Rudolph The Red Nosed Throw Quilt

Each year for Christmas I try a new quilt pattern or design.  I get out the giant bin of holiday fabric and start digging and then usually spend a few weeks in the quilt room.  Only thing is, with me when it comes to quilt patterns (and fabric for that matter) I'm like Steve Martin's character in the movie "The Jerk" in that scene where he's picking up the *only* things he needs and the list just keeps going and going... "The ashtray, this paddle game, and the remote control, and the lamp, and that's all *I* need."  It's almost to the point of a sickness.. I can imagine the scene now.. me and a room full of old ladies with eye glasses that have those decorative chains on them so they can take the glasses off and hang them around their necks like my high school homeroom teacher Mrs Smith... then I gingerly step to the podium and say.. ".. Hello.. my name is Kim and I'm addicted to fabric and quilt patterns.. " to which they all respond "HELLO KIM!" and then clap.

The reason is easy, for me, the Christmas pattern designs are festive and colorful and since they're given away as gifts you haven't been sitting there looking at them all year getting tired of them.  Also, I still enjoy making each of the designs I create during the holidays, so I don't want to give any of them up and keep them in my project list and then add a new one each year.  A few  years ago the Christmas project was the Bethlehem Star, which I'm sure you're all sick to death of since it's become my go-to project.  I'll admit it.. I love sewing stars.. so sue me!  Then last Christmas I did a star and added a wreath wall hanging.  and this year the wreath became a throw and I added a new pattern, a 'twisted Rudy'.  I know what you're thinking, 'sounds like the name of a cocktail from an awkward Mary Tyler-esk dinner party'. Yeah, but it's really cute and turned out to be super fun to make.


I had looked online and in some books for ideas for this year's new Christmas quilt pattern.  I wanted something that I'd never done before.. something interesting.   So I stumbled upon a 'youtube' video for a ruler that makes Twisted Squares.. looks like a helpful product and for $8 it will make creating twisted blocks fast and easy.  A twisted square is a square made from a 4 patch block where the seams are set on a 30 degree angle.  Now, I enjoy a good quilting gadget as much as the next person... but $8 plus shipping for a 4 inch square of plexiglass with a few lines printed on it just wasn't going to happen.  Some might even choose to use the word "cheap".. I'll stick to frugal and maybe crafty.  Well, anything to save a buck.. or possibly 8 bucks!  To add insult to frugality, the pattern for this quilt could be downloaded, but wasn't free.

I had some fabric that I felt fit the project well and who am I to let a good pile of fabric go to waste...  so.. if this quilt was to be made I was going to need a pattern.  That's where my nerd meets quilter's brain came into play and it was time to reverse engineer the Twisted Rudy design.  Not real hard to do, about an hour, some graph paper and my son's Crayola colored pencils and whalla.. I had a plan.

I cut this project with the help of a ruler that I already had in my quilting ruler stash that had many triangle markings on it, including a 30 degree indication.  It wasn't as fancy as the special one that only does one thing, but didn't cost me $8 either.  The finishing of this project was done by machine tying the quilt with a double polyester batting which made for a really fluffy warm little throw blanket.

This twisted Rudy was donated to a very worthy cause, a fund raiser to raise money for a family who has a baby girl who was very ill and the Mommy had lost her job after having to be at her daughter's hospital bedside.  Since this is a Christmas project.. and Christmas brings about the spirit of giving, I figure donating it is somewhat fitting.

This was a fun project, I'm also thinking that perhaps I'll do a few other "twisted" block projects and perhaps a tutorial on this 'Twisted Rudy'.

Click here for a link to photos of this and other Christmas 2012 projects .

Necessity.. The Mother of Invention...

Necessity and to be honest, and a bit of jealousy is the mother of this invention.  While my sewing studio is still in the planning stages for the basement of our house (crossing my fingers for this spring) the B&S quilt room continues to be my families dining room.
 
I've got a fairly good set up here with my sewing machine on the dining room table and two 6 foot folding rectangle tables that act as my ironing and cutting stations and when necessary get pushed together for large work and basting when I choose not to assemble the quilting frame and long arm finish a project.  All in all, It's a setup that works... especially when compared to the 32 inch round table this quilting venture started from.

Well, the jealousy part comes from my visits to my sister's workroom.  She runs a very successful business of fabricating high end draperies, and pretty much anything else she or a decorator can think of to be made out of fabric.  I go to her work area often and get advise or search through the rolls and rolls of left over fabrics.  She's made her self a work table, a ginormous work table, and in the past I've gone there to lay out projects on her work surface as you can iron and pin on it.. it's sturdy... it's virtually indestructible.

There's no way I could fit a table like hers into my dining room and for quilting it would really be overkill but trying to maneuver 44 inch wide quilting cotton onto a tiny ironing board is also not ideal.

So, seeing as I am terrified of the power saw, I enlisted the help of my workroom handyman, who also happens to be my husband.  I had him cut a piece of plywood to the width of one of my tables and nearly the length (48 inches) saving me several feet at the end of the table.






He then had the idea of rounding the corners to match the corners of the table and cut in this handy handle that will end up on the bottom for my fingers to go in when I lift the finished board.

I then went back to my sewing guru and asked what to cover it with.  I needed something that I can iron on and that would also not get damaged or grow mildew when it gets wet or hit with a lot of steam.  The materials that I would need you can order online or just get at your local fabric / craft store; 'Worktable Padding' and 'Canvas Worktable Covering' (or some places call it duck cloth).  It comes in 60 inch widths, so for this project I didn't need a lot and it could be done fairly cheaply.

I laid out the pad that would go underneath and cut that to the exact size.

I then cut the cover cloth slightly larger than the plywood and began to power staple it up around the sides, starting with opposite sides and stretching it as I went along.

The finished board on my table.  As you can see I left the space at the end to fit my little ironing board that I had been using when I do quilt piecing.

I like having both on the table as you can see the board can accommodate a standard 44 inch width of quilting cotton while small piecing can still be ironed without moving larger fabric on the smaller board.  This was a very easy and inexpensive project and really saves me time while quilting as I don't need to keep moving fabric to properly iron it as I had before because a full width didn't fit on my small ironing board.