{Quilt Along Week 2: Cutting & Planning the Quilt}

May 22, 2013 by meredith · 3 Comments

Some materials for this quilt were provided to me by OnlineFabricStore.net. They are a fabulous company to work with, and as always, all opinions are 100% my own!

So far, this quilting thing has been pretty easy! Granted, I haven’t done any actual sewing or quilting yet, but what I have done up to this point, I’ve done pretty well if I do say so myself. During the second week of the Quilt Along, hosted by Becoming Martha and Create.Craft.Love, I worked on cutting my fabric pieces and then planning out my quilt top.

Here again is most of my beautiful fabric. I love it even more after getting it all cut and pieced together, but I’m jumping ahead of myself here. Before I began to cut anything at all, I had a nice little afternoon of ironing. After ironing for what seemed like forever, I got out my brand new self healing cutting mat, acrylic rulers, and rotary cutter courtesy of my good friends at Online Fabric Store. I also jotted down a list of how many blocks I should have from my fat quarters and the small strips between them.

You’ll recall that this is the quilt I’m making.

To create the blocks in the middle, you need to cut 88 pieces of fabric measuring 4.5 inches by 7.5 inches. {You will be able to cut eight blocks out of each fat quarter.} The easiest way I can describe to cut your fabric is to cut 4.5 inch strips, then stack each strip {you’ll have four of them}, measure out 7.5 inches, and cut through the entire stack.

Your rotary cutter can handle it, trust me! You will get two 7.5 inch sections {through 4 layers of fabric = 8 blocks} out of this. There will be about 6 inches extra.

Soon, you’ll have a stack of pretty 4.5 inch by 7.5 inch rectangles for your quilt blocks!

To cut out the small rectangles between the larger blocks I needed 72 pieces measuring 1.5 inches by 4.5 inches. To do this, I cut 8 strips measuring 4.5 inches in width. Then I simply stacked all 8 pieces on top of each other and cut ten 1.5 inch sections.

Once I cut all the rectangles {both large and small}, came the intimidating part for me, cutting the sashing, borders, binding, and backing. For the quilt I’m making, I needed the following:

Borders – Cut (2) 6.25 inch by 87 inch pieces for the long edges. Cut (2) 6.25 inch by 67 inch pieces for the short edges.

Sashes – Cut (11) 4 inch by 55.5 inch pieces.

Backing - Cut your fabric exactly in half.

Binding – Cut (9) 2.5 inches by 42 inch strips.

I was so nervous because the strips were just so long, and I was afraid that I’d get crooked somewhere along the way. Luckily, I took my time and made straight cuts on the first try with no wasted fabric. Yes, I’m as shocked as you are my friends!

Below is all the fabric for my quilt, ready to be pieced together! For my borders, sashes, and backing, you’ll remember I’m using Michael Miller Dumb Dot in Charcoal from my friends at Online Fabric Store.

Before I could begin actually piecing my quilt, I needed to plan out my quilt top to format my rectangles how I wanted them to look.

I just started laying out my rows and began with the large rectangles. Each row will contain 7 large rectangles separated by 6 small rectangles. There will be 12 rows separated by a sash. {You will only use 84 out of the 88 large rectangles.}

I laid out the ENTIRE quilt top and moved rectangles around until I liked how it looked! *Note, the sashes will appear longer than the rectangle rows…that’s okay! Once you sew the rectangle row together, it will be the same length as the sashing!

Once I had it all laid out, I began to collect each row and kept them in order {so that piecing later on would be faster}.

I soon had a stack of rectangle rows, with sashing in between {going another direction}. I collected my smaller rectangles separately.

The next part of my quilting adventure involves piecing the top of my quilt. Stay tuned to see how that process goes for me!

I may be linking up at these parties!

About Meredith Hazel

Meredith is a stay at home mom and has been blogging since 2012. She started Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home as a creative outlet in between nap times for her little one. Wait 'Til Your Father gets home is a combination of crafting tutorials, DIY projects, recipes and, sharing some of life's journey along the way.

Filed Under: Baby, Quilting, Sewing Tagged With: baby, quilt along, quilting, sewing

{Quilt Along Week 1}

May 6, 2013 by meredith · 9 Comments

I’m super excited and perhaps a bit crazy to be taking on a project like this at 35 weeks pregnant, but I’m thrilled to share that I’m participating in Becoming Martha‘s and Create.Craft.Love‘s first ever Quilt Along. Did I mention I’ve never made a quilt before?

Am I crazy, or what?

I’ve been busy collecting all of my supplies, to make the following quilt:

via allpeoplequilt.com

Supplies

(Quantities and pattern from allpeoplequilt.com)

11 “fat quarters” (18×22″ pieces) for the patterned bricks

1/2 yard of solid color for the small rectangles between the bricks (shown in pink)

4.5 yards solid color for rows between patterned bricks (shown in yellow)

3/4 yards solid color for binding (shown in green)

5 7/8 yards solid color for backing

73×105″ batting

straight pins

curved safety pins

cutting mat

rotary cutter

acrylic rulers

The finished quilt is a twin size quilt and measures 67 x 98.5″, and the quantities are based on 44/45″ wide fabric. The measurements also include 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Ideally I’d love to say that this quilt is for the sweet baby in my belly, but, I’m not sure of baby’s gender. So, if it’s a boy, then, yes, it’s definitely for him! However, if it’s a girl, I’m thinking I’ll want to make her a quilt that’s a bit more girly than this…

Pictured above are the fat quarters I’ll be using for the patterned bricks. I found them here and ordered two sets. I’m also using the aqua/polka dot fabric for my binding and chose to keep the small rectangles between the bricks a solid color, I’m thinking teal.

The rest of my materials were generously given to me by my new best pals at OnlineFabricStore.net. You might remember that I recently made some beautiful Picnic-Style Place Mats and Cloth Napkins using some fabulous fabric from their site.

They are providing some awesome batting for my quilt, I chose to get

Mountain Mist Queen-Size Quilt Light Weight Batting

I got the queen sized pack since the materials list called for dimensions closest to this option.

I’m also using some beautiful fabric from OFS to use as the sashing between each row on the front of the quilt and to cover the back side of the entire quilt.

It’s called Michael Miller Dumb Dot in Charcoal and can be found at OFS here.

And of course I’ll be needing quite a bit of thread. After contemplating if I should get a fun color or not, I decided to keep it simple with white. So, OFS supplied me with several spools of

Coats & Clark Dual Duty XP Thread – Winter White, 500 Yards, found here on their site.

OFS was also kind enough to send me an awesome pair of fabric scissors! There’s nothing like a brand new pair of scissors to be used only on fabric! They cut amazing!!

You can find this pair and several others at OFS, here.

My friends at OnlineFabricStore.net are also going out of their way to help me out with my first ever quilting project to provide me with straight pins, curved safety pins {wondering why when quilting you need a curved safety pin}, a cutting mat, a rotary cutter, and a couple acrylic rulers {because I’m told one isn’t enough…guess I’ll find out about that one}.

So, stay tuned! I’ll be sharing the process of cutting the fabric in my next Quilt Along post. Sounds easy enough, right? Anyone can cut fabric {hopefully}! To see how Jill of Create.Craft.Love suggests to cut each piece, visit her explanation found here.

I received some product from OnlineFabricStore.net to complete this quilting project. As always, all opinions are 100% my own!

About Meredith Hazel

Filed Under: Quilting, Sewing Tagged With: baby, quilt along, quilting, sewing

{Business Card Holders}

May 1, 2013 by meredith · 23 Comments

When I went to SNAP! a few weeks ago, I knew I’d need some pretty awesome business cards. You see, when you meet another blogger at a conference, you usually say something like this…

“Hi, I’m Meredith from Wait ‘Til Your Father Gets Home”

and then immediately exchange business cards with the other blogger.

Just look at some of the cards I accumulated this year at SNAP!…

Crazy, right?!

Now, how to keep track of all those cards, plus my own stack to hand out? I had the perfect solution after doing some browsing of the blogosphere. My sweet friend, Lindsay had a pattern for some super simple, sewn business card holders, and I knew I could easily put my own spin on her awesome version for myself and my SNAP! roomies using these pretty fabrics.

Materials Needed

2 Fabric Pieces cut to 5 1/2″ x 4 1/2″

{One liner, one outside}

2 Fabric Pieces cut to 2 1/2″ x 4 1/2″

{pockets}

1 Piece Fusible Interfacing cut to 5 1/2″ x 4 1/2″

thread

coordinating button

velcro

Step 1

On both of the 2 1/2 x 4 1/2″ pieces, fold and iron a double 1/4″ hem. Sew along the folded edge {for some reason, I forgot to actually sew this on this particular business card holder, so ignore my picture and the fact that each piece is not sewn along the hem}.

Step 2

Line up your velcro pieces, pin, and sew in place.

Step 3: Assembly

Picture 1: Pin pockets to inside piece {the hem of each pocket should be towards the middle}.

Picture 2: After ironing the fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the outside piece, pin it to the inside piece with the pockets, right sides facing each other.

Picture 3: Sew around the entire piece, with a 1/4″ seam allowance. Leave a space on one side to flip right side out, but make sure to back stitch as you don’t want your sewing to come undone. Clip the corners at a 45 degree angle before flipping.

Picture 4: Iron as flat as possible and pin the space you left un-sewn. Sew a topstitch around the entire business card holder with a 1/4″ seam allowance.

Step 4

Fold the business card holder in half and run your iron over it once again. In the crease, sew a straight line. This makes folding the business card holder a lot easier as you’re using it.

Step 5

Carefully sew a cute button onto the front of one side of the business card holder. Make sure not to sew your pocket shut!

And now you’re ready to hand out business cards in a snap {or in my case, at SNAP!}

Those are all of the cute holders I ended up giving my roomies as gifts upon arriving at the conference!

I think my favorite is the teal and pink chevron. Which one is yours?

I’ll be linking up at these great parties!

About Meredith Hazel

Filed Under: Crafting, Sewing Tagged With: blogs, business card holders, business cards, sewing

{Picnic-Style Place Mats}

April 23, 2013 by meredith · 49 Comments

Last week I attended the SNAP! conference in Thanksgiving Point, Utah. I’m so excited to share my experience with all of you over the next few weeks. Until then, I wanted to share my final project from my Online Fabric Store purchase,

Picnic-Style Place Mats

To make your own set of four, you’ll need:

1 yard of fabric {I used two patterns, so I went through 1/2 yard of each}

coordinating thread

scissors or rotary cutter

sewing machine

You’ll want to make the following cuts for each place mat:

2 pieces– 20 x 15″

1 piece {napkin pocket}– 6 x 4″

1 piece {utensil holder}– 2 x 4″

The first thing I did for each place mat, was to sew the actual place mat together. You’ll want to sew with a 1/4 inch seam allowance, right sides facing each other. Leave a small opening to turn the fabric right-side out, and finish off with a top stitch of 1/4 inch.

Next I prepared the utensil holders {please excuse the gross ironing board cover}.

Fold the utensil holder piece in half, length-wise and iron a nice crease. Next, unfold the crease you just made and fold the bottom portion up to the crease line. Iron it. Do the same for the top; fold it down to the center crease and iron that. Finally fold the entire piece in half again and iron it with the best possible crease you can achieve.

It will look like this from the side…

Now, to prepare the napkin pocket, fold a double 1/4 inch hem along one of the short sides {this will be the top of your pocket}. Iron it, creating a good crease.

Now, sew along the two long sides of the utensil holder and along the top hem of the napkin pocket.

Attach the utensil holder to either side of the napkin pocket by sewing it in place. You’ll then need to get out the iron again and fold 1/4 inch hem on the remaining three sides of the napkin pocket.

Again, the iron is your friend in this project. Make sure to get the best possible crease you can! It will only make the sewing part go much smoother!

Now, to attach the pocket to the place mat, pin it in place on the lower right corner, 1 inch from the side and the bottom hems.

I did not sew through the utensil holder piece as it was pretty thick in that part and my sewing machine tends to be kinda wimpy when there is more than two layers involved.

I absolutely adore these place mats and think the set of four paired with the cloth napkins would make sure a cute wedding shower gift. You could roll them up and add them to a cute picnic basket with yummy food and a bottle of wine!

For a full tutorial on how to make the Cloth Napkins, click here.

Nothing says Spring quite like an afternoon picnic, don’t you think?!

To read more about my experience with Online Fabric Store, click here.

I’ll be linking up at these parties.

About Meredith Hazel

Filed Under: Sewing, Sponsored Tagged With: fabric, online fabric store, picnic place mats, place mats, sewing

{Easy Cloth Napkins}

April 17, 2013 by meredith · 22 Comments

Yesterday I introduced all of you to my new favorite site to purchase fabric, Online Fabric Store. Today, I’m excited to share one of two projects that I recently completed using part of my most recent order…

Easy Cloth Napkins

To make a set of four cloth napkins, you’ll need:

1/2 yard of desired fabric

coordinating thread

pins

scissors or rotary cutter & mat

iron/ironing board

sewing machine

For each napkin, I cut a 14 inch square of the fabric. Using a rotary cutter and cutting mat is always the easiest way to cut fabric in my opinion, but scissors work great as well!

Once I had each piece, I ironed a double 1/2 inch hem on all four sides of each square, so my once 14 inch napkin is now 13 x 13 inches.