Burlap Flower Girl Dresses?....Yes Please!!

Well I am excited to say that I have finished the flower girl dresses! It fills me with such great joy getting to cross a project off my list. I am a true list maker (it drives my husband crazy) and I just love making them and then checking them off. My cousin's wedding has a bit of a country elegance feel to it's decor. When telling me about it she mentioned that she is using some burlap table covers, glass vases, twigs, etc and it started my wheels turning. Her colors are coral and turquoise and her dress is ivory. I just adore when people use a pattern in the flower girl dress so I was so excited to do the same for this wedding. We picked out this adorable polka dot fabric with a rustic country feel to it. I really wanted to incorporate some burlap somehow as to really get that rustic feel and....I just LOVE how they turned out!!

 

My daughter and another little girl are both the flower girls, so I did a 2T and a 5T. Above on the left are the little bodices before I sewed the shoulder sleeves together. It is fully lined with the waist seams enclosed in the bodice, so nice and clean. I used "the party dress" tutorial found over on The Cottage Home and made some alterations to make the dress work for this purpose. I then added some pearls around the middle to dress it up.

 

 

Next up, burlap! I just love how these rosettes tuned out. I used scrap material from the petticoat (pictured below) and swirled it with scrap muslin. I finished them with the burlap leaves and a few leftover pearls from the dresses. I attached them to pins so they can be removed for washing the dress or interchanged for other pins.

 

 

I just love them! The 2T is on the left and the 5T on the right.

 

 

I really wanted these dresses to twirl so I decided to add a petticoat. I used the "circle skirt" tutorial over at made and was so simple! This skirt was so easy to put together and it twirls like so other!! Please forgive the black elastic (it was all I had on hand and it goes under the dress anyways....)

When my husband saw the final dress he said, "When you told me you were going to use burlap to make Hadley a flower girl dress, I thought you were crazy. Yet somehow you found the only possible way to make it look amazing." Awww, I love that man!!

 

 

A Block for a Beginner!

A couple of months ago I ran across a great sale on a fat quarter bundle of American Jane's School Days fabrics.  I love American Jane's fabrics because she uses such fun vibrant colors with a feel of vintage to them. This fabric line was perfect for making quilts for my kids elementary school teachers for their birthdays. I love getting a deal on a fat quarter bundle because you can really make quite a bit of quilt out of one bundle, depending on how many fat quarters are included. From this bundle, I have made two quilts so far, and I have plenty still left for a third. I wanted to show you a fun block I used for both of the quilts, and I feel it would be so easy for a beginner quilter. I threw both these quilt tops together in about two days of work and then machine quilted them at home on my machine and hand stitched the bindings. They both ended up around 50" square which is a really nice size for a throw quilt. Best of all both teachers loved them and seeing the excitement on my kids faces when they gave them to them, priceless!!


To start off you begin by cutting your fabrics into 5" squares. If you want to simplify this even further you could figure of the number of 5"squares you would need for your finished desired quilt size and buy the appropriate number of charm packs (remember these are packs of 5" squares.)




Next you will sew 9 of your 5" blocks together as shown in the picture. You sew 3 rows of three and then sew the rows together on top of one another.

Now the easy part, you line up your new large block (made up of your 9 squares) and cut directly down the middle horizontally as well as vertically. You now have 4 super scrappy blocks that look like you spent hours on them!! (Don't look too closely or you might notice I forgot to take a picture to show you how to cut them until after I had already sewn some together. For this reason, the top block doesn't exactly match, but I hope you can understand what I am trying to show you here.)

You can make so many different looking quilts with this form of block, and I love a neat scrappy quilt! The first quilt I made I used all these type of scrappy blocks and mixed and matched and then just sewed them all together. For the next quilt I sewed 9 of my 9 square blocks together for the center, added a border, and then used the scrappy blocks for the outside border, as shown in the pictures.

Have some fun getting creative and let me know if you have any questions or if this block works for some of your quilts!!

 

What do you get after 25 years of marriage.....Why a quilt of course!

I knew I had wanted to make my amazing aunt and uncle a quilt for their 25th year anniversary from their 24th year anniversary. When did I start working on it? A month before.... That's usually how things go in this household so I have become very accustomed to tight time frames. I had been looking for the perfect fabrics for their quilt for some time, but I just hadn't found anything that struck me. Therefore, it was time to get scrappy! I pulled out two different Moda scrap bags (I love these, yet they really can be hit or miss) and started matching other fabrics to them from my scrap bin. I love the colors in this quilt because some of them don't go together at all, but then they do in just the perfect way. I used over eighty different fabrics in this quilt and have mainly warm cozy colors, but them an occasional turquoise thrown in and even a hint of pink! Fun!!

Now that I had my fabric what to do next? Well, I have yet to ever follow a pattern for any quilt so why start now. First I just started cutting them all into even strips. Then I sewed these strips together to make blocks. When I laid it all out I just didn't love it yet. So I sat down and cut each of my blocks into an "X" making four triangles. Then I mixed all the triangles together and sewed them into new blocks, added some borders to offset the new squares, and the quilt top was complete!

I then went back to the fabric store for yet another fabric for the backing. I used a few leftover scraps from the front running through the back to give it a little "pop." I then machine quilted the quilt with an all over stippling pattern, bound it with yet another fabric from my stash, and hand stitched the back.  My favorite part of every quilt is getting to wash it for the first time. I love the way the fabric puckers together in just the perfect way to make it perfectly cozy. The quilt finished out at about 62 inches square, a perfect size for cuddling up on the couch! I love it!!

Pastry Talk

Precuts is a hot word for the quilting world. I remember when I first started quilting I would feel overwhelmed just picking out a background fabric and couldn’t dare to think about choosing 40 coordinating fabrics to put into a good scrappy quilt (remember I like them scrappy!) I would browse through modern quilting books for ideas and fall in love with the matchings and mis-matchings of colors, patterns, and textures that looked “Oh so yummy!!,” yet I wouldn’t even know where to start.  To say the least, picking out fabrics can be intimidating for the new quilter. That’s where precuts come in!!

What are precuts? Well precuts are exactly as the name entails, pre cut strips, squares, triangles, etc of fabric. The best part is that great designers who really have an eye for putting various colors and patterns together have already done this hard work for us and let me tell you they do a great job!  Depending on the manufacturer of the fabric you may run into slightly different names for these packs of fabric, but once you start working with them, you will be able to navigate through precuts like a pro! Precuts offer a wonderful alternative for those new to quilting for many reasons;

·         They are already cut improving cutting accuracy for your quilt so you just have to concentrate on the stitching accuracy,

·         They offer many different coordinating prints in each pack so you can get a great look even if you don’t have an overflowing scrap drawer (closet),

·         And lastly, they are just so much fun! I encourage you to check out some pre-cuts by Moda, Riley Blake, and many other designers and I can guarantee you will fall in love with some of the fabric pairings! Beautiful!!

Many of the names you will hear are names of pastries! Like we really need to be thinking of yummy yummy bakery findings while we are trying to quilt….I have listed a few of the popular names of precuts below to get you started:

Charm packs: Charm packs are stacks of about 20-40 different pieces of fabric precut into 5” squares. Occasionally you may find a charm pack cut into 6” squares so just keep an eye out on the label. Make sure you also read how many squares come in a packet you choose so you will ensure you have enough for your quilt.

Layer Cakes: Layer cakes are very similar to charm packs but are double in size, 10” squares. Most layer cakes contain around 30-40 pieces.





Jelly Rolls: Jelly rolls are 2.5” strips of fabric. They are the WOF (width of fabric) in length so usually about 44-45.” A jelly roll usually contains around 20-40 strips of fabric.


Honeybuns: Honeybuns are very similar to jelly rolls but are smaller. These strips are 1.5” x WOF. They usually have around 40 strips of fabric.



Fat Quarter bundles: These are my favorite!! I love to find a good deal on a fat quarter bundle! These are packs of coordinating fat quarters (1/4 of a yard of fabric cut lengthwise rather than widthwise.) Packs can really vary by how many fat quarters are in a bundle so make sure you take into account how many quarters you need. Many times you can use a bundle to make multiple quilts.


Turnovers: Turnover are stacks of 80 6" triangles. Lots of fun!!


 I hope this helps you wade through the waters of pastry chatter next time you are in the market for some quilting precuts! I used the pictures from www.missouriquiltco.com which has a wonderful selection of precuts available to choose from with good prices. There are many other great options as well, just google “quilting precuts” and set aside a few hours! Once you build up your stash drawer (closet) you may find yourself buying these less and less, but they are an excellent option for a beginning quilter and the designers do such a nice job on pairing fabrics!! Good luck buying just one!!

 

 

 

Happy Stitches!

So as I mentioned I’m starting this blog to hopefully provide some tutorials and some good chatter about my crafting that keeps me busy.  I hope you can learn from me and I know there is so much I can learn from you.

My sewing story began three years ago when my husband got me a sewing machine for Christmas. It was your typical basic Singer, but such a great starter machine. I have since moved up in the sewing machine world and passed that little guy on to a dear friend who is starting quilting which makes my heart swell! Anyways, the first thing I sewed on that new machine was a little quilt kit packet purchased at AC Moore’s (which stands for craft store on the East Coast.) Ever since I have fallen in love with quilting! I have since made 17 quilts and counting and with every single one, I learn something new. Don’t get me wrong my sewing machine is often busy sewing other fun things (especially this time of year with Halloween creeping upon us,) but quilting has my heart. I love a good scrappy feel with lots and lots of beautiful crazy colors. I love the feel of good quality fabrics against your skin (much to my budget’s disappointment.) I love the little mistakes that each quilt holds, but most of all I love giving them away (which is why I never have a quilt to cozy up with on the couch in my own home!!) I hope to post some fun quilting and other tutorials on here if I can ever figure out how to post a picture of the quilt that you can click on and it goes to the tutorial. I have literally spent the last two days trying to figure this out and I finally just decided to start blogging already!! If there are any experts on this matter I would love some help!

 

This blog may be a little slow for the seasoned quilter (as I am still learning everyday) but I am trying to make a blog to help those new to the game and that is packed with great information and lots of fun along the way! If any of my posts are confusing or if you need any guidance on the tutorials (once I can figure out that clicking thing mentioned above,) please don’t hesitate to comment or shoot me an email. I would love to hear from you!!

Until then! Happy stitches!!!