finished quilt!

As promised, here is my finished quilt! Like I said before, I am really happy with it, and still amazed that I did such an extensive sewing project. I quilted it in a diamond pattern, the same way it was done in the book where I got the instructions for making this quilt (Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts). Some of the quilting lines are a little wobbly, mainly due to my beginning sewing skills. My really old crappy sewing machine didn't help much either...my walking foot fell off more than a dozen times during the quilting, so there was a lot of stopping, carefully trying to put it back on, and getting everything lined up again so there was no obvious gap in the quilting line. I would love to get a new sewing machine some day.

I did a double-fold binding, which involves hand sewing the entire binding onto the back of the quilt. I was dreading this part because I've always heard how time consuming it is, but it was my favorite part of the whole process! I really liked the slow precise hand sewing, and it was the only part of the process where I felt somewhat in control. It didn't even take that long...basically two nights of sewing. Look how cute my little polka-dotted binding is.

Making a quilt was on my "life list," or list of things to do during my lifetime. It is always such a good feeling when I actually accomplish one of these things. And the greatest part is that I really want to keep making quilts, so this definitely will not be a one-time thing. In fact, I just bought some gorgeous fabric for my next project! There will definitely be some hand-quilting in my future too, since I enjoyed the hand sewing so much.

tote bag

This is a prototype tote bag that I made last Saturday. I had this red fabric from Kirin & Co. that I didn't have any plans for. It came in some packs of small pieces of assorted fabric that I bought specifically for the blue ginkgo and birch forest fabrics that I used in my pillow and quilt. I also have a piece of green ginkgo fabric that I plan to make a tote bag from, but I thought I'd make this red one first so I could refine my techniques for the next one!

I roughly used the tutorial on super eggplant, except when I sewed the lining into the bag I just topstitched instead of doing the crazy inside-out thing. Mainly because I was lazy and also worried that I'd end up with handles stuck between the lining and the outside of the bag, or something crazy like that.

The brown fabric is linen & cotton, as is Lara's fabric, so it has a nice texture to it. I messed up one of the corners, but it doesn't bother me too much, and overall I think the bag looks really nice! It reminds me of summer though, so I'm having trouble using it now (it's too cheerful for March!)...but I'll get over it.

my first quilt!

I am very proud of myself that I pieced my first quilt over the past couple days! I can't believe that I actually made something so substantial (and so pretty). I never expected that everything would line up so well! I guess I just really didn't think that I could do this, but I'm glad I bit the bullet and did it anyway.

It's a stacked coins quilt that I made according to the instructions in Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts...I LOVE the oranges and yellows in this quilt from the book (pictured below), but I was inspired by the fabric designed by Lara Cameron of Kirin & Co., so I went with a blue-green-brown color scheme instead so I could use some of those fabrics in the quilt.

The top (and bottom) pictures, which were taken with a flash, actually make the blues in Lara's fabric look much brighter than they actually are. The picture below, taken without a flash, is more true to color (although it is fuzzy!). I used three of the fabrics from Kirin & Co., including my very favorite birch forest fabric, which I have talked about before. The rest of the fabrics I chose to coordinate, but not stand out too much...I wanted to real focus to be on the ginkgo and birch fabrics. I am really happy with how all the fabrics worked together. I love the brighter green fabric because it adds so much brightness, and the little tiny birds, and the grass fabric too...I pretty much love them all, which is good!

The quilt is around 65 inches long and 52 inches wide, so it is a good size and will hopefully someday go on a twin bed. Now I just have to figure out what I am going to do about getting it quilted. I've already decided that I will NOT be hand quilting this particular quilt...I think it would take forever, and I don't have that kind of patience right now. So either I will machine quilt it myself, or I will have it professionally machine quilted. I think I'll probably go with the last option because I'm a little daunted by the prospect of quilting it myself...maybe some day I'll work up to that, but for now I'm just so proud that I managed to piece the quilt, that I think I'll let someone else quilt it.

Update! After 24 hours of mulling over how to have this thing quilted (and asking a friend in the area how I would even go about having that done), I think I might try to quilt it myself...it could be a disaster, but it seems like it might be worth a try!

birch throw pillow

I have to admit that I am a little obsessed with this birch fabric. I first came across the birch pattern as letterpress note cards (I love letterpress cards)...the cards were a collaboration between Lynn of Satsuma Press, who did the letterpress printing, and Lara of Kirin & Co, who designed the birch scene, and I snatched up a few cards with the intention of framing one of them (still working on that!). Well...then I discovered that Lara has fabric printed in this birch pattern, and I just had to have some....even though I have barely sewed anything in my life! My fabric arrived from Australia late last week and over the weekend I whipped up this little throw pillow. It is 14x14", and has a natural colored linen/cotton fabric on the back of the pillow and the birch fabric (which is also linen/cotton) on the front. It is not perfect...my corners could have been done a bit more professionally, but I am totally thrilled with this pillow. And it definitely satisfies my desire to have something made in this fabric that I can look at all the time.