Auto Fabric Baby Boy Quilt

ANDOVER sent me this great fabric called "Auto" to make a baby quilt with. My five year old son loves it. He is the unfortunate recipient of a lot of girl hand me downs...but that is another story.

 

Here is a picture I took while I was sewing! I used my "Borderline Crazy" quilt pattern.

Laying out the rows. Above the picture I have a few blocks made up from ideas I am working on. Crowded sewing room!!

    

 



 

Below is the finished product. I especially like the orange and green. The designs on the fabrics are cute too.....little cars, road signs, different and interesting strips and polka dots. I quilted it with straight lines and squares. It is an easy allover design. The thread is a variegated. It looks great against the black backing. Not kind to little mistakes though, so beware!!

 

Finished quilt made with Auto Fabric from Andover and the pattern "Borderline Crazy" by Sweet Jane (me!)

 

Making a quilted bag

Well, I see that I haven't posted anything on here in ONE YEAR! That is pretty bad. I vow to be better! Maybe just six months will go by between blog posts now...

Seriously....I have been working on my first bag pattern. I went through a semi painful learning curve several months ago and just looked at a bunch of tutorials for checkbook covers, pouches and eventually tote bags. Nothing with a zipper. I went a little crazy using up scraps.

Now I have no idea what to do with all of these!



I branched out with curved and multiple pockets.

 

I have a friend, Jessica Vanderburgh, who is a bag designer, and I looked at a few of her patterns for your basic measurements and such.

 



 For anyone who is familiar with my designs, I design patchwork quilts with precuts. So, I wanted to design a patchwork bag using precut fabrics (and write a pattern for it). I added an optional zipper pocket to the directions for those who want a zipper. It turns out putting in a zipper pocket is so easy!

The above picture is my bag with Shades of Black Fabric by Me & My Sister by Moda. Those are all of the ingredients plus the medium weight interfacing (which is already ironed onto the back of the lining and straps).

Here is the bag all made up.

 

This bag is made with just one charm pack from Hoffman Batik fabric.

This is the pattern cover with all 4 bags. Comma fabric, Hoffman Batik, Shades of Black & Juggling Summer.

I made 4 bags. The one with the Comma fabric I took to quilt market with me. I am sure the only reason I got the bag DONE was because I had a looming deadline. I am very stuck in my ways and I tend to put off learning new techniques, so the bag was very different for me and the zipper was also a big deal for me!

I used just one charm pack for each bag for the outer body of the bag. I LOVE precut fabric and this is a perfect example of why. You get this fantastic variety of colors and prints for the price of one Charm Pack. Pretty awesome. This would be a great project for someone with a decent stash as well. You just need 32 squares 5" x 5" and you may be able to use your stash for the lining and handles and bottom fabrics.

I am naming this pattern "Teacher's Pet" because I am making one for each of my kids teachers and I will give it to them for an end of the year present. I am pretty excited about that, they will be really happy and they are all such wonderful teachers!

Good luck to you! Maybe it is your turn to try something new??

I was doing some experimenting with scraps. I like how this turned out, but I am going to tweek a few things before I put out the pattern. This line of fabric was s"Happy Daisey" by Chloe's Closet. Pretty...picnic colors!

I love using scraps to make up small quilts to try out new patterns. I had bought a fat quarter bundle of this line and there were a few FQs I didn't use much of. I sewed them together and found a few other scraps that matched, and I used them for the back. Fabric is so expensive now, if I can use my scraps to make a back, I always do. It is well worth the extra time.

I have finally gotten good at putting my binding on with my sewing machine and not hand sewing it onto the back. Wow, I love it! I think it looks great too. It has to be better for baby blankets that get a lot of wear and tear and washed a lot. I have also been trying out some new quilting designs. This is one of my favorites. You don't have to mark the fabric and I think the wavy lines are pretty easy to repeat in parallel lines. Even if you make some "mistakes", when you take a step back and look at the completed quilt, it looks great.



I did some experimenting with my quilting. I like all of them but my favorite is in the picture below with the curvy lines. Now I just have to get the bindings on before Christmas!

I spent about an hour experimenting with some scraps. I have to make some "mug rugs" for our Modern Quilting Guild meeting.

I started by sewing some scraps together, then cutting them apart on an angle.

Then sewing them back together.

This idea below is one I have been wanting to try. When you sew the pieces back together, it is tricky getting the opposite sides to match up. I ended up sewing the strip on one side, and then trimming the ends of the strip to be flush with the block, then sewing the other side on.

Here are my results. It was fun, I definately learned a few things! I will have a few "mug rugs" to give out to my kids' teachers at Christmas time!!

I have to say, I get stuck in my ways. But, I am happy to announce, I have just started to ween myself off of Moda precuts. SLOWLY... I am writing a book for Martingale, and I want a variety of colors and fabrics in the quilts. The batiks are so rich and beautiful, I couldn't resist them. So far I made two quilts with the batiks, one with a layer cake and one with a jelly roll. The batiks are great because almost all of the fabrics contrast with white and/or cream, it makes my patterns even easier to make.

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