Making a quilt as you go (flip and sew) striped tote bag

52 Week UFO Challenge - Project #39

After finishing my Flying Geese quilt for QUILTsocial I had a whole pile of leftover striped fabric (that I had trimmed away from the flying geese). There was NO WAY that I was going to throw them out, so I had to find a project to use them in.

The quilt-as-you-go method can be used for all types of projects, but I like to use it most for small items such as table runners, place mats and tote bags.

For this bag we aren't going to have any batting, so it's technically not a "quilt", but the same technique and steps are used.

I'm using a medium weight interfacing to "quilt" on. This will give the bag some stability, but won't make it really heavy.

The first step is to draw a straight line across the interfacing. I like to do this line on an angle so that it's not as noticeable if some of my strips down go down perfectly straight. Next you lay down one strip of fabric right side up along this line and you keep adding strips until you have covered the entire piece. In my picture I have already sewn a few strips to the interfacing but you can see that they are on an angle and the seams are nice and straight.

The next step is to place your next strip on top RIGHT SIDE DOWN and pin in place with one raw edge lined up along the edge of the strip underneath.

 You sew your seam through all three layers and then FLIP your strip over and press.

You then add your next strip and pin, sew, flip and press. 

I alternated one striped strip and then one plain blue strip.

I had one flying gees strip left so I used it for the front of the bag.

The next step was to trim the two sections so that they were the same size.

I used some of my Northcott fabrics to make a lining for the bag and some of the leftover black polka dot fabric to make handles.

Here it is - the finished bag!

Well, that was a great use for my little striped strips of fabric!! This is all I had left from my pile:

The quilt as you go (flip and sew) method is super easy for making quilted items. Try it out with some of your leftover strips of fabric. I'm happy to say that another UFO is complete. I've got this little bag for sale in my Etsy shop - check it out at fairfieldroaddesigns.

Machine quilting my QUILTsocial Mystic Garden (Mountain View) quilt

In July on QUILTsocial I used some of Northcott's Mystic Garden fabric to make two different quilts. By the end of the week I had finished machine quilting the first quilt - a lap quilt that used large sections of the main Mystic Garden fabric with flying geese sections made three different ways.

For the second quilt top I used our Upper Canada Quiltworks' "Mountain View" pattern. and substituted the main Mystic Garden fabric in place of the panels.

 I found the PERFECT thread in my stash for quilting this quilt top. Vibrant purple, teal and lime green variegated King Tut thread!!

Here is my quilt loaded on the Gammill frame and ready to quilt!

I LOVE that striped fabric in the inner border and did one of my favourite loop-de-loop designs to quilt it.

Finding a nice design for quilting the flying geese is sometimes a challenge, so I experimented with this design:

Here is the finished quilt - all it needs now is the binding!

Drunkards Path table runner

52 Week UFO Challenge - Project #31

When I blogged for QUILTsocial last August I made this drunkards path table runner using my Accuquilt Drunkard's Path 7" Die and my Studio cutter.  I LOVE my Accuquilt Studio Cutter and use it all the time! I especially love using it for cutting curved piecing blocks as I would NEVER cut blocks like this using templates.

Pugsley, our Jack Russell Terrier

Close-up of the gentle waves machine quilting

One "problem" with using my Accuquilt Studio Cutter is that it is WAY to easy to cut too many pieces! As a result, I often cut more than I need and then I end up stashing them away for another project. Well, this one was no exception and as a result, four drunkard's path blocks were in my UFO pile. 

Since I've been sewing with the Northcott ColorWorks Concepts fabrics so much lately, I just knew that the flying geese stripe would look amazing with my blocks!! I sashed the blocks in the royal blue fabric and then used the flying geese in the outside border.

I machine quilted the table runner using straight lines from end to end and I really like how it turned out! I love using up leftover blocks to make other projects!!

I am half way through the year and Project #31 of my 52 Week UFO Challenge is done!! I think I'm going to have no problem at all getting all of my 52 UFOs done. Hopefully you have been able to finish up some of your UFOs too!

Flying geese table runners two different ways

52 Week UFO Challenge - Projects #28 & #29

Back in January I was the guest blogger on QUILTsocial and I used the ColorWorks Concepts fabrics from Northcott to make this fun Flying Geese Quilt. 

Due to my trials and errors working out the quilt pattern I had LOTS of flying geese blocks left over. So....I made table runners!! 

The first runner was made by sewing together ten of the blocks with no border. 

I quilted it from end to end using black thread and a wavy line - I LOVE it!!

I had three blocks left over (all with lime green as the accent colour) so I sewed them together and added a couple borders.

This cute little table runner was custom quilted with different designs in the different sections. The loop-de-loop in the inner border is one of my favourites and the parallel lines in the blocks are outer border were quite fun to do!

Projects #28 and #29 are finished and the littler table runner is now on the table in our upstairs hall! I am almost half way through my 52 week challenge and so far I am right on track!!

52 Week UFO Challenge Project #5 - QUILTSocial Flying geese quilt

Finishing up the Flying Geese quilt

Last month on QUILTsocial I used Northcott's ColorWorks Concenpts fabric to make a quilt top. Now that my Gammill was free, I finally had a chance to quilt it!!

The first step is to load the quilt on the frame. With lap sized quilts or anything smaller, I usually just float the top instead of pinning it to the leads. So first I pinned the backing, laid the batting on top and then added the quilt top.

The next thing I had to do was to decide which thread to use. I narrowed it down to three - purple/pink, lime green and blue variegated. I decided that the purple/pink would be one!!

I wanted to do something modern and came up with this straight line design with random triangles quilted along them. Luckily my Gammill has a horizontal lock, so I just locked it to stitch the line and then unlocked when it was time to do the triangle.

Triangle Step #1 

Triangle Step #2

Triangle Step #3

This was an easy and fairly quick design to quilt over the entire quilt top. After adding some binding the quilt was done. I delivered it to Taylor Sewing Centre so it could be displayed at their open house and I'll be teaching this quilt at Taylor's in April. Check out their class list here.

Here's the finished quilt - now on display at Taylor's Sewing Centre

Another UFO checked off of my to-do list!!

New Beginnings Block of the Month - January

Beautiful Batiks

The January block has been added to Craftsy!!

I've decided to make my Block of the Month blocks in an assortment of batiks! I've picked a selection of fat quarters in lights (whites and off-whites), darks (navy blues), mediums (turquoise blues) and accent colour (orange and salmon).

I love making flying geese with the method that we show in the pattern, but I hate throwing away the triangles that are trimmed from the blocks. So, when I draw the diagonal line on the back of my fabric squares, I also draw a second line 1/2" from the first.

 When I sew the square to the rectangle, I sew along both of these lines.

Then, I trim between the two sewn lines and press the seam towards the darker colour.

 The little squares that are made from the cut away section are just 1 3/4" square - they will finish at just 1 1/4". With only this block I made a total of 16 of these little squares. I've put them into a zip-lock bag and will keep adding to it all year long. Who knows what I'll be able to make at the end of the year!!

 The finished flying geese ready to assemble into the finished block.

Here it is - the January block!! I just love it and can't wait to see what Nellie's block looks like!!

52 Week UFO Challenge Project #2 - Planner cover

Wow - it's already the middle of January!! So I guess I better get working on the cover for my Passion Planner!!

Last week I was the guest blogger on QUILTsocial and during that week I made a lap quilt using Northcott's Colorworks Concepts fabrics. I had a few strips of the flying geese fabric left over and I desperately wanted to use it again for another project.

Northcott flying geese fabric trimmed into strips.

I think my planner cover is the perfect project to use it for!!

Making a book cover 

In September of 2014 I explained how to make a quilted book cover on QUILTsocial, so I'm going to follow the same basic procedure with this one. If you'd like more information you can check out those blog posts here.

Step #1 - pin down the centre strip

I have two strips of the flying geese stripes that already have black borders on them, so I am going to use the "quilt-as-you-go" method to sew these strips and some black and lime green strips onto my base. I'm going to use Fast-2-Fuse because the planner has a soft cover and I want to give it some substance.
I found the center of the base and then drew a vertical line on it with one of my Frixion pens. The first step was to pin down my centre black strip and then one of the lime green ones.

The centre was marked and then 2" away from each side so that I could centre my 4" strip of black fabric.

Step #2 - add fabric strips

The next thing to do was to sew down each of the green strips,then press towards the green strip. I then pinned down one of my flying geese strips (right side down) lining up the edge with the edge of the lime green. It was sewed down then flipped and presses. I kept adding the strips in this manner working from the centre out to the edges.

Step #3 - quilt

Next thing to do was to iron on my backing fabric and then to add some quilting stitches.

Ironing on the backing fabric.

I quilted a series of parallel lines on my cover.

Step #4 - Trim and make inside pockets

The next thing to do, was to trim the cover so that it would fit the planner. I usually say to lay the book out open and measure the width and the length and cut your cover so that there is an extra 1/2" around all sides (so and 1" to your measurements). I explain this in this QUILTsocial post.
The pockets on the inside hold the cover in place. Take your height measurement and cut two pieces of fabric that height by at least 6" wide. I actually cut mine 9" wide so that they were 4 1/2" wide when I pressed them in half. See my QUILTsocial post for more details.

My 9" wide fabric rectangles were folded in half and pressed and then the raw edges were lined up with the edges of the two ends of the cover and pinned in place.

Step #5 - make and apply the binding

I needed two strips of fabric 2 1/2" wide times the width of fabric for the binding on my planned. I sewed the binding to the inside of the cover, all the way around and then folded it to the front and top stitched it in place.

I sewed the binding to the inside of the cover first.

Project #2 is done!!

So...here it is the finished cover. Once the binding was one, I just slipped the front and back covers of the planned into the pockets on my quilted cover and it fit perfectly!! I especially love how the lime green strips of fabric match the lime green page marker that came with the planner. Now my planner has a custom, one-of-a-kind cover!!

The finished cover.

The lime green page marker matches the cover perfectly. The inside pockets hold the cover in place.