UFO: Busy Stripes Quilt

I have no idea why this little quilt has been sitting in my UFO box for two and a half years.  A little stitching in the ditch, a little binding and it will be all set to go to a little fellow I know who will love to snuggle under its flannelly goodness. 

It's about the process

The project started because I had been in the hospital and a nurse, who was expecting a baby before long, had been extra kind to me.  Before I even got home I knew that I wanted to make the super-soft patchwork-bound blanket from Weekend Sewing for Baby C.  As soon as I was feeling up to it, I headed down to the fabric store and bought a length of beautifully soft wool/cashmere blend, and fearlessly tossed it in the washing machine to felt it.  The results were amazing, dense and plush and warm, exactly what I'd had in mind.

I cut the two pieces, but not carefully, and the blanket ended up being an inch short on all four sides because of it.  The blanket-construction and decorative zig-zagging went well -- a pleasant surprise for me because the other times I've made this blanket I've botched those.  Then I sat down with my bins of fabric to start creating the patchwork binding strips.

It was so hard to decide!  I wanted to use all of my favorites -- it took a long time to narrow it down.  Finally I worked out my patchwork panel.

 

 

I really like this method of making binding -- it leaves so much room for interpretation and creativity.  Here are the finished strips, ready to sew on the blanket:

Here is the bound blanket -- it doesn't look too bad, although the binding is not sewn on perfectly and there was some difficulty sewing through the thicker parts where the binding overlapped (this was done before my Kenmore came home.)

Had I left well enough alone, I think the blanket would have been gift-able.  But because I knew the baby's name, I wanted to personalize it.  This is where I ran into trouble.  

Because I bought the wrong kind of interfacing (Wonder Under instead of single-sided fusible) I had to cut out the 'C' three times before I accepted the fact that I was going to have to fuse the thing on in one layer and machine-applique instead of stitching the letter to the fusible, turning the thing inside-out, ironing it on the blanket and doing a decorative stitch by hand.  Enter the dreaded zig-zag stitch.  Although I tested it on a scrap and thought I had it right, I accidentally set it too wide and too short, making for a very sloppy stitching line around the 'C.'  Hoping to disguise my messy work, I satin-stitched an edging around the letter with an embroidery needle and pearl cotton.  You can see the result below:

So I'm not at all sure what to do about this.  Give it away?  Cut it up for scraps?  Make another one with the fabric I have left over?  The truth is that I don't like it very much.

Thoughts?

In the works

I have way, way, way too many projects in the works these days, and I have been admonished several times by my daughter to stop buying new craft supplies until I have used up some of my existing ones. I have only been bringing home thrifted/foraged/secondhand materials with the exception of some wool sewing yarn, but it does add up.

So this weekend I finished two felted wool baby blankets, which I plan to send to a therapist friend who treats women with postpartum depression and likes to give handmade gifts to her patients who deliver. I hope she likes them, because I could happily supply her with many more! I'll tuck a few cashmere bunnies in the package for good measure.

Projects I'm working on include:

• A hand-sewn felted wool blanket done in 5" squares, truly beautiful!
• A "cobbled" felted wool pullover sweater -- more on this later
• A huge tied quilt made entirely of thrifted pillowcases and backed with a thrifted bedsheet
• Finishing up the second edition of the beach blanket
• A new pattern for pajama pants that I hope will fit me better but that I'm a little afraid of
• My alpaca sweater
• Various things I won't mention because they're perpetual works in progress

Not to mention trying to keep the mess in order and finish decorating!

Felted wool baby blanket

Where does the time go? I've been sewing up a storm and have many projects to show you, some of which are in the washing machine right now so can't be photographed, but here's the latest sort-of triumph: A felted wool baby blanket with a soft fluffy flannel backing, another project from Betz White's Warm Fuzzies. Here's a picture of the work in progress, where I'm trying to decide which color thread to use for embellishment. (In case you were wondering, I went with the blue. It's a little hard to see in the picture of the finished product, which I will feature on the next entry.

I really like the color combination, but I was unhappy with the finishing touches, not shown here. The edge-stitching looks relatively even on the front, but messy on the back, which happens to me a lot in projects like this, and I just can't seem to figure out how to fix this problem. I think possibly I rush too much at the end because I'm so excited to see the project finished, and that taking my time would result in a neater completion.

Anyway, the cat likes it, and it's soft enough and fluffy enough that perhaps some baby will too.

Something old, something new

K cuddles on the couch with the completed cashmere baby blanket:

It may be kind of tricky getting her to give this one away!

The blanket is far from perfect but it is done as neatly and carefully as I know how and it is made with much love, and I am going to try to keep those things in mind and hold my head high when I present it to the recipient's mother.

Things I learned while working on this project:

• If you take a picture of your layout to help you remember it when you're sewing your blocks together, refer to it when sewing your blocks together. Observant readers will see that my finished blanket does not quite look like the one in the previous post. Oops!
• When working with stretchy fabrics, be careful not to let them stretch out of shape as you sew. Lowering the tension and extending the stitch length can help, but going slowly and carefully is most important.
• It's okay to start over. My work got stretched beyond recognition and I ended up cutting cutting around the outer edges and re-sewing the top to the backing. I'm glad I did, because now the edges have a much cleaner finish.
  
• Using a walking foot seems like a good idea to feed multiple layers of stretchy fabric through the machine, but it is not; things just get too slippery. Use a regular foot and see above.
• Fusible web is nothing short of a miracle. If you have ever been afraid of applique, this stuff will get you over your fear in the 10-15 seconds it takes to fuse your first piece of fabric. I always told myself that I preferred not to embellish, that I liked my work plain, but let's be honest, who was I kidding?
  

I can't think of a project that I've enjoyed working on as much as this one. There will definitely be more to follow.

Note to myself

I've finally found the time to start working on the cashmere baby blanket. I love, love, love these colors and am pleased with this arrangement, so here's a picture to remind me of how I want the blanket to look, just in case things get turned around in production. Stay tuned for further stages (maybe) and a photo of the final project (definitely.)

(Below is another arrangement I played with for a while. In a way it's more balanced but I just don't find the look as pleasing as the one above. Feel free to weigh in -- I have lots more blankets like this one to make so I'm coveting advice -- but I think I'm going to start sewing the blanket as shown in the first picture.)

Soft and fluffy

Meet the newest additions to the cashmere collection!

These fluffy bunnies are courtesy of Betz White's tutorial, and they are even more fun and satisfying to make than the baby hats. I especially like the cables that give the white bunny a bit of extra character, and the zingy Amy Butler fabric on the pink bunny's ears. More bunnies will certainly follow, and I imagine there could be other critters made from cashmere as well. What would you like to see?

I'm thinking that this red hat with the big stretchy cuff will make a cozy Christmas present for some little one's melon come December. So unbelievably soft!
I have so many projects in the works -- including a quilt that must be finished immediately, the recipient has been waiting months for it -- but I want to get started on the luxe cashmere throws right away. My stash of pink, blue, purple and green sweaters is screaming to be made into a heavenly baby blanket. I really need to focus and get some work done on the old so I can move on to the new. Patience! Diligence! Onward and upward!

Cashmere!

What could be more perfect to warm a brand new baby head than a cashmere sweater, washed and dried until it's extra soft and fuzzy, sewn into a tiny tasseled hat?

The pattern comes from Sewing Green by Betz White, and I modified it a bit by hand-sewing the tassels on (way easier for me than the machine-sewing method she outlines), folding up a double cuff and hand-stitching it in place.

I was so lucky to find this fine-gauge sweater with the baby cables, providing enough material to make two sweet little hats. I've been thrifting avidly for the last few weeks, scavenging unbelievably cheap cashmere sweaters (the kind that go for $100+ in retail stores and catalogs) -- sometimes paying as little as $1 apiece. I have about 30 sweaters now, dismantled and ready to become luxurious cashmere throws -- another Sewing Green project. What a joy to work with, and what a joy to give!