A Second Finish!

I finished the second quilt for the grandkid room. Now both twin sized beds have a quilt on them!

This week has not gone according to plan. I've had very little sewing time, so what little I've had I've worked on baby stuff.

On the left are the burp rags that are ready for washing, and on the right are the five lightweight swaddling blankets I made for DD#1. I make swaddling blankets two different ways. Both are just the just the largest squares I can cut from the fabric, usually 42"- 44". I use one layer of something really lightweight like seersucker, or I use two layers of quilting cotton or even flannel is baby is being born in a very cold location. Receiving blankets are just ridiculously small, and I have no idea why manufacturers make them that small. It is much easier to swaddle a baby with a large square, and rectangles make no sense at all. For the one layer blankets, I just hem the edges, so that's what I did on the ones above. I'll be making some two layer blankets as well, and those I sew right sides together, leaving a hole for turning right side out. Once the blanket is right side out and pressed, I use a decorative stitch on the edges.

I still have a lot more burp rags to make, and on top of the ones I was already making, I've been asked to make some for two boy babies also coming this spring. I dug out some boy flannel, but haven't started cutting those yet.

I was asked how I finish the edges of the burp rags, and my preference is ragging the edges. I sew around the burp rag twice (and once across the middle to make them easy to fold) . I then trim the excess batting, and fringe the edges. Once they are washed, the fringe will fray and the baby has a fun texture on the edge to explore with their little fingers. You could certainly sew them right sides together, and turn them. You could also use more layers of flannel and skip trimming the excess batting step. I suppose you could even serge the edges, but I personally hate the look of exposed serged edges. 

As I said, it's really a matter of personal preference. I've considered using the multiple layers of flannel instead of Warm and Natural batting as the center layer, but I'd have to buy the extra flannel, and I almost always have batting scraps around the house. I've seen people use quilting cotton for burp rags, and that I won't do. Flannel is more absorbent, and using flannel on the back as well helps the burp cloth stay in place on the shoulder of whomever is burping the baby. 

I may not be making much progress on my quilting projects this week, aside from the one finish, but the baby projects needs to be done as well. Right now life is pretty busy, and anything I get done is a win!

Change of Plans

I think I have quilter's ADD right now. I can't seem to stay on task with anything. That is made worse with the fact I need to keep alternating my activities to rest my arm.

So, last blog post I said I'd get the borders on DD#3 wedding quilt. Didn't happen. I said I was going to quilt a UFO. Done, but I haven't gotten binding on it yet. What did I do instead?

See this big pile that needs pressing? It's even bigger now, and has parts of five different quilts on it! I keep running out of leaders/enders, so I grab another UFO that I can move along to next step as leaders/enders. I've had a couple long days of sewing, and I really need to rest my arm, so aside from binding the UFO I just quilted, I think the next couple days will have some short pressing sessions to get through this pile.

I cut this huge pile of burp rags. I use flannel with Warm and Natural batting when making burp rags. I cut all the batting from larger scraps, and didn't have to cut any off my roll. I'm not sure when I'll make the burp rags my primary project, but it needs to be soon, the first baby shower is in February.

I rough cut some swaddling blankets too. I need to press the fabric and get out a ruler and cutting mat to make the largest square I can from the fabric I chose. Once those are trimmed, they are quick to sew. It felt good clearing some baby prints out of stash.

I also cut out the third baby quilt I need. I really need to have all the baby stuff finished by mid-March, and that's stuff for three different babies! I feel like I'm pretty much on target to get the baby stuff done on time.

Oh, I also have the five weighted blankets pinned to their backings, and the backings are trimmed. I'll need to sew the side seams, then I can turn them right side out and start sewing the channels for the plastic pellets.

I'm trying to keep enough stuff going that I can alternate between cutting, sewing, pressing, and quilting. I've also been drawing lines on squares for sew and flip corners too. It makes for a lot going on, but so far, I've mostly stuck to deadline stuff. I'm using various UFO's in the mix as well. Progress is progress, even if it's not all on the same project!

Tops

I have been sewing like crazy! I now have all the tops done for the five weighted blankets I am making. I've pieced two of those from start to finish this week. All the weighted blankets are UFO's, and I'll post photos when they are done.

I finished the last quarter of DD#3's wedding quilt, and I now have the center together.

This photo was taken before I sewed the two halves together. If you look really closely, you might be able to see the edges of the two halves going horizontally along the top of the bed.  I've got that last seam sewn now, but I'm waiting for tomorrow to get borders on.

I needed two baby girl quilts, which were both new starts. I cheated a bit, and made two identical quilt tops. The colors aren't photographing well, and while it looks like there is a lot of pink, most of that is actually purple.  I have very little turquoise fabric left, so I think I'll make more 3" finished HST's to go with the bonus HST's from the Flying Geese units, then I'll be able to make another quilt from all the HST's combined. There isn't enough turquoise left to bother re-shelving it. I'd rather use it up and be done with it.

My quilt tops are really piling up now! That's OK with me, and I'll be working on more quilt tops tomorrow. This weekend my plans are to quilt a UFO. Honestly, If I get all the quilts I am overdue on all to quilt top stage, and just spend the rest of the year quilting, I'd be pretty happy.

Out of the five wedding quilts I am overdue on, two are quilt tops, the one in the photo above only needs borders, another is in stripsets, and the last I decided to start over on, and today, I chose another new pattern for that! I had already chosen a pattern, but I decided it was too complex and time consuming to be practical when I am so far behind. I am making good progress on sewing right now, but I am still ultra conscious of my injury, and I just don't need any additional stress. I hate being behind, and I stumbled across a photo of a two color quilt that will be great for that last wedding quilt. It's much easier than the pattern I had picked, but it is a really nice looking quilt and I will be able to present it happily once it's done.

We aren't even two weeks into the year, and I'm already making good headway on my goals for the year. I have a lot of quilting ahead of me, and more piecing as well, but I'm making headway and that's a great feeling!

My First Finish of 2018

My first finish was a UFO! I'm making quilts for the beds in our house, long overdue, and this one is going on a bed in the grandkid guest room. It's all made from men's shirts, as is the one I'll be quilting next week to go on the other bed in that room. I finished this quilt Wednesday, and I've already had a grandkid sleep under it!

I'm learning things about my Tin Lizzie as I go along. It definitely does better with polyester thread, but I've heard a lot of longarms do, so it's not a huge surprise. I'm sure with a bunch of adjustments I could make cotton thread work, but since I have a bunch of cones of Madeira Polyneon I scored at Goodwill, I don't mind using polyester thread.

This photo was taken while I was quilting the above quilt. In this photo, I'm only using the lighting that came with the Tin Lizzie (and normal overhead lighting). Notice how dark it looks under the arm of the machine. It was hard to see where I was going, and where I had already quilted.

Here's a photo with the new LED light strip I purchased switched on! What a difference!
I bought this LED strip. It was simple to put on, and I am seriously thinking about buying more for some of my vintage machines.

I have two baby girl quilts to make, for people in different states, and I've decided to cheat a bit, and make them just the same. I managed to get them cut out, and you know how much I love bonus HST's, so I already have a project planned for the bonus HST's I'll get from these two baby quilts.

The Flying Geese units I'm making will finish at 4x8, so I'm using 4.5 inch squares on the corners. I want my bonus HST's to be 3.5" cut (3" finished) so I cut a piece of template plastic into a 3.5" square, cut that in half diagonally, and now I have two templates to draw that second line to sew on. I'll get two bonus HST's in the correct size for my second project from each Flying Geese unit in my primary project, no trimming, no fuss. Could I have made the bonus HST a bit bigger? Yes, but I wanted them to be 3" finished, so this way I get just the size I wanted. If I use scissors to cut between the sewn lines, my resulting seam allowances will be a little bit bigger than 1/4", but not much bigger. If I decide I really want that 1/4" seam, I can use a ruler and rotary cutter to get it. As long as my units are the correct size, what size my seam allowance is doesn't really matter.

I have so many quilts to get finished, and as I get more comfortable with FMQ, I get more ideas of what types of designs I'd like to try. What's really been bogging me down is how far behind I am on gift quilts. I don't mind experimenting on baby quilts, but stitching a new design takes a lot more time. Since I have so many BIG quilts that need to be finished, do I really want to spend the time taking twice as long to quilt them? I've decided that a bunch of quilts on the beds of my loved ones is better than a bunch of quilt tops piled at my house with dreams of fancy quilting. Finished is better than perfect. If I only meander on every UFO I have in the house, is something awful going to befall me? Is someone going to refuse to accept a quilt because I didn't do fancy enough stitching? (I can't imagine that happening, but if it did they'd never get another quilt!)  The more I think about it, the more I think I will probably meander on most of my UFO's, and experiment with new designs on the smaller quilts. Once I'm caught up, I'll be less stressed and have a lot more fun stitching out new designs. I am proficient at more than just meandering, but meandering is FAST, and that, I like!