Simply Done
***UPDATE*** I have been getting a LOT of requests for specific information on the design wall fabric that I buy. Here’s the label from the bolt of my most recent purchase:
Rainbow Classicfelt by the KUNIN Group
Just a Few Projects
I started digging through some unfinished projects recently and put some on my design wall, then I thought I’d make a video about the design wall and share it 🙂
Ok, I had some setbacks and I didn’t finish a quilt, but I have a list of quilters who did!! Hurray for them!
Judy of KS sent this one, Derek’s Quilt made with Teenage Ninja Turtle Fabric!
Judy of KS made Derek's Quilt
Amanda made these two as Christmas presents:
Amanda's Quilt #1
Amanda's Quilt #2
Sara from Abu Dhabi made a RolyPoly
Sara's Roly Poly
Sara's Roly Poly Quilt
Sara's Roly Poly
and Marie Bartels from the Netherlands made this lovely blue and white quilt:
Marie and her Crazy Shortcut Quilt
Cheryl in Texas made a Christmas Quilt
My pal Judy Wedemeyer gets credit for this one and she’s going to post about it on her blog too 🙂
5 Minute 5 Dollar Craft Organizer
We were chatting about making quilted Art Cards and she wanted to show me some of the decorative bits she’d collected that she used to both make the cards and to give her inspiration. Colored feathers, beads, buttons, strings and more filled her little organizer bag. When I asked her about her bag, she flipped through it and told me how she’d made it from a tapestry book cover and some zippered food storage bags. I was in awe!
No amount of arm twisting could get her on camera but she did give me permission to share it all with you and so I’ll post the steps here, along with a video. I must say, I’ve made three of these so far, all as gifts, and I just LOVE them!
I started by scouring second hand shops for the tapestry book covers but could not find one in months of searching. I did, however, find a multitude of zippered bags, and a gift bag, and I’ve transformed several of them. I learned that it helps to have one of the plastic baggies with me while shopping, to check sizes of the zippered bags against the size of the plastic baggies. While it’s easy to shorten the depth of the plastic baggies, trimming the “zipper top” down was not something I wanted to do.
Use a bobbin thread that matches the exterior fabric
I look for the full zipper closure on the bags and the ones with two zipper heads are quite nice; I love a few extra interior pockets but they aren’t necessary, and I search both the “purses & bags” section and the luggage section of shops looking for likely candidates for this project.
What’s absolutely necessary, for the way we make them, is some type of fabric spine (like a book spine) for sewing the baggies to.
Offset the zipper pulls when sewing them in
Judy explained how she grouped the baggies for sewing (we both use 12 baggies per organizer) and offset the zipper tabs of the baggies, to reduce the bulk.
Stapling the bottoms keeps the baggies from slipping while sewing
For most of the organizers I’ve made so far, I grouped the baggies by three, and stapled the bottoms of the bags together to keep them from slipping while I am sewing them. I backstitch at the beginning and end of each row of sewing the baggies in and I used a cotton wrapped polyester thread for strength, with a slightly longer stitch length than normal.
Supplies I’ve been using so far:
Zippered bag from second hand shops, laundered
Zipper pull plastic food storage bags
Strong thread
Stapler
Scissors to trim the excess off the bottoms of the baggies, if needed
Sewing Machine 🙂
Here’s the video – if it “hiccups” please press the Pause button and let the video fully buffer (watch the red line get longer, which indicates that the video is loading and buffering) and then press play.
Here’s another one that I made for my granddaughter:
I watched a video that made me start thinking about all the things that I keep up on my walls in my quilting area. As a response to the video I watched, I made this video which thanks the original artist, Margaret Fabrizio, and shows some of my cherished bits and tells their story. The more I think about it, the more I want to turn those “bits” into a quilt that I can keep forever. Here’s the vid and if you have a “design wall” story, I’d love to hear it! Also, if you go to YouTube you can see the comments (and the channels of the commenters)….I just had a super time exploring channels and blogs!
UPDATE – My friend Margie Wallace posted a video response to MY video! This is like a chain reaction! If you post a video response would you let me know?
Jean wrote to me a while back about her collection of gorgeous tee shirts – she made a gorgeous quilt from them!
Jean's Hawaiian Tee Shirt Quilt
The shirts on the quilt represent 16 years of taking my fourth grade students on an annual study tour of the Big Island of Hawaii. Although there are only 15 blocks all 16 years are represented. If you look carefully at the center block of the bottom row you’ll notice an area that’s a little pinkish.
That little piece was taken from the missing shirt and stitched onto the blue one. Except for the printing of the piece being of a different color the design and shirt color were exactly the same as the shirt that it is on.Gorgeous School Tee!
Our shirt designs were done by various people… one by a parent who was a scientific illustrator at the university, several by local tee shirt designers, and others by our students. Some designs were of a more general nature while others focused on a highlight of the year’s trip. For my backing I used a fabric that I found on the Big Island. It features the honeycreeper birds that are endemic to Hawaii.
I’m pleased with the result and glad that my shirts did not just end up in a rag bag. btw… I actually had 48 shirts since for each year we had one shirt for the 3 days of our trip.
Again, thank you for sharing your shortcut quilting method and for allowing me to share my experience with you.
With much aloha,
jean n
… that I can’t take credit for either!
Judy Salzmann made these great potholders for her girlfriend in South Dakota
Judy made her friend some Potholders!
Sara in Abu Dhabi made this gorgeous tablerunner!
… but none are mine! Don’t I wish I could take credit for these 🙂
First, Michelle’s Quilt (her second Crazy Shortcut Quilt) and here’s her message:
I love this technique – it is very easy and quick.
I like the shortcake pattern because I like working with the smaller squares.
I am ready to do another one.
Michelle's Shortcake Quilt
Judy S. from Creston, BC, Canada sent pics of her newest CSQ project – Placemats for her younger sister.
Judy S. In B.C. made placemats for her sister
Gorgeous Fabrics and Fabulous Stitches
AND, Sara in Abu Dhabi, started a blog! She’s got some GORGEOUS fabric postcard photos and an update on her newest Crazy Shortcut Quilt posted. Please visit her blog and say hi 🙂
Sara from Abu Dhabi is making a Tablerunner!
I just discovered that I choose fabrics based on the mood I am in, which is often affected by the weather! It’s been raining for about two years here and I long for spring or summer.
These fabrics remind me of summer and warmth
Those retro reprints went back into the stash bucket so fast that I’m surprised they didn’t catch fire.
I have 12 Fat Quarters to work with, and I want to use the cutting design (four cuts) that Sarah used on her “Bright Idea” quilt.
It’s Quilting Time! How are you doing on your quilt?
I’ve been thinking about making another “Shortcake” quilt or else the “Easy To Go Crazy” quilt from our book. A quick and easy design. Anyone want to make a quilt with me? A quilt-a-long where we all quilt together?
I have a free week coming up soon and I’m itching to cut some fabric! Let me know, okay? I could post video updates or something like that, and lots of pics to the blog 🙂
There are many good methods of putting a binding on a quilt but I’ve never seen how to flip the corners specifically demonstrated and that’s what my friend Rosemary asked to see, so I made a video for her.
When preparing for the binding I start by measuring all four sides of the quilt and then determining the length of binding that I need and exactly how long each side of the quilt should be. If you don’t measure your quilt and binding, it’s easy to stretch either the quilt, or the binding, or both, while sewing them and that can give a wavy finish to your quilt, instead of a nice, straight, flat finish.
I always cut my binding on the length of grain (going WITH the selvage) [this is just my personal preference] and often I cut my binding before I even cut my fabrics for my quilt. I don’t like piecing small bits of fabric to make up the binding, and because I use the length of grain, I find it easier to start my quilt by cutting the binding first 🙂
When I am finished quilting my quilt, I measure out the length of binding for each side of the quilt as I go along, but I only “measure and pin” one side at a time as I sew the binding on. I hope that makes sense! I sew the binding onto one side of the quilt, and its corner, and then I take the quilt out of the sewing machine and measure and pin the binding for the next side.
The video is about how I turn the corners on the binding, AFTER sewing it to the *BACK* of the quilt, because all my bindings are 100% by machine. I never hand quilt anything, but that’s just my preference also. Oh, and the video asks you to subscribe to my channel if you like my videos, which requires you to create a YouTube account. I can’t tell you how much I have learned from watching video tutorials on YouTube on all kinds of subjects. I highly recommend YouTube if you like to learn by “seeing how it’s done”.
Here’s the older video I made for Linda about sewing down the corner on the FRONT of the quilt:
