July 10, 2014

Someone is Getting Older

My sister Aja has a birthday coming up ... very shortly. This year I decided to make her a quilt for her bed, a twin. It will be the biggest quilt I have ever made! She picked out the Hello Petal line by Aneela HoeyAfter a trip to my favorite LQS Bits n' Pieces to raid their holiday sale I walked away with all the goods I needed including a FREE, yes FREE charm pack.  They had this spinner wheel with tons of prizes ... my prize was a free charm pack.  The woman said she found the last Hello Petal charm pack out back and went to get it for me, so it was my lucky day :)  This also made my day! Love having such a great shop nearby, these ladies are phenomenal :) 



After doing some thinking, Aja has never been a pink fan or liked anything super girly. I was very surprised that this was her fabric pick! The whole line is sweet, girly, and includes lots of pink. After asking more questions I come to find out she only liked the blue and yellow prints, and not the pink. She did say I could only include a very little pink, the dark pink was fine.  There went half the layer cake and charm pack! Good think I got some extra FQs just to make sure. 


This will also be the first time I quilt with linen.  I have used linen a million times but never in a quilt. I was inspired by the Sugar Block of the Month over at Stitchery Dickory Dock.  I am also going to use the January pattern from that BOM to make the quilt top.  Each block finishes at 12 inches square, so hopefully that will speed up the process!  Any advice for quilting with linen?  This piece has been pre-washed :)

Sew long for now, 
Patch & Chels


10 comments:

  1. Good thing you keep talking to her about the fabric and understood how little pink she wanted in it before you got too far along. :)

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  2. This should be great!! I don't know much about linen but very recently Rachel at Stitched in Color I think it is did a very in depth post about sewing with linen. It may be in her tutorials section? If you can't find it I can send you the link.

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  3. Somehow I missed that you're "local". :D This is going to be a really great quilt (though I agree with your sister about pink). I think Stitched in Color posted some tips on using linen a little while ago. From what I remember -- shorten stitch length, use wider seams, and zigzag the seams afterward, but definitely 'google it'. Some people have no issue with linen at all, and others seem to have horrible times with it. I hope yours is a good one!

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  4. Ack, I left a comment with this link about quilting for linen: http://www.stitchedincolor.com/2014/05/quilting-with-linen.html I'm not sure if it went through though because my internet decided NOPE NOT WORKING WHEN YOU PRESS POST TODAY NER NER :(

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  5. Can't wait to see it. Love the fabrics she chose.

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  6. Linen? Wider than usual seam allowances and small stitches to slow down its tendency to fray. Don't go easy on the quilting later for the same reason.
    Gorgeous fabric. Lucky you and lucky Aja!

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  7. This sounds like it's going to be great! I love this collection too, but that's because if a collection has both polka dots and cats I'm pretty much sold. Good luck with the linen. I've sewn with it a few times, but actually never (yet) had to wash what I've sewn. As I saw in the other comments, I'd suggest checking out Stitched in Color, and use a shorter stitch length/larger seam allowance for those pieces.

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  8. Rachel at Stitched in Color has some great posts about sewing with linen. I would definitely read them!

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  9. Your sister is lucky to be spoiled with a quilt for her b'day!

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  10. I love all that Aneela Hoey fabric! I also purchased some from Bits N Pieces for the Preppy quilt. Aren't the people at that store the nicest and craziest? I didn't know what to make of Liz at first but she is so great! She has crazy high energy and will spend lots of time with every customer. Love that shop! Please let us know how the linen works. I have used it in a wall hanging and bags but not in a quilt so I am curious.

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