Custom Queen-Sized Jacob's Ladder in Moda Mimi - Finished!!

The queen-sized Jacob's Ladder in Moda Mimi fabric is complete! I am so tickled with how it turned out, which you will see by the number of pictures I posted! The Jacob's Ladder pattern is a perfect way to display Mimi's beauty!  Jacob's Ladder quilts can look completely different depending on the fabrics chosen. Oh, the pillow shams! They are simply adorable with the ties on the sides! The backing, the flap that covers the pillow inside, and the ties are all the same fabric. And for a bit of history, the Jacob's Ladder quilt pattern is sometimes thought to be from the Civil War era, used by runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad, but "there are no known quilts in this pattern dating back to the Civil War or the decades before the war when the Underground Railroad flourished."  Source The backing is also a Mimi coordinate. Quilt Stats:

• Pattern:  Jacob's Ladder 
• Size:  Queen
• Fabric:  Mimi by Chez Moi for Moda, quilt top, backing, and binding; with Moda Snow
• Batting:  100% cotton
• Quilting:  Allover meandering stitch in cream thread, done on Mrs.Singer, my antique 31-15 mounted on a long-arm quilting frame.
• Value:  Super sweet!

Pillow Sham Stats:

• Pattern:  Jacob's Ladder with half-triangle border added.
• Pillow Style:  Tied edge opening with fabric flaps to cover interior pillow, instructions in Shams With Style, although I did not bind the edges with binding as the book shows, so this changed the assembly directions somewhat.
• Size:  20 x 26, standard
• Fabric:  Mimi by Chez Moi for Moda
• Batting:  100% cotton, pillow front only
• Quilting:  Allover dense meandering stitch in cream thread, done on Mrs.Bernina, my old 830 which was my grandmother's.
• Value:  Absolutely adorable!

This quilt set was a custom order in my Etsy shop, BusyHandsQuilts.

Custom Queen-Sized Jacob's Ladder in Moda Mimi - Progress #4

Mrs.Singer has been busy quilting Jacob's Ladder.  I finished the quilting process this afternoon, and this lovely quilt is ready to be bound, hopefully tomorrow! On the borders, I took special care to match the fabric design when joining the strips together end to end.  The picture below shows two strips sewn together with the fabric design matching.  This is part of the high-quality service my customers receive.  Would you like a tutorial on how to do this?  It isn't that hard actually! This order includes two quilted pillow shams, and I pieced those today and plan to quilt them tomorrow.  The front of the pillow shams will be quilted, the back is a single layer of fabric, and the pillow opening on the end has a tie closure.  A flap of fabric folds over the pillow to conceal it.
It wasn't until after I had pieced the entire sham quilt top together that I noticed one of the four-patch blocks was turned the wrong way ... and it was not along the edge of the quilt!  GRRR.  {Of course I fixed it before I took the pictures!}  I was very careful to not repeat that mistake on the second pillow sham. This quilt set is a custom order in my Etsy shop, BusyHandsQuilts.  And Busy Hands is a very appropriate name this year.  After receiving a request from a previous customer today for a quilt, I made a schedule of upcoming quilts so I could let her know when I can make another quilt for her.  I have enough upcoming quilts from customers and my own projects that my quilt schedule is full through September!

Magic Garden Lap Quilt

The Magic Garden collection of fabric has lovely fabrics that I didn't want to cut up into small pieces.  I thought of one of the quilts by Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation, called Bohemian Charm.  I pretty much followed her quilt layout exactly.  I enjoyed getting the strips laid out just right on my design wall and watching the pattern come alive.  It is not a traditional rail fence even though at first glance it might look like it.  It's a tad more complicated than that and gives a quilter's eye pause as she tries to figure out the layout. All fabrics are Magic Garden from Blend Fabrics, quilt top, backing, binding, and all.  These fabrics were purchased last year from Craftsy.  They have a fabulous fabric selection, in case you didn't know that already! This is the first time I have used Heat Press to fuse batting pieces together, and it worked great!  My main concern with using this product was that the batting is put under some pressure when turning the rollers on my long-arm machine, and the Heat Press kept the two pieces adhered together perfectly and didn't release either piece of batting, although I should add that the Heat Press seam ran vertical to the roller, not horizontal along it.  Also, I didn't even know when I was quilting over it as it needled perfectly!  The Heat Press also went through the wash just fine, and I'd venture to say you wouldn't be able to tell where the seam is - I can't! Quilt Stats:

• Pattern:  Bohemian Charm by Kelly of My Quilt Infatuation
• Size:  51" x 56"
• Fabric:  Magic Garden by Blend Fabrics, purchased from Craftsy.
• Batting:  Cotton
• Binding:  Double fold, attached by machine with 45-degree mitered corners.
• Backing:  Coordinate from the Magic Garden line.
• Quilting:  Machine quilted in an allover meandering stitch in cream thread on Mrs.Singer, my antique 31-15 mounted on a long-arm quilting frame.

This quilt is for sale in my Etsy shop, BusyHandsQuilts.

Linking to:

Custom Queen-Sized Jacob's Ladder in Moda Mimi - Progress #3

The blocks are completed and sewn together into the quilt top.  I moved one row of blocks from the bottom to the top of the quilt so the X design of the small squares was completed along all of the edges.  You can see in my previous post  that the X design was not completed and looked odd.  I didn't notice the mistake until I had the blocks on the design wall and left them there for awhile. 
Leaving the blocks on the wall for a day or two lets me look at the layout with a careful eye to find mistakes like this.  Also, seeing the fabrics at different times of day in varying degrees of light points out problems, such as too many dark fabrics clustered in one corner or all reds bunched together.  This is one of the benefits of using a design wall rather than laying the blocks out on the floor.  Plus, I can leave it there until I have time to work on it again.
I rarely make quilts with borders, and putting them on this quilt is a very nice change; there aren't as many blocks to make, in addition to using large pieces of beautiful fabrics rather than cutting everything into smaller pieces.  
My customer who ordered this quilt told me she used to do a lot of work with old quilts; restorations and repairs.  In doing research for one of those projects, she read a letter that one settler wrote about her quilt.  She wished she could purchase enough fabric to have a sashing instead of having to piece everything.  So to my customer (and to the settler woman), a quilt with a fantastic border makes a quilt extravagant!  
I had never thought of borders in that way and see them in a whole new light now!  I take for granted being able to buy fabric for a quilt without worrying that we will be able to pay our bill at the merchantile when the family goes to town after harvest to stock up for the winter.  To that settler, a quilt border was a luxury because most yard goods were used to make clothes, sheets, and diapers, and quilts could always be made from scraps.  Oh the time she would have saved if she had been able to add a border instead of piecing so many extra blocks - by hand of course!!
The plan is to add the borders tomorrow and be quilting her by the weekend!  
This quilt is a custom quilt order in my Etsy shop, BusyHandsQuilts.

Custom Queen-Sized Jacob's Ladder in Moda Mimi - Progress #2

This afternoon I had time to put the Jacob's Ladder blocks up on my design wall.  They measure 8.5" and are laid out 8 x 7.  The remaining quilt top will be borders.  Most quilts I make do not have borders, so adding borders rather than more blocks will be a refreshing change!
I took my latest lap quilt off of Mrs.Singer's rails a few days ago, so she is ready and waiting to quilt this beauty!  That quilt is in the process of being bound, so I'll show it to you next week.
This is a custom order from my Etsy shop, BusyHandsQuilts.
Craftsy classes are up to 50% off sale this weekend!  Millie has recently been watching the Basic Fondant Techniques class.  She is planning on making the cake and cupcakes for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary party this year and is practicing!

Star Light Star Bright Quilt-a-Long - Building Block Corners

I have finished assembling the four corner sections of each of the nine blocks. This was a fairly simple step compared to previous week's steps!  Since I have been trimming the HST's as I needed them, this week I used my new Bloc-Loc ruler {I just got it} and learned how to use the 4.5" size ruler on a 4" block!  It looked complicated in the video, but was actually quite simple.
The corner sections make a bright sparkly star!  These four blocks are corner sections, so they will not be sewn together like this; they will surround a center star along with four side sections.  Each corner block measures 7.5" square and will become the corners on a 28" square block.

Here are all of the pieces of the quilt top in one pile!
Yummy!

And here is the backing I will be using!

I ♥ it!

{I now ♥♥ extra wide backings after learning to tear the ends to square them up with the grain line rather than trimming and wondering why the backing will NOT go on the rails square!  It is SO nice to not piece backings together whenever possible!}

This quilt is a queen-sized quilt and will be for sale in my Etsy shop upon completion.

A Birthday Dress for Miss Millie

Miss Millie had a birthday, and her mama made her this dress.  She has been wanting to sew some new clothes for spring and summer, but would like them to mysteriously appear without so much as a snip of the scissors, so I secretly sewed this for her when she was off at a friend's house for a few hours.  She told me later that she saw the scraps in the garbage can, so she figured I had made something!  These kids sure get smart as they grow up! Millie is now 13 ... all three kids are now teenagers!
She picked out the fabric from my stash, saying she wanted to go back to more floral, feminine dresses after spending the last year in mostly solid colored skirts and knit shirts.  I love that she has her own style, no matter what other kids her age are wearing; it's a sign of maturity, I think.  She told me today the dress made her look like a woman!  A sweet little lady, for sure, I said. The fabric is Love's Bouquet by Holly Holderman, which I had been planning on listing in my Etsy shop, CutSewCreate, but this is a much better use for it.  The pattern is See & Sew 501 which I could only find on Amazon.  It's from 1997, the good ol' days!  I have a friend who sews most of her clothes, so I called her and asked her for a good go-to jumper pattern, and this is the one she recommended, having used it for herself for years.  It is a pullover dress with a gathered, slightly raised waist.  I added ties to make it narrower at the waist.  I knew Millie wouldn't like it without a bit of cinch there. So here's to my happiness that the days of sewing for Millie are not gone after all!

Custom Queen-Sized Jacob's Ladder in Moda Mimi - Progress #1

I have begun my next custom quilt order, a queen-sized Jacob's Ladder in Moda Mimi fabrics.  It is so fun when a customer chooses fabric I haven't worked with yet!  The fabric is so pretty, and without the purple it reminds me so much of my mom. Jacob's Ladder is a very simple pattern with precuts - half-square triangles made with charm packs and 4-patch blocks made with jelly rolls.  Missouri Quilt Co. has an excellent for a Jacob's Ladder quilt tutorial on YouTube. I got a 4.5" Bloc-Loc ruler just for this project, and I really like it!  The HSTs are trimmed up "zip zap zup".  That saying comes from Froggy books which we loved to read when the kids were little.  I did find it necessary to use my rotating cutting mat rather than spin the ruler and block around as shown in the tutorials, but the ruler is still very useful as it stays in place when a regular ruler without the groove tends to move at the slightest touch.

This quilt is a custom order in my Etsy shop, BusyHandsQuilts.  

Star Light Star Bright Quilt-A-Long - Block Sides

This past week's Star Light Star Bright Quilt-a-Long assignment was building block sides.  I'm a day late, but they're done!  36 sides for 9 blocks total.  These sections measure 7.5" x 14.5".

Passing on the Crafting Gene #2 - Beginning a Dress

Millie is learning how to shorten a pattern for the more petite amongst us!  We are using this pattern.  A few years ago when the Maxwell Family came to town, Millie and I attended a Mother/Daughter Tea that they hosted, and the Maxwell ladies wore matching pretty, feminine, modest dresses, so I asked them for the pattern number.  They were asked so often about their dresses that they had the number memorized!  We're finally getting around to making one, about four years later!
This day the power was out for six hours beginning at noon, and oh my, what to do then?!?  No sewing, no blogging, no Etsy-ing, no cooking or baking!  We are amazingly locked into our habits that require power and had to find something that didn't take electricity, like cutting out a pattern!  We didn't cut the fabric out with the pattern because there was no power with which to iron the fabric!  There was also time to play some games!