I Made a Little Quilt That Is a Ghost for The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt

The best thing, for me, about having a small niece, is that I can still make all the cute children's things that I want to make, because I still have someone to give them to!

Honestly, I might actually make more things for my niece than I did for my own kids, if you don't count things like clothes or homeschool materials or collaborative crafts, because when my own kids were this little kid's age, I was too busy parenting little kids to get enough crafty time to actually make them cute things! My younger kid was four years old by the time I made her first quilt, oops!

So when I saw The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt in a local bookstore a few weeks ago, and I was immediately charmed by it, and then immediately after that I wanted to make a little ghost quilt--I did!

Happily, the book's endpapers feature the quilt design of the titular little ghost, making it super easy to see what similar fabrics would look like. And even more happily, I did not have to buy a single thing to make this quilt! To be fair, a couple of the fabrics that I used are remnants that I'd previously bought with no purpose in mind, but everything else was honest-to-goodness scraps and stash, from the fabric for the top to the cotton batting to the cotton sheet I used as the backing.

All of the pieces are 5" squares. I wanted my quilt to be 10 blocks by 12 blocks, so I needed 120 blocks total. I sort of tried to keep the colors even between purple, aqua, and white, but it's a little blue-heavy. There are just a few grey blocks scattered in, because it turns out that I don't actually own very much grey fabric. The little ghost quilt in the book also has tan blocks, but for some reason I don't have ANY tan fabric, and anyway, I wasn't really feeling the tan colorway... which is perhaps one reason for why I don't own any tan fabric, lol!

To make the quilt, you lay out your pieces and rearrange them until you like the way they look as a whole, then stack them by rows, piece each row, then piece the rows themselves together, being quite fussy about lining up the corners:

Then you take up your entire family room floor making your quilt sandwich!

This is why I can never say that my creations come from a pet-free home, ahem. I would NEVER want my creations to come from a pet-free home!

I pinned my quilt quite well to the batting/backing, trimmed it out roughly, then quilted it via stitch in the ditch, earning myself yet another day of having a wonky back in the process. Why must quilting be so ergonomically incorrect?!?

Here's how it looks all nicely quilted and ready to be properly trimmed:

I got through trimming the batting before my supervisor came to check up on me:

I trimmed the backing to 1" wider than the quilt on all sides, then folded it in half twice, clipped it in place using every plastic sewing clip I own, and stitched it down:

Proper quilters use a blind stitch or another invisible stitch, but I'm happy with a plain old zig-zag.

And there's my little ghost quilt!

The lighting was soooo perfect right when I finished, but in the hour it took me to run out and do early voting, it got completely overcast. But I had to take my photos anyway, because Halloween presents are more fun if you can get them in the mail in time for the recipient to receive them before, you know, Halloween!

...and that's a bunch of cat hairs there on the purple block, sigh. I did wash it and dry it, and then go over it with the lint roller, before I put it in the mail.

Because you don't have to follow a pattern, just make sure that the pieces look cute together as a whole, this is actually one of the quickest quilts I've ever sewn:

I'm always especially pleased when I can work any of my favorite meaningful fabrics into a piece. Below, the smocked blue fabric used to be part of the only skirt that my older kid ever willingly wore. The silky white fabric to its right is actually from my wedding dress!

My favorite part, though, is that I used variegated thread to quilt it, and it looks so nice from the back!

Isn't it crazy that you can make something so substantial, and so pretty and perfect, entirely from materials you already have on hand? Historically, that's exactly what quilting should be, including reusing those bits of old clothes, and I LOVE that there's a children's book that encourages children to notice and care for the simple, unassuming gift of a patchwork quilt:

I didn't have any ghosts on hand to put into it, though, so that part's going to have to figure itself out later. 

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In Which I Sewed Fancy Witch Hats Until I Literally Ran Out Of Fancy Fabric

Never mind that I don't actually have any occasion for wearing my fancy witch hat lined up yet. I'll think of something.

Anyway, doesn't the old saying go, "If you sew a fancy witch hat, the occasion for wearing said fancy witch hat will come?" When the occasion arrives, I shall be prepared!

I used this free witch hat pattern from Keiko Lynn to get started, although I sort of riffed on it and did my own thing regarding construction. The pattern has the perfect dimensions, 17" across and 22" tall, and looks adorable on everyone I've seen wearing it. 

My fabric stash is appallingly disorganized, which actually has the benefit of causing me to make some delightful discoveries while I'm in the process of digging through every inch of fabric I own to uncover the one small swatch that I know I have somewhere around here. So while I was looking for the nice black Kona cotton that I knew I'd bought a pretty large remnant of the other day--

--I also came across the flower-embroidered tulle that I (over)bought a few years ago to make the kid a dance skirt:

It looked delightful stitched over the black cotton, so then when I was cleaning out my kid's old Trashion/Refashion Show fabric stash and found a length of white tulle embroidered with gold--I think it used to be a curtain?--I remembered the rest of my wedding dress that I've been cutting up and sewing into cute stuff for a few months now:

The perfect interfacing, I've decided, is Pellon 809. I tried to go stiffer for one hat, but it was nearly impossible to stitch curves when sewing with it, and while I like how nice and sticky-out the brim is, it kinda hurts my head to wear it. The Pellon 809 makes a slightly drapier brim--

--but at least you can sew it and wear it without tears!

I managed to get three entire witch hats out of the black cotton/black embellished tulle combo: one for me, one for my younger kid--because if you do not dress as a witch sometime in October, do you even attend a historically women's college?--and one that I sold in my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop:

I only had enough wedding dress fabric to make one hat, also already sold:

And of course, is it even a proper witch hat if it hasn't been blessed by one's familiar?

I am actually dying to make more of these hats, which tbh I do not need to do because I just finished piecing a Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt quilt (if you need to radicalize any young friends/relatives into the true and correct conviction that quilts are special and magical so that you can give them quilts for every occasion and have a fighting chance that they'll like them, I highly recommend this book!) and still need to back and quilt and bind it and get it in the mail to my niece. Also my current coasters are too summery and I want to make some autumn ones. And I got this book from the library and so obviously I now need to make name buntings for my younger kid and her roommates. 

So it's for the best that I literally do not have anymore fabric in my stash to be sewing witch hats with. But if I end up at Goodwill this weekend and somebody's tacky old prom dress with its hundred yards of embellished tulle just happens to fall into my cart... well, life is tough sometimes! 

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The Bookshelf Quilt is Finished

The glorious day has finally come that the bookshelf quilt is finished!

Its finished size is approximately 65"x95", so more or less within the standard sizing for a twin-sized quilt. I'd made the older kid's dorm room quilt more of a full size, thinking it would serve her better over the years, but with the bed lofted that extra quilt width is really in the way, so it turns out that a twin-sized quilt really IS the best size for a twin-sized bed, ahem.

The grey background fabric is a really nice piece of cotton yardage that I found at Goodwill--our local Goodwills have raised the prices on most items to a shocking degree, but you can still find great deals on fabric cuts.. probably because the staff don't know what they even are.

Most of the books are stash/scrap fabric from my own collection, but about halfway through piecing the blocks I realized that picking through my fabric to dig out the right scraps, then painstakingly cutting around all the other random cut-out bits and old seams and crap to make them the right sizes was taking WAY longer than it did to just sew my jellyroll pieces into books... so I hopped over to Joann's and had the kid pick out a couple more jellyroll sets. I do really like the scraps that I used, though, especially the red/green batik canvas that used to be bedroom curtains in the house before this one, and the Pegasus prints that I sewed a ton of stuff for my horse-loving older kid with, and all the various other bits and pieces of kid clothes and home projects and pretty things long past:

Here's my view from the ladder I'm perched on. My partner is rightfully refusing to help me because I rightfully got mad at him after I'd asked him to help me and then caught him PUTTING DUCT TAPE ON MY QUILT. He thought it would look better if it was photographed hanging, and apparently duct tape is the best way to hang a handmade, heirloom quilt that his wife is barely 12 hours from having completed:

Kind of reminds me of the time that our newborn first-born daughter would not stop screaming so he jokingly screamed back at her, and I flatly informed him that if he EVER screamed at my child again I would divorce him.

And he never screamed at the kids again! Ahem.

I'm the proudest of those blocks with the leaning books. I got the idea from this tutorial, but I think I ended up doing mine a little differently:

The couple of empty blocks were my partner's idea, and it was BRILLIANT. I felt like I could only get away with putting a couple in there, but OMG what a time-saver, and obviously a bookshelf has to have some room for more books!

I still don't love the look of the stacked book blocks, but I do like how they break up the space. They've grown on the kid, too, mostly because she likes to do the same thing on her own bookshelves:

I'm so happy to have this quilt finished, and I'm so pleased that my kid is pleased with it--

--but dang does it make her imminent departure real. I spent most of the summer feeling a lot of anticipatory grief about both kids going away--and pretty far away, too!--but now that we're just about in the moment I'm sort of... I don't know. Kind of in a state of just pushing through and getting stuff done and being sad about it later? I am firmly reminding myself not to get all wrapped up in my own feelings so I can keep the focus on the kids and their experience, but I did also mention to my kid that although I was super happy and excited for her I would probably cry, and when I cried it didn't mean I wasn't happy and excited for her. She was all, "Yeah, I HAVE met you before. Remember that time that you randomly burst into tears, oh, let's see... THREE HOURS AGO?" And my other kid accused me of not letting her out of my sight, which is completely untrue, but yes, I likely have been staring creepily at her because I want to memorize her face before she sails literally halfway across the world.

So, I dunno, you guys. I am freaking out but also feeling like I'm too busy to freak out and if I just hold off on freaking out now I'll have plenty of time to freak out later. But my kids are going to very exciting places to do very exciting things, and they both have handmade quilts to accompany them.

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How to Make Quilted Greeting Cards

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

Quilted greeting cards are a great way to show off your cutest mini quilt blocks!

When I made quilted postcards, we all knew that I was just one small step away from making quilted greeting cards, right? I mean sure, there was a chance that I’d get bored with mini quilt blocks and move onto the bookshelf quilt that I promised my younger daughter, but you and I both know that when I start down a rabbit trail, I generally follow that trail to the absolute end.

It turns out that the end of the mini quilt block rabbit trail is a set of quilt-as-you-go rainbow quilted greeting cards!

These quilted greeting cards have a whopping two additional steps over my quilted postcards, so they’re still a terrifically quick and easy way to do some scrap-busting of your sewing stash. You should also already either have a mini quilt block in mind OR know how to do the quilt-as-you-go method.

Here’s everything that you’ll need to make quilted greeting cards:

• fabric for quilting as you go or mini quilt block. Fabrics that are approximately all the same weight work best for this project, but otherwise, feel free to play with whatever fun fabrics you’ve got on hand. Those white suns on my mini rainbow quilts are pieces of my old wedding dress!
• double-sided fusible interfacing. This will allow you to adhere your mini quilts to your greeting cards without stitching onto the card. You can do without it, but I think it makes the final product look the nicest.
• heavyweight cardstock. Regular cardstock doesn’t feel hefty enough in the finished product, considering how much weight the mini quilt adds to the front of the card. I actually really like this Strathmore watercolor paper for this project, and I think you could even go as heavy as bristol board or cardboard food packaging.
• measuring, cutting, folding, and sewing materials. I used a guillotine paper cutter, a spoon instead of a bone folder, and regular sewing supplies.

Step 1: Measure, cut, and fold the greeting cards.

To make a standard 5″x7″ greeting card, you’ll want your paper sized to 7″x10″. I actually folded my watercolor paper in half first, then cut it to size with my paper cutter. I’ve got some nice scraps leftover for making bookmarks and gift tags!

No matter whether you fold first or cut first, the most important part of making a homemade greeting card look really nice is getting a really nice fold. With paper as thick as this, you pretty much have to use some kind of tool to smooth down that fold. The concept of the bone folder grosses me out even though I know most of them are just plastic, so fortunately the back of a spoon works just as well!

Step 2: Sew a mini quilt block sized to your greeting card.

I had the idea for this quilt-as-you-go rainbow and sun block, so in these photos that’s what I’m sewing, using that ‘Merica fabric as my base. I generally snap up 100% quilting cotton whenever I’m out thrifting, even if I hate the print, just for projects like this. I’ll also take all your old 100% cotton blue jeans!

By the time I finished my rainbow, you can’t see ‘Merica at all!

Edge-stitch around your completed quilt block, even though fraying isn’t going to be a problem. Your block also doesn’t need to be quilted, strictly speaking, so quilt it or not as you like. I quilted some of mine and left others alone, and I still can’t figure out which I like better.

Your appliques are another place where you can play fast and loose. I just zigzagged my suns onto the quilt blocks and called it good!

Step 3: Attach the quilt block to the greeting card front.

Cut the interfacing to size, then make a sandwich with the greeting card face-up, the interfacing, and the quilt block face-up.

Iron the snot out of your sandwich! Or, rather, follow the interfacing manufacturer’s instructions for how to iron it, ahem.

I ironed the snot out of it, though…

Trim any bits of the quilt block that are sticking out past the greeting card. If any bits of greeting card are sticking out past the quilt block you’re going to be soooo tempted to trim that, too, but trust me: that way madness lies. You will NEVER get it even, so just set your mind firmly to not noticing any sticky-outy card bits.

In case you’re thinking that now I’m SURELY done with mini quilt blocks, I’ve had the idea that maybe I could figure out a way to only temporarily attach, say, a mini quilt block coaster or mug rug to the front of a greeting card, so that the recipient could pull it off and use it. That would be super cute, right?

Move-in day. I HAVE to have that bookshelf quilt finished by my kid’s college move-in day!

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Piecing the Bookshelf Quilt

Back in May, the summer seemed so long, so how is it actually so short?

When the summer seemed long, the time that I would need to drop my baby off at college and help her make her dorm room bed, complete with a homemade quilt on top, seemed so far away. Too far away to worry about now. Time enough to start sewing later. June, maybe. July, at the latest.

And then somehow it turned out that it was actually August. Cue quite a shocking number of sewing fugue states!

Probably for the best that I didn't realize how long this quilt would take, ahem. The big kid's quilt is the same size but didn't take nearly as long, probably because the pieces were mostly zigzag appliqued and there was a lot of negative space. The pieces for this kid's quilt, though, were endless and looked like this:

I did them in batches, cutting a ton of strips to different widths, cutting and piecing them to different lengths, and then every now and then getting down on the floor and laying out a few blocks:

Fortunately, I always had my gentleman helper at hand:

So helpful!

Is he not exquisitely handsome in this light, though?

Even when he's sitting directly atop the block that I'm trying to lay out...

Each block took between 6 and 11 strips to create, depending on the widths that I tried to vary:

I also did some blocks that are stacks of books:

The kid and I didn't end up loving the way these stacked book blocks look, but that's just tough because by the time we decided that I'd already cut out a ton of strips for them. Oh, well... not every block in your quilt needs to be the cutest block you've ever seen!

After a while I got a little punchy and just started throwing pieces into quilt blocks. That rainbow book is a mini quilt block that I made during my mini quilt block obsession at the beginning of summer but never got around to incorporating into anything. So I sliced it up and put it here!

My partner took me on a weekend trip to Nashville for my birthday earlier this month, and I found an arts and crafts reuse store to visit. They had even more fabric scraps and unfinished quilt blocks, most already the perfect size to be books. Those mountains in the image below started off as somebody else's project who knows when!

I kind of lost my mind when I got down to the wire, and I kept losing count of how many quilt blocks I'd made and having to count them all over again every time I finished a new one. Eventually, my big kid took pity on me, counted them once and for all, and set me up with an easy way to keep track:

Two episodes of Chicago Med later, and I could lay out 48 10.5" x 10.5" bookshelf blocks on my favorite sunny spot on the floor:

Still to come:

• a proper arrangement of the blocks to look just the way the kid prefers
• piecing the blocks into bookshelf rows
• selecting, purchasing, washing, then cutting and sewing sashing fabric for the shelves and the perimeter
• sewing the entire quilt top together
• selecting, purchasing, washing, and laying out the backing fabric and batting
• quilting
• folding and sewing the back-to-front binding
• cutting off all the little threads
• washing and drying to make it clean and fluffy

See, I'm almost done!

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