dotty

Last week I broke down and did something that I had been meaning to do for months and months. It was the final step to moving back into my sewing room from my temporary (ahem, since the fall) sewing set up in our formal dining room. I recovered my office mini ironing board cover.

I bought it from Ikea years ago. I love that the tiny legs fold up and and you can hang it up for storage. But, over time it became flat, and ripped and stained beyond recognition. It was so flat, it would leave grid marks on my fabric.

While going through my fabric bins, I realized I had backing from my newest quilt finish that was just the perfect size for my ironing board. In retrospect, the recovering was so fast, I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to it...

I took the old cover off and pulled out the strings that gave it that 'curved around the board' effect. I was going to re-use them, but apparently melted them while trying to iron the cover flat. Once I had ironed out (ha!) the cover into a flat surface, it was my pattern piece. I cut out my new cover using this, as well as one layer of fusible fleece, one layer of batting and one layer of old white fabric that I would never actually quilt with.

I fused the fleece to the white fabric and tested both this layer and the batting on for size. They needed a bit of trimming but would work fine.

To prepare the cover, I used cream extra wide double fold bias tape and just eased it around the fabric, sewing it down on the inner edge of the tape. I was worried about sewing the tape on the curves and started to pin, but in the end, I found it easier to just slowly feed the tape around the fabric as I was sewing. When I got back to where I started, I clipped the tape, I folded in the end of the tape and stitched it down. This left a sort of tube effect for feeding the string.

For "string", since I had absolutely nothing appropriate, and had melted the one provided, I used 1/4" elastic, which turned out perfect. Once fed through, I layered my board. Against the metal was the initial padding from the store (I'm all for re-using), the layer of quilt batting (also a scrap), then the fusible fleece/fabric combo, fabric side up, then , then the cover. Once in place, I had one of my kids hold one end of the elastic while I pulled the other end (really, really tight) and tied a bow around the hangy bit on the underside. All told, this took maybe 45 minutes.

The extra padding makes this board a dream use and the sunny yellow dots add just the perfect amount of fun (and a whole lot of happy) to my new/old sewing space.

That being said, I've got some pressing to do...


Happy Friday!


This is my finish to link with finish it up Friday.

a mini finish

The finish I'm blogging about this week was actually made a few weeks ago, but I hadn't had the chance to get decent pictures. That being said, for some reason, I still cannot seem to get a decent whole shot of it. I think I need better lighting, or perhaps, some actual sunlight?

Anyways. Moving on.

The pattern is one of Camille Roskelley of Simplify's mini patterns. This one is the mini Swoon. I love it. 

I am on a "use it or lose it" kind of kick lately, so I pieced this using some of my tiny stash of Ruby by Bonnie and Camille. To accent the Ruby, I used Riley Blake's La Creme polka dots. (Seriously, what else would I use?)

This mini quilt measures about 19" square. The finished block size is about 8.5 inches, and the smallest piecing cut was 1.5 inches.

I have a confession to make. For some reason, when making this, I read the instructions about trimming the finished blocks wrong and accidentally trimmed my blocks way too much. As a result, some of my points have been cut off. <<headsmack>>

I may also have a bit of an issue with regular sized HST's (half-square triangles). I've learned that micro-sized ones seem to amplify any imperfections and drastically affect block sizes. AND, for some reason, my machine kept wanting to eat up my tiny little blocks. It could be because they were tiny little blocks.  In retrospect, I should have changed the plate on the machine so that only the needle could fit in (as opposed to the plate with a wider opening for a zig zag stitch). Perhaps it would have eased things a bit.

I may make this again, in the near future, perhaps a bit more accurately. This is a really quick finish for a little project, and it's just so darling.

I'm really loving minis at the moment, but perhaps I need to finish my big Swoon quilt before I venture any further down the path of starting new projects.

Linking up with Amanda at Crazy Mom Quilts, for Finish It Up Friday.

Plugging away...

Back when I started this blog in August, I joined the Star Flower quilt along hosted by Amanda of A Crafty Fox. The diamonds were quick to cut out and the stars came together in record time. But the row piecing has kind of been slow. The first several joins didn't work out and I ended up having to undo and redo some stars and seams which got me a bit discouraged. It's also not very conducive to chain piecing, but I'm trying to sort that one out.

So it's sat for a bit, staring at me from my work table.

Anyways, last night I decided enough was enough and got going again. School is back in session, all three little rug rats were in bed (on time!), and my hubby was working late. After the usual self pep talk that practice makes perfect and perfect isn't necessarily the goal (ahem... maybe sometimes), I started.

I've adjusted the row/column ratio for the quilt. The length/width in the original design is a bit long and narrow for my taste. I've finished my first row and am looking forward to doing the rest.

Its not a lot, but rows are coming together. And I love the fabrics so much that I just want it done, now, in time for fall. (It's still meltingly hot here, but that can change quickly.)

 

That being said, my baby just went down for morning nap, I've got a fresh cup of coffee and a stack of stars calling my name.

Today I'm linking up to two smashing new blogs (new to me) I found called "My Quilt Infatuation" and 627handworks. Thanks ladies!

 

 

Changes

There is less than a week until school starts. I've been looking forward to this and dreading it at the same time. My baby girl is going to Kindergarten. She's waited for this for 3 years. It's finally (already???) here. 

   

It wasn't that long ago that she was this tiny...

 

We've had our last camping trip of the season. We spent about 5 days at Lake Pearrygin in Eastern/Northern Washington. It is just beautiful up there. And of course, I checked to see if there were any yarn or quilting shops nearby. I found "The Quilting Hive". I'm so glad I went. I found fabric I didn't think I'd ever find... "Ruby" by Bonnie and Camille. They only had 5 bolts of different types but I bought a yard of each, and on a whim, bought a couple fat eighths that looked suspiciously like they belonged (and upon research were!!) to Ruby. I was ecstatic. The lady in the shop had no idea what I was going on about. :)

I also found some Valorie Wells "Nest" fabric that I couldn't put back and some Tula Pink and a few other goodies. A fat quarter stack of "The Sweetest Thing" by Riley Blake may have landed on my hoard as well. And after hearing about Aurifil for months now, I found it in the flesh and bought a spool. I LOVE IT. It feels so durable.

On our way down to the states I picked up my package of Riley Blake's "La Crème" collection of low volume dots. I'm in love. Really. Have I ever mentioned I love polka dots? These precious prints will be appearing in many, many quilts.

This weeks goal is to finish sewing the last few stars for the Star Flower Quilt Along, to cut out my hexagons, and begin assembling the top. Can't wait to see how things shape up with the quilt.

 

Till next time,

 

Jade