Sew Wrong

Quilt Flu


My mom has a sign on the door to her sewing room at home:

“WARNING!
QUILT POX
VERY CONTAGIOUS TO ADULTS!

Continual complaint as to need for snuggling under a handmade quilt. Patient has blank expression, sometimes deaf to spouse and kids. Has no taste for bedspreads or electric blankets. Hangs out at Quilting Bees. Mumbles to self “Log Cabin”, “Double Wedding Ring”, “Ohio Rose”…

NO KNOWN CURE!

Treatment:

Medication is useless, disease is not fatal. Victim should attend as many quilt shows and quilt shops as possible.”

I now understand that sign.

I guess my interest in quilting was piqued when I visited a quilt shop last fall with my mom. There were so many interesting and colorful fabrics that I had no idea existed; I was used to seeing the traditional fabrics my mom kept stockpiled in her sewing room closet when I was younger. I knew of Amy Butler, but Michael Miller? Alexander Henry? These fabrics were fantastic! So I bought two Benartex prints and whipped up Amy Butler’s Birdie Sling.

That was fun! Now what?
I mean, you can only have so many fabric bags. Enter Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts.


Again, quite a different take on quilting than I was used to. The projects were simple and non-intimidating, and the use of modern fabrics made simple pincushions and lap quilts seem exciting. Quilting seemed like a daunting, time consuming hobby to me before. Now, it can be easy and quite rewarding.

I have a whole slew of projects in mind: placemats, floormats, pincushions, a small quilt to nap under, maybe a bedspread and matching pillowcases, and perhaps a wallhanging if I can muster up to the challenge. I’ve done a few practice pieces so far, such as the four patch and nine-patch blocks above. I also whipped up this set of coasters from the Last Minute Gift book:

The set of four took about 10 minutes each to quilt once I cut the fabric and batting and assembled the pieces together. It was a good intro to working with multiple layers and practicing even stitching. The odd one in the grouping was a strip pieced nine patch block that I practiced on first before I tackled the Amy Butler set.

So I’ve stocked up on lots of new fabric (which is currently in the wash right now!) and am looking forward to sharing my progress here on my new hobby!

Follow:

Sophia, Sophia

If you remember quite awhile back, I bought fabric from Purl Soho to make Amy Butler’s Sophia Carryall. I completed her Birdie Sling, loved it, and thought I’d take a stab at another one of her patterns.

Whoops. I’m not too happy with how it’s turned out so far.


This bag is definitely more of a challenge than the Birdie Sling. The construction was going along just fine until I had to attach the top panel to the sides. It was awkward to sew and tricky because of the multiple layers of interfacing, fabric, and covered cording. When I turned the bag right side out to see how it looked, I had to go back and fix a lot of tucks and re-ease the fabric. Plus, the interfacing (cheep cheep Pellon, yuck) made my fabric all wrinkly looking.

I’m assuming I can steam it to make it look better.

I thought that that was the hard part until I got around to attaching the bottom to the bag. For some reason, the bottom panel wasn’t the correct size! It was either too small or too big, I don’t remember which, and I had a devil of a time getting even more layers of interfacing and fabric through my machine.

Eww eww. I did take the suggestion from someone on Pattern Review to omit the covered cording for the bottom and I’m glad I did, because I can imagine that would have made it exponentially more difficult to sew. I need to rip out the bottom and redo it, I know I didn’t sew it straight. Plus, I’ve got uncovered bits of cording exposed as well.

Needless to say, this has me wondering if the lining, which I have yet to put together, will make the bag look any better from the outside. Maybe the bottom will look less puffy and droopy once I install the false bottom. This might just be a bag I use to store yarn or fabric in and not for shopping or dining out. Oh well. At least I have leftover scraps to play with!

Follow:

Next Sewing Project – Amy Butler Sophia Carryall

Since I had so much success with my previous Amy Butler bag, I’m going to give another go at one of her patterns. I think her Sophia bag has such a cute, retro shape and would look great in a print from Free Spirit fabrics or maybe on of Amy Butler’s prints.

Follow: