How to Make a Quilt in 7 Days

I have a new obsession... quilting. I got bit hard by the quilting bee this month. Over Christmas, I decided to make a quilt, my first one, for my bestie Sarah, since she's having her first baby. I like how our two firsts are coinciding. Hers is much more monumental than mine, but who knows, maybe some day I will be some phenomenal quilter, and baby T will be the proud owner of my very first quilt. We can all dream.

So since I only work three days a week, I have tons of free time, and making your first quilt in 7 days was totally do-able. (Since all 7 days weren't consecutive.) This was also a baby quilt, so it was pretty small.

Here's a list of things you'll need to make your quilt lickety-split, in no particular order:

• Loud music (I prefer Lady GaGa, reggaeton, and the Garden State soundtrack)
• Roller blade (not the skating kind, the cutting kind)
• Ruler
• Cutting mat
• Fabric scissors
• Thread in matching colors
• Iron
• Towel (ironing board)
• Fabric
• Jack Bauer
• Quilt pattern
• Snacks
• Sewing machine

This is the pattern that I chose. The link will tell you all the measurements and quantities that you need for fabrics.

Here's what you need to do each day:

Day 1 - Wash and dry all your fabrics (unless you are buying very high quality fabrics that don't shrink much, this step is very important so that when you wash your quilt, the fabric doesn't shrink around the stitching)

Day 2 - Iron all your fabrics, measure and cut the colored squares. Here are my pretty squares!

Day 3 - Measure and cut all the white squares and strips, make the pink triangles (here's the best triangle tutorial I found - you will see this involves sewing the white and pink squares together twice and then cutting down the middle - actually pretty easy), then you have to iron all the triangles open, and if you are me, you will then crack the kitchen counter by ironing 26 triangles open in the exact same spot on the counter while watching the last few hours of Season 1 of 24.

Day 4 - Start Season 2 of 24. Make green triangles the same way you made the pink triangles, iron the green triangles - if you had previously cracked your kitchen counter, this step will take extra long because you have to make sure your kitchen counter cools off completely every once in a while. The next step is maybe the most fun because you get to lay out your green zig-zags of your quilt. Play around with the patterns and see what works best. Remember that you have to make 2 zig-zags, so you want to ensure your fabrics are evenly distributed. Then go ahead and start sewing the squares together!!

Day 5 - Lay out your pink zig-zags and start sewing those. Once you have all 4 zig-zags done, the most tedious part is to press all your seams. Up until this point, I did not find any part of the whole process awful. The pressing of seams has to be the worst part of quilting. After you have pressed all your stupid seams, you are ready to sew. Follow the pattern listed on the website - green zig-zag, white strip, pink zig-zag, white strip, blah blah blah.

At this point, you can celebrate because you have done the hardest part!!

Day 6 - Call in reinforcements in the form of your personal quilting expert Leigh. Leigh will teach you how to layer and tack your quilt. Then she will take a nap on your very tiny couch. After that, she will man-up and show you how to bind your quilt. Binding is the process of adding the edge around the quilt. It's not that hard, and it adds such a nice touch, holding together all the parts of the quilt - the top, the stuffing, and the back. This is the binding tutorial that Leigh and I used.

Day 7 - Finish up your binding, cut all the extra threads off, and check all the edges around your binding. Sit and admire your work. And smile at your pretty quilt.

Sarah, I can't wait to give you this quilt. I can't wait to meet your baby girl, I hope she loves it!

My Pride and Joy

For many years I've been wanting an Advent Calendar of epic proportions. Last year I came up with the idea of having a wooden one in the shape of a tree. I wanted it to have little drawers and it had to be cute. I found one on Amazon but it was out of stock and also too expensive. So I had one commissioned. That's just how I roll.

This is how it arrived to me:

I had to get started by painting all the drawers.

I wanted the knobs to look like little ornaments, in all different colors, so my good friend Joel helped me paint the knobs. (Thanks, Joel!) Once all the ornaments/knobs got screwed on, I painted all the numbers on to the drawers.

When it all got put together, it looked like this:

The final step was to give the tree a glossy shine. 'Cause everybody loves a glossy shine. And stage it for a stylized photo. Fancy.

This advent tree is one of my favorite things that I have ever crafted. It was a lot of work to make, but I loved doing it and seeing the fruits of my labor. And in the end, I gave it away as a gift... I hope the recipient loves it as much as I do!!

Sew Me a River

So I promise that I've been baking a lot... I just haven't been taking pictures, and my camera is really crappy, so even when I do take pictures they don't come out very good. I've also recently been given a sewing machine, so I started doing a lot of sewing. I sewed almost all of my Christmas presents this year, which was actually pretty fun, and I'm about to embark on a new, secret sewing project that I'll post about when I'm all finished with it. :)

This is the first project that I made:

They are napkins, and I gave them to my aunt Tricia for her birthday. She loved them. There was no specific pattern, I just found two super cute fabrics that matched and sewed them together inside out, flipped them right-side-out, and then finished the seam. Here's a picture of all four napkins.

I also made infinity scarves as Christmas gifts. I got the pattern and idea from Pinterest (my secret love).

This was the blog that I used for the "pattern"

Here's two that I made, I added a little flower for decoration. I also did some plaid flannel and a jersey one.

I've been bit by the crafting bug, people, this is only just the beginning...