Red Bordered Wonky Blocks

I finished up this top the other night. It is meant to be wonky, and bright, and a little bit of everything. I really really like it, and these are fun blocks to make, time consuming, but really fun. They ended up being about 15" once I sqauared them up. I found the key to making my blocks unintentionally wonky is by cutting my strips with scissors, that way they are never perfectly straight. I'm just now pulling my backing fabric out of the wash, so hopefully I can start quilting this tonight!

Puzzle Pockets

I never know what to do with puzzle pieces. You can't just throw the puzzle in the toy box because all of the pieces will get lost, and all of the pieces get all mixed up, it drives me crazy. So today I made pockets on the backs of my puzzles, easy and best of all the puzzle pieces stay right in the back and not scattered in toy box. And my son loves putting them in and taking them out. They are easy to make, cut a fleece square (or whatever fabric you want) the size you want, cut out a flap, sew on velcro, and hot glue it in place on your puzzle back. Just make sure you make the opening narrower than the bottom of the pocket, so that it leaves some room for stuffing in the pieces. :)

Valentine-ish

Its starting to look very Valentines Day-ish around here. My husband hates Valentines day, and I love love love it, so I'm attempting to keep my Valentines Day enthusiasm at bay, sort of. One of my favorite things about Valentines Day is all the crafts and cards and fun treats I see popping up all over tv, magazines and blog-land. Here are a few I'm wanting to try:

cute little heart pins from the purl bee
leather knot bracelets
crayon hearts
paper heart garland
a valentines table topper patterned like this one
and some hand sewn valentine cards, i'll make those ones up myself. :)

Confetti Mini Quilt

This little mini quilt has been on my mind since seeing it on crazymomquilts.
It was tricky to piece, none of the pieces fit together, and none of them were exactly the same size, but after some snipping and adding, I really like the way it turned out. I quilted around each color block so they kind of pop out. I think I'll hang it on the wall, it adds just enough color without being the first thing you see. The tutorial is here if you want to make it yourself.
I especially like all of the colors in it, it should match new sprinkling of goldfish crackers all over my rug. :)

big scrappy mess

I've had this big mess on my sewing table for five days or so. Its starting to get to me, as I tend to like things all cleaned up. But, I am letting myself try some improv, and making some wonky blocks with scraps and strips. I have been wanting to make a wonky log cabin quilt, using only a few colors, so that's what I'm attempting. I think it will be a lap quilt.

This is the least "wonky" of the bunch. And of course its the one I like the best, go figure. :) I got my library sewing books and read, I found a couple of fun projects, one amazing quilt out of a Kaffe Fasset book, and a couple of quick kitchen projects from the Amy Butler In Stitches book, which I would highly recommend by the way. I loved the pictures and projects in Seams To Me, by Anna Marie Horner, but I didn't find any projects that were calling my name just yet. Have a great Tuesday and Happy Sewing!

From the library.

I discovered our library yesterday. I found some great sewing books, and even managed to get some books and movies for my son. :) I even went back yesterday and picked up the new Amy Butler book and checked out a few more quilt books. Have you checked out your library? You might just be pleasantly surprised to see what they have. I sure was. :) Hope you all have a great weekend! -Allison

ps. I had some questions about how I got my quilting lines so straight on the Little Cars Coin quilt. I have a nifty bar ( I'm blanking on the real name of it?) that attaches to my Bernina Walking Foot so you can follow the lines. There is a picture of my using it on this post.

I love this quilt.

I really really love this one. I would make another one right now if I had the time! I checked out some great quilting books at my library yesterday, and I think I found my next project. Now I can't stop thinking about it of course, and what it will look like/how I'll quilt it and all that total nonsense that keeps me awake at night. :) Hope you all have a great Thursday, don't you just love Thursdays? Its definitely my favorite day of the week.

Coin Quilt Top

I love Coin Quilts, and I just couldn't help myself to make one with that cute car fabric and some good old Katie Jump Rope fabric. I have lots of started projects that I need to finish, but I always find new projects to start, new quilt tops to make, and cute new fabric I want to use. So here's another one, a NEW project to finish, when I should be working on OLD projects. :)

Next I want to make a little wall hanging quilt for my living room, maybe something like this? It can't be too girly though, my poor husband lives in a house full of quilts, throw pillows galore, country living and Martha magazines in every reading spot, even fabric framed on our walls!!! Poor guy, he never complains, but I think a more manly redo is in order. After I make my girly wall hanging that is. :)

Girly Squares

I love this quilt. If I had a girl I would keep it. The different fabrics are so much fun, they are all my favorites! The back is an aqua mini print with a rose colored striped binding.

Valentines pillow cover

Valentines pillow cover, originally uploaded by cluckclucksew.

I LOVE this brown heart fabric, especially since it has orange in it, and we all know how much I love orange. :) I hope your all having a happy holiday!

Cars on a Road

Cars on a Road, originally uploaded by cluckclucksew.

This one is staying at my house. :) My little guy loves the car fabric!

Camera Strap Cover Tutorial

These are really easy, and make a great gift. They fit any standard DSLR camera strap, (Canon/Nikon) my strap is about 2" wide. I made mine two sided, but if you wanted just one fabric like the one above, just make one strip about 5.5" wide.

1. Cut two strips 2.75" by 27" long.

2. Sew the strips right sides together, then press seam open.

3. I made mine padded with Pellon fusible light fleece interfacing. You need about 5.5"by 27". This is optional of course, I like the feel of the padding, but you can skip this step if you don't mind the hard strap. Iron on the fusible interfacing according to directions, and trim excess.

4. Fold one end in about one inch, and then again over one inch to hide the seam and make a clean finish.

5. Sew edge down for a clean finish, I sewed three lines, 1/4" apart so the ends will be more sturdy and it looks more polished. 6. Do the same thing on the other end, the finished strap after the ends are finished will be about 23" long. 7. Sew right sides together with a 1/4" seam allowance. If you think the finished cover will be too big for your strap, you can make a wider seam allowance to make the cover thinner. Keep in mind you want the cover about half an inch or so bigger than the strap, so its easy to slide on and off. 8. trim the inside edge seam allowance, it makes more room to slide the strap in and out. 9. Turn inside out (the hardest part) and iron and your done! Slide in your camera strap and viola!

Finally finished

I think this is the longest I've ever taken to complete a quilt, but its finally all quilted, bound and washed. I used Warm and Bond batting with this, I really really liked it! The difference between this and warm and natural is it is a little rough on both sides, so it stays put really well without basting too much. And it crinkled really nicely after washing. This one is going on my couch, but now I need to make pillow covers that match.......there's always something else to make. :)

Orange Quilt Dimensions

( post edit: go here for a much easier, quicker way to make these blocks.)

Seeing as how I'm making this quilt pattern again, I figured I should share the dimensions of it as I go in case you want to make your own!

Cut five pieces: square 4 1/2"
2 rectangles 2 1/2 by 4 1/2"
2 rectangles 2 1/2 by 8 1/2"

Sew 4 1/2" rectangles to block, iron. This is a great and fast pattern for chain piecing!

Sew long rectangles to top and bottom and iron.

The final block is 8 1/2".
(my final blocks end up more like 8 1/4 or so, I don't square them up, I just eyeball it as I sew them together. I make sure all of middle pieces, the 4 1/2" pieces fit together perfectly instead. If that makes sense? It also makes for a bigger quilt top)

To make the orange and white quilt I made it 8 blocks acrossed and 9 blocks down, so 72 blocks total. 36 white border blocks, and 36 orange bordered blocks. ( 36 white squares, 36 sets of white strips, 36 orange squares, 36 orange sets of strips) It made it about 62" by 68". For my sons twin quilt, I am making it 8 blocks by 12 blocks, which will make it a perfect twin size. The twin sized quilt with this pattern takes roughly 6 1/2 yards or so of fabric. Happy Sewing!

Color Block

Again....this is what I do instead of doing what I should be doing. That's a tongue twister. I had the idea of doing this while sitting on my sons floor for an hour waiting for him to fall asleep. :) This is big, about 31 inches square I think. I might make it into a quilt top, but I'm really enjoying it on my wall for now.

distracted, again.

Instead of basting and quilting this quilt i started back in December, I made these blocks with my cars on the road fabric instead. I love this fabric. It matches so many of my bright colored fabrics so well. I will probably put sashing around these, maybe light blue? Or light yellow? Lately I've been very good at starting new quilts........but not so good at finishing them. I'm usually a one project at a time person, but maybe not anymore!

Peanut.

Made by my Mom from the Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts book. I got her the book for Christmas, I think I looked at it about 20 times, it has great projects and super beautiful pictures to look at! Luckily now that she's figured out pattern she can help me make them, wouldn't these be fun baby gifts?

Finished Baby Quilts...the 1st of '09!

I finished the binding on these baby quilts last night, and after a
quick run in the washer/dryer they are perfectly crinkly and soft! I
LOVE how each one turned out, the walking foot was worked so well on
the quilting and bindings. I chose to stipple the second pink quilt,
and I love the way it turned out with the blocks. We are snowed in today, with 7 new inches of snow and counting. Luckily I have lots of fabric and lots of projects I want to do!

Don't you LOVE this fabric? Its Daisy Chain by Amy Butler, I got this yard for $5 in Amish Country, gotta love that!

Playing catch up

I'm finally starting to get some sewing done after a LONG few days! We came back to Cleveland after a month in Seattle, and I was (am) sick sick sick with a bad cold! So tonight instead of laying in bed I decided to try out my new Christmas present, a new Bernina walking foot. After quilting this baby quilt in under 30 minutes with not a pucker in sight, I'm officially in love with it. I love free motion quilting, but its really nice to be able to straight stitch quilt with no puckering! So now I have one quilted and three more to go, plus this stack of fabric waiting for me to cut it up into my next quilt...a twin sized quilt for my baby's big boy bed. (sob sob)

Scrappy Block

Tonight my family went to a movie while I dove into my Mom's huge scrap pile and made these wonky blocks. I think I'll make a really simple baby quilt with these all by themselves. Hope everyone had a Happy New Years Day, I can't believe tomorrow is January 2nd!!