Day Three!

This weekend I made two travel baby changing mats. Two of my coworkers are going on maternity leave in three weeks and I made these to go into a basket we are doing for each of them. I didn't take any pictures in mid process, but I'd be happy to share what I did if anyone wants to know.

Anyhoo, here's what they look like. 

I'm really pleased with how these turned out. 

Day Two

I made a quilt top. It's not totally complete and it's not quilted yet, but I sewed some small bits together to make a big bit that could be a blanket or something useful.

These are the materials I chose to use. 

I then cut them all into 2.5" strips and started to sew them together. This new 1/4" foot is amazing for keeping things lined up as well. A great buy in my opinion! 

I then started to chain sew the strips. This is a good time saving (and thread saving) tip for beginners. Just feed the strips through the machine one after the other to save time and thread, then just cut them apart when you're done. 

I then had loads of strips sewn and they needed pressing. Be sure to press the seam first to set it, then press the seam open.

 

Once sewn together it's 6.5" wide, so I cut the strips to make as many squares as I could. I ended up with a huge pile of them.

The pattern I went for was quite basic, just turning the square 1/4 turn each time. 

I started seeing these blocks together and ended up with 15 this size. I began by sewing pairs until all single blocks were used, then seaweed pairs together until I had all blocks. I didn't know at the time I made these that you could reverse the seams on the back to get them lined up nicely on the front, but this one worked out pretty well. 

Once I had these squares completed I carried on in a similar fashion until I had a 3x5 grid completed. Not all corners quite match up and there's no border on it yet, but I think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt. 

I'm going to take a class in a few months so I'm going to wait until then before I try to quilt something this big. 

Next...

Day One

Today I started. I purchased a case of generic sewing feet a while ago for an old singer I was given. It came with this walking foot, so I thought it was time I gave it a go. Step one, attaching it, went smoothly, as you can see. 

Next, I chose some fabric that I've had lying around for a while. I made a dress out of it for my daughter when I first started sewing and thought it would work well for quilting, given the pattern. 

I proceeded to cut out two equally sized pieces, as well as some batting to put in between them. The batting was given to me by my friend who also has recently attempted to dip her toe into quilting.  This has nothing to do with my experiences today, but I thought I'd share.

First lesson regarding batting: always cut it bigger than what you need. I didn't stretch it but it seems to have ended up smaller than what I measured, and slightly lopsided. 

I just went with it. For the record, I love those clips instead of always using pins. This is the thread I chose. I thought it would go nicely with my material and still show up enough to see what's happening. 

I then proceeded to sew. This walking foot is great! It feeds all of the material through with no issues. I made a tiny quilted thing!

Well, the borders only were done, so of course I had to fill in the middle a bit to see the result. 

Not too bad, only, why is it doing this?

Perhaps it's because I didn't pin it? Or maybe it wasn't tight enough? I'll try doing that next time. 

Okay, so I thought since that was so easy I should move onto the real tricky stuff (of course, running before walking), so I pulled out this baby! 

And attached it.... wrong...

Now, since these feet were so cheap, by putting this one on wrong and then trying to use it, it bent the foot up too high and now doesn't sit right. Of course I noticed before I tried anything silly like actually using it... (This is not true, I thought it was a bit off but I reattached it properly and still tried it out. Observe my great blunder of the day). 

I managed one square, but it just wasn't holding at all. 

So, overall, I'll be carrying on with my attempts to quilt using my machine, but I don't think I should yet be allowed to attempt any free-motion sewing just yet. If anyone has any tips for me (not about making sure the foot is on properly, because I've already learned that lessons), please feel free to share them.

Thanks for reading!

Day Zero!

I'm going to begin my first ever attempt at quilting tomorrow. I've been wanting to attempt it for a while but I've not had the right frame of mind, nor the know how to proceed. Today I have been busy watching some videos of beginning quilting and I think I'm finally ready to give it a whirl. I will post pictures tomorrow of what I attempt at different stages. Wish me luck!