Summertime Sewing (..because that's what I do.)

Did I mention that I only work on my projects during summer and winter breaks? Okay, so it's been AWHILE since I posted my last blog, but at least it hasn't been an entire year yet. I meant to post the picture of the final product of the bear baby quilt, but I can't find the picture, (so just imagine it with white binding around the edge. Gorgeous right?)

Since Bear Quilt, I've moved on to a couple smaller, yet very important projects. First, my boyfriend, and my dad have been BUGGING me to make them black canvas center console covers for their vehicles. What am I? The new interior design lady from Ford? After making them wait about a year, I finally made my boyfriend's console cover. Turned out pretty damn nice too! The front of it curves, which is why I put it off for so long. It was too much of a challenge, and I tend to throw fits when I make things that don't turn out right. You should see the bikini bottoms I tried altering...my fit sent them on their way to the trash. :) oops. Moving away from that tangent, I couldn't bring myself to start something that I didn't quite understand how to make. The quilts that I make have no curves. But, I bought twice the amount of material, just in case, and I tackled the project. I finished it after Boyfriend's bedtime, snuck out of the apartment, slipped it (perfectly) onto his center console, and slipped into bed without waking him up. Needless to say, he drove to work in a good mood.

Yeah yeah, the picture of it will go up when I write the next post...it's in his truck right now, and he's at work, so you can wait.

My second project so far is a purse for me. (Dad's center console cover can wait a few days.) I chose a coffee cup print fabric since coffee is the one thing that makes me the happiest. That stuff makes me so freaking hyper...it's wonderful!

Here is the inside....look it has a zipper and everything! My excitement stems from the fact that I've never sewn a zipper on something before.

Side A:

Side B:
Look at the top. I'm adding metal-squar-y-things (yes, that's the name I've given them) for the handles.

My boyfriend told me I need to make more and sell them on Ebay. Pshhh! That involves making WAYYYY more than I'd like to (read as: it would take the enjoyment away), and I would have to sew year round. I'm a teacher now, so my free time at home goes towards reading books so I can tell my students about them and hopefully try to get the little know-it-alls to pick up a "boring" book one day. (Boring is their word, not mine.) So, mass production for Ebay selling is OUT of the question. I'm off to pick out fabric for my next quilt- a log cabin quilt to go on our bed. I'm thinking greens and whites (and off-whites).

Fixing the Boat

My mom bought my dad a 22-foot Bayliner Trophy cuddy cabin when he turned 40, about ten years ago. Boat Quest shows a few quality pictures of the same boat which includes the inside panels, which I will discuss soon. We took this boat for strolls down the river, in the inter coastal, and sometimes off the coast of Daytona. However, in nature of any material thing, it continues to live through the wear and tear process. Many times, the salt from the water slowly eats away at parts of the boat, especially the trailer, but the damage that Dad asked me to fix involved vinyl damage. The wood on the panels next to the driver and passenger seats rotted and the vinyl started tearing apart. They provide cushion for people in those seats to lean on and include mesh pockets to place small items in.

Dad is a master with wood work so he cut and sanded two replicas of the original panels. Next, he ordered thick foam sheets from Joann Fabrics made by Poly-Fil. This material, called NU-Foam, matched perfectly with our project because as the package confirms, it will not disinegrate or grow mildew, which makes it perfect for an outdoor product. He also bought dark blue vinyl to match the boat. The NU-Foam goes in between the vinyl and wood to add support. He needed me to sew on a half inch lip over the mesh, so we cut two inch wide strips, and I used a leather strength needle to stitch the vinyl and mesh face to face. Next, I needed medium binder clips. Staples sells these clips, and as you probably understand, their uses aren't limited to paper. (As a matter of fact, I use the large ones while pinning my quilts.) Anyhow, I folded the vinyl over and clipped it down at every 4-6 inch interval, and this process took two people, my boyfriend and me. He stretched the piece tight while I placed the clips onto it. I first started in the middle and worked my way to the edges to ensure the final product would look flat rather than pulled and rippled. When I began sewing, I made sure to sew over the front side by the bottom edge to guarantee a longer lasting piece. Each clip came off within an inch of going under the needle. The picture to the left shows a close up of the final result after sewing both sides. Take note of the back side of the vinyl showing through the mesh. We killed it...

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This view of the back side shows the excess vinyl that met its death by scissors-easy as cutting wrapping paper.
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Once we finished sewing the vinyl to the mesh, it came time to staple the vinyl to the wood. My job here ended, for my dad needed to take over. Caution: staple guns and me do not mix well; the noise from the gun releasing pressure to shoot the staple makes me jump. Hell, opening a Pillsbury dinner rolls container spazzes me out because the freaking cardboard pops apart! I look away every time. Needless to say, I stayed inside while Dad stapled the panel together in the garage, but I went out to see the finished panel.

The mesh pocket lays nice and smooth against the vinyl, and provides just enough room to fit the essentials for boating--sunblock, sunglasses, and of course cell phones. Unfortunately, I live a couple hours away from my parents, so I missed the opportunity to take pictures of these after Dad attached them in their proper places.

Hayley's Teddies

My last post gave a glimpse of the teddy bear quilt that I started for Hayley, and now, continues the piecing of these bears. When I originally bought all the fabric, I found prints that complimented the bear fabric, yet deciding where the different colors should go in the blocks almost killed me. I already decided on the quilt design before I drove to Joann Fabrics. The pattern is called "Gentleman's Fancy," but I don't understand why gentleman would fancy this, so do not ask me how it earned its name. :)>

The pictures below show a couple of ideas I played around with. I didn't sew the blocks, but I simply layed them out on the floor.

I absolutely loved the blue and white one. Unfortunately, I realized it needed some pink to make it girly and cute. I added the pink and green prints, and the green did not cut it with me because when it sat alongside the pink, all I could see were Christmas colors. Ugh. This is NOT supposed to be a Christmas quilt. So, I tried one more layout and...BAM...perfection happened.

This color scheme includes enough blue to fit in with the bear print, and plenty of pink to scream, "it's a girl." I began sewing the pieces together this January and took a hiatus during my final internship. Once my summer break began, I finished the quilt top in a few painful days. Why painful? Piecing triangles together sucks! Each triangle point must match up perfectly so they look professional, and so the quilt doesn't pucker when I sew on the batting and backing. To see what I mean, take a look at the close-up of the quilt:

Notice how most of the points of the triangles turned out fine. They have sharp points and make an excellent finish. However, I want to point out some of mistakes that torture me. Check out the white diamond at the top of this picture. Its left point did not come together correctly, and it created two small points as a result. Next, look at the bottom large white triangle that touches the bear square and the red triangle. The seam sewed along the red triangle mistakenly became wider than a quarter inch; therefore, its point turned out flat. Because these slip-ups happened, it caused a little bit of puckering, which you can see in the top left red and pink diamond. It looks wavy and won't lie flat because the of the material's distortion. Fortunately, those errors do not fatally ruin the quilt, and not many people notice small details, unless if they quilt themselves.

While researching other blogs that discuss similar problems, I came across a blog by Claire. She feels distressed because she places pins in her quilt every 4-6 inches, but after quilting a section, she turns it over and notices little tucks in the backing. I agree that situation used to stress me out, but I learned to add more pins, and clip the backing down taut at the edges of the table with large black clips. Some people who commented on her situation suggested changing directions of the pins, taping the quilts to the floor and using masking tape to keep them taut while pinning, and changing the type of batting. Everyone proposed different answers, so I concluded that it all depends on preference, but using several pins looked like a unanimous answer.

This quilt's size almost matches that of the ducky quilt....once I put the borders on.


The quilt's dimensions are 49"x49," whereas the ducky's are 50"x50."

After finishing the top, I moved to stage two of the process, and pinned the batting and backing to the quilt so none of it would shift while stitching all three layers together. Now that I quilted the layers together, the binding calls. I will sew white binding on with my Babylock machine, cut away the excess batting and backing that you can see in the picture, and fold the binding to the back side and hand-sew it all the way around the border. That way, the front side will show only a quarter inch binding width, as well as the back side.

Unfortunately, I need to finish my last three courses before I can complete this project. Only two more weeks of school; therefore, anticipate the final picture soon.

Rubber Ducky, you're the one!

Last year, I caught word that my cousin was having a baby! Of all people in my family, I never expected him to become a father, but life throws us surprises. What really shocked me though, happened six months later when his brother exclaimed that his fiancé is pregnant. He and I are practically the same age and I felt astounded at the fact of whoa...we are at that age of making babies and starting families! They live a couple states away and I visited them this past Thanksgiving with my parents. For the first time, I met my new baby cousins and fell in love with those little stinky diaper bundles of life.

Haley is the oldest and was already walking, with assistance from the baby walker-mobile, of course, but little Michael could only wiggle his fragile limbs and blink. He doesn't cry much, so I instantly liked him and teased my cousin that his next kid will be a screamer. He prays otherwise.

The grandma of those babies, my aunt, loves to shop, and if you took note of the time of year it happened to be--well, lets just say, my black Friday consisted of wayyyy more shopping than I ever want to endure again. Seriously, toys spoil kids today! I couldn't stop myself from playing with some of the colorful gadgets, along with my dad. Case and point (or is it point and case, I can never remember), check out the ToysRus website for 12-24 month old youngins. Specifically look at the Chatterbox Teaching Telephone because that toy looks pretty spiffy. Back to my original purpose, I spent much of my time during this shopping adventure talking to Michael's mother, (aka my cousin's fiancé), and learned first of all, that she fits in with our family, and second, that she loves duckies as much as I do. Yes, I say duckies and not ducks! Furthermore, she spastically ranted about how many ducky toys, decorations, and accessories she buys little Michael, and it sparked an idea for me...

I decided to run to Joann Fabrics as soon as possible when I drove back home. Thanksgiving time meant that winter break was soon to start, which provides me with plenty of time to start not just a ducky quilt for Michael, but a teddy bear one for Haley as well!

Here are the fabrics I chose for the two quilts:

I obviously made a few cuts before thinking about taking pictures...oops!

The ducky quilt, that I believe I'll name "Duckies in the Rain," is made from a pattern called "Broken Wheel." I recommend this quilt pattern to any quilter, novice or expert, because I enjoyed sewing the pieces together, and it turned into a fun and eye attracting quilt. Although, that could also have something to do with the bright colors. Despite its simplistic look, Lyn Brown states in her blog that this pattern "has some point matching challenges. When squaring up those corners, square in the square blocks, be sure you don’t lose your seam allowances beyond the points," and I would have to agree. Take a look at on of my finished blocks before I explain:

Notice the blue diamonds. Those corners have to match perfectly with the corners of the orange rectangles. Otherwise, the final product will fail to look crisp and neat. Moreover, while piecing two final ducky blocks together, I needed to pin the orange rectangle seams together in order for the pieces to line up perfectly. That way, the orange rectangles become squares and the yellow triangles connected to the blue diamonds also became diamonds.
I decided to add two borders, a yellow inside, and a thick, blue outside border to complete the top, and I believe it turned out freaking adorable!

After how pleased I was with the way this quilt turned out, I couldn't just sew any old patch on the back to write his name on. My solution--design my own. Drawing a ducky on the yellow material was a breeze, but the stitching part still forces questionable thoughts into my mind about whether or not I should cut out a bear for Haley's quilt. Only the curves caused me problems because the material didn't want to fold under properly. Nevertheless, if Michaels gets his duck, Haley shall see a bear on the back of her quilt.

The teddy bear quilt needs a little more work before I finish, but I will leave you with a teaser until my next blog:

Meandering through other blogs

I skimmed through a few blogs as an assignment for my class, and paused to summarize a few.

To begin, I found a quilting blog that I really liked. Crazy mom quilts blog, has several of her quilts she made, but I wanted to write about one specifically because of its title "happy go lucky." She created a quilt using solid white fabric with nine crazy squares and rectangles on the bottom corner of the quilt. She loves it and has been dying to make it for years, but honestly, it bothers me. The colors draw me in, along with the patterns of the squares, but they're only in the bottom corner and my eyes try to space them over the entire surface. I need to see balance and some type of symmetry! But nonetheless, it wears a spiffy name!

While extensively continuing my search through more of these quilting/sewing/craft blogs, I'm noticing myself weening off of the sewing/crafting blogs because I see intricate pieces of clothing, and my mind screams, "WHOA! I can't do that!" On my defense, I have never attempted to make jackets, dresses, or jeans, and therefore, these blogs lose my interest quickly. I don't desire to sew clothing; I enjoy my quilts way too much. So, I feel that quilting blogs suit my needs and present me with ideas and enjoyment.

After stumbling across a blog with a quilt that I could like after some major tweaking, I found a post with a quilt that breaks the rules of traditional quilting and puts a smile on an English teacher's face. Lazy Gal Quilting's blog from July 3rd titled "Slither Eek Boo Top," fused my interest solely because of its name, and the quilt lives up to its intriguing name. The pure incredulity of what it's made up of makes me feel so novice at quilting. She sewed creepy Halloween words together on blocks and pieced them together to make a quilt top. She claims that she"...did a fairly good job of balancing out the colors and sizes - not too bottom heavy or top heavy," and she adds, "I kinda wish I'd made two quilts so that some of these words had more room to breathe..." From my perspective, I couldn't think the quilt could be anymore brilliant or masterfully chaotic. I am biased, though, since I do teach middle school English and I love the concept of words, words, and more words on a quilt. It mixes a couple of my favorite things together!

Finally, I viewed a different type of blog. Marguerita posted her own YouTube video of a brief tutorial about how to chain piece and press seams open. She gave specific and repetitive instructions on how quilters should press open their seams, and she is completely right with her directions. She lets us know to open the seam with our fingertips and gently press the seam open with an iron, but never glide the iron. If gliding happens, then so does distortion of the material. And that is a quilter's disaster! She's a smart cookie. Listen to her.

What's it like to quilt when you're eleven?

I made some friends far from my age; a few ladies were in their 40's and a couple in their 60's. Weird...nah! It's exciting trying something different at a young age. Although, I must admit, I felt too embarrassed to tell anyone at school what I did in my free time. It was the fear of being "uncool" I got over that real soon when I decided I'm happy being unique!

You may be wondering how an eleven year old girl starts quilting, especially when nobody in her family sews! Let's just say I had an awesome babysitter for the first seven years of my life who taught me to make a jacket, and showed me several quilts of hers. I had a little mishap with the iron and my fingers, creating two giant blisters on my tiny fingers. My apprehension of ever using that burning metal blister maker almost stole away my desire to sew again.

Almost.

That happened when I was six. When I grew old enough (in my mind) for a sewing machine, I began bugging my parents. My constant nagging brought me a sewing machine for my 11th birthday! Woohoo! I started making pillows, but you can only make so many pillows before you want a real challenge. Therefore, my mom discovered that my next door neighbor goes to quilting classes at JoAnn Fabrics. The picture above is the first quilt I ever made, and I'm damn proud of it! Look how good it turned out...and remember, I was ELEVEN when I made that thing. Ok, ok, that's quite enough bragging for me.

It took me eight months from beginning to end to complete this. I had to work on only one part at a time, waiting to learn how to do the next step the following Tuesday at quilting class. Learning from the book was too difficult at that age, so I hope to take pictures to show step by step instructions to teach others who may not have the option of quilting classes. I'll gather up some pictures and work on this part in one of my following blogs!

Foundation of this Blog

My blog will make me sound like a frickin 80 year old grandma. However, I consider myself a youngin. I am breaking out of college soon, and entering the world of molding little minds in middle school.

I'm beginning a blog about something that I find rather enjoyable, yet frustrating at the same time--I hope to also spark the interests of others. I love sewing, quilting, and other similar crafts (yeah, call me an old lady). I felt skeptical about starting this at first, until I searched numerous blogs all about sewing, and crafting such as http://blog.craftzine.com/ and http://www.crazyshortcutquilts.com/margueritas-blog/ . I was amazed. I realized, people like to share their ideas and talent because people like recognition. I admit, I want to be humble, but when I make a quilt, a table runner, or a grocery store bag storage holder (yes, that's the name I'm giving it), I NEED to show it off. Look what I made! Look what I made! Yet, somewhere along the way of my search, I understood that people share their creativity for many more reasons than other than to brag. They want to teach others, discuss resourceful stores or brands, and keep journals of their makings. I enjoy how these blogs show numerous pictures and even videos of how to do projects. I want to grow into another branch on this tree.

I originally thought that keeping a blog about crafting would be...I'll just say it--boring, and let’s be real here…reading about my quilting isn’t exactly an adrenaline booster, unless if you want to hear about the time I sliced the tip of my finger off with a rotary cutter. True story; my finger was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I made the cut; goodbye finger tip, hello blood! So then I told myself, "shup up and blog already!"

And here I am. I'm blogging about sewing. It will primarily focus on sewing supplies, stores, and projects. I may extend to other crafts. I will drag you down memory lane with me and tell you how I started my crafting crazes. I will continue my blog with research of fabric/sewing/craft stores around the Tampa area, displaying some of my own sewing/craft projects, and walking people through the do-it-yourself steps, and giving my commentary on the creation of things.

Can I pull it off? Probably…yet my main concern is…can I keep it entertaining? Damn boring hobbies of mine! However, I'm quite amused to have entered this online community of sewing bloggers!