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!

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

Sew and Tell – Breast Cancer Survivor Quilt

July 20, 2012July 10, 20123 Comments

This week’s show and tell star has a very special quilt to share. Shirley G. from Texas is a breast cancer survivor and made this quilt as her therapy.

I’ll let Shirley explain, in her own words:

“I made this quilt from your Loralie Harris Still fabric line. I bought your fabric on line several years ago when I was recuperating from a lumpectomy, chemo, and radiation.

“After I finished my quilt, I loved it so much that a made another one for a young woman that I called my “bosom buddy.” We met by chance when she sat in the chair beside me and took her own chemo treatments as I took mine every 3 weeks for 6 months. By the Grace of God, we became close friends and remain so today even though I’m old enough to be her mother.

“Many of my family members and friends gave me little mementos as they prayed for me during my treatment. After I finished my quilt, I decided to pin many of the mementos to the quilt. My grandson was attending Texas A&M during my treatment. You will notice in the right hand lower corner his contribution to my quilt!

“I wish the picture was clear enough for you to see the contribution that my surgeon gave me for my quilt. When she surgically removed the chemo port from my arm 2 years following all of my treatment, I asked her if I could have the port. She was so surprised when I told her that I wanted to hang it on my breast cancer survivor quilt! She had her attending nurse wash the port and line very well and gave it to me. To this very day, it hangs on the top of my quilt. We all had lots of laughs about that. I later mailed her a picture of the quilt which she proudly showed off to others in her office!”

For those of you that don’t know what a chemotherapy port is, here’s Shirley’s explanation:

“A chemo port is a device that is surgically placed just underneath the skin usually in the bicep area of your arm or in the clavicle area of your neck. It is usually a one time procedure that is done before a patient’s chemo treatment begins. It is placed there so that every time a patient has his/her chemo treatment, the oncology nurse can place the chemo drip IV needle directly into the port instead of the patient having to be stuck with a needle directly in the vein. Also when blood work is required, the oncology lab can draw blood thru the port thus eliminating yet another needle stick directly in the vein. There is almost no pain when they are able to use the port instead of sticking directly into the vein. Once a cancer patient’s series of chemo treatments are completely finished (6 months or so), the surgeon and chemo oncologist together will decide when the port will be surgically removed.

“In my case, the port was left in me for almost 2 years after my chemo was finished so that, heaven forbid my cancer should return, my port would already be in place for reuse. I had a very aggressive form of breast cancer that is called HER 2 positive. After my original 6 months of chemo and 35 days of radiation, I had a drug called Herceptin administered in the port every month for 1 year. Thank God that drug was developed just a year or so before I got my type of cancer for exactly my kind of cancer. God was taking care of me even before I was diagnosed with cancer by letting someone develop the drug that was specifically for HER 2 + cancer.”

Wow Shirley, what a triumph! Shirley’s wish through this quilt and this blog post is to encourage others not to dread cancer treatment. She wants to spread the word that while the big “C” is a scary thing, she is living proof that many survivors do kick its butt!!

From the bottom of my heart, Shirley, thanks for sharing your beautiful quilt!

Share Your Project

If you would like to share a project you’ve made with at least one piece of fabric purchased from me, please email christa@christaquilts.com with your high quality photos and what makes your project interesting or special to you. If you are selected as my show and tell star of the week, you’ll get a $5 gift certificate as my way of saying thanks for sharing!

Christa’s Quilt Along 1.1 – The Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt Supply List

July 19, 2012January 24, 202033 Comments

Join My Quilt AlonG

New to my blog? Be sure to sign up for my email newsletter to join my next quilt along where I show you how to make a complete quilt from start to finish!

Geo Pop Update!!

This design would look fabulous using one strip roll from any of my fabric lines. I’ve recolored it below using Geo Pop!

The Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt

Do you love precuts but have no idea what to do with them? Are you tired of quilting by check and want to make your own quilts from start to finish? Do basting and binding a quilt scare you? Then come join me for a quilting adventure and I’ll show you how to finish your own quilts yourself, and hopefully help you build the confidence to do so!

With my Quilt Along series I will post step-by-step tutorials showing you exactly how to make a quilt from beginning to end. My first project is this super simple Jolly Jelly Roll quilt.

Scroll to the end of this post for the schedule. You can also share it on Instagram with the tag #christaquiltsqal.

I designed this quilt in EQ7 using fabric swatches Bonnie and Camille’s Vintage Modern collection. However, it will work great with any jelly roll!

Let’s get started! Below, I’ve posted a supply list as well as the quilt’s vital statistics and a few notes.

Suggested Supply List

1 jelly roll, or 40 fabric strips measuring 2 1/2″ x WOF (width of fabric – usually 42″)
1 yard of coordinating solid or tone-on-tone fabric for the inner border and binding
3 1/2 yards of fabric for backing, or a pieced backing measuring approximately 60″ square
60″ x 60″ piece of batting (Warm-N-Natural cotton and Legacy wool are my favorites.)
100% Cotton neutral thread for piecing (I like Superior Threads Masterpiece)
50 weight 100% Cotton or 30-60 wt soft polyester thread for quilting in a blending color
Quality sewing needles for piecing and quilting (I use Superior Titanium Needles)
General sewing supplies: sewing machine, rotary cutting equipment, pins, seam ripper, etc.
Optional: Machingers quilting gloves, basting pins, walking foot

Quilt Vital Statistics

Size: Approximately 51″ x 51″
Finished Block Size: 4″
Number of Blocks in Quilt: 100 (set 10 x 10)
Number of Blocks in Border: 45

Go gather up your supplies and follow the links below for some fun sewing!

Additional Notes About This Quilt

1. Fabric selection is easy: just choose a jelly roll that you like and pair it with a nice solid fabric, or a tone-on-tone print that “reads” as solid. This will help break up the busy-ness of the quilt design. The same fabric will also be used for the binding.

2. Do not be afraid to machine quilt this quilt yourself. For this pattern, I will be quilting using a walking foot only and leaving my feed dogs engaged as normal. I will not do any free-motion quilting on this quilt; instead I will show you how much lovely texture can be created with either straight stitching or using a decorative stitch on your sewing machine.

3. I am very generous when figuring out yardage for my quilts. For example, you can probably get away with only 3/4 yard of fabric for the inner border and binding. And, with extremely careful measuring or basting, you may be able to get by with just 3 yards for the backing. However, I always round up just in case of fabric shrinkage or mis-cuts. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Besides, anything leftover is like “free fabric” for your next quilt!

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

Sharing is Caring

I’d love to see your version! Please share your work in progress in my facebook group: Quilt With Christa . 🙂

Bungle Jungle Charm Quilt Week 4 – Ditch Quilting

July 18, 2012March 19, 20131 Comment

I didn’t make a ton of progress on my Bungle Jungle modern quilt this week, mostly because I was packing up to go on our family vacation and getting all my ducks in a row ahead of time.

(They are quacking nicely now!)

But, I did get all of my stitch in the ditch quilting done so I’m ready for the best part, the free motion quilting next week!

I think my plan will be to quilt a different motif in each charm square, to practice a bunch of free-motion quilting designs.

I want to add tons more quilting. By pressing the seams open, stitching in the ditch in between the charm squares was a breeze. It created a grid over the surface of the quilt which you can see on the back side of the quilt. Click for closeups.

I used an acrylic ruler and a blue washout pen to mark straight lines where needed to complete the grid.

The quilt is now anchored so I can remove the rest of my basting pins and it’s ready for more quilting!

Be sure to join me tomorrow as I launch my new tutorial series: Do It Yourself Quilts!

Favorite Tools #2 – Shout Color Catchers

July 17, 2012March 19, 20133 Comments

On my last soapbox, I blogged about how much I advocate pre-washing fabrics for quilts.

To make this job easier, I love using Shout Color Catchers. You can get them pretty inexpensively at Target or Wal-Mart and they work wonders with quilt fabrics.

They are rectangular sheets of material that almost look like dryer sheets. You put them in with the fabric during the wash cycle. The extra color that comes off in the water adheres to the sheets, not other fabrics. I’ll use at least 2 per load when washing a bundle of fabric, and will throw in more if I’m washing a large quilt.

After discovering problems with some of my personal stash fabrics running, I used several sheets when washing my sister-in-law’s wedding quilt I recently finished (only 2 years late). I had sewn the blocks so long ago, I couldn’t remember if they had been pre-washed or not. I used 4 color catchers with the quilt and it came out fine. I breathed a huge sigh of relief!

I used this red batik fabric in a small wholecloth quilt I recently made. I wanted to make sure it didn’t run so I washed it twice – with one color catcher each time.

The first color catcher sheet came out orange after the first wash; by the second wash, the excess color was mostly gone so I knew it was now safe to use this fabric!

I’m still experimenting with pre-washing, using color catchers in every load of cut yardage, and throwing a sheet in with quilts made from fabric that I can’t pre-wash like Moda Precuts.

During my previous post about pre-washing I got a really good comment about using Retayne, a dye fixative, with unwashed precuts. I forgot I even had some! So that will be my next experiment I think…..

Sew and Tell – Scraps Galore!

July 13, 2012July 13, 2012Leave a comment

Jill F. from Iowa shares her fun and scrappy geometric quilt with us this week:

Jill made this beauty by collecting assorted fat quarters and 1/2 yard cuts she got from me, plus scraps from her stash. The strips are all 2 1/2 inches wide so it could be assembled from a jelly roll, too!

Here are some quilt vital statistics you may be interested in: the pattern is called Hugs and Kisses by Julie Herman for Jaybird Quilts, and the wonderful brown that pulls all of the scraps together is Moda Bella Solid in Hershey brown.

Jill used her Lazy Angle Ruler from Lazy Girl Designs to cut the wedges of assembled strips. Hey, I have that ruler but haven’t made anything from it yet; I guess I’ll give it a try!

Jill made this quilt to go in her four-year old son’s room and is using extra blocks for a coordinating quilt for his little brother. It’s always amazing how many blocks you can get when you start pulling scraps from your stash – they seem to multiply!

She did a great job of making the quilt seam super scrappy, yet pulled-together.

Way to go Jill! How did you know my favorite colors are brown and green? That’s probably what attracted me to your quilt!

Of course I had to include a closeup picture of the gorgeous quilting, done by a friend of Jill’s that’s just getting started with her long-arm business. If this quilt is any indication, Jill’s friend is on the right track!

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Bungle Jungle Week 3 – Layer Cake Back Art and Basting

July 12, 2012March 19, 20137 Comments

This week I marked and basted my Bungle Jungle charm pack quilt. I will start quilting it next week. You can read about last week’s progress here.

When I finished marking the top, I couldn’t decide on the backing. Then it hit me – why not use a Bungle Jungle layer cake and make back art for my modern quilt?

(The back is probably even more modern than the front since I threw the blocks together totally randomly!)

Each layer cake square is precut to 10 inches, so when you sew them together into 7 rows of 6 blocks each, the finished size is 57″ x 66.5″. My quilt top measures approximately 52″ x 60″ so that was perfect! It took me less than 2 hours to stitch all the backing squares together, including pinning and pressing the seams open.

Using a stencil, I drew little hands in the white spaces randomly over the surface of the quilt. This is going to be cute!

I marked all the hands before basting, using an inexpensive water soluble blue pen. I’m going to join the hands with loopy quilting so I can quilt them continuously.

I still haven’t decided what I’m going to quilt in the charm squares, so I left those unmarked for now. Any ideas??

Finally, I basted the quilt using about 150 Pinmoors. This is the 3rd quilt I’ve basted using Pinmoors and I’ve decided they are awesome! It’s a little spendy to buy enough of them for a big quilt, but they are totally worth it. It made basting a breeze and they are super easy to take out when quilting. I don’t even worry about pinning over my marked lines. The rule of thumb is to baste about a hand-width apart. That was easy for this quilt!

I’ve been following quilting blogs like The Free-Motion Quilting Project, WIP Wednesdays, Moda’s Bakeshop and the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge for quite some time. I have so thoroughly enjoyed these projects that I have now been inspired to start my own sew along called Do-It-Yourself-Quilts!

I want to share step-by-step tutorials on how easy and fun it is to make your own quilts completely, including piecing and quilting. Then you can truly say you made it yourself!

Be sure to follow my blog for the official announcement about that on Thursday, July 19th, along with a sneak peak of my first project and a supply list if you’d like to join in!

Christa’s Soapbox – Pressing Your Seams Open

July 7, 2012July 3, 2012Leave a comment

In two words: do it!

The idea of pressing seams always to one side is pretty old school. It comes from when seams were hand pieced; the double seam pressed to one side gave strength. Also, when hand quilting, it was easier to stitch in the ditch if the bulk of the seams was out of the way.

However, with so much modern quilting going on, using lots of solids and white background space, there’s more of a need to press seams open to prevent shadowing.

Moreover, it’s much easier to machine quilt if all of the seams are pressed open.

When I first began doing free motion quilting, I took a class from a teacher that recommended planning all of your quilting ahead of time so you would know which way to press your seams. (For machine quilting stitch-in-the-ditch, it was conventional wisdom to always quilt in the low side of the ditch.) My first thought was, what a pain!

I want the freedom to be able to quilt how I want when I want without being limited by piecing decisions. I also like how much flatter the quilt lies when all of the seams are pressed open. So yes, you have my permission to press ’em open as much as you want!

By the way, the quilt seams shown in this post are from my Bungle Jungle modern quilt I’m currently working on. You can read this week’s earlier post about making this quilt here.

Sew and Tell – The Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt

July 6, 2012July 10, 20121 Comment

This week, Anita A. from Florida shares her adorable Hungry Caterpillar Quilt with us. Isn’t it great? She made it for her first grandchild and it’s only her second quilt!

I love how she mixed in lots of novelty prints and picture book fabrics! Some of them she got from me including Dr. Seuss and Peanuts fabrics. The Hungry Caterpillar fabric is from Andover. Hmm, I better see if I can get that one!

Anita said she found the pattern called “Stars through the Window” on About.com.

She likes the mix of large and small fussy cuts and she tweaked the design a bit, plus added additional borders.

It looks like such an easy and fun quilt to make with fussy cut 3 1/2″ smaller squares for the square blocks and 6 1/2″ squares for the snowball blocks.

I absolutely love the pieced quilt backing she made with solid green fabric surrounding a length of Berenstain Bears fabric.

Anita included a lot of green fabric so that the quilt would be perfect for either a little boy or girl. Her daughter’s favorite color is spring green and she wants to be surprised when her baby is born.

I think Anita’s daughter will be pleased both with her new baby and with the adorable quilt.

Nice job, Anita!

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