Man Quilt...

...that's not so man-ish anymore.

This quilt (#6 for me) began with a charm pack of batiks I received with a mug rug swap.  They were ugly and I couldn't re gift them because I didn't want anyone to think I'd actually choose that charm pack.  They sat around for a long time.  I finally decided they would work into an ugly "man quilt".

So I got started on a design idea.  I'm sure it was triggered by something I've seen somewhere.  This was back last November.

Then the holidays came and other sewing commitments took over.  Finally in April it surfaced again.  And I found that I was actually enjoying sewing this quilt top.  It didn't look as ugly as I thought it would.  Probably because the ugly fabric pieces are only 2" square.

Soon it was ready to sandwich.

I love when a quilt top is ready to sandwich.  The three layers together is when it changes from pieced fabric to a quilt.  I love to hug it after pin basting it just to feel all my hard work as a "quilt".  The design wasn't hard, but those corners of all the blocks match up really well because I worked hard to do my best to make sure they would all match up.

I moved along to my favorite straight line quilting. 

I couldn't be more pleased with the way the quilting looks with this simple design.

I just can't imagine sending a quilt top out to be quilted.  There is just no better feeling than sewing a quilt from start to finish.

Time for binding...

I wondered if I would ever bind a quilt with the same fabric as the design background rather than a contrasting piece.  Sure enough, this one called for a binding that didn't frame the design. 

 And in the end, I love the quilt!  It doesn't look strictly man-ish. 

It's definitely non gender specific.

I still have lots of pieces of this "ugly" charm pack left over.  Who knows what it'll turn into...we'll see.

Quilt #7 is on the wall and it's calling me to come play.  It's a rather interesting concept that I'm having a fun time with, so off I go to play!

Annie

Blooming Dresden

Table Mat

I'm not the biggest fan of the Dresden plate.  I don't dislike it but it isn't a favorite design.  However, I really like playing with the Dresden ruler wedge lately.

For this piece I traced the 8" ruler wedge.  Shrank the tracing with my printer to 3 different sizes plus a partial wedge. 

I fused the pieces to the background and stitched them down with a raw edge applique technique.  Easy peasy!  The binding is not bias, it's straight grain.  I don't like doing bias if I don't have to.

This piece is another make with this fabric collection for a personal challenge.  Other pieces can be seen in my flickr photostream here. 
Confession:  One fabric piece is not part of this fabric collection but I didn't want to keep repeating too many of the prints to make enough wedges so I just added one more print to the collection.  Is that cheating?  Maybe I can't count it in that challenge.

I've made a couple of table mats for my daughter and she said she'd like to have "some" more.  I'll have to send this to her eventually, but right now I just can't part with it.  I like it and want to enjoy it for awhile before I package it up and send it off. 

Now I can get back to work on my "Man Quilt" that I started back in January.  It's ready to quilt...I'm always so excited when a quilt is ready to be quilted.  See ya ~

Annie

Blooming Measuring Tape

Pillow #5

My man very seldom makes any comments about what I sew.  However, this piece caught his eye.  Most  likely because of the measuring tapes...guys use them too.  His comment was:

 "Somebody got mad at their tape measure and cut it up."

I always thought I was to blame for mis-measurements but I can see now that the tape measure is the culprit and can be punished with scissors!

My tape measures are a download from Digital Collage Sheets that I printed to fabric (quite a while back) and cut apart.  I thought I had Wonder Under fused to the back of these but when they didn't "stick" when I ironed them in place...well, surprise!  So I had to tack them down with a glue stick. Then made them stay put with circular quilting. 

That was all I planned to do but I felt like it just needed a little something more.  Glass beads seem to be doing the trick for me.

I was a bit disappointed to use the same red fabric for the binding, but nothing else worked.  Another simple back with a few of the glass beads hanging from the zipper pull.

This was simply a fun wild design idea that popped into my head and I had to put it to play.  (I don't kid myself.  I'm sure this has probably already been thought up and done somewhere in the universe, but I haven't seen it.)  I think #5 looks fun next to #2

What I want to know is why is it that I really like some of these pillow covers while I'm working on them and when I put a pillow form inside them they don't look so wonderful anymore. Why is that?...why is that?

Just do it!

Annie