Category: quilting

Quilt Binding

This Remix fabric by Ann Kelle was a major inspiration for my zigzag quilt. There are already so many bright colors in the quilt that throwing in this fabric as the binding may be little much. But I love it so much that I couldn’t resist. More is more, right? 🙂

Since this is my first quilt, every step in construction is new (and intimidating!) to me. I took a look at a couple of tutorials online and was psyching myself up to give binding the quilt a go when my mom arrived in town last week to visit my sister Jan. She’s an expert quilter so I, um, had her help me/do it for me instead. (I know, I know…but at this point I just wanted to get it finished. But I now that I’ve seen how it’s done I am totally going to bind the next one myself.)

So the quilt is finished and I’m really happy with it. I can see all of my mistakes (of which there are many) but both of the kids love snuggling with it which was the whole point. I’ll get pictures up as soon as I can.

Stephanie’s Quilt

This is the quilt that got me off the fence about trying to make a quilting. Aren’t the fabrics beautiful?

My mom has been into quilting for a decade and has made my babies beautiful quilts but when my friend and neighbor (and Kristen Bell lookalike) Stephanie made Mimi this quilt I started thinking that that maybe I could make a quilt too. My mom’s retired but Stephanie has an insanely-packed schedule and I thought that if she could find the time to make a quilt then maybe I could too. Plus like a good friend she volunteer to help me if I got stuck. 🙂

I’m really looking forward to finishing my quilt when I go home.

My First Quilt: Update 3

During these last few weeks we had a lot going on and so I took a break from working on my quilt but after a while I felt the itch to work on it again. So out came my sewing machine and supplies to take over the kitchen table again.

I sewed all of my squares into strips and then pressed the seams open. This step took a lot more time than I thought it would would. (All those little seams!)

Then I took the strips and started sewing them to each other, trying (and often failing) to match up all the short seams.


And then I had a finished quilt top! I’m being a bit of a tease and saving the picture of the completed top for my next post. But I really like this picture of the back because of the texture and because it’s satisfying to look at All Those Seams after I spent so much time on them.


Now I just need to pick out a fabric for the back. I am really stumped on what color to use. I love the look of gray mixed with bright colors in this quilt and was thinking about using a gray back but now I don’t know.

What do you think? Would gray look good or would a brighter print be better?

My First Quilt: Update 2

Things are looking up! Thank you for being patient with my little pity-party yesterday. You guys are really lovely. My toe has turned a lovely shade of purple but the pain has leveled off and things are getting back to a good normal.

In more cheerful news, I’m still chugging along on my quilt.

After I sewed my blocks together I cut them down the middle and was left with lots of half-square triangles blocks.

Then I took the blocks and pressed their seams open (all 130 of them). It took a while but I worked on it while N and I watched Hello, Dolly! (Seeing the bits of Dolly in countless viewings of WALL-E with E had made me want to watch the whole thing.)


Next I laid the blocks out on the carpet.

And then I clapped my hands together in excitement and squealed like a little girl. Squeee!

My First Quilt: Update 1

This last weekend I was finally able to get started on my rainbow zigzag quilt. I’m using this tutorial from the very fun blog, A Quilt Is Nice.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in on the pattern question. After WAY too much deliberation I finally decided to go with the reflected rainbow pattern, with the purples in the middle. This is the final order of the fabrics:

I had never used a rotary cutter before so it took me a bit of practice to get the hang of it (I only wasted a small piece of one fabric) but after working through the kids’ Saturday afternoon nap I got all my squares cut out.

Then I paired up the squares, pinned them together, and used a fabric marker to draw a line across the diagonal.

Then I used the 1/4″ quilting setting on my sewing machine to sew two stitched lines each 1/4″ away from the line I drew earlier. I still have a few more squares to sew together and then it’s on to the next step.

I’m kind of surprised by how much I’m enjoying this project. I love these fabrics so much that just looking at them while I work is fun and while the work is repetitious enough to be relaxing each stage is over pretty quickly so I don’t get too bored. I’m sure that I’m making PLENTY of mistakes, but so far I’m having fun.

Grand Plans: Rainbow Zigzag Quilt

I’ve given in–I’m going to try quilting! I’ve been collecting pictures of quilts I like over on Pinterest and I’ve decided to make a zigzag quilt using this tutorial from A Quilt Is Nice (which is a great blog by the way).

Photo from A Quilt Is Nice

Nettie has made a couple rainbow quilts lately that I’ve really liked and I think this zigzag pattern would look great in a rainbow palette. So I went shopping with my friend Stephanie and picked out a rainbow of fabrics which was really fun.

I’m still not sure about the orange on the right but we’ll see. The bottom fabric is for the binding around the edge of the quilt.

Now the question is which pattern should I use? I have two fabrics in each color–should I repeat through the rainbow twice or should I arrange the colors in a mirror image?



Hmm…my first instinct was to go with A, but B is growing on me and N says he prefers that one. It’s too bad Mimi is too young to tell us which one she prefers since this is going to be her blanket. 🙂

How about you–which do you prefer? Weigh in on the debate of the century!

***Update: See my finished quilt here!***