Hip to be a Square - Episode 32

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A non-quilty treat this week! I talk about refinishing and reupholstering furniture to save money. Pictures and shownotes on the blog at http://www.hiptobeasquarepodcast.com

• This is the reupholstery tool I mentioned; the staple lifter is midway down the page
• Bartley's Gel Varnish is my preferred finishing coat.

Here's a picture of how I mark up fabric when I'm reupholstering a chair - note the up arrow at the top, the number, and I even indicated Left/Right (I've also marked Front/Back when marking up a side piece).

And here's the finished chair, with my daughter sitting in it.

Here's the Denim Marshmallow:

And here's the refinished game table in our living room now:

Hip to be a Square - Episode 31

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I talk about finishing my Layer Cake Quilt Along quilt, as well as some upcoming projects.

Also? Who's got two thumbs and forgot to talk about feedback? THIS GAL.  Oops - sorry guys, and thanks for all your comments!

• Info about Cindy's community quilt
• Pictures of my finished Layer Cake quilt

Groovy Cake

I finished the Layer Cake Quilt! Here it is in all it's quilted, pre-washed glory. Thus, it is a magnet for lint and cat hair.

I did custom quilting within each block, and straight line in the sashing.  The borders got the ol' stipple treatment.  On the back (Now With Even More Lint!), you can see better the individual quilting within each block. And my picnic table.

When I was trying to figure out how to quilt these blocks, I looked at the fabric design for inspiration.  There were these groovy 70's flowers and colors, so I picked one of those for a free motion motif.  It worked well in the basket block, which was originally not one of my favorites. Ditto with the Spires block (on the left down there) - the quilting made the block for me.

 

I still need to label it and wash/dry it, but the binding is done! It'll be hanging up in Tiny Stitches sometime in June - I'm not sure of the timeframe yet, but I submitted it for their customer quilt show.

What 1,332 Cut Pieces of Fabric Look Like

I spent yesterday and today cutting bits for Pineapple paper pieced blocks for my mom's Aloha Quilt (her fabric is the tropical print at the top, formerly her kitchen curtains).

The quilt will have thirty-six 9" paper pieced blocks plus borders. Each block will have 10 different fabrics (fabric stack 1 is under stack 9 - same Kona Sand solid). That 36 x 4 x 9 "logs" + 36 centers = 1,332 pieces of fabric.

After I got it all cut and lined up prettily, Zoom jumped up on the cutting table and sat with her butt in the middle of the paper pattern. Fortunately she got bored before flicking her tail and scattering them to the wind and left them unscathed.

Hip to be a Square - Episode 30

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It's finish my small projects week! I made some bags, Kindle covers, and other assorted "stuff". Quilt long and prosper!

• Quilter in the Gap - Rhonda's new podcast
• Katie's Quilting Survey
• Fandom in Stitches 
• Pictures of the Kindle covers I made

Kindle Covers

For Mother's Day, I got a Kindle, so of course I had to make some covers and fanciness to go along with it.  Here is the first one I made (a simple envelope style):

Zoom is a Helper Cat!

And here is the front of the second one.

I got one of these lights to go with the Kindle in case I wanted to read in bed, so it slides into a small pocket I sewed in behind where the Kindle is.

I used covered 1/4" elastic to hold it in place at the top, and plain 3/4" elastic at the bottom so I could get to the buttons without extra bulk. I didn't use a tutorial for this - just sort of winged it. The cover is held rigid by some mat board cut to size.

The brown thing on the left is a notepad cover using Erin Compton's tutorial that holds a mini-legal pad (5x8").  I take lots of notes and always have paper handy for the kids to draw on if we're stuck waiting somewhere.

My (Actual) Favorite Bag

Second verse, better than the first! (don't forget the British accent: Hen-er-ree!) Since I finished up the top I needed to get off to the LAQ (the short-hand for Long Arm Quilter), I had some time to work on projects for ME! My own little Mother's Day present to myself, so I made my bag from the "My Favorite Bag" pattern by Kati Cupcake.

I have a problem taking myself seriously when I go outside to photography things. I immediately think, "Outside is icky - why am I taking my nice stuff out here? Stupid nature." But I need to take better photos, and my camera isn't nice enough to do flash-less indoor pics without blurriness.


The prints come from a fat quarter bundle of "Tea Garden" by Dena Designs I got from fabric.com. Since it was 23 fat quarters for $8.98, I thought perhaps it was a pricing error, but the order shipped without a problem. I'm guessing it was a pricing error, since that's the current price for a yard of fabric in the line. Oh well, that deal's not there anymore, though, so I guess they caught on to it.

For this version of the bag, I used fusible fleece as recommended on the bag exterior and handles, but used Pellon Decor Bond for the interior and inside pockets to give it body. Honestly, as comfortable as the fleece is to carry around, it does add a lot of bulk and weight, so the Decor Bond gives it structure without weight.  I also had more of that laying around than I did the fusible fleece.

Since I was using fat quarters, the prints are slightly different on either side.  I used Kona Medium Grey for the top part, and Kona Chocolate for the bottom. The interior pockets are a goldish print I had in my stash.

Amazingly the grommets went in much easier than the previous set.  I attribute that mostly to the fusible fleece rather than the fused cotton batting I used in my MIL's bag, as the fleece can condense inside the grommet but the batting does not.

Many of the other fat quarters are in pinks or reds, but there are a couple other blue/grey/gold prints that I'll use to make some accessories like a zippered pouch, and I've already made a cover for my new Kindle (Happy Mother's Day to me - again!) but I might need to rejigger it as it's a smidge wonky.

Saturday Sampler Block 5

Saturday Sampler Block 5
Originally uploaded by Pantsfreesia

It's a barn! With a cat, of course. I almost wanted to put a cat up on the roof where I couldn't quite get the points to match, but I figured I'd need to quilt in a pantload of tuna inside the silo to explain why the cat was on the roof.

Then again, who can explain why a cat does anything?

Hip to be a Square - Episode 29

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I talk about finishing the Patch Quilt in honor of my Grama, and working on the next quilt top. Happy Mother's Day!

Below is the slideshow for the Patch Quilt.  The blocks came from Quilt Dad's quilt along using block 3 by Amanda Sasikirana.