Baby Zig Tutorial

Since I finished little Baby Zig, I thought it was high time to write up a little tutorial.  Baby Zig was super easy and I could have the quilt top done in a couple afternoons if I hadn't dragged my feet so much.

But anyway, here's what you need:

• a charm pack or nine 5" squares of fabric for each colorway (27 total squares)
• 27 background fabric 5" squares 
• 37"x17" piece  of the background fabric
• batting
• 1 1/2 yard for backing
• 1/2 yard for binding

*note: 1/4 seams throughout

To start, pick your fabric!  Then make half square triangles out of all your 5" squares - pairing each print to a background fabric.

I did this by making a line diagonally across each background square.



Then I pinned together the background square and the print square.  I sewed 1/4" on either side of the diagonal line I drew.  Do this for each of the pairs.



Then, cut along the line that was drawn to make two half square triangles.





Press seams open and trim the dog ears off.

Once all the blocks are pressed and trimmed, line them up on the floor, design wall, or other surface to decide the order of the prints and their pairings in the zig.  Be sure to keep the colorways separate!

Then sew the horizontal pairs together.  Press the seams in opposite directions (I always pressed the seam in the direction of the side that went "up").

Once the pairs are sewn, then sew the column together.  I did everything from deciding on layout to sewing the whole zig together in sets of colorways so that I didn't get confused.  If you do it this way, then repeat the steps to make your three zigs!

Once the zigs are sewn individually, decide in which order you would like them and sew them together.  Press the seams. 

Then, sew on the 37"x17" piece to the inner most zig.  Press seams.  Trim if necessary.

Ta-da! Quilt top is done.

Baste with the batting and backing, quilt, and bind!  The size of this quilt is about 41"x37".

See, easy!

Let me know if you have any questions and I would be happy to help!

Currently Listening to: Thunder Clatter by Keegan DeWitt

Baby Zig: Finished!

Happy Valentines Day, my Friends!

Today Jake and I are celebrating simply with a nice dinner.  Our anniversary is in a couple of weeks, so we like to make that the big deal.

I am very happy that I was able to get Baby Zig all finished up last night!  I like it way, way better now that it is quilted and bound.  It measures about 41.5"x37".  I feel like it's a bit of an odd shape, but I like it.



The prints are all from Joel Dewberry's Notting Hill and the solid is Kona white.



I used the Poppy print in the red colorway for the back.



For the quilting, I followed the edges of the zig zags with the edge of my walking foot on on the inside and outside of the zigs.  I made a grid in the negative space out of washable marker that mimicked the zig zags and then I followed those lines with the edge of my walking foot.



In the pink zig I used pink thread, in the red one I used red, and for the green one I used green!  For all of the white I used a white thread.  The different color threads look fun on the back!



I bought the square petals for the binding and then I ended up having almost 42" of the hourglass print from the Lillian + Oliver quilt that I finished last week, so I decided to use it!  I gotta say, I think this is the closest I've ever come to running out of binding as I'm attaching it!  I think I had 3" left?



Now that I'm finished with it, I really like it!  I hit a point with this one when I considered scrapping the project.  I'm glad I didn't!  This little quilty does not have a home in mind... I'm thinking, the year is young, someone is bound to have a baby girl!



This impression was left in the snow when I picked up the quilt... I love it!

Also!  I'm in the process of writing up a little tutorial for this quilt.  It was super ease and I used charm squares to make it sew up even faster!  I'll have the tutorial up tomorrow!

Have a happy, happy Valentine's day!

Currently Listening to: Pumped Up Kicks by Chamberlin

Wednesday Work In Progress

As Jake so astutely commented to me on Monday, I have actually been in need of another work in progress.  I started Baby Zig when I was still sewing Lillian + Oliver blocks, but when that quilt was finished and I was only working on Baby Zig, I didn't start anything new.  With Baby Zig so close to being done...

...I needed to start something new!

Flickr tells me that I bought this fabric November 13th:

And I bought this solid and pattern to go with it:

November was the height of the craziness with trying to finish three Christmas gift quilts and getting ready for our big move.  This fabric was wrapped in plastic bags and put away.

Until today!

I finally started cutting into this beautiful and soft fabric!  The print is all Rock n' Romance by Pat Bravo and the solid is Art Gallery Pure Elements in Cabernet.

As a suggestion from a friend on Instagram, I sewed up a block just to be sure that I could make this quilt while keeping the points in tact.  I think it's going to be a success!!

I am really excited for this quilt.  I am making the twin size for our spare bed.

Also, I remembered today that when I was talking about sneaky fabric hoarding in this post, I forgot to mention another quilt that I am slowly collecting fabric for!  This quilt probably didn't come to mind because I am only using scraps for the prints, but I think it still qualifies because I'm setting aside fabric for a specific purpose.

This pattern is in the Winter 2012 issue of Quilty and as soon as I saw it, I knew it would love it in all my cherished scraps.  For this quilt I will need 580 2 1/2" squares.  So, I've gone through all my scraps and I cut out one square from each print, if I had enough.  Since I don't have enough scraps to start the quilt any time soon, I now cut a square before I put anything in my scrap bin.

I'm putting them in this cute jar.  I think it would be super cool to make this quilt several times, each quilt would sort of archive the fabrics I used or was into during that period of my quilting journey.  I'm digging the idea.

Well, I hope to have a finished quilt for you tomorrow!  

What are you working on?

Currently Listening to: Sahara Mahala by The Jezabels

Monday, List Day

Let me start off by saying that when I woke up Friday morning I was undeniably sick.  I slept all morning and when Jake got home around one to pack up the car and head to St. George, I couldn't do it.  I could not justify being sick and miserable in someone else's bed.  So I stayed. In bed.  Jake picked up his sister and they started down south.  They actually ended up running into a terrible south moving snow storm.  So they turned around.  Four hours after leaving, Jake was home again!  I was selfishly glad that he came home... that way I wouldn't have to worry about him and he could take care of me!

So anyways, the sickness lasted all Saturday, all Sunday, and still lingers.  I can tell it's on the way out, but holy cow, I still don't feel great.  Well, that story was to tell you of just how little I did Friday through Sunday.  I longingly looked at my sewing room whenever I left the room to get more juice. Buh.  Moral of the story: don't get sick!!

Well, get ready to be surprised because here is last week's list:

• Finish Lillian + Oliver: Yes!  I posted about it here!  Thank you everyone who left me sweet comments!
• Buy backing and binding for Baby Zig: Yes!
• Quilt and attach binding to Baby Zig: Yes!
• Wake up at 6 AM: Yes! Once! It still counts!
• Plan the garden: Yes and I am so excited for it!! I wish all this snow would just go away.
• Finish painting the kitchen: Yes! Are you surprised yet??

How did I manage to do all that and be sick? Well, I did some of it this morning, let's be honest.

For this week my goals are pretty simple.  We have lots of family coming in town this weekend and I know I won't get any time to work once they get here.

• Most important: Get better.
• Finish Baby Zig
• Wake up at 6 AM.  This only applies AFTER I get better.
• Make this pillow

Well, there we have it. List day: check.

I am going to try to steal a nap before Jake gets home.  Sleeping at night has been so amazingly difficult.

Currently Listening to: Seaside by Wake Owl

Lillian + Oliver: Finished!!

I finished Lillian + Oliver today!  I am so excited that this little quilt is done and that is looks so sweet!

I know my bestie will just love this little quilt.  And her little boy will too, once he's born!!

Well, here it is!



I seriously love the way the greens, blues, and yellows play so nicely together!



Even though I don't really like using white for baby quilts, I think that it tones down the bright colors and kind of reigns everything in.  I don't think there was a better choice.



This new Summer House print for the back was just perfect, too!  I think if it had been at the quilt shop at the time I bought the fabrics for the front, it would have been featured on the quilt top.  But it's perfect for the back, too!



I quilted it with little loops using a yellow-green thread.  It was the perfect choice and I love how it fits right in with the rest of the quilt.





I feel like the binding was a great choice, too.  I think it would have been more overwhelming if I had used a different busy print, but since this one is the sashing, it doesn't look so busy to me.

Well, there we go!  Another finish for 2013! Woo! We're going strong!

What's your finish for the week?

Currently Listening to: Make Light by Passion Pit

A Little Progress + A Little Hoarding

I am glad that sometime yesterday I floated back to Earth and stopped being such a space case.  I am even proud to say that Jake and I got some painting done in the dining room/kitchen last night!  There are some touch ups that need to be made and then I can finally move my dining room back to where it is supposed to be!  I'm doing it, friends! Finally!

Yesterday I also went out and bought backing and binding for Baby Zig!



I love it.

And then I basted this morning.



I decided this morning how I am going to quilt it and I think I'll probably (read, hopefully) be able to quilt it all tomorrow! Wouldn't that be great?!

Now, I'm curious about something.  If I had an endless supply of fabric and could quilt for free, I would do so.  No restrictions.  No sleep.  Select food. But,  that's not the case and quilting isn't exactly an inexpensive hobby!  So, what I have begun to do is collect fat quarters a bit at a time, as a find them, for a specific project.  Then I just hoard them until I have enough.  Does anyone else do this?

Yesterday when I was out buying fabric I bought some fat quarters for future projects.  And I love them sitting on my shelf.  I feel a sort of satisfaction about purposefully hoarding.  Like I just found a reason to hoard.  I must admit, it feels wonderful in a smug sort of "I found a loop hole" way.

Anyways... I decided sometime last year that I want to have a quilt for each month of the year for the couch and each quilt should reflect that month.  Obviously, February is going to reflect Valentines day.  I would have started earlier, but I only just recently found a Valentine-sy pattern that I love!  But it requires more fabric than I can buy right now and I just don't have time to get it done in time for Valentines day.  So, I'm going to collect (read, hoard) fabric and it will sit on my shelves until later this year!  How fun is that?!



I intend on buying more Valentines day fabric when they inevitably go on sale in a few weeks.  Brilliant.

The pattern is in the current issue of Quilty and I am in love with it!

So, because I love this idea and I enjoy buying little fat quarters at a time, I have another quilt I am doing this for, too.



This quilt, because of it's leaves and autumn colors, will be for one of the fall months.  This pattern is from Pretty In Patchwork Holidays book by John Q. Adams.  This particular pattern is by Amanda.

So there you go.  For those of you looking for a reason to hoard - this is a pretty good one...  And for anyone looking for some seasonal quilt ideas, I think these two are top notch.

What reasons do you have to hoard fabric?

Currently Listening to: Wild Country by Wake Owl (currently addicted)

Makin' it Happen Monday

Well, hello friends!

I must admit, I am moving a little slow on this sunny Monday.  I'm feeling a bit like a space cadet... We just found out that my brother has found a baby to adopt! It's so exciting!  I've been looking for quilt patterns and then I'm like, "ooh a bird!".  Come back to Earth, Megan...  I hope this whole week isn't like this or I'm in trouble!

Last week I had a fairly short list of things I wanted to accomplish.

• Garden Planning: Yes, but more needs to be done.
• Quilt Lillian + Oliver: Yes! In fact the binding is attached and I just need to sit down on the couch with a movie and finish it up!
• Wake up at 6am: Yes.  Once.  Progress.
• Work on the basement/unpacking: Yes
• Finish painting kitchen: no.  I don't want toooooo... I'm being a child about it.

One thing I did not put on my list, but I still accomplished was the January Woodland Sampler!

It's coming along pretty well!  I am super excited for February's installment and I think I'm about half done!

Anyways, for this week I want to... (Just for the sake of #keepinitreal, I read an entire tutorial for a baby quilt in the middle of writing this post.  I told you.. spaaace caaadettt...)

• Finish Lillian + Oliver
• Quilt Baby Zig and get that binding attached (before Friday!)
• Buy backing and binding for Baby Zig
• Wake up at 6 am.  This is obviously a work in progress.
• Finish garden planning
• Finish painting the kitchen.  Seriously this time. 

Anyways, for fear that I am becoming less productive by the minute, I have laundry to fold.  Lots of laundry. (Oooh! Stamps!)

Currently Listening to: Grow by Wake Owl