Quilting Progress!

We've had some awesomely rainy days, allowing me to keep Parker inside so I can sew. Bonus for the quilt project! For those of you new to my blog, I've been working on my first quilt. I've been following the instructions in the awesome book, Elizabeth Hartman's The Practical Guide to Patchwork. I have absolutely no experience with quilts so this has been a completely new experience for me. So far, so good!

To get ready for quilting, I laid down the batting on my kitchen floor, laid down the quilt front on top, smoothed it out and trimmed the batting to within 2" of the quilt front. Then I carefully rolled it up.

I then I taped the quilt back to the floor (right side down) so that it was taught and unrolled the batting/quilt top squarely on top. When it was even and all smoothed out, I pinned the layers together with bent quilting safety pins every 6-8". 

Lastly, I took off the tape, rolled the whole thing together and got my sewing machine set up on the kitchen table. It's easier to quilt when you have a large, clear surface around your sewing machine to move this big mo' fo' around under your needle.

I used an 850 yard spool of brown Sulky polyester thread and 6 bobbins to quilt the whole thing (I chose this thread because it was shiny and smooth, but not so sure it's the best thread choice - I'll find out soon! . . . I think I was supposed to use cotton thread. Oops!). Took me ALL DAY - probably 4-5 hours intermittently of free-motion quilting in a random loopy stitch.

Quilted front

Quilted back

It's lookin' good so far! No weird pinching of fabric and hopefully the edges aren't too wiggy-waggy warped. Now to piece together the binding and figure out how to get that on and I'll be done! Quilts really are a labor of love. I have so much more respect for those who make quilts all the time! I've really enjoyed the process though and think I'm hooked on modern quilting ;o) Yippee!

Holy Blooming Clematis!

For those who don't know me... I kinda like yardwork. As in, I'm obsessed with my plants. You can find me in the yard almost every day in the summer because 1) I love the heat, 2) I like pulling weeds, and 3) I'm always farting around with my plants. [Oh... and 4) because Parker always wants to be outside playing, too!]

This year, my Clematis has gone insane. It has taken over the trellis, folded over and grown back to touch the ground. I seriously don't know how to handle this plant and am worried that next year it's going to creep halfway across the lawn! I might have to cut it back and figure out how to create a higher structure for it to grow up onto. (If you have any idears, let me know!)

(this Clematis is 7-ft high - it would be twice that if it had something higher to climb up on!)

Anywho! I feel like summer just started and mah' plants are going nuts! I love it! This probably won't be the last time I post about the plantings in my yard. I can't help myself and I hope you don't mind...

Here's wishing your plants are happy and showing you some love this summer, too!

Scrappy Potholder

Two things on my list of goals for this year is to 1) learn how to "free motion quilt," and 2) learn how to bind a quilt. I've been needing to find a way to practice free motion quilting to f-i-n-a-l-l-y stitch my first quilt together (see link HERE), but I needed to come up with something to practice on. So I dug out my basket O' scraps and decided to piece together a potholder to give to my sister when we visit her in Alaska this summer.

At first I just thought, bleh, I'll just sew some shapes together and see what happens... then I sewed some straight fabric strips together... then I realized I should probably separate them with a solid.

fabric scraps - the general idea

wonky on the left, stripes on the right, divided by red fabric

I found a good chunk of Heather Bailey's Pop Garden to use as the back and binding.

LEFT - the front / RIGHT - the back

Then the scary part needed to happen - sandwiching batting between the front and back... and then DOING IT.

da' sammich

I put my fancy quilting sewing foot on my machine, lowered my dog feet so they wouldn't pull the fabric through mechanically, and just went for it loop-tee-doo freestyle. It was hard for me to resist the desire to twist and turn the fabric while making a curve or loop... after a minute or so, however, I started to get the hang of it. I read somewhere that it's easier to have a quicker sewing speed, which I found to be true. It'll just take some practice to get the feel of how fast to move the fabric under the quilting foot while coordinating how fast the sewing speed should be in order to get even stitches.

not too bad for my first attempt at free motion quilting loop-a-dee-doo's!

the quilted sammich

Then I figured out how to machine stitch the binding on, which worked well for this small project but I can see why hand stitching binding onto a larger quilt would be the way to go. (because on a quilt, I'd be staring at the straight stitch on the back of the quilt right next to the binding edge thinking that it looked weird and uneven.)

binding done!

I was really excited by the process and I like the fabrics I chose, but I kinda think the finished product is a bit visually busy on the front. I much prefer the back! But I'm new to quilting, so what do I know?

FRONT - complete

BACK - complete

If I dust off the cobwebs from my art degree, I would say I have too many things going on in too small of a space (9" square). Maybe I should have used plain red binding to help reduce the shizo-appeal of my many-a-scrap pieces on the front?

Regardless... this project gave me the courage to go ahead and finish that quilt now! And as Parker would say, "TOO MUCH TALKING!" - this is a longer post than I intended - so I'm signing off!

What I've Been Knitting - Um, for 4 Years...

I kinda learned how to knit in 8th grade, but it wasn't "cool" so I didn't do anything but garter stitch in a hideous baby blue acrylic yarn with a lot of mistakes and serious tension problems. When I picked up knitting again 10 or so years later in Grad School, I got hooked. At that time, I was taught by a dear friend who now works at Interweave Press and she's always shocked when I tell her what an impact her teaching me this skill has made on my life.

I've made plenty of scarves, socks, mittens, and a blanket (still too scared to make a sweater!). I have refused to start any new knitting projects until this one is DONE. It's a baby blanket out of Vogue Knitting's cleverly named "Baby Blankets" book. I started this darn thing when I was pregnant with Parker - he's 4 now, and it's still only halfway finished!!! There are so many color changes in one row and it has been so hard to follow the color pattern out of this tiny book. But by golly!!! I'm going to finish this ding-dang thing this year, even if it gives me arthritis!

I can't wait for it to be done because I love the colors... but also because I'm ready to move on to something new.
Toodle-doo!

How to Make Ceiling to Floor Grommet Drapes - A Tutorial

I promised a tutorial for our Basement Drapes, so here it is! And it's loaded with pictures - I hope it's not too bad to get through.

How to make THIS...

...look like THIS

Supplies:

• 60" wide Home Dec. or canvas Fabric - 5.5 yards - (purchased mine at IKEA at $7.99/yd.)
• Coordinating Thread
• Seam Gauge (to measure folded edges)
• 12" Ruler (to measure grommet spacing)
• Measuring Tape (at least 10-ft long to measure length of drape)
• 2 packages of Grommets ($12.99 sets of 8, bought at Joann's with a coupon)
• Curtain Rod (small enough to fit through grommet holes)
• Iron
• Marking pencil or pen
• Scissors
• Pins

NOTES: 

• Always be consciencious of the direction of your fabric print and/or texture. I'd be sad if one drape print ran in an upward direction and the drape next to it went in a downward direction!
• It's easiest to make a pair of drapes at a time, rather than making one side of the drape first followed by the other side of the drape.
• I used 100% cotton fabric, so I used my iron at the hottest setting. If you use polyester, silk, or blended fabrics, please be careful with your iron setting so you don't burn or melt the fabric!
• Since these drapes were going to lie up against a basement wall, I didn't line them. However, if you're going to make drapes to go over a real window, please buy drapery liner fabric at the fabric store and tuck it into the back of these drapes to so they're not so see-through when closed. Plus it's classier to see white drape liner from the outside of your house than the back of some wacky printed fabric. Might as well hang a Big Bird sheet with clothespins up in front of yer' dang winderr' then!

Length Measurement for Cutting Fabric:
1) measure your ceiling height down to the floor to get the length of your drape. Mine was 86"
2) add 6.5" for your top and bottom folds (86" + 6.5" = 92.5" for my total length of each drape)
3) Cut two long lengths of fabric at 92.5" each (or just cut your 5.5 yards of fabric in half if you want your drapes to puddle a bit at the bottom onto your floor)

Order of Sewing (to get you mentally organized):
1) Top;    2) Bottom;    3) Sides;    4) Grommets
By doing the top and bottoms first, the sides will fold over their seams, leaving a long, clean, smooth edge from the side view of your drapes.

READY - SET - SEW!!!

1. TOP
a) fold in 1/2" of the TOP edge of the fabric, pin in place, and press with a hot, steamy iron.
     (side note: I went to Catholic schools and had to iron pleats all around my skirts - took forever, but I learned how to pin one fold after another and another, then press them all at once by sticking pins into the ironing board)

b) fold in another 4" of the TOP edge of your fabric, pin in place, and press with the iron. (this area is where your grommets will go)

c) Sew with a straight stitch very close to the inner edge (1/8" to 1/4" max)


2. BOTTOM
a) fold in 1/2" of the BOTTOM edge of the fabric, pin in place, and press with a hot, steamy iron. (same as above)

b) fold in another 1.5" of the BOTTOM edge of your fabric, pin in place, and press with the iron.

c) Sew with a straight stitch very close to the inner edge (1/8" to 1/4" max) 

3. SIDES
 - here's where you're going to get a little fancy with what I call a "Military Sheet Fold... kinda," to get a clean, mitered looking corner at the tops and bottoms of the drapes  (my Dad was in the Navy) -
a) Place a pin 1.75" up from the TOP edge

b) Open the raw edge between the top fold and the pin, and push the center of the fold up into itself toward the pin, creating a 45-degree angle that goes out to about 1.5" from the top edge. Weird sounding, I know... here are pictures to help:

c) do the same thing to the BOTTOM EDGE

place a pin 1.75" from the raw edge (to the right of my finger), then push fold up into itself

bottom edge after miter corner fold, half inch fold, and 1.5" fold - ready to sew

NOW you can proceed with the same fold - pin - iron steps as the bottom:
d) fold in 1/2" of the SIDE edge of the fabric, pin in place, and press with a hot, steamy iron.

e) fold in another 1.5" of the SIDE edge of your fabric, pin in place, and press with the iron.

f) You can straight stitch the sides, but it might leave your drape looking a little, what I call, "woogilly-waggilly". There's no give with a reeeeally long straight stitch. So I think it's better to do a "Blind Hem Stitch" (hey! I used a real sewing term for once!). Your sewing machine may not have this stitch, but if it does, your sewing manual should show you how to do it. (if not, it's worthy of its own tutorial) Here are some pictures:

how you fold the fabric back to stitch onto the  inside of the 1/2" fold, picking up a few threads of the outer fabric every 5th stitch

how the stitch looks like on the backside of your fabric

how the stitch looks like on the outside of your fabric

4. GROMMETS
(follow package directions, really... which is:)

a) evenly space grommets, starting at 2" from either edge of the top of the drape. I kinda eyeballed the spacing first and then measured to get more accurate, even spacing. My grommets ended up being 5" apart, edge to edge (or approx. 7" from the center of each grommet)

b) use the template and a pen/pencil to mark a grommet circle - being careful to center it between the top edge and bottom edge of the 4" area that was stitched down at the beginning

c) cut out the circles using the skills you learned in kindergarten.

d) wedge the grommet side with the inner lip through the circle,

line up the top grommet piece over the bottom grommet piece,

and, as they say in the south, "mash 'em" together - wah-lah! A grommet is born!

e) continue with the remaining 7 grommets for a total of 8 across the top

LASTLY, install your curtain rod, put the drape "over, under" style onto the curtain rod so the top is wavy looking, and hang for visual enjoyment!

DONE!

I used these drapes to cover up two long stretches of plain basement wall on either side of our small, high basement window. I think it added visual height to the room, ties the grey couch and black cabinets together, and adds a little splash of pattern and color to bring a good balance of masculine and feminine to the room. Eventually I'll make some cute couch pillows to match, too!

Please feel free to email if you have any questions. I tried to read through this tutorial a few times looking for loopholes and hope I didn't miss anything. Good Luck!