oh, for the love of a good 45 degree angle...

I love the look of clean crisp mitered corners.  It just evens out a quilt, as opposed to having overlapping or log-cabin style corners which sometimes seem lopsided.  And while they're indubitably obvious to some, here's a little method I cooked up to get some nice sharp miters which is not hard at all.

Here we go!

Miters (of extreme awesome):

1.  Start with cutting the strips of fabric you'll be joining for your miter, so that there's lots of overlap.  There's no need to be wasteful, but having enough extra to reach the corners and then an inch or so to spare just makes things a little more stress-free.

2.  Attach your fabric to the quilt (or whatever you're making, I was making a quilt, so I'm just going to keep saying quilt, but miters could have lot of uses), right up to the corner.

3.  Line up the miter, make it look right.  It's not so important that it's a perfect 45 degree angle, as it is that it looks right.

4.  Crease or finger press it.  Because the lines may vary slightly once you actually sew it up, don't bother with ironing it now, you'll have to do that later.  (*Note: if you're using a fabric that's too thick or stiff to finger press, then you'll have to iron it, just know that your lines may move slightly and you'll have to iron out that crease when you give it a final press).

5.  Match up the right sides and pin so that the creases line up.

6.  Lay it so the crease lines up and lies flat.
 

7.  Time to sew!  Sew it along the crease you made.

8.  Now's the time for the proper press.  Iron it so the seams lay open if you're quilting it with a pattern (ie not along the seams)  otherwise, press the seams off to one side.

9.  Trim it all so it's not so bulky and...

10.  Love it!

Et voila!  You have miters!  I hope that this can be useful.  I was pretty enthusiastic about it when I made mine up (which is something, miters aren't normally overly exciting things).  Also as a final note, because most projects have four or more miters, feel free to bring all four up to the finger pressing stage, and then take a step back to check that they're even.  That being said, I did mine one at a time and they turned out fine.

quilt-ly cuddles

Long, long ago, I made a quilt top.  See, I had just loved the fabric and it was in a cute little layer cake for not a bad price at all and so I snatched it up and decided I'd make myself a lap quilt.  But, sewing for myself, especially when there's no specific deadline, makes for a project that quickly gets put of the very farthest back of burners.  Besides, I didn't even have anything to back it with yet.  Then, when perusing the local fabric store, I saw a baby quilt made from the same fabric line, and a little spark ignited.  My little Bean prefers to sleep with a quilt, so I thought I could make this for her.  At this point I have finally gotten around to buying some backing and a little extra to border it with, but, because it was just going to be an extra, even bringing it all on Christmas vacation with me didn't give me enough of a push to complete the project.

Recently, I started knitting a baby blanket for a friend.  The pattern was simple enough, but the yarn was delicate and the needles were small, and after about a week of diligent evening knitting I noticed I had messed up the last five or so rows, so I gave up with that.  Feeling pretty close to failure I remembered my lovely quilt, all ready to get put together and quilted.

I've tried machine quilting before.  It was a mess; I managed to have a nasty little gather at every join.  It was wretched.  I tried it anyways.  This time: success!

Voila, a lovely, classy quilt.

I bound it with satin blankie binding, which I find makes it more baby-ish and less adult; plus babies love the satiny texture.

Also, I really loved how my mitered corners turned out.

Bug decided that Dr Seus's ABCs was required in the quilt photos.

And Bee, our cat of extreme fluffiness, also wanted in on the photography.  What a cozy little scene.

I hope they have lots of fun playing on and snuggling in it.  I'm so glad it has a home.  I had even started to toy with other uses for a quilt topper, as I began to think it would never reach quilt-dom.

10 other Uses For a Quilt Top:

1) Table runner (just make sure you sew on a back).

2) Line a basket (or cover a box).

3) Cover a cork board, add a frame, and you have a pretty snazzy pin-board.

4) Cut it into chunks, which you could frame and make a pretty interesting picture arrangement (or frame in embroidery hoops).

5) Make a teddy bear.

6) Tote bag.

7) Christmas stocking.

8) Hot water bottle cover (or rice bag cover).

9) Oven gloves, or re-cover old oven gloves (depending on the material).

10) Basically, it can be used as a regular piece of material that's just a bit fancier.

However, like I said, this all started because I loved the fabric so much, so I'm glad I didn't have to resort to chopping it up for anything else.  It was meant to be a quilt and I'm really happy to have had it to give to my friend when I did.

a little soft to add to that snuggly

When Bugaboo was a baby, my mother and I put together a quilt for him and a little pillow to go with it.  

Well, I knew it would be harder to do one up for little Bean, but with a little vacation time, the quilt (seen here) now has its partner in crime!

All set for snuggles and fun

and I'd like to say how awesome it all worked out that the material I bought when she was about 2 months old (spoonflower) was so well selected; she's kind of obsessed with elephants right now!

Fun fun and more fun!  Take care!

bye!

...apologies and snuggles

where have I been?!

It's been nearly two months since I've last blogged. Man, time goes fast with two little kids. It seems like I've only just woken up and it's already time to be getting supper ready and then the kids are already going to bed. It's crazy times 'round these parts, I tells ya (Oh, and a brief disclaimer about the supper bit: my husbandito is the one who actually does most the cooking).

Well, I'll ease back into things. Ok, not that I exactly have a boat load of projects to unload, but I'll pace myself regardless.

Here's something that I'm especially proud of

Can you tell what it is?

Bits and pieces of it are rather disjointed,

but it's my quilt!

Well, actually it's the quilt I made for my baby daughter, but it's my very first quilt and I made it mostly by myself (under the expert supervision of my mother and with a good deal of assistance from her and my aunt).

*Blogger (or maybe just my compy; I don't know) is a little twitchy right now and I can't select so I can't make any fancy little links, like to Spoonflower, where I got most of the fabric, but I mentioned my quilt in my last post (here: http://my-cozy-life.blogspot.ca/2012/01/ribbit-and-also-choo-chooo.html), so check it out if you want any additional info. Also, sorry about the spacing between paragraphs. I can't seem to get that to work for me either right now.

It's getting a lot of use.

I hand quilted it, which was a lot easier than I expected. Anyone wanting to try it, I definitely recommend starting with a baby quilt (or a lap quilt for those without kidlets), because it's a reasonable challenge (believe me, because I'm prone to give up when I take on something that's too challenging). I also love the crazy colours and mix-matched patterns. They really suit my little girl; a little girly, but mostly bright, fun and energetic. Like I said, I am really proud of this project!

ribbit and also choo-chooo

For those not in the know, the process of ripping out a knitting project is called "frogging" (because, you 'rip-it'...see where I'm going). This just goes to show that knitters are really as peculiar as they seem at first glance (present company included).

My point being that while I have a new baby and am on vacation and my creations are slow by any means to begin with, I'm also finding that I am having to go back a re-do a lot.

Firstly Baby's sweater dress, on take 3 and am trucking along well (finally). It will be fabulous.

Secondly, Baby's quilt. Well, while it's not called frogging when you rip a quilt, yeah it's in the same boat. I hodge-podge mashed a wild selection of prints together...wait, I'll start further back. I ordered a bunch of fabric off of Spoonflower. You can have too much of a good thing. With so many beautiful and wild fabrics to choose between, I eventually settled for just taking whatever I wanted instead of trying to co-ordinate it. Interestingly enough, A fair amount of the fabric worked, so I went down to fabricville and found a few pieces to tie it together. I'm using the Speedy Baby-2 from Quilt Taffy (which works really well with a handful of fat quarters). However, as I placed the last panels in place, I decided they were too much (too bright and crazy and colourful), so I've ripped them off and am putting in plain grey panels that match the little elephants instead.

Lastly, I realize that I've never properly shown off our train table. We finished it this summer. Every time anyone comes to the house Bugaboo takes them over to show it to them saying "My daddy maked me that". It's fabulous. We do have plans to expand and better paint the scenery and add a big red H for a heli-pad. I also want to state that the only things we paid full price for was the train 'Emily'. All the other trains were bought second hand from value village, or on sale, or were birthday gifts. The tracks were also found at value village ($5) except for the bridge which was also on sale. It's not fine art, but it's very fun.

(nice hat eh?)

Well, my little girl is hungry, so I'm off to do some mothering. :)

Ta-daaa! (photo-heavy, which I kind of like)

So starting in reverse order of projects actually accomplished (silly, I know), my brother-in-law's baby is currently in the process of being born! Right now! Very exciting! Unfortunately, this is the baby for whom I've been knitting that blanket forever, and still haven't finished it, but I guess I have a little extra motivation to kick it in to knitting-gear and get it done.

Also, I have started a quilt. Actually, I've gotten a fair amount accomplished (not considering the actual quilting which will have to soon take place). I don't have any backing for it, so it's on hold.
My friend and I finally got together for some sewing, but only finished our aprons, and never got around to the hats. However, soon. Here's Bugaboo helping me with some cooking. We made Salted Caramels from this recipe here, and so I did most of the cooking (it being up on the stove) and he enjoyed a snack in his new apron.

We have finally broken dirt in the ol' garden, planting peas and some onions. I'm weathering my tomatoes so they can go in next week too. I'm getting excited, but I think I'll miss the lush forest growing on my windowsill. Perhaps a herb garden, something which greatly intimidates me, will have to be in order.

And lastly before I get to my fancy-schmancy BIG news, I made up some Mother's Day cards! We normally give our Moms and Grandmoms a call, but I was feeling we could do a little better than that, so here they are! They've all been sent out and I hope they get there (the other side of the country) on time. Well, we're normally late, so no one would mind, or be surprised, if they are a little bit belated. As you can see, some are more audacious and some are quite muted, but I figured that would suit my Mom, Mother in-laws and all our grammies respectively.

And of course we had to include a picture or two in each!

And now, are you ready? I finished my shirt! For the Spring Top Sewalong 2011! Done! Well, no, I need one more button, but if it comes down to the grind, I have one that's not quite the right shade of yellow. Maybe I can go hunting tonight...

Well, it's a glorious glamorous day, and my little Bugaboo needs to be woken up from his nap. I'll have the official super fancy posed-to-the-max shot of my shirt later, so I look forward to posting it too!

Tadaaa!