Quilted Jonquil

In my post yesterday about making the book style Kindle cover using the  tutorial from One Pearl Button, I mentioned the changes I made for the smaller Kindle.  Here they are:

2 pieces of fabric for the body of the cover, 15 x 10.5 13.5 x 9.75

2 pieces of accent fabric, 6.5 x 9.25 5.75 x 8.25

2 pieces of sturdy cardboard or book-board, 5.5 x 8.25 5.5 x 8.75 I know this is not smaller but it’s what worked best in mine.  I happened to have some heavy duty plastic, the kind that was an insert in a craft carrying case, and it worked quite well.

I added the elastic before the accent piece on the right side was sewn down. I cut my elastic longer (about 3″) and folded the excess ends under the accent piece and sewed it down at the same time as the accent fabric.  To accomplish this I sewed a scant 1/8th inch from the outside edge.  As I mentioned in my previous post, the Steam-A-Seam was fantastic and was helpful in keeping the elastic ends turned under.  I measured only 2″ from each corner versus 2.5″ for the elastic placement.

Another change I made was to put a layer of batting (13.25 x 9.5) on the wrong side of the outside body fabric to add a little padding.   Next time I will add some fusible interfacing on the wrong side of the outside body fabric where the button will be sewn to give it a little more stability.

Happy sewing,  Cherie

I’ll be traveling over the holidays so this will be my last 2010 Design Wall Monday post……and it’s not my wall, it’s my floor

I made Kindle covers using the tutorial from One Pearl Button here.  The Kindle I was making these for are smaller than the Kindle the tutorial is for so I had to reduce the sizes (I’ll post the sizes in a post tonight, in case your are interested).   I used Steam-A- Seam for the first time and, boy, is it terrific!  The tutorial had you sew down the contrasting fabric then whip stitch the elastic ends.   I thought it would be sturdier to fold the elastic ends under the contrasting fabric so it would be sewed down with machine stitching.   Using the sticky trait of the re-positionable  Steam-A-Seam, I was able to turn the elastic under and have it stay in place.  If you start sewing the contrasting fabric in the middle of a side, you’ll be able to sew all the way around without starting and stopping, nice

Be sure to stop by Judy’s Design Wall Monday post and check out the other design walls, or floors, or beds, or tables!

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you all!  Cherie

A big thank you to Sew, Mama, Sew for hosting the recent Dec 13th Giveaway Day.  Kristy of St. Louis Folk Victorian had three giveaway opportunities and I won #1, woohoo.

Here’s the lovely email she sent:

Judy has issued a UFO Challenge for 2011.  Here’s my list:

1 -10 Moon Glow – complete one of the remaining 10 star blocks

Picture from Jinnybeyer.com

11 First Saturday Foxy Fassett quilt – backing, quilting & binding

12 Crumb Quilt – backing, quilting & binding

1a Pinwheel Party Quilt Navy – backing, quilting & binding

2a Pinwheel Party Quilt Orange – piece top & backing

3a Flower Wall Hanging – finish hand quilting & binding.

4a Vicksburg – applique borders & sew together the top

5a & 6a Antique Reproduction Baby Quilts 1 & 2  – quilting & binding

(Picture from Instructions)

7a Seeds of Time – quilting & binding

Picture from Instructions

8a – 10a Moon Glow – complete 4 of the 12 alternate blocks

Jinnybeyer.com

11a Topsy Turvy Nine Patch – borders and backing

UFO’s I’d like to get done but will take longer than a month or didn’t make the list:

Hand quilt Cherrywood Bricks -

Quilt  & Bind Liberty Quilt -

Quilt & Bind Summer Cabins -

Set First Saturday Asian Surprise blocks -

Set First Saturday Tipsy Fox blocks –

Finish & set Scrappy Star blocks –

Quilt & bind Technicolor Yawn –

Folk Style Sampler – applique three remaining blocks

Wowsa!!  I think this is, perhaps, too challenging of a list to accomplish in one year.  I do, however, work best with deadlines so perhaps Judy’s challenge will be just what I need to drive me over the edge help me finish up some things that have been hanging around.

The holidays put a crimp in my sewing time.  Here’s my design wall.  Same as last week.

Judy’s Design Wall Monday post has links to other design walls that may or may not be as boring as mine

I’m still working on the RRCB string blocks so I’m now officially behind

FNSI results:  continued sewing on the Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll string blocks!  I had 11 completed and the other 49 with two strips.  You can see here they all have at least 4 or more strips   I’ll just keep roll-ing along with these and they’ll soon be done, right???

Check out what other folks accomplished Friday night by clicking the links on Heidi’s post here.

I was inspired by Tonya Ricucci’s free pieced letters, I started with my name:

Then I made a four letter word for Tonya:

Then I put words in a quilt:

And another Quilt:

Now known as the Unruly Quilter,  Tonya’s first book, Word Play Quilts,  is out today!!

Check out the word in the upper left side…..it’s my GLEE!!!!!!!

I continued sewing on the Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll step 3 string blocks last night.  Bonnie mentions she works two string blocks, leader-ender style…..she sews a few, trims a few and de-papers a few.   I’m more of a sew the first seam on all the blocks kind of a person.  I worked at doing 10 at a time this weekend but I just couldn’t do that last night.  I -had- to get the remaining 49 blocks started with the first two strings, I’m just driven to do that.   The downside is I don’t get to say, “I finished X blocks last night”, lol.   Of course, I still do them leader-ender style so there’s always a couple of blocks running ahead

It’s the first Design Wall Monday in December and I’ve got new blocks on the wall   I made 11 RRCB string blocks (only 49 more to go), finished the 8th Vicksburg applique block and completed step 5 of the stay-at-home-robin.

Be sure to stop by Judy’s DWM post for links to other DWM blog postings   Oh and one more thing…..while removing the phone book pages I used as foundations for the string pieced blocks,  I realized I was making bedding for my worm bin!!  How’s that for recycling?   Use the pages for quilting and then for worm bedding which gets made into worm castings to be used in the garden   You can see the phone book bits in with my regular shredded newspaper.

While trying to get better pictures for my blog I took some pictures of the finches out my window.

This second picture captured a finch just as it was landing.   These little guys were getting the seeds that fall from our sweet gum tree and that white stuff?  That is all the snow we’ve gotten.  That’s all.  Family in Pittsburgh has snow, family in Rockford has snow….I want SNOW!!!  Enough snow to make one of these:

I worked on the pieced borders for the Topsy Turvy Nine Patch quilt and the third step of Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll. I only completed 3 string blocks but I finished the remaining two pieced borders for the TTNP.