quilts Archives - Page 2 of 3

Baby Coyote Quilt

April 15, 2015 By Taylor 13 Comments

Another Baby Quilt in the books :) I love making teeny tiny baby quilts, they are quick and easy and I don’t have time to get sick of them haha! I have a group of high school girlfriends that I have talked about here on the blog. We call ourselves the coyotes, which we made up when we were 14 so don’t judge… but one of the coyotes is having a baby and all coyote babies deserve quilts.

I was online looking for fabric and then came across the most perfect fabric that has ever been created for a coyote quilt ever!! COYOTES! Cotton and Steel to the rescue!

I got a charm pack of the Cotton and Steel Mesa line then I ordered extra coyote fabric and used five solid colors for the rest of the squares. It’s so super easy… I just cut 5.5″ squares and used 1.5 yds for the back.

We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl so I went with pink binding and a navy backing. I also went with my typical machine binding :) Hopefully coyote baby #7 loves it!!

a Happy Birthday Quilt Block

July 24, 2014 By Taylor 3 Comments

Recently I have come to realize that as far a sewing goes, I think quilting is my favorite. It’s long and can be time consuming at times but in the end its magic!

Some of my favorite quilting products are made by Olfa… how could I quilt without my rotary cutter and self healing mat!? They are celebrating their 35th Anniversary so when they contacted me about reviewing a few Olfa Products, I was in!

I was sent a fresh, new rotary cutter, a frosted acrylic ruler and a rotating self-healing mat, which I have been eying for months. They also asked if I wanted to make a quilt block to celebrate the big 35! The only rules were that it had to be 6.5″ x 6.5″ and there had to be some yellow in it. I started by pulling my yellow scraps.

I searched online for a block that looked like a birthday cake and I came across this tutorial so I pretty much followed it and used the dimensions she gave, I didn’t make mine wonky though, I went with a straight cake :) I LOVE my new rotary cutter! My other one is a lot bigger so this one is perfect for small projects. I also love the smaller acrylic ruler for the same reason. It also works better on darker fabrics because of the frosted background.

Let me just say how much I needed the rotatable self-healing mat in my life. I am very lucky and have a huge work table in my craft room but it can present a problem with trying to walk around it for cutting.

This was a quick block to sew! Its nice to have a quick project that I can finish in no time :)

I used my rotating cutting mat, acrylic block and rotary cutter to trim it up to size.

Lastly I used a stamp and permanent ink (which I heat set) for the number 35 on the cake.

They are collecting the blocks to make a big quilt to display at the Houston Quilt Market this fall… how fun! Happy Birthday Olfa! Thanks for inviting me to the party :)

Briar Rose Strip Quilt

May 26, 2014 By Taylor 18 Comments

9 times out of 10 I don’t buy fabric with a project in mind. I see fabric I really like, I buy it and I take it home. Then months later when I want to make something I “shop” in my own craft room and find the perfect fabric for the job. This quilt was no exception. Last year when I spotted the Heather Ross Briar Rose line I knew I had to have it, and I had to have all of it :) I bought the fat quarter pack and there it sat on my shelf for almost a year. Then in February I found out I was having a girl (yay) and I started putting her room together knowing she would have a mama-made quilt.

At first I had these same strips in mind but I was thinking solid colors… black, white and coral. Then it seemed too matchy-matchy with the room and I wanted a pattern. Here is a baby name secret… we have been calling her Baby Bee for months because her name starts with a “B” so I really wanted to add some bees somewhere. Then I remembered this Briar Rose fat quarter pack!! Bright colors, fun patterns, and bees… too good to be true right? That’s why I buy fabric I like right when I see it :)

I didn’t follow a pattern I just googled the standard size for a baby quilt and did the math. I started by cutting 2-3 strips of each pattern that were 4″ by the width of the fat quarter.

When I had enough I scrambled them up to “randomize”. Then I sewed them into one big continuous strip.

After I pressed all my seams down, I cut the big strip into smaller strips that were all the same width and started laying them out. I’m so thankful to have this big work table with my pregnant belly:)

I worked really hard at making sure none of the same patterns or colors were touching… see the two pink strawberry fabrics touching, I don’t like that haha #fabricgirlprobs.

After I got it how I liked it, I went row by row… pinning then sewing. I used a 1/2′ seam allowance for everything.

Here I am pressing my seams like a good tailor.

I added a border that was also 4″ wide all the way around but then when I opened my batting it was shorter than what was listed on the package. So, I had to shorten the top and bottom of the border. I found this grey floral fabric at Joann’s. I obviously like to do my basting late at night when the lighting is bad :) Then, I quilted above and below the seam of each strip.

I made some binding out of this cute green Christmas striped fabric I found. Quilting confession, I am a cheater when it comes to binding… I have never tried it by hand, machine binding works for me! I still use clover clips however.

For the back I used a black polka dot print and the little black dots are flocked… so cute!

I love how it turned out! I hope Baby Bee loves it too!

Speaking of that girl…. 35 days to go!!!

Triangle Baby Quilt

November 20, 2013 By Taylor 21 Comments

Triangle quilts are all the rage this year so I knew I had to make one for my friend. She isn’t finding out the sex of her baby which I am a big fan of, I was surprised both times too. It adds so much excitement but it can be hard to pick out a gift. I love making baby gifts and I feel like a quilt is the perfect unisex present. I went with a range of colors and even though I added two pinks I made sure to add more blues just in case. But either way- it’s a baby and a little pink on a quilt is OK for a boy in my opinion :)

For the front I used 11 different solid cottons, 1/4 yard of each color. Then I used 1 1/2 yards for both the batting and the back. I made a quilted triangle pillow a few months ago and I cut out all the triangles by measuring. So this time bought a handy little triangle ruler. The template I was using was about 7 1/2″ on every side. I didn’t realize that the flat top on the template was for another quilt pattern and all of my triangles were cut incorrectly. Bummer but since they were all consistently wrong I just went with it.

After I cut all of the triangles out I placed them in stacks. I laid the quilt out in a random pattern and I made sure no color was touching the same color. Then I sewed the triangles together horizontally making rows. I ended up cutting about 115 triangles but only used 8 rows of 12 triangles… so 96 total.

Then I sewed each row together vertically. Because of the flat tops on the triangles it made them more of a trapezoid shape, which turned out OK it just made the quilting part a little different. I placed the back fabric right side down, then the batting then the top. I used very thick and fluffy batting because I thought it would make a perfect “play-on-the-floor-tummy-time-quilt”. Then I placed the quilt on top, right side up. Here is a very rough diagram of how I quilted the whole thing.

I started with 1 and sewed horizontally all the way across each line. The diagram just shows 4 lines but I actually did all the the horizontal lines down the full length of the quilt. After I was done with that I started the zig-zag quilting. Because of the trapezoid shape I wasn’t able to just make diagonal lines. I actually started in the middle and did that zig-zag pattern down each “line”. This made it look like every “triangle” was separate, which I loved!

I just used some white cotton that I already had lying around for the binding so I’m not really sure how much I used. The quilt ended up to be 42″ x 52″ so that will give you an idea for the length of the binding. Also, The day I went out and took pictures I got some awesome sun-flares… Baby Quilt Magic :)

Before I quilted everything I added this little TaylorMade tag to one of the triangles.

I honestly thought about keeping it for myself because I loved it so much. I guess that makes a good gift, if you want to keep it! Now I just need to make one in my size.