Scrappy Triangles Quilt

On my design wall....is a quilt for my Aunt Grier.  I wanted to make her a throw quilt for her solid colored couch to match the chairs in the room.  Below is the fabric on her chairs, I got a sample from Calico Corners.  I used the sample to match a color scheme.  She has no idea I have her chair fabric!  She will be surprised.  

Aunt Grier, Aunt Beth and myself

I have these pictures from Thanksgiving, see the chairs?

I just love this solid gray couch, I am hoping the quilt

will go on the couch. 

She lives on the water in Annapolis Maryland so my thoughts were to make her a Nautical quilt.  I came up with these scrappy triangles because I thought it I could make it look like sails. 

Her backyard view

I have added some rope like embellishments on top of some of the sails.  It is actually shoe laces! 

My backing: 

My threads - my plan is to do some embellishing with this thread and then to hand quilt it.  

Thanks to a tutorial from FITF: scrappy triangles - a nautical quilt.  She did a great job helping me come up with the idea.  Go here to see her tutorial!  

I still have more work to do, but thought I would show you my progress.  Have a great week everyone! 

Wool Quilt progress

Sarah's College Graduation Gift

A quilt to remind her of a semester abroad in Mexico.  Below is a picture she took while studying abroad.  It is a window grill.  As soon as I saw this picture, I knew I had to turn it into a quilt.  She has no idea that I am busy trying to complete this by May for her college graduation.  She attends Peace College in Raleigh NC and will be graduating with a Forensic Anthropology Bachelors of Science Degree!  We are so proud of her!

Our Sarah

How did I do it?  I took the picture and photoshoped it.  I cut out the color and then sent it to Kinko's and had it blown up to poster size.  Now it's 25" by 44".  See below my template that I use to cut out my quilt pieces.  I decided to make a wool applique quilt, my first.  So hopefully I can do this. 

 

This is the picture made black and white.

I had two posters printed, just in case.

Traced onto wax paper and ironed onto my wool as a template. 

Showing some of my pieces,

cut from freezer paper and used multiple times.

This is the color scheme I was going for, she loves

turquoise and coral!  

turquoise and coral of my colors for this quilt.  

My plan is to use the turquoise dyed felted wool of various fabrics as the wrought iron window grill on a background of cream wool.  Then border with this wonderful coral fabric from Michael Miller's collection Ooh La La and I am using the Spice Palates.  The fabric above will be part of the backing as well. 

See this wonderful print on

Hawthorne Threads!

Coeur De Fleurs in Coral 

Turquoise wool from Sue Spargo. com

More turquoise wool from quiltingacres on Etsy.

So, I am excited about the progress

and I am

having fun creating!

Steph

 

February Quilting Class

Allie, Nikole, Jamie and Alice

Fun once again.  Our group was a little smaller this week with only 14 ladies, made up of my fellow nurses that I work with at The Johns Hopkins NICU.  I was very happy to teach again.  This was my second class teaching this group.  I can't believe there are this many who wanted to learn how to sew.  Very happy to share my knowledge and my reward is passing on the love of quilting.  I forgot to pics of show and tell.  Next month, I promise to share their accomplishments.  

Dianne and Alice 

Meg, Eileen and Sue

 Shanny, Nicole and Rebecca

Sarah and her Grandmom!

This week I decided to show everyone how to make my designer trash cans.  We didn't finish so they had to take them home to complete.  

Tutorial for how to make this, go here!

Once again, thanks to Seminole Sampler Quilt Shop in Catonsville, MD for letting us their space at no charge!  The Johns Hopkins NICU nurses appreciate your kindness!

Tee Shirt Tutorial

Tee Shirt Quilt 

A friend at work wanted my mom to make her a tee shirt quilt and gave her these tees.  Unfortunately, mom never got a chance to complete it before passing away in July.  I knew I had to finish it for her.  Tee shirt quilts are my least favorite quilts and I knew if I was going to do it, it had to be interesting or I would be miserable making it.  I decided to use the colors of the tee shirts, see below.  I bought bright primary colors to compliment the tees.  Below is a tutorial if any of you happen to have a bunch of tees you have saved and are ready to do something with them.  Hope you enjoy the tutorial, let me know if you have any questions!  

~~~Stephanie~~~

Tee Shirt Quilt Tutorial 

Supplies:

1. tee shirts 
2. fabrics of varied colors, I used 10 different fabrics (8 fat quarters and 2 fabrics measuring 1/2 yd).
3. Pellon 821 Quilter's Grid or any type of one sided iron-on interfacing, thin or light weight.  
4. thread to match your fabric, I used yellow, blue, red and white (white in my bobbin)

Pellon 821 Quilter's Grid

is what I used to back the tee shirts, it worked great!

Directions:

• Cut out the designs from the tee shirts that you want to use in the quilt.  I cut out each design roughly and left as much fabric around the design as possible.  I used designs from the front and back of the tee shirt and from the pockets.   

• Trim the designs down leaving about 2 inches around each design using a rotary cutter and ruler.  You will notice that the fabric rolls.  This is why you have to put a stabilizer onto the back of the tee shirt designs that you want to include into the quilt.  

• Cut a piece of Pellon just smaller than the tee shirt design.

• Iron the Pellon onto the back of your designs using a pressing cloth.  I use a piece of an old sheet.  

• Trim the tee shirts down to the size you want them, leaving ample room around for seam allowances.  I only cut off enough to make the similar sizes.  All the small ones I cut to the same width and the larger ones I cut them down to 2 inches around the design on all sides.  

• Plan your design.  I played around with them before settling on the final layout.  
• I cut strips of fabric to go around all the big squares.  Each strip was cut 3.5 inches wide.  
• I then sewed the strips around the big squares and then layed on the design wall to see how they would look.  
• I then pieced the squares together by centering the squares and trimming off any extra strips that were bigger than the rest.  
• In the center square, I decided to put all the small designs together.  

• Quilt it anyway you like.  I did a simple stitch in the ditch to protect the tee shirts.  I didn't want any quilting to interfere with the words on the tee shirts.  

• I used all the left over fabric and pieced it to make the back and the binding.  

 the finished quilt 

 I love a folded quilt! 

And the winner is....

Kristy  from N.S.W. Australia

Her blog is "Cooking, craft and kids"

She is the winner of my cute little needle book blogged about here

Congrats to Cindy and thanks to everyone who entered.  

Come back to visit again soon for another giveaway!  

Steph

True Random Generator: 21

Giveaway!

Needle book giveaway!

Hi everyone, made this cute little needle book for a class I taught last week and would like to put it up for giveaway!  Simple to win.  You have up to 3 chances to win! Reply back with a comment for each entry: 

1. Comment that you are a follower or have started to follow me

2. Comment that you blogged about this post (show me link of your post in the comment)

3. Comment that you Repinned on Pinterest (show me the Pinterest link in the comment)

Needle pages, red felt

Back of needle book

Good luck!  Winner will be selected using Random.org's true random number generator. Contest ends in one week, next Sunday Jan 22, 2012