The Royal Tea Cup

Yes, I fully admit it...I am a royal watcher. Couldn't resist picking up this tea cup, saucer and mug, adorned with gold gilt. Come Friday morning at 3am I most likely will toddle over to the t.v. and turn it on, just so see Cate  emerge from her car or carriage, like some sort of butterfly, to walk down West Minster Abbey aisle. It's okay, there will be hundreds doing it, and we'll wave little flags and drink tea out of our royal teacups. Pip, pip, cheerio, and all that sort of thing....

Easy Quilt (Part 10) Victorian

 This is the finished quilt. Not too much detail, just a bit to give it a Victorian feel. Could have added mroe roses, but  figured it was best to be minimilist on this one. Maybe on the next one.

Attached roses, the fan, ribbon, sequins, pearls, etc in opposite corners. Takes a lot of sewing by hand to get them secured.

Ready to be shipped off ......rather east of here.....hopefully it will reach its destination in time for next weekend. Every quilt seems to have a piece of me just  waiting to bound forth. Every quilt made with someone in mind. Every quilt is a kindred spirit ( one of my favourite phrases).......

Easy Quilt ( part 9) The Details

 Now comes the fun part. All the details are the best part oif making a quilt. Actually the quilt you just made is fine the way it is, but I want to do something else to give it sme zap. I pulled out silks and laces and pearls and made roses galore. Going to show you how I make them...very useful....can use this technique on any fabric.

 Cut out wide slices of silk. Doesn't matter what wideth, the strips can all be different widths...makes it more interesting.

 Cut this strip of silk 3 inches. All of the  thicker fabric will be folded.

 lace I cut  in thin widths because it will not be folded. All of the strips are about 12 inches long, the longer  the strip the bigger the rose. The shorter the strip the smaller the rose.

 Found some left over bridal lace....going to join it at the sheer end o make a fan shape.

 Took  some green/gold brocade silk and cut out leaves.....leave the rough edges alone, makes it more real looking.

 Sew a running stitch along raw edges of strips. Pull the fabric  to make it gathered , as tight or as loose as you wish.

 Start rolling with fingers......

 Roll completely tight.

 Sew the nub end to secure the edges.......you may have to do this by hand if the fabric is too thick.

 This is one of the finished roses....ready to be attached to the quilt......

 Take the green/gold leaves and sew a running stitch, to gather in the  middle.....

This is what you start  with ................in next part, the last one.......I'll show you what you can do with all of this.........so fun, so pretty.....

Easy Quilt ( Part 8) The Binding

                                    Lastly, The binding has to be attached all along the edge.

 Some quilters cut the fabric on a bias, but remember, I am lazy, so I just cut it out straight, sew all the pieves together, enough to reach all the way around. You can either measure the edges of your quilt to get the exact length, or do what I do, and just lay the binding pieces, sewn all in one, along the edge and see  how much I have.

 Right sides together, sew the binding to the thicknesses of yor quilt, turning at the corners, keeping it even. Continue all the way around.

 Get the cat to help. Here, Bo is holding down the fabric shile I attemt to urn the edges under while sewing a decorative stitch, on the final pass. She is really not much help, but likes the machine noises.

This is the final turn of the binding, tucking under the raw edges and making the binding even and flat.

Easy Quilt ( Part 7) Trimming off edges

After finishing the quilting it's time to cut off the edges and make them even. At least, that's what I do, before going on with the next step.

Top of quilt, quilted. I wanted a simple pattern, since I'm going to be adding something to the top.

Back. I like this. Kind of neat. Also adding something to the back.......stay tuned.

Easy Quilt ( Part 6) Backing

THis is what it will look like with the three pieces together: 1. Backing on bottom. 2. Quilt batting in middle and 3. Quilt top.

 1. Cut Backing. Easiest way to do this is take your quilt top to fabric store and get them to sell you Sheeting. It is wide and sits flat.  This is about a double or queen size, depending on your finished size. The backing is about 94" x 60" approxmately. It should be about 3 inches or so over the edge of the quilt top to allow for stitching movement.  ( Remember this is just my way of doing this. Everyone has a method that works for them)

 2. Quilt batting. I use this Poly Down  . This is a queen size  bat.

 3. Quilt bat looks like this. I have also used the natural fibre batting. It is nice, but heavy and hard to sew through at times. There are several different varieties of batting. Talk to the people at the fabric store. They usually have a lot of ideas. Some quilt bats are only good for machine quilting. Others good for hand quilting. And still others are good for both. I am machine quilting this quilt, since  have  more details to put on afterwards.

 4. Cut Batting to be flush with the backing. Lay the batting on wrong side of the backing, with the righ side facing the floor.

 5. Lay ironed quilt top on the other two pieces,leaving a border as shown here. If you are going to hand quilt then  attach to your frame or hoop  and you can start quilting.

6. If machine quilting, use large safety pins to pin through all thicknesses in various squares to keep the three pieces together.  I like to roll up each edge, as shown, and pin together, so as to start in the middle of the quilt when I sew it. I've decided to do a simple swirly stitch going straight down the lines. As I said, I have plans for this quilt, and so don't really need to focus on a hand quilt stitch.I love hand quilting rather than machine, but this time it's going to be a little different.

 7.Pinned squares....make sure the safety pins are large.

8. With the edges rolled it is a little easier to work with. This time I started at the far edge of the open part of the quilt, then lined up my stitches to fall over the pieced lines of the squares. You can do whatever you want. So now you stitch through all thicknesses, being careful to keep the three pieces together and not pulling to the sides. And then we wil get to the fun part.....being a little more creative to turn this quilt into a more Victorian  style......

Easy Quilt ( Part 5) Dyeing with Tea and Beet Juice

 Dyeieng with Tea and Beet Juice is extremely satisfying. I do it the lazy way. Grab a handful of plain tea bags, toss into kitchen sink. Pour in the juice from a jar of pickled beets. Helps turn the tea dye  a nice ambient colour. Boil a couple of kettles of water, and pour in the water, hot, hot, scalding, over the tea bags and beet juice.

Using rubber gloves swish around the tea bags. Boil another kettle of water and pour that in as well. Stir with a wooden spoon at this point.

 Take quilt and dump into the mix, along with the tea bags. I dye the quilt top now, so that the  thread becomes tinged as well. Push down under the water, then cover with very hot water from the tap. Keep pushing down the fabric into the water, periodically,  and do this off and on for about half an hour. Remove from water, wring out, and throw into drier and dry for about 20 - 25 minutes till still a little damp, but not wet or dry.

The tea and beet juice will soften the colours...it won't be overly dramatic, but it will be lovely. Gives it an antiquw shading. Now go ahead and iron the quilt top. If you choose not to dye the fabric, then skip this  step and just iron the top ready for the next part.

Easy Quilt ( Part 4) Borders

 So far so good. You're almost finished making the quilt top....home stretch....
  I've decided to do three borders for my double quilt. The first border(left) is made out of a textured remnant I found at the Sally Ann.  The blue stripe border ( middle) is from a lovely Beatrix Potter Fabric I picked up a long time ago and have been using painstakingly over time. The last border ( right) is a plain cream  I also picked up from the Sally Ann. I used plain fabrics, here,  because I want to dye them with tea to give it an "old " look. You can use whatever colours you wish , but make it three complementary ones. One solid, one pattern and another solid mght be one of your ideas. Play around with what you have. Something always works.

 FIRST BORDER: Take scissors and cut fabric about 5 inches from long edge of fabric. Make sure you have enough yardage to do this; about  3 metres to be on the safe side. Whatever you hae leftover can be used in something else. Rip strips of textured fabric ( has a noticeable pattern and raised edges on the surface)   lengthwise. Only rip as much as you need to sew for all four edges of your quilt. You will need to measure all four sides to get exact  lengths, or eyeball it (that's that I do).  Sew  together pieces  to make one long strip that can go around the entire edge of your quilt top.
        Wth right sides together, sew strip to one long side first. cutting off when you get to the bottom. Repeat for other long side. Then attach strip to shorter sides of quilt. This is  your first border. It does not matter if you can see the joins in the seams of the material, since you will be quilting on  those seams.  At this point, you can iron the top to get ready for the next border. I usually wait till I am done.....I'm kind of lazy that way. Ironing it as you go is what the quilting experts would agree on.
      A lot of quilting teachers will recommed that you do NOT rip  fabric, but use fabric scissors to cut it properly. But I gave up on doing what I was told a long time ago. Besides, ripping the fabric is extremely satisfying. So, go ahead, rip away......

 MIDDLE BORDER: Take  scissors and cut 3 inches from long edge of middle border fabric. Rip fabric to make long strips like you did with the First Border. Join them into one long strip. Check to see that you have made enough strips. Attach to long edges first, then shorter edges, cutting at the ends as you get down to the bottom of each side.  Iron , if you feel so inclined.

 LAST BORDER: Take scissors and cut 4 1/2 inches from last fabric for border. Rip into strips and sew together as you have done previously. Attach in the same way, starting with long edges first, cutting each strip to fit the edge when you get down to the bottom . Once you are all done, you can iron away to your heart's content.

                                Finished Quilt Top before dyeing or before backing is added.

Easy Quilt (Part 3)

 By now you will have chosen your fabric, maybe even  cut out a number of squares. It's a really good idea to lay out your squares in various order, in sets of 9. That's how many I finally decided to do, because I figured out that we're going to add a couple of borders. So, mix up your squares, trying not to get the same colour/pattern in the same pile, and make little piles of squares, ready to sew up.

                                 This is a row of 9 squares. I ended up making 14 rows of strips similar to this.

For added fun, get somene fro your family to lie on the floor, cover them  with the joined square panel to see if it covers well enough. It's more fun than measuring with a yardstick.....just make sure the person under the panel is not giggling too much. Very distracting.......Onto this panel you will add the borders. That comes next time. Until then.......sew your squares into strips, 9 squares by 14 rows.

Wild Fringed Bag

Remember those ugly, plain bags I picked up for a song? Well, tried another style of front and came up with this. I like this....it is busy, unguarded, all over the place. I ripped up a scarf and used the edges to make he friggy parts.  Don't need a fancy trim, just find cheap scarves with fringe on each side and it will work really well. First I paid out the uderpinnings with severa different animal prints, all sewn by hand. It's great to do late at night, when watching CSI, trust me.....

And now, back to quilting.......have more sewing to do,....so much fabric, and sew little time.....

Easy Quilt (Part 2)

                                                      Here we go.....onto the next step:
MAKING A TEMPLATE: Grab an empty cereal box ( or just pull out the inside part and steal the cardboard). Cut the box open.

You have choices. You can use your already graded Template square ( which is far easier) to cut  out your 6 inch fabric squares. If you have one of these plastic templates, which can be purhased from quilting/fabric stores, then you do not need to make a cardboard template. 

        OR:      Make your own 6 inch square out of the cardboard cereal box.

                Either way will work just fine.  Here you can see the plastic template and the cardboard template are the same, in the end.

 NEXT: Lay out your fabric, which has been washed, pressed, etc. ( I must admit, I don't always do this, and nothing bad has ever happened.....still it is a good idea to wash it first). Place template on straight edge/grain, like in the photo. Do not double fabric....it may seem like a good idea, but the sizing  gets wrarped.

 NEXT: Lay template beside pencil lines and draw next fabric markings......At this point feel free to tr and use many different colours, shades, etc. that you wish.

 NEXT: Once you have  a good swatch of fabric marke out, go ahead and cut on the pencil lines. If using a rotary cutter, be sure to use a green cutting mat. If using scissors, use good fabric scissors, not scissors you used to the cereal box with.  I don't really count how many squares I will need. I just cut about a gazillion of light and dark. You will need some for the reverse side of the quilt. When figuring out how many squares you will need to sew into strips,  sew up one strip , lay it on a bed to see how it will sit over the edge, and then leave enough room for a border. 

GOOD REFERENCE POINTS: ( 6" squares) ( This is by no means accurate)
CRIB SIZE quilt will need about 120 squares( give or take) plus an added border. (12 across )
TWIN SIZE quilt needs at 480 squares( 16 across)
FULL SIZE  600 squares (20 across)
QUEEN size 700 squares 22 across)
KING SIZE 800 squres ( 30 across)
TO figure out how long to make it, you will have to lay it out on a bed to visualize it.

REMEMBER: Just cut what you need a first, then cut more as you go long.

 NEXT: Lay two squares side by side. If one one square seems to"strong"  a colour, then.....

                                .....turn it over and use the reverse side.

NEXT: With the two squares  right sides together, add pencil marks as shown ( for now...you may not need to do it later on). These are your sewing refrence points. Try for a 1/4 inch from the edge.

 NEXT: Place machine needle in first corner pencil mark and start sewing.

 NEXT: Sew right on towards the end, connecting the dots....

 NEXT: End on the last pencil dot. Stop on the dot.

 NEXT: Raise up pressure foot and cut all threads. Keep sewing like this to make all your squares sew together in strips.

NEXT: Add more squares in this fashion. Try the long strips on a bed, for sizing. As you do it, you will figure out how many squares you need. Make the strips, but do not join together just yet......that is for the next part...