Monday, June 28, 2010

Baby quilt

Over 37 weeks pregnant now so I'm finally starting to spend more time at home.  Which is great because it means more time for sewing!

I've finally made some progress on the baby quilt that I started making back in March.  I opted for a very simple quilting technique... straight lines!!!  I love the way it looks... here's a sneak peak:


And a close up of the stitching (a 1/4" each side of the seams):


I was rapt when I discovered that my machine came with an even-feed quilting foot... yay!!

I can't wait to get the quilting finished now and start on the binding.  Will definitely* get this one finished before the baby arrives :)

*not a guarantee lol

Glasses case

I'm having so much fun going to my quilt group each week!  We're making a charity quilt using the disappearing 9 patch and each of us have made about 5 blocks to get it started.  I was a little worried about how to make all my seams match up well enough, so one of the ladies invited me around to help sew the squares using a string-piecing technique.  Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the blocks :(

I was really inspired by some of the projects she was working on.  I collected up my fabric scraps and found that I mainly had greens and browns.  I made a quilted glasses case using the technique found here.  I used 1.5" squares, so they were 1" by the time they were sewn together.  Here are some pics:





This is a great technique for small scrappy squares.  Very quick and easy for a beginner!  I definitely plan to make some more of these once my scrap stash builds up!!!

Saturday, June 26, 2010

New cushions

The sewing machine arrived in late May and I busily started working on some cushions for the couch.  After ditching the hexagon idea, I opted for this beautiful range of cotton fabrics called Rouenneries by French General for Moda.


In between house guests and dinner guests and some other small sewing projects, I've only just managed to finish them!
 

Kitty thought she would test them out... although she decided that sitting directly on one was a little cramped for her and she chose to spread out next to the cushions instead :)



Don't look too closely... I still have about an inch of hand stitching to go on each cushion just where I inserted the zip.  Must add that to my sewing-to-do list!