Posted on by MariAnn

Halloween All Year Round

One of the big projects that I’ve done recently is a quilt that was a graduation/birthday/Christmas present for my best friend. Since all of those things happened around the same time of year, I thought it would be a perfect gift. Making the quilt was a fun surprise that I kept for quite awhile.

In order to make sure I had enough time to finish it along with my crazy life, I started it in April. Let me tell you, buying Halloween fabric in April gets weird looks from people at the fabric store. They were all surprised that that’s what I wanted at that time. But I didn’t let it deter me. Halloween was the perfect theme for my friend’s quilt and I was going to make it beautiful.

I decided to go with a log cabin block for the quilt. It gave me a chance to let each of my fabrics shine but also be unique to one another. No square was exactly the same. I had picked out nine different fabrics that fit the Halloween theme so it ended up that each of my log cabin squares had the nine fabrics in it.

Piecing the whole quilt together wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. I’d put a few of the pieces together in a way that made it not line up right for the finished look that I was going for. That’s the point that I took out my trusty seam ripper and worked on putting those pieces together in the right way to get the finished quilt.

I used a new product that I’d never tried before when making this quilt and was surprised at how well it worked. I used a quilt basting spray which held all the pieces of my quilt together while I did my quilting. I wasn’t sure how well it would work, but I thought it would be worth giving it a try. In the end, I was amazed at what it did. It made the process easier for me and I was very pleased with the results.

I did a basic machine stitch to quilt the top and then I bound it with an orange bias tape. The finished look was great. I’m so proud of the quilt. It turned out better than I’d expected and part of that came from the fact that I made it for someone I care about.  

For my first quilt that was a bigger size, I’m very proud of this one. It was such a fun surprise to work on, and it meant the world to my friend.

-Annie

Posted on by MariAnn

Pillow Cases

I’ve found that once I start working on a project, I tend to do more than one project that is the same. This has been the case a lot recently. I realized that my husband and I both needed new pillow cases, and I thought it would be a lot of fun to make them for us instead of going to the store bought route.

We picked a day and went together to the fabric store to decide which fabric we each wanted for our pillow cases. Once we decided it came down to figuring out exactly what type of pillow cases we wanted. I hadn’t realized there were so many different ways to make pillow cases until I sat down to do this project.

For us, I decided to do the simple cases with just one fabric each. I sewed the fabric into the shape of the case and did a small hem. I finished it off with simple seam finished and viola two finished pillow cases. They took me about twenty minutes each to finish. I’m really happy with how they turned out and we love using them.

I liked having a chance to work on a simple project that worked was something the two of us needed. It made me excited to do something that could mean something to both of us. I love creating for people close to me. It makes all the difference in the world.

-Annie