About Jenny

I love reading, quilting, raising my kids, and selling real estate.

Quick Easy Project, Paired with a Long, Arduous, Hard Project

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Jenny

What is this, you might ask? Let’s zoom out about eight months:

Back in February I went to some political breakfast with my dad, where he saw a quilt very similar to this one. Tired of purchasing endless raffle tickets and never getting his own quilt, he asked me to make him one. So I did! I have made 37 quilts, and this is the first queen sized one I have made. I will admit, there were some boring parts, but I have a great sense of accomplishment now that it is done.

Instead of the traditional tag on the back, I tagged it along the bottom in free motion quilting. It says, “Over 750 pieces of love for my dad,” because he used to write me letters when I was far away, and instead of newsy gossip I wanted to hear, he would write, “I have this many cows, this many businesses, etc. blah blah blah.” So I wrote an approximation of how many pieces went into this top.

I rented a long-arm machine at Let’s Quilt, in St. George, and chose a stars and swirls pantograph. It was pretty challenging, so don’t look too closely for neat, precise stars.

Close-up, you can see how it is really just a bunch of flying geese sewn together and set en pointe.

After I finished, I wanted something quick and easy to throw together, so I made these hot pads. They are probably my favorite hot pads I have ever made. Thank you, bias binding!

Bird Quilt + Quick Easy Quilt

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Jenny

This year I have been working on my first Queen sized quilt. My dad saw one just like it at some political thing and asked if I would make it. Ha! I thought. Then I told him I would do it if he would buy the materials. I am nearly done, but during my arduous journey since February, I took a break and finished these two.

The first was for our local Peach Days Celebration. Our quilt guild holds a challenge every year, and this year the challenge was “hand quilting.” Not my favorite, as you may gather from my quilt.

This little quail pair was my favorite of the birds, I think.

Then I finished this quicky that only took two charm packs and a yard of fabric for my sister:

It looks really busy, but I did try to do darks on the right and lights on the left. The fabric line is “Oh Deer” by Moda, and fits my sister because she and her husband are into nature and deer and all that stuff. The top came together in a snap, because I only had to cut the rectangles, and the pre-cut squares saved so much time.

I backed it in flannel, because I like flannel even though it is so hot here we don’t need it. The orange is a little wild, but I couldn’t resist those cute little birds or the orange, which is my favorite color.

I will post about Her Majesty soon. I am going to quilt it on Thursday at a store that lets you rent time on the long-arm machine. It will be my first time and I am so excited.

Thanks to Linz for the inspiration!

Quiet Book Swap: Finishing Your Pages

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Jenny

I have been consulting on a friend’s quiet book swap, and some people asked for more details on assembly, so I am going to put a few things together, starting with this post. Today I photographed the details of the simple way to finish pages.

Start with two pages that you want as a front and back. Make sure you don’t accidentally put two that should face each other together this way. I almost did that with the road pages, which would have been a shame.

My friend made this road page, and she asked if she needed to pre-shrink the fabric, and I thought she would be okay not doing it, because I am lazy in my heart. Now I confess, I think I was wrong. Preshrinking is always a good idea, and it will help so much with the finished product and the sewing. PRESHRINK YOUR FABRIC. There, now it is out, even though I wrongly advised a good friend. I know, I’m lame. Anyway, Since this fabric is a little stretchy and skeewompas, I put it on top of a layer that is pretty uniform, and slightly bigger. This way I can make sure I don’t accidentally sew off the edge of the smaller page.

Really smooth the two pages, right sides together. You want them to lay as flat and evenly together as you can. Sew them almost all the way around, leaving an opening of several inches that will later let you turn the pages inside out. I have a camera in my right hand in this picture. But I advise that once you get started and the machine is clamped to the page, you should hold up the whole page as much as you can using both hands to keep the pages square and even.

Don’t turn it inside out yet. See these corners?

You must carefully trim them like so:

Get as close to the corner stitching as possible, but don’t cut through it. This clipping reduces bulk when the page is right side out.

Turn the page right side out. I like to use my closed scissors to poke the corners and get them out. This is the page before ironing. I highly recommend ironing. I know we don’t all like it, because getting friendly with the iron, well, you could get burned.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Anyhoo, Do Iron, Don’t burn yourself. After ironing, set your stitch length to a three. Hi Bernie! I love you!

After you kiss your beloved sewing machine, topstitch around the edges of the page as close to the edge as you are comfortable. I used the topstitching to close my hole in the side, and just ironed the hole carefully to make sure that would work well.

If you are not one of those over-achieving grommet people, throw a few button-holes on each page. I measured the length of my page (11 ish inches), measured to the center (5.5) and marked the first hole. Then I marked the other two holes 1.5 inches in from the edge of the page. I used book rings to bind, so I didn’t have to match it to a binder. If you put it in a binder, just put the pages next to it, and mark that way.

Here are the front and back of a completed page, ready to put in the cover.

Just FYI, I use categories and tags, so if you want to read all the past posts about quiet books, just click on the label “Quiet Book,” and I think they will come up.

Another Quiet Book Binding Variation

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Jenny

I am helping a friend from my exchange finish her quiet book, and we are binding this one without so much edge binding, and this time we used buttonholes. I think it is much more doable for people who do not have a thousand yards of leftover quilt binding to use up, as well as vast patience for binding. Since this method is easier than my first one, I thought I would share.

Here you can see that there is not much difference in the general appearance between this one and mine. The main differences are the pages. We put them right sides together, sewed around the edges, and clipped the corners, leaving an opening.

Then we turned the pages inside out, ironed the edges, and sewed up the opening.

Rather than the lengthy and troublesome grommet application, we marked and sewed buttonholes on these pages. My Bernina 230 PE, to which I may or may not have written a love letter at one point, has a function where I have to push the reverse button one time to show the machine the buttonhole length I want, and then it is programmed to repeat that exact buttonhole as many times as I want until I clear it. Oh Bernie, I love you.

This is the result:

We are still about a week away from total completion. I quilted the cover, added the strips to hold our rings, and traced the Quiet Book letters today, and next week we will iron them on and finish binding the outside. I am excited for hers to be complete. It is so fun to see how an identical exchange can result in books that are similar but different, almost like sister books.

I visited another friend today who is doing an exchange, and she had some fabulous pages. I wish I had my camera there. My favorite was probably the barrel of monkeys, with monkeys that hook arms cut out of craft foam. She also had a simple mitten page that reminded me of my childhood. It’s so fun to see these. They take me back to my childhood and I just want to play with them myself.

Stitch Hack: Scooting Trousers Shred Saver

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Jenny

Some of you are aware of my son’s interesting way of getting around. His scooting has lead to the following problem:

Which lead me to hack the following solution:

The Bum Shoe, as I have designated it, has already saved three other pair of trousers from certain doom this week alone.

If I were a Doofenshmirtzian Evil Scientist, I would probably call it the Bum Shoe-enator. But for now, I am not, and mostly just calling it awesome.