plus quilt tutorial

I've had a few questions about the pattern I used to make my plus quilt top I shared last week, and while the design idea is certainly not unique to my quilt, I didn't follow a pattern per se, but did my own quilty math for the plus size dimensions I wanted.  In case you'd like to make your own baby/lap sized plus quilt, I thought I'd share a quick tutorial with cutting and assembly instructions.

This quilt top will finish at 50" square, making a generous baby quilt or lap sized throw.  I chose to keep the rectangular centers of each plus as one piece, versus the entire quilt being comprised of only squares.

Plus Quilt Tutorial

Please read instructions in full before beginning.

Fabric Requirements
(12) Fat Quarters measuring no less than 18" x 22"
3 yards backing fabric
1/2 yard fabric for binding

Cutting Instructions
From each of (12) fat quarters:

• Cut (5) 3" x 18" strips
• Subcut (3) of the 3" x 18" strips into (2) 8" x 3" strips
• You will need all (72) 8" x 3" strips
• Subcut (2) of the 3" x 18" strips into (6) 3" x 3" squares
• You will need all (144) 3" x 3" squares

Choose (8) of the remaining 7" x 18" pieces of fabric:

• Cut (1) 3" x 18" strip
• Subcut 3" x 18" strip into (1) 5.5" x 3" strip and (3) 3" x 3" squares
• You will need all (8) 5.5" x 3" strips
• You will need all (24) 3" x 3" squares

Assembly Instructions

Once your fabric is cut, you can begin laying out your quilt top.  The majority of your quilt top will consist of whole pluses consisting of (1) 8" x 3" strip and (2) 3" x 3" squares.  There are also variations which are included along the edges of the quilt.  Please see below for a breakdown totaling the number of each plus variation.

65 total 

Consists of (1) 8" x 3" strip and (2) 3" x 3" squares

7 total
Consists of (1) 8" x 3" strip and (1) 3" x 3" square



      7 total
      Consists of (1) 5.5" x 3" strip and (2) 3" x 3" squares

   
      1 total
     Consists of (1) 5.5" strip and 1" 3" x 3" square


single 3" square:  16 total



Use the above photo to help layout your quilt top.  Once you are happy with the layout, begin sewing each row together, taking care to keep all strips and squares in the  correct position.  I find it helpful to sew one complete row and place it back on my design wall to keep things from getting out of place.  If you do not have a design wall or somewhere to keep things laid out for a few days while assembling, use post its to number each row to help keep things in order.

Hope this tutorial was helpful!  If you make a plus quilt using this tutorial, I'd love to see it in the SewCraftyJess flickr group!

lovebug

Just wanted to pop in to say Happy Valentines Day!  Our Valentine's Days have become pretty low key, but this year we have our little love bug to share it with!

Photo taken by Melissa Helman Photography

Have I mentioned one of my favorite parts of having a little girl are all the fun clothes and accessories??  And making fun things, like legwarmers and tutus and headbands for her to wear?  Well in case I haven't, or in case you missed it, it definitely is!

When I realized that Nora's 3 month pictures would be taken just in time for February, I immediately decided she needed to have a tutu.  A nice fluffy bright pink one, and a headband to match.  Actually I had made the headband before she was ever born, but when I tried it on as a newborn, it was entirely too big and almost comical, but now 3 months later it seems to fit just right!

The tutu was incredibly easy with the guidance of Pinterest, I seriously wonder how the crafty part of me survived before Pinterest.  I can remember scouring the internet "for that one tutorial I saw, somewhere, a few weeks ago"...and ultimately never finding what I was looking for in the first place.

Anyways, I want to try my hand and sewing some clothes for her, but don't know the first place to start, if you have any suggestions for beginner friendly baby garment sewing, I'd love to hear about them!  In the meantime, have a Happy Valentines Day!

something quilty

Someone alert the media!  Something crazy has been going on in my sewing room, to the tune of finishing a quilt top!  I think my machine was in shock, as I'm sure it has been feeling neglected over the past few months, but it certainly felt great to get behind the wheel and stitch away.

I'm still learning how to fit everything into the day, it's certainly been an adjustment to find a balance between baby, home life, work life and finding time for recreational activities like sewing.  I had been used to having huge chunks of time to sit at the sewing machine and stitch to my hearts content, and that's just not the case anymore.  Instead its more like maybe 15 minutes here and there.  I find myself often avoiding working on a project knowing that I only have those couple of minutes, but I need to learn to take advantage of any time I can, and be okay with the fact that a quilt top may take 2 weeks to put together now instead of 2 days and thats ok.  Oh that pesky learning curve.



Anyways, during naptime yesterday I was able to stitch the last few seams and sneak outside for a hot second to snap some pictures, and good thing I did as we are in the midst of what seems like the gazillionth snow storm of the year!  Although I guess I shouldn't complain, as the eastern part of the state is getting 10 times what we have gotten today!



My mom asked if I could make a quilt for a work friend of hers expecting a little boy.  She gave me free reign on the design and only requested I use blues, greens and grey.  As those colors are huge chunk of my stash, it was fun digging out my favorite aqua, lime and grey prints for this baby quilt.  I really love how the lower volume grey/white prints sort of blend together with the lighter aqua and lime prints and let the bolder prints sort of pop off the background.



This plus layout as been on my "quilts to try" list for sometime now, and I'm happy to report I only needed to unpick one seam for sewing a row together backwards!  This pattern really is timeless, and would look great in any sort of color scheme, so I'll have to keep this in mind for future baby quilts.



If this craptastic weather keeps up and were kept inside, Nora does make a great sewing buddy while Bella makes a great "baby sitter," so perhaps we'll find some time to hole up downstairs and get this quilt finished!

 
of course Bella (the dog) is 100% supervised when near the baby, but she sure does love her "little sister"!

Look mom, no pants!

So before Nora was born, and we found out we were having a girl, its sad to say but one of my first thoughts (after immediately starting to plan her nursery) were all the fun clothes and outfits we I would be able to dress her up in.  I really am impressed at my self control, as I didn't buy much myself, but boy, did our amazing family and friends!  She is now in a size 3-6 months, and we have newborn outfits and 0-3 month outfits that I am packing away with tags on!  

We received so many "outfits" that I was overjoyed at the cuteness factor of at the time, but I quickly learned that about 98% of the time we spent our days in nice and easy to wear cotton or fleece footed sleepers (preferably ones with zippers to make things even easier) and about 2% of the time in complicated "outfits," that while off the charts in the cuteness factor were just not practical for every day wear.

We quickly learned a short list of things that we liked to put her in, and most of those items were ones that made diaper changes as quick as possible, and ones we could quickly change for spit ups and diaper blow outs.  We learned this list did not include: outfits with hoods, outfits that had plain shirts and not onesies, socks weren't high on the list, as I realized I spent half my day putting the socks she kicked off back on her feet, just to name a few.  So again, sleepers (with zippers) were high on the desirable list!



Enter Baby Legs.  Have you heard of these things??  Baby legwarmers.  Need I say more??  The cuteness factor is too much.  I  I had seen a few tutorials while I was scouring Pinterest for things to make before Nora was born, but didn't feel the need to make any.  While we were in Target one day I found the section of womens knee high socks and these legwarmers popped in to mind.  I grabbed a few cute patterns, and when I got home started cutting them up.  There seem to be a gazillion tutorials, I followed this one and actually might make my next batch more like these ones so they are a little more snug in the ankle.



They took about 10 minutes to stitch up the set, and I love them!  Not only are they adorable, she now has "pants" to wear with the 1000 random onesies we have in her dresser!  The hubs is even a fan of these, as he says its "easy access" for diaper changes.  And again, we are all about easy.  I can't tell you the amount of times we've put her pants back on before snapping the onesie closed.  #diaperchangefail.  This just means one less thing to fuss with.  And did I mention the cuteness factor??



We've also worn them under skirts and dresses, because have you tried to wrestle a 3 month old into a pair of tights?  Its for the birds.  I'm now constantly on the lookout for cute cheap knee high socks, if you've seen any, let me know where!

I promise eventually it won't be all baby, all the time around here, but for the meantime, I agree Nora, there is "Snowbody cuter than you!"

Nora by the numbers

I know she's only 3 months old, but this weekend Nora made her first DIY project!  Ok, she may have had a little help with it, but I'm thinking if I start her young she'll be my DIY/sewing buddy for years to come.  I'm already eyeing this Hello Kitty sewing machine, although getting it for her first birthday may be jumping the gun a little bit!



From before she was born, I knew I wanted to make something like this, and had saved a spot on the wall in her nursery for our first joint Pinterest project.  I had pinned this footprint artwork for reference and used it as inspiration for creating Nora's.



As for the how-to's, I used PicMonkey, which I use to edit my blog photos to create the text.  I selected the "design" tab, and selected an 8 x 10 canvas and played around with different fonts and colors until I had a layout I was happy with. Then I saved it as a jpeg file and was able to print my finished page on white cardstock.  I really couldn't be happier with how it turned out, it looks quite professional if I do say so myself!



As for Nora's part, I purchased a pink washable inkpad from Michaels and we went to town covering the bottom of her foot in pink ink and then stamping her footprint onto the cardstock.  I did print a few copies so we had a couple chances to get a good set of prints.  It took about three tries, daddy had the job of holding Nora, and I would guide her foot into place on the cardstock.  Even after three tries we still could only get 4 toes to show up on the right foot, that fifth toe apparently wasn't in an arts and crafts sort of mood.



I am so happy I put this little project together, it looks so nice framed and hanging on her wall, and when the little lady gets older and decides she doesn't want it displayed anymore, it will make a great addition to her baby book to remind us of how tiny those toes were once upon a time.  

Christmas in January

Christmas 2013 may be in the books and packed away in boxes, but I wanted to share the few handmade Christmas gifts I gifted this year.  My sister in law has been hinting that she wanted a Christmas tree skirt like the one I have for about a year now and I decided this Christmas would be the year I pull through and make one for her.  I have been wanting to update the tutorial I put together for it also, so I figured two birds, one stone.  

Pardon the cell phone pictures, I worked up until the last possible second to finish, and pictures were not in the timetable.  I am really happy with how it turned out, I think I like it even more than the one I have!  I had stocked up on a bunch of Christmas fabric last year when they were crazy on sale and picked through my stash for a bunch of bright red, green and aqua holiday fabric.  My sister in law loved it and it looks just perfect snuggled under her tree.

 

As I mentioned, I did spruce up the tutorial for this tree skirt which can be found here, and also now have a printable PDF copy that is available here.  I suppose its never to early to start Christmas sewing for next year!

 In addition to the tree skirt, I also put together two simple patchwork holiday pillows using the same Christmas fabrics.



Nora helped me with these, its never to early to learn how to quilt, right??  Here's an action shot, I think she was helping me decide whether to use an envelope back or a zipper :-)



I think this little girl has a future in sewing, as she was in agreement on the envelope back decision.

And with that, I think Christmas 2013 is a wrap!

looking back, looking forward

Happy 2014!  I realize I may be a ten day(s) late with this post, but better late than never, right?  I wanted to take a few minutes (and words with pretty pictures) to sum up 2013 before jumping head first into 2014, and what better way than with a photo collage of a few of my favorites from the past year.



I definitely slowed my pace this past year, both in blogging, and in churning out finishes, but it seemed to be a pace that was a little more comfortable, and allowed for a little more "real life," and things that weren't quilts or made of fabric...and who am I kidding, allowed for my tired pregnant self to do a lot more vegging on the couch, as I realized I was pregnant for all but 3 months of 2013.

I did finish a few full size quilts, published two patterns (Lucky Square and Ring Toss), churned out a few tutorials and made a whole slew of baby quilts for both my little lady and various friends and family who have also recently had babies, and how could I forget, had a quilt in a book!



On a personal note, 2013 was consumed with this little lady.  From watching her grow and relating her size to various fruits and vegetables as the weeks ticked by, to her arrival in October, it's been all about Nora.  She is the most precious little girl who is loved more than she will ever know.  She's the apple of mommy's eye and already has daddy wrapped around her little finger, and we wouldn't have it any other way.  We already can't believe how big she has gotten, and see changes in her every day.  We love to hear her "talk," and her smile just lights up the room (pause, while I wipe my tears!).  It's amazing to think of where we were last year at this time, not pregnant yet, and not convinced we would ever have a baby, to now, where it feels like she's been part of our lives forever.

As for 2014, it starts with heading back to work in a little over a week.  My sewing time will be extremely limited so I'm being super picky about what I want to work on.  There's no time for projects that I feel just so-so about!  My  brother has actually asked for a quilt, so I'm really excited to dig into that project, and am beginning to look around for "manly" quilt inspiration.  I'm thinking of a plus quilt possibly, as I just saw Brooke's quilt for her brother, and love it to pieces!

I am very excited for what 2014 has in store for us, and if nothing else will share lots of pictures of our gal as she continues to grow entirely fast!  What are your stitchy plans for 2014??