Current Quilt Project

These are all part of my current quilt project.

Iron Caddy

Yesterday I finished my iron caddy that I started in January.  That was the month I bought a great travel iron to take to a quilting retreat.  When I found out that irons and ironing boards were provided, I stopped working on the iron caddy.  I got tired of seeing this unfinished project cluttering up the end of my sewing table, so I made myself finish it before working on anything new.

The Painted Quilt has a link that downloads a free pattern and instructions, which actually get downloaded from the Tri-County Quilters' website.  The Painted Quilt has pictures and a blog post about the iron caddy.  Tri-County Quilters merely has a link to the iron caddy pdf file on their Supply List page.  In the interest of complete disclosure and full credit, I wanted to mention both.

I also found this video from Pattern Pile to be very helpful, especially for the button and closure placement.

Of course I needed to pick fabric that coordinated with my iron.

When I started the project in January, I thought I had only a short time to finish it.  I already had the outer material, and wanted an "instant" handle and binding, so I used the yellow webbing and brown bias tape that was in my stash.  

You see those two buttons on top of the binding?  They were my first choice, but I wound up going with different ones.  For the elastic closure, I followed the advice of The Painted Quilt and used ponytail elastic that I bought at a dollar store.

The only other things I had to buy were the silver ironing board fabric and Insul-Bright.  The last time I used Insul-Bright, I couldn't tell one side from the other, which was a problem because the directions said to place the shiny side toward the object you want to insulate.  See photo on left.

With the new Insul-Bright (photo on right), the shiny side is clearly visible.  But now the instructions say it doesn't matter which side goes where.  Huh?  That's illogical to me.  I made sure I laid the shiny side toward where my iron is going to be.

I'm not going to show you how to make the iron caddy - see the links I posted above.  But here's what the paper pattern looks like after stitching through all the layers, which were pretty thick.  If I make another caddy, which I don't think I'll ever do, I'll mark the lines on the fabric instead of making a paper pattern.

These iron caddys have a dual purpose.  First, when fully open, you can use them as an ironing surface.

And second, you can pack up your hot iron at the end of the day without waiting for it to cool off,

After all my machine stitching was done, I was so excited.  I wanted to celebrate by taking the caddy to the store and finding some really cute and knobby buttons.  I even made sure I still had some Jo-Ann coupons.  And then I asked myself  "Really?  You have hundreds and hundreds of buttons at home and you mean to tell me you can't find something that will work?"  So I stacked three buttons and made a minuscule dent in my button collection.  

I'm going to reward my goodness, though.  Next time buttons go on sale, I'm going to be there loading up on weird and cute ones.

I'm glad I went with the ponytail elastic recommended by The Painted Quilt, instead of the plain white elastic that was in the original instructions.

So here they are, just itching for an opportunity to get out and travel a bit.

I'm happy with the way everything turned out, and even happier to have it done so I can work on a new quilt.

Spring Drawstring Bag

I made a drawstring bag yesterday.  My quilt guild is having a fabric challenge this year, and because of limited space at the venue we meet at, I was carrying the fat quarters back and forth from my home.  After 8 months, I was getting a little tired of doing this, so I thought why not store them in a bag which could be tied to the handle of the library cart?

This being a quilt guild, I needed to make a fabric bag. 

My sewing room is like a greenhouse now, filled with hyacinth, gerbera, primrose, and miniature roses.  So I was inspired to pull three fabrics that went together well, and which had a spring feel.

This was the first audition - light floral for the bag, dark floral for the casing, and yellow for the drawstring.

This was the second audition, and the one I went with.  I had 1 yard of the black tulip fabric and only 1/2 yard of the light, so this was more logical.  Plus I liked it better this way.

I didn't use a pattern,  For something this simple, it didn't seem necessary.   The fat quarters for the fabric challenge are kept in a tissue box, with a sign made out of mat board.  All I did was make sure that the dimensions of the bag were more than adequate to hold the fancy display.

The first I thing I noticed when draping the fabric around the box was that the tulips went "up" on one side, but "down" on the other.  So I cut the fabric into two long strips, approximately 18" x the width of fabric, then laid them right sides together, with the tulips in the same direction.

Then I stitched around all four sides, leaving a small opening to turn the fabric.  After turning it right side out, I now had the beginnings of a lined bag.  I pressed the open seam allowance to the inside, making a nice straight edge.  Then I folded the rectangle in half, meeting the short ends.  This created more of a square shape.  I sewed a narrow seam along the short edge and along the bottom.  Now I had a bag, and all the tulips faced up on all the sides.  Success!

(Sorry for all those words, but I was on a mission to make the bag and take the photographs all in one day, so the photographs got the short end of the stick.)

For the casing, I cut two pieces, 3" x 18".  Actually, I cut four of them.  Because the fabric was folded when I cut it, and the floral was so large, the top strip had different colors than the bottom strip.  I cut another set of two, then picked the two that looked the best against the bag.

I pressed under 1/4" on all four sides. 

Then I stitched the casing 1" from the top of the bag.  I had a little problem here.  It was so much fun sewing, that I sewed along this long edge, got to the bottom, turned the corner, sewed along the short edge, turned the corner again and started sewing down the other long edge.  Then my brain engaged and I asked myself how I was supposed to insert the drawstring if I just sewed the short edge to the bag.  Oh.

I ripped it out, and before sewing it back onto the bag, I did a few rows of stitching on the short ends of the casing to keep it from raveling (unraveling?) as the drawstring gets used.

For each of the two drawstrings, I sewed 2" strips of fabric together until they were two and a half times as long as the width of the bag.  I ironed each strip in half, then opened it up and pressed the raw edges to the center.   Then I folded it on the original fold line, pressed the ends to the inside, and stitched the edges closed.

Here's the finished bag, flat.

Here it is, carrying the tissue box, sign, and fat quarters.

And here it is, all closed up and ready to tie to the handle of the library cart for storage.

From the Vault - Shoe and Purse Quilt

Today I thought I'd show you another paper-pieced quilt I did, this one in 2011.

It's approximately 2' x 3'.

The shoe pattern is from Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, volume 2.  The name is Shoe Boxes and it was designed by Denise Starck, graphic designer for Quiltmaker.

The purse isn't paper pieced; it's just something I did on my own.  The flap lifts up, but the body of the purse is machine appliqued all the way around, so you can't put your hand in it.

Today I found a cute paper-pieced purse pattern designed by Denise.  She even demonstrates how to make it in this free video from QNNtv.

The handle is beads, strung and then couched in place to hold the curve.  I used a large cloisonné pendant on the purse flap.

This is the label, and this purse does let you put your hand inside.

I wanted a flat handle so the quilt would hang without a bulge; that's why I used the daisy trim.  Don't ask me why the trees are going sideways.  This is the first time I noticed that.

As you can see from the label, I made the quilt in January 2011, but didn't really finish it until April 2011 when I made the sleeve and label.  I think it's been hanging in the house non-stop since then.

Dressmaker Pin Cushion

I was doing some changing around in my sewing room last week and decided the new decor called for a new pin cushion.  Plus I was eager to try out the walnut shells I bought last month.

I thought a dressmaker theme would be fun, so I pulled these fabrics from my stash.

 

I used a simple paper-pieced spool pattern and fussy cut the images to go where I wanted them.  Then I added my button pins, which were unearthed during the room rearranging.

This is the back.  I really like these walnut shells!  In the past, I stuffed all my pin cushions with fiberfill and they were too light.  This one has a nice heft to it, like a bean bag.

It's about 4 inches square.

It almost disappears in a piggy pile of tape measures.