"Charm Squares" Baby Quilt

My friends are having babies faster than my sewing machine and I can keep up with, so I've been on the lookout for some quick baby quilt projects. One day I found a blog post from Sew Mama Sew featuring a Charm Squares Baby Quilt. The project looked easy, fast, and like I could make use of my rather large fabric stash.

It was indeed an easy project, and I was able to use some fabric I had, but because I was trying to make something unisex, I had to visit my new, favorite fabric store, Sew Modern. Maybe if I tried a little harder, I could have made do, but I'm not going to lie, this was the perfect excuse to go fabric shopping.

I picked out a Lorax print (the all-green fabric) because my friend, Mrs. G. and I both love to read. And, although blue is traditionally more of a boy color, I went for blue, green, and brown prints. Hopefully the paisley print and the binding's floral print made it a little more feminine.

If you want to make this quilt, you can buy a Charm Pack, and not deal with picking out your own fabric and cutting it down to 5-inches by 5-inches squares. The pattern is this:

Supplies

• 38 squares - 5 inches by 5 inches
• 5/8 yard fabric for sashing (solid works well)
• 3/8 yard fabric for binding
• 1 1/4 yard fabric for batting *you can get away with 1 yard if you are careful*
• One craft-sized package of batting

Directions

• Cut two strips, 5 inches wide from sashing fabric
• Cut four strips, 2.5 inches wide from shashing fabric
• Divide charm squares into a set of 25 (A) and a set of 13 (B). If you are making your own charm pack, first cut your 5-inches by 5-inches squares.
• From the set of 13, cut each of the squares in half. They will measure 2.5 inches by 5 inches
• Sew the charm squares (A) and half squares (B) into five rows, press seams open. Each row will have 5 A-squares and 5 B-squares. Alternate between each row:
• ABABABABAB
• BABABABABA
• Sew the sashing strips to the pieced rows - the 5-inch wide strips should be on the top and bottom. Cut down the sashing strips to be the same length as the pieced strips.
• When the quilt top is finished, baste it to the batting and backing.
• Quilt as desired. *I hand-quilted across the sashing strips, a half-inch between rows. The pieced rows were quilted one-quarter-inch from the seam.*
• Piece and attach binding. *I do mitered binding."

USC Blanket: Stacked and Layered

One of my favorite babies just turned one-year old recently, and so I made him a USC blanket.  The pattern comes from Super Simple Quilts #3 by Alex Anderson and Liz Aneloski.  It is called "Stacked and Layered" (hence the post title). 

Their pattern says to use five different fabrics for the top, but I went with four because I wanted USC to be the primary theme  

Putting together the quilt top was very easy and very quick.  Once everything was basted together, I quilted by hand...geez there are times I wish I would just pay someone to machine quilt for me.  But, that's okay, this time I did not have time to send this out to someone else.

Table Runners Turned Seat Covers

Does this look like a seat cover to you?  It doesn't to me, but that's what my sister uses it for in her car.  The monkey fabric is actually that waterproof stuff that you can find at craft stores.  It's a bit difficult to work with, and I found that I needed to put the regular material on the bottom while stitching with the sewing machine.  I machine quilted this time, instead of hand-quilting.  It's easy-peasy, so why did I take for-ev-er?

Um...yeah...no excuse for the tardiness.  Sorry Min.  Hope your Rav and you like the new "seat covers."

This Year's Halloween Costume Fail

Contrary to what my interest in Comic-Con might suggest, I am not a huge fan of dressing up and/or Halloween. This year however, I made an effort.

Of course I did not want to be something I thought a lot of other people would be, so I ended up on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Meaning, no one understood my costume. And no, I am not from Star Trek.


I decided to be Minmei from Robotech! Which is kind of weird because I never could stand Minmei. I would much rather have been Lisa, but I could not figure out how to make her uniform. So, Minmei it was. The tricky part was finding a dress pattern with the right neckline, and then finding a yellow turtleneck at the last minute.

For my Minmei costume, I ended up using Simplicity 2062 because it had the right neckline. The problem is that the "V" was created using a contrasting piece of fabric on top of the existing neckline...so no actual "V,"(or maybe I should say "pointy-U"). Not fun to figure out two nights before you need the costume.


My solution? Trim an additional one-half inch off the neckline (not the rounded collar part) and finish it with red double-fold bias tape for the entire neckline. I probably should have trimmed at least one-inch, but I erred on the side of caution because it is really difficult to correct a cutting of mistake. Why double-fold bias tape? Because I figured I could do the outside corners (located at the top, where a collar might be) like I would when I do mitered binding on a blanket; and I could do the inside corners in the square neckline style. It worked!

The dress pattern is not very fitted (Minmei's is), or short (Minmei's is not), but I think using knit fabric helped. It also meant that I did not have to worry about frayed edges or sew a zipper into the dress. Other things I did to make this pattern work me included not attaching a contrast band around the hemline; cut the sleeves to what I think is the elbow line on the pattern; and used gray single-fold bias tape for the detail. As far as the body of the dress goes, I held up the dress front, and pinned the bias tape to the dress, and took measurements to make it somewhat even on the other side.


As I said earlier, one of the hardest things was finding a yellow, long-sleeve turtleneck. If I had thought about this earlier, I probably could have found one a lot easier. I settled for a mustard yellow turtleneck from American Apparel.

Minus the Star Trek thing, I am pretty happy with the way this turned out. And while it did not work for Halloween on the Hermosa Pier, I am ready for Comic-Con...if I ever decide to go again and dress in costume (something I have never done).

By the way, in case you do not know Robotech, here is a picture of Lynn Minmei.

Bye Bye Bay

There have been some massive changes afoot, and one of them is that I recently relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area back to Southern California.

Just over four years ago I made the trek from El Segundo to Walnut Creek, and now I'm back. I can't honestly say that I loved living up in the Bay, but I did enjoy my time there, and I will miss my Walnut Creek life.

I know I should be talking about the wonderful people I left behind, but that's just too sad. Instead I'm going to talk about places to go and food to eat because others can easily enjoy those same things.

Wait, there is one person I want to talk about. My lovely hairstylist, Priscilla. She works at Tribez in Danville, and I love her. She almost never overbooks, she always accomodated my need to come in after work, and she cut my hair wonderfully. If you are in need of a hairstylist, go see her. The salon is fun and trendy, and Priscilla is a very calm person amidst the chaos of a hairstylists, clients and various personal care professionals. Just know that you need cash or a check.

Onto the other stuff I love:

• Nordstrom Rack, San Leandro—maybe one of the best Racks I have been patroned, it's off the Marina (East) exit from the 880.


• Wooden Gate Quilts, Danville—I am so sad I went here only once! Initially, I found this place online when I was looking for a quilting shop between work and home, but they were closed for renovation. When my mom visited in October, we stopped by. Wooden Gate Quilts was wonderful. I'll make it a point to visit when I'm next in the Bay...if I can manage to lower my fabric stash by then.


• Lafayette Library and Learning Center—this place is brand new, and it's like being in someone's big, beautiful home. There's a used bookstore (operated by the Friends of the Lafayette Library) just outside of the parking garage, and you can get a used hardcover for $1. In fact, I finally found a copy of Katherine Neville's the Eight there (and I have been looking for this book for years). The Lafayette Library is open on Sundays, and a wonderful place to spend an afternoon.

People in the Bay Area take their food seriously, so food deserves it's own little section today.

• Zachary's Chicago Pizza—I love and will eat all kinds of pizza, but this place is a favorite. I'm not sure how it rates against the real thing in Chicago, but I love Zachary's. I like the San Ramon location because there is parking, but I think the one in Oakland is the original.


• Lococo's, Piedmont—What you see on the menu, is what you get when you order, so please do not try and add chicken to a dish without chicken. I can't help but love my favorite little Italian place, Lococo's in Piedmont. You can bring your own wine, and please bring cash or a personal check (no credit cards). My go-to selections are the tortellini con sugo (tortellini stuffed with prosciutto and chicken) and Gilberto's Special pizza (all meat). Yum. I miss it already.


• Cha Cha Cha—I get my tapas and sangria fix here. It's all good, so I'm not even going to bother telling you what to get at Cha Cha Cha. The Haight Street location is the original, and has a totally different vibe from the one in the Mission, but both are fun. If you're on the Peninsula, there's also a new location in San Mateo, on Second Street, I believe.


• Saroor Indian Cuisine—Great samosas here! I drove by Saroor quite often, and finally decided to try it. I'm so glad I did because they are generous with the portions for takeout, and it's a nice little neighborhood spot on North Main in Walnut Creek.


• Hubcaps—I know it's a diner, but this is my favorite breakfast spot in Walnut Creek. It's my favorite because I love the eggs benedict at Hubcaps.


• Swiss Delices, Castro Valley—What a wonderful place for baked goods, coffee and lunch! Swiss Delices is a European bakery with locations in Hayward and Castro Valley, but I only know the one in CV. Everytime I went in, I pretty much always left with one or two of the following: an apricot or raspberry bird nest (macarron with jam); an apricot or raspberry humentachen; an Italian danish; and almost always, a peanut butter cookie.

There's actually a lot more that I love and like about the Bay Area, but that's for another time and future visits.

The Last Baby Blanket of 2010

Here's a blanket, made by special-request! It was a little weird making a blanket with two different football teams (this was for a two-team household), but that is mostly because I struggled with matching the fabric. It seems to have turned out okay though.


An up-close view so you can see the hand-quilting I did, and so you can see my team, the Colts.


This is just so you can see a bench that has appeared in photo shoots by Mindy Metivier Photography. By the way, this blanket was made in California and Hawaii.

Baby Quilt

There's also been some sewing going on lately, and here is a baby blanket I recently finished. I even hand-quilted it.


Most of the fabric is from Jo-Ann Fabrics & Craft, but the football print is from Bolt's End in Castro Valley.

Sewing Questions Not Yet Answered

A little over a year ago, I blogged about the struggles I had with using using double fold bias tape to make a square neckline. Included were some tutorial-type photos because I could not find step-by-step instructions on the internet.

You have no idea how pleased I have been to see that it's been helpful for other sewers.

Sorry, I just had to say that because I appreciate all the comments people have left for me. Which leads me to today's post.

The following two comments were left for me in October:

I am a 13 yo. seamstress, and I like to sew jumpers. I made one, (with a square neckline), and it turned out fine. Then, I made another with the same pattern, (I made the pattern) , and I ended up with funny wrinkles at the corners. Where did I go wrong? The first time I used cotton/denim, and the next I used 100% cotton material... Any tips?? Thanks!
October 21, 2010 11:04 AM

How do you do corners without getting scrunchy? also- how do you thread and use a serger? Could you write a post about that? Thank you!!
October 21, 2010 8:23 PM

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond, but I've been a bit busy lately, and I also haven't really been able to come up with what I think is a suitable answer to either question.

In answer to the "funny wrinkles" and "corners without getting scrunchy" questions—I have another question. Do you have any photos of these wrinkles and scrunches? It would help me if you could send me photos (please reference the blog in your subject line). I don't think it was the material you were using since both are made out of cotton. My guess is that you somehow pinched the fabric under the bias tape, or that fabric was pinched at the "v" part.

And now we've arrived at how to thread a serger.

How did you know that it's been more than a decade since I've actually used a serger? We had a serger at my grandma's house, and I remember failing miserably at trying to re-thread it. The first place I learned to use a serger was in Mrs. Iki's sewing class, and we never changed the thread without just tying the two colors together and letting the machine stitch until the new color was threaded all the way through. The best I can do is share with you two Google finds:

• Diane Bossom's Serger Place Serging Guidelines—this one has a lot of tips and has an improvement on the method I used in Mrs. Iki's class
.

• eHow.com has a video, but I can't make any comments on how informative it is.

Thanks for asking the questions. I do wish I could give you better answers, but send me some photos and I'll see if any of my resources can provide more help. And you know, my photographer of a sister was actually the one who was better with a sewing machine. Yes, that's right before there was Mindy Metivier Photography, there was a seamstress who made a lot of clothes.

Wooden Gate Quilts

Yesterday my mom and I were challenged to control our fabric-shopping impulses at Wooden Gate Quilts in Danville, California. It was my first time in the store, and I might already heart the place.

Wooden Gate is a cute little shop on Railroad Avenue, and it has the best fabric selection I have seen yet. They even have a good sized sale section (30% off of selected fabric) with some neat finds.

I don't really follow fabric designers, so I can't really tell you who they carry, other than from the cuts I purchased. The yellow flower print is by Tina Givens, the green one is by Amy Butler, and I also picked up something by Moda. Sorry, no sample of the Moda fabric as it is a surprise for someone.

If you are ever on the East Bay and are a fabric lover, I highly suggest you stop by the shop. The ladies who helped my mom and I were just the kind of friendly retailers I like, they merchandise really well, the shop is cute and the fabric selection is so hard to pass up.

On Overload

Lately, everything seems to be broken or a mess. From the car to the cell phone to ear phones...it never ends. It's got me a little discombobulated.

On top of that I haven't had much home-time recently, and I've got a project that I want to finish before my mom gets here. She gets here in about a week. The project is still in pieces. Some of them have been sewn together, but some of them have not. It still counts as being in pieces.

And then I want to clean the house before my mom gets here (it's really embarrassing for "guests" to see how we really live). This is something I would normally do over the weekend, but this weekend also happens to be one of the only weekends for us to go tailgating in SoCal. So, we're tailgating in SoCal. There will be no cleaning of the house this weekend.

On top of all this, I am still grasping onto my books. Yes, I must read. I need something to occupy my mental hamster. It's too bad I'm struggling with the book. So now I'm reading two.

This makes no sense. But, sometimes, this is how I roll through the mess. Burn the candle at both its proverbial ends.

And It Only Took 42 Hours

Truly, I have embraced the art of "just-in-time" manufacturing when it comes to making quilts for wedding gifts. This particular quilt is for a wedding in Seattle, and let's just say it's very soon. It took about 42 hours, but I finished.

Just in time.

This is actually the first time I have ever timed myself making a throw-size quilt. I am still a little amazed at the amount of time it took. There were some glitches along the way, but the big one occurred when I struggled with quilting the border. If only I had figured that out sooner, I would have finished this last night. After trying variations of circles and then hearts, I finally settled on making leaf-like shapes using a circle template. Since most of the fabric patterns contain plants or flowers, I felt like a leaf or vine motif would complement this best.


Since the quilting was all done by hand, I had to draw directly on the fabric with a disappearing ink pen. On the purple border I tried out the white marking pen by Clover (the ink disappears when you iron the fabric). It was a bit pricey at $6.99, but with a 40% off coupon from JoAnn, it was a great investment. The pen worked out well--the ink did not rub off, and it disappeared just fine with the use of my iron.

All-in-all, I am pretty happy with this project. Which is pretty amazing considering that I was very worried when I cut the squares. I was not pleased with my fabric selections (the black background fabric had more green in it when cut down to a 6 1/2" square). I am still not loving the fabric, but basting the quilt top with the batting and backing went well, and because of that, so did the hand-quilting. The basting and quilting are what I am most satisfied with...well, other than finishing it.


By the way, the wedding colors are green and purple, so that explains the color scheme. The fabric came from The Cotton Patch in Lafayette, JoAnn stores in the Bay Area and Bolt's End in Castro Valley.

For the Littlest Angels Baseball Fan I Know

Here's another very late 1st birthday present for my college friend's daughter. This happens to be a big baseball family--my friend, Mrs. G. is an Angels fan, while her husband, Mr. G., is a Dodger fan. I do have fabric for both teams, but since I love the Angels, their daughter gets an Angels blanket. Sorry Mr. G.


The pattern is a Single Irish Chain Block, with four-inch blocks. It's pretty easy and quick to make.

A Quilt for a Wedding

I honestly thought I would not make this deadline, but somehow I did; and I just finished making this quilt. The quilt is a wedding gift, and amazingly, I cut the fabric, sewed the squares, and stitched-in-the-ditch by hand in a matter of two weeks.

There was a slight break in the action because of Comic-Con. The basted version came to San Diego with me, but I was too exhausted every night and just could not work on the quilting. As a result, my fingers are a bit numb and slightly callused after some mad sewing over the past two days!


As you can tell, the bride and groom are Eagles fans and like beer and music. Picking out the fabric was a little difficult, since I was trying to steer away from anything to feminine. Then there was the beer fabric. It was difficult finding something, but I searched online and found The Craft Connection. They are a great online source for fabric, and they have reasonable shipping prices!

30th Birthday Blanket

This blanket has been a few years in the making. I have been meaning to make Mr. U. a blanket for a few years, but never got around to it, and since he turned 30 this year, I made it a priority. As you might guess, he likes sports, so it has football, baseball and golf on it. There's also some dart-beer-themed fabric.


I hand-tacked with embroidery stitches. The main body of the fabric is stitched with a fly stitch.


The border is stitched with a knot-stitch, but I forgot what it's called; and I can't refer to my book as I am writing this from Comic-Con.

Here's a full picture of the quilt, and you can even see our freshly stained deck. Next time I'll take this picture earlier in the day when the deck's not shaded.

Throw-Size Quilt

May has been a crazy-busy month of work for me, so I am behind in my projects. Yesterday, I finally finished my best friend's birthday present, and it is about a month late. The pattern is from the Learn to Machine Quilt with Pat Sloan book, and is a throw-size quilt.


We love the Angels, and so she gets an Angels baseball-themed blanket. Luckily, I still have a small stash of Anaheim Angels fabric. Once again, I hand-tacked this using embroidery stitches. The crow's foot stitch is perfect for anything baseball related, and I think it's my favorite embroidery stitch.

1st Birthday Blanket

My friends at home will celebrate their daughter's 1st birthday this weekend. I can't make the party, but I'm sending this blanket I just finished. The pattern is a Single Irish Chain Quilt Block. I could not add borders since the backing I had on-hand was not quite big enough, but oh well. This was "tacked" with embroidery stitches. Hopefully Miss L. keeps this blanket for awhile.

Birthday Present

This one's for my mom. Her birthday isn't until Sunday (she turns 60), but I don't think she really checks my blog, so I'm posting the picture a little early. The pattern is from Leisure Arts' Learn to Machine Quilt with Pat Sloan. I don't have a long-arm sewing machine, so I didn't machine quilt. Instead I did all the quilting by hand.

The flower and flower pot are fused onto the background fabric, and then I blanket-stitched around the edges. The quilting is all by hand, and other than quilting around the outer edges of I just stitched random patterns.

Inventory

Finally, I have a stockpile of one for my dollee inventory. It's a girl's baby blanket, finished with crow's foot embroidery tacking.

The backing is flannel with tiny rosebuds on a pale yellow background. Sorry, not picture of the background, just the blanket-corner.

Hopefully you can see the crow's foot stitching. I used Aunt Lydia's bamboo crochet thread in zen green for the embroidery.

Drawstring Bag with French Seams

As nice and clean as a French seam looks, I wish I had a serger. If I had a serger, I could easily finish raw edges, which would be especially helpful when I make drawstring bags.

I wanted a drawstring bag the size of a large trash bag so that I could nicely cover our suitcases (which sit in the garage). The difficult part of using French seams in this case comes when you leave an opening for the actual string. I found two different options online:

• Drawstring bag from the Between the Lines Blog
  
• Drawstring bag from the Creative Thimble

The instructions from the Creative Thimble were easier for me to understand, but I think the directions from Between the Lines is the more "correct way." Of course, I could always just line the bags, but the dimensions were so big that I really did not want to use lining.

Just-in-Time

Somehow, February completely snuck up on me, and so did the baby shower I am supposed to attend on Super Bowl Sunday; which, as I type, is later today. The shower is for a family friend, and I had all these grand ideas making a quilt, knitted blanket, and hats to give as my gift. Right.

I am lucky that I finished the quilt, just-in-time. It took me all day, but it is done and ready to be wrapped. This project did not go very smoothly.

It has been several months since I used this pattern, and I forgot that I adjusted the quilt squares down to four inches from five in order to fit on a 1 1/4 yard backing. I realized this when I pulled out the Star Wars flannel and compared it to what I had already started sewing together--the quilt top was too big!

Luckily, I have a rather large stash of fabric and could accommodate this mistake. The problem was that I really wanted to use the Star Wars fabric because my family friend is a huge fan. I even tried cutting four-inch squares, but determined that using the Star Wars flannel required a trip to the fabric store. In the interest of time, I decided to forgo the original plan and use another cut of fabric.

My troubles did not end there. Apparently, I really did want to use the Star Wars fabric, because by the time I had sewn seven of the eleven rows together, I found another mistake. This time, I mixed-up the quilt squares and was now one-short of a particular color, with no extra fabric to cut. The only solution was to remove a row from the top and one column on each side.

Now, the quilt top fit the Star Wars backing. Joy. Really. I know the top and backing don't really go together, but I think they (the parents-to-be) will get a kick out of the back of the blanket.

I also tried a new method of tacking. Usually, I machine-quilt the baby blankets, but it can be difficult since I have a very regular sort of sewing machine and no long-arm; or I hand-quilt if there is time. Once in a while I hand-tack using a stitch and a knot, but I don't really care for the look so I did some research on the internet and found a blog with new ideas for tacking, and pictures of crow footing.

I tried it out and liked this look much better that plain tying. In case you are trying to see what crow footing looks like, they are the purple stitches sitting on top of the seams, and look like the letter "v." Some people refer to crow footing as "fly stitch."