The Carpenter's Daughter Who Quilts

Tag: Don’t Call Me Betsy

Wed. QIP: Mod Gears

Hi, I thought I would give a quick peek at the quilting I started today on my Mod Gears quilt top. Mod Gears is a pattern by Elizabeth Dackson (Don’t Call Me Betsey). I am making it as a baby quilt for a special little boy whose parents love Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Mod Gears

This version of the quilt is to be approximately 56.5 inches square. I chose to add a white border and then I rounded the corners with a dinner plate. With my added borders, my quilt top is approximately 62 inches square.

Close up of a Mod Gears block quilted

I am quilting inside each churn dash and cross section with coordinating thread colors.

Backside of the quilting

I am using white in the bobbin for simplicity and it does set of the overall quilting design nicely. I do not want additional colors taking away from my center name applique work.

Full back view of Mod Gears

My basted backing is smoother than this photo looks. Picking it up and flipping around causes wrinkles. I did get the top centered so the top and bottom last black rows will likely be cut off when finished. I will be making bias binding out of the orange colored grunge fabric used in the cross blocks on the front. I will be hand stitching to finish this binding which is the first I have done in ages. I will be using the Wonder Clips that I won from Scraptastic Tuesday.

I can see that the quilting will take a little longer on this quilt with working around all the churn dashes. It should be neat in the end.

I am linking up this post with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Thank you for stopping by my blog.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

October 7, 2015
Mod Gears Update

Hi, I thought I would give a quick update on my progress with my Mod Gears quilt top.

I have added borders that were not called for in the pattern to add size and interest as I rounded the corners.

I cut 4 inch white strips for my borders and then used a dinner plate to round the corners.

I am going to use the orange fabric as my bias binding. I have not used a bias binding in ages and I certainly have not hand sewn a binding in as many ages. I won the Scraptastic Tuesday’s monthly drawing and have a shipment of 100 Wonder Clips coming in the mail from Massdrop as my prize. They should arrive in time to help with attaching my binding.

This is my striped backing for the quilt. I used all the fabrics from the front except the orange for binding. I appliqued the little boy’s name, Eli John on the back as well. I chose to use a smaller lowercase letter this time around. I remembered seeing a baby quilt online with the name Eli or Elliot on it that was done in the lowercase and it turned out pretty cute.

I use Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 for my appliques. It stays soft and flexible and with it’s two glue layers you can temporarily finger press your pieces down and remove them and move around before you do your final pressing. I just straight stitched close to the edge of the letters.

I am still deciding on how I want to quilt this top. A possible organic wavy serpentine stitch or follow around each churn dash and plus with a 1/4 inch inside borders of blocks??? Either way I hope to get started doing some quilting yet today.

I am linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced, Let’s Bee Social , Needle and Thread Thursday and Crazy Mom Quilts.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

May 28, 2015
Mod Gears Baby Flimsy

Hi, I am sharing today my completed Mod Gears quilt top. It is made from the Mod Gears by Elizabeth Dackson, Don’t Call Me Betsy quilt pattern. It is made for a friend’s new grandson. Both parents ride Harley motorcycles, so I thought the theme and color of the quilt was quite fitting.

It finished at 56 inches square. I am thinking of adding a white border of say 4 inches all around and then rounding the corners. I have seen a quilt on a Pinterest that gave me that idea. I would then need to make a bias binding. I have quite a bit of the orange and red left that can go towards binding and as part of the back design.

I am wanting to applique the baby’s name Eli John to the back as well. I am thinking in a lowercase letters to add interest.

I had no trouble creating these half square triangles. I am still trimming up the batch for the Sea Stars quilt.

I am still learning how to use my new camera. It was pretty slick transferring photos from the camera to the computer by wifi sending them direct to my email accounts. It was great not having to fight with usb cords as this camera only came with a 12 inch cord.

I will be linking up my quilt top finish with Needle and Thread Thursday and Finish It Friday at Crazy Mom’s Quilts.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

May 21, 2015
Fresh Sewing Day: May 1st

Hi, It’s the First of May and on the first of the month we review what we accomplished the month before and share our blog posts over at Lily’s Quilts Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet.

I finished quilting my Old School NFL football jersey print Adding Up Nicely quilt. It is a gift for my 1 year old nephew Casey. I appliqued his name on the back of the quilt.

I dug out of storage one of my oldest flimsies (from 1999), a quilt top for my son. I am working on designing a back for it and will be quilting it in the near future.

I have two quilt tops made from pattern testing for Meadow Mist Designs. A queen size Plus Plus and a twin size Grande Scrappy Tiles.

In the last days of April, I have pulled fabric and cut out all the pieces for three small kid’s quilts. One is a pattern test for Sea Stars for Meadow Mist Designs. The other two are made from patterns I purchased at the end of last year. One is Mod Gears by Don’t Call Me Betsy and the other is WoW-E by Sew Fresh Quilts. You can read more about these quilt projects on my last blog post. All three quilts have a major amount of half square triangles to create.

Last week, I purchased some new fun fabrics, the twenty fat quarters set of Katrina Roccella’s Skopelos fabric line. I am not usually drawn to overly flowerly fabric lines, but this one is quite beautiful and I love all the coordinating prints. The Art Gallery fabrics have such a nice feel to them.

I purchased one new quilt pattern in April. I got Star Crossed by Color Girl Quilts. I purchased Jumping Jacks by Color Girl as well a month or so. I have seen the designer make up versions of her quilts in Skopelos fabric line so that was what sparked my first interest in the fabric. I do have Katrina’s other line of fabric, Indelible to play with yet too.

I also purchased a new clothes pattern. I have not sewn any clothes for my daughter or myself in quite awhile. We have collected some cute new knit fabrics and I found a neat top that does not take a whole lot of fabric. The Spoxxy Top by StitchUponATime.com and it’s sold on Etsy. I purchased a men’s under armor type material shirt on clearance that I am going to upcycle some of the material for the back to go with the jersey knit we have to make this shirt hopefully. I need to rethread my serger as that will make easy work of this pattern and help manage the knits better.

I do have an update on one of the kid’s quilt patterns that I started sewing this week. I got all the half square triangles created for the Mod Gears quilt top. I need to finish pressing and squaring them all up. There is 64 HSTs in this quilt top and I squared up 8 of them so far to do a mockup of the two block versions to show what it is going to look like.

What do you think? Should I put the orange pluses with the gray or with the black gears?

I will be participating in Sew Mama Sew’s May Giveaway Day on May 6th -10th. I am giving away some pretty fabric charm packs and a set of quilt patterns. Be sure to come back then and enter the contest.

I am linking up this post with Lily’s Quilt Fresh Sewing Day, Crazy Mom Quilts, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? and Prairie Sewn Studios’ Crafting Comment Karma.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

May 1, 2015
HST Palooza: 3 Baby Quilts at once

Hi, I am sharing my newest works in progress this week. I am pulling fabrics for 3 baby or kid size quilts. If you are a regular follower, you would know that I am known for making larger quilts when ever possible. I am working on making three special smaller quilts.

I am pattern testing Sea Stars by Meadow Mist Designs and will be making the lap size quilt as my test quilt. It is supposed to finish off at 60 inches square. The blocks finish off at 15 inches and there are lots and lots of half square triangles. I think 192 in this particular quilt size. This will be for a 2 year old girl cousin.

I pulled a set of 5 fat quarters from my stash that I have had since before my 3 year old grandson was born. I purchased some girl and boy fabrics before we knew what the baby was going to be. Our family has 8 boys in a row from 2 months old to 17 years old. It will be fun to play with girly colors for once. I picked my favorite 4 of the five fat quarters. The missing print was an orange with white flowers and it was not bold enough to go with the rest of my fabrics. I found the eight bright solids at our Walmart. They brought fabrics back last year and these fabrics are from Waverly. I was very pleasantly surprised on the quality of these new fabrics. They are $2.97 a yard and I purchased a half yard of each and cut in half to make two fat quarters as I am making a coordinating quilt with the other half pieces.

I am going to make a coordinating WoW-E quilt which is a pattern by Lorna McMahon of Sew Fresh Quilts. This version of the quilt is supposed to finish off at around 41 inches by 52 inches. This quilt takes upwards of 320 half square triangles and half of them are quite tiny. This should be a cute coordinating quilt to go to the 8 month old sister of the 2 year old recipient of the Sea Stars quilt.

To balance out all the girly cuteness, I am making a Mod Gears quilt by Elizabeth Dackson at Don’t Call Me Betsy. This is a really cool modern take on the churn dash and adds a plus block center. I thought it would be great for a special little boy, whose both parents like Harley Davidson motorcycles. There will gray and black gears with the orange and red plus centers. There is 64 half square triangles in this quilt, which is the least of the three quilts and also the largest triangles to make. I am making the throw size quilt which supposed to finish off at 56.5 inches square. This quilt divides up the needed plus blocks between two colors and adds one accent plus. I had the idea to add one Harley print plus block, but I was not able to find any fabrics that were Harley related in my area. I looked on Ebay and a single fat quarter of Harley fabric was going from $13. to $22.00 a piece, so I decided to just use an even amount of red and orange blocks. I purchased enough fabric that I am going to incorporate the little boy’s name on the back of the quilt.

So you can see that I will be really busy sewing and creating half square triangles in numerous sizes and in abundance for my three smaller quilts. Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs wanted the quilt patterns tests turned in by June 17th so I will be starting on the Sea Stars first. I have finished off two other pattern test quilts for her this month, Plus Plus and Grande Scrappy Tiles. I am working on creating backs for both quilts.

I am participating in Sew Mama Sew’s May Giveaway Day during the week of May 6-10th. I am giving away some fabric and patterns so be sure to come back and enter the contest.

I am off to sharpen some pencils and sit with a ruler and mark off the diagonal lines for my half square triangle palooza.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

April 30, 2015