Rainbow Baby Quilt

So I received a couple comments looking for the quilt pattern that I made for the rainbow quilt I made a year back.

My original pattern

I'm working on creating a downloadable pattern with instructions for it.

Unfortunately, my illustrator CS5 (I am too cheap to rent creative cloud every month) is crashing every-time I try to us my font palettes.

In the meantime while I figure this out....here's what I'm working on..

If anyone knows a work around in illustrator CS5 that would stop my program from crashing it would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Ruth

Rainbows and Hearts

A friend recently asked me to make a baby quilt for a friend of hers.
The theme was rainbows. Well, I have experience making rainbow quilts. That's about all I've done the past few years.

For Example:

Rainbow Quilt for Goose 2011

Rainbow Quilt 2011

The Rainbow Quilt for Goose in 2011 was the pattern I used for Rainbow 2017.

Quilt for E, 2012

Quilt for Big Girl Goose 2014

Big Brother Quilt 2011

Final Quilt. I revised the pattern, turning it into a perfect square, rather than the original rectangle. I also removed the sashes and changed the color pattern.

Pieced backing, I like pieced backings. They feel like two quilts in one. Plus, for a baby quilt,
well, they WILL get puked on. So more pattern to hide stains is a must.

Brain storming in my sketch book.

Final Colors

Final colors and pattern. Note, it changed from here to square.

Cutting and piecing

Four blocks pieced. There was so much bias edging
that I used knit stay tape. That way much less stretching
during sewing.

Fun stuff you guys. Wish I had this in
college. 

I thought a pieced heart would be cute.
But I'm glad I didn't do it. 

Better

Best

So close you guys

Just a little appliqué

Piecing the back. I didn't have enough fabric in a pattern
for the backing, so a pieced backing was the way to go.
Plus, this is a baby quilt, and babies puke.  Several patterns
can disguise stains.

Stretching the quilt before safety-pin basting

One thing I forgot, this quilt was mostly sewn
on bias. So it stretched a lot. 

When started to quilt, well, it would pucker a lot.

I re-sewed my appliqué about four times.

Because of the puckering that happened with my
sewing, (I used a high loft batting to make it super squishy)
I had to do some re-sewing to remove a lot of loft
from the heart circle. Which led to some weird stretching.

The backing. 

This was a fun project. I'm thinking I might make a PDF pattern available on my Etsy. So if someone wanted to make a rainbow quilt, they could.

Till next project.

,Ruth

Shadow-Box Memories.

Some of the thread's I was organizing

This is a small project I did for my mother.  I was going through all her threads (three drawers full) and trying to organize. Well, the last drawer had these antique spools of thread, with wooden spools. My mother told me that they had been her Mothers. So I grabbed as many as I could and brainstormed an idea.

I was thinking a shadowbox of some kind.  So I went through my fabric to find something of Nanny's (My grandmother) I had so many sets of hand embroidered napkins and placemats. I haven't used them because they are antique silk organdy, and they are beautifully made. I couldn't bear to cut them up for something. So for years they've stayed in my cabinet. But I figured, this is what I have them for.

I cut out a small piece that had her monogram. B.S.G. 

I used some of the antique threads, and hand stitched around the monogram to make it stand out. In my Mother's favorite color-green.  I wasn't sure how to keep the spools of thread from falling over. I wanted to make sure they were still usable. So, I thought I would use wooden skewers. But alas, I had none. So then, LIGHTBULB, I found some straws. Yes, striped soda straws for drinks. They were too short to fit in to the shadow box, so I put one inside another until it was long enough. Then I just threaded each wooden spool on the straw until it fit in to the shadow box. The straws were sturdy enough to stand up in it. I spent some time organizing the spools until they were a nice assortment. Then I just took some straight pins and pinned on the monogram.

Voila!!

Shadow Box Memories

Here it is on her gallery shelves. 

, Ruth

Superhero Aprons

My sister earlier this summer asked me about some cute apron ideas for her cooking class. She teaches Family and Consumer Sciences at a high school. She had quite a few old and ripped old aprons she thought we could up-cycle and repair for some neat ones. I found just thousands of cool ideas on Pinterest.

Like these:

The superhero aprons from a designer called Bethanysewandsew.com

http://www.bethanysewandsew.com/p/superheroes.html

http://www.bethanysewandsew.com/

Originally on Etsy, but cannot find the original link.

This next is from a website called so-sew-easy.

http://so-sew-easy.com/r2d2-apron-pattern/#_a5y_p=4588018

Here are what I came up with.

Black Widow, you can see my sketches on the upper right.

Superman, Black Widow, Iron Man, Captain America, and Batman.

I used regular pre-made aprons, and used a bunch of bias tape, and wonder under, and then satin stitched applique´ around the wunder-under'ed pieces. I painted on some parts, like the wonder woman stars and the black widows silver belt.

My sister really liked the designs and I hope her students do as well.

Toodles, Ruth