Linda's Quilt

My quilt for my friend's baby is finished. She gave birth to a baby girl a while back, so I decided to make a quilt for little Linda. As far as colors go, I realized that my talent for combining colors is practically non-existent, so I bought a pack of fat quarters in my local quilt shop - I left the color combo choice to people smarter than me. I like the purples and lilacs, I just hope baby Linda will too. Or, you know, her mother ;)

This quilt only took me a week to finish. I got the fabrics on Monday, prewashed and cut them on the same day. On Tuesday I pieced together the 35 blocks that make this quilt. Squared them all up on Wednesday, sewed all the blocks into rows and finished the quilt top on Thursday. Basted on Friday, did free motion quilting on Saturday and finished sewing the binding on Sunday. One week. I probably would have finished sooner, but there's this thing called work that I have to go to. But hey, it enables my yarn and fabric purchases, so it's fair trade. 

The pattern for this quilt is called Falling Charms. I found the tutorial on the Missouri Star Quilting Co. on youtube. I love, love their videos. This is a really easy one, and it comes out super cute. 

My original plan was to quilt this using straight lines. So I sewed four lines along the long side of the quilt. And then I had to rip all those long lines out. Turns out that you really need a walking foot for straight line quilting. Really, you do. 
My backing fabric bunched up and sort of got pulled in the direction I was sewing in. Since I sewed all the lines in different directions, I got a wrinkly mess on the back, that kind of looked like chevron. Not cool. So I ripped everything out, cursing my stupidity all the time. Note to self: check what's happening on the back of the quilt! 

Eventually I did my standard free motion stippling. And then I went out to get a walking foot. They didn't have it in the store, so they had to order it. I'm impatiently waiting for the shop lady's call, can't wait to try that foot. I have such high hopes for it. ;) 

Linda's quilt measures 82 x 113 cm (45x32 in). The batting is polyester, everything else is cotton.

Spring = Sewing

After a long, cold, rainy winter, the sun is finally here. For some reason, this means that I'll pull out my sewing machine and sew something. Must be all the light, my brain and my eyes tell me that the conditions are optimal for stitching time.

Another reason is a friend who just had a baby girl. I'm making her a baby quilt. It's all I've been doing this past week - cutting fabric, pinning, sewing. The quilt is almost finished, I just have to hand-sew the binding on the back. 
As a break from all the quilt-sewing, I sewed some random pouchy thingies from the scraps I had from the quilt. 

A zippered pouch that turned out meh. I always sew too close to the zipper tabs, and the result is a distorted looking top once I turn the pouch right side out. Note to self: Don't sew so close to the fricking zipper tabs. 

A drawstring pouch from this tutorial. No idea what I'm going to put in it, but it turned out cute.

 

An iphone cover disaster. Let's ignore the fact that my points don't exactly match up, my measurements are also off. It's a tight fit for my phone and a bit too short too. 

But the biggest disaster was my idea to iron the seams open. Once I started to tug and pull while I was sewing these seams started to pull apart. Not to self: Iron seams in quilting projects like this to one side. Or at least secure them by backstitching.

I also did a crappy job on sewing the lining, so this cover will be one of those things that I'll use until it gets dirty, and then it's going to the trash. 

 

Fake leather iphone case. I saw this color in the fabric store and just couldn't resist. I bought about 20 cm in width, just so I could try to sew with it. Also had to buy a new set of leather needles for my machine. I'm pretty satisfied for my first try. And pretty proud of my Elna machine. It really does sew everything. 

Sarah's Delight

I've come to the conclusion that I should only knit for myself, because I suck at knitting for other people. 

I promised my great-aunt a vest, chose a pretty pattern - Sarah's Delight - and cast on for a size somewhere in between the ones in the pattern. 
My aunt wasn't here for me to test if I had the right size, so I just went with my gut. And knitted on, even when I had that little nagging feeling that it might be too small. Turns out that nagging feeling was right - the vest should have been shorter and wider. It's still wearable, there is a little strain on the buttons when she buttons it up, and the length reaches practically the half of her thighs. My aunt is of course delighted, she would never say anything bad about the vest, but for me this was a total learning experience. Namely - if you think it will be too small, it's probably too small.