Tag Archives: sewing

Baby Quilt and Japanese Gift Bags

Posted on November 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

My sewing machine is home from the hospital (Yes) and we’ve (my Bernina and me of course) finished the doll quilt:

And the baby quilt is done too:

Now to move on to other projects.

I came upon a tutorial and decided the Little Japanese Bag project was perfect for small Christmas gifts. Here’s how they look finished:

Don’t they look sweet? They are even sweeter filled with foil wrapped chocolate treats!

I used my handy dandy trusty tri-tool ruler to cut pairs of triangles. Next time, I won’t be so lazy…I’ll make a large triangle template. This size is cute, but it is small (which is a fine size for an ornament, party favor, or just that “little something extra”).

Cut pairs of triangles (right sides together):

Pairs are sewn, turned and pressed:

Petal points turned and pinned:

Closer look:

Sewn petals:

Closer look:

One seam sewn (the left is the petal seam…the bottom is the side seam…stop at the petal seam):

All side seams sewn:

Turned…they are lookin’ like bags now:

Isn’t this just the cutest little mini pouch?

See? I told you these are small! And so cute!

These would look terrific in any fabric…think Halloween or a birthday or any other occasion.

You can find the link for the tutorial on the Tutorial Tab of this blog. Thank you to Hannelore Nunn for sharing !

Make It Work

Posted on October 12, 2011 | 4 comments

I’m back from a terrific road trip with Hubby and ready to sew!

Having said that, what should have been a pleasant hour on a rainy afternoon machine quilting a simple doll quilt, turned into a discouraging several hours of sewing and ripping. My beloved Bernina (a 1530 acquired in 1997…for those who want to know these things) was skipping stitches like crazy. I tried switching needles, switching threads, switching tensions all to know avail. She has really had a meltdown and needs to make a trip to the hospital.

With Tim Gunn’s words in my head, “Make it work!”, I got out my lonely little Janome Gem Gold and got reacquainted. With the help of some quilting books (they make a nice extension table) and the Supreme Slider, she did a great job!

I am quilting with Aurifil 40 wt. #4665 in the top and WonderFil Invisfil 100 wt. #103 in the bobbin (and they work together just fine).

Front side…No skipped stitches!

Back side…great tension!

I’m glad I started with the doll quilt because the baby quilt will be a real challenge with this tiny machine. There is just not that much space to work with.

Teeny arm space…too teeny for machine quilting!

The doll quilt and baby quilt aren’t going to make it on the runway, but they have a higher calling and they will be ready.

Make it work!

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Tagged baby quilt, Bernina, Janome, LCsCottage, machine quilting, Quilt, quilting, sewing, works in progress

Machine Quilting

Posted on September 21, 2011 | 1 comment

I am sneaking in some time (slacking off from garden and kp duties if you really want to know) to work on the baby and doll quilts. I’ve pin basted, so it is on to machine quilting.

I am using my beloved machingers quilting gloves, denim sharp needles (in this case a 70/10 will do), and a Little Genie Magic Bobbin Washer.

Yes, I know I could use a new pair of gloves. But hey…you can see how well I like them by how worn they are!

Since I am going to begin by stitching in the ditch, I don’t need decorative thread. I’ve chosen 100 wt. WonderFil Invisifil 103 for the bobbin and Sulky Premium monofilament for the top. These are fine threads that won’t add weight to the quilt and will virtually disappear in ditch quilting.

I stitch in the ditch for two reasons.

I can remove safety pins while stitching, which in turn, removes some of the weight of the quilt, and removes obstacles when I get around to free-motion quilting.
Since I am quilting on a domestic machine, as opposed to a long-arm, I feel the need to stabilize my quilt sandwich for free-motion quilting.

I am using a walking foot to evenly feed the layers as I stitch.

I like to begin by bringing up the tails. This is habit from free-motion quilting, and it isn’t absolutely necessary for ditch quilting. But it does make it convenient to cut off the tails later. I lower the stitch length to zero and gradually increase it to the length that I prefer, about a 3 on my machine…you may prefer a different length. There are no quilt police to say that I am wrong and you are right. (Lucky for me!)

Here’s how the stitching looks on the front of the doll quilt:

And on the back of the doll quilt:

And then I realized how silly I was for using the monofilament at all (You never do silly things, do you?), so I switched to the WonderFil Invisifil for both the top and bobbin threads to work on the baby quilt. And I was silly, just in case you were asking yourself this ever since I gave my thread choices, because the Invisifil thread is so fine that it is all that is needed. Duh!

So here is how the baby quilt looks after stitching with Invisifil thread:

Oopsies…missed the ditch a little bit!

Had I had my thinking cap on (which is almost always missplaced these days), I would’ve switched to black Invisfil for the bobbin thread. Why? Because the backing on the baby quilt is black. Lucky for me, it worked out anyway.