Crazy Quilt Halloween Door Pillow

I've stitched the seams on my little crazy quilt Halloween door pillow and now it's ready for beads.  Lots of beads!

I plan to finish up on the computer now and have a little stitching time before I go into town for groceries.

I've been keeping myself quite busy lately!  I'm getting ready to teach 3 upcoming Crazy Quilt classes, I'm working on things for the boutique and getting ready for our trip to Galena Illinois over Labor Day weekend.  I can't tell ya'll how much I'm looking forward to that!  Scott and I haven't been able to go to Galena since last Labor Day!

Speaking of the Boutique, I've added a few more new items.  Pretty little Victorian angel ornaments!

These are also available at Etsy!

Crazyquilt Wedding Purse

I did the finishing on my Wedding Purse yesterday.  I had planned on putting it on a purse frame but it's been so long since I did one on a frame....well, I didn't do it right and had to improvise:

My mom has always said that I was resourceful!  I simply ran some chain through the sleeve on each side and then added a snap for closure.  I'm quite pleased with this and will package it up to ship tomorrow.

So now I'm thinking of doing a little something for Halloween!  Stop by to see what's next!

Wedding Purse Almost Done

I only had a little free time yesterday to work on this:

I did a little more silk ribbon work and added some more beading.  As much as I complain about Winter, I really do have more stitching time in the Winter months.  I don't have to take time to water plants, pull weeds, sweep the sidewalk and deck off, change hummingbird feeders and so on.  Oh, I just love Summer!  But I have way more time to stitch and craft in the Winter months.  Of course, Winter is coming and I'll be back to complaining about it the minute it gets here!  LOL!!!

Student Needed!

I would love to have 1 or 2 more students for my September 17th and 18th "Crazy Quilting From Start To Finish" Class.  I live 1/2 way between Chicago and Milwaukee on the Illinois/Wisconsin border!

We'll be making a Crazy Quilt Door Pillow from start to finish.  Class includes:

Sew & Flip method of foundation piecing

Seam Embroidery (including my Waste Canvas technique & Working with Dream A Seam Templates)

Beading and Embellishing

How to finish into a door pillow

Also included for both days are fresh home-baked muffins, my famous homemade cookies and a healthy home made lunch.  Please let me know if you have any special dietary needs.

You will receive work booklets to keep and goody bags to enjoy for your future stitching projects!

We'll have a great time!   There is more information on my my Crazy Quilt Classes here.

Stitching Complete on Cellphone Pouch

I finished stitching up this little cellphone pouch this afternoon:

I don't work in red and black too much but is really is so pretty!  I will get it sewn together and finished up in the next day or so and then I'll share a final photo.

My next project will be almost all white!

Before I Start Beading This......

I thought you would like to see this cellphone pouch now that I have the seams embroidered.  All seams are worked with my Waste Canvas technique:

I plan to do the beading on this later today. 

In other news, it's been really hot here and we've had tons of thunderstorms.  What weird weather!  We went almost all Summer with no rain and now it's one storm after another.  Well, better rain than snow!  We don't have to shovel this!

Crazy Quilt Heart Shaped Door Pillows

I thought I'd share a few more finishes with you before I turn the computer off for today.  I mentioned last week that I was stitching on some Crazy Quilt hearts.  These are little Crazy Quilt Door Knob Pillows:

I'm almost caught up with my finishing for the time being so I'll be able to get back to stitching soon.  If I don't stay on top of my finishing, I find myself a bit overwhelmed.  Finishing is not my favorite part of the process but the stitching doesn't do me or anyone else any good if I don't sew my things into something useable!

For now, I'll go sit on my deck for a bit.  It was a hot one today but with the sun going down, I should be able to enjoy my yard for a little while and still breathe!

Beads On Sale

For all the crazyquilters out there, I thought you'd like to visit Pizazz Beads.  Kay has a lot of great beads on sale that would be perfect for crazyquilting!  Please hop over and check out this fun site!

Crazy Quilt Peacock Purse

How To Assemble A CrazyQuilt - Step 7

There's one final step in finishing a crazy quilt.  We need to hold the front of the quilt to the back of the quilt.  The best way I've found to do this is to sew buttons onto the back:

I simply sew a button on the back of the quilt at every intersection with the exception of where the sleeve is.  My stitches on the front of the quilt are hidden behind the trim.  These buttons also add extra support to the quilt.

I hope you have found this tutorial for finishing a crazy-quilt helpful!  I will have a final presentation of my Marie Antoinette crazy quilt for you next week.  Before I hang it, I want to show a few friends in person.

Be sure to see the entire tutuorial for How To Assemble A Crazy Quilt!

How To Assemble A Crazy Quilt - Steps 3 & 4

Steps 3 and 4 in the Crazy Quilt assembly process are both optional.  In the case of my Marie Antoinette quilt, I wanted to sash my blocks with a pretty pink trim..  This has to be done at this point.  If you choose to use trim to sash your blocks, add that now:

I hand sewed the trim on down the seam lines.

Step 4 - Adding Borders

Again, this step is optional.  If you choose to add borders to your crazyquilt, this is how I do it.

First, you'll have to decide on how wide you want your borders.  I wanted 3 inch borders on this quilt and since I'm using 1/2 seam allowances, I cut my fabric strips 4 inches wide.

There are several ways to sew the borders on but I chose the easiest for this quilt.  I added the side borders first and then did the top and bottom borders.

Lay your first border face down on your quilt.  Line up the edges and pin, pin, pin!

Repeat the process on the other side border.  Now you can sew them down.  If you're wondering how to find your 1/4 inch or 1/2 seam allowance when the markings on your sewing machine are covered up by the foundation fabric, what I do is to measure and mark my seam allowance:

I use an air dissolving pen but you can use a pencil if you'd like.  Mark you seam allowance every 2 inches and keep your marks small.

When you have both the side seams sewn down, remove the pins and press your seams.

Next, pin those first 2 borders down onto the foundation fabric, then add your top & bottom border repeating the process:

Again, remove the pins, press your seams and pin those borders down to the foundation fabric:

Trim any excess border fabric and then top stitch the edge of the border to the foundation fabric.  You just want to sew it down along the outer edge.

At this point, I chose to hand sew more of my trim around the seam where the borders meet the quilt blocks:

If there is anything else you would like to sew on to your quilt, now is the time!

In Step 5 & 6, I will show you how to add a sleeve for hanging and how to add the "pretty" back at the same time.

Be sure to see Steps 1 and 2 of my How To Assemble A Crazy Quilt on my Tutorials Page.

How To Assemble A CrazyQuilt - Step 2

I've completed Step 2 of the assembly process on my Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt.  If there's one coping skill that I've learned with having ADD/ADHD, it's how to break things down into manageable portions!

Assembling any type of quilt can be overwhelming however, when we take the time to look at each step of the process, and focus on only one step at a time, it instantly becomes more "doable".

Step 2

The 2nd step in assembling a crazy quilt is to sew the blocks together.  My crazyquilts are quite heavy due to all the embellishments that I add to them.  To give the quilt stability and to support the weight of the quilt, I sew my quilts down onto yet another foundation.  For this, I use a heavy weight muslin.  This helps to distribute the weight evenly and keeps it from sagging when the quilt is finally hanging on the wall.

So the first part of Step 2 is to sew the blocks vertically into strips:

Again, I leave a 1/2 seam allowance and I also use the Zipper Foot for my sewing machine.  Using the Zipper Foot allows me to get right up to where my beading ends without the pressure foot having to deal with going over the beads along the edge.

So in the case of my Marie quilt, I now have 3 vertical strips consisting of 3 blocks each.  Now we will start sewing it down onto the foundation fabric.

Center the middle strip, right side up, onto your foundation fabric.  Next, line up one of the side strips face down on top of the middle section. 

Pin, pin, pin along the sewing line.  Pin all the layers down onto the foundation fabric.

You will want to pin the opposite side down as well to keep your blocks straight and in place while you sew the first seam.

Now it's time to sew:

When you have everything secured and well pinned, sew that first seam directly down onto the foundation fabric.

When you're done, remove all the pins and flip over your strip:

Repeat the process for each vertical seam making sure to line up your seams and pinning, pinning, pinning!

Once you have your quilt all sewn down to your foundation fabric, make sure everything good and flat.  Pin all the way around the outside of your quilt and then top stitch with your machine along the outside edge.  I use a 1/4 inch seam for this.

This will the hold the entire quilt in place onto your foundation:

So that's it for step 2.  It's really quite easy once you understand how to sew your quilt onto the foundation fabric rather than just sewing the blocks together.

I'll have Step 3 ready soon!  Be sure to see Step 1 of How To Assemble A Crazy Quilt.

Custom Crazyquilting

I had a couple of custom orders that I finished up this week and thought I'd share photos for everyone to enjoy!

First is one of my Crazyquilt Cat Dolls.  The request for a cat doll in seafoam green:

Believe it or not, I don't have a lot of fabrics in seafoam green but at least I had enough for this little kitty doll.  A I don't think there's any color that goes better with seafoam green than pink!

Next, I had a custom order for a cellphone pouch.  The request was for a pouch in pinks, mauves and blue/greens with a hummingbird:

I must say, I think this is one of the prettiest cellphone cases I've made yet!  The trim at the bottom was hand-crocheted by mom.

Ladies, I'll get your orders out in today's mail!  Thank you so much!

How To Assemble A CrazyQuilt - Step 1

Since I'm putting my Marie Antoinette CrazyQuilt together, I thought I would share step by step, the process that I use to assemble my crazyquilts.  I know other crazyquilters have shared their process but I'm sure we all do things a little differently.

How To Assemble A Crazyquilt

Step 1

The first step is to trim and square up the blocks.  I use a self-healing mat and a rotary cutter:

You may be wondering why I have so much extra fabric.  I like to stitch in hoop.  Many crazyquilter's don't but for me, without a hoop, my hand gets tired  Using a hoop also keeps my stitching from distorting the blocks.  The excess foundation fabric is so the block fits in my 12 inch quilters hoop.

I always allow a 1/2 inch seam allowance.  Again, many crazyquilters leave the traditional seam allowance of 1/4 inch. I prefer to leave a 1/2 inch seam for crazyquilts.  The reason for this is due to the variety of fabrics and thicknesses.  A 1/2 seam will lay flat no matter what fabrics are used.

The blocks for my Marie Antoinette quilt are 9 inch blocks.  With a 1/2 inch seam allowance, my blocks are trimmed to 10 inches.

 Now that my blocks are all trimmed up, I will start sewing it together.  Due to the weight of my crazyquilts, I sew my quilts down onto yet another foundation.  I'll show you how in Step 2.

Designer Cellphone Cases

I finally had time to do the finishing on these cellphone cases that I stitched last week:

I don't think I could pick a favorite as I really love them both!  Any cellphone, IPhone or Blackberry Phone will fit in these pouches which measure 6 inches high X 4 inches wide.  They are fully lined with a large snap closure.  My purses and pouches are padded (between the layers) for added protection and stability.  I use iron-on fleece!

I have another style of cellphone cases that I make and I sewed up a few blocks a couple of weeks back.  I'm looking forward to stitching on those.

First, I want to do the finishing on my Marie Antoinette quilt which I plan to start on this weekend.

I guess that's my news for today.  We went from 95 degrees yesterday to 65 degrees today.  I can't believe it's June and I have to keep switching back & forth between my Heat and my A/C!  Isn't this some crazy weather?

Elegant Crazyquilt Seam Treatments - Try Me Patterns

If you've been considering my Elegant Crazyquilt Seam Treatments EBooks, I thought you might enjoy trying a few patterns first.  I worked up 2 charted borders for you to use on your Crazy Quilt seams using Waste Canvas:

If you've done Counted Cross Stitch, you'll know how to work with Waste Canvas.  If you haven't, the basic principle is that one square on the grid = 1 stitch on the Waste Canvas.  It's a matter of counting out your stitches and duplicating them on your Crazy Quilt.  Full directions are available in Volume 1 of my Ebook.

For Crazyquilting, I recommend using 8.5 count or 10 count Waste Canvas.

If you already have my Ebooks, then please, enjoy these new additions to your seam treatment collection!

Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt - 9 Blocks Completed!

I'm pleased to say that I have completed the stitching on all 9 blocks of my Marie Antoinette Crazyquilt!

Block #9

Block #8

Block #7

Block #6

Block #5

Block #4

Block #3

Block #2

 Block #1

Blocks before stitching:

As soon as I get a few other things finished and caught up, I'll start the assembly process on this quilt.  I have everything I need to finish it and I'd like to complete it before I teach my next Crazyquilt class so I can take it with me!