Three Quilts One Bundle!

Gosh I love deals, especially fabric deals! So much that sometimes I buy too much, way, way too much! When I jumped back into quilting a few years ago I bought an inappropriate amount of fabric; it's normal to buy a couple hundred yards of fabric in a year right?? Right....  I have seriously curtailed my fabric intake this year. The neatly folded fabric has spilled off my shelves into piles on the floor which is not neat at all! In an effort to make a little room I decided to devour a fat eighth bundle of Chez Moi Coquette I bought from the Fat Quarter Shop which has had a birthday or two here. In case you are wondering you can make at least three baby quilts from a single fat eighth bundle!  Here is my first finish

After my recently finished postage stamp quilt with a gazillion tiny squares, a few angles were necessary to keep me straight! This is my first triangle quilt finish. I've dabbled in triangles before with my triangle pillow but this was the first usable quilt with nothing but triangles.

I'm constantly admiring them and I quickly realized how tricky the triangle points can be. By the time I finished this quilt I decided that pressing all seams open was the best way to save them. I did have a couple of 'point casualties' but there is always a couple!

For the quilting I decided on light pink 50wt Auriful thread following each seam. I really love this design partly because it creates stars all over the front and back

Pretty, pretty, pretty! This crib quilt measures 36x42. I was also able to create a triangle baby quilt and a herringbone quilt that hasn't quite taken form yet from this fat eighth bundle! Who knew so much fabric was stuffed into those neatly folded bundles?!

Link Parti's 

Take a look at the linki parti's I get down with here or by clicking on the Linki Parti's link above. Linking up to Whoop Whoop Friday crazy mom quilts LAFF Sew Cute Tuesday i have to say and My Quilt Infatuation 

Sew What?! The Staple Dress

Sew.... What?! I made something that wasn't a quilt and I liked it!

I came across Me Made Made 2015 on Instagram while cruising Art Gallery Fabrics and thought, I could do this right?!  I bought this amazing voile Indelible Floret Stains in Mulberry by Katarina Roccella and the Staple Dress pattern by April Rhodes. Mustard, mint, teal, pink - yes, please! I read a bunch of reviews of the pattern and quite a few people said that it was a great pattern for beginners and lots of newbies like me had good outcomes.

Since I've never made a piece of clothing before I thought maybe I should practice on something that was a little less expensive.  I bought 2.5 yards of pretty pink pin dot on navy fabric from the bargain bin for around $9.  I think it is rayon - I know nothing about apparel fabric, nothing! Note to other beginners, rayon is very slippery, a less slippery choice might be better for your first garment. The learning begins! A friend of mine, another newbie sewer, joined me and we dove in thinking we'd be wearing our dresses out for the evening. That did not happen. In a few hours we did manage to trace the pattern, cut our fabric pieces, sew together the shoulders and sew the pockets in. We figured we could probably finish sewing the sides together, sew the neck, arms and waist shirring in a couple more hours. That did not happen. On our next meeting we managed to sew the two main pieces together and the neck. Sewing neck and arm holes are really hard! Seriously. My biggest struggle was pressing this fabric; it just would not crease. Even with lots of pins it was still moving around quite a bit while I was sewing. My neck is a little ruffly on the inside as a result but it looks ok on the outside.

I was determined to fix the ruffle effect for the arm holes. Much research commenced. I decided to add a sheerweight fusible interfacing and recut the arm pieces. Much better! The interfacing allowed the fabric to crease when pressed which made all the difference. Next time I'll be sure to carefully fit the arm and neck pieces too. Sigh.

Although a lot of freaking out was done over the waist shirring, it was all for nothing, my Pfaff handled it like a boss. The trickiest part was hand winding the elastic thread on the bobbin. Yes, hand winding the bobbin. And of course I wound it the wrong way the first time. Doh.

Hemming was last. No freaking out but tons of research for hemming slippery fabrics. Basically, the tinier the hem the better. But I still had the pressing issue and this time I couldn't use interfacing like I did with the arms. I took a chance and just sprayed it down with lots and lots of heavy starch. Worked! Immediately put dress on and demand hubby take photos before it falls apart!!

Whew! I sewed a dress. A dress I could, and did, wear to work. Happy!

Link Parti's 

Take a look at the linki parti's I get down with here or by clicking on the Linki Parti's link above. Linking up to Sew Many Ways and Made by You Monday

Postage Stamp Quilt

I'm so happy to be finished up with this oversized baby quilt! I love these colors in the Up Parasol line by Heather Bailey and used up every last scrap of them finishing this postage stamp quilt. This quilt was featured at Quilt Story: Fabric Tuesday!!

I added a bunch of scraps from my stash including Art Gallery Pure Elements solids in coral and light pink and several strips of my Birds and Berries collection plus a couple of others strays that fit in. Since these colors are a little out of my typical jive I ended up selecting a solid minky dot in celadon for the backing. Whenever I am in doubt for the backing I tend to gravitate towards a minky in solid. It seems to go with everything!

I liked the solid minky color against all the small squares - there was so much going on that a solid color worked well here. I went ahead with a solid light pink by Art Gallery for the binding after doing a couple 'binding auditions' on instagram.

I kept it really simple with the quilting here; using light teal thread in alternating directions on every other 'stamp.'  I really like the diamond look that it leaves on the backing.

I was really wishing that I had some of the Up Parasol plaid for the binding...  probably going to need to stash some of that!

This quilt was made up of 9 patch blocks created with 2.5 inch unfinished squares. 9 patch blocks measured 6.5 inches when completed and the total quilt size is 43x48. This quilt coordinates with the postage stamp pillow I created last week. Usually I do the pillow as a bonus project but this time I wanted to see if it was feasible with my patience level to actually finish an entire quilt using 2.5 inch squares. Turns out it was, but I've moved on to some nice equilateral triangles for my next project!

Link Parti's 

Take a look at the linki parti's I get down with here or by clicking on the Linki Parti's link above. Linking up to Whoop Whoop Friday crazy mom quilts Sew Cute Tuesday Quilt Story and Show Off Saturday