Washing your fabrics for quilting

So over the years I've read so many different blog posts and articles about washing your fabric.  It feels better.  It will wash better in the future.  It's just better!  So a little over a year ago now I decided to wash my  entire fabric collection.  Wow, that a quite a job.  It took me about 3 1/2 days of washing and ironing.  

 I discovered from my many days practice that it is best to half dry the fabric.  The more damp it is the easier it is iron.  But not straight out of the washer either.  I found on my dryer that a small load, less than 10 yards of fabric, takes about 10 minutes drying time.

Once they come out the dryer they are usually in a tangled mess.  I've been trying to buy cotton fabric only which defiantly sheds more than polyester.  I trim the sides of the fabric as I go

And end up with a pile that looks a bit like this!   

 And my fabric really is nicer.

Projects that need finishing

There are many projects of mine that are sitting unfinished around the house.  I suppose it might be high time to get them out and start on them again.  

Most of the time my projects are practically done when I pull them out again.  To find and finish all of them will be a long process but it needs to be done.
My brother's wedding quilt.  I finished the top yesterday.  So now all that is left is putting together the back and quilting it.  Should take me a couple days but it needs to be done.  And will be by Christmas, I swear!

Kaleidoscopic quilt - The top is complete.  I will need to figure out how to quilt it.  I'm again in a queen size bed so it needs a queen size quilt.

 Patriotic quilt - This quilt is meant to be a decorative piece.  I had two of these.  Now I only have one as  I gave one to my mom, but she has to finish it!

 Another diamond quilt - I have enough queen size quilts already that I don't need another.  This quilt was also claimed by my mom to use in the guest bedroom at my parents house.  It looks great in the room, brings a lot of life inside.

Diamond baby quilt #1 - The top is complete and the batting and backing are attached.  All that needs to be done is quilting the pieces together. 

 Diamond baby quilt #2 - same as above!

 Diamond baby quilt #3 - triple that!

And some of them are complete.  I'll show them off on future posts!

One thing turns into another

My chevron quilt has become the master bedroom quilt.  This chevron quilt was going to be a throw for me but it became a whole other project in the process.  I had 8 colors to use and I had to figure out how to arrange them.  I just laid them out in two different ways using my scraps as a guide.  I decided on the top one.  

The color progression.  No surpise that I ended up doing a color order instead of random.  It's my style.

As I was laying out my quilt I had a little helper.  My mom's cat Bela boy was a big helper.  By helping he was really good at moving all my pieces around.  Good job kitty.

Overall I like the look of the quilt.  It's now time tow cut out many more triangles of quilt since the size has increased.  

Chevron quilt in all blues and greens with a little help from the cat.  It's a good thing!

Let the assembly begin!

I love starting another project.  And this time I've got a brand new cutting mat too!  My poor last cutting mat had been used so much that the self healing top was flicking away.  It's nice to start anew in a new place with a new mat!

I liked the chevron quilts that I have seen around the web.  I decided to go with all solids in the same color family, teals, blues and greens fabric from a defunct project.  About a yard and a half each.  Time to cut the triangles and put them together in the chevron pattern.  Triangles are frequent in many of my more recent projects.

To get an idea what it was going to look like I laid it out on the counter.  Looks good.  

Four rows down with many more to go.  Gotta start somewhere!

Kindle case version 3.0

3rd time's a charm!  Version 1.0 - too big.  Version 2.0 - too small.  Version 3.0 - just right!

This time I went with a bookcase look for my digital bookcase. 

And all the pictures are sideways again.  I tried multiple times to get them straight to no avail.

This time I started with a paper layout of my bookcase.  I wanted 3/8 inch border around the kindle when it was finished.

 I went through my scrap collection and found some great fabric to use.

I cut the "books to size and placed the "wood around the edges to get an idea for what it will look like.

Made two sides, one light and one dark. for the covers of the case.

I used the light side for the front cover and the dark side for the back cover.  Looks good!

The inside covers were made from another Disney text print.  This time I used Peter Pan.  

To make the covers more stable I used a thick fusible interfacing.  On the inside cover I also used some batting to cushion the screen. 

I'm finally happy with version 3.0.  I love the cover on the first one.  The inside of the second one is fantastic.  The third one is the right size and the cover is unique and the inside looks great.  I think I'm finally done making Kindle covers for myself.  Maybe I'll start making them for Etsy.  

-Bryn

How I spent my Valentine's day

I'll have to say that my motivation has been low lately.  My life has had many changes of late and it has been tough dealing with all of them.  Most of my days have been spend online all day, watching TV or reading.  Not much action on the craft front I'm afraid.

Did I make anything on Valentine's day?  No!  I went to Disneyland instead.  Only one day a year they bring out all the Princes and Valentine's day is that day.  Off to Disneyland I went to play before work and took photos with the Princesses and Princes.

Prince Ali and Jasmine 

 The Giant Beast and Belle

Prince Naveen and Tiana 

 Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip

 Prince Charming and Cinderella

Snow White and the Prince

Three of those poor princes don't even have a real name, The Beast, Prince Charming and The Prince from Snow White.  It was great to see all of them.  The only couple I didn't get a picture with was Ariel and Eric. But I did grab a picture of them from a friend in line.

I suppose I didn't go the whole day without at least planning a craft.  I brought a piece of fabric to make a pillow out of.

I had the characters autograph the fabric.  I showed some of my friends from work and a couple of them suggested embroidering them.  What a great idea!  It would take forever but it would be awesome when it is done.  

Next week I'm off to collect more autographs in Florida at Walt Disney World with my mom.  We are also going to visit Universal Studios for Harry Potter.  I'm ready for a total geek out!

I'm going to make a new case for my Kindle before my vacation.  The first one I made ended up being too big and the elastic was not strong enough.  Another project for another day.

- Bryn

Kindle cover

I recently bought a Kindle.  I always wanted one.  I had been waiting for them to drop under $100 which they did.  I decided to upgrade to the Fire version.  I didn't want non-buyers remorse by buying the black and white version when there was a color one available!

I looked at the store for some cover and didn't really like any of them and they were about $30 for the cheapest.  They didn't have a screen cover at all so off to my fabric stash I went.

 I took almost all of my fabric home to KC so I could focus on the stuff I already made.  I knew it wouldn't work but I gave it a try.  I kept all of my solids because I was still working on the all solids quilt.

 I kept up with the all solids idea after finding that most of my scraps were going to be a little short.  I cut a piece of paper to the size I wanted and folded it to create the pattern.  I suppose it was bit a paper piecing without the sewing on the paper.

 The front and back cover looks pretty good! 

After some mistakes with the size of the elastic I will have to redo part of the interior which means ripping apart almost all of it to fit the elastic that I messed up the first time!  

It's a learning process but I'm getting better at all these crafting things.  Keeps me busy and out of trouble.

- Bryn 

T-shirt quilt

Another project I started while at home was a t shirt quilt.  I've had quite a few shirts in the basement just waiting to be chopped into bits.

 I brought them all out and started though one stack of the four.  I separated them into elementary through high school, diving, college and Disney.

I had already started a long time ago with some high school diving shirts.  I didn't cut them with a rotary cutter so I had to re-cut them all.  Kept me busy for sure! 

One stack of new quilting fabric and one huge stack of left over cut of shirts.  Wow, those stacks look a little different.

 I left all my shirts at home in KC.  That will be a good project when I come back home.  It will be nice to get rid of that giant bag of shirts!

- Bryn

1/8 of the project done, if that

Making progress right?  Slowly but surely the quilt is coming along.  

It starts in stack, goes to rows, rows to sections, sections to a whole quilt.  So many more rows to sew

 This is week is the busiest week at work and I'm sick to boot.  I won't get a chance to do much more today but hopefully in the next couple of days the quilt will come along.

- Bryn

Fall is coming - in about 9 months

Winter is officially here about a week ago, time to continue work on a fall project.  

Lots of colors and many hours later I came up with all my blocks completed.  Its always good to know how many of each color you have so I label mine

 Next step way laying them all out!  I didn't want to turn my computer back on to see what size to make so I used the quilt from my bed as a template.

And a couple of hours later this is what you get!  Looks pretty good.  It looks random but it is not.  It takes a lot of planning.   

I put everything together and decided there were a couple colors that didn't quite match everything else.  I left one or two of each colors in the quilt.  I plan on re-purposing the grey to use on the second quilt.

Now that the major work is out of the way I should really finish my brother and wife's wedding quilt.  It was in September which may be considered fall so it is only apt that it be finished now, or by their first anniversary!

- Bryn