Blogger's Quilt Festival: Baby Quilt Category

It's that time of year! Amy over at Amy's Creative Side is hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival. It's an opportunity for all us quilt bloggers to share up to two quilts we've made with the online community. A chance to oooohhh, ahhhhh and kvell over each other's fabulousness, if you will.

If this is your first time visiting Modern Balabusta, welcome! My name is Lisa and I live in downtown Toronto with my husband and 2 year old son and are expecting baby-girl-to-be in the next couple weeks. This blog chronicles my sewing and quilting adventures. I'm so grateful for the many  friends and connections I've made in the online quilting community through this blog, Flickr, Instagram and Twitter.

This is my third time participating in this festival and I'm entering my Bungle Jungle Stars quilt in the Baby Quilt Category. It isn't a fancy quilt. In fact, it took less than a week to put together, which is crazy fast for me. This quilt held a couple firsts for me. It was the first quilt I spray basted and the first time I quilted with fleece. You can read more about the making of this quilt here.

Despite the quilt's simplicity, I was totally thrilled with the finished result. It just reads BABY to me and it makes me happy to think of my cousin and her son snuggled under it.

Quilt Stats:
42 x 42 inches (approximately)
2 Moda Bungle Jungle Charm Packs
1/2 metre of Kona Papaya for the Wonky Stars
Orange fleece backing
Binding is Raspberry Stripe from Marmalade by Bonnie & Camille for Moda

Pattern Review: iPad Quilted Cover from Patchwork, Please!

The quilting blogosphere and Flickr have been all abuzz about Ayumi Takahashi's newly released book, Patchwork, Please! Debbie from A Quilter's Table and Lindsay of LRStitched are hosting Zakka Along 2.0 where various bloggers will be sewing and posting their thoughts on each pattern in the book beginning on June 1. Not wanting to miss the party, I ordered the book shortly after it was released, and when my Mom asked for a cover for her iPad mini, I decided to modify the pattern in Ayumi's book and sew it up.

My first challenge was to modify the pattern to fit an iPad mini, as the pattern is written for a full sized iPad. The fact that my mother's iPad lives with her in a different city meant that I couldn't check sizing for accuracy as I went, so here's hoping that it fits! I'm okay at math, but whenever I start playing with patterns, I inevitably mess up. This experience was no different, I'm afraid.

Despite carefully writing out the dimensions of my fabric pieces, I still ended up changing them as I went. In part this is because I decided to make a patchwork cover and I miscalculated how many 2.5 squares I'd need. Luckily, adding a row on top and a row to the side provided a quick fix. By the way, like many of the projects in this book, this cover allowed me to dig into my scrap bin and pull out some fun prints, like the butterflies you see below!

 

Here are the dimensions of the cuts I ended up with, more or less. Please note, I can not vouch for accuracy so use these at at your own risk. For what it's worth, if I was to do it again, I think I'd add a half inch to each measurement.

Exterior/interior cover: 13 x 10.5

Closure flap: 3 x 5.5

iPad sleeve: 10.5 x 6.5

Pocket: 6.5 x 8.5

In terms of the actual pattern, I struggled with some of the instructions. I'm a visual learner and this pattern is all words, which is to be expected in a book I guess. My first issue arose at step seven, when I was instructed to bind the left long edge of the sleeve, which made no sense at all.

Wouldn't I bind the left edge last, when I bound the entire cover? And when would I bind the right edge, if not before attaching it to the exterior of the cover. I felt like this had to be an error in the pattern so I bound the right edge and proceeded.

My next challenge arose when I tried to understand how to construct the pocket. Admittedly, I didn't read the instructions closely enough the first time around. I made an adorable pocket which I mistakenly assumed I'd sew on to the cover. Wrong! So I sat down and read the instructions over (and over) again. Then I went to Flickr and read a discussion thread where Ayumi pointed out a typo in the pattern (alas, not the one I think I found in step seven) which contained PICTURES! Yay! I finally understood how to make the pocket.  Or so I thought...

Yup, I still managed to mess up. The instructions have you enclose the raw edges of the pocket in the binding of the cover. I missed this part (even though I read the instructions several times) and after completing all the edge and top stitching, couldn't figure out how to deal with the raw edges at the top of the pocket. So I bound them. Which looks silly because of the edge stitching. Alas. At this point I wasn't redoing the pocket a third time.

I didn't make the pocket flap with snaps. Instead I used velcro to secure the pocket and I'm happy with that decision. I ended up hand sewing the velcro to both the pocket and cover. Next time I'd machine stitch it before attaching the pocket to the cover because the hand sewing was fiddly.

Despite my challenges (and let me be clear: the pocket issue was mine all mine), I loved this pattern and I'm very happy with the end result. I'd definitely recommend it to others and would gladly make it again. In fact, I might just make one for my own iPad one of these days.

More Progress on the Farm

While my sewing machine was being serviced, I spent my time cutting fabric for Farmer's Wife sampler blocks. When I first started farming, I shied away from machine piecing the blocks, because I was afraid that my scant 1/4" seam wasn't accurate enough. Instead, I paper or hand pieced them. I still struggle with getting a perfect scant seam, but I no longer fear machine piecing these little blocks. In fact, having all the fabrics cut ahead of time makes machine piecing them a breeze! Here's what I accomplished today.

#16 - Calico Puzzle. Would you believe that I chose these fabrics last October and prepped them for handsewing on my way to Sewing Summit? Unfortunately, I messed up the directional prints, so I set the block aside. I recut some of the pieces a couple weeks ago and stitched it up today. I don't love the fabric choices I made, but don't hate it enough to remake.

#56 - Maple Leaf. I LOVE this block. My seam allowances got messed up, I think because the beige fabric got a bit stretched out, so the block is a little too big, but I'm going to leave it for now and square up all my blocks "one day."

#71 - Puss in Boots. Another winner. I love the fussy cut centre and searched for the right block to use it in. This block is just perfect for it.  Love.

P.S. I definitely need to buy some Washi tape for taping up blocks for photos. The painter's tape is just horrible!

M.I.A.

I've been woefully absent from blogging these past several weeks. Basically the end of pregnancy has been kicking my ass. I've been tired, cranky and uncomfortable and I've still got several weeks to go before baby is scheduled to arrive. The good news is that I'm officially on maternity leave which means I'm able to stay off my feet and NAP!

I have managed to get some sewing done. I just haven't had the energy to blog about any of it.
But! I finished a project tonight and I have a LOT to say about this one. I'll be writing up a pattern review and posting, just as soon as I take a few more photos. In the meantime, here's a speak peak:

Sewing for Baby: The Reversible Wrap Dress

I have three more weeks of work, and then up to four weeks of dedicated sewing time until my daughter's arrival. Today I'm sharing the second dress I've made for her so far.

I used a free pattern I found on Pinterest by The Crafty Cupboard, a simple Reversible Wrap Dress. I picked up a yard of this lovely dark green print that reminds me of a fresh meadow (and, would you look at that, it's called Floral Meadow). It's from the Storybook Lane line by Ann Kelle, and I've been waiting for the right project to cut into it for.

I debated which print to use for the side B and turned to Instagram for advice. These were my choices. I ruled out the Tula print quickly, but flip-flopped between the diamonds and scallops...

So instead of making a decision, I headed to Mokuba to pick up some lace for the edging and ribbon to tie the wrap. If you've never been to Mokuba, you have to check it out next time you're in Toronto. It's ribbon heaven.  The pattern calls for ric-rac, but I've never been a huge fan and thought lace would be be prettier. I was right!

 

This is why I learned to sew; so I could make adorable, itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, sweet little dresses!

No Machine? Let's Farm!

I was sewing machine-less for almost three weeks. I never thought I'd be so happy to see my crappy Kenmore as I was when I picked her up on Friday.

The experience mainly served to reinforce my belief that I simply must buy a second machine. That way I'll always have a back up!  Plus, I really need more throat space and something that can FMQ properly. "Need" being relative, of course.

I did make good use of my time sans-machine by turning my attention to my Farmer's Wife Quilt blocks. It had been quite some time since I'd worked on them. I really enjoy hand piecing, but I am extremely slow at it. I managed to complete three blocks (although I confess that I machine pieced half of the third block this evening). They are (top to bottom) #34-Flock, #102-Whirlpool and #14-Butterfly at the Crossroad.

I'd cut the pieces months ago, but hadn't stitched them up, in part because I'd messed up the cutting. Does anyone else get stymied by directional prints? I just wasn't paying attention when I cut the fabric the first time around and since I'm anal, I couldn't abide having the prints going off in different directions. So, two of the three blocks required that I re-cut about half the pieces. Annoying, but necessary.

These are my 18 blocks completed to date. This is definitely a multi-year project. So far, I've hand pieced, machine pieced AND paper pieced blocks. There's no real master plan for the quilt, other than sticking to the blues and greens, with a smattering of yellow and purples.

P.S. This is me at 32 weeks pregnant. I am all full-a-baby and can't wait to be done. Have I mentioned that I'm not one of those glowing, happy, pregnant women? I'm more of the "are we done yet" type, and let me tell you, I am DONE! But not really, because she isn't done cooking yet. Trust me though, I am counting the days...

Not This Year

I've waffled back and forth and back and forth and finally decided: I will not be attending Sewing Summit this year. I had an amazing time last year, but due to it being held in September instead of October, one good friend can't attend and another will have a newborn. Also, the class list so far isn't grabbing me and the sessions are being assigned by lottery which is less control than I'd like. Finally, I have no idea whether my baby-girl-to-be will be amenable to travel. So there you go. I'm sure when September rolls around I'll regret this decision, but it feels like the right choice for now.

Instead, I think I'm going to splurge for the single supplement and attend the Orillia quilt retreat in November. I also have my eye on the Modern Quilt Guild SewDowns and will consider other opportunities as they arise.

In other news, my sewing machine remains in the shop and I'm suffering withdrawal. I'm also suffering a distinct lack of motivation and energy so the timing is to my advantage I suppose. My third trimester is totally dragging. I'm trying to keep my eyes on the prize, I'm very much wishing it was June already!