The Teenager's Quilt Progress

Quilty Post Number 2 for today!

This quilt is coming right along!  I've enjoyed making it and even though I have named it "The Teenager's Quilt", my hubby likes it so much, He may be getting one too.   ..... And also the Teenager's younger brother who is 7.

These pictures were taken yesterday and earlier today.  I have now finished pin basting it and have set up my machine quilting area for quilting.  This means that I filled some bobbins and placed the machine that already has the free motion quilting foot on it, onto the table where I sew and plugged everything in.  I also set up a card table to my left and a TV tray to my right.  The card table holds the weight of the quilt as I machine quilt, and the TV tray holds scissors, the container for the pins that I remove as I quilt, bobbins, and what ever else gets thrown on there.  I also dusted the area behind and to the left of my machine and cleaned some of the lint from inside my machine.  I vacuumed the floor so that if the quilt drags on the floor, it will stay clean.   Now I am all ready for quilting before and after work this week. 

I would love to finish quilting it by the weekend, but we will see!  Next weekend I could be sewing on the binding, if all goes well.

 Have a great week!

This post is linked to Monday Making HERE.

Slow Sunday Stitching - Doll Quilt

Happy Slow Stitching Sunday!

Here is a doll quilt I am making as a Christmas Gift for my 4 year old granddaughter.  I think this quilt, a doll size pillow and a doll would make a sweet gift.  

I've been hankering for a hand project to work on at night while watching TV with my hubby.  I could quilt this on my machine in just a few minutes, but I think that hand quilting stitches will give it an old fashioned quilt feel. 

 Taped down in preparation of pin basting.

Pinned.

Testing the marking pin.

Passed the test!

The pattern came from the book, "The Civil War Sewing Circle", by Kathleen Tracy.

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Any ideas for a series to watch while quilting, that doesn't have too much violence, nudity or bad language?

We are currently watching "Hart of Dixie" on Netflix.  Its one we didn't watch when it was being originally shown.  Its pretty good, but a little silly at times, and not too violent, etc.  I already looked ahead on the internet to see what is going to happen.  Yay, Zoe and Wade end up together in the end!  Being a native southern girl, to me, the actor who played Wade, did a good job.

 I would recommend "Call the Midwife", if you don't mind seeing a baby born on every episode.  Loved that one.

We "tried" to watch "Outlander".  I could NOT hang in there with it.  The story was really good, but so hard to watch all the violence and nudity.  We gave up on it after a few episodes.  The older I get, the less I can take in the way of violence.  But, that's just me!  LOL 

This post is linked to: Slow Sunday Stitching -  Kathy's Quilts and to Monday Making - Love Laugh Quilt Blog.

 

Teenager's Strip Quilt

 Now that my oldest grandson is 13, I decided he needed a quilt that is more suited to an older person.  The last quilt I made him was when he was in kindergarten!

My inspiration was this vintage quilt which appears to use every kind of fabric you can think of:

My plan is to use lots of plaids, solids and more for the blocks and a medium gray for the borders.  The blocks will be strips sewn diagonally to each other.  I didn't want to sew the strips onto paper and then have to remove all the paper.  I also didn't want to go to the trouble and expense to sew the strips onto fabric foundation squares.  I also didn't really want the extra weight of the foundation fabric.

So, I came up with this plan to simply sew the strips together and then cut them into squares.

These blocks end up being 13 inches square.  Here are the measurements of the strips needed for each square:

Three 2 1/2 inch wide by 19 inch long strips.

Two 2 1/2 inch wide by 14 inch long strips.

Two 2 1/2 inch wide by 10 inch long strips.

Two 3 1/2 inch by 6 inch long strips.

 I sewed the strips together like seen in this first picture.  The 3 longest strips are in the middle and then the other strips are sewn on each side of the center strips.  I just eyeballed them to center the smaller strips on the longer strip it was being sewn to.

After pressing the seams all to one side, I placed a 13 inch square that I had already finished on top of the strip set like this.

Then using a rotary cutter and ruler, I trimmed off the excess like this.

The finished block:

The outer edges of the blocks are STRETCHY!  But, if I had used paper foundations and then ripped off the paper, the outcome would have been the same.  Borders will be sewn in between all the blocks, which will stabilize the edges.  I will carefully sew the stretchy sides to the non stretchy borders, and I think it will work out well.

For the twin size I am shooting for, including the borders, I will need 20 of these blocks.  Only 2 more to go!  I just might make a matching one for this new teenager's younger brother.  Now that I have gotten into the swing of things, these blocks have been going together quickly.