Monday, March 25, 2024

Cozy QAL - The Basting & the Marking



After considering different options, I decided to stencil words of affirmation onto my Cozy quilt from the  Cozy QAL from Alison Glass. My affirmation words are beautiful, intelligent, creative, confident, inspirational and courageous. There is room for a few more words but I was so excited to get started on the stitching that I decided to mark the rest later.

These 4" stencils turned out to be the perfect size - rest assured, I did test things out ahead of time on scraps just to be sure. I also used a washable marker - also tested multiple times - so any errors could easily be washed away. (It is incredible hard to photograph this without washing up the true color of the jersey knit.)


Stitching is very calming and meditative. I am working from the top down and right to left. I've chosen bright 8 weight pearl cotton from my stash, working down in rainbow-ish colors to match the inner layer, assembled back in February (see that post)



I am planning to stitch the first four words and then give myself the reward of cutting back the fabric to reveal the inner layer! I am on word 4!!!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Picnic Bag


Every since I was gifted this large piece of plaid canvas, I wanted to make a picnic tote. Buried deep in my closet, I had a large scrap of InsulShine from The Warm Company so I shaped it into the largest bag shape possible and then used those measurements to make the rest of the bag.


I wanted large pockets on the outside and took the time to line up the plaid. :-)


Velcro keeps the pockets closed as well as the overall bag closed. I took the bag for a test drive earlier this week with a picnic - our takeout bag of Chick-fil-a fit nicely inside.


There was no pattern at all for the bag. It finished at 12" x 16" x 5".

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

My "Use Up the Fabric" Quilts



Everything time I look around my sewing space, I see fabric I plan to use, fabric I love but have no plan for, and then all the rest of the fabric that I am confident will never make it into a quilt. 

So what to do with this perfectly good but just not likely to get used fabric? My goal is to make quilts for my guilds community giving project. We are focused on kids in the foster care system so quilts with modern design and bright colors are the best.

That pile of HST has been sitting waiting to be trimmed for some time now so I plan to tee that up for a nice sunny afternoon on the back porch. Once trimmed, it should be quick to get a top done.

For my second quilt, I decided to take advantage of the Seattle MQG's free BOM and use some coordinated large scraps to make a second quilt. 


I made some large flying geese using some colorful scraps. The background is a cream Bella solid of which I had several cuts of that hopefully add up to be enough for the quilt. I followed the instructions as written for the first 2 months of the BOM. Cutting instructions are tipped towards a beginner quilter so things are cut big and trimmed quite a bit. I'll likely modify things for future blocks since I need to conserve background fabric.




Have a wonderful day! Patty