Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!: Funky Monkey Fabrics

Showing posts with label Funky Monkey Fabrics. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

September OMG done

Hi! I'm cutting it pretty close but they are done - my niece's curtains for her cottage bedroom. These are my September One Monthly Goal (OMG).

Tab top curtains in buffalo red & black plaid flannel

This was the first time that I made tab top curtains. In my curtain making days, we made a sleeve to pull it though. These curtains weren't very difficult but I'm really glad that I didn't have to buy a pattern. YouTube can be pretty wonderful.

Buffalo red and black plaid flannel curtains

I watched the DIY Tab Top Curtains YouTube video by Online Fabric Store - I have included the link in the Related links section below. The tutorial was very good but I do find the music distracting. Anyway, after watching it a few times, I made some notes, cut my fabric and that's as far as I got. My poor niece had to wait a few months for these but finally here they are😊

Before this, I had never heard of buffalo red and black plaid. Again....thank you Google! I found the fabric at Funky Monkey. My niece bought 2½ meters but really, 3 meters would have been better. I forgot about the flannel shrinkage. The fabric is from Kaufman and it's the nicest flannel I've ever worked with. Wow, I guess that's what quality flannel is like!

Kaufman's flannel

Chain stitching the tabs

In this post, I thought that I would share with you how my sewing has changed since I'm a quilter.

The most obvious tool that quilters use is the rotary cutter - with all straight cuts, it went really well.

The picture on the right is the chain stitching of the tabs. I sure didn't know about this before quilting!

Since I didn't have enough flannel for the top facing, I used a colourful plaid that I had in my stash. It's certainly not the same quality but since it was also pre-washed, it should be fine for the facing.

You may also notice that I used a walking foot. Again, until taking Christina Cameli's Free-Motion Quilted Gifts course on Craftsy last year, I would never have thought to use the walking foot for this type of sewing. It really made everything so much easier to sew together.

Sewing down the facing with the walking foot

What I learned

The fall weather has finally re-activated my brain. I was able to slowly think this project through and get it done. The OMG deadline was also a motivator - thanks Patty at Elm Street Quilts.
Sewing curtains is not the same since I'm now a quilter. I'm the first to admit that I don't really like piecing but all of that work paid off for learning techniques that are very transferable.
It may have taken several months, but taking my time, watching the video several times, making notes and being organised really helped me make the curtains.
I was very anxious about making these because I knew that I didn't have ANY extra fabric for making mistakes! For an accuracy challenged quilter, that's a lot of extra stress 😊

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Great Hockey Jersey Quilt in the Making

It's finally coming together - the great Hockey Jersey Quilt!

My nephew graduated from high school this spring and is going away to University very soon. He loves hockey and was a goalie in both Ottawa and Denmark, so a t-shirt quilt made up of a few t-shirts and many hockey jerseys is a perfect gift.

the great hockey jersey quilt in progress

The Great Hockey Jersey Quilt needs one more row of t-shirts and borders

I've been working on this project for about a month. Typically when I am starting something new, I read the book!

I bought it at Martingale, my favourite quilting book shop. The book is Terrific T-Shirt Quilts by Karen M. Burns. It was really informative. Since you sort of have to make-it-up as you go with this type of quilt, it was great to get some ideas as well as technical information.

Terrific T-Shirt Quilts

Funky Monkey Fabrics

I was very nervous about sewing with stretchy fabrics. Not only did I have t-shirts but I also had all kinds of hockey jerseys! It turns out there's a great secret that makes these fabrics as easy to sew as regular cotton fabric! It's called FusiKnit Tricot Fusible Interfacing. You just iron it onto the back of the t-shirt or jersey and voila! You now have fabric that's easy to handle and sew. I bought it at Funky Monkey Fabrics, a Canadian fabric store, recommended by a colleague, that specializes in knits. The interfacing is only 20" wide, so I bought 5 yards. That was enough to back most of the hockey jerseys. I then had to order another 3 yards. Now I have enough to finish the quilt!

There are many different ways of putting a t-shirt quilt together. Since I'm not renown for my planning, I just started cutting around the logos and anything else that might be of interest for the quilt. My brother told me what was important but otherwise I was free to do as I please (my kind of project).

The interesting pieces were the ones where the front, the back and sometimes the sleeve were going to be part of the quilt. I didn't want to separate them, so I ended up piecing them together in different ways. Here are some of them:

Front of the jersey with a patch from the sleeve

This first block has the sleeve at the top to show the team colours, then the front of the jersey with a patch from the back .

The sleeve, front and back of the jersey

The second block is the front of the goalie jersey and a patch from the sleeve.

The third example includes the front of the jersey, which had to be cut in a particular way and so includes some additional piecing as well as one sleeve and then the goalie patch from the other sleeve.

The front as well as a sleeve and patch

I will leave this post to finish up the top row. These have t-shirts of things that my nephew loved as a kid - Spiderman, Toy Story etc.

There are also a couple of blocks that I left blank. I will add various patches to these.

I used a few Kona cottons to make the sashing or borders around the blocks. Today I ordered the border and backing fabric from my favourite local online supplier - Mad About Patchwork. The crunch is on - my nephew leaves for school in 11 days!

I expect to be doing a whole lot of quilting next week :-)

What I learned:

When using the FusiKnit Tricot Fusible Interfacing, it's important that the stretch of the interfacing is in the opposite direction to the stretch of the fabric. I highly recommend Terrific T-Shirt Quilts. The advice on working with knits was terrific and saved me a lot of headaches.
When cutting up the t-shirts and jerseys, cut as large a piece as possible. It's much easier to cut off more than to sew it back together!
I really like Kona cottons but I'm going to have to invest in a colour chart. It's so hard to keep track of which colours are which when you want to re-order anything. I have kept track of some of the fabrics by cutting a small piece and stapling it to the invoice before I wash them. Unfortunately I haven't always done that :-(
BTW, the quilt is a surprise. My nephew doesn't read my blog....so don't tell him!