Arkansas Traveler Pillow

My time in Cairo is winding down.  I have less than a month left and I've slowly been sorting things into piles, deciding what will go to my next location and what will go into storage.  I've already put most of my fabric into containers.

All of this is to say that I plan on spending my remaining time here sewing up little gifts to the friends I've developed over the past years.  I've made this pillow using the Arkansas Traveler block and plan on giving it to my neighbor.

Birthday pillow

My grandmother's birthday is coming up and I'm hoping this will arrive in the States in time.  I made a pillow based on this flying geese pillow and finished it using the instructions in this post.  It was pretty easy to put together and a successful first paper piercing experience!  The only snag is that I used a pillow form that claimed it was 18"x18" and I think it was really much smaller than that because my pillow cover looks very large.

I think she'll love it!

Another baby quilt

It seems like everyone in Cairo is pregnant these days so I've made a third baby quilt ahead of the baby shower next weekend.  The mother-to-be is a bit picky so hopefully this will live up to her standards!  I used Cluck Cluck Sew's tutorial for the strip and flip baby quilt since I needed a quick pattern due to being out of town for the past week.  Luckily there was an Egyptian holiday on Thursday and I got an unexpected day off today due to all the rioting that's going on near my place of work.  Oh Egypt...I think this is the fourth or fifth extra day off due to unsafe security situations in my time here, not to mention all the countless times we've had an early release or delayed start.

I couldn't decide which fabric to use for binding at first.  I have a ton of brown fabric that I don't go through that quickly, but I thought it made the quilt look heavy.

I think it turned out quite well!  One of these days I'll have to start trying to use free motion quilting...

Kite Baby Quilt

I had originally intended for my new wave quilt to go to a good friend/co-worker who is expecting her first child in March.  When she announced that she was having a baby girl I decided to make a different quilt that involved more 'girly' colors than the wave quilt that seems more gender neutral/boy-ish to my eyes.  I saw this tutorial on the Modern Quilt Guild blog and thought it seemed perfect.

I guess the only thing that really makes this quilt 'girly' is that it has coral-y reds.  I'm not sure I'll ever make a quilt like this again because I found it really tedious.  There was a lot of squaring (or rectangling) up to do and I never felt like any of my diamonds had all of their points match in the end.  Also some of the points were lopped off when I joined together the rows.  I'm still not sure why this was the case since the blocks were perfect half rectangle triangles after I squared them up.

But my biggest mistake didn't come until after I had sewn the binding on.  I saw a tutorial on machine stitching the binding on and decided to try it.  Usually I hand sew the binding onto the back, but I'm always in the mood for a short cut so decided to give machine binding a whirl.  I think it would have turned out perfectly well, except I had already stitched the binding onto the front 3/8" from the edge and the tutorial recommended that the binding be attached a quarter from the edge.  Not a big deal, I thought, and grabbed my rotary cutter and ruler and quickly trimmed everything up to a quarter of an inch.  Then I went to pin the binding to the back and discovered that when I trimmed up the binding, I also sliced through the bias tape so that it was no longer continuous.  I went ahead and stitched the binding on anyways and it turned out pretty well apart from the corners.  After that I went back and hand stitched the corners on so that the raw edges weren't visible.

Situations like these always make me wonder how noticeable the flaws are to people who don't quilt.  

Happy New Year!

Here's one of my recent finishes, the New Wave quilt, pattern by Elizabeth Hartman.  It's intended for one of my husband's colleagues who just gave birth to a boy.  She won't return to Egypt for a couple of months though so it's sitting on a chair right now.  The fabric is Simply Color from Moda.

I had an exciting Christmas and received a walking foot from my grandmother and a darning foot from my sister.  I had quilted the above quilt before receiving these gifts and was shocked to see how much easier it is to quilt straight lines using a walking first.  Of course, before that happened I managed to put the foot on the wrong way and had wondered what all the fuss was about because I couldn't see the huge difference.  The next few weeks will definitely involve a lot of free motion quilting practice.  I also have another baby quilt to finish before a shower next week and need to start thinking about what to give my grandmother for her birthday on February 14.  Maybe a pillow?  

Sewing Machine Cover

This probably won't come as a shock to anyone, but Cairo is dusty.  When I first moved here I was always wondering why I kept seeing people hose down streets in the morning.  I figured it had something to do with the heat and wanting to keep the concrete cooler, but then I found out that they were doing it to keep the dust down, which makes way more sense.  We're lucky that the building we live in is sealed pretty well, though the dust still manages to sneak in and coat the surfaces of everything  if we don't clean regularly.

All this is to say that I wanted to make a cover for my sewing machine.  I have one that came from the manufacturer, but it has an open top so that I can use the handle.  My machine never leaves its spot so having a hole in the cover isn't necessary.  Plus it lets the dust in!

I used this tutorial to make my cover.  It turned out pretty well, except I think I was too generous in the measurements.  I didn't want to make the fit too smug, but instead it's a little too loose.  I probably would have used interfacing if I had any available to me since the cover is a little floppy for my taste.  Oh well!  I used fabric from the Summersville line, which I love.