quilt » B.Yazoo

This is why I should just follow patterns

Mar 212013

I finished a quilt for my cousin — yay! Due to my inability to plan, I think I have enough leftover blocks to make a second quilt — boo!

It’s based on the Juicy quilt from Modern Quilts from the Blogging Universe, but I didn’t follow the directions because I didn’t want to cut and piece 232 triangles. O_o Instead, I used The Sometimes Crafter’s tutorial for making pairs of hourglass blocks and Connecting Threads’ tutorial for making four flying geese blocks with no waste. Those are awesome!

However, I changed too many things at once (I also planned for 8.5″ finished blocks, instead of whatever it is the real pattern calls for), and when I laid everything out, I found out that I could make a queen-sized quilt! I revised my plan — I thought that round about 9 blocks by 7 blocks would be a good lap-sized quilt.

After I sewed the whole top together, I found out that it was now a twin-sized quilt. Dur! I took off two rows to make it a more reasonable 72″-ish square, and in the end, I had all these leftovers.

I busted out my zippity fast Juki to do the quilting, but even though I was sewing in the daytime, I felt bad about how loud it was (plus we live in the upstairs unit of a townhouse), so I only quilted very lightly along the diagonal lines. Then, over the next couple of days, I hand-quilted around the print squares. I normally use just a soft leather thimble, but it was really not up for hand quilting, and it developed holes. I have two black spots in my finger now from when the back of my needle poked through and pushed some of the thimble fibers in! I didn’t want to wait a week for a new thimble from Amazon, so I went to my local craft store to get a coin thimble, where it cost twice as much. Gahhhh!

Some of the light neutrals are Essex linen, and I really like the texture and heavier feel it got after I washed the quilt. If I ever get rich, I’d like to make a quilt all out of Essex linens. Oh, and a quilt out of double gauze and voile, while I’m in wish land.

I made this for my cousin who’s having chemotherapy, since I read that it can get chilly during the sessions. I hope he thinks the green and yellow color scheme is cheery in a guy-ly way!

Fox Quilt, yip yip

Jan 202012

This quilt took longer to finish than I had expected, mainly because I was a procrastinatron. But it’s done now, yay! Except that when I showed it to Mr. Yazoo and my mom, they seemed rather underwhelmed, shucks.

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s from Kajsa Wikman’s cute Scandinavian Stitches. I fmq-ed clouds on the top as she suggested, but I did wavy lines on the bottom instead of stars since it made more sense to me (stars don’t go on the ground, yo).

I free-motioned the birdies, too, but I didn’t trust myself on the fox and outlined that by hand. The fabric for the tree on the very left is actually the wrong side of some quilters’ tweed! I really need to buy more dark value greens.

You know, while I’m making quilts, I think of tons of things I want to write about, but when it’s time to actually post pictures, I forget everything I wanted to say! Anyhoo, I’m linking to Crazy Mom Quilts’ Finish It Up Friday.

Edit: I’m also linking up to From the Blue Chair’s January Slash the Stash because I made this all from my stash! I didn’t have orange fabric for the fox, so I used red and I think it’s close enough. Also, the backing’s pretty funny-looking — I used leftovers from the flannel I used for my dad’s quilt, and I had gotten that really on sale, so it’s not a super attractive print. No one should be looking at the back, anyway! :>

Baby quilt, supahfast!

Dec 072011

This past weekend, we were invited to Mr. Yazoo’s sister’s friend’s son’s first birthday party. :> I’ve been feeling a bit of a pinch since I went kind of crazy with the after-Thanksgiving sales, so I made a superfast quilt (two days!) to go along with a little bit of money for our present.

It’s 40″x50″ because that was the size batting I had left over from my tree pants. I also used more of the same flannel as my dad’s quilt and I pin basted (as opposed to spray basting), so I felt very thrifty. Maybe I should be embarrassed that I’m so thrilled about saving money on a present…

Since the quilt was so simple, I tried to spruce it up a little with more stamping.

I was in a rush, so I machine bound the quilt. It was my first time! I used Crazy Mom Quilts’s terrific method of attaching the binding to the back, first. This way, the front looked tidy and the back wasn’t too bad!

Please excuse my tasteless glee over saving money — I do have a point! :} I was super happy because, using yazoomath, I saved us $60 by making this quilt. Then right after I finished it, I found out about a fantastic sale at Drygoods Design and spent over half of that! >_< But how could I not? It's 40% off your fabric order $40+ with code HOLIDAY40 (through 12/14) PLUS free shipping! Please to enjoy.

Drunkards’ Path, done!

Dec 022011

I fiiiiiiinished! Yay! It was a lot cooler-looking in my head, but Katy said to pretend that you’re blind and your horse has the trots, and it’ll be okay. :>

In this picture, you can see the wonnnnky circle fmq-ing that I tried to hide in my last WIP post. I washed the quilt before I took the picture in the hopes that the crinkles would mask it a little. Oh, but I was happy about my new gardening fmq gloves: $1.20 at the grocery store, and they worked wonderfully!

I forgot to take a close-up picture of the binding, but I had fun with it: in each color chunk, I found a similarly-colored scrap, chopped the chunk, and sewed the scrap in. I was sad that my grey binding strip didn’t make it in — it had the Pac Man ghosties that are also in my dad’s potholders (this quilt is for him).

Thanks, Kate and Kristie for hosting this wonderful quilt-along! This is definitely a block I’ll be coming back to!

Oooh… I’m also linking to Crazy Mom Quilts’s Finish It Up Friday since I really did just finish it. :}

Wonkish Christmas quilt

Oct 142011

I finally finished my little cousin’s Christmas present quilt! Whoopee!

The charms are from a prize package I won a while ago from Quilt Taffy. I’m not usually a huge holiday fabric person, but I really like this one! I think it’s partly because having the blue in with the Christmas colors makes it interesting.

I followed That Girl’s quiltalong instructions, which makes an awesome-sized quilt for just having one charm pack. When I showed it to Mr. Yazoo, he squinted, cocked his head, and asked, “you made it crooked on purpose, right?” O_o I think I didn’t manage to cut my blocks wonky enough, so it kind of just looks like I can’t sew straight! Poooooooooo.

Here’s the back. I really only like flannel quilt backs since they feel so nice, so I don’t normally get to piece anything. That’s why I was proud that instead of buying four yards of the dinosaur flannel, I bought two and used leftovers from other quilts! I know the back doesn’t match the front, but I’m hoping my little cousin will like the dinosaurs more than something that matches.

I only quilted six lines: one between each row. Is that bad? Heh! I thought they kind of looked like Christmas tree lights, but Mr. Yazoo laughed when I told him that.

I made bias binding for the first time — I had red stripy fabric and wanted to make it look like candy canes. I made continuous binding, and with all the marking and pinning and then cutting with scissors, I think it took way longer than it would have if I’d just cut diagonal strips and then sewn them together. I’m pleased with the way it came out, though!

By the way, I think I spent five minutes fiddling with my tube of fabric, trying to figure out how I was supposed to cut the durned thing with my rotary cutter. I only realized that I was supposed to use a scissors because I looked at a youtube video!

I mentioned this the other day, but I had a horrible time sewing the binding down. My machine kept skipping stitches til I cleaned my walking foot and changed the needle and stitch length, so I ended up sewing the binding down three times. Argh. My machine didn’t do this previously; it keeps giving me new and interesting problems to troubleshoot because I don’t have enough projects to work on in my loads of free time. Thanks, Jayne Cobb! I think I must need to buy something and name it Mal so that Jayne stays in line…

I’m linking to Crazy Mom Quilts’ Finish It Up Friday.

Disappearing Nine-Patch

Sep 062011

… not disappearing me! I’m finding it hard to finish as many projects now that I have to be sure to get enough sleep for work. >_<

Anyhoo, I finished a simple disappearing nine-patch quilt for Mr. Yazoo’s friend’s daughter Eden. I was too lazy to think up proper measurements and it didn’t occur to me til I was done that I should have adjusted the sashing widths to make the quilt come out to more normal proportions, so it’s 46″ x 60″. Hah!

I wanted to use my new darning foot to quilt this, so I practiced a little bit before starting. I hate practicing to no purpose, though, and was seriously nodding off quilting my little scraps, so I went ahead and quilted loops and curves on the quilt. That was so fun! It was way more fun than quilting straight lines (although I still do like the look of straight lines), so time really flew. My loops are pretty funny looking, so I hope Eden doesn’t mind.

Koenigskind

Aug 022011

Is done! I bought the Fat Quarterly issue 5 just for this pattern — it’s a wonderful design, and I wanted to make it for my niece as soon as I saw it. Unfortunately, I found the pattern not so much fun to follow. I think the instructions for cutting and piecing the shutters between the arches could have been clearer, and it would have been so much better if there had been pictures for the arch instructions. I’m not sure, but I think the cutting directions for the arches were wasteful; at that point, I was frustrated and did my own thing. Also, why tell me to trim my arch blocks to 12 1/4″ high, but my shutter blocks to 11″ high?

Anyway, on to happier topics… I was happy that the diamonds’ points mostly matched up and that my quilt actually ended at around the target dimensions! I attribute that to my brand new 1/4″ foot, which I now love very much.

Also, I realized that since I generally sew in the middle of the night, I could spray baste my quilt on the enormous sidewalk outside, thus avoiding having to clear the mess off my dining table and then having to clean basting glue off my table when I was done. It was awesome having so much room outside! I basted at 3am, and only one of my neighbors walked past and looked at me like I was a loon.

I used Anna Maria Horner’s Folksy Flannel Village Path for the backing. I remember once reading another blogger describing this flannel (I think) as being as soft as butter, and at the time, I thought, pfft, hyperbole. But it’s true — it’s super duper soft!

The quilt is 44″ x 55″, which hopefully will be long enough for my niece. I’m glad that I was able to finish it in time to link up to Gen X Quilters’ Summer Fair!

Recipe…
I also want to include a recipe for the summer fair: Korean Barbecued hamburgers! They’re super easy to make and taste fantastic with sweet bread rolls (I like tiny hamburgers), mayo, and mustard.

The recipe is from the cookbook A Taste of Aloha, which I picked up used at the library’s bookmobile.

Just a note: I often leave out the green onions because I end up using only half a bunch for the burgers and then forget to find something else to use the rest of the bunch for. >_< The hamburgers still taste good without them! Also, I only do a very rough chop with the onions -- since they're sweet, it's fine to have tons, and I like the crunch.

1/3 c shoyu
3 T sugar
2 T toasted sesame seed
1 T vegetable oil
1/2 c chopped sweet onion
1/3 c minced green onion
1 lb ground beef

Start toasting the sesame seeds (the flavor is much better if you toast them yourself), then cut the onions. Sometime while you’re cutting onions, turn off the sesame seeds so that they don’t burn your fingers when you’re ready to mix everything together. Combine everything and refrigerate for an hour or more. Shape into patties. Grill.

Happy summer fairing!

Log Cabin baby quilt

Jul 152011

At first, I wanted to try making a strip quilt for the second of the baby girl quilts I was making for my aunty’s choices. I had fun cutting a pile of purple and pink fabrics into random-width strips, but then I saw that I had done this:

Before this, I had been really careful about refolding fabric and lining up selvedges prior to cutting it, but this time I thought I could get away with just using the fold line that the fabric came with. I guess not!

Fortunately, I had recently seen Teaginny Design’s awesome Summer Cabin quilt, and gave that a shot instead. Here’s what I ended up with:

I was tickled that my log cabin ended up almost perfectly square, even though I didn’t plan anything!

Crayon Box baby quilt

Jul 152011

My aunty asked me to make a baby girl quilt for her friend, so since I also have a cousin who just had a baby, I decided to make two and let her pick which one she wanted. This is the first one I made: a Crayon Box quilt from Made by Rae’s tutorial.

This was nice and fast! It’s actually the second Crayon Box quilt I’ve made; the first time I made it, I accidentally cut almost enough squares for two quilts, so this time I only had to cut a few extra white squares and sew everything together!

Pinwheel quilt

Jul 152011

This is the quilt I made for my mom’s birthday. It’s the Pinwheel quilt from Emily Cier’s Quilt Remix; I made the crib size for her because she likes her feet to breathe.

I used fusible thingydoo to attach the circles before stitching around the edges, which I think made the red background appear through the white fabric a lot more than it might have without. I used a dice to figure out how far apart to quilt, but then it looked too sparse so I added extra lines in between. I tried having invisible thread on the top and brown cotton thread in the bobbin, but I never got the tension quite right because I could see little brown dots on the quilt top.

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