Sheet Quilt Update

I have made some modifications to my sheet quilt. I took the "orangie-red" out. Although it added the punch it needed, it just did not go in my room. Too orange.

(I took this picture outside and it looks very washed out - sorry!)

So, I then was back to square one of needing something to give it some punch. While cleaning out my linen closet I found the green gingham pillowcases I got on a clearance rack years ago. I bought them for my daughters room, not realizing they were king size cases, and never got around to shortening them. I decided they needed to be sacrificed for my sheet quilt.

I think it adds just enough color and something to contrast all the roses.

Working with all different thread counts and fabric contents on this quilt has been a nightmare. I had to go back and trim every block to square them all up. That then resulted in the quilt being smaller than I had originally planned (but I did not even think about that fact until I had sewn all the blocks together, and trimmed the points off to straighten the sides - too late to just make the rows a little longer and add an extra row - mind fart!!)

So now I have to add a border to make it big enough to fit my bed. I found this perfect aqua sheet yesterday to use as the border.

So excited to have found just what I was looking for (at a good price too - $3.50 for a king size flat sheet - 100% cotton too ) I quickly sewed the 2 long sides on only to find out that I had once again pulled too tight when aligning the border and quilt and ended up with a "ruffely" border.

I HATE THAT!!!

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to prevent this?

I guess I could pin, but that never seems to work so well for me either. So I took both sides off and will have to try again. The problem is that the way the edges of the quilt are trimmed I have all bias squares on the edges and they tend to stretch, and I am afraid that now that I have sewn them on and taken them off I may have pulled them causing another problem.

I am thinking about quilting the entire zig zag section - leaving the backing and batting larger on all sides to accomodate the borders and then sewing them on after the center is quilted to eliminate the pulling effect of the border and the bias sides.

I would really appreciate any suggestion that may be out there in blogland.

Well, I am off this evening to the lake to do some cleaning, planting and general getting the place ready for the season tomorrow. The weather is suppose to be gorgeous, and I will have uninterrupted time all to myself. I am in serious need of that right now!!!

I plan to also bring this book I just started...

And a few of these...

to enjoy the sunset by tonight! On second thought maybe I will pass on the cleaning tomorrow!!!

I will be back tomorrow evening and will worry then about how to finish my quilt.

New Quilt for My Bedroom

I am in the process of redoing our bedroom. You can see the start of it here. I have decided to make a quilt out of various vintage sheets and pillowcases I have collected. I want it to be made from just sheets/pillowcases with red/pink and blue roses. I also have some sheets/pillowcases with yellow, green, and purple, but not sure if I should include them. Too many colors? Too busy? Not enough color/contrast with just the red and blue? Thoughts... suggestions...

I also can't decide what type of pattern/quilt block to use. I want it to feel vintage to go with the vintage linens, so something "scrappy" comes to mind but what? I thought about doing it as a nine patch and joining in Amanda Jeans "quilt-along", but am afraid that since most of the sheets have a white or whiteish background that it would be incredibly boring.

Since starting this post I have begun making it a zig zag quilt, but now that I have half the pieces cut, blocks pieced and laid out on my living room floor, I'm not sure I like it. Any suggestions on how I can fix this or do something else with the blocks I have already cut?

Please excuse the incredibly poor lighting...

And my left foot in the bottom of the picture!!! It's late and I need to get to bed!!!

Bitten by the "Vintage Linens" Bug

After making the picnic quilt that I blogged about here and here, I started scouring my local thrift stores in search of more vintage linens to use in upcoming projects.

I got this haul yesterday!

This is actually only about half of them, the other half was in the wash already, they couldn't all fit in one load!

Here they are all washed, dried and folded...

I plan to make something out of just all these roses.

I plan to start cutting them up today. I am going to cut some fat quarters of each of them and list them on my Etsy site at a very reasonable cost. So if you too have the bug, but don't have the time or inclination to scour your local thrift stores, let me do it for you!

Being an Irish girl, I love this pillowcase with the clovers on it...

My favorite find however are these 2 vintage chenille bedspreads.

I love chenille, I always have and especially the older stuff. Whenever I see chenille at a garage sale or thrift store, I just have to have it. One of the thrift stores I went to yesterday has 1/2 price housewares and linens on Wednesday, so I got these for half price! Two vintage chenille bedspreads for only $5.50! I think these will look great paired up with some of the vintage sheets I just got!

I just found the Vintage Thingies Thursday posting group! I happened to place this post today about my vintage linens, so I added it to the list. If you got here via that link, thanks for stopping, and I hope you stop by again!

If you are a regular visitor here, make sure you stop by Confessions of an Apron Queen and check out the other great vintage posts!

Picnic Quilt Set Almost Done

I have been trying to finish up the picnic quilt set that I started earlier in the week for my church silent auction next Friday. The organizers want all the items in by Monday. So with the exception of finishing the hand sewing on the binding and trimming the ties, I am done.

I found a pillow case that is very similar to the color wave and style of the sheet pieces I used in the quilt. I bought it at a thrift store this morning for $0.79!! So I made it into a tote bag to hold the quilt and all the picnic stuff...

It is lined with the same yellow and white polka dot fabric in the quilt, and there is a pocket inside that holds all the plates.

I also whipped up some fabic napkins in the polka dot and floral sheet fabrics.

All the winning bidder has to do is provide the food and drinks and away they go!

I need to give the organizers a dollar value so they know where to start the bidding. Any suggestions as to what this would cost or what you would pay?

One of My Current WIPs

I was asked to make something for our Church Fund Raiser Silent Auction that is taking place next Friday night. Of course being the procrastinator that I am, I have put it off till now!

Last night I was rooting around in my very messy quilting/craft room to find something to inspire me. I found a set of old sheets that I had picked up at a rummage sale for $1, and some yellow and white polka dot fabric that I'd found a while back on a $1/yard sale rack at the fabric store (that I had no idea what I woud do with it, but at $1/yard, I had to have some!), and started this...

My inspiration came from this quilt I'd seen on Hambone and Jennicakes blog. Mine may not be as cute, because I am only using one sheet pattern instead of many, but with the fabric I have and big squares, I think it will come together quickly and be pretty cute. I am going to make mine a square picnic quilt. I also found these in my garage...

that I had gotten in an old picnic basket I picked up somewhere. I use the basket to store stuff in my office, but didn't have a use for these, but they were so cute and so retro that I just couldn't get rid of them. I knew that someday I would find the perfect thing to do with them. I have a set of 6. I am going to put them together with the quilt and make a picnic set.

Being in a time crunch, which do you think would be better - tying the quilt of just doing a stitch in the ditch or other straignt line machine quilting. I can only do straight line quilting here at home - I tried doing free motion machine quilting with my machine - that is not designed for that - with disasterous results earlier this year. You can read the whole drama here. So some sort of straight stitch machine quilting or tying it are about my only 2 options at this late date. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.