Ikea Pello Quilt - VOILA!

Last night I finished my first quilt. I am so proud, so happy and so pleased with my very own, handmade quilt.

This pile of Nostalgia charm squares...

... has turned in to this beautiful quilt.

It measures 180 cm x 60 cm/70" x 24"

I used 64 charm squares (12.5 cm/5" squares)

The fabric is a mix of 30 different Nostalgia prints bought from www.cottonpatch.co.uk. I quilted it with straight lines parallel with the patchwork seams.

I decided to back the quilt with navy blue fleece fabric as this is for the Ikea chair Pello. The fleece helps it to stay on the chair instead of gliding off. I used basting spray to put all the quilt layers together. It was REALLY convinient and straight forward I must say. A bit expensive maybe but I hope my spray bottle will last a while.

The greatest challange was the binding (as I expected) but I did really well I have to say. At least on the front side. I attached the binding on the backside and folded it over to the front and then I machine sew it as close to the edge as I could on the front side. A lot of concentration involved in this part of teh work...

The back shows a great amount of flaws, wiggly stitches like a serpentine road but who looks at the back? I will probably try a different way of doing this next time though. Any tips on other ways of doing this without having to hand stitch the binding?

And the ugly Ikea Pello chair has now turned into a beauty. And Charlie stayed on top of my quilt all night and even had a big sleep in. He didn't move until about 10 am (he nromally rushes out for a pee when I get up at 6 am). That most be a sign that this quilt already is loved.

And look at this. Yes! The Doctor has said that 10 minutes of crochet a day now is allowed. I am back together with my hook. Yeeeeahhhhyyy! I haven't touched my crochet hook in 7 weeks!!! And this vintage baby blanket will soon be ready for the baby who now is almost 2 months old. I am sure he will love this blanket the day it is ready to be his.

Ciao!

High on vintage fabric :D!

I have discovered the amazingly seductive, beautifulistic, fab-fantastic, breath taking, delirious (Wikipedia: Delirium - acute confusional state) developing and just absolutely adorable world of vintage bed sheets and fabrics. Oh mY gOd!

Photo: Sweet Jessie.

I just can't get enough of it. It is like having sweets and when you have the sweet bowl in front of you, you just can't stop eating out of it. Not even when you are starting to feel sick of all the sweetness. You just continue and continue and continue...

Well, I guess I did discover it some time ago over at Rosehip (who by far is one of my greatest sources of inspiration), but I didn't really know where to search for more information on where to find the typical vintage styled fabric.

But then one day I just accidentally bumped in to a community of vintage sheet recycling people in the blog world and Flickr and one click just led to another goody bag of pleasure.

More, more, more - give me more!

Photos: Pins & Thimbles.

And I have found some BeAUtiFuL vintage fabric on ETSY and I am buying some. Because I want some vintage fabric in my life. I want a lot!

Photo: Craftyblossom.

I've never seen anything more beautiful and happy. I am just luuuuuuuuuving this. High on vintage fabric... oh my, I will never fall asleep tonight...

Ciao!

PS I have found these pictures a bit here and there in the blog world. And right now in all the excitement I am not sure where, but I'll do my best to update later with links to photos owners.

Online basic quilt course

Photo: Make and takes

Perfect. I have found a basic quilting course online - for free. Check it out you too if you are an aspiring quilter like me. See below:

"The very talented Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter are here (Make and takes) to help guide us as we make a Basic Patchwork Quilt. We’re breaking it down step by step! So come back each Tuesday to see how she puts it all together, from basic quilting supplies, choosing your fabric, cutting, sewing, and binding your quilt."

Machine quilting

I am machine quilting...

Fruit box doll bed

Found these at the grocery shop. They are regular light weight wooden fruit boxes.

I decided to make a doll bed for my Scrappy Doll Quilt. I glued them together with wood glue, bottom to bottom, and left them with books on for pressure to dry over night.

Next day I put a layer of base paint on. Emmy later choose a bright blue colour for it...

And VOILA! Fruit box doll bed is finished. And Emmy's "DoDo" is in it sleeping. ZZZZzzzzzZZZzzzzz.

Sitting. With the Scrappy Doll Quilt.

And Emmy is very happy.

PS This project can be done with cardboard fruitboxes as well. Let the imagination flow and you can make a lot by recycling stuff. Like the IKEA stove I did about a year ago. Have fun.

Ciao!

Scrappy doll quilt

I found this in my attic. Outgrown dresses, shirts, boxer shorts and other left over clothing.

Inspired by this post, I started to strip and cut the clothes apart...

... to make scrappy fabric strips.

I made a "quilt sandwich" out of a couple of old pillow cases and then I started to quilt. Fun and quite easy actually.

All pieces measures about 2 inches long or wide, sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more. They are square and rectangular ones.

When Finished with the quilt top I realized that the batting/wadding I had used were way to thick (I had it in a drawer from a project I did years ago), so I decided to sew the edges down to take away the "puffy-ness".  I am very pleased with the result even though it took lots of thread and some extra time to finish.

And then I started the binding. Interesting (read frustrating, tearing my hair, cursing and grinding my teeth...) experience involving a number of trials before I got it somehow right... Big challange. I think I unravelled the whole binding at least twice and the corner three times before I got it right.

And so VOILA! All done. My doll quilt is finished. This is the front.

And this is the back.

The binding in close up (it is okay isn't it?). I attached it to the back, folded it over and machine sewed it on from the front, as close to the edge I could.

A perfect first project where making mistakes not has to be a big thing. More a practising experience, learning A LOT!!! And I think it is darn cute! My scrappy doll quilt!

Ciao!

Toilet roll crafts

This is good fun! A crafty hour with the kids resulted in these cool toilet roll creatures. We just took what we had and made it simple and cheerful but these can be alternated in a million ways and get really really pretty. Inspired by Attic24 (who of course made them with crocheted clothing) and Teawagon.

My favorite. Papa Jay made by Emmy.

Flea market in L'Isle

Last weekend Jay came home from a bicycle ride to inform me he had seen a great big flea market only 15 minutes from our home. I instantly jumped in the car to go and check it out. It was located in the beautiful village L'Isle (pronounce it Lil) right by the river and here in the French speaking part of Switzerland they call the flea markets Brocante.

See how pretty that is.

The Brocante was under the theme Vintage, Collectibles and Antiques. I should have taken a picture of the poster but with short time on my hands I got carried away and just went in there.

It must have been at least 80 stands lined up in the big parc area by the water.

I found a bunch of vintage bed linen that I thought could come in handy in my process of learning how to quilt. 20 dollars for the whole bunch.

And a bag of embroidery wool yarn (DK weight) that originally was for a beautiful embroidery picture. I brought the whole lot with me home for only 10 dollars, leaving the embroidery picture by the stand as I don't really do needle point. I see a granny square project coming on sometime in the faaaaar future with these beautiful autumn colours. A bit bitter sweet as I would love to make a square right now but I just got to wait a bit longer.

And then I found this one. Actually they had another one that I really wanted but someone bought it when I got distracted by the neighbour stand (bummer!). But this one is also great. I love my new sewing chest (is that what you call it?). It is a little bit beat up right now but I can fix it up.

I love the many drawers that comes out and the little pouch underneath. And the best part... Only 20 dollars. The other one that was slightly bigger was 50 dollars so I am very pleased with my bargain. I wish I had bought more... It was a great flea market visit.

Kärlek
Annette