Way back in the Spring, I saw on Craft a post about a totally awesome Spock quilt. Event though there was a tutorial on how to design the quilt, I thought, gosh, I wouldn’t know where to start.  I showed it to some co-workers who thought it was awesome and that it would be a great gift for our boss, who is a Trekkie extraordinaire.  But ethics being what they are, it really wasn’t appropriate for me to make it for him.

Fast forward to Octoberish when our boss announced his retirement in early December.  I immediately thought of the quilt and did a search to find the post again. Lo & behold, not only did I find the original post, but I found that Carol, the brains behind the blog Funthreads, had started a really amazing, simple to follow, quilt-a-long!  It made the whole project a lot less daunting.

Carol’s quit-a-long makes a twin-sized quilt in eleven parts. I thought a wall-hanging would be much more appealing to our recipient (and also easier for me to complete!), so I printed out each week of the quilt-a-long and wrote in new measurements for the pieces.  If you want to change the size of a quilt pattern, do not skip this step!  Have you ever tried to halve or double a recipe without re-writing the ingredient measurements? I ended up having to triple a batch of cupcakes just recently because I thought I could do the doubling math in my head as I went!  When halving quilt measurements, be sure to take into account the 1/2 inch for seam allowances. Remove the 1/2 inch from the original measurement, divide the resulting number in half, then add the half inch back in.  This will give you the correct (finished) measurement and your full 1/4 inch seam allowances all around.  Also remember that when you halve both the width and height you are essentially making a quilt a quarter of the size of the original.

I free-motion quilted my version of this pattern only in the black/dark parts to make Spock’s face stand out more.  I also stuck mainly with white/cream and black/grey for the darks and lights.  I have to say I am exceptionally proud of this project. Not only was my boss thrilled with his quilt, but I really enjoyed making it – always key.  I’m looking forward to designing my own quilt next, using the Funthreads tutorial – I’m thinking a Dr. Who quilt in TARDIS blue next?

Check it out! Number and 1 and number 2 of my nanoSEWmo projects!

The pattern for this baby quilt and pillow is a Wonky Rail Fence, using the Stack-and-Whack method. The backing material is a solid light blue that I had on hand.  I also used a white/blue ombre rayon thread for quilting.  It adds some extra sparkle to the quilt, I think. The pillow has a simple ruffle around the edge and an envelope style back.

To be honest, I’ve had this quilt top on hand for a while waiting for the right time, the right baby and the right skill set. My free motion skills are definitely improving.  It’s tough to keep your loop-de-loops even, let me tell you. But it is so worth the effort. The look on the Mommy-to-be’s face made it so.

Congratulations Diana, Stephen & your little Rock Star Monkey! I can’t wait to meet him.

Strictly speaking, this was not a holiday gift.  My dad’s birthday falls just a few days prior to Christmas and, because I understand how much it must suck to get a load of Christmas ‘n’ birthday combined gifts each year, I make a concerted effort to give him one gift for each. This year’s birthday gift was a pirate ship necktie.

Now, be honest, a necktie is kind of a lame gift. But a handmade necktie?  It kind of rocks. I used the Osman Tie pattern from burdastyle.com (http://www.burdastyle.com/patterns/osman-tie) – it is available in a PDF download for all of $2.  The most painful part of the whole process was taping the pattern together and then copying it out onto pattern paper. I do HIGHLY recommend this step, though. Pattern paper is much easier to deal with than taped together printer paper.

I used cotton, not tie silk; and to make matters “worse” it was quilter’s cotton – already relatively thick and stiff on its own. I also didn’t buy tie interlining, but used a piece of suiting that I had on hand  as suggested in the pattern instructions. The whole thing went together in the matter of an afternoon. I ended up leaving out the interlining all together – the quilter’s cotton was so thick it was unnecessary.

Just a couple lessons learned on this one: don’t just eyeball where the design is on the material. As you can see from my photo, I only ended up with one little pirate ship on the front of the tie because I thought I had it lined up correctly, but I didn’t check. Also, if and when I make this again, I’ll move the stay up a little — the skinny side of the tie is a little short to stay in my stay.

Welcome to the first in my series of holiday gift posts! I handed these cute little pouches out last night to our daycare providers during their holiday party.  I wish I could take credit for the design, but I can’t – they came from Quilting Arts Magazine special Gifts issue (2009/2010).  The pattern was designed by Margarete Steinhauer and appears on page 132 of the mag (almost all the way at the back).  The pouches are circular, drawstring, lined with coordinating fabrics, and contain 8 small pockets to store pieces of jewelry; or anything else that you might want to store. They fit perfectly in a gift box for a standard-sized mug.

Drafting a pattern from instructions in a magazine is always a little fiddly. I needed to be able to draw 4 different circle sizes and I do not have a compass; even if I did, I doubt I would have had one that would make a large enough circle for this tote.  Instead, I opted for my measurements to be a teeny bit off and ended up using a dinner plate for the outer circle, a largish mixing bowl for the drawstring channel, a pasta bowl for the inner/pocket circle and finally, a tiny mis en plase bowl for the base circle.  The bowls I used for my inner circle and my base circle were exactly right, the outer circle and drawstring channel were slightly off.  Luckily, this did not cause any problems with the final outcome.

Jewelry Pouch – inside
Originally uploaded by alyson_olander

I made seven of these little pouches; the first two as a prototype – once those were done, and I understood how the pattern was supposed to fit together and work, it was easy enough to throw together the other five via the Assembly Line method. I had all of the awesome matching fabrics on hand in my stash, and even the little bits of heavy interfacing needed for the base. The only thing I DID have to buy was the rat tail for the drawstrings. I am absolutely positive that I have a large spool of rat tail somewhere in my sewing room, but it beats me where I put it.  I did not buy enough rat tail so that the pouches will lie flat when opened – I didn’t think it was necessary and I didn’t like the idea that the drawstrings would be so long when the pouches were closed up tight. Overall, I think I would be happy to get one of these as a gift…I really hope the teachers are too!