Quilt As You Go Block Tutorial!

Want to know all about the magical world of quilt as you go blocks?  I thought you did.  It's pretty awesome and forgiving if you don't feel like measuring or thinking, and they go pretty fast, so you can make a bunch in one go and they're already quilted!

So first you cut your batting.  I cut mine 12.5 because that's the size of my ruler.  Of course, it's going to shrink on you once you start quilting and you'll want to square it up again when you're finished.  So if you want to have bigger finished squares, cut the batting bigger, probably by at least 1.5 inches.

Now, this is the fun part, and where I started to deviate from all the tutorials and how-to's that I found.  That first piece of fabric, just plop it down in the center.  Don't measure where it's going, or try to center it perfectly.  I didn't even care if that piece of fabric was actually squared off itself.  Just put it down and quilt some lines back and forth over it.  I used the outside edge of my foot as a guide, but I'd do some quilted lines wider, skinnier, or a mix of the two.

Then, lay the next piece of fabric down and sew it down.  Again, don't over think it, just make sure that when you sew, it's a straight line so that you're fabric will lay flat once you flip it over to quilt.  (Of course, if you botch that bit, you can just make your first quilted pass really close to the seam to really make it lay down.  Told you it was great if you didn't want to be accurate!)

Quilt it down!  

That weird zig zag bothering you?  I found a bunch of featherweight fusible interfacing and I'm using it to piece together my batting scraps, but I don't trust it, so I do a super big zaggle to hold it together.

I used every scrap possible, which meant that sometimes I'd sew them together to make up the length that I needed.  It's pretty fun to mash together all those little bits, and I got to do some fussy cutting to add cars and flowers to some of my other blocks.

The placement of each layer is different from a traditional log cabin block because I didn't add my sides in a consistent pattern, like always going clockwise when sewing down the next layer, or doing top and bottom then sides.  I just sew with whatever scraps looked good and require the least amount of cutting.  Sometimes, like here, it would get a bit rectangle-y and I'll try to even it out a little.  Other time's I'll just keep adding wherever.

Keep adding layers until the entire piece of batting is covered.  

Then you trim it down to the size you want.  Like I said, I initially made my batting squares 12.5", but I trim them down to 12".  

These are really fun to make, and the weirder they look, the more I like them when they're all together.  I just have four more to make then I can officially finish this quilt.  I'm pretty excited to finally get to cuddle under it!  

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday and Live a Colorful Life for Really Random Thursday!

My Rainbow Quilt Got Frankenstein-y

So I've been slowly working on my Rainbow Quilt-As-You-Go quilt and it's definitely been having an effect on my scrap situation.  Unfortunately, my fabric scraps are still plentiful, but my batting scraps have started to come up a bit short. (Sorry, had to.)

It's only $3 on Amazon, but still feels like cheating.

The solution is simple, batting tape, available everywhere and made just for the purpose of piecing together batting.  But I really wanted this to be a quilt that was totally from what I already have, and I don't have batting tape.

So I decided to improvise.  Make my own kind of batting tape!  With fabric, pins, and a machine, all the things that I totally have in my sewing room.  Want to learn my sneaky trick?

I found two pieces of batting that would add up to my 12.5" block, and made sure the sides were mostly flat where I wanted to join them.

Then I sewed my strip of fabric to one side, about a half inch in from the join.  (Of course, habit took over and I sewed right sides together and flipped it over, which is why you only see one line of stitching.  Really don't have to do that, I blame muscle memory!)

The only nail bite-y bit was making sure that there was just enough tension on the batting so that when I sewed the second line, there wouldn't be a gap in the batting.

Then I did my quilting perpendicular to the join, so that each line of stitching is kind of like a bandaid holding those two sides together.

Then I added all the rest of my pieces like normal.  I did have to attach them in rows, so I did a little  stitch in the ditch to get some horizontal quilting on that big pieced chunk in the middle.

You can hardly tell where the join is! (Except for that tiny gap at the top, but I'm betting shrinkage will take  care of that bit.)

I still have about six more blocks to make, but I should be able to do that with my scraps.  And I can try different ways to layout the scraps so that I don't have six blocks that are all rows.

Linking up with Live a Colorful Life for Really Random Thursday!

Leaders and Enders (Or, How to Make a Quilt Without Really Thinking About It)

Way back, my grandmother taught me how to always run a chunk of fabric through the machine at the beginning and end of my work, so you'd never have that awful moment when you sew a big seam and realize that your needle un-threaded itself.  She'd always have a scrap attached to her machine.  I actually think that when she handed down her machine to me, it came with a scrap that had been heavily stitched.

Happy little bucket!

And I totally ignored the advice and proceeded to get very grumpy every time this happens.  Because who can resist the awesomeness of an automatic thread cutter.  It just sounds so efficient, until the un-threading happens.

I know, dark picture, but I sew in the dungeon basement.

Then I happened to come upon a post from Just a Bit Frayed (who talked about this post) that pretty much had the same advice as my grandmother, but with a twist.  Instead of just a bunch of scraps to run through the machine, keep a bunch of squares by your machine.

Light-ish and dark square, ready to be sewn together!

So now I have a happy little bucket of 2.5" squares.  Once I'm done sewing a seam, I just run a pair of these through.  I'm trying to match a light with a dark square, but I'm not that particular, and I sometimes just grab the two at the top of the bucket.

See my tiny stack of sewn pairs?  They're making friends with my flannel, oil, and thread.  

When you've got a bunch of pairs, you start sewing them into fours, then eights, and eventually you've got a decent sized block.  I haven't decided whether to make a completely scrappy patchwork, or to do an Irish Chain, but there's plenty of time to figure it out.

Not enough! Must keep sewing!

Linking up with Flamingo Toes!

 

Toga Dress

This is my first quick finish for Kids' Clothes Week (yeah, it was last week, but it's the thought that counts).  It was a super easy dress that I sort of just made up on the fly.   This time, KCW kind of snuck up on me, so I wasn't all prepared with a stack of fabric and patterns.  Luckily, I do have a pile of clothes that I've culled from my wardrobe to be used for fabric.

So I pulled out this spaghetti strap top with a shelf bra (neither of those things should be in my wardrobe) to make a summer toga dress. 

After cutting out the shelf bra, I put the tank top on Dell, then marked where I wanted the gathered waist to hit.  It ended up being about 8.5 inches from the bottom.  I also made sure that I would have a couple inches of extra length so that there would be a bit of bagginess above the gather.

Then I put the side seams together and flattened out the shirt so that the folds of the shirt would now be down the center of the front and back.  I used a tank top that fit well to trace out the top of the shirt, giving myself an extra half inch for the seam allowance.  I also made sure that the line from the armpit would flow into the current seams of the shirt.  

 

The shelf bra provided the extra material to make trim for the neckline, facings, and straps.  After cutting the original side seams, I cut 1" strips across both pieces of material. 

For the armholes, I ironed two of the strips in half with the wrong sides together.  I then sewed it to the right side of the armhole using a scant 1/4" seam.  You have to give it a little stretch to ease it around the curve. 

Then I trimmed the excess, folded it over and topstitched it to the wrong side of the fabric.

 

For the neckline, I did the same process but in reverse, so you sew the strip to the wrong side of the fabric, and topstitch it to the right side.  For the edges, fold under the very end of the fabric before you fold and pin it down. Pinning the ends will really help make sure it stays in place.
 

To make the straps, I took three of the 1" strip and cut them in half, so they were about 7.5" long. I then pinned three of these strips together at the end and braided them. I tacked the ends so they wouldn't come apart.
 

Then I stitched them to the top of the dress, making sure they measured 4" across the shoulder.  I just stitched over the line of stitches that were already there and then hand sewed the very top to the strap so it wouldn't flop over. 

To gather the waist, I salvaged the elastic from the shelf bra. I wrapped it tight around my little's, making sure I could still fit a couple fingers in between her and the band. I added a half inch for overlap and stitched the ends together securely. 

Then I pinned the elastic evenly to the inside of the dress along the line I'd marked earlier. I just pinned it at the sides and the middle of the front and back. Then I sewed it down, making sure that the elastic was stretched from front and back of the needle and the fabric of the dress lay flat. Because the elastic was wide enough, I did two rows of stitches. 

Trim the threads, and finished!