the buttercup bag

If you frequent sewing blogs at all, you've probably seen the free pattern for the buttercup bag, created by Rae of Made by Rae. I tried my hand at it a few months ago with a fat quarter I had laying around. I love the colors in this fabric, and hope that I can find more of it one day. I'd love to build a quilt around these colors!


This first go-round, I didn't have a magnetic snap, so I didn't use any kind of closure at all. Since I was using quilting weight cotton, the bag is pretty floppy. But pretty :) and it went together easily…I only stumbled when it came to sewing the liner to the outside…I have a very hard time getting this step right! Something about how my brain is trying to see the end result, instead of trusting the instructions and just going with it.


It eventually came out just fine. Though I wish I had used brown thread to do the top stitching. It's in the back of my mind to rip it all apart and do the brown one of these days. We'll see.


My mom thought the bag was kind of cute, so when I was visiting her recently, she picked out some fat quarters for me to make one for her. Thanks to this tutorial I found, I decided to attempt a zipper closure. And it really wasn't all that hard. I also added interfacing to the outer fabric so the bag had a bit more substance and didn't just flop everywhere like my attempt number one.



I even made a flower pin to dress it up a bit.


And that's about all I can think of to say about that. :)

how to make a quilt (jen style)

1. Browse crafty quilting blogs for months, looking for inspiration.
2. Drool over all the really amazing fabrics that are out there to choose from.
3. Decide that you must start making a quilt. today. right now.
4. Drive to the Wal-Mart in the next town, since there are NO fabric stores in your town, and you've heard this WM is nicer than the one in your town.
5. Search WM high and low for fabric.
6. Find none, as for some reason WM has gotten rid of it's fabric department.
7. Fume.
8. Head to Goodwill.
9. Get 4 or 5 100% cotton mens shirts and a bed sheet.
10. Make quilt!

Okay, so I did eventually drive to Columbia to get fabric for the back and the binding, but the front of this quilt is made from old shirts and pillowcases and a bed sheet! If I don't immediately follow through on a creative urge, it never gets done. Heck, even when I do follow through on a creative urge, if it's something that takes more than an afternoon, it often doesn't get done.

Enough about my process. I finally gave the quilt to my dear friend (whose baby is only a few weeks away from arriving!).

So I can share the pics with you :)

1. Choose your pattern. I decided on the a baby sized stacked coin quilt. Inspiration aplenty is on Flickr. There's also a tutorial from Moda.

2. Choose your fabrics. I didn't really follow any one tutorial or set of directions. Just used my graphic design "skills" and a bit of math to figure out how many pieces to cut how large. Mom & Dad weren't finding out ahead of time if it's a girl or boy, so I tried to go generic without going the pea green & sunshine yellow route.


3. As I found out later, it pays to be really, really precise in your cutting. For the most part, I did good. A few times, though, my pieces were too small. I thought I'd just do smaller seams to make up the difference. It was a pain. And nothing lined up, really. But I didn't mind. And I don't think the baby will, either.

4. Lay out your pieces, try to make it look random yet balanced, then take a picture. The picture helped me keep sewing things together in the right order.


5. Don't lose your glasses. I'm officially old enough to need them for sewing and sometimes reading. How did that happen?


6. Basting a baby-sized quilt wasn't so bad. Not sure how I'll do if I ever graduate to a full-sized quilt!


7. Quilt it! This was actually fun. I didn't even try to keep my lines straight. I think this is my favorite part of quilting…the texture that the actual quilting process gives to the blanket. I used clear thread, since my front was so light and my back was so dark. I didn't really want the thread color to be showing. Though I sometimes like that look. My walking foot was vital to this step.


8. The binding wasn't all that bad. I used Heather Bailey's tutorial for this. I'm not great at the hand sewing part of it, but hopefully I'll improve with time.


9. Hunt around for a cute quilt model. Good thing for me, I live with one!




10. You have a quilt! Now wrap it up and give it away!


So, from the first photo I took of my materials to the final photo of the finished quilt, it was 3 months and 10 days. Somewhere in there, you just may find yourself waiting to get the right materials/tools for part of the quilt (my walking foot), so you'll have time to make a matching bib.