home for a couple of weeks and will be away for a couple more. I brought my machine, but not my cutting mat, rotary cutter, rulers, etc. I meant to get some things cut so I could quilt while I was away, but life intervened (student final papers, to be specific) and it didn't happen. So I'm trying some alternative sewing activities. I have two quilts that have to be done by the end of July though (including this one!) so there will be more quilts when I get back to New York.

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