Friday, September 27, 2013

Love this bag!


Handy Market Tote
(pattern from the adorable book Patchwork Please)

Last night after getting the girls to bed,
 I started working on this pattern.
Can you believe that I had the bag finished and was crawling into bed by 10:30pm?  I did omit some parts of the pattern -- I didn't add a button closure or interior pockets.  And since my fabrics were both home dec weight, I skipped the interfacing, too.  
What a fabulous, quick project!
I found the red/white stripe fabric at a vintage store ($7 for 2 yards!), and the black/white print is a remnant from Ikea.
  I remembered to add a label, too --
something I almost always forget!

and


Monday, September 23, 2013

College Dorm Quilt

Have you ever made a T-shirt quilt?
I can finally say that I have!
Last winter my husband's sister asked me to make a quilt for her son for his high school graduation, and of course I said I would!  What a perfect gift for my oldest nephew.  I still remember dancing with him on my hip at my wedding -- when he was three.  Now he's over 6 ft tall, and starting his first year of college.
And his mom kept LOTS of his T-shirts!
Of course none of them were the same size, 
so the layout was tricky.
My girls (& our cat) loved helping figure out
this huge puzzle of a quilt!
I used various Kona solids to make the blocks even.
The largest T-shirt pieces measured about 14 inches, and I added fabric to the other pieces to make 24 square blocks.  Some solid sashing around the edges helped make it large enough for a twin (extra long) bed.
This quilt is heavy!  And was not so fun to quilt!
I interfaced each T-shirt piece prior to sewing them together, which added quite a bit of weight (and took forever)!  But it made the stretchy T-shirt material much easier to work with -- so I can't imagine skipping this step.
I quilted straight lines vertically, about 3-4 inches apart, and then bound it in matching Kona solids, with a zig-zag stitch.
I'm so happy to have this quilt finished!
It was really fun watching my nephew open his graduation present -- he told his younger brother to beware that his mom might have already started stealing his T-shirts, too!
Good thing I have another 4 years until my second nephew graduates from high school.
But then there are 3 more after him, yikes!

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday.