Drawstring Bags

I made a couple of drawstring gift bags, one for my mom and one for my niece.  I pulled out a couple of lovely Asian-inspired fabrics that I kind of hoard, because they’re so pretty. I know I shouldn’t do that; what good is a stash of fabrics that I don’t want to use because they’re too pretty?  One was too small, but the other worked for my mom’s bag.

Here’s my mom’s:

It’s about 16″ by 10″, I think. I realized after I started working on it that I hadn’t paid attention to the directionality of the fabric, so the flowers (lotuses, I think?) are sideways rather than vertical.  I don’t think my mom will mind. I was careful about that for the second bag, though.

This one is for the baby. I needed it to be large, so I used close to a yard of fabric.  This is another one I’ve had in my stash for years, and it’s so cute, so I figured I should really use it.

I used white ribbon as the drawstring for both.

Cloth Napkins

Someone in the blogosphere posted recently about using cloth napkins and I thought that would be a great way for me to use fabrics I love and maybe save some money/do something small for the environment. 

I started with 14.5″ blocks of some poppy fabrics that I’ve had for years. I love poppies and ages ago I had decided to make myself a poppy quilt, but so far it hasn’t happened.  Better to use the fabric, right? 

I made four napkins – I had to piece the backs for two of them, but I used up most of four fat quarters.  I sewed the squares right sides together, then flipped them right sides out. I probably should’ve ironed them before quilting but I didn’t bother. 

I auditioned three or four spools of thread – gold, green, red – and none really looked right, so I went with black thread. I stitched the openings closed and then stitched one or two squares inside the napkins so they wouldn’t flap around.  I’m really happy with them. I think I’ll make some larger ones, too. 

Dodi pillow

Z’s friend recently got married and I suggested to him that I would make her and her husband a pillow. I wanted to reference the Hebrew phrase “ani li dodi ve dodi li,” which I used on my friend N’s wedding quilt. It’s a common phrase used for Jewish weddings. It means “I am for my beloved and my beloved is mine.”  I wouldn’t have room for that on a pillow, so I decided on “dodi” – my beloved. (This is actually the same meaning as the Arabic word “habibi” – and the i at the end of both words means “my,” although the words themselves are not linguistically related. Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic languages and sometimes the words are almost exactly the same. The rest of the phrase is almost the same as it would be in Arabic.) 

Z consulted on the design. We picked a dark teal and a royal blue. I think the teal is Kona but I don’t know what color. The blue might be Kona or from Michaels. 

I had an 18″ pillow form so I designed an 18″ finished block to frame the embroidery.  I used a 14.5″ blue square for the center. I added a 2.5″ wide border of the teal with 2.5 blue squares at each corner to bring it up to 16.5″. I repeated that step for an 18.5″ pillow front. 

Then I traced out the Hebrew letters very carefully, using pictures for reference. (I don’t know Hebrew.)  I embroidered my letters using a variegated thread in shades of teal and blue. I think the embroidery came out really nicely. I’d like to make us a similar pillow that says habibi one day. 

For the back I used a blue and white print, which I think is leftover from my friend P’s wedding quilt or from this quilt I made for myself. (Or both?)  I make overlapping backs. I had considered binding it but in the interest of time I decided against it. 

Dog beds and pillows

I used flannel scraps, baseball fabric, my old ironing board cover, and a brown star print that coordinated with the cover, to make some dog beds and dog pillows.

Old ironing board cover:

Two dog mats made from it:

New pillows:

 

Pillow for us

I’ve been meaning to make an accent pillow for our bed. I had HSTs leftover from the scrappy binding I made for my magnum opus, which have been sitting in my “red, white, and blue” scraps box for a year. I realized I could square almost all of them up to 2″, and I had planned to use four of them in the border for the pillow I made for Z’s grandpa this year. Unfortunately, I measured something else wrong, so that border got scrapped.  I still had all the squares out in my cutting area (hah! By cutting area I mean our table, which we never use because I always have my sewing things on it. Poor Z is very patient with me), and I started squaring them all up to 2″ and sewing them to 2″ squares, then making four patches. The four patches finish at about 3.5″, and I alternated those with 3.5″ squares as well. I’d hoped to have 12 four-patches but I was one HST short. I made do. The end result is a little asymmetrical, but Z said he didn’t mind. It finishes at 18″ square.

I put in a little block of the Pledge of Allegiance fabric.

Z didn’t want me to quilt it. He likes his pillows to be softer, and he prefers them unquilted.  I added a full piece of batting and backed it in a black and white floral.  (I didn’t consult with Z about that.) I decided not to bind it because I wanted it to be finished quicker!

Z loves the pillow. He sleeps on it!

Ships at Sea pillow covers

I think I’ve mentioned before that I wanted to cover the pillows on my couch because I don’t like the pattern on them. (I’ve actually always wanted to do this – I once almost bought some blue, navy, and gold upholstery fabric to cover them and then decided to wait.) I should have done it when I wasn’t living with Z, because then I could have picked whatever fabrics I wanted, but now that we’re living together we are compromising on decor. So I let him have some say in the design process. I looked through my 501 Quilt Blocks book and picked several block ideas, and from those he chose Ships at Sea. I also discussed color choices (nautical, of course) and showed him some of the fabrics to make sure he didn’t mind them.

I wanted to size it up – the largest blocks in the book finish at 12″ – and I spent a lot of time trying to do complicated quilt math and geometry. (Pythagorean theorem, anyone?)  In the end I decided to start with the HSTs and measure everything else as I went. I started with red for the ships on a white background and made my HSTs. Then I added my half triangles. I did not trim it at this point, and I probably should have, because my half triangles were a little large and now my ships float half an inch above the surface of the water. I showed it to Z and he didn’t care, so hover ships they will be.

Then I measured all the sides so I would know how to cut the additional triangles. Since I was making two pillow covers, that made the cutting easier.  I used a directional print for the bottom light blue triangles – it’s whales in the ocean – so I cut four squares and cut them on the diagonal following the directionality of the fabric. I have four leftover triangles now; I’ll have to cut some more triangles and make myself HSTs (and then find something to do with them…)

They finish up at 16″, which is exactly the size of my pillows.

I decided to FMQ waves on the pillow covers so it would look like the ships are sailing through water. I think one looks better than the other but it did achieve the purpose.

Then I FMQed more waves in the bottom section.

The rest of the quilting I did with my regular foot. I quilted straight white lines in some of the “boats” to look like sails. (So I guess it looks like one boat with three sails…) Also, lines in the “sky” in the top corners. That’s it, since it’s just pillows.

I think you can really see the quilting here.

I bound them in red and white polka dots.  So cute, right?  For the back I used the grey crosshatch leftover from the teal and grey quilt I made. I think it’s Carolyn Friedlander?

I love them.  Z thinks they’re really soft, and they look great on our couch.

Stash Report

Habibis, I am three months overdue for a stash report.  …It’s a doozy.

In January I made three tray mats for my grandmother, new pillows for our couch, and some dog beds/pillows. My total outgoing was 3.66 yards and my incoming was 14.5 yards.

In February I made two charity doll quilts, mini quilts for my mom and my aunt, some coasters for my aunt, an embroidered pillow for a wedding present for Z’s friend, and put a sleeve on a twin-sized quilt for entry in a show.  My total outgoing was 7.13 yards and my incoming was six yards.

In March I finished an improv charity twin sized quilt with two matching pillow cases, a pillow for our bed, and two pillows for my sister for her birthday. My outgoing was 7.96 yards and my incoming was 34.5 yards plus 9 yards of extrawide fabric (which would work out to about 24 yards, so that’s how I’m going to count it).

So my total outgoing for this year is 18.75 yards so far.

My total incoming is very large.  Very large.  79 yards.  There are some reasons for that.  One was stocking up on extra wide backings.  Another is that I’ve been buying fabric on sale for projects for later in the year. A third is that I buy a lot of fabrics on line and sometimes the colors don’t work together when they arrive – for one project I’ve bought fabric three times.  I am awaiting my final shipment of fabric for that project and then I am done. By that point I’ll probably have 12 fabrics to choose from and that is more than enough.  I don’t intend to buy more fabric for the rest of the year.  I hope to make a dent in my stash each month; I have some big projects coming up this year and I’m excited about them.

Final total: net 70.25 yards in

WIP Wednesday: Shopping Cart Cover

It’s still Wednesday! It counts. 🙂

I got this shopping cart cover pattern from Daydreams of Quilts for Christmas, knowing that with two babies in the family it would come in useful. I decided to make one for my cousin’s baby. I’d read through the pattern a couple of times, but not very attentively. I haven’t had a ton of sewing time lately and there were days where I had free time, but not the energy necessary to get down to sewing. As a result, I started this on a Wednesday evening, when it needed to be done Sunday. Not a good idea.  That’s why this is still a work in  progress…

I knew I wanted to use the Connecting Threads Lousy in Springtime fabric collection. It fit well in the colors my cousin and her husband like – blue and green – and he used to study Japanese, plus you know I love Japanese-inspired fabrics. I think they’re so pretty. I thought darker prints would be better, since the shopping cart cover will likely get dirty, which ruled out a bunch of the prints. I had a whole yard of this crane print and fat quarters of the rest. I settled on the crane print for the front, supplemented by Kona Teal, and for the back I used the dragonflies and blue and green leaves with more of the Kona. I think I should have used the Kona for the whole back, to speed things up, but I had wanted to use more of the collection. 

My center piece between the leg holes doesn’t seem very centered. Obviously I didn’t measure properly. The instructions call for a patchwork top with 5.5″ squares, which would certainly make it easier to center that piece. Oh well.

I have started quilting it and I gifted it, as is, and then took it back to finish it.  I still need to finish quilting it, put the elastic and seat belt/buckle in, and bind it… Hopefully soon!

Pillows for my sister

I wanted to make my sister a pillow for her birthday and we discussed design options and colors. Her sorority’s symbol is the quatrefoil, and during last year’s Bee Hive quilt block series, I’d made note of the quatrefoil block. My sister liked it, and we agreed on orange, teal, and blue. 

I’d just bought Pearl Bracelets in orange and Metro Living tiles in orange, and I thought both would be perfect. I pulled out a teal, leftover from my friend M’s wedding quilt, as well as a Kona – possibly jade? It was the octopus in the baby quilt I made last year. Lastly I had some royal blue fabrics. I think one was a kona (no idea what shade, but also for the octopus baby quilt) and one might have been from Michaels. I think I used it for the Love in Shades of Blue quilt. 

The shades of orange, teal, and blue had slightly different values, and I decided to make two pillows, one with the darker values and one with the lighter values (except I think one royal blue ended up in both pillows because I didn’t have quite enough).

I changed the design slightly. I made the corner pieces in the center orange because I thought that made the shape more like a quatrefoil.

I decided to make the pillows two sizes because I had extra of the teal from the teal and grey wedding quilt. So I added a border to that one to bring it up to 16″. It has a solid back in the teal.

The other pillow has a pieced back using up more of the jade and the Royal blue. My math was wrong the first time and the back didn’t cover the 12″ pillow, so I had to go back and add more blue.

Finished pillows:

Coasters

I made some coasters for my aunt. She likes neutrals and earth tones. I picked a Japanese print in lovely colors, muted but beautiful.  I used a cream print on the back.  (Can you see the one where I accidentally sewed the wrong sides together? When I figured it out, I decided it was too late to change it.)  I hand stitched around the edges