Baby Stats Graphic

I got this amazing idea from the PicMonkey tutorial from See Vanessa Craft. It was super easy and quick to make. As it was my first time using PicMonkey I stayed pretty true to the example. On the website she places the printed version in a picture frame but you can really do anything you like with it as it saves as a graphic.

Connor's First Quilt

I've been so busy since my son was born that I haven't done any crafting in quite some time. Now that he's getting old enough to play a little bit on his own as well as sleep through the night, I realised that it's time I make him his first quilt. I've decided to try a pattern that I had only used once before for my nephew. Below is a rough draft of it but it will help me to have a visual while I'm quilting to remind myself of the placement of each of the blocks.

General Items to Note

• Fabric Requirements
• Rectangles - 0.25m of five (5) or six (6) assorted prints. You will need 22 blocks. (I used 6 patterns)
• Border 1 - 0.3m
• Border 2 - 0.7m
• Posts - 0.3m
• Backing - 1.8m
• All seam allowances are 1/4"
• Press seams as you go, light fabric toward dark fabric

Cutting and Piecing Instructions

1. Cut 22 rectangles from the 5 or 6 pattern prints that measure 5 ½” x 9 ½”
2. For border 1 – cut 4 - 1 ½” x WOF strips, 4 – 1 ½” x 4 ½” pieces, and 4 – 1 ½” x 5 ½” pieces
3. For border 2 – cut 4 – 4 ½” x WOF strips
4. For Posts – cut 4 – 4 ½” squares for each corner
5. Refer to diagram 1 – arrange fabrics in preferred order. Rows 1, 3, and 5 contain 4 whole blocks. Rows 2 and 4 contain 3 whole blocks and 2 half blocks. When cutting the half blocks be sure to allow ¼” seam allowance on cut end. Stitch blocks in vertical rows.
   
6. Measure top and bottom of quilt. Stitch a border 1 and border 2 strip together, cut to your measurement and attach to top of quilt and repeat for the bottom of quilt.
7. Make 4 corner blocks by stitching a 1 ½” x 4 ½” border 1 fabric strip to the bottom of a 4 ½” square. Then stitch a 1 ½” x 5 ½” border 1 fabric strip to the right side of this unit.
   
8. Measure left and right sides of quilt center (do not include the top and bottom boarders in this measurement). Stitch a border 1 and border 2 strip together and cut to your own measurement. Make a strip consisting of a corner block, the strip you just stitched together and another corner block. Attach to left and right sides of quilt making sure to match the seams.
9. Sandwich, quilt, and bind using your preferred methods. I'll explain my method of binding in a later post. Below are some pictures. This one is right after I sandwiched the back, backing, and top and quilted them together. I use the sew in the ditch method.
   
10.  Below are a few pictures of the binding.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

As I was working around my son’s nap schedule, the project took me 5 days or about 10 hours.

Memo Board

While my family was in the states in May for a family reunion, my sister-in-law had organised a girls night out. We went to this amazing place called CREATE where you can pick a project and create it in one night. They supply everything and instruct you on how to do it. True to the spirit of crafting, you are of course welcome to customise to your taste.

I decided to make a memo board. It was something out of my realm of experience and something I knew I could use.

I started off by picking the size of canvas that I wanted to work with. I then painted two coats of white in acrylic paint over the entire canvas. Thankfully, they had craft dryers to helps the paint dry quickly. I then used masking tape to create a 1" thick boarder on the outside and painted the inner portion a bright blue with three coats of acrylic.

Background

Instead of using masking tape to create the checker board boarder, I just painted in the black free hand with a ____ wide paint brush.

Boarder

The next step was to complete the lettering. I decided to try using a rubber stamp. Unfortunately it didn't work very well so I had to go over the letters with a paint brush a few times.

Lettering

I then applied the stars (puffy stickers), painted the clothespins and applied them.

Stickers and Clothespins

And finally I attached the ribbon to hang it on the wall.

Final

The whole project took about two hours.

First Post - Past Quilts

I've been blogging for quite some time but this is my first post on crafting.

Below are a few of the quilting projects that I've completed over the years. There isn't that much detail on them as it's hard to remember all of the exact measurments and amount of fabric but I promise I'll have that detail in my future posts along with pictures of the projects as I make them.

First Quilt

I first learned to quilt by taking a class in the home of a friend of my mom's in January 2006. She had been teaching quilting for a few years and I decided I wanted to try it. I had taken a few sewing classes geared towards clothing in my teen years and liked it but wasn't a big fan of the creating clothes. I thought that quilts would be more to my liking. This quilt is the first ever quilt that I completed in this class. I fell in love with the purple batik and picked the other colours to go with it.



Back of First Quilt



 It took me 5 classes of an hour each to complete it.

 As you can see, I'm a big fan of quilting in the ditch (see glossery)



December 2007


 

 I completed this quilt in December 2007 just in time to make it a gift to my mom for Christmas. To date this is the only full size quilt that I've completed. I tend to stick to baby quilts as they are usually completed so much quicker and I'm big on instant gratification ;-)



The next few quilts are all in the same pattern as my first quilt and were made for friends who had babies.



2006 - Jaxon



2009 - William


 

2009 - Samual



2009 - Jaia