Ipad Case

I had every intention of finishing a quilt this month, but the squirrels are active this time of year. Now I do have a quilt top almost finished (three seams to go), so I've done okay, but that project got set aside for an afternoon because after I made the grocery bags, I was in a bag mood and just had to make a protective case for my new Ipad. This new device replaced my Ipad mini that bit the dust awhile back. That one had a nice case and fit in my purse just right. But the new one doesn't fit in my purse. Also, I bought a cheapy vinyl cover for it which doesn't seem highly protective. I use the Ipad mostly at home but thought it needed something more cushy and protective for packing to travel. 

So here's how I made it--

I still had some "batting" aka cut-up blanket from the grocery bag project, so I cut a piece about 11 3/4 by 16 1/4 inches based on the measurement of my pad plus a bit more and seam allowance. 

I layered a piece of fabric of the same size on top and quilted them together with wavy lines. (That fabric is leftover from the backs of two quilts I made a few years ago. I bought it from Bernie of Needle and Foot when she had her Etsy shop, and I remember at the time that it was a shame no one would see the backs since they were wall quilts. So now this fabric has its time to shine.)

For the main part of the case, I folded the quilted piece in half right sides together with short edges matching and sewed along the sides with about 1/2 inch seam allowance. I cut the lining from the same fabric and and sewed it together with about 1/4 inch seam allowance. 

Next, I cut "batting" for a flap at 10 1/2 inches by 7 1/2 inches and another piece of fabric 10 1/2 by 15 inches to make both the outside and lining of the flap. I folded the fabric in half right sides together (short edges matching up), laid the batting on one side, and sewed the side seams with 1/4 inch seam allowance, rounding the corner just a bit at the fold. 

I'm not sure what I'm trying to show here, but I took the photo, so there it is. You can see I also tried to make some notes. but I quit halfway through. Squirrels don't like quilters to stop and take photos or notes. 

After turning the flap right sides out, I topstitched about a quarter inch around leaving the raw edge open as it would be in the seam of the case in the end. Then I quilted the flap with wavy lines.

I popped the outer case into the lining right sides together, inserting the flap between the layers (centering it between the side seams) and sewed around the raw edge leaving enough of an opening along the side without the flap so that I could "birth" the case. After turning the whole thing right side out, I topstitched close to the edge of the opening to close it and then topstitched 1/4 inch around the edge. 

I was going to put some kind of closure (button or velcro) on the flap, but decided to just tuck the flap into the case. It's neat and adds a nice bit of cushion. 

The ipad slips in just right.

This project was so easy--less than an hour start to finish. Maybe just a baby squirrel. And I can report that it went on its first little trip in my suitcase this past week (so we could watch some of our Grands play baseball and volleyball) and stayed cozy and safe. 

I'm linking up this Saturday with Sandra at mmmquilts for DrEAMI (Drop Everything and Make it). 

If we don't keep having beautiful weather for playing in the flowers

and bike riding

(Hey those are squirrels, too!),  I should have another quilt finished soon. Until then, keep chasing whatever squirrels you see at this time of year.

(Just a reminder: I'm not affiliated with any company, so when I mention products, services, or stores I'm just documenting what I used or liked.) 

 

Grocery Bags

Well, here I am again. Finally. I just can't seem to get into a good rhythm of sewing or blogging this year. This time it was Covid. We managed to avoid it for three years. Yeah, at this point, it's not a matter of if but when, right? It was relatively mild but took us flat out for a week with various annoying symptoms. We are thankful for vaccines because I sure couldn't imagine this without some protection--even if I'm pretty sure this version was beyond either of the Omicron variants we were last boosted for. The worst part was the lingering fatigue, nasal symptoms and cough. We didn't feel like ourselves for a month. I wasn't expecting that. If you sent me a comment during that time and didn't hear back, I apologize. I had no energy, but I appreciate what you said. We are pretty much back to ourselves this week, and yay, I felt like sewing. So I have something to share. Grocery bags!

Do you recognize the fabric? It's the adding machine tape project I did for Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at So Scrappy during 2022. 

I started these bags just before I got sick in March. I don't have photos of the process, but I'll share a bit about how I made them.

I really wanted to make them entirely from stuff I had on hand, so instead of batting, I used an old blanket that I had set aside for possible donation to an animal shelter. (Don't worry, I have other ones to donate.) All of the fabric was from my adding machine tape project and old leftover pieces that never seemed to find their way into other projects, and the thread was some quilting thread that I didn't care for.

I wanted the bags to be close to the size of a paper grocery bag, so I measured one and then planned a rectangle. I cut my blanket pieces (one for each bag) at 36 by 20 inches and did Quilt-As-You-Go along the long edges of the fabric strips leaving 1/2-inch seam allowance. You can see the batting with the quilting on the inside of these two bags-in-process. 

This was as far as I got before I got sick. So this past week I rushed to complete the project. I made these bags the simplest I could. After making one big rectangle I used a different method to box the bottom. You can see how I did it on a tutorial for Magic Market Bag at Epidastudio. Instead of sewing the side seams and then pinching the fabric and sewing a triangle, you fold the rectangle right sides out and then fold back from the short edges half the width of what you want for the width of the bottom of the bag. I wanted mine to be 7-1/2 inches, so I folded each side back 3-3/4 inches, then sewed the side seams. So easy. Just two seams to make the outside of the bag. Sorry for no photo, but the link shows you how to do it. Here's how it looks from the side on the completed bag. 

I used my favorite color strips to make outsides of the four bags, but still had enough adding machine strips left for more. I decided to use the less favorites to make the lining (without the blanket batting), and had enough strips to make almost two bags worth. Then I added bigger chunks of old fabric for the rest. There are some really old fabrics in there. (Some are older than my daughter who is--gulp--in her 40s. No, she's not old. It's just old for fabric. Ha!) I wouldn't trust them in a quilt, but they were perfect for these bags. The lining pieces were 37 by 21 inches, including seam allowance. You can see some of the linings peeking out here.

Raided my pantry for grocery models.

I also scrounged around for longer strips to make handles. I cut them 24 inches by 4 inches, pressed over 1/2 inch on the long sides and then folded in half and sewed along the edges. When I put the bags together (just by sewing the outer bag and lining right sides together--so easy), I inserted the handles 5 1/4 inches in from the side seams with 1-1/2 inches sticking up above the raw edge. I left an opening between the handle ends on one side for birthing the bag right side out, then sewed it together and topstiched around the whole top edge. 

That yellow lining fabric is one of the really vintage ones. 

To reinforce the handles, I sewed an X in a square just below the top edge. (I just realized that step is also in the Market Bag tutorial.)

I really like how these bags turned out. The blanket batting makes them sturdy enough to stand up. The boxed corners are kind of thick because of the batting, but they help the bag stay open for filling.

The completed bags are approximately 14 inches tall, 12-1/2 inches wide, and 7-1/2 inches deep. (Sizes are approximate as I wasn't real precise in my sewing.) We have already used them for a grocery run, and my bagger husband gave them two thumbs up. Here they are ready for their next run. 

I can't resist a few more glamour shots. 

I'm linking up today with Angela at So Scrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday and tomorrow with Cynthia at Quilting is more fun than Housework for Oh Scrap. 

It occurs to me that this is a really haphazard post (I'm going to blame it on Covid brainfog), but it's done and that makes me happy, because now I can move on to another quilt!! I will try to be more conscientious about photographing as I go so I can be more organized in describing my projects.  

Anyway, stay scrappy, stay healthy, and keep sewing. 

Turquorangellow

Yeah, that name. I'm not crazy about naming my quilts. I kept referring to this quilt as the turquoise, orange and yellow quilt while I was making it, so a mash-up of the colors works for me. I made the top way back in September last year during a time when I needed something quick, mindless, and cheerful while adjusting to a new life without my father in it. Thus, the bright colors and simple design.

The pattern is from Sew Katie Did. I had read a blog post of hers from way back in 2011 where she talked about magic numbers and showed a quilt she was working on. I shamelessly copied her design. I hope that was okay. I don't think she had a pattern published and the blog post read like a tutorial. So anyway, this quilt is made with one block with 2-inch, 4-inch and 6-inch squares (plus seam allowances). I built it one block at a time, cutting batches of squares as I needed them to distribute the colors, fabrics and (to some extent) values.I also rotated the block more or less randomly. I did not spend a lot of time planning it out. It was the project I needed. 

Here is the block in isolation--bad image, I know, but I didn't have any photos of the individual blocks so I cropped heavily. My favorite fabric is that woodcut-looking print of flowers in orange. 

We went on a vacation in October, and I took the top along to find some backing fabric as a souvenir. I challenged myself to find just the right backing in the one quilt store near where we stayed. And I found it! Turquoise dots with orange and yellow in the centers. For some reason my camera eliminated the center colors on bigger photos, but here is one I took as I was trying to decide if it was necessary to match the seamline for the back. (I decided it wasn't necessary.)

I basted it sometime before the end of the year, but I set it aside so I could make the baby quilt that I wrote about last week. I finished it a couple of weeks ago as soon as the baby quilt was done.

My favorite quilting for quick quilts is walking foot, with some version of wavy lines. For this one I decided on diagonal lines, about an inch give-or-take apart. Took almost no time at all.

I had bought the bolt end of the backing fabric, so I had enough to make binding, too. 

So here are the stats for this short and sweet quilt: 

Block Pattern: From Magic Numbers post by Sew Katie Did. Block is 14 inches square, and I made 16 in 4 rows of 4.

Fabrics: A variety of new fat quarters I collected last year, plus bits and pieces from my stash. The back is urban elementz Basix by Patricia Ritter for Northcott from 2017. I wonder if they still make it. It looks like it came in several colors and fun dots.

Batting: Fairfield 80/20.

Thread: Superior Masterpiece in Granite for piecing; Superior King Tut in Temple for quilting; Superior Treasure in Antique (I think?) for hand sewing the binding.

Size: Pieced: 56 1/2 inches square

         After quilting: 56 3/8 by 56 inches

         Washed: 54 by 53 5/8 inches

Machines: Singer Featherweight for piecing; Singer Treadle 115 for walking foot quilting and for machine work on the binding.

(Selfie in the mirror! I was going to use this photo for the IGQuiltFest, but I never got around to posting.)

I just mentioned the name of the quilt to my quilt advisor. He said, "Why don't you name it TOY?" (Get it?) Hmmm. It doesn't look like a TOY quilt to me. Then he said he didn't really care about quilt names, and I could name it Bob if I wanted. (He names everything that might need a name Bob.) Oh well. 

Probably the truest colors of all the photos

I plan to donate this quilt--haven't decided on a organization yet. Maybe for a younger recipient? What do you think? 

I'm linking up this week with Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday and with Michelle at From Bolt to Beauty for Beauties Pageant.

BTW, I just changed the font size? Is that better? Why didn't I do this years ago?? (Old eyes.)

(Just a reminder: I'm not affiliated with any company, so when I mention products, services, or stores I'm just documenting what I used or liked.) 

Baby N's Quilt

Oh my. It has been a very long time. I mentioned at the end of December that I had a baby quilt to make. I really thought I could finish it by the end of January, but my quilt construction pace was as slow as...well, molasses in January, I guess. But the quilt is done, baby has come, and gift has been given, so I can finally share here. (I did do some other sewing in the meantime, and will share shortly.)

Let's just jump to the end and then we can back up a bit--or a lot. 

So, the inspiration for this quilt came from my niece's photo of the nursery--and especially-- the beautiful rug. 

She said she was not all that fond of the pink, but that she liked the moodiness of the other colors in the rug. She also expressed a preference for solid fabrics over prints. I loved the idea of solids and moody colors, but I will admit that for several weeks I was stymied. First of all, I was not at all sure of the actual colors in the rug. With a little research, I found it online on a store's website and printed out the photos that became my basis for choosing colors. I was still uncertain, though, because I noticed a strong LED lamp in the baby's room. I have struggled to transition to LED light in my home, and have been highly aware of how the differences in daylight, incandescent, and warm or cool LED light can affect color. I spent hours  days shifting my Kona color chips around along the edges of one of the photos of the rug. 

While all of this dithering was going on, I was also trying to figure out a pattern. I wanted it to be kind of simple so that it wouldn't fight with the rug. I tried a lot of ideas--a strong contender was nine-patches with solid squares based on an old Amish quilt, but I just couldn't get the gradations of color to fit my vision. Then I started playing around with the flower block from the free Floret Table Topper tutorial from Cluck Cluck Sew. After studying the inspiration rug, I knew that I wanted just a bit more variety of color in the block so I added a little strip in the center of the flower and drafted a paper foundation pattern that would finish at 5 inches. Using my Quiltography app, I laid out a bunch of flower blocks, but the design quickly became too busy for me, so I sprinkled them around and added bars and vertical sashes between. I experimented with a light background, but the colors looked too bright, and I realized that the quilt really needed both black to keep the colors looking moody and pink to lighten it up for a baby. I tried out two designs with my app. In one, the bars were all rectangles and in the other I threw in some triangles, like this:

This design was just a general guide. I knew I did not want regular horizontal sashes, but my app did not allow me to eliminate them. I combined both designs to make the bars as irregular rectangles or blunted triangles (yes, thanks to my math teacher dad I know those aren't the right terms, but you know what I mean). I also reversed the direction of the flower petals from my plan so they would spin forward.

Gradually I narrowed the colors down to ones that I hoped would at least complement the rug. Just before Christmas I ordered a bunch online from a new-to-me store in Ohio because my local stores only have the basic set of Kona colors. Those fabrics came in just a couple of days. Maybe they thought they were a present? Anyway, I'll shop there again.

I had no idea how much fabric I needed, so I bought a bunch of quarter yards, a few half yards, and 2 1/2 yards for the background fabric. The background is Kona Pepper rather than Black to lower the contrast just a smidgen. I could not find a Kona dusty purple that I liked (I don't have the lastest Kona swatches, so I don't know if the color even exists), but I had a couple of scraps of dusty purple tone-on-tone prints that were just the colors I wanted on their back sides, so I added those to the mix. The purple I did order was a Moda, but it was a little too strong, and I didn't use it.

I made the flower blocks first. So much fun! I used freezer paper foundation piecing for the quadrants to make them nice and crisp and accurate. 

That was the fast part of the quilt, but the whole design turned out to be more complicated than I anticipated. I wanted to sprinkle colors around so I had to be careful of how I used each one. I also decided to foundation piece the bars to keep measurements accurate. I made patterns from graph paper

and planned to piece them no-tear style with freezer paper. I made patterns in three different lengths, that could then be varied by reversing them and/or turning them 180 degrees, I made additional copies of the patterns on freezer paper that I could use as rough templates for less fabric waste as I pieced. 

I put the flowers up on the design wall in the approximate placement in my quilt plan. I would plan each strip, press the freezer paper template on, cut out the bars and foundation paper piece them, put the strip on the wall, and plan the next one. Here's how I planned each strip with folded fabric (using black construction paper to stand in for the black fabric since it was easier to use than handling a big piece of fabric). 

And up on the design wall...

All went well at first. Then I started pulling the freezer paper off sections, and a mild disaster happened. There seemed to be too much adhesion (or maybe too loose a weave in the fabric?) and my fabric started to fray. That never happened before. I ended up having to do surgical repairs, replacing several bars that were too frayed to be salvageable. I stopped using the freezer paper and used newsprint for the rest of the quilt, still using the no-tear (and no-tears) method. Sure glad I pulled off those sections before too much of the quilt was made and damaged. One other goof-up happened when I accidentally grabbed a piece of black fabric instead of pepper. More surgery was required. Good grief. But after all of the strips were done and I had inserted black vertical sashes, I was thrilled to see that the quilt was looking like I had envisioned it.

While I was doing all the sewing, I kept wondering what I was going to do for a backing. Long before I started planning this quilt, I had seen a wideback fabric at my local store. In fact, I liked it so much I had almost purchased it. When I started sewing the quilt I realized that the backing colors were sort of like it. I kept visiting the backing, and finally decided to buy it even though I wasn't sure if it would work. Then, whenever I was working on the quilt, I'd lay it out with my copy of the rug photo on the ironing board, trying to picture how it would all look together. 

Silly, no? I was still worried about how the quilt would look in all the different kinds of light. But, as you know, in the end I chose that backing.

Finally the top was done, and it was time to figure out the quilting. I really liked how the top looked and although I tried drawing all sorts of quilting plans and laid thread out in different ways, I just couldn't figure out what to do. Meanwhile, the baby's due date was getting closer and closer. Finally, I decided to just quilt in-the-ditch (-ish) everywhere and let the quilt pattern be the pattern. 

That might be my one minor regret. If I were to do it again, I think I'd stipple it. There were LOTS of threads to tie off and bury. I also dithered about thread color. I didn't trust my machine to quilt with a darker thread on the front and lighter thread on the back (I didn't want light threads "poking through" like little specks of dust). So I choose an olive green thread for most of the lines and blue for the lines on the flowers. They didn't look that different from each other, but allowed me to not play thread chicken with one of the colors. They showed like a dark gray the back, but I don't mind. They make their own pattern over the flowers. Here's how that looks:

And, can I say I'm really proud of how straight I got that backing? My vertical thread lines are almost spot on with the floral pattern. 

When I finished the quilting, I was pleased to see that I had enough fabric bits left to make a pieced binding. Here it is all laid out to make sure the seams wouldn't fall at the corners. (How about that sunshine?!)

Stats: 

Pattern: Flower Blocks are inspired by Cluck Cluck Sew as noted above. The rest of the pattern is my own design.

Fabrics: Kona solids in Amber, Ballerina, Ballet Slipper, Bison, Bluejay, Cloud, Curry, Denim, Desert Green, Dill, OD Green, Pearl Pink, Pepper, Sable, Sky, Smoke and Violet (there might be a couple of these that didn't make the final cut as I was sewing), plus two old scraps of who-knows-what from my collection. Hillside Meadow wideback from Art Gallery Fabrics.

Batting: Fairfield 80/20.

Thread: Superior Masterpiece in Granite for piecing;  Mettler Silk Finish Cotton 50 wt. in Smoky Blue and Burnt Olive for quilting; Superior Treasure in Antique for hand sewing the binding. 

Size: Pieced: 54 1/2 by 54 1/2 inches

         After quilting: 54 by 54 1/4 inches

         Washed: 51 by 51 1/4 inches

         

                                    A bit windy after washing

Machines: Singer Featherweight for piecing; Singer Treadle 115 for walking foot quilting and for machine work on the binding.

It felt so good to finish the quilt. I sent it out along with a little present for baby's big brother as soon as we received word that baby had arrived. It made it to Chicago in one day and was almost at its destination when my tracking notifications indicated an error and then completely disappeared for a day. The next message indicated that it was at the wrong postal facility not far from where it needed to go, and there it sat for several days with no word at all. It seemed it was no longer "Priority." I was really sweating it out, picturing it in a pile in a forgotten bin or worse in a corner somewhere with rats gnawing on it. After five days, the package was declared officially late, so I opened a complaint case to get it moving again. (Sometimes I think the post office needs to hire special "Moms" to look for lost things when technology fails.) Fortunately, things got back underway, and the package finally arrived. Whew! 

The gift received:

And the tiny giftee:

I will admit to a few challenges when I made this quilt, and at one time I wondered if it meant that this little girl would be a feisty little soul. But she's adorable and chill. And all those challenges gave me more time to meditate on her and her family before she was born. I hope there is a baby somewhere in your life that you can gift with a quilt. It's really a satisfying project. 

I'm linking up this week with Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday and Michelle at From Bolt to Beauty for Beauties Pageant. 

 

I'll be back next week with another finish that's been waiting for a post.

(Just a reminder: I'm not affiliated with any company, so when I mention products, services, or stores I'm just documenting what I used or liked.)