Crackpot Quilters’ Blog

by Nancy

I’m very happy to report that Gabe turned 1 yesterday, and his quilt arrived on the same day! I’m very pleased that I got it done and there on his actual birthday – that doesn’t happen to me all the time! He and his mom like it a lot.

by Ann

Here is this year’s collection of gift bags for Hungary.

by Ann

Thanks to the Dec., 2009 Quiltmaker, page 20, I have discovered two new techniques for gift bags: one for invisibly stitching up the opening left in the lining for turning the bag, and the second for squaring off the bottom of the bag. To stitch up the opening, you stitch all the way  around both the outer bag fabric and the lining. Then, when you stitch the two together at the top, you leave an opening for turning. “But how to hide the opening?” you ask? Simple – just top stitch around the top after you turn the bag!

The technique for squaring off the bottom is a bit more complex, and I haven’t tried it yet. It requires that the front and back of the bag and the lining be made from two pieces of fabric, so that there are two side seams on both the outer bag and the lining. Before stitching anything together, you cut a 2″ (or larger or smaller, depending on the size of the gift) square out of the bottom two corners of both the front and back pieces. Then you sew the front and back together along the bottom straight edge. Then you square it off somehow and stitch it. Obviously that last step is a bit vague, as I have described it. It is clearer in the article. I will try it out after I finish the 6th of the Hungarian gift bags I am making. More news as events warrant.

by Nancy

I got Gabe’s first birthday quilt basted together with the backing and batting and got it quilted yesterday. The quilting is very simple – just a grid pattern which is in the ditch between the 9 patch blocks and continues through the center theme print. It’s clear monofilament thread on the front, so it’s pretty unnoticeable, and light blue to match the backing on the back. I also made the binding. The goal for today is to machine sew the binding to the front so that I can do the hand sewing on the back tomorrow at the Quilting Ladies. Gabe’s birthday is December 18 – nothing like a deadline to get me going!

by Nancy

Here is the completed quilt top for my friends’ son who turns 1 on December 18. I like the thin black border that separates the theme print from the pieced blocks. I’m planning to use the black solid for the binding as well. I was very nervous as I was cutting the theme print because I was cutting it to fit into the 9 patch blocks which I had already made, rather than making the borders to fit the center of a quilt like you usually do. I must have measured and calculated and checked my math five times before I cut! The good thing is that I have a lot of the theme print, so even if I had made a mistake, I could have cut another center. But I got it right – phew! I went out to JoAnn’s this afternoon and bought batting and a blue flannel which matches the water in the theme print for the backing. I briefly considered using Minkee-type microfleece fabric, which needs no batting, for the backing. But I’ve never used it before, and JoAnn’s didn’t have a huge variety of colors, so I stuck with what I know. I think I will try Minkee sometime, though. Has anyone else used it?

by Nancy

I got my January/February ’10 issue of Quiltmaker this week, and it includes this year’s Project Linus quilt. I really like this block! It’s simple yet cute, and would be a great place to use leftovers of bright kid prints. I have our All Together Week Crackpot quilt tops from this summer to send in to Linus (the deadline is February 13) as well as another quilt top to send in to them, and I may make some rows of this block as well. Does anyone who is going to be at our house over Christmas want to make a few blocks some afternoon during their visit? I’ll provide the sewing machine, cutting tools, and fabrics!

I’m slowly making progress on quilting my Card Trick lap quilt. I’m machine quilting in the ditch, which is pretty easy, except for maneuvering the rest of the quilt around when I need to make a turn to follow the card trick pattern, which is not so easy. Maybe I should have just done an all-over grid pattern! Anyway, it’s quite easy for me to ignore the machine quilting in favor of something else more interesting. So, to try to keep myself plugging away at it, I quilt one block each day before working on other things, and at the end of the day I put my walking foot back on and put the monofilament quilting thread in so that it is all ready for quilting the next block the next day. I have 8 of the 20 blocks quilted so far.

Here’s an update on one of the more fun things I am working on:

I’ve been assembling some of the 9 patch blocks that go around the vehicles print for this 1st birthday quilt. Andrew had fun looking through my scraps and stash with me to pick out colors that go with the colors in the vehicles print. It’s pretty bright – maybe I should put a thin black border between the center print and the 9 patch blocks.

Are Crackpots up for NaBloPoMo this year?

Over the last few weeks I’ve been pondering what kind of quilt I’d like to do for my friends’ baby’s 1st birthday in December. I don’t have a lot of time to work on it, so I don’t want it to be too complicated. I found a really cute vehicles print at Field’s during the summer, and I know I want that to be the focus fabric. I think cutting it up will take away too much from this great print, so I plan for a big piece of it to be the center of the quilt. Still, I don’t want that to be all – I want to add some piecing or borders or something. So, I’ve been looking through my various quilt books and patterns looking for ideas. Then, the other day, I was looking at Quiltmaker’s web site (which I don’t think is as good as their old one – less content and too difficult to navigate) and found this pattern. Perfect! Or almost – I do plan to make a few changes. I’m changing the number of 9 patch blocks so that my quilt will be rectangular. I have no idea why, but I strongly prefer rectangular baby quilts over square baby quilts. I also changed the size of the squares within the 9 patches from 2″ that the pattern calls for to 2.5″. I have lots of 2.5″ squares from my scraps and that makes the blocks 6″ rather than 4.5″, which struck me as a little small. And I haven’t planned any outer borders outside for the 9 patch because that wouldn’t be nearly crackpotty enough! I’ll post some pictures as things progress.