Baby Rhino's first big quilt

Using google in a foreign country is an adventure.  Today google started on English.  Sometimes I get the US version of google and sometimes I get the Korean version.  Fun times.  After a few hours, google switched to Korean.  I tried for 45 minutes to switch it back to English and somehow it ended up on Portuguese.  At least I can read that a little better than Korean.  I finally got it switched back to English.  This whole ordeal lasted all day.  

I was all set to start quilting my New Wave quilt when I discovered I don't have any batting.  I'll have to go back to the market in search of batting sometime this week.  So I've decided I'll write about some of my favorite quilts I've made in the past that I never blogged about.  I need something to do with Lukie is at preschool.

Back in February of 2011 I decided Lucas needed a big quilt for his new big boy bed.  I had never made anything larger than a lap quilt so I was pretty nervous.  I decided to use this adorable Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman collection.  I absolutely love it.  The sashing is Kona White.

I was busy.

Disappearing 9 patch

The quilt went together quite quickly.  And it just kept getting bigger and bigger. 

The back

For the back, I used up some of the remaining blocks from the front.  The majority of it is from All Star 2 by Riley Blake.  I absolutely love that line.  Lucas' favorite color is orange and that collection is a great combination of orange and blue. 

Basting in the playroom.  This thing is a monster.

I free motion quilted this bad boy.  This quilt is at least twice the size of any other quilt I'd done up to this point.  It took about 5.5 hours of quilting to complete.

I quilted "love you" - a first for quilting words

Love him.

There you have it.  My first bed-sized quilt.  It fits on a queen-sized bed but it resides on a full.  This quilt went together much faster than I thought it would.  I made the blocks and pieced the top over a week.  I was able to do all the quilting in one afternoon and bound it in one evening (not the same day as the quilting).  Since this quilt I have made three more bed-sized quilts and plan to make many more.

Lucas sleeps under this quilt every night.  This is still, and probably always will be, my favorite quilt.  So much love was put into it and it gets so much love in return.  When I first put it on his bed he would say, "Baby loves this quilt!"  He used to call himself "Baby"- so sweet.  Several times a month he will randomly tell me how much he loves it and that I made it for him because I love him.  And isn't that the way it should always be with a quilt?

Seomun Market

One of my absolute favorite places in Daegu is the Seomun Market.  Anything you can imagine can be purchased there- purses, clothes, food, housewares, etc.  There is tons of fresh produce and seafood.  And there's a lot of dried fish, too.  I believe the dried fish are used for making broth for soups but that's something I probably won't try.  There are even dried bugs for medicinal purposes.  Another thing I probably won't try.  You can get a hanbok made and they are beautiful.

There tons of booths where you can have a hanbok made.  You can choose any color and any fabric you wish.  Amazing.

Not surprisingly though, my favorite part of the market is the fabric!  Daegu is a large textile manufacturing city and many of the fabrics I bought in the States are actually manufactured in Korea.  That excited me before we moved here and it has certainly lived up to my expectation.  The fabric at the market is pretty random but if you look hard you can find lots of good stuff. 

Lots of good stuff- about 10 yards worth of good stuff.

I can't control myself and usually leave with yards of random fabric.  Most recently I bought about 3.5 yards of fabric to possibly be the backing for a quilt I started a year and a half ago.  I made that quilt out of scraps and have been waiting for the right backing to come along.  Everything I found felt like I was settling.  That was the first quilt top I made just to make and use up scraps.  I didn't have a recipient in mind but I'm thinking I'll keep it.  My husband made me an awesome quilt rack and it needs more quilts!

Hello, Quilt Back!

I think I finally found my quilt back!  Now I just hope I can find time to finish it.  I was worried about being bored during the day while the Lukester was at preschool but as it turns out I've got plenty of stuff to do!

Every trip to the market has been very successful.  I realize I use the word "amazing" to describe a lot of things here but there's no better word for it.  I was really worried about moving to Korea because I'm a homebody and always liked being a quick plane ride away from home.  This is definitely out of my comfort zone but I'm grateful for the opportunity to explore this part of the world.

I can't go to the market without buying some adorable pajamas.

Christmas wrap-up

It has been awhile.  We've been busy with the holidays and, of course, being sick.  The week before Christmas is always a hectic rush to get gifts finished and mailed off to family and friends.  So here's a wrap-up of the Christmas sewing and crafting.

My husband has been asking for a quilt for a long time.  It seems I'm always making one for someone else so I my goal for Christmas was to make him his own and we've named it the Husband Quilt.  Keeping this quilt a secret until Christmas was quite a challenge because I don't have much patience and wanted to give it to him the second it was finished.

The top is a collection of Timeless Treasures Tailor flannel and the back is this Riley Blake flannel.  They are both incredibly soft.  I used wool batting for the first time so this is one warm quilt!  The wool batting has quite a bit more loft than I'm used to but I think it's great in this quilt.

Finished size: approximately 66x66 in

 I stuck with a simple pattern for the top (HST) because I haven't worked with flannel much.  I love the way it turned out.  This is probably my favorite quilt (tied for first with L's bed quilt, naturally).

Pieced binding with remaining flannel and diagonal quilting

L is quite the helper so I decided to make him his own apron.  I made a few of these for my nephews for their birthdays earlier in the year and he loved them but wasn't quite ready for one of his own.

Cupcakes for helping Mama in the kitchen

One side for helping Daddy in the garage

L loves his new apron and I'm certainly looking forward to him helping me out in the kitchen.

Adam has taken up wood working recently and has made some really cool stuff; including this bird puzzle for his dad.

He also made this awesome bird mobile for one of our nephews.  Adam did the cutting and I did the painting.

Lots of bird watchers in our family.

Adam has made some cool boxes out of old pallets, a step stool for L's bathroom, and lots of other things.

Now we just need to finish organizing the garage so he actually has some room in there!

Back in November I started working on a 12+2=Q quilt by Oh, Fransson!  I was a little ambitious thinking I could finish that, along with all my other projects, before Christmas.  Needless to say it's not done.  That is at the top of my to-do pile right now.

Tic Tac Toe!

The season of crazy Christmas sewing has begun!  I'm a little crazy and I've had almost all of my Christmas shopping done since last month.  All that's left to do is sew.  

The first project completed is for my nephew.  It's a game quilt, based on this adorable Tic Tac Toe quilt.  How cute is a game quilt that little ones can toss bean bags at to claim their square for Tic Tac Toe?

I still had a ton of fabric left from the quilt I made for Baby L's bed that I've been anxious to use on a project for a special little boy.  Ready, Set, Go! by Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman is one of my favorite lines.  And as a proud OSU grad, I have a special place in my heart for the color orange.

I made my quilt a little bit larger (it's about 44 inches square) than the pattern and I did not appliqué on the words "Tic Tac Toe".  The small squares are about 3 inches instead of 2.5.  This was a great way to use up scraps. 

Can't take a picture without Bear.

I still have to make the bean bags so my adorable nephews can play.

One project down, many more to go!

The LAST film strip quilt

I finally finished the last of the film strip quilts!  This one was for my baby rhino.  The uniform I used in this quilt is extra special because it was one of the uniforms Adam wore on his deployment right after L was born.  

Here it is!

Deep in thought.  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is very intense.

Baby feet

I think he likes it.

A finish, finally!

The past few weeks have been crazy.  We moved, again.  All of the packing and unpacking didn't leave much time for sewing.  But now that we're all settled in, I busted out my sewing machine.  She was feeling a little neglected so I put her to use.  I'm sure now she'd like to go back into hiding.  And yes, she's a girl and I talk about her like she's a person.  It's annoying, I know.

First on my list of unfinished projects were the film strip quilts.

J's quilt

We do have some green in El Paso!

I decided to quilt this in straight lines.  I love the way the quilting turned out but it was actually a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be. 

Baby L's quilt

I decided to quilt this one with a large free motion wandering pattern.  I wasn't sure how it would be to quilt through the ACU material so I didn't want the free motion quilting to be too close together in case it didn't go well. The ACU material wasn't exactly easy to piece so I had images of multiple needles breaking during the quilting.  I quilted a little slower than I normally do and everything was fine.

I'm quite fond of how both of these turned out.  The bright colors are perfect for little ones.  My goal is to finish my baby rhino's quilt tonight so I should have pictures tomorrow.

New Wave, cont.

The top of the New Wave quilt is finished!

Quilt top!

And my best friend.

I used a combination of pressing the seams to the side and open.  I normally press to the side and haven't had many problems with bulk.  I'll probably stick with pressing the seams to the side only because I seem to burn my fingers a lot when I press them open.  Oops.  Of course, when bulk is an issue (as it is with half-square triangles) I'll press them open.

I'm not entirely sure what I'll do for the backing.  I'm torn between a turquoise that really matches the front or something completely different that will really pop.  Thoughts?

New Wave

I'm not normally one for following patterns.  I usually get a vision in my head and try different things until I figure it out.  This is probably why organic chemistry suits me; just dump in some ether and see what happens.  Who needs measurements?  Anyway.  I love every quilt by Oh, Fransson!  So I decided to follow this pattern.  Her quilts are amazing.


I've been working on this quilt mostly as a side project because I'm making it almost entirely out of scraps.  Everything about this quilt has been incredibly time consuming, but I love the way it looks so I'm sticking with it!

I'm not quite done with the top.  Hopefully these line up well when the time comes to sew them together. We shall see.

The Film Strip quilts are on hold until I find a good way to get a picture onto fabric.  Or until I get fed up with the picture idea and decide to do something else with the final block.

Tonight will be more half-square triangles for the Lil' Rascal quilt and I'll have to figure out how I want to assemble the rest of the blocks.  I have a lot of extra squares cut, so I might try to incorporate them somehow.  I guess it depends on my mood!

Lil' Rascal

In between cleaning up the lake that is currently forming in our living room and washing towels, I've started another baby quilt.  Our good friends are currently stationed in Korea and will be welcoming a little boy to their family this fall.  Adam actually picked out this Lil' Rascals fabric from one of my favorite stores while we were up in Oregon.

beginning of the blocks

half square triangles

Eventually these pieces will all make a quilt.  I have an awesome Kona solid in khaki for the background.

Tomorrow I will finish the half square triangles and hopefully finish the blocks.

Quilts in progress

I stumbled upon this Film Strip Quilt awhile back and knew I had to make one.  I've been wanting to make a quilt for Lucas out of Adam's old ACUs and decided this would be perfect.  I know three little kids that don't get to spend nearly enough time with their dads; so I'm making each of them one of these quilts to cuddle with.  This may have been a little ambitious.  As it turns out, ACUs are not fun to sew with.  Ripping them apart is a nightmare and cutting them up isn't much better.  That's all behind me now though.  So here is a picture of what I have so far.

The start of L's quilt.  There will be a third row at the bottom but I'm waiting to have a picture printed on fabric for that one.

Hopefully I'll get these finished this weekend.  Now it's time to rebuild L's train tracks.