Life in the Scrapatch: Hugs & Kisses XO Blog Hop

Showing posts with label Hugs & Kisses XO Blog Hop. Show all posts

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Girl + XO Quilt ~ Ruffled & Finished!

My Girl + XO Quilt is all ruffled and finished!

I took it outside in the waning sunlight for a photo shoot.

I was actually frosty and windy and patches of sun were hard to find ...

but the colors are so vibrant against the snow.

sunlight and shadow.

Here it is inside on my design wall.

Girl + XO Quilt

and Ruffled !

This is my first ruffled binding ever.

I quilted the heart around the XO.

Then I pinned the backing out of the way.

Then I ran a line of quilting on the front 1 inch from the outer edge of the quilt.

Then I finished with straight line quilting within these lines.

This left the edge of the quilt open to make the ruffle.

Ruffles take a lot of strips!

I cut 3" strips and folded and pressed the in half.

My quilt would have needed 6 regular binding strips

and I used 15 strips for the ruffle.

I folded the ruffle as I sewed the binding to the right side of the quilt.

The backing is still pinned out of the way at this point.

Then I trimmed the batting to 1/2 inch beyond the edge of the front.

Then I unpinned the backing.

... I very carefully folded the ruffle out of the way so I would not cut it ...

and I trimmed the backing to 1" beyond the edge of the front.

Sorry, I forgot to take some pictures of this process.

I pressed the ruffle outward, folding the 1/2" of batting backward.

Then I folded the white backing fabric under and hand sewed it to back of the ruffle.

My quilt is ready for gifting!

Quilty Kitty Approved!

I made this quilt for the

Hugs & Kisses XO Blog Hop

For my blog hop post and pattern details click here!

There will be more lovely XO projects up at midnight tonight EST.

Full Schedule Here

Looking forward to visiting all the beautiful hearts!

I am linking up today with

Link A Finish Friday

and

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?

~ <3 ~

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Hugs and Kisses XO ~ Pieces of My Heart

Hugs and Kisses XO to You!

When Madame Samm announced

this years' Hugs and Kisses theme

and I saw the pretty paper pieced patterns that she and Soma from

Whims and Fancies

had created for us

the image of ...

... an old fashioned fancy heart box

popped into my head.

I knew that I had to make one of these!

So I gathered materials.

The heart box is actually a tin given to me by one year by one of my sons
as a Valentine Day gift that I have been saving to use again.

Lady Katniss was very interested in this project.

Very, very interested!

Teeny tiny pieces!
I down sized the pattern by 50% to fit the top of the heart tin.

Here are my arrow pieces before I cut the paper apart and sewed them together.
I used the traditional method of paper piecing that I was taught, sewing
through the paper pattern and removing the paper afterward.

I am really happy with how my heart came out.
My tin is only 9 inches across so I had to resize the pattern I chose for the top.

My finished heart is only 5 inches across!

I cut it to size for the top of the tin box and cut some batting to pad the top.

Then I looked for some bits and pieces to embellish the top.
These are all little buttons and things I won in giveaways that have been tucked away in my sewing room waiting for the right project.

I cut a heart shaped piece of batting to pad the back of the top
and I echoed stitched around the heart with perle cotton.
I stored the thread and buttons in the tin while I sewed.
Of course, Lady Katniss helped.

I found some pretty fabrics from my stash ...

... and used a sew and flip method to frame the heart.

Some of them I pieced before I sewed them to the heart.

Here is my top before embellishing.

Here is the padded back.
There are three layers of batting at this point ...

... and I added one more when I added the ruffle.

There had to be a ruffle!
This pink gingham fabric is very old thin fabric that was left from a project that I made for My Girl when she was a baby.

I sewed on some lace and ribbon trim that I also found from a long ago and forgotten time and I added the buttons.

I hand sewed pink fabric to cover the back of the heart
before I fixed it to the tin box top.

When I attached the heart to the box, I decided that I wanted it to be removeable
so I used a velcro strip that I had in my stash of supplies.
I glued the scratchy part to the tin with heavy duty double sided sticky tape.
The sticky tape is from a roll that was given to me by the local manufacturer when I was a cub scout leader over twenty years ago and I was looking for donations of supplies. They gave me a big boxful. I am down to the last roll.
Then I hand sewed the soft part to the back of the heart.

Lady Butterfly helped.

This project has been quilty kitty approved.

Pieces of my Heart

Now my tin is filled with treasured pieces of my past
including these small photos of my children when they were young.
My sons are nine and seven years old and my daughter is five in these photos.

Of course, there were two more patterns to make ...

... sew I sewed!

These are the 10.5" of the original patterns.

What to make with these?

Sometimes simplicity is best.

So I framed these blocks with the white swiss dot

that I used as the background fabric for the blocks.

Plans are to use the varigated pink fabric in the "O" Block

that has shades from dark to medium pink for the binding.

What to make for the other side of the quilt?

Girl + Quilt!

Click here to read my post about the pattern details.

The pink and yellow floral fabric in the center plus is my favorite fabric in this quilt.
It reminds me of the roses in the curtains that my mother placed in my room
when I was a little girl.

I am quilting ... quilting ... quilting ...

I quilted organic free style hearts around the XO.
Now I am adding a fill design inside the heart
and I have other quilting plans for the space outside.

I have come down with a sore throat and a winter cold and I am achy and moving slow
so I will not have the quilting done and the binding on for a day or two.