My Worst Idea Ever

washed blockI admit, I have some bad ideas. Those of you on the recent family trip to Memphis may remember my idea to walk to Sun Studio based on the map in the menu at the diner. Look, it’s basically just around the corner! Several miles of glass-strewn sidewalk later…

But yesterday, I had one of my worst craft-related ideas. I decided to pre-wash the fabric for a quilt while I was making the quilt. I’ve done it before. I get the top done (usually it’s for a children’s charity quilt), and I decide I want to wash the top and backing so it doesn’t pucker too much after it’s quilted and washed again. True, the top gets a little frayed, but no big deal.

For this particular children’s charity quilt, though, I planned on using the quilt-as-you-go technique, where you quilt individual blocks and then join the quilted blocks into a quilt. So I washed the sewn blocks.

Disaster. They frayed like crazy.

Did you see that giant knot of threads in the photo above? Here’s a better look. The threads I cut from all the blocks ended up being the size of my fist.

thread hairball

And some of the seams even came apart. Good thing that happened to me, though, and not to some poor child at the Ronald McDonald House.

ripped seam

Even after I took the blocks out of the washer and saw what a mess it had become, I didn’t take the hint. I went ahead and washed the batting and backing in the next load. Disaster, part two.

batting disaster

On delicate, the batting still came apart. On the plus side, I think that’s the most lint I’ve ever seen in the dryer lint trap.

The blocks shrunk enough that I need to make a new plan for the quilt, possibly adding borders around the whole quilt to get it back to the 40″ x 40″ size it needs to be for donation to the Ronald McDonald House.

My enthusiasm for this project has cooled off considerably. But I think that’s part of my problem. I get so excited about starting a new quilt that I don’t stop to think if I want to pre-wash the fabrics are not. I just want to start sewing. And I don’t want to pre-wash all my fabrics, because sometimes I don’t plan on washing the piece or I want the pucker.

pinwheel block ironed

But I’ll get back to it before too long. I do think these pinwheel blocks are cute. And I do want to make a quilt-as-you-go quilt.  I just need a little time to recover from this craftastrophe.

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by Christine Doyle on May 16, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Christine Doyle on May 16, 2013

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Name Tag and Block for Boston

The Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild meeting is tonight, so that means this past weekend was spent finishing up challenges.

First up is our name tag challenge. Each member was challenged to create a name tag for themselves in the colors of the CMQG logo.

When I started the name tag, I decided to step away from my usual color palette and try something different—my plan was pinks, purples and blues. So I started embroidering my really long name. Then I remembered the part about matching the logo…

cmqglogo1

So I ended up interpreting the red hues in the logo rather loosely and added teals and greens, as usual.

name tag 2

I knew I wanted the name tag to hang around my neck, and I saw some great lanyard tutorials online. But because I didn’t have the necessary hardware on hand, I simply sewed the ends of the strap to the name tag. Pretty easy.

name tag

Finally, because I’m not a nerd at all, I added a pen loop to the back of the name tag. Handy, huh?

pen loop on name tag

pen in loop

name tag with pen

If you’re looking for name tag inspiration, here’s a name tag post from the CMQG blog and here’s a name tag post from the Philadelphia Modern Quilt Guild blog.

The second challenge I worked on was a block for Quilts for Boston. The Boston Modern Quilt Guild put out a call for 12 1/2″ blocks in the colors of the Boston Marathon; they’ll use the blocks they receive to make quilts for the victims of the recent bombings. There’s still time for you to participate in this call—they’ve asked that all blocks be received by May 24. Click here for the details. They’ve even included a photo of fabrics in the color palette to help inspire you.

I chose to make a pinwheel block from the book Modern Blocks by Susanne Woods. The block in the book was 12 1/2″ square, but I liked the yellow so much that I left a little more on the sides (the Boston MQG has asked that all blocks be 12 1/2″ tall, but they can be as wide or narrow as you like). And the book had a circle appliqued in the center of the pinwheel, but I didn’t think it needed it (especially since my points actually matched up!).

Block for Boston

I’m looking forward to seeing the name tags and blocks everyone else brings tonight. Within a few days of each meeting, we post photos from the meeting on the CMQG site—check it out for yourself!

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by Christine Doyle on May 8, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Christine Doyle on May 8, 2013

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Shopping in Memphis

sew memphis 3

This past weekend, seven of us from my family made our way down to Memphis, Tennessee, for a short vacation. It was the second music-focused vacation for a few of us (our first stop was Nashville several years ago already). But no matter what the focus of any vacation, there’s always time for a trip to a fabric store.

Mom and I both did a little research beforehand, looking for a good shop to try. Many of the more established stores are well outside town. And they were all very traditional. One even boasted that they didn’t carry any “garish” fabric. We kept looking.

Then we found Sew Memphis. It’s a little modern fabric store in the southern part of downtown Memphis, just an 8-minute drive from our hotel. The fabric displays are all adorable; they had found most of the display pieces at thrift stores, yard sales, or on the street.

sew memphis 1

sew memphis 2They also have a great workshop room; the day we were there, they had open studio where anyone can come in and get help on their projects. And while there aren’t a huge number of bolts, there is a nice selection of fabrics that both Mom and I loved. Here’s what I picked up.

sew memphis fabric

I’ve got a navy quilt in me somewhere, so I picked up a few fabrics that might go into that. And I got some orange to build up that nonexistent orange stash.

The next day, we walked down to Beale Street to do a little shopping. I honestly didn’t think I’d be blogging about any of the shops there, but then we came upon A. Schwab Dry Goods Store.

ASchwab 1

A pack of FreeSpirit pre-cuts in the window of the shop caught my eye, so we stopped in. And then the wonderfulness began.

ASchwab 2

This collection of reproduction antique toys is right inside the door.

ASchwab 4 Then Mom and I found the area where they had the fabric. It was all FreeSpirit pre-cuts, along with some FreeSpirit notebooks, cleverly displayed on an old fabric cutting table. The mechanism in the front measured the fabric and made a small cut where it was then torn to size.

ASchwab 5

They had some Moda Home items, too (I bought that compass napkin right there in front).

ASchwab 3

There was stuff for the men, too. As well as just a ton more of everything: shoes, dresses, sauces, candy, and much more. The building was awesome, too; it was three stories, and it looked like part of it was getting turned into a museum of retail. Just a super fun place to explore.

And finally, while this isn’t shopping related, I wanted to share this one picture from our tour of Graceland. It’s not real great (I’m still getting used to the camera on my phone, as you might have been able to tell from the shots above), but the room is covered in fabric. COVERED.

Graceland

The walls and the ceiling use the same fabric, and the fabric is pleated on both. Over 300 yards of the fabric were used in the room. You can see on the couch, behind the pool table, there are throw pillows in coordinated fabric. Here’s a blog post from Threads with some better photos. Crazy cool.

Other highlights along the way included a tour of Sun Studio (my favorite tour of the trip), the Memphis Zoo, some great BBQ places, and some blues clubs. A great trip, indeed.

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by Christine Doyle on May 1, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Christine Doyle on May 1, 2013

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Completed I-Spy Rainbow Quilt

Finished ISpy RainbowThe I-Spy Rainbow Quilt is finished! This quilt was so much fun to work on. Even switching out the threads to quilt each section was fun—the threads were all so darn pretty!

ISpy quilting

The quilting is just straight lines in the colored areas with minimal quilting on the I-Spy fabrics (as I didn’t want them to get too cluttered). I wished I liked the quilting part more, so I could make gorgeous, heavily quilted quilts. But as is, it holds the layers together and that’s what it needs to do. (Sorry for the weird light in this shot.)

ISpy Rainbow back

I’m pretty happy with the way the back turned out, too, considering it was an experiment in improv piecing.

For the binding, I just used four of the solid fabrics, one on each side. My dream was to make the binding match the solid fabric changes on the sides of the quilt, but that dream faded away pretty quickly—so. much. measuring. So I chose two colors for the sides, and then matched the fabrics on the top and bottom.

And, of course, a quilt isn’t really done until it has a label. The label fabric is one of the leftover I-Spy Spoonflower blocks.

ISpy labelNext up, this baby goes into the wash (to help wash away my label grid marks), and then off to the Ronald McDonald House, hopefully to go to some rainbow-loving child.

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by Christine Doyle on April 24, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Christine Doyle on April 24, 2013

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Octopus Mug Rug

Octopus mug rug

My sister Jenny celebrated a milestone birthday on Sunday, and although we don’t usually send birthday gifts, I thought this special occasion deserved one. So over the weekend I whipped up this mug rug for her.

Jenny’s favorite color is orange, so I dug through my stash and found this from Tula Pink’s Salt Water line of fabric.

Tula Pink fabric

While the fabric can come off pink, I figured I’d add orange fabrics from my stash, so the mug rug would end up orange. But it turns out I don’t have that much orange in my stash. I’m always shocked by this discovery, but somehow, my stash of orange still hasn’t grown.

Octopus angleSo I hope Jenny like’s pink, too.

The square-in-a-square block pattern is from this blog post from Craft Buds, which includes a paper-pieced pattern. I started paper-piecing the first block, but I found I wasn’t so good at centering my fussy cut fabric with that method. So I ended up piecing the blocks in the usual way (which really wasn’t too hard for a block like this).

The back is just more of the Salt Water fabric. Jenny is the mother of Stella, the niece who received the shark skirt for Christmas, so I wanted to really drive home the family ocean theme.

Octopus back

The whole thing took about 5 hours, from conception (“Hey, I should make a mug rug for Jenny!”) to the last hand stitches of the binding. I love that about mug rugs. A mini quilt completed in one afternoon!

If you’re so inclined, check out Jenny’s vintage Etsy shop, The Fancy Tail. She has a crazy amazing gift for thrifting. I love the vintage linens and houseware she finds, but there’s tons of great items in the shop, including buttons and clothing.

Happy birthday, Jenny! Your mug rug is on its way!

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by Christine Doyle on April 18, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Christine Doyle on April 18, 2013

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Rainbow Quilt Back

This weekend I tackled the backing for my I-Spy Rainbow Quilt. As I mentioned last time, I had a few scraps of solids left from the top that I wanted to incorporate into the back.

Strips for back

My first plan was pretty simple. Just divide the backing fabric into squares and use the strips as sashing. Or at least I thought it would be simple.

rainbow back before Not only did my sashing strips not match up (grrr), but I did the math wrong and the backing wasn’t wide enough or long enough for the front. Sigh.

After going outside and killing some weeds, I decided the best thing to do was to enter the land of improv. It’s a popular place these days. It’s a land where you cut and piece with abandon. Where the only plan is that there’s no plan. Where there are no regrets and no seam rippers. (OK, I smuggled in a seam ripper.)

So I started cutting the pieces I hadn’t sewn together yet and taking apart and cutting the pieces I had sewn together. And then I started sewing. And cutting. And ripping out. Improv land is not a place I go willingly very often, so it took me a bit to really get into it.

But finally, I ended up with a backing that was large enough.

rainbow back

Some of the rainbowness of the front is lost on the back, since I was just using whatever I had left over. But it’s certainly more interesting and more fun than a simple grid. And I think it goes pretty well with the front.

rainbow front and back

Next up is the quilting. The International Quilt Festival is here in Cincinnati this week (yay! we’re so lucky to have this show right here in town), so that’s where I plan to pick up all the threads I need to match the solids. I may pick up some other things, too…. And the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild will have an exhibit again this year, so it will be great to see all the member quilts hanging in the show.

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by Christine Doyle on April 10, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Christine Doyle on April 10, 2013

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I-Spy Rainbow Quilt Top

Block detailA few months ago already, I won a pack of 5-inch quilt blocks, perfect for an I-Spy quilt. So this past weekend, I dug into them to see what I could make.

A typical I-Spy quilt is packed with blocks of all different novelty fabrics, lined up edge to edge. I couldn’t wrap my head around that kind of chaos, so I decided to showcase each fabric a bit my adding a border around it. I went to my stash and pulled out a few solids and near-solids to see what worked.

I knew that I wanted to donate this quilt to the local Ronald McDonald House, and their size requirement is 40 x 40 inches. After a bit of math, I decided to add 1.5-inch borders to my 5-inch blocks and place them 6 across and 6 down.

Original blue

I played with the layout a bit, trying the colors in order, randomly placed, etc. And I just wasn’t feeling it. I finally decided that the blue solid was bringing down the party.

All but the yellow fabric are shot cottons, over-dyed fabric with super saturated color. And the blue regular solid just felt so dull. So back to my stash to see if anything else would work.

Replacement blue

There I found a blue that was a lot brighter and more fun. It, too, is a shot cotton, and while it’s darker than I was initially going for, I think it works a lot better.

Again I played with the layout, and then I remembered this blog post by Kelly Biscopink, Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild member and former colleague. In it, she discusses her childhood love of rainbows. At 5, she remembers sobbing for fear that she’d never seen one in real life. Hmmm. Let’s try rainbow order.

I Spy Rainbow top

Of course, this rainbow doesn’t have a red, and it’s heavy on the violets, but will a little kid in love with rainbows really care? I hope not.

I had many scraps of the solids, so I sewed them into strips that I’ll somehow incorporate into the back.

Strips for back

I haven’t decided on the quilting yet. But I’m thinking I will quilt each row with a matching thread. Sounds like good opportunity to expand my thread stash!

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by Christine Doyle on April 3, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Christine Doyle on April 3, 2013

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Finished T-Shirt Quilt

T_shirt quiltComing in just under the 5-year mark, I’ve finished my T-shirt quilt! The quilt is titled “A Few of My Favorite Things” because I’ve used my favorite old T-shirts that I could part with and some of my favorite fabrics (from about 5 years ago). It’s been a long time in the making, and I can’t want to snuggle up under it.

Previously, I had blogged about making the quilt top (with some embroidery added to fill in some of the white space on the T-shirts) and finding the right border fabric (you can read that post here). The latest hold-up for this quilt was the quilting. When I finally worked up the gumption to dive in to the quilting, I did a few blocks and then realized I didn’t like it. So then it sat for a while (months) longer while I worked up the gumption to take out that quilting and start again.

The quilting I ended up with is just straight lines in the printed fabrics and tack-down stitches on the T-shirts. Nothing too fancy or dense, but it all takes time.

T_shirt quilt detailWith the quilting finally done, I was ready to get this project off my list. But I still had the binding to do. I auditioned a few solid and solid-reading fabrics, but Greg and I both thought they would be a visual let-down given the rest of the quilt. So I went with this orange dot fabric. It turned out brighter than I thought it would, and it’s possibly a bit distracting. But the fabric is definitely one of my favorite ones, so I think it works.

The back is one fabric, just a pretty print I got on sale at the Herrschner’s warehouse sale last year.

T-shirt quilt back

I love this quilt for so many reasons. First, I’m proud that I made the whole thing myself. I learned a lot while making it, especially about working with knits. And the shirts and the fabrics bring back so many memories. A few of the shirts I received as gifts from my friend, Lynn. Several I associate with my sister, Carrie. One I received from my sister, Brenda. Two I bought on work trips for my first job. And then there’s the fabric, many of which I bought on shopping trips with my mom. So, so many wonderful memories. All wrapped up in a quilt that I can’t wait to wrap up in.

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by Christine Doyle on March 22, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Christine Doyle on March 22, 2013

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Pincushion Swap: Conclusion

heart pincushion detailA few weeks ago, I blogged about a birdie pincushion I made for a swap that was to take place at QuiltCon. Well QuiltCon has come and gone now, and all the swapped pincushions have found a home.

Earlier this week I received an e-mail from Elizabeth from the Oklahoma City Modern Quilt Guild that my birdie is now in her sewing room. You can check out Elizabeths’ blog here.

Then at the Wednesday Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild meeting, a new pincushion came to live with me. It was made by Amanda, also of the OKCMQG.

heart pincushion and tag

The heart on the front of the pincushion had several of us at the meeting stumped, and we finally decided it was probably needle punched. Since the cute tag attached to the pincushion listed Amanda’s blog, I went to check it out. And there I learned that the heart is made up of French knots. Hundreds and hundreds of French knots. Can you believe it?!

heart pincushion side detail

I e-mailed Amanda to let her know how much I loved the pincushion and the variegated embroidery floss she used—and how impressed I am by it. She said she made the knots while watching Downton Abbey—perfect!. To read about this pincushion and to check out Amanda’s blog, click here.

Thanks to the organizers of the QuiltCon pincushion swap and to Teresa, who organized it for the CMQG. I hope we can do something like this again!

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by Christine Doyle on March 15, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Christine Doyle on March 15, 2013

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Baby Bibs for Charity

BibCraft Hope, the group for which I made the aprons for Haiti last year, has a new project up! Titled Hope for China, this project is asking crafters of all sorts to make baby bibs for orphaned children in China. One of the members of the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild has adopted two daughters from China, and she is encouraging everyone in the guild to participate. So last weekend, I started sewing baby bibs!

For projects like this, I have found it very useful to have at least one book of baby projects in my library. Again I pulled out my copy of Amy Butler’s Little Stitches for Little Ones, this time to find a bib pattern. The book contains one bib pattern with two variations; I chose the variation that allowed me to use some animal fabric from my stash that I had gotten for my next children’s charity project (whatever that was going to be).

This particular pattern has a bound edge, which requires attaching binding on both concave and convex curves. This would be my challenge.

I decided to make two bibs. After I had the pieces for both bibs cut out and layered, it came time to attach the binding. I cut the binding on the bias, as directed, and then I pinned like crazy.

Bib with pins

On the first bib, I didn’t trust the give of the bias-cut binding enough, so I left it way too loose, which resulted in lots of puckers around the neck.

Bib 1 neck

On the second bib, I stretched the binding a bit more as I pinned, and the result was fewer puckers (although I still have some work to do to eliminate the puckers all together).

Bib 2 neck

While the fronts of each bib are the same, I switched it up a bit on the back. The white and gray fabric is actually a flannel, making that one a bit more cozy.

Bib backs

Now I just need to add the Velcro closure to each to finish them off.

If you’re interested in participating in the Craft Hope project, there’s still time. The bibs are due on April 1, in time for an adopting mother to bring them to China with her. The bibs may be constructed in any way you like; they’re collecting knit, crocheted, sewn and even no-sew aprons. Check out the Craft Hope Facebook page for the details and links to tutorials.

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by Christine Doyle on March 7, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Christine Doyle on March 7, 2013

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