Double Sided Floral Jelly Roll Quilt

Hello friends, as I said at the end of my last post I was going to attempt to add quilting to my repertoire. So I did just that. I’m staying at my maternal grandparent’s house while they are away so I had a lot of sewing space so quilting seemed like the best use of said space.

I decided to start small by using jelly rolls and the jelly roll race. Usually the jelly roll quilts have just a plain colored back, but I couldn’t pick between the Zoey and the Christine jelly rolls so I decided to make both and make it into a double sided quilt.

So lets start.

Firstly, I must report, that despite the simple instructions given by Jenny in the video I managed to fuck up royally on the very first step of making this quilt. I started with the Zoey and a Property Brother’s marathon in my grandparent’s living room.

I laid out my strips,

And proceeded to sew all my strips together, right side to right side on the 45 degree angle. Just, on the wrong 45 degree angle.

This is when I was so proud:

And then this was where I realized I fucked up:

I was kind of devastated to say the least. I kind of abandoned the project and pouted for a few hours about it while watching more HGTV and drinking copious amounts of coffee. I then spent about two and a half hours seam ripping out all the work I had just done, and sewing the strips back together the right way. I then ended up with this strip:

 

I sewed to the point that I had a really long, four strip wide quilt thing before stopping for the night to get some sleep. (I actually did not fall asleep at all that night and decided at around 10 it wasn’t worth faking anymore and went out with my best friend to do Christmas shopping.) Later the next day I sat back down and got back to it.

I was really pleased with the symmetry that my quilt had going for it.

When the quilt top was finished it was 32 strips across and made a perfect square and I love it. It was worth the utter frustration.

It went back to my mom’s house for two days so I didn’t get to start my second jelly roll till Sunday but I got the entire thing put together in one day, like a proper jelly roll race quilt top is supposed to be done.

I sewed the pieces all together into one strip the right way the first time, no fuck ups at all.

I sewed the strips together and cut, folded sewed and cut etc. until,

I had a lovely, 32 strip, perfect square quilt top. I laid the two side by side to see how they look together and I am in love.

 

I need to decide if the stripes will run the same way on both sides or not, I need to buy batting to go between them and I need to buy a nice cream colored fabric to become the quilt binding. I’m probably not going to put on an additional border or anything onto the quilt beside the binding because even if it’s kind of a small quilt I really like that it’s a perfect square.

And I’m pleased to report that even with the wasted thread from my first mess up, and having to rewind my bobbin about 4 times, I didn’t even use an entire spool of thread. There is barely enough thread left on my spool to use for any project ever, but that’s irrelevant because I made two quilt tops with one spool of thread. This leaves me two whole spools (because I bought 3 before I started) to use for quilting and for another project down the line.

Alright, I don’t know when my next post will be or what it will be regarding but keep on the look out friends.

Cheers.

Summer Seamstress Work Part Four

Today I ran about a little bit with my cousins, first in the morning to go to the farmer’s market and to get coffee and in the evening for dinner. So my sewing time was a little shorter then it had been the other days. However, I did still manage to get an entire tote bag finished today! The fabric is very Vera Bradley inspired and my cousin has one of her bags in pink and orange tones but she wanted another large one for just general travel things.

 

So firstly this is what the fabric looked like. The polka dot pattern was what was on the other side. Now take note, this fabric came already quilted and batted, so it’s not only sturdy but also rather thick. This will be a factor later on in the sewing process that left me with a sore thumb nail.

 

 

This is a drawing that my cousin did to show me what she wanted the tote to look like. It was pretty easy to suss out how to make it I think.

So first things I did was I trimmed of the extra fabric so that the bag would be the right size and that I would have fabric to make straps out of. So I was basically left with a large rectangle. Then from the trimmed fabric I cut a smaller rectangle, hemmed the sides and then sewed three sides down onto the outer fabric to make a nice pocket. The print partially matches up so that makes me happy, even though that gets obscured later by the straps. Next I stitched down on the top edge and bottom edge of the back going all the way across that pretty ribbon. My cousin had been holding onto it for a long time.

Next I made the strap and for some reason my pictures of that process did not save. Basically I cut a bunch of strips the correct width and sewed them together at the ends to create one giant strip. Then I folded it in half (right sides together) and sewed down the long raw edge. Then came the painful act of turning the whole strap inside out so that the stitching was on the inside and the strap fabric matched the outside of the bag. This took forever. Not even kidding. Nearly three and a half hours later I had successfully turned the strap. Part of why this was so difficult was because the fabric was quilted and therefore three layers thick. It was also well over a yard in length. Somehow during the turning process I jammed my right thumb nail in some way because now the whole nail is pink and tender. However, I conquered the strap and then sewed both ends together to form a big loop. The loop was then pinned down onto the rectangle and sewn on.

The sides of the bag didn’t get sewn up until the straps were on. Sewing the straps down while the bag was still a flat rectangle is like, 100 times easier then fussing with it after the side seams are done.

Next I had to make the bottom flat. I flattened the corners and sewed a five inch line across the triangle that was formed by flattening the bag this way. I did this to both sides.

 

I then cut the excess fabric corner off to reduce the bulk of the bag.

Once that was done I turned the bag right side out again. As you can see the ribbon is on the top of the bag. It won’t be staying there. for too long.

The lining of the bag was made from an old curtain that my cousin had laying around from one of her aunts. It was almost the perfect size, so I trimmed  it to be the same sized rectangle as the outer bag. Then I repeated the steps that gave the other part of the bag it’s shape. The sewing of the side seams, and the sewing and trimming of the corner.

The lining and the bag then got put together right sides facing one another and pinned. After sewing around the edge and then clipping and trimming the seam allowance the bag was pulled right side out through an opening I left.

Once the bag was turned right-side out the ribbon laid nice and flat just inside the bag along the upper edge. Giving the bag a nice surprising detail along with the embroidery that had already been on the curtain.

 

Aaaaand this is the outside of the finished bag! I’m really pleased with myself, I think it turned out really great and it’s a nice size for travel. I’m going to have to add some kind of closure to the bag tomorrow but my cousin hasn’t specified yet what type she wants. Most likely a button of some kind.

Last thing I wanted to talk about in this post, isn’t this fabric beautiful? I really love it, it’s really bright and light weight and flowy. My cousin got two yards of it for me to take home to make something with when we were making a Joann’s run. It was on sale and it’s to die for. I am really set on making a pleated skirt with it, knife pleats to be exact. However I’m not sure that I have enough fabric to do that, plus I don’ think the fabric is study enough for knife pleats. But wouldn’t that be super badass if I got it to work?

Until next time, cheers!