I Spy Baby Quilt in a Day!

This project is do able in a day if you are committed, start early in the day, not nursing a babe and have no interruptions. If that isn't your case, and you're about as ADD as I am then perhaps this will take you a couple of days....in my case two afternoons during nap time :)

I've seen I Spy Quilts in craft fairs before and spotted one I fell in love with a few years ago at the Atomic Craft Bazaar, before I had my second babe. I had no need for it at the time and wasn't about to spend $90 on a blanket.

Then came along Little Bean and I once again remembered the quilt....so I went in search of one....once again unwilling to pay so much for one and then put the desire out of mind. Until last weekend.

My sister came into town and her and my brother in law took my big boy for the weekend, my hubs was sick in bed and the little bean was asleep all day.....so I went through scraps of fabric in my closet and figured I would go for it. Worst case I threw it all in the trash.

So here's what you need:

• One package of craft batting 
• 8"x8" quilting square template, or you can make your own guide for cutting
• Large cutting mat
• 20 assorted pieces of fabric with shapes, colors and patterns
• 1 yard of fabric for the backing
• Rotary cutter
• Iron
• Sewing machine
• A TON of pins
• More patience than Job :)

Let's begin.......

First thing I did was lay out the craft batting and use my square guide to determine how many square to cut. I went with 4 across and 5 down. Then I pulled out fabrics and laid them out on the batting.

Then I cut out the 8x8 square and ironed them flat....laid them out on the batting in the order I wanted them sewn....

Now let's start sewing......Take the first two squares in a row, line them up with right sides touching and be sure the raw edges are flush. Sew them together with a 1/2" SA. Then add the third and fourth pieces until you have the entire row sewn together.

Once you have the row sewn you want to take it to the iron and press your seams flush on the wrong side.

Here are un-pressed seams....

Here are pressed seams....

Sew each of the 5 rows across and them lay them out on the batting again....

Now you are going to repeat the same process but you will be sewing the entire rows together. Place row 1 and row 2 together with right sides touching and edges flush, pin in place if necessary and sew. Repeat this for each row until you have all the rows sewn and one big piece of fabric.

Now flip it wrong side up and press all the seams flat again.....

The TOP piece of your quilt is done!!!! Hooray! We're getting there!

Now line up your top piece with the batting on two sides, you are going to have excess on two of the sides. Pin together the top and the batting and cut off the excess batting.

Now take your backing piece of fabric and iron it out. Place the backing of the quilt right side down and then layer your batting on top and then layer your TOP quilt piece right side up. You should see both patterns on your fabric with the batting in the middle.

Here I lined up the batting and TOP piece to two edges of my backing fabric and used a gazillion of pins all over the quilt to pin everything into place. Be careful not to have wrinkles or bubbles in your fabrics. Take your time and do this slowly, it will pay off in the end.

(On quilting sites I read that many people use safety pins...I just used sewing pins and it worked okay.)

Next thing I did was test out the stitches on my machine. Some machines have a free quilting stitch and a quilting foot. Mine isn't that fancy, but I do have this fun swirl stitch so I took a piece of fabric and some batting and made a small sandwich like my big quilt and tested out the stitch....I did it with the white thread showing and then with the bobbin thread showing....I preferred the bobbin thread to show on the main part of my quilt.

So I used my craft ruler and my chalk marker and measured out 2" sections and marked them with chalk onto the backing of my quilt.

Then I used my swirl stitch and stitched down each one of those lines as my guide.

(This step was the most tedious process, and it did poke my fingers with all those pins everywhere. Now I know why safety pins were used instead!)

When the "quilting" was all done....I trimmed off the excess backing piece and I had a 97% complete quilt.....I read about bias tape, but didn't have enough fabric or patience to make my own so I stopped and went to Wal-Mart and bought 2 packages of white  Double Fold Bias Tape Quilt Binding.

Then added the binding and did an extra swirl stitch on the binding to make it all blend together.                                      

Add a baby..... 

VOILA!!!! I SPY QUILT COMPLETED :) 

Linking up on Tuesday:

   

Heat Transfer Silhouette Onesies

I am in LOVE with the Silhouette SD machine!!!!! Only problem is I don't have one :/ But my good friend just got one as a gift from her husband and was kind enough to bring it over for me to play with.

I seriously love that there are no cartridges like are necessary with the Cricut. Everything runs through your computer and it the actual machine is super lightweight and compact. 

(Only down side is that to transport it you must also carry your computer whereas the Cricut is stand alone.)

SO.... To begin this project I took a plain black one piece romper for my little bean. 

Used the Silhouette to cut out "GOT BOOBS?" onto vinyl heat transfer. 

(Remember when doing this, you have to mirror your image and weed off the negative vinyl.)

I positioned the vinyl where I wanted it, leaving the clear covering in tact, then used the high heat, no steam setting on my iron to iron it onto the onesie.

Finally, put your own little milk monster into the outfit and Voila! Homemade adorable outfit!

Speaking of feedings, think it's time to get him fed!

Repurposing towels

A while ago I posted about my serger envy....well shortly thereafter temptation got the best of me and I went ahead an bought one. Not a really expensive one, but just a simple starter machine from Wal Mart. Figured if I didn't really love it then I would just box it back up and return it without a problem.

Well after a brutal battle with threading the machine, seriously, it was like an hour and half, and the stupid thing is even color coded, I finally was able to get some things sewn on it and see what it can do.

I'm still new to the serger world, so bear with me as it will take some time. And along with awaiting  a new baby in our home some crafty projects are just not going to get done for a while. But here's what has begun....

Baby wipes/washcloths! Super super easy. Some are made of flannel and then I had a couple old baby towels that were stained and didn't look great to use again, but I didn't want to pitch them, so I cut up the good pieces and made the washcloths.

Have a serger and want to make your own. (I suppose you could also do it if you did a zig-zag stitch along the ends of the fabric on a sewing machine as well.)

I cut squares of 8.5" fabric (flannel on one side and cotton on the other)

Laid them together with wrong sides touching each other and ran them through the machine. Finished product was super quick!

Definitely think I am in love with my new gadget!