My Sewing and Quilting Adventures

I am really excited to announce that I will be hosting Quilting Boot camp right here on this blog for 2013. Just a little background about me. I got into quilting when I was pregnant with my second baby (my son) the summer of 2011. I made 2 baby quilts, a car seat and a stroller cover in 2011. And got totally hooked into quilting. In 2012 I have spent accumulating 100s of yards of fabric dreaming of turning them into quilts. I have so many ideas and techniques which I want to try out and share my experience. I want to put my thoughts into action and wanted to start this boot camp. If you're like me eager to make lots of lots of quilts (at least 12 quilts in 2013) or want to get into quilting this boot camp is perfect for you. The only requirement is that you should be able to stitch a straight line or come up to speed on your sewing skills. Just to take the pressure off of making 12 quilts in this new year. There is no size limits for your quilted projects. You choose th...

This weeks we're finishing up our wholecloth quilt. The task was to soak the quilt, block it and then trim & bind. First, I was thinking of skipping the soaking and boxing step. Personally being a novice quilter I was happy with my wholecloth quilt as is. So, thought why not just trim and bind. I had sparingly used homemade starch and the disappearing ink pen. So, didn't feel that I wanted to do these steps and left a message at Leah's blog for her input. Since, I didn't get a feedback and didn't want to be rebel and followed those two steps too :-). I used the same fabric for my binding. I usually cut my binding strips at 2.5inches and did the same for this project too. Again, the fabric I used was "Pearl Pink Kona Solid". Here is a picture of my blocking the quilt: Blocking the Wholecloth Quilt Here is the picture of the quilt after I trimmed it and machine stitched the binding from the back: Binding - before joining the ends  I use...

This week's task was micro-stippling around the heart and feather motifs. I have to say micro-stippling was really fun. I actually started by working on a practice sandwich before doing my "Heart & Feather" wholecloth quilt. The practice quilt I started by outlining the motif in the center and then quilted in circles instead of rows and followed the same for each flower as I got closer to it. This was just a practice one so I goofed a little around the flower ;). Here are pictures of my practice quilt: Practice quilt Front Practice quilt back Last week Danielle had suggested that I try hair-dryer to get the markings out of my quilt. I did try this method and I had to setup my dryer at hot with medium speed. The markings did go away but some of the lines then came back after it  cooled off. So, I went back to those lines with tip of my iron. So, I am thinking that not just the heat but little bit friction is also required for the markings to disappear f...

This is was the task to quilt the outline of the design on the Wholecloth. First it does seem like a easy task but it does take time and patience to travel stitch on the design. I'm not even sure how good or bad I'm with it. Would like to see your comments on how I'm doing good or bad, I want to hear both. So that I will have space to learn and grow. Thanks to Leah for the insight into the color of thread to be used. Since, I choose a light color fabric(pale pink Kona solid)  I didn't want to go with a dark color thread. So, I choose to use matching color thread for quilting. I do like the way it turned out.  I didn't want to break the thread too often so from the sqaures to the other hearts and feather I continue without breaking thread and filled out the hearts with micro-stippling. I still left out the inner hearts and the surrounding area since I wanted to see how Leah would tackle the micro-stippling. Can't wait for this Wednesday. Here is the picture ...

This week was a good break from big quilts. For the wholecloth quilt I choose Kona Solid pale pink cotton fabric, since I did not have any light box and wanted the marking process to be easy. I taped my pattern to the cutting mat and then taped my fabric too. The Frixion pen was actually helpful and quick to mark. But looks like lot of different reviews about these. Here is a picture of my quilt all marked: Wholecloth Quilt marked Homemade Starch: I didn't get a chance to go to Joann fabrics to get some starch. So, decided to make it myself. In India, we wear lot of cotton material due to the hot weather where I grew up. So, we starch our clothes for a nice stiffness. I boiled some rice with lot of water and then filtered it out. Added some more water to dilute the starch and soaked the per-washed fabric.  Right away, ironed the fabric it and nice and stiff but not too stiff. I still need to play with the stiffness. Will have to see how my project turns out after quilti...

Here is the sneak peak of the quilt I finished for Week 8 of Quilt along. All bound and ready to be used Quilt back So, this week looks like the task is to maneuver your quilt in your sewing work space efficiently. So, I thought this would be the perfect time to share my workroom. I'm literally a closet quilter. Why I have this arrangement? I share the space with my kids, they use it as their playroom and its also my sewing room. So, I tuck all my sewing machine and other stuff which I don't want them to get into, to the closet. If the baby wakes up in the middle of my quilting. I can just close my closet and run to him :-). For now, no complains I love this arrangement. My studio(actually my closet LOL)  This week I got very ambitious and started piecing a queen size quilt with saw-tooth-star block. I'm not in love with my center block though. It took me a long time to make up my mind about the type of block I wanted to try. I have been using the flying-ge...

This week's task was very interesting. Even though I didn't get into quilting too long ago. I already have many UFO's. To the matter of fact my very first pieced quilt was never finished. I had used a charm pack to piece the quilt with 6 rows and 6 columns. The past weekend I added an additional row and two borders. The first one is 2.5" width and 2nd one is 5.5inch width. Here is the picture of the quilt top all finished. Pieced Quilt Top This is the black fabric I going was originally going to use for my backing. But I didn't have enough fabric to do so. I guess when I bought these fabrics I didn't have any idea about how much fabric would be required for the backing, borders etc. Any way I might plan to make another quilt just like this. Or use this black fabric as the center for a different quilt. I love the flowers and have been tempted to just quilt around them and make them pop on my Quilt top. I will definitely do a post on this if I do an...

This week was really busy for me. I didn't get much time on the sewing machine. The baby was sick(had an allergic reaction and had rashes all over his face) and didn't get much sleep. I'm glad he is finally feeling better. But I did manage to get the quilted pieces to be bound together yesterday. I was also able to do the binding for my quilts/wall-hanging from previous week: Butterfly quilt with binding on Sawtooth Star Wall Hanging Here are some of the pictures as I'm making progress with putting the quilted pieces together: Showing the back binding holding the quilted pieces together Front binding  Since this was my first try it was hard to get a perfect 1/4 inch seam on the back binding. I noticed that I had stitched generous 1/4inch seam in the middle of the pieces. But I was able to hide it because I hand bound the pieces. Like Leah mentioned in her post, the hand binding finish does look beautiful.  Hand Binding on the back of the Quilted ...

Thursday  Feb 9th I was so glad to see Leah blog this week. A big sigh of relief that I won't be getting myself into piecing more quilts. I can just focus all my energy into finishing up the two quilts which I started for Week 4 and Week 5. This is really fun, I wish I had more time to piece more quilts. Sometimes I feel I get hung up on small details and may be trying to be a perfectionist. Which is sometimes hard on my self. Okay, lets talk about more stippling now. I feel I don't have control over my stippling. Actually looks like it always takes a life of its own. So, I would like to go back and practice Week 1's Wiggle Along to get a hold of the basic shapes for stippling. I am using 1/2inch scale, so that I can quilt my butterfly quilt with this. Hoping this practice is going to help with my butterfly quilt. Here is my new changing pad :-): Practicing on 1/2 inch scale stippling Wednesday Feb 15th This was a very challenging and intense week for me tr...