Wednesday, August 17, 2011

project completion roundup

I've finally gifted several of my completed recent projects, so it's roundup time! First up is a small placemat / "mug rug" quilt that I made my grandmother for her birthday in June. I used a charm pack for the brightly colored squares, which were cut in half and then put together at an angle to form the points. The border is leftover fabric from a baby quilt I made earlier this year, and the binding is from fabric in my stash that wasn't used in a quilt I made last year. The back (not shown) is made of charm squares in pastel shades of the colors shown here, with a strip of a red dot fabric. The inspiration for this piece was from something I saw on Quilt Dad a few months ago, and the color choices were based on my Nana's love of bright colors.

Next up are a pair of Nintendo DS cases, which I originally made for my new DS since it didn't come with a case that I approved of using (far too big and bulky). I made it from scratch, using measurements of the DS itself along with some math, and it's basically made of two strips of fabric that are individually quilted and then stitched together. There is a lining as well - and putting the layers together was REALLY hard on even my freearm machine, if I wanted to make many more of these I would really need a Featherweight 222k or similar tiny freearm to make it work.
Mine is made of some black and lime green Spirograph print material I got on shop hop this year, lined with some bright lime green abstract flowers (not pictured), and bound with some Kona teal fabric leftover from binding the baby quilt discussed later in this post. And since my mother's birthday happened around the time I made this one, I decided to make her one too using fabric scraps left over from the bag I made her for Mother's Day earlier this year.

Free motion quilting still isn't coming very easily to me - I need much more practice!

The lining is a fun purple/teal butterfly print that I picked up on shop hop - it adds a bit of whimsy to this piece, I think! The binding is leftover binding from the quilt I made myself as part of the first three I ever made just two years ago.

And of course, the label!

The next project is a bit bigger - it's a baby carrier quilt that I've made for my friend's second son who was born in June. I didn't quite get this made in time for his birth, but I hope he will get plenty of use out of it anyway! The fabric is from a fat-quarter pack of Sandy Gervais "Lollipop" collection that I got at the sewing expo, the backing is from a sock monkey fabric collection that I found online, and the binding is a teal Kona cotton. I went with a psuedo-log cabin layout for this one, adding strips in pairs around the central fussy-cut square with monkeys. I like how it turned out, though it is just a little off from being perfectly square - I think I need more practice or pinning with longer seams.

The quilting was done with my Accufeed foot, just following the line of each strip/log in the pattern. It worked out pretty well, but there was some pulling as I got to the end of each of the longer strips, so I need to figure out what caused that - stitches were balanced on shorter logs, so something's up with the longer stitch lines or the corners turned in the logs.

I actually took this one outside yesterday to take some pictures of it. The sun wasn't terribly cooperative, but I think they came out well enough. I like this one with the flipped-over back which shows the fun banana-print flannel and the label.

I even did a "rolled up quilt" photo with this one! The final size of the quilt is about 34" square, which should be great for covering the baby carrier for now and maybe as a lovey or snuggle blanket later on.

The last project I'm posting today was finished just yesterday evening, a new iPad sleeve to replace the first one I made earlier this year. I already posted about the fabrics I picked, and while I used the same general technique as on the first one, I went with my previously mentioned plan of "measure the item" to select the sizes. It turned out to be a bit smaller than I had meant, so the iPad fits in it perfectly but not with its smart-cover on, the edge on the smart cover protrudes a bit much for the iPad to slide in easily. I expect it to stretch out over time, however, so that shouldn't be much of a problem after a few weeks. I'm pretty proud of how this one came out and have already gotten several compliments on it - color me happy!

Front of the case - Shades of Grey, 1001 Peeps, Silent Cinema, and a Japanese import fabric. I'm very pleased with how the angles came out as well as how nicely the purple/black mixer stripes look. I wish the photo wasn't quite as washed out, it's hard to see the contrast between the purple and black here.

Back of the sleeve, same fabrics but a different order. The binding is more of the black mixer fabric, I got it at The Quilting Loft in Ballard as part of a fat quarter pack, and I may need to put more of it in more colors in my stash.

Perfect fit! I will try to remember and post the dimensions I used, which are written down in a notebook on my cutting table - they really did work out perfectly for a non-covered iPad. The only flaw I can find is apparently my lining isn't quiiiite all the way down - there's about a quarter-inch of "padding" at the bottom edge when the iPad is tucked all the way down.

Surprise! Border collies on the inside! I'm just tickled about this fabric, and so glad that I found some to use here. It made the construction one additional step, so that I wouldn't have upside-down border collies on one side, but that's not a big deal. And of course, my label!

And in conclusion, my real-life border collies enjoying some (limited) swimming at Marymoor Park yesterday. They've already fenced off most of the river for the salmon run, which was very disappointing to me, but the dogs still had a ball and it was just deep enough for them to alternate between swimming and jumping through the water. It's very hard to get a photo of all three of them in the water at the same time when I'm there by myself, however!

Ezri and Curzon racing out of the water together, trying to be the first back to get the ball thrown again! Poor Jadzia just can't compete...she comes out shivering long before these two are willing to consider leaving the water!


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