Christa’s Quilt Along 5.1 – Hugs ‘n Kisses Supply List

February 27, 2013August 13, 201543 Comments

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Time for another fun quilt-along! My Hugs ‘n Kisses design is based on a quilt I made several years ago. If you look closely, it’s similar to the quilt shown on my blog’s header. Over the years I’ve had several requests for this quilt pattern, so I finally decided to make one!

Hugs ‘n Kisses

About This Quilt – Finished Size 48″ x 64″

I designed this quilt using EQ7 so that it will work with Jelly Rolls or precut strips. Although I am making this quilt in the size stated above, you can easily double the yardage requirements, purchase additional kits, or add borders to make it bigger.

Kissing Booth Jelly Roll

Kona Snow Roll Up

Kona Solids Brick

Fabric Requirements (Hugs and Kisses Quilt Kits are available for a limited time.)

1 Jelly Roll of print fabric. You may use any jelly roll or set of precut strips you like as long as you have at least 38 – 2.5″ strips.
2/3 Jelly Roll of solid or background fabric, or 24 – 2.5″ strips. If you prefer to purchase yardage and cut the strips yourself, you will need 1.75 yards.
1/2 yard fabric for the binding in a coordinating color – I prefer to use solid 2.25″ strips. Purchase a little more if you like wider strips.
At least 52″ x 68″ piece of batting; my favorites are high quality cotton or wool.
3 yards of non-directional fabric the backing, or scraps and fat quarters to total about 3.5 yards if you prefer to make it scrappy like I do.

Machingers Gloves

Supreme Slider

Superior Needles

Supplies Needed

Sewing machine with walking foot (darning foot for optional free-motion quilting)
Brand new sewing machine needles
Rotary cutting equipment (rotary cutter, cutting mat, acrylic rulers)
Basic sewing supplies (pins, scissors, seam ripper, etc.)
Machingers quilting gloves
Basting pins
Thread to match your fabrics
Optional – bobbin washers for smoother thread delivery
Optional – Supreme Slider for FMQ

If you have any questions please be sure to join my flickr discussion or email me directly at christa@christaquilts.com.

Quilt Along Schedule – Links will go to each active post when published.

5.1 – 2/27/13 Supply List
5.2 – 3/6/13 Choosing Fabrics and Alternate Layouts
5.3 – 3/13/13 Cutting and Sewing the Bow Tie Blocks
5.4 – 3/20/13 Sewing the X and O Blocks (or alternates)
5.5 – 3/27/13 Finishing the Quilt Top and Pieced Borders
5.6 – 4/3/13 Piecing the Backing
5.7 – 4/10/13 Pin Basting
5.8 – 4/17/13 Stitching in the Ditch
5.9 – 4/24/13 Decorative FMQ
5.10 – 5/1/13 Additional Quilting
5.11 – 5/8/13 Binding – It’s Finished!

Sharing is Caring

Please share your work in progress in my facebook group: Quilt With Christa . 🙂

Sew and Tell – Jelly Roll Quilts Among Friends

November 9, 2012March 19, 2013Leave a comment

I am happy to share pictures of Linda and Martha’s completed Jelly Roll quilts. The two friends love to make quilts from precuts and are part of a “strip club” of their local quilt guild. (You better not take that one out of context, LOL!)

They had a blast putting together 3 quilts between the two of them following my Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt Along. They finally finished their third quilt and are ready now for my next Do-It-Yourself Quilt project!

Isn’t it beautiful? The thing I love about having my blog is that everyone can work at their own pace and make one of my tutorial quilts at any time!

Here are pictures of the other two finished Jelly Roll quilts that these lovely ladies made.

Here’s my original version that I made back in August, plus a computer generated picture of a Jelly Roll Quilt Kit I put together using Lily Ashbury material.

Isn’t it fun to see how different fabrics change the look of the same quilt design? I think I may make another one sometime using solids.

Jason and I plan on taking some better photographs of the quilts I’m blogging about and then eventually turn them into published quilt patterns. Just think – those of you that are quilting along with me are helping by being my “pattern testers!” Thank you all very much!

I do love to see pictures of projects you’ve made – whether it’s from fabric purchased from me, a quilt-along quilt, or both. Email your pictures to christa@christaquilts.com.

Sew and Tell – Holiday Projects

October 26, 2012March 19, 20132 Comments

Are you looking for a couple of quick and easy ideas for the holidays? Well thanks to a couple of my blog readers I have just thing to inspire you!

I know that Halloween is just a few days away, but my friend Stacy whipped up a couple of “Spooktacular” strippy skirts for her girls using just one Monster Bash Jelly Roll. She got them done in record time, too!

Aren’t they just adorable? (And the girls are cute, too!!) Stacy found a pattern for her skirts over at the Moda Bakeshop. She’s planning on making a Christmas version next. I think she should also make one for herself and they should all go caroling together this winter!!

Moving onto Christmas projects, Wendy S. took my Baby Bricks quilt and scaled down the design so it was suitable for a set of holiday placemats.

She cut her bricks into 4 1/4″ x 2 1/4″ rectangles and used a thin 1 1/2″ strip of black. I think this makes the sparkling Christmas prints really pop!

Thanks for sharing, gals. These ideas would make super fun holiday gifts and are much quicker to sew than making a quilt!

Sew and Tell Friday – Holiday Jelly Roll Quilts

October 12, 2012October 12, 20121 Comment

Linda M. and Martha A. both participated in my first ever quilt-along tutorial and have finished two jelly roll quilts just in time for the holidays! Don’t they look great? I love the stippling they added – it gives the quilts lots of texture.

Linda completed her Meadow Friends quilt and Martha finished her Trick or Treat quilt just in time for Halloween. (Martha has one more quilt to finish, in time for Christmas.)

All three of their quilt tops are shown below.

These two quilting friends love to participate in “strip clubs” and enjoy working with jelly rolls. Nice job ladies!

As my way of saying thanks for sharing a completed project using fabric purchased from me, each of them will receive a $5 gift certificate to my store. They can put that toward their next jelly roll purchase or anything else that suits their fancy!

Christa’s Quilt Along 1.6 – Machine Binding to Finish

August 23, 2012August 13, 201528 Comments

Free Pattern

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Jolly Jelly Roll Quilt Wrap Up

Here are all of the previous bog posts, if you are just now joining us:

Week 1 – Supply List

Week 2 – Sewing the Blocks

Week 3 – Completing the Top

Week 4 – Backing and Basting

Week 5 – Machine Quilting

Remember, you can click on any picture to enlarge it. Now, onto the binding!

I use the same techniques to attach the binding to all my quilts, whether finishing by hand or machine.

Step 1 – Square Up the Quilt

Use a large square ruler to trim up all four corners of your quilt. The square will help you achieve a nice straight 90 degree corner. Trim up all four of the sides with a longer ruler.

Step 2 – Measure the Quilt Perimeter and Cut Enough Binding Strips

Measure the perimeter of your quilt so you know how many strips to cut. Lay it out on your cutting mat or use a measuring tape. I folded my quilt in half to make it easier to measure. Divide your perimeter by 40 inches (the useable length of one strip).

Round up to the nearest number of strips and cut them 2 1/4″ wide. I cut 5 strips for my quilt.

Step 3 – Make Continuous Binding

This method is called double-fold straight grain binding. Sew all of your strips together to make one continuous piece. Miter the strips by sewing on an angle to distribute the bulk of the seam. If you are using a solid fabric, be sure to sew them all together on the same side!

You can eyeball the seam.

Trim 1/4 inch seams to the right of your sewing line and press open.

With a small square ruler, cut off one end of your binding on a 45 degree angle. Make sure your binding strips have not been folded or pressed yet. Once the end is cut, then press your binding in half along the entire length, with wrong sides touching and right sides out.

Watch your seams if using solid fabric!

Step 4 – Attaching the Binding to the Quilt

Begin sewing your binding to the quilt with a walking foot, leaving a tail of about 6-8 inches unsewn. Be sure to start on the side of your quilt, not at a corner and sew the binding to the front of the quilt. The folded side of your strips will be to your left. The open sides will be to your right. Use a quarter inch seam allowance and match your thread to your binding fabric.

When you reach a corner, stop sewing 1/4 inch away from the end. Mark it with a drawn line or a light pencil mark if needed. Sew off the side.

Rotate the quilt and flip the binding strip up so that it is even with the side of the quilt. Then, flip it back down, forming a “pinch” of fabric at the corner. This will be the fullness that will flip around to the back creating a nice mitered corner on the front.

Repeat this technique for all four corners of the quilt. When you are nearly finished sewing the binding onto the front side, make sure to leave another tail of about 6-8 inches of binding so you can join the beginning and ending binding pieces.

Next, you will trim and join the ends so they fit together exactly.

If you have a lot of excess binding, you can trim some off.

Open up both binding ends and nestle your beginning binding piece (the angled cut end) on top of the ending piece so that it is flat and smooth. Mark an angle on the ending piece where the beginning piece rests on it – should be a 45 degree angle. Cut 1/2 inch away from this marked line. This will take into account the seam allowances for both pieces. Make sure your binding is not twisted and that both angled cuts are parallel to each other.

Join the two ends by offsetting them slightly to create little tiny tips at each end. Where my pin is pointing, sew from the crevice of one triangle tip to the other, with 1/4 inch seam. Trim off the triangle tips, and press the seam open. It should be a perfect fit!

Finger press the rest of the binding closed and complete your stitching on the front side.

Step 5 – Finishing the Binding with Decorative Machine Stitching

The key to a really nice binding, whether finished by hand or machine, is to make sure it lies flat all the way around the quilt and that the corners are secure.

Once the binding is sewn to the front, simply fold it over to the back to stitch. I like to use pins with Pinmoor anchors for safety to keep everything in place. Fold over the corners to create a nice miter and pin.

I used the same decorative serpentine stitch for the binding that I used for the quilting.

You will notice I am actually stitching by machine from the back side of the quilt. This seems to give me the best results and I can control how wide the stitching is so it shows up nicely on the front.

You can see where I’ve already stitched some of the binding.

On the back, be sure to cover the line of straight stitching that was used to sew on the binding from the front side.

The binding is just as beautiful on the backside as it is on the front. Another finished quilt!

Sharing is Caring

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

Sew and Tell Friday – 3 Jelly Roll Quilt Tops

August 17, 2012August 17, 2012Leave a comment

For today’s show and tell we have a triple header! These three beautiful quilt tops come from Linda and Martha, a couple of friends who have been moving right along with my Jolly Jelly Roll do-it-yourself-quilt tutorial.

These two gals love working with jelly rolls “sew” much! Martha sewed the two holiday quilts using Christmas Spirit and Trick or Treat, and Linda is making hers from the girl colorway of Meadow Friends. They will present their show and tell at their next “Strip Club!” Now they just have to quilt and bind their lovely quilts and they can move onto their next projects.

Speaking of finishing, I will present a machine binding tutorial to finish these quilts up next week and will then start another complete quilt project the week after. I’m toying around with switching up my blog software so that more of you can share your WIP’s! (Works in progress), so stay tuned for details. Also, be sure to subscribe to my blog if you haven’t done so already, so you can stay abreast of all the latest happenings.

Oh, and if you have any suggestions on what types of quilt projects you’d like me to demonstrate, please leave a comment. The next do-it-yourself-quilt tutorial will either use fat quarters or a layer cake (I’m designing it now). But I’d love to have more ideas, and I plan to offer these free tutorials on an ongoing basis. Eventually, I’ll offer patterns and kits to go along with them, too!

Christa’s Quilt Along 1.5 – Machine Quilting

August 15, 2012August 15, 201323 Comments

This week’s post is the one I’ve been waiting for. I think machine quilting is the best part of making a quilt, so I couldn’t wait to get my Vintage Modern jelly roll quilt top finished and basted so I could start the fun! I quilted it using a serpentine stitch with my walking foot.

Before I started quilting, I tried out a few of my machine’s decorative stitches to see how they would look. All of these can be done using a walking foot with the feed dogs engaged.

I used a 40 weight high-sheen polyester thread with a size 90 needle and used the same thread for both the top and bobbin.

This gives better results than using different colored threads.

Step 1 – Decorative Ditch Quilting

Be sure your needle plate has a wide enough opening to accommodate your decorative stitch and test it out first so you avoid broken needles.

Quilt along the seam lines in one direction in between your blocks, about 4 inches apart. The first pass took me 30 minutes.

This will secure the quilt and you can remove the pins as you go.

Next, make second pass in between each line of quilting. Now your quilting is about 2 inches apart and the quilt is starting to get some texture! I quilted parallel lines across the quilt. I did not mark any of these lines – I just used the seams as a guide and eyeballed it across the fabric where there was no seam to guide me. This is both liberating and fun!

This second pass took another 30 minutes so I’m just at 1 hour total quilting time. Not bad! At this point, this is enough quilting to hold your quilt together. However, I want more…

Step 2 – Adding More Quilting

My motto is that you can never add too much quilting to a quilt!

So I added another line of quilting in between each of the rows above. This was my 3rd pass and now the quilting lines are about 1 inch apart.

This took only another 30 minutes and I can’t believe how fast this is going!

There is still enough room to add another row of quilting and do a fourth pass, so I decided, what the heck?

The fourth pass took 1 1/2 hours because I had now doubled the amount of quilting on the quilt, but I loved every minute of it!

I ended up with quilting lines about 1/2 inch apart over the surface of the quilt. Total quilting time was 3 hours and I used up a full 500 yard spool of Superior Highlights thread.

I love all the texture on the back!

So next week, we will finish our quilts, can you believe it? We will trim them up and bind to finish. I really can’t wait to see how everyone’s quilting turns out. Be sure to email me pictures of your progress, no matter where you are, so I can share with everyone else.

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 – Dragonfly Batik Art Quilt

August 10, 2012March 19, 2013Leave a comment

I am so excited to share with you Diane’s beautiful art quilt below. She used green batik fat quarters that she got from me, and quilted with metallic thread to add the textured water and pond ripples to her piece. The dragonfly was begun in a Susan Brubaker Knapp thread sketching class and finished at home. (Some people actually finish their class projects!!) She added glittery glue to give the dragonfly some sparkle and make its wings look iridescent.

Diane has also been following along making her version of the Jolly Jelly Roll quilt. She finished up her homework for the week and shares her lovely jewel-toned top with us:

Nice job, Diane! For those of you quilting along with my tutorial, be sure to email me pictures of your in-progress diy quilts, too. It’s such fun to see the variety.

And for those of you that want to share your work using fabrics purchased from me, I’ll send you a little thank you if I feature your finished project on my blog. You can email pictures to christa@christaquilts.com. Happy quilting!

Christa’s Quilt Along 1.4 – Backing and Basting Your Jelly Roll Quilt

August 8, 2012August 15, 201312 Comments

Welcome to part 4 of my do-it-yourself quilt along! So far we’ve gathered our supplies, sewn the blocks, and completed our quilt tops. This week we will piece our backings and baste our quilts so that our Jolly Jelly Roll Quilts are ready for machine quilting next week!

Step 1 – Piecing the Backing

If you use one fabric entirely for your backing, sew together two lengths of fabric so that your piece is at least 5 inches longer and wider than your quilt.

For a 52″ x 52″ quilt top you would need 3 1/2 yards of fabric for the backing. Cut that into 2 equal pieces, each measuring 63″ long by 42″ wide. Sew those together on the selvedge edges with a half inch seam and you’ll get one piece that is about 63″ x 80″ – plenty of room!

I wrote up a post a few weeks ago on how to make a pieced quilt backing. With more than one fabric. You can read about that by clicking here.

For my backing, I chose to use up all of my leftover jelly roll blocks plus some other chunks of fabric, about 3 yards total, to make it a little more artistic.

I sewed two rows of leftover blocks, then filled in with strips of pink and grey fabric from my stash.

The pink on the sides is much wider so a bunch of it will be trimmed off later.

(Don’t mind the wrinkles – I finished it just last night!)

Step 2 – Layering the Quilt

The most important thing you need for successful basting is plenty of room! I have two 8-foot tables set up in my sewing room at all times. I use them for cutting and basting.

First, you need to secure your backing; this is why you want it to be larger than your quilt top.

I do this by using office clips to secure the backing to the table. I use tape when the quilt backing does not reach the edge.

Next, it’s time to spread out the batting. I used Warm-N-Natural cotton batting which does have a right and wrong side. The side with the flakes is the front side and the whiter side is the back side. Layer it right side up.

You can start with your batting folded up in one corner, then unfold the batting one step at a time if you are basting by yourself. Be sure to smooth it down so there are no wrinkles.

You can click each of the pictures for a larger more detailed view.

Finally, it’s time to add the top! I don’t clamp down the top, but I do smooth it out and line it up as much as I can so that it is as straight and square as possible.

Step 3 – Basting the Quilt

Now it’s just a matter of pinning the layers together so they won’t shift during quilting. My favorite basting tools are Pinmoor pin anchors. They are little rubber tips that fit on the end of straight pins. You can use any types of pins with them and the pins can jab anywhere into the hard rubber piece. They last forever and are so much easier to use than safety pins.

It took me about 150 Pinmoors to baste this quilt in under 20 minutes. If you are not ready to buy enough for a whole quilt, start with one package and baste part of your quilt. Baste the rest of your quilt with safety pins. Then, when quilting, take note of how much easier the pins and Pinmoors are to remove and you will be converted!

Here’s a great video you can watch on how to use them, made by the makers of Pinmoors.

Next week we will machine quilt this baby! That’s the best part of my do-it-yourself quilting tutorial; you are actually going to do it all yourself – no quilting by check here!!

Remember to send me pictures of your completed quilt tops. You can email me directly at Christa@ChristaQuilts.com. It’s “sew” fun to share!

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 Friday – Quilts from Precuts

August 3, 2012March 19, 20131 Comment

This week for Sew and Tell Friday, I want to share with you an adorable charm quilt that my mom made, plus a another show-and-tell from our Jolly Jelly Roll do-it-yourself quilt-along.

My mom is a very prolific sewer. She taught me how to sew, and in turn, I introduced her to quilting many years ago. She recently made this adorable quilt top from a Twirl charm pack I gave her. (When you have a mom that sews, fabric always makes a great gift!)

Mom used a Split 9-Patch pattern variation which just calls for 1 charm pack plus 3/4 yard of border fabric and 1/2 yard of sashing fabric. You basically sew together four nine-patches (using 36 charm squares), cut them into fours, and insert a 1 1/2″ strip of sashing in between each block and around the edges to frame it. The borders are cut 5 inches wide (4 1/2″ finished), so I think you could use 4 more charms in the border corners and then use a leftover charm on the back for your label! Cute, huh??

Hmm… this may have to be a future tutorial…..

Speaking of quilt tutorials, Mom is also following along making her Jolly Jelly Roll quilt top, but she hasn’t sent me any pictures, yet (hint, hint, Mom!)… However, a bunch of you have. Here’s a picture from Amy S. who’s using the Summersville jelly roll for her quilt blocks.

Don’t those look yummy? I love her methodology for how she’s going to sew together the blocks. She’s going to throw the strip pairs into a bag and randomly grab 2 blocks at a time to sew together, as long as they are different fabrics. I love it – it’s going to be scrap-a-licious!

Here’s a link to the supply list if you want to grab a jelly roll and start one of these quilts yourself. I just barely finished sewing my quilt top yesterday in time to blog about it, so I’ll give everyone plenty of time to finish up their tops before we start to quilt them.