More Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt Blocks

August 1, 2012March 19, 20133 Comments

I’ve been having “sew” much fun with our quilt-along and have been impressed with the comments and pictures I’ve been receiving from those that are participating. Unfortunately I don’t have a way to link up with everyone’s blogs who are following along. So I’ve decided to post pictures of everyone’s progress at least once a week.

If you are sewing along with us, please email me your pictures, no matter how far along you are and I’ll post them here on my blog. Here’s a link to last week’s tutorial for those of you that are just joining us. It’s never too late!

I just received a wonderful picture from Linda & Martha showing three different jelly roll collections that they and their quilting buddies are doing. They chose Trick or Treat, Christmas Spirit, and Meadow Friends for 3 of their Jolly Jelly Roll quilts.

Linda and her “strip club” meet every other month at their local quilt store. Like me, they think it’s so much fun to see what fabric everyone uses and what they look like when done!

Here’s a fantastic picture from Kathie that I just had to add. She’s using Leaf Haven from Benartex for her strips. If I can stop drooling over all these great quilt pictures and actually get to sewing my own, I can finish my top and show you the next step, LOL!

Favorite Tools #4 – My Toothbrush

July 31, 2012March 19, 20131 Comment

One of my favorite tools used for quilting is my toothbrush! No, it’s not a used one, but rather a nice new clean one that I use exclusively for quilting! I actually have 2. One of them I keep by my sewing machine to brush out excess dirt and lint. ( Q-tips work well too!)

But my favorite use of a nice clean toothbrush is for getting out marked quilting lines.

A toothbrush works really nicely to wipe away chalk marks when using a chalk pencil. I made a Double Wedding Ring quilt for my sister-in-law earlier this year and marked all of the center motifs with a chalk pencil. I just took a little water and scrubbed with my toothbrush to get out the marks.

This spring I starting using Sewline marking tools. I stenciled some Scottie dog motifs with white ceramic leads on my Little Rascals charm pack quilt.

I erased the lines with an eraser pen and easily brushed away the erasures with my handy-dandy toothbrush.

Most recently, when quilting the cute little hands and background fillers of my Bungle Jungle charm pack modern quilt (it needs a shorter name!!), I used a toothbrush dipped in water to clean off all of the blue ink from a blue marking pen. With my toothbrush I was able to control where the water goes.

I love using my toothbrush as a tool for quilting.

I wonder what else can I find around the house that I can put to good quilting use???

Weight Loss Week 15 – Calorie Counting

July 30, 2012March 19, 2013Leave a comment

I mentioned calorie counting in the first few weeks when I began my weight loss journey. I think it’s time to come back to it again because it truly has been the key to my success.

For 14 weeks I’ve faithfully recorded what I’ve been eating and it really works! I’m having a lot more energy and I’m not as tired. That all translates into more sewing time for myself. Plus, when I sew more, I eat less because I don’t want to get my fabric dirty; it’s a win-win!

I lost 2 pounds this week for a total of 19.6 pounds so far. Whoo hoo! (Here’s where I was last week.) I’m over half-way to my goal and will post another picture next week when I get to 20 pounds. That means in another 15 weeks or perhaps less, I can stop talking about my diet and start blogging more about quilting!!)

For my weight loss goals and my height, I’m trying to stick to between 1200-1500 calories a day. Here are this week’s tips on how to make your calories count!

1. Eat 6 times a day. Instead of splitting that up into 6 – 200 calorie “meals”, I actually eat 3 – 300 calorie meals and then try to have 3 – 100 calorie snacks. That totals up to 1200 calories. If I’m feeling a bit snacky or hungry, I’ll add an extra 100 calories to 3 more of the meals or snacks. But above all, I try not to eat more than 400 calories in any one sitting.

2. Write everything down. And I mean EVERYTHING! Sure, during this diet I’ve had 2000+ calorie “cheat” days. I’ve also had meals that were 500-600 calories. But by writing it down, that 2000 calorie day doesn’t turn into a 3000 calorie day. And that 600 calorie meal doesn’t evolve into 1000 calorie meal, which is easy to do! (Think burger, large fries, and a shake and you’ve already consumed almost a day’s worth of calories in just one meal!)

One more thing about writing it down that has really helped – blogging about it! Since I know I have to be accountable each Monday, I really watch what I’m doing all week. I can’t just quit when so many people are following my progress. (Even if they aren’t, I’ll pretend that they are so I can’t let them down – ha-ha-ha!!)

3. Estimate calories if needed. I like to use an online ap (my fitness pal) and calorie counting books to keep track of what I’m eating. However, there are times when I have no clue what how many calories are in certain foods I’m eating. If that’s the case, I’ll just estimate. Even if my count is off, the act of writing it down is just as important as whether or not the numbers are exact.

4. Eat quality calories. Sure, I could eat 100 calories worth of chips for one of my snacks but that wouldn’t get me very far. It would only be about 8-9 Doritos and that wouldn’t fill me up at all! Instead, if I can have a handful of nuts (more dense protein) or an apple and a large serving of carrots, it will curb my cravings and keep me satisfied much longer. I love to add fruits and veggies to all my meals so that doesn’t leave much room for the junk.

Here’s to another healthy week!

Christa’s Soapbox – Teach Your Kids (and Friends) to Quilt!

July 28, 2012March 19, 20138 Comments

This week my boys were out of town at scout camp, so it was just us girls! My daughter and I put the time to good use by starting on her summer quilt project. Last year she made her first quilt, and now she’s ready to make another.

Jenna selected Cosmo Cricket’s Chemistry Jelly Roll since pink is her favorite color.

We laid the strips out on her bed to come up with a simple yet striking quilt design. She cut each of the strips in half first and then began sewing them end to end to create long strips of fabric, sort of like a Jelly Roll 1600 quilt but with straight edges instead of mitered ones.

Jenna plans to applique her name and add hearts to the top. It’s going to be “sew” cute!

While we were sewing, my friend Marci decided to pop on by to join the fun. Her boys are also at camp and she needed help to make some modern quilt blocks for a swap she’s doing later this summer. Marci’s a more of a sewist than a quilter, but I’m converting her!Marci is making fun wonky blocks in shades of grey using Kona Cotton Solids. She cut randomly sized strips and sewed them together, using improvisational piecing wherever she needed to make the blocks big enough. They turned out great!

Whew, all this blogging about what other people are doing makes me want to go work on my own projects now!

Sew and Tell – Do it Yourself Quilts Update

July 27, 2012March 19, 20133 Comments

Today’s Sew and Tell is a little different. Instead of featuring a finished project made by one of my customers, I’m excited to share with you some finished jelly roll blocks from one of my quilt- along followers. Scroll down to the end of this post if you want to join the fun!

These pictures come from Diane in Canada and she finished up this week’s homework in a jiffy! She had an older strip bundle lying around that she put to good use.

Diane’s fabric is Greenfield Hill by Denise Schmidt for Westminster. Instead of randomly sewing the strips together, she matched up the pretty jewel tones into coordinating pairs.

“Sew” far, “sew” good, Diane! I think your use of color will be striking if you sew each row in a different color, “strippy” style, or if you have the colors cascade across the quilt in an orderly fashion (like green, red, blue, black, etc.)

For those of you eager beavers out there like Diane that are ready to move on, I’ll give a sneak peek of what we’ll be working on for next week’s lesson. If you select 100 of your blocks and sew them together into 50 pairs like this you’ll be one step ahead.

Next week’s post will include complete directions on how to finish the quilt top, so make sure you grab your one yard of tone on tone or solid coordinate to go with your jelly roll. I’m going to use Ruby Red Kona Solid to go along with my Vintage Modern jelly roll shown above.

In case you are just joining us, you can click the links below to catch up and follow along with this tutorial in it’s entirety. My main reason for starting this tutorial is to teach you that yes, you can, make a complete quilt from start to finish, all by yourself!

DIY Quilts #1.1 – The Jolly Jellyroll Quilt Supply List

DIY Quilts #1.2 – Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt Blocks

Christa’s Quilt Along 1.2 – Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt Blocks

July 26, 2012August 15, 201314 Comments

Welcome to week 2 of my Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt Tutorial. You can link back to week 1 here for the supply list. This week we will sew up all of our jelly roll strips into blocks.

Step 1 – First, find yourself a nice relaxing sewing spot. Next, lay out all of your pretty strips (40 total) and cut each of them in half along the fold so that you have a total of 80 half strips, each measuring 2 1/2 inches wide by approximately 21 inches long. This will give you a better variety to work with. Smaller strips are also easier to handle and sew together.

I sewed my strips together with my Singer Feather-weight last week while on vacation at the beach. It doesn’t get any better than this!

Step 2 – Group your half-strips into pairs. You’ll be using the same fabric twice each time, so try to mix them up so they are all different. Or you can sew them together totally randomly. Lay your whole stack next to your sewing machine, with pairs rights sides together and sew them together along the length. Try to keep a consistent quarter-inch seam allowance while sewing.

Step 3 – Press your seams open. I find that the strips lie much flatter, and are much easier to stack and cut when the seams are pressed open. As we will find in a couple of weeks, they are also much easier to machine quilt though.

Make sure there is at least 20″ of useable fabric per strip set, not including selvedges.

You can click on any of the pictures shown to see a larger, detailed view.

Step 4 – Square up the end and cut each strip segment into 4 – 4 1/2″ blocks. There is little waste and with careful cutting, you can get a bonus 2 1/2″ piece at the end of each segment. Save those for now and I’ll figure out something fun to do with them later.Step 5 – Cut all of your strip sets into blocks exactly the same way. You should be able to cut a total of 160 blocks. You only need 145 blocks for the quilt (if I counted correctly!) Save the leftovers in case of mistakes. I will use some of them on the backside of my quilt.

Next week we will finish the quilt top. We will continue on with basting, easy machine quilting, and binding in subsequent weeks. I like to go at an easy pace so everyone can keep up! Feel free to work ahead if you like and email me pictures of your progress. I’ll feature as many of them as I can during my sew and tell on Fridays!

Also, please post any questions you have about this project and I’ll answer them in the comments section of my blog. Thanks for sewing-along!

Here is the complete Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt-Along Schedule:

Week 1 – Supply List

Week 2 – Sewing the Blocks

Week 3 – Completing the Top

Week 4 – Backing and Basting

Week 5 – Machine Quilting

Week 6 – Machine Binding to Finish

What Was I Thinking???!!

July 25, 2012March 19, 201318 Comments

What was I thinking? I’m trying to have a zen experience with my quilting by breaking up the negative space in my Modern Quilt with lots of different quilting designs. But I think I went a little overboard with all the small scale background fillers!

I actually do like the texture the quilting is adding to the quilt, but when you see how little of the quilt I’ve actually finished compared to how much is left to quilt, you’ll start to pity me…

The picture below shows about 1/4 of the quilt finished. I’m adding larger scale textures in each of the charm squares and a smaller scale background around each of the hands. I’ve quilted 12 out of 42 charm blocks which represents about 5-6 hours of solid quilting so far.

I am having fun quilting different designs in the blocks though. I’ve outlined some elephants, practiced my pebbles and grids and even quilted the alphabet on the lined paper fabric! Here are a couple more closeups, just for fun!

I’m linking this blog post to the Free-Motion Quilting Project and WIP Wednesdays so I can share the insanity!!! This will definitely be a long term project. But if I quilt 1 block a day, I can finish it in under a month!

I used a clean toothbrush dipped in water to erase the blue pen marks once I quilted them.

For those of you interested in what materials I used, I started with 1 charm pack of Moda’s Bungle Jungle by Tim and Beck, and 2 1/2 yards of White Kona Cotton Solid. I sewed together a layer cake for the backing.

I am doing all the quilting with 60 weight polyester thread in a light gray. I chose Superior Threads bottom line in both the top and bobbin. It breaks too easily in the top thread for my taste – but it is very fine and blends beautifully. My batting is wool which gives a nice faux trapunto look to the little hands.

I hope I get more done by next week! I think I’d better go work on my jelly roll quilt now…..

Favorite Tools #3 – Design Wall

July 24, 2012March 19, 20135 Comments

I love my design wall! I use it all the time when working on quilt blocks and my daughter is even using it this week while she works on her jelly roll quilt. (More about that later!)

I got it from a wonderful vendor, Cheryl Ann’s, 2 years ago when I went to the Road to California quilter’s conference.

The design wall is totally portable and comes in a bag, like a tent. In fact, it’s made from tent poles and flannel fabric. (I sound like a commercial, don’t I?)

It’s very lightweight and only takes a few minutes to assemble. You can see the back below.

I was very impressed with this company. About a year after I got it, I lost one of the small pieces. When I went back to Road to California the next year and told the guys at Cheryl Ann’s how much I used it, they gave me the replacement part for free!

They come in 3 sizes and I bought the medium sized one that measures about 4 1/2 feet square. I think I need to go back and get the large sized one now!

Weight Loss Week 14 – Surviving Vacation

July 23, 2012March 19, 20131 Comment

I was in vacation mode last week while we were at Hermosa Beach, California with our family. It was the best time I’d had in a long time but I still had to be careful not to throw caution to the wind and give up my healthy habits for a week.

Last Week, I lost weight before I left, and today I’m happy to report that I kept it off, and then some. I lost .6 pounds this week for a total of 17.6 pounds. I’m almost halfway to my goal! Here are a few tips on how to survive a change in routine while on vacation:

1. Eat lots of fresh produce. Early in the week we stopped at a local farmer’s market that was just a short walk from the beach. We picked up fresh fruits and veggies and used those to snack on and cook with all week. Sure, we had some treats, but we we rented a beach house that had a full kitchen and kept our eating out to a minimum!

2. Find fun ways to exercise on vacation. The boardwalk in front of the beach house included miles and miles of smooth cement for rollerblading! It was very kid friendly and safe. I also ran barefoot on the beach with my oldest son. I’ve always wanted to try that and I found that I really enjoyed it!

If I had a beach at home, I’d do this every day! I wonder if there are any beach marathons?

3. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Well, I still have a little too much of it – that’s why I’m working so hard to lose it! But I did feel much more comfortable in my bathing suit this year. This is the suit I bought when I lost my first 10 pounds. I still have another one waiting for me when I get to the next 20!

Now that I’m home again and back to a regular routine, I hope to have another great week!

Christa’s Soapbox – Have a Me Party!

July 21, 2012March 19, 20135 Comments

This week we went to the beach for a family vacation with my husband’s parents.

We stayed in this cute little house with a wonderful view of the ocean. We’d sit out and watch people go by on the board walk, then hop over the gate to play in the surf and sand whenever we wanted.

While on vacation, I had a little “Me Party”!

I decided on this trip, in between visiting with family, watching the kids play, and relaxing with my hubby, I wanted to carve out a little alone time to do some of the things I enjoy.

I started off each morning with an invigorating run before the rest of the family was awake.

I found this great trail not too far from the beach so I tuned in to my iPod and tuned out the world for a few miles. Then I didn’t feel so guilty later when we ate all the yummy family treats.

After checking my emails for the day and making sure things were running smoothly at the shop back home, I’d relax and catch up on some good reading while the kids played.

I was “sew” inspired from all the good quilting books I read this week. But instead of waiting until I got home to start on some projects, I brought my little Singer Featherweight along with me!

I sewed together all of the strips for my Jolly Jelly Roll quilt tutorial I’m starting this week. Any vacation is lovely when I can incorporate some stitching into it!

And I’ll admit, I’ve never had a more relaxing time while sewing on a binding!

I finished up my Li’l Rascals charm quilt in the late afternoon, when the wind picked up and the volleyball players came out to practice. This truly was a little bit of heaven on earth!