Recent presents

Hi habibis!  I wanted to share a few presents I made recently:

I made this quilted bookmark for a cousin for her birthday, using leftover Air Force fabric.  I quilted it with white thread.

These sashiko coasters are from the Handstitched class.  (Yes!  I finally finished a project from the class.)  I didn’t follow the instructions 100% when it came to the design because I couldn’t figure out how to replicate it properly, but I’m very happy with the design.  I made them as a birthday/apartment warming gift for my friend R.  I love the geometric print, and I think I matched it up nicely with the solid.  I used variegated thread.  I swear I took pictures but I can’t find them, so here’s a picture R took.  Isn’t she a great hand model?

This shoe bag is for my friend A.  I let her pick from a few different fabrics, all of them blue/purple-y. (She loves cool tones.)  I wish I’d made it bigger – it should fit most shoes, but I would have liked something larger.  I love the butterfly print.

Christmas Presents: Coasters Part II

I made two sets of purple coasters for my cousins C and J.

For C I used these two light purple fabrics that I think I’d already had partially sewn in strips together.  I cut the strip of two fabrics into squares.  When I made my little quilt sandwiches, I matched up my squares so that the prints on one side were perpendicular to the prints on the other side. (Meaning, if they were horizontal on one side, they were vertical on the other.)  I quilted them using lavender as the top thread and a darker purple in the bobbin.  (That’s what I had in the bobbin already, and I thought it would be interesting.)

I quilted them with lines parallel to the center seam.  Then I flipped them over and did the same, so I ended up with lavender lines and the darker purple lines on both sides. Pretty cool, huh?

For J’s I used this pretty fabric.  I’ve used it before.  The quilting is free form curves from the center of each side. If I’d traced something they would be more even but I wanted to free hand it. They still came out pretty well.

I pulled red and navy solid scraps for some improv piecing for my cousin M. They’re his college colors, and nice and masculine. I LOVE how these came out. They’re honestly my favorite of all the presents I made and I don’t even know why. The fronts are all different.

The backs are all just half navy half red.

I quilted them in ways that mirrored or highlighted the design.  The one on the far left has been quilted with one vertical line, bisecting the coaster, and several horizontal lines just to one side of it – the same as the piecing but rotated 90 degrees. The second from the left is lines perpendicular to the piecing.  The second from the right is diagonal lines parallel to the piecing.  Lastly, on the right, a square spiral.  I used blue thread for everything.  In the background you can see several other Christmas presents, some of which I still haven’t blogged about!

A close up of the square spiral:

My uncle S is a huge Beatles fan. I’ve previously made him a Beatles pillow from a set of Beatles fat quarters I bought from keepsake quilting with him in mind. It’s a pretty trippy set of prints.  I wanted to fussy cut the fabric for the coasters, but in some cases I couldn’t get the parts of the print I wanted because I’ve fussy cut it before, so I had to compromise a little bit.  One side of the coasters is all from a psychedelic grey and white print featuring the faces of all the Beatles in bright colors.  (Poor Ringo – I wasn’t able to get one of him.)  The other side is black prints.  I tried to quilt them in ways that highlighted the prints.

  

That’s it for coasters!  I’ve got plenty more presents to post about, believe it or not!

Christmas Presents: Coasters Part I

I made a lot of coasters this Christmas. A lot.  I think I made seven sets of coasters.

For my brother R and his wife M, I used scraps from their wedding quilt to make them coordinating coasters – because who doesn’t need coasters that coordinate with their quilt?  I used the fish fabric with green borders – the green pieces were scraps and the fish fabric were extras from cutting too many pieces for the quilt, so this required very little cutting. I did free motion quilting – curves from corner to corner of the gold and then curves on either side, meant to mimic the fish swimming.  I don’t seem to have pictures of them, post-quilting.

My sister got moose coasters! I made her an ornament once with this moose fabric. I still had plenty left. I tried to fussy cut it to get a moose in at least half the pieces, and then I made those the “front.”  I used batting scraps for all these, by the way, and I didn’t bind them because I knew I’d never have time. I quilted them to focus on the moose. Each one has two lines of quilting, angled to highlight the moose.

Here’s a blurry picture of the “fronts” of the coasters.

Here’s a better picture of the backs:

For my Aunt M I made purple coasters. (I actually made these before Thanksgiving, when I made the coasters for T-Rex.) One side matches the pot holders I made her last year – because who doesn’t need coasters that match their pot holders? I quoted them in a spiral, like T-Rex’s.  I realized when it came time to write this blog that I never took pictures of them.  Oops!  Take my word that they were cute!

Coasters for T-Rex

Hi habibis!  Today I’m going to be showing you the coasters I made for my cousin T, AKA T-Rex, for her birthday.

T-Rex’s favorite color is green, so I chose all green fabrics in similar shades – nice and bright.  I cut up strips and sewed them together, then squared them up.  I think they’re 5″ finished.  I used the peacock fabric from the potholders I’d made her last Christmas (because who doesn’t need coasters that match their potholders, right? but really because it’s so pretty) for the back.  I made little sandwiches with batting, sewed around the edges, then flipped them right side out and hand-sewed the opening.

I quilted spirals in green thread.  I think it looks really cool.

Here they are, in “order” (with the fabric going from lightest to darkest).  (It was supposed to be a progression of five fabrics with two prints per coasters, but I didn’t like my fifth print, so instead I used four prints.  I still wanted each one to be different, so the second from the right has three different prints in it.)

Here’s a shot of the back:

Cute, right?

PS T-Rex will be guest posting next Wednesday!

P.P.S. Tune in tomorrow to see my magnum opus!