Sewing from Clothing

I've been working on these bears for a few weeks now and they are finally finished! These bears are made out of clothes from someone's loved one. I'm really please with how they turned out! If you have old clothes or clothes that mean a lot to you, you can always find a pattern to sew with them.

Hunting Fleece Hats

It's hunting season and I am experimenting with sewing new hats! By law, and for general safety, there needs to be at least 20 square inches of bright orange on your head when you are out in the woods. For obvious reasons, you want to make sure that other hunters can see you. I bought the fleece for the hats on black Friday for a less than the cost of a fleece hat you could buy at a store. The best part is, that I bought enough fleece for at least 20 hats! How great is that! Sure it may take some time for me to do this, but I am double layering and taking my time and making a sturdy warm hat that I know I can use for a long time.

Patriotic Quilt

Here is the beginning of my newest quilt! I have always wanted a patriotic themed quilt and I decided on this pattern. The whole thing is made up of triangles which makes it easy. And the good thing is that if I have any left over triangles I can make a table runner or save them for a scrap quilt for later. It is a common size used in a lot of quilt patterns. I cut 3 7/7 in strips, cut those strips into 3 7/8 in squares, and finally cut those triangles in half. You can pick any colors for this pattern and rearrange the triangles any way you like. This is just how I chose to do it this time.

Teddy David

I had a friend's mother ask me to make some Teddy bears from her husbands old jeans and shirts for her two children. I think they came out great!

Caleb's Quilt

Last Christmas I posted about a quilt I made for Caleb. Since I made it in the process of 2 weeks.... I don't thing I ever posted pictures of it done. Here are some pictures I took a few days ago. You can see the border design we used, and some of the quilting patterns too. It's fun to look back on it and say "Yea, I made that." Like any piece of art, it's refreshing to look at a completed project instead of many unfinished ones. :)

Finished Double Irish Chain Quilt

Here you can see me finishing up the sewing of the quilt. I took the entire finished top, along with the batting and the back to my aunts house in Bedford county. There, along with my grandmother, we used her new quilting machine to finish up the quilt. Normally I would have my grandmother quilt it and I would attempt to hand quilt along with her. She is very fast at it but I wanted to have it done in a day. Plus I had never used a quilting machine before and I wanted to see how it works. The finished product came out really nice. You can see where I quilted and how I need to learn to make smoother lines but I like how it came out. Hopefully the person receiving it as a Christmas gift thinks so too :)

Keeping up with sewing projects

As it comes closer to Christmas time, one of my gifts is going to be a quilt. Hopefully the person I am making this for doesn't look at my blog in the next few weeks. It's a simple pattern called the Double Irish Chain. I plan on finishing it this week and spending a day at my aunts house next week and using her quilting machine to finish it. I'm excited to use her machine, I've never seen or used one before. You can see the pattern start to come together in the image on the right.

Still Sewing.

I have one row of stars finished, only seven more rows to go. May go faster than I thought. I've recently gotten more hours at the frame shop that I work at so my quilt may slow down a little but I'm still working hard on it on my days off. I'm excited to earn a little more so I can invest more in fabrics and paints. Maybe I can really start to experiment more using both paint, thread and fabric.

Showing off the Sunflower quilt

I took my quilt and paintings to Pittsburgh a few weeks ago to show my grandparents and their friends some of my work.

Still Cutting Fabric...

Day 3, still just cutting fabrics. Tomorrow I hope to get a better idea of how everything will be laid out. Although I will probably change things around once I start sewing.... so maybe I should just start sewing :)

New Quilt :)

So I wanted to start a new quilt only using scraps from fabrics I already had. As I was putting the pieces together they started to reminded me of a painting I did.

So I decided to make another quilt based on one of my paintings. Hopefully this one is a little smother since it is more abstract. Although, I'm not sure how I will place the people on it yet, but I am sure I will figure it out. 

After putting out all of the scraps I cut out I found that I still need some more fabrics. So I bought a few more on sale. So far I put in 2 days worth of work. Tomorrow I will start by cutting out the new fabrics and laying out more of the quilt. Soon I will actually be able to sew!

Quilted Book

FINISHED!

It's finally done. I finished the last details in the large flower pedals and with Tina's (my mom's) help, I learned how to hand sew them on with a hidden stitch. This way, you don't really see where the stitches are. We didn't sew them the whole way up, that way you can see them move a little. It gives it a playful feel. I'm so impressed with all I have learn with this project and I am definitely inspired to keep going with fabrics and sewing. I'm still working on the butterfly pillow but the quilt itself is complete.

Out of the FRAME!

After 2 weeks the quilt is quickly out of the frame! I'm completely surprised and very pleased with the outcome. The only part left to attach to the quilt are the large pedals to the large sunflower. One picture shows the pedals and butterfly laying on top but not yet attached. The other picture is of that large pedals unfinished. I still need to draw with thread on all of them and put more detail into them. It's so exciting!

Finishing up in the frame

My grandmother did 90% of the hand quilting because she is amazing and super fast. It was great spending time with her learning a new skill and learning from the best. It was also nice spending time with my grandfather who is 91 and sat in his chair and told stories as he watched us work. My sister and aunt also came to help hand quilt too.

Ready for the Frame!

I was able to put a boarder on my quilt and finally ready to put the quilt in the frame. I drew out on the fabric in washable markers the patterns of what should be quilted. The large pedals are just laid out in this picture, they are not attached yet, That will be done after the quilt comes out of the frame.

Flowers

This is the back after zigzagging on the pedals. This will not be seen in the end product. It will be covered up by quilt batting and backing.


After having the background sewn together, I needed to work on the main part which are the flowers. I cut out individual pedals and ironed on every one. After that, I took a tight zigzag stitch and went around each pedal. The biggest flower with not have pedals until after the quilt is quilted. I will be hand sewing them on.