by Andrea | Aug 5, 2019 | quilting, Sewing
I am excited to host a monthly Christmas Quilt Guild this fall! I have had a lot of questions about this. So I thought I would explain a bit more and then anwer a few FAQ’s.
This summer I offered quilting lessons and a couple lovely ladies signed up. We had such a blast that we decided we could not imagine a world where we are not getting together and quilting every once in awhile. I started thinking about what I’d like to quilt next….I really wanted to take all my Christmas jammie scraps from years past and turn them into a Christmas Quilt for our family room. So I suggested we get together once a month this fall and make Christmas Quilts!!!
WE invite you to join us. (Squeal!) It’s basically just a cluck and sew, or a good old fashioned sewing bee. There will be snacks and Christmas cookies, and Christmas music. If you can’t handle all of that Christmas cheer, this is not the group for you.
FAQ’s:
Can I come? Of course! If you don’t live near Lynchburg, you are welcome to follow along and host your own! However, I am happy to pick anyone up from the airport. 🙂
Are we all making the same pattern? No we are all making our own different quilts. It is your choice. I will be here for help, questions, moral support, and seam ripping when necessary! I have started a beginner quilts and a Christmas Quilts board on Pinterest if you need ideas. >>> CLICK
Can I follow along at home? Yes! I will post where you should be in the process each month in order to get your quilt done in time for Christmas snuggles on the couch and Hallmark Christmas movie binge watching…..
When are you meeting? Our first meeting is August 27th from 7-10pm at my house. We will all decide together which date works best each month.
What if I can’t sew? But I really want to learn? Let’s have a few lessons first! I can’t teach lessons on Christmas Quilt Guild night or I will never finish my own quilt, but I would absolutely love to give you a few lessons to catch you up!!! Just send me an email. I love getting other women addicted, er I mean teaching other woman the love of sewing!
HERE’s THE PLAN:
August 27th: Cut our quilts up! Plan the layout.
September: Piece the tops.
October: Begin basting and quilting.
November: Binding!
You may need to spend some time catching up in between guild nights depending on the size or complexity of your quilt. Just spend 30 minutes a few nights a week and it will get done!
December: ENJOY! DISPLAY! LET YOUR CHILDREN FIGHT OVER IT AND SPILL STUFF ON IT. BRAG ABOUT YOUR FIRST CHRISTMAS QUILT. POST IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA.
-The Quilt in the picture above is a darling pattern by Center Street Quilts. It can be purchased here.
-AND HERE is that Christmas Quilty Pinterest Board link one more time.
by Andrea | Aug 26, 2018 | handmade, quilting, Sewing, tutorials
I think I’m over being intimidated by new things. At least as far as quilting or sewing is concerned. I’ve looked longingly at clamshell quilts for far too long. These little pieces of rounded seashell shaped fabric began their siren call one Pinterest session long ago and it was an irresistible sound….
I’ve succumbed and over the summer I completed my first Clamshell Quilt. How did I do it? Is it something to be scared of? How did I make the cuts? Did it take forever? Did I feed my children at all during this long tedious quilting marathon?
Well, let’s see if I can unpack this all for you.
First of all. If there is a good clamshell quilt tutorial out on the wonderful wide world of web, then I have yet to find it. I’m of the ilk that there are always people who are more talented, more knowledgeable and certainly more skilled than I am at just about everything. However, a clamshell quilt tutorial must have not been on their list to share with us all because I had to go this one alone.
I’m going to share some tips with you because I don’t want anyone to go through what I did. I couldn’t get it started. The first two rows were painfully awkward. I want to spare you the insecurity….AND DID I MENTION I MACHINE PIECED IT? That’s the best part. I really don’t have time for hand piecing right now. Does anyone?
The key to a good start is using the accuquilt clamshell die because it cuts out points for you to line up your clamshells. If you don’t have one, you make marks but they are hard to see when you are sewing. For the first row you need the shells to be joined only at the bottom but the second row has to help out to hold up the row.
Here is a diagram:
Here are the tips:
1.) PINNING IS ESSENTIAL
2.) CLIP THE CURVES
3.) PRESS THE SEAMS IN ONE DIRECTION
At first it looks like a disaster. There is no quick joy found in this first foundational piecing of rows. You will wonder if you are doing it right. It’s floppy and shapeless.
Just press on my dear quilting friends. Because once you get past those first two rows you can start sewing the clams on in one fell swoop along the curve from point to point.
At this point, I throw on a good audio book and lose myself in the tedious pinning of points and just keep sewing. YOU MUST PIN!!! PIN PIN PIN and rejoice in the fact that you can sew the whole curve without stopping and the shape of the quilt is taking place. Each row grows more and more satisfying to add on.
I don’t think while I do this, and sometimes I rip it out of there is too much left over at the end of the clamshell. The reason being your whole quilt will go crooked… it will be a little beyond wonky. You can have a little leeway at the ends but I’d rip it out and realign if you have more than 3/8″ hanging off.
In the end you have to cut all the edges of the quilt off square to bind it. This part hurts me. Becuase all those little clams…..it feels wasteful. But it has to be done. RESIST THE URGE TO SEW A BORDER. THIS WILL MAKE YOUR QUILT LOOK KITSCH. And we can’t have that. Not after all we’ve been through to get this beautiful thing off the ground.
It sure does look cute, though, without a border, the scallops reaching from end to end. This kind of quilt has so much potential. From ombré, to mermaid, to dainty pink and white little girly room quilts. To dark and elegant….
Give it a whirl! It’s worth the try! I promise!!! Happy Quilting.
{I used the large Accuquilt Clamshell Die to make this quilt. Shown next to my sketchbook diagram are the smaller sized clamshells.}
by Andrea | Feb 10, 2018 | quilting, Sewing
QUILTY PILLOWS
Sometimes you buy some fabric and it sits in your stash for 2 years because you can’t bear to cut into it.
For this beautiful Arizona fabric, however, that was not the case. I knew these gorgeous cottons were destined for quilty pillows and a large comfy couch quilt but…
Sometimes you get fabric and it sits in your stash for 2 years becuase your life is in storage, you have baby number #5 and you move across the country….
This past summer I had a blast sewing up different styles of quilt blocks I had never made before. I especially love the Aztec Tile block pillow. There were 182 2″ square blocks involved in piecing this pillow!
by Andrea | Jul 1, 2017 | DIY, handmade, quilting, Sewing
Quilts are made for many reasons, and yet I think the common thread that all quilts have are their purpose. I really don’t think that purpose is primarily physical warmth. When I make a quilt for someone, I have an emotional connection to the person and I want to communicate my love for them. In other words, I have “all the feels”… Usually the gifted person has blessed my life or they are dear to me in some way that needs commended or they are a tiny human, soon born to a momma whom I love… and the opportunity to creatively express what a gift they are to me is a quilt.
BESTIE QUILT
My first bestie quilt is not for my first bestie. I’d have to say she is my first mom friend and cultivated my love for sewing in a way that nurtured my creativity. She spent many hours helping, teaching, and encouraging me through the early days of marriage and first baby and hard trials and happy young days. She taught me how to “pick a chicken” when money was tight. She taught me to laugh when my kids made messes, and to just throw away those underwear when I was traumatized at potty training my first daughter! She even showed me how to iron my seams to the dark side….Haley carried on the tradition my mother began of “the older woman teaching the younger woman” how to be a worker at home from Titus even though she wasn’t much older than I. I’m so thankful God placed her in my life.
FABRIC AND PATTERN
It’s been a long time since we’ve lived in the same town, but she is often on my heart and in my prayers. One winter evening as I was gazing at my fabric piles, I felt the urge to make her a quilt. In fact, it seemed ridiculous that I had not done it yet. As I began pulling out the fabric, I knew exactly what she’d want and how I wanted to lay it out. I challenged myself this year not to buy anything new but to persevere and make quilts with what I have. I have so much. It always feels good to use what you have.
I chose to merge two separate collections of farm and canning prints by Riley Blake Fabrics and some denim chambray from AGF. I patched in a few pieces from Joann Fabrics as well that I have had since God only knows when….
The pattern began as a lone star quilt block, but then I carried out it’s border with half square triangles to make the star burst out and featured the center using the chambray as contrast. The quilt was a lot of fun. While I sewed, it was a great opportunity to reminisce, pray for Haley and to finish several books on audible! In fact, I have a link from Amazon for 2 free audible books here if you want to grab it! I enjoyed the last Harry Potter novel, tried to listen to Fantastic Beasts, but it was too tedious, and ended with Missional Motherhood by Gloria Furman.
Fun facts about Haley’s quilt:
-At the last possible minute as she was pulling out of her long farm driveway in Illinois to leave for Arkansas for a week, her postman pulled in to deliver the box. Phew! PTL! She took it with her in the car.
-I tried quilting tiny lines close together for the first time…loved it!
-I used red pearl cotton to hand quilt the chambray sections.
-Ruby Jane loved this quilt, and probably thought it was hers. She helped me photograph it. Why does it have to be so difficult to photograph quilts?! I need help.
I have a few more bestie quilts already in the works, but first I’ll be working on my #4 daughters quilt. She is getting so big and it’s time for her twin size quilt! Her 6th birthday is in a week!
Here are some links to the fabrics and batting I used! Annnnnnd lots more pictures below!
by Andrea | Jun 17, 2017 | handmade, Home Decor, quilting, Sewing, Uncategorized
I started this quilt in 1994. It was the summer of my 7th grade year….Alanis Morissette was singing Ironic on my boom box cassette player. My cut offs were totally grunge and my mom was sponge painting the hunter green walls in our guest/sewing room. She taught me to quilt and I was hooked. For some reason though, life got busy when school started up again. The quilt top was left pieced but unquilted in the sewing room closet. I enrolled in 8th grade, got my Jennifer Anniston layered look and headed off to school with plaid flannel and dr. martens.
Several years later, I got married and my mom packed that quilt into my moving truck with me as we set off to rural Illinois. I was pregnant with our first child and the nesting of our home was in full swing. I got the quilt out and started working on it again. Slowly hand quilting here and there. I just never really stuck with it. I think part of it was because I didn’t like the style of the quilt. I never would have picked it out for my home now that I was a sophisticated newly wed hoping to decorate my farmhouse in trendy style. I put it away and purchased a Shabby Chic Quilt from Target!
After Illinois we had a long string of frequent moves and the quilt got moved about and lost in storage for several years. Fast forward to the most recent summer of 2016. 22 years after starting the quilt, I was mercilessly getting rid of everything I could because we were moving across the country for medical school and I did not want to haul anymore junk around for the rest of my life. I’m not a minimalist, but I decided we would sell everything and keep our moving expenses down.
Despite my ability to get rid of tons of fabric and unfinished projects, I could not let that quilt go. I told my mom, I would finish it. She offered to take it home with her and keep it safe while we moved across the country. She set about quilting it for me this past year and in May she brought it out and we finished quilting it together. I bound it with some Ralph Lauren plaid sheeting I had been hoarding for about 8 years. It was finally done!
I love it because it is finished and it represents the beginning of my love of quilting. Do I love the colors and composition? Probably not as mush as I did in 7th grade! But I still love yellow and it’s a cheerful addition to our slowly growing collection of family quilts. It only took 23 years to finish!
This is the year I finish all the quilts I’ve started over the years! I am excited to get to work on the next one!
QUILTING MUST HAVES:
I tried out a new set of refill blades for my Olfa rotary cutter while I finished this quilt up and I have to tell you about these puppies! They were super sharp and came in a great little case. And the price made my jaw drop to the floor. You get 10 for less than the price of an Olfa 2-pack! Try them!
Also my 2 1/2″ strip die for my accuquilt cutter. I love it. It makes the binding go superfast.
This rubber thimble is my new favorite for hand quilting! Super comfy. It’s the best.
by Andrea | Mar 16, 2017 | Baby, DIY, handmade, Home Decor, quilting, Sewing, tutorials
Here it is friends. This is the LAST post in my Magical series. The people who need this post, won’t want too hear it… Honestly everyone is able to do this, at least for a season. You will have lots of excuses why you can’t, but if you love something, you will make the space and time for it.
To make more time for sewing you MUST LEAVE YOUR SEWING MACHINE OUT AND SET UP. You must find a space. You must make your kids share a room or have them eat outside on the deck or sew in your bedroom or even train your baby to go to sleep with the sound of the sewing machine whirring near her crib….all of these things I have done at one point or another. We have lived in a slew of tiny houses and apartments off and on over the years and the key to getting stuff sewn was and always is leaving my machine out.
I want to encourage you to “Just Do It” Nike doesn’t consider sewing a sport, but if they did I would totally be sponsored. HAHA.
Right now I am very fortunate to have a nice finished room to sew in. I share it with the girls so that if there are moments during school that I can sew, then I can! Here are a few creative ways to leave your machine out if you don’t have a sewing room.
THE PLASTIC STORAGE BIN
Just get a bin with a lid and shove it in there and slide it under the kitchen table. If it’s already there then you will be more likely to use it. Here is good one.
THE NOOK
There is always a place for a sewing nook. Get a nice wooden or sewing specific folding table, that way if you have company or need the space temporarily{ for something less fun than sewing }you can move it and put it back up easily. When my husband was in seminary we lived in the campus apartments. SO FREAKING TINY. Someone had left a wooden folding table in our apartment so we used it for that.
THE PLACE YOU DONT LIKE
Is the basement your sewing lair? Do you hate it so much? Is it watery and smelly and dark? Just set up your supplies and organize in such a way that you can have your project out and ready to grab easily so you can bring it up to the kitchen table for the afternoon or evening.
Give up on the ideal places you see on blogs and pinterest and give yourself the freedom to enjoy your sewing time. Sewing has been such a great way for me to lose myself and relax. I listen to a book on Audible, pop my headphones in my ears, and start making! Just do it!
Here is a picture of my non pinterest worthy sewing space. I sure am thankful for it and I get so much more sewing in. My plans for it include painting the cabinet a bright happy color, but then I wouldn’t have as much time to sew….the struggle. 🙂
Happy Sewing Friends! JUST DO IT!
-Andrea
