Tic Tac Toe

A couple of boys I know were visiting here recently. They spent some time playing TicTacToe on paper, and I remembered how tedious it is to always redraw the lines for the game. Then I saw a tutorial for take along games via Sew Mama Sew and thought: Great idea for a christmas gift!

I adapted the idea to my own liking, of course, since these boys are not into checkers (as far as I know).

 I started with 2 pieces of background fabric (about 8" square). Then machine-appliqued white stripes (about 7"x0.5") in the TicTacToe pattern onto one piece. Placed the 2 pieces face to face, sewed around them, turned them inside out and fortified the edge with a seam (about 1/8" from the edge). I "quilted" (there's no batting inside, but hey) around the white stripes (about 1/4" from the stripes) to keep the 2 layers of background fabric together.

The game pieces are simple flanelette circles, sewn together by machine (the edges are raw, but I zigzagged near the edge to minimize fraying). I used a thread spool to trace the circles.

Rather than making extra draw-string bags for the game pieces and the game-board, I decided to minimize parts (that could be lost) and made the gameboard itself into the game "box".

All the game pieces are stacked in the middle, then the board is folded up along the natural fold lines of the white stripes.

Out of a 2" strip, I made a tube with a loop at one end and attached this tube (ironed flat) with a button to the back of the game board. I matched the tube length to fit once around the folded up game board and voila, the whole game becomes a neat package that can be chucked into a backpack to go to the pool or for a car journey etc.

I've been told the gift was a hit on Christmas morning and the boys tried it out right away. That's the best kind of "thanks" once could wish for!

Similar to visiting friends and finding a gifted quilt being well-used, with some signs of wear and tear, right?

Stacked Up And Gone

The binding is finished, the label is done, and the quilt is on its way to the little fella (born last Thursday). I was sad to send it off, because it was around for just one week (and only a couple of days in finished form) - very little time to bond and part with a quilt!

The quilt measures about 40" x 30" - I was told by my first baby-quilt recipient that that size worked perfectly for her new-born, so I'm sticking with it.

I put some of my favourite fabrics on this quilt, including the daft-looking sheep...

As mentioned before, it's stippled all over, but I promised myself to experiment with straight lines next time.


The back is light blue circus-themed flannelette.

Here's a close-up of the pattern; I used a neutral coloured 100% cotton thread for piecing and quilting.

And of course, invisible binding a la turning*turning:

Let The Game Begin (Soccer Quilt)

Put the last stitch into the binding last night!

The bouncy strips came out a bit faint, so I might sew over them a bit more to fill in the strip
Very multi-coloured binding. See the piece of blue heavy construction-zone fabric from the Vampire Quilt?

All Done (Vampire Quilt)

Well, I finished the binding on one of the quilts last weekend - there's only so much you get done when the weather is nice.
Easter weekend, this quilt will go to the little fella - it'll probably be an early birthday gift, since I want to see his reaction when he gets it, and his birthday is not till June...

Time For Some Binding

I'm going away this weekend but am taking the vampire and soccer ball quilts with me to bind. I just have the hand stitching part left, oh, and I guess the label... can't forget that!

The vampire quilt is getting black binding, but for the soccer ball quilt I've pieced all my leftover strips together for a multi-coloured binding. No idea how that'll turn out :)

It Was A Hoot To Make This One

And one quilt that I actually finished last weekend, binding and all, is the owl quilt.
Loved doing this one, too, though I have to say that quilting cotton is more satisfying that quilting flanelette... I look forward to quilting my unfinished cotton quilts :)

Nonetheless, this is another quilt that turned out to my liking. I got to experiment with my first disappearing 9 patch, got to use the cute owl print (of which I have very little left now) and one of my friends will have a lap quilt in the near future.


I was "uncreative" on this one and just did stippling, but I like it for the wavy 3D effect it gives the quilt. Did paralell lines again for the border (top and bottom).



(haha, what luck that I happened to photograph a section of the quilt where all the points are lined up nicely :)

And here's where all the lovely owl print ended up...

Vampires Almost Ready For Take-Off

Though I didn't know that March 21 was National (US?) Quilt Day, I spent a lot of it quilting. Before fixing the soccer ball disaster, I needed to do something easier and straight forward, so I finished the quilting on the vampire quilt for nephew nubmer 2.

I started by outlining all the blocks with wonky loopy-loops - very easy and have a great effect on a kids quilt I find. On the border, I just did paralell lines all the way around like a frame.


I decided to machine-quilt bat outlines on each solid colour block; just drew them on by hand as I couldn't be bothered to make a template.


The blue construction zone fabric is so busy, that a bat would just have been lost, so I did snail shells instead, basically spirals with an oval at the end, so they look more like snails.


The overall effect is quite satisfying for me, and I have to say that this quilt definitely came off without a glitch.


One of these nights, I'll test the full effect of the glow-in-the-dark eyes on the back :) I like how the spirals and border lines came out on the back.


Now all I have left if the black binding - it'll have to be single layered because the flanelette is thick enough as it is. I even split the polyester-batting in half to make it thinner, but the seams are still quite thick to quilt over and I was struggling to squeeze the quilt underneat my walking foot...

Ah, it feels good to finish something and have it turn out to your liking! Welcome Spring!

The Game Is Saved!

Thank you so much for your comments, the foot/leg was an excellent idea and I've whipped one up this weekend. I also liked the idea to use thread and lots of stitching to create the motion "bouncing" bands. I had experimented with black flanelette, but it was to crass and I don't have gray. So I'll use a zigzag stitch back and forth and will outline it with a straight stitch, probably about 3 strips, staggered up and down going in the space between the ball and the foot do indicate direction. I'm much much happier with the quilt now! Now there's a reason for the ball to be on that quilt ;)

The Process Of Going To Bed

So, the little fellow whom I'm making the soccer quilt for has a birthday coming up soon. Therefore it was time... time to get this quilt done and get the quilt to him, especially since his family also just put their house up for sale and will move a 15-hour drive away. So I plonked myself on the couch yesterday evening and finished stitching on the soccerball. Don't know if it just looks wonky on the photo, I thought it looked pretty round yesterday...


I zoomed right along and pinned the whole quilt. Now, I'm not really happy with the top, it's totally empty, and I think I might add some applique, but to be honest, I don't want to make this quilt a year-long project, and I wonder if the little guy will just think it's a cool soccer quilt, anyway? Just because the quilt doesn't satisfy my grown-up feminine aesthetic doesn't mean a kid won't like it, right? I'm thinking about maybe adding a 3 or 4 curved strips to add some flying motion to the ball, you know, like you see in cartoons. But the coolest thing would be a person on the lawn of course, a main player so to say. Oh, but will I get this done on time?


[Wow, I just looked at this entry on my page, and when you scroll medium-speed up and down the soccerfield and soccerball-sky fabric have this really weird effect of coming at me. That indicates to me that it's a bit too busy, so maybe a large appliqued person would calm it down a bit? Oh gosh, the work though... I like machine piecing so much better... Sigh. I guess I have a couple of weeks to add to the quilt, and it can always be a going away quilt instead of a birthday quilt...]

Here's the backing, just pieced out of left over flanelette from all my kiddie-quilts.

Ah, and then the true quilter came through... it was 10:30 pm, and I just wanted to carry the quilt from the living room, where I pin, to the little quilt room I have. It was all neatly folded to be added to the other pile of pinned quilts waiting for quilting. That pile is growing because my machine doesn't have a way to lower the feet, so everytime I want to do free-motion quilting, I have to take the machine apart and remove the whole structure with the feet. Bit of a pain, therefore I try to do as much free-motion as I can at once before switching back to directional sewing.

Now, because of all the pink-quilt sewing and flanelette sewing, there was a lot of fuzz in the machine, and it was time to clean it, so when I put down the quilt, I thought: "Oh well, I might as well clean and oil the machine tonight and switch the quilting foot and then I'll be ready for quilting tomorrow."

Then I thought, maybe I should quilt the soccerball with the machine instead of by hand, because it'd be faster and look the same as the rest of the quilt, and they're straight lines and it's a small quilt so turning isn't as much of a problem. So I went ahead and did that...

I quilted once around the ball, then on each side of the seam using cream-coloured thread that would show up nicely on the black.

My poor camera didn't know what to do exposure-wise with this black and white contrast...

It went pretty quickly, and I'm happy to say that I made some progress on dropping the perfectionism - weirdly enough, quilting is helping me do that :) The lines aren't all the same distance from the seam and not always perfectly straight...
Okay, this ball is really much rounder than in this picture...

I like the effect on the back. (See, round after all)

Then I took the machine apart for cleaning and oiling... look at all this pink fuzz!

Cleaned and oiled:

Free-motion (darning) foot attached:

And I almost, *almost* started to do free-motion quilting around the soccerball, but it was close to midnight, and the next day, i.e. today was a workday, so I refrained, barely dragging myself away, and closed shop for the night...

Yep, and that's the danger of entering the quilting room on my way to bed!

Round And Round

My soccerball is shaping up nicely! (Don't be deceived by the wobbly look of the quilt top on my knees)


In true quilting fashion, I took the quilt top with me to do some hand stitching in the hotel last night (part of that worktrip I mentioned in the last blog entry).


I have 4 patches done (i.e. white-black-white-black), and though I was debating whether it would have been better to pin it for now, then quilt it and THEN stitch on the edges to shape it (to avoid any bunching from quilting-related tugging), I think it will be okay, as I pinned it pretty well


and am planning to hand quilt around the hexagons and pentagons anyway.

I'm In Moda Love

So for months, I've been awed by quilters blogging about the beautiful fabrics they bought with Kaffe Fassett or Moda designs. An out-of-province work trip let me discover a new quilt shop, this one specializing in quilts as opposed to general fabrics, and though I had promised not to spend a fortune, I couldn't help myself when I saw 9 bolts of the Bistro line of Moda fabrics and went for it. Ah, I'm dreaming of a quilt, and this one is definitely for myself... so far everything else was made with the intention to give them to someone else or ended up going that way anyway...

Here are my treasures:

I'm afraid I might get sick of panels if I ever go through with all my panel quilt plans, but I'd like to use this fabric for a quilt like this hopscotch one by Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts. I bought the red fabric to be the stand-out fabric similar to Amanda-Jean's orange block amongst all the pinks.

If anyone has better suggestions for a quilt, please send them my way. I have 1/4 m of each fabric.

I also found these cute flanelettes for future baby quilts:


The sheep for the backing, and the flowery fat quarter might be combined with the bugs and critters flanelette at some point, for a summer baby :)

Ahhh, fabric shopping makes me happy!!!