Welcome Home, Sajan!

Margaret is now a mommy! Sajan came home from Nepal in July and the whole family just couldn't be more thrilled. I wanted to make a quilt that would wrap him up in something as warm as a welcoming hug, as colorful as green grass and blue sky. I found some fabrics with pulltoys and kites and frogs and all sorts of things little boys love. And I found this super-fun strip-quilt pattern from the Quilts of Valor site. Quilts of Valor is an amazing group that creates and sends handmade quilts to comfort our wounded soldiers. They have a network of piecers, seamstresses, longarm operators, and quilters all over the country and they are also very generous in sharing their patterns. If you have a chance, check their site out and if you have a few dollars send them their way; they are doing very important work.

For this quilt you simply sew strips of fabric together in a 1,2,3,4,5 pattern, repeat the strips several times, and when you get to the end you sew the top and bottom together so that you end up with a big fabric tube.

Then you turn the tube and carefully cut strips the other way... so that you end up with a bunch of fabric "rings." By carefully "unsewing" the rings in order (between 1,2, then 2, 3, then 3,4, etc...), you end up with a bunch of strips that form a diagonal pattern of blocks. So clever, eh? Who thinks these things up!?

I am lucky to have a big porch and on the day i needed to make the quilt "sandwich" I was lucky to have a dry, sunny day with no wind! I pin a king-sized sheet right to the deck, and then I have plenty of room to smooth out and pin the layers. I had run out of acrylic "basting" spray, so i did it the old-fashioned way with a million safety pins.

For the backing I used this gorgeous vintage fabric I had on hand - I'd been saving it for something special and was so happy it blended perfectly with the colors in the quilt top.

Welcome, Sajan!
We are so glad you are here!

Bento Box Pillows for Mom

This was a quickie project for my mom, who made a gorgeous amazing quilt and had fabric left over to play with. I have been meaning to try the Bento Box pattern so she let me have at it.


This pattern is super-easy and fun... IF you have a rotary cutter and mat. If you don't... well... the cutting might be laborious. Of course, once you've gotten a rotary cutter & mat, any other type of cutting is going to seem archaic and laborious anyway, so just go get these amazing tools and watch a whole new world of sewing fun open up for you. No, I do not work for Olfa or Fiskars, but I welcome sponsorship invitations or kickbacks, haha! (I have no shame I have a ginormous student loan to pay off after all ;-) ]


I made my own pillow forms. I am always floored at how expensive pre-made pillow forms are, and since I always have yardage of neutral-hued cottons on hand, why not spend a few extra minutes whipping up my own? You can purchase by-the-bag fiberfill economically at Joann Fabrics (if you get on their mailing list they send great coupons every month) and stock up for occasions just such as this.

The decorative pillows are actually pillow CASES - I like to make them with a simple envelope closure in the back so you can take them off easily for washing & put them back on just as easily. If you want to get fancy you can use a button or toggle or other such closure but if you've made the envelope with enough overlap you probably don't need it.

Aren't they cute? I think this pattern translates well to traditional "country" fabrics like this just as well as more modern applications. I especially like how it looks when used for whole quilts - here is a gorgeous example, and here's another. I can't wait to make a full-sized quilt with this pattern!

Helen & Jay Got Married

I haven't been posting much lately because my summer has been CRAZY, but I have a few special projects I wanted to share with you so I will try to get caught up! First of all CONGRATULATIONS HELEN & JAY! Two of my dearest friends got hitched. It was my great honor to be asked to craft a chuppah for their wedding. Helen loves batiks so we conferred over the equilter.com website to find the perfect colors to complement Helen's gorgeous red dress and Jay's signature navy blazer. EQuilter always has an amazing selection of batiks so it was easy to find just what we wanted (but hard not to order a boatload more!)

While waiting for the fabrics to arrive via mail, I availed myself of Home Depot's do-it-yourself curtain rod department and cut four poles to 7' specs. Home Depot has a selection of pre-cut curtain rods, in all sorts of fancy configurations, with fancy end-caps and so forth, but the pre-cut ones stop at 6' and well, Jay's a tall feller so we wanted to make sure he could stand tall while wedding his sweetheart (not to mention wanting to accommodate the statuesque officiate presiding ! ;-)

At home I sanded the ends, installed heavy-duty screw eyes

and then spray-painted the poles a lovely matte copper.

Finally~! The fabrics arrived and I set to work making a pool of pebbled aqua surrounded by a field of batik flowers surrounded by a maroon border. Here is the design laid out on batting and being affixed to the backing fabric, a sky-blue solid. We kept the design fairly simple as Helen didn't want a fancy design distracting from the beautiful fabrics.

If you have not tried the spray-adhesive for making the quilt/batting/backing sandwich, I recommend it highly. It saves oodles of time on basting or pinning.

We did a navy binding to seal the whole thing, then affixed streaming yards of light blue, maroon, and navy grosgrain to tie the chuppah to the poles.

(photo by Olivia Goldfine)

(photo by Olivia Goldfine)

Thank you Helen & Jay for letting me put my creative energies to work for your special day!
Congratulations on your marriage!
May you be a comfort and joy to each other for all of your days. <3