This is a Quick Strippie quilt from Mary Johnson, who has other terrific free patterns--she primarily shares these for charity quilts but I needed a fast baby quilt for our 1 year old grand-nephew's birthday party next Saturday. I cut and sewed this in one afternoon.
A closeup of the adorable print of puppies. The backing will be a red flannel I found at JoAnn's and the binding the blue print, which I paid the most for--it was $10 a yard at the pricey fabric store but was the perfect color. The puppy print and the brown dot I bought for a bargain at my friend Tanya's mom's sale. I plan to cut the baby's initials out of some tan fleece I have on hand and applique those somewhere to make it a bit more special. I seem to have a thing with initials just lately!
Do you use snippets like these? Before I started reading blogs (Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville in particular) I had never heard of sewing on and off a "threadsaver" like this--and I have been sewing for 37 years and taken many classes! I find it immensely helpful and am amazed at how much thread it really saves. Added bonuses: I don't have to hold the ends of my thread when I start a seam, so no chance of the thread getting balled up on the back; 100% cotton thread is also very curly and this eliminates having to fish for the ends as well. My bobbins last way longer too. Someday I will get organized enough to start a leader-ender project with the snippets. But for now, I am getting pretty comfortable with remembering to use one at the top and end of every seam. I'm off to sew now--Happy Quilting!
9 comments:
Perfect little boys quilt!
I call your snippets bunnytails (I have no idea where the name came from). I had an old Singer that would eat the threads and sometimes fabric with it, a trillion years ago someone told me about bunnytails...they were a life saver (and project saver).
Mary has a wealth of patterns on her website, and they're perfect for those quick projects we want to make sometimes. Cute, cute quilt.
I started using a sew-on, sew-off chunk of fabric some time ago, and I use the same one till it's stiff and totally covered with threads. I need to get my act together too and sew some of Bonnie's leader/ender projects. I even bought her book as incentive, but so far, I'm just opening and closing the book.
I have been using strips of fabrics since I started quilting 20 or so years ago. My first quilt teacher said as you cut off the selvages or you have extra binding left cut them into 2" lengths throw them in a basket and use them to start and stop every time you sew
it is so helpful!
Kathie
I keep reading about leader /ender quilts , and I finally goggled it this week. What a clever idea.
I'm back to work too tomorrow and imagine after having had a week off I'll be playing catch up all week. Hope you continue to feel better and get many crafty things done!
that fabric is adorable...yes, reading blogs is a great way to get hints...
I used to use these...which I called "thready Freddys" but now I'm a totally leader/ender girl. Right now I have 3 leader /enders I can work on given my mood...one is almost done because I am out of Cherrywood fabric scraps for it.
We cut all our scraps into 2 1/2" squares and then piece a dark and a light one together for our "leaders & enders." Viola! after a few weeks we put them together into 4 or 16 patch blocks for charity quilts. Free quilts!
I think your "quickie" is adorable! The puppy fabric just makes the quilt and the others work perfectly with it. Nothing wrong with a few quick tricks up your sleeve for when you need them. Hope that cold is all gone by now and you are feeling fit as a fiddle! Hugs, Finn
Sorry you've been feeling under the weather, Annie. You still seem to go full tilt, though. When I have a cold I just curl up on the couch and watch TV! I have been using those little fabric bits to start and end for decades. My old Bernina has a tendency to suck the edge of the fabric down into the bobbin case so the little snippets solve that problem. Since discovering Bonnie's blog, I now make crumb blocks with the snippets or use squares to create 4 or 9 patches for future projects. It's amazing how quickly they accumulate while sewing another project.
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