Showing posts with label Me & My Girl Designs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Me & My Girl Designs. Show all posts

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Sunday, March 29, 2020

One Monthly Goal For March ~ Finished!






This was the fabric pull for a very fun to design and make pillow.



This pillow cover was designed by my daughter 
and sewn by me an together we created this
 Free-For-Personal-Use-Only-Pattern ... 

from  

I have also posted a series of 


Thanks to all who have followed along on my Star Wars quilty journey.

Thanks to 
for helping me with my goal setting this year. 

May your quilty place be your refuge
 and may you and yours be well. 

<3 

Saturday, March 28, 2020

My DrEAMi Moment for March





The squirrels outside have been enjoying an early spring here 
and have been chasing each other up and down and all around
the trees in our backyard.
My indoor quilty kitties have spent hours watching
squirrel-vision out the windows. 

The quilty ideas have been squirreling around with my quilty muse.

I know you have seen a lot of this little guy on my blog this month,
but he is getting a few more posts.

On review, I realized he was very much my
  "Drop Everything and Make it" project of the month.


sitting on my cutting table 
with a squirrel running around in my head to 
make them into a pillow to send to My Girl.

It feels like a long time since I visited her last December and
have been feeling far away from my daughter
who is feeling far away from family
while my SIL is serving his country overseas
and wanted to do something with her. 


Somehow this lead to our writing a quilt block pattern together and

was created.



I see porgs and droids and yoda in that basket but no squirrels,
There are no squirrels in Star Wars, I guess.
Star Wars needs a squirrel critter ... maybe next series? 


I have squirreled off topic.

This is a Free-For-Personal-Use-Only-Pattern


I have also posted a series of 


~ ~ ~ 

I am also giving my February DrEAMi! Moment another smile... 

Life in the Scrapatch made this Sweet Lily Cushion


Thank you, 
for hosting and posting.

I hope to see you joining us in the Linky Part this month.

Be well and safe <3 

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Bone Broth for the Little One ~ Part 5 ~ The Finish!


Time to bind and complete the pillow!

Bone Broth For the Little One ~ Part 5 ~ 
Binding and Finishing The Pillow Cover


This is the last part of he series on how to make the
Bone Broth For the Little One Block and sew it into a Pillow Cover. 

Here are links to the other parts of this tutorial: 



At the end of Part 4 the front and back pillow panels were completed.

This panels need to squared and trimmed with your ruler to 18.5" square.
They must be the exact same size to place one on top of the other 
and bound together to be bound.
They need to be sandwiched with fusible fleece facing the inside
and the front and back of the block facing outward.

Here is a good video showing one way to bind a quilted pillow: 


Please watch this video if you have never bound a quilt before
as I will refer to it later for specific details of the process. 

My personal method is somewhat different.
As I have said, find what works best for you in your sewing place. 

This method machine stitches the strips to the front of the pillow 
and hand stitches the binding closed on the back.


I auditioned several binding fabrics and decided on this gray metallic print.
Al that was left in my stash were these two pieces.


The larger one, which was less than a fat quarter yielded enough strips
for my pillow binding.
I cut my binding strips 2.5" wide.

I sewed these five strips into one continuous strip
and pressed in half leaving a 1/4" inch single layer on the edge I will sew to my pillow,
leaving about a six inch strip of fabric at the beginning and ending.
Watch the video to de-mystify this process.


In this photo I have drawn a line to show this quarter inch and my stitching line. 
I find this reduces the bulk in the binding a little and makes it easier to fold to the back.


When I reach a corner I stop 1/4" from the edge and backstitch off the top edge.
Then I turn the corner and fold the fabric to form the corner and reposition the needle
and continue on the next side.
The video link above is very helpful in showing this step. 


This is how I close my binding.
I do not sew diagonal seams when binding.
I fold my opening and closing ends back and finger press a 1/2" seam where they meet.


I pin straight across.


Then I stitch the ends closed.


Then I stitch the opening closed and turn my binding to the back of the pillow
and prepare to hand stitch.


I use plastic binding clips  to secure this fold before stitching.
quilty kitties think binding clips are a fun toy.


Here is the front of my pillow clipped.


Here is the back, starting to hand stitch the binding.


My new favorite kind of binding needles are
Tulip Short Sashiko Needles
These are very strong and feel comfortable in my hand. 
I used to sometimes bend regular sewing needles while binding.
These do not bend. 


This is a close up.
This is called a "blind hem stitch." 


Here is a handy chart showing different kinds of hand stitches.


I use a


to tuck in my corners to make them neat.


This is another fun quilty kitty toy.
My quilty kitties and I had fun with this project.


I actually love to hand stitch a binding closed.
One of my favorite moments in quilting is taking that last small stitch, knotting off,
and turning my quilted project over to see the front of my ...


 ... new finish!  Sew exciting!

If you would prefer to machine bind your pillow,
there are many tutorials and videos on the quilty net to show you how to do so.

I have a tutorial for adding a two color machine binding ...



Two Fabric Flanged Machine Binding Tutorial
This is my personal favorite machine binding method.

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial series for making this quilted pillow cover.

Please let me know is you have questions or feedback to
scrapatches @ gmail.com


May you soon have a cute "Bone Broth for the Little One" pillow in your Star Wars corner.

If you make  this project, me and My Girl would love to see it!




Sunday, March 22, 2020

Baby Yoda Pattern Series & Tutorial Update


I have opened a page in the green toolbar at the top of my blog for the 



and also added an image to my sidebar for easy reference.


Bone Broth for the Little One 
~ Part 4 ~ 
Making the Back Panel for the Pillow Cover

will be posted soon.



Saturday, March 21, 2020

Bone Broth for the Little One Tutorials ~ Part 3 ~ Quilting the Applique Block


This is my pillow top panel ready to add to my pillow cover.



The Finished Pillow was posted Here

There are two types of quilting here,
both stitched on my regular sewing machine
with the built in walking foot on my Janome 6600p.
Most sewing machines do not have this built in and it is a separate attachment.


If you have a walking foot it looks something like this.
It is also called and even feet foot.
What it does is work together with the regular feed dogs under the fabric
 to help pull heavy fabrics or a quilt sandwich evenly under the needle.

Here is a beginner video of how this works

I actually quilted my first quilts without the benefit of this
attachment even though I had one.
One day, I found it tucked into the foam padding in the bottom of the box
 of my old basic Brother sewing machine.
It is very helpful.
If you have never used or do not have this foot, give it a quilty try.



I added Pellon fusible fleece to the back of my 18" applique block
to stabilize it.  I did not add a back layer of fabric as with a traditional quilt sandwich
as the fleece backed block moves easily with my feed dogs.
You may want to add square of cotton to the back of your fused block.
If you add the back layer of fabric,  a few safety pins would hold it in place, if you want.
I do not add safety pins to my quilt sandwich ... personal preference.
Most things in quilting are personal preferences.
Find what works for you in your happy quilty place.


I started by adding a round of outline quilting about 1/2" way from the
blanket stitch edge of my applique.


I continued added rounds of ripple quilting.


I started my rounds of quilting in a different place along the bottom edge of my applique shape and overlapped the stitches to stop.

I always pull my bobbin thread to the top when I start a quilting line.

Here is a How-to video ~ Pulling Up the Bobbin Thread

This helps avoid thread nests on the back of your quilting.

I actually also do this whenever I start my applique stitching
and any time I start stitching in the middle of my top fabric.




I added ripple quilting out to the edge of my oversized block.


Here is the back fusible fleece showing this quilting.


I could have used this as my pillow top, but we decided make the center a 12" finished block.
We auditioned border fabric and decided on the basketweave for visual interest.

I did not cut my block to 12.5"



I measured a 12" center and added the outer border on top of my quilted block.
This is not the usual way of adding borders to a block or quilt
but in this case it worked for me.


This is my 18" block with the borders added.


The I quilted straight lines about 1/2" apart in the borders from edge to edge.


This created a grid in the corners of my finished quilting.

This is my pillow top ready to be go into my pillow cover.



Bone Broth for the Little One ~ Part 4 ~ Making the Pillow Back
should be posted tomorrow.

Here are the other links in the series: 

 Part 1 ~ Gathering Supplies and Getting Started

Part 2 ~ The Fine Details of the Applique ~ Click Here


More Quilting Ideas

These are similar quilting motifs that are easily done on a regular sewing machine 
with a walking foot ...


Outline quilting on the applique blocks of this
This is an example of my earliest efforts to quilt my quilts.
  To do this I outline the shape and then echo this stitch line with filler lines within the block which helps to make the applique shape stand out.

Similar to outline and echo quilting is a while quilt method of stitching ... 




I used my walking foot and started by making a circle around the eye of the eagle 
and continued to quilt expanding circles around the center outward.

I hope my readers find this series of posts helpful.

Thank you for following along on my quilty journey!