This Blanket is Faux Real.

After stumbling upon THIS tutorial for a faux chenille blanket at Aesthetic Nest, I decided I had to give it a whirl.  It seemed like it would be an easy, quick, and satisfying project.  And, it was!  Easy and satisfying, that is.  Quick...not so much.  

The basic idea is that you pick out 4 fabrics and buy about a yard or yard and a half of each.  Preferably, your fabrics will be fabulous and 3 will be flannel and 1 will be either a home decor weight or quilting weight.  You sandwich them all together, quilt every 1/2 inch, cut the flannels between the seams, bind it, wash it, and c'est fini!  You are the proud owner of a faux chenille blanket! 

I used a yard and a half of Spring Street by Carolyn Gavin, which I absolutely adore.  However, after completing a blanket, I now realize I'd rather have a home decor weight as my back fabric simply because, once you snip all the flannels, your back fabric is completely exposed between each seam.  And while there might not ever be an issue, I'd rather have a more durable fabric there.  Once you take a gander at the pictures, you'll catch my drift.

Check out my before, during, and after photos below.  By the way, I'd like to take this moment to publicly thank my sweet husband for buying me a walking foot for my machine.  It has made my sewing life so much easier!  Why didn't you tell me about the beauty of the walking foot before, oh older and wiser sister?

Spring Street by Carolyn Gavin
Flannels by Robert Kaufman 

Using My Walking Foot - Love it!

After Cutting - Before Washing

After Washing

Really cool, right?!  I love the finished product.  And I'm sure I'll be making more of these; it's too simple and pretty not to.  Oh, and it's impossible not to touch - a perfect snuggle blanket.  The one teensy downfall to the whole shebang is that it's downright monotonous and time-consuming.  Quilting every 1/2 inch isn't for the faint of heart...neither is then cutting between each of those seams.  I may now have carpal tunnel syndrome.

Check out Made as well, for another faux chenille tutorial.

FREE FreeSpirit Quilt Patterns

THIS treasure trove of free quilt patterns from the folks at FreeSpirit Fabrics has got me giddy. Of course, FreeSpirit is the manufacturer behind such talent as:

Anna Maria Horner

Joel Dewberry

Denyse Schmidt

A Quilt Fit for a Niece Numero Dos [Switch Up]

I finally completed a quilt for F!  ...but it's not the quilt I thought I'd be finishing for her; you know, the one I talked about HERE, the MoMo one.  Instead, I've decided to gift her the "impromptu wall hanging" I talked about HERE.  At 40x40", it's small, but I think it's the perfect size for a take-along quilt, something that's nice to have when you've got a car seat bound infant.  Et, voila:

There are definitely a few errors in this bad boy - errors that could have been avoided if it weren't for my extreme laziness when it comes to seam-ripping.  Why make a perfect quilt and risk losing all that homemade charm?!  Right?

Quilts [or, All Hail Maternity Leave!]

Wow.  I'm getting stuff done!  Each time I bend down to pick a fruit loop off the floor without wincing is a joyful occasion.  Being pregnant is a beautiful miracle...but by the time the 3rd trimester reared it's ugly head, I was so over it.  I'm excited about being able to get out in the yard again; I've got some split-leaf philodendrons I'm itchin' to completely destroy.  I'm excited about quilting again - thanks to being able to crawl around on the floor to baste and stand-up-sit-down to iron.  Yeah, baby!  I'm back!  Here are a few pictures to let you in on what's been going on:

About a year and a half ago, I started on a stacked coin quilt and never finished it.  Why was it relegated to the bottom of the project pile for so long?  The ignoramus in me thought it would be cool to try out 1/4" straight-line quilting.  Picture many monotonous hours at the sewing machine.  Picture a really cruddy job of sandwiching the quilt, which evolved into a really bunched up backing.  Now, fast forward to about a week before O was born.  He needed a quilt, so I dusted this little Michael Miller/Amy Butler quilt off, finished quilting it [no matter the many flaws], bound it up in a nice complimentary blue, and deemed it suitable for my sweet boy.  I love that it's actually complete!  There's nothing like scratching a project off the To Do list, especially one that you thought you'd never get the gumption to finish.  And, I actually really love it, bunched up back and all.  All I've got is an extreme close-up; O was busy laying on it at the time.

Up Close and Personal

The following is a quilt for Miss P.  I never made her one when she came into this world and I figured it was about time.  The pattern is a fun freebie, courtesy of Elizabeth Hartman of Oh, Fransson! - a favorite quilting blog of mine.  She calls it the New Wave quilt, and I've got all sorts of fabrics that would do wonders with this pattern.  The fabrics in P's quilt were purchased as a quilt bundle from my go-to online fabric store, Fabricworm.  The owner does a really fabulous job of picking out fabrics from various designers that look amazing together.  She sells them as fat quarter or half-yard quilt bundles.  It's a lot of fun to browse the fabrics she's coordinated...and extremely hard to not buy something for a future project.  The New Wave quilt uses 12 fat quarters and some neutral sashing yardage.  I'll be quilting this puppy soon.  P will be ecstatic; the backing fabric is an ode to Owls, a Suzanne Ultman fabric.  

New Wave Quilt for Lil' Peezy

Suzanne Ultman Kiss Me, Hoot Hoot Spring

I had some extra fabric left over from the bundle, so I played around a bit with the scraps and came up with a wall hanging...or a really small quilt.  It's 40x40, and I used the Wonky Cross tutorial on the Oh, Fransson! page.  It was fun putting together, but I can't say that I'm loving the finished product.  I'm going to go ahead and quilt it anyway; maybe it'll charm me then.  

Impromptu Wall Hanging

That's all for now!  What have you been up to?

Quilt Progress and Some Extras

So glad that O is here!  I can't wait to meet him.  Here's his quilt - not quite finished. I just have to finish sewing the binding.

I made P a pillowcase to go with her quilt.  I used the tutorial here. 

And here is a pic of the monster H made for P.

A Quilt Fit for a Niece Numero Dos [Rough Draft]

Not to be outdone by you, my sister who seems to crank out quilts by the dozen, I finally started on a quilt for our sweet niece, F.  With all the free online quilt patterns out there, I know that it's a waste of money to pay for a pattern, but I found this one in sweetjane's Etsy shop and succumbed:

Between the Lines Quilt Pattern by sweetjane

It's a quilt using only one jellyroll and a backing fabric.  I"ve never used pre-cuts before, and so far, I'm in love!  It's too easy!  Here's my progress so far, using an It's a Hoot by Momo for Moda jellyroll:

Ooh!  Aah!  

Okay, so I've got a little bit left to do.  But, just think of all that time I saved by not cutting!  I'll post the finished product...hopefully before F's 18th birthday.

P's Quilt

I just finished sewing the binding on P's quilt!  The fabric is Tweet Tweet by Keiki for Moda.  I used a jelly roll for the quilt top and I was able to save a few different jelly roll strips for the binding.  I used the tutorial from 2nd Avenue Studios.  I've also used this tutorial to make a Halloween quilt.

 Now I'm going to start working on O's quilt.  Here's the fabric:

The fabric is from Connecting Threads.  I think I'm going to do a simple quilt.  I'm liking the Road Trip Quilt on Cluck Cluck Sew.   Hopefully this quilt will be finished before he's born! 

A Quilt Fit for a Niece

I made this quilt for my brand new niece using a quilt kit from Connecting Threads.  I've bought many quilting kits and lots of fabric from them and I've always been satisfied with the quality of the fabrics.  (That's H braving the blizzard to hold the quilt up for me.)

Here's the back.  I had more than enough fabric to do the entire back with the yellow and purple flowers, but I HAD to add little fabric strips.  In hindsight, I wish I would not have added the strips.  I'll have to make F another quilt to make up for the back!  Now I'm off the finish P's quilt.