Friends!!! I have been so busy ever since I got to Utah!
This week, I have been slaving away on some baby bedding for one of my best friends. I really love her fabric choices--a pink damask, prints from Pati Sloniger's "Bella Butterfly" collection, and white for the piping and ties. To make the crib bumpers, I simply used my tutorial created for Fairfield.
I had a really hard time deciding what kind of quilt to make for her but finally decided to go with one of my all-time favorite patterns--Hopscotch by Camille Roskelley. Remember when I made one last month? Yeah, I sort of love that pattern.
The fleece I used made for the thickest quilt I have ever had to quilt. It was reeeeeally hard to maneuver around. Totally worth it for the cuddliness.
I used my freemotion quilting tutorial to do lots of swirlies. (Don't I always?!)
I hope she likes it. I think the pinks and greens are ever so sweet. Babies rock.
Before the move, I used some of my leftover "Ruby" fabric to make some sweet little placemats for Olive's wee dining table.
This tutorial is perfect for those of you who have never made a quilt but want to learn how. (These placemats are basically minature quilts, which means you will learn all the necessary quilting steps as you make them.)
For this project, I used up a bunch of small scraps! You could also use fabric pre-cuts like a charm pack or jelly roll. You will also need batting scraps (around 12 x 16" per placemat) and some larger scraps for the back (a fat quarter is the biggest you would need).
For each placemat-top, you'll need to cut a bunch of 2-1/2 x 5" strips. For each placemat-top, you'll need twelve of these strips. I wanted a little white mixed in, so here is my pile of cuts.
Next, arrange the strips into two rows, six strips per row.
Referring to the picture below, take the first two strips in the row, face them right sides together with the raw edges aligned and them together along one of the 5" sides. Use 1/4" seam allowance.
Keep adding on subsequent strips until the top row is stitched together. Press the seams open using an iron. Repeat to sew together the strips of the bottom row together.
(Whoops! If you look closely at my initial layout, I accidentally switched the first two strips on the bottom row. Maybe you didn't notice.) At any rate, here are the top and bottom rows.
To sew the rows together, flip the top row over onto the bottom one, right sides together.
To make sure the seams line up, I always fold the top row down a little bit and peek to make sure they are in line. Perfect!
Pin in place to make sure the seams stay lined up.
Sew the rows together using the same 1/4" seam allowance.
Press open the resulting seam with an iron. And that is the basic placemat-top!
Next is basting all of the layers together as seen below. Lay the back fabric right-side down, layer the batting scrap on top of that (I'm using Fairfield's Fusi-Boo fusible batting), then lay the placemat-top right-side up. Because I'm using fusible batting, I fuse all three layers together with the heat from my iron; if you're using a non-fusible batting, you could use a sticky basting spray to"glue" the layers together. Then, insert a few safety pins to keep all of those layers together.
This is the point you would add embellishments. A few of my ideas included ric rac or applique. (You can follow my shape or letter tutorials for help.) Or you can leave the placemat as is. I actually like my plain one A LOT.
The next step is to quilt the layers together as desired. I had a lot of fun in this step and quilted them all differently. My favorite has to be the random zig-zags made using my walking foot! I would love to do this to a whole quilt, but it would certainly take forever! (Another reason why this project is great.)
Finally, we just have to bind our placemats' raw edges. You could use bias tape if you'd like, but I used my skinny binding method. Following that tutorial, I used 1.5 strips per placemat.
You could easily adapt this tutorial and make adult-sized placemats or even a table runner!
No, I won't be going to quilt market this year, but I whipped a few things together for the Marcus Fabrics' booth before the move. (We made it in one piece! Wahoo!) I got to play with some Vintage Vibe fabric by Faye Burgos in a couple of different color options. With the first one, I put together some simple and sweet springtime hoops.
I absolutely adore this yellow floral print.
I love how my little plaid bunny turned out. It would be a really sweet theme for a nursery, don't you think? Also, I totally dig this tangerine color that I am starting to see everywhere. It's just lovely.
I think I need to make some embroidery hoops of my own. Maybe I can make some for Olive's room.
The other color option for Vintage Vibe is super funky. I used my Pat-a-Cake pattern to make a toddler baking set, as well as a matching outfit. Unfortunately, my photography doesn't do the fabric justice.
I'm so sad I couldn't make it to QM this time around. Maybe next time? Please?
Well folks, for the next four days I will be in a car with my hubby and toddler. Crossing my fingers for the best!!! Until then, I have a treat for you.
Do you know my friend, Heidi, over at HoneyBear Lane? We've known each other since first grade. Fun, huh?! When I first started blogging, I knew nothing about all this HTML stuff. Seriously, clueless. Around that time, she started up a series of tutorials on her site called, "Bling Your Blog." Boy, did that help me out BIG TIME!
She has a plethora of tutorials up on her site, but is most famous for her wonderful puff quilts. She has a great eye for color!
She sells some of these wonderful quilts in her shop, but also offers a comprehensive PDF pattern so you can make them. Her patterns are none like you have ever seen. She includes detailed pictures for every step of the way. Sort of like a tutorial, but in PDF form. It is a great pattern for beginners.
She recently released a pattern her newest Rag Puff Quilt and has generously offered to give away 5 of them right here right now!
*giveaway is closed*
All you have to do is head over to HoneyBear Lane, come back here and leave a comment. This giveaway will go until Saturday 5/12/12 midnight MST. Winners will be announced Monday 5/14/12.
Winners are as follows:
Ladies, I need your addresses so I can get you your prize! Please e-mail me at lellaboutique (dot) blogspot (dot) com. Congrats!
This week, I am frantically trying to get all of my spring cleaning done. Arg.
We're moving next week to Utah for the summer where the hubby has an internship with the Midvale City Prosecutor. Oh yeah, he is also playing Adam in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at Sundance. Will I see him this summer? I wonder.
I will be bringing Bernina along (of course) and am hoping I can be somewhat productive.
Speaking of Bernina, I actually want to talk a little about sewing machine maintenance. When was the last time you cleaned your precious machine? I mean REALLY cleaned it?!
There is nothing worse for a quilter than having a sewing machine act up, so what are you doing to take good care of it?
Obviously, my machine is probably different than yours, so my first bit of advice is to dig out the manual. I love looking at my manual since it is from the early 90's, ha ha ha!
Are these prints fantastic or what?! I seriously can't stop staring at them.
My lovely friend Laurie Wisbrun is the brilliant designer of this fabric eye-candy and was sweet enough to send me some to play with. The collection is called "Perfectly Perched" (for Robert Kaufman Fabrics) and will be in quilt shops in July. This will be her 4th line of fabric coming out this year so far. Wow! She is an expert at cranking out beautiful fabric designs and has even written a book about it. Unbelievable!
These Perfectly Perched prints were almost too cute to cut up! I decided to keep the quilt design simple with a snowball block design to really showcase the fabric. For the quilting, I had a lot of fun making lots and lots of random squiggly lines using my freemotion quilting technique.
For those of you who don't know what a snowball block is or how to make one, let me take a second to explain! It is so easy and fun.
You basically need a bunch of colorful 5" squares and lots of neutral 2" squares. To be more specific, I used eight colorful fat quarters and cut twelve 5" squares from each. From the white fabric, I cut another thirty-six 5" squares; from the gray, I cut five hundred and twenty-eight 2" squares. Yup, five hundred and twenty-eight of them. It sounds much worse than it is.
Once the cutting is done, you're ready to assemble your snowballs. Here are the 4 easy steps:
1. For each snowball block, you will need one 5" square and four 2" squares. Mark the back of each 2" block with a diagonal line. Place one marked square in each corner of the 5" block, right sides together, aligning raw edges. Pin in place.
2. Sew along the marked lines; trim away the excess fabric.
3. Press open the seams with an iron.
4. Admire your lovely snowball block and move on to the next one!
Once you make all of your snowball blocks, you assemble the quilt like you would any basic block quilt. Pretty cool, eh?
Big thanks to Laurie for sharing some of your gorgeous fabric! To see the other amazing designs she is working on, head over to her blog and stay a while. No, seriously. You might find yourself pinning the heck out of her blog for the next forty minutes.
Lemons.
I pretty much love them.
Just talking about them makes me want to whip up a batch of lemon mousse. Or lemon sour cream pie. Or both. Mmmm. When life gives me lemons, I'm in a dither.
When I first came home from the hospital with Olive, my mom fixed me some chilled lemon apple oatmeal for breakfast. She explained that oatmeal helps boost a new mother's milk supply, or at least I think that's what she said; I was more concerned with why she had not shared this delightful recipe sooner...
Chilled Lemon Apple Oatmeal
- 1 C. regular oats
- 1/2 C. milk
- 1/2 C. lemon yogurt
- 1 Granny Smith apple, diced
The night before, combine the oats and milk in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, the oats will have absorbed all the milk.
Add the lemon yogurt and diced apples; mix everything together well.
Yup. That's it. Unbelievably easy. The hardest part is really just remembering to soak the oats the night before. Even the husband (an admitted meat-and-potatoes guy) likes it, so this is a regular breakfast food around here.
