Voile Color Wheel Quilt

I am very excited to become an aunt for the second time soon.  My niece should arrive next month.  An added bonus: I get to sew for a girl!  My brother requested I keep the pink to a minimum, so I decided to create a color wheel.  It's not too pink, right?

I used my 22.5 degree wedge ruler and a self drafted template to piece the curves in quarters.  There are just sixteen wedges in this 40 x 40 quilt, as opposed to the 52 in the gorgeous color wheel quilt from, Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts, making this a pretty quick baby quilt.

The fabrics are all voile by Anna Maria Horner.  I got a quick start on the project with a fat eighth rainbow bundle of voile from Westwood Acres. Since there is no white voile, to my knowledge, I searched for a solid of a similar weight.  I'm so pleased I found Art Gallery Pure Elements in Snow at my friend Elizabeth's new Etsy shop, Cucire.  This solid has a smooth, silky hand, making it a nice match for the voile.

I kept the quilting light, and backed and bound it with more voile.  This quilt is so soft and lightweight - perfect for a summer baby.

 

A Pleasant Trip

I thoroughly enjoyed my many trips around the world quilt.  You can find out more about the pattern and quilt along in my previous post.  It was a complete pleasure to make this quilt from start to finish.  I was excited to pull scrap strips in my favorite color palette of the moment.  I ended up raiding my stash as well, but it was worth it. I made 25 blocks; the quilt finishes at 60 inches square.  

The colors are moody and wintry, and the rich teals are a new obsession for me.  It is a hard color to find in fabrics.  I want it rich and saturated, without white accents that disrupt the value.  If you have a favorite dark turquoise or teal, let me know!

The Anna Maria Horner pastry voile I chose for the binding is the perfect teal.  And let me tell you, if you have not hand sewn a voile binding, you are missing out!  It was such a pleasure.  I will definitely be using it again.

I decided to try out  a new free motion quilting design.  I thought the busy quilt top would camouflage any imperfections, which thankfully seems to have been the case.  I picked the concentric circles design from Angela's first book.  The design is really quick and easy, although next time I will make the circles on a smaller scale (less than four inches across would be good I think), as the large circles were hard to keep even on my tiny machine.  I really love the texture they create, almost like raindrop ripples in a puddle.

The back is a text print from the Mama Said Sew line.  I saw it on lucyandnorman's gorgeous scrappy trip along quilt and had to have it.

You can find the throw sized quilt in my etsy shop.

Voile Infinity Scarves

 

I've started some Christmas sewing, and  scarves are a great, one-size-fits-all gift.  These infinity scarves are made from super soft voile and shot cotton.

I used Little Folks voile by Anna Maria Horner.  I just love these prints

The fun thing about infinity scarves is you can wear them so many ways.  I like mine looped three times.   They look elegant and dramatic draped twice around the neck. I used Lauren's tutorial to make these; the only change I made was to shorten the length a few inches.

The lipstick shot cotton on this one is so pretty!
I made a few as gifts, and I put these three in my shop, just in time for Christmas shopping.

Best Guild Ever

Last night was another fabulous meeting of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. We had a fun guest speaker, Alissa. She is one of the founders of the first Modern Quilt Guild in LA. She showed us some of her quilts and talked about the new minimal style she's pursuing. Hop on over to her blog to see some of her fabulous quilts.

We decided to start a new charity project as a guild too. Our quilts for the NICU was a huge success, and I hope this new project will be too. We're going to be making, excuse the cold clinical term, fetal demise pouches. These are for babies who don't survive and are so tiny there is nothing small enough to put them in.
Andrea, a nursing student, saw the pouches the hospital currently has and thought we could make something nicer. After all, babies are photographed, presented to their parents, and sometimes even buried in these pouches. Nothing is really special enough for that, but I tried to create what I would want to have, when I designed this pouch. I used the softest material (Anna Maria Horner voile and flannel) and a wrap style to cradle the little body.

I'm putting a link here to the tutorial pdf. If you have a desire to make these to donate to your local hospital, you are more than welcome to use this pattern. Different hospitals will have different preferences and regulations, so you'll want to get an example approved before making more. I'll warn you that making a pouch can be hard, emotionally, but imagine what it will mean to parents.

FD Wrap Pouch Tutorial

Infinity Scarf

I was finally able to use some of my lovely fabric from India, which feels similar to voile, and a piece of gorgeous shot cotton to make this infinity scarf. It is one large circle, and you can wear it looped twice or in other various other configurations.


I learned the hard way why I think it is called the infinity scarf. If you are overly confident and think you can figure out the construction of such a simple shape on your own, you'll likely end up, as I did, with a long tube you try to turn right side out, only to have it turn in on itself continually. Or infinitely in fact. Just read the tutorial on Anna Maria Horner's blog first and save yourself the frustration. She calls it the figure eight scarf, and she has some kits for it using her yummy new velveteen.

2010 in Review

Here is the obligatory mosaic of some of my best crafty bits from 2010. I'm actually very pleased I figured out how to make one of these. 1. Raw Edge Circle Quilt top, 2. Redbud Blossoms Quilt, 3. Tickertape Doll Quilt 3, 4. Camera Case Wristlet, 5. Hexagon pillow, 6. Summer Sunshine, closeup, 7. Pure Baby Boy, 8. Summer Sorbet, 9. String Pieced Pillow, 10. Voile and Linen Sewing Machine Cover, 11. Neptune Quilt, closer view, 12. Out for a Walk #2, 13. Plume Sails, 14. Quilted French Press Cozy, 15. Be Merry mug rug, 16. tickertape doll quilt, 17. My First Bee Quilt, 18. Scrappy Squares Baby Quilt, 2, 19. Coordinating Bunting, Pillow and Quilt, 20. tickertape mini quilt, 21. Around Town, 22. Busytown Quilt, 23. Ruffled Wristlet Keychains, 24. whirligig doll quilt - close up, 25. Monogram Pillow

Thanks to each of you for visiting my little blog over the past year and for all your kind comments both online and off.

Some for You, Some for Me

I finished up a couple more voile scarves, and decided I needed to make something for myself with this lovely fabric. Determined to use only the scraps I already had, I sketched out this sewing machine cover.

I used Amanda Jean's no triangle method for the zigzags. No problem. Then I chose to pair the voile with linen and set the zigzags on the bias. If you're more experienced with these materials than I am, you know those were likely two big mistakes. With some hair pulling and frustration over wavy edges and stretching materials, it came together fine in the end. Let's just say it's a good thing this drapes over a machine and doesn't need to lay flat! Lessons learned.

Summer Weight Scarves

Anna Maria Horner's Little Folks voile is sooooo soft and lovely. I knew it would be perfect for summer weight scarves. Since many in my family live in hotter climes, I thought these would make nice gifts for them. I first tried a pattern from Urban Arts and Crafts. Very boho chic.
The wrinkles look neat, but they do somewhat obscure the elegant softness that drew me to the fabric, so I next tried a pattern by twin fibers. I added a second strip of contrasting fabric at both ends, which I think adds interest but also some needed length. Super fast and easy to make, and it feels so nice the wear. I see more of these in my future!

And So It Begins

I really love to give handmade gifts, especially at Christmas. I hate feeling rushed and stressed in December. So, my gift making begins in August :). I saw this great card on Pioneer Valley Girl, and she put up a little tutorial. I couldn't resist!
They go together really quickly, and they are one of my favorite things - a great way to turn scraps into something beautiful and useful. I varied only slightly for the instructions, making my cards on fabric foundations rather than paper, and the dimensions of the rectangles are slightly wider.

And look at this stack of gorgeous Anna Maria Horner Little Folks voile! These are destined for my next Christmas gift project. More on that soon.