Jitterbug Isn't Going to Make It

Resigned

Sadly, I have experienced my first complete, utter and total quilt failure.  Truthfully, it wasn't really my fault. Although I should have seen it coming.  Remember how I said that the Shelburne Falls strips were smaller than the Moda strips in my first Jitterbug post?  Here is what I meant:

Well, that meant NOTHING lined up.  My squares weren't actually square, my flying geese were too big for the too small squares, etc. etc.  Trying to sew the blocks together was torturous.  I guess I got lucky on the first few, because after that, this is what I ended up with:

Those flying geese are ALL OVER the place.

Most of these are okay, but the bottom, yikes!

Same story here.  And look at those HST in top left hand corner, oh no no no.

I made six blocks in all and decided to throw in the towel.  I wasn't having any fun and to try and get things to play nice, I was sewing some of the slimmest seams known to man, which in turn meant that they were popping open.

The Upside

By giving up early, I still have a lot of uncut strips that I can use for other things that require small pieces.  I am a big fan of zakka style so that means I have several books full of lots of fun options. For example, a variation on this sewing machine cover:

Or these cute coasters:

Maybe a little cosmetics bag:

As for the blocks I already made?  Pillows maybe? Or I could trim the other pieces I already have made up and create some kind of sampler quilt.  At any rate, they are destined to hang out in the UFO (unfinished object) pile for the foreseeable future.

The Most Important Question

 Now what quilt should I make to take to work? And what fabric should I make it with?!?

The Lisa Lam Diaper Bag

Sometimes the Fabric Comes First

Okay, for me, the fabric comes first a lot.  I am a lot like those designers on Project Runway that go to Mood without knowing what they are going to make.  I see fabric and sometimes it tells me what it wants to be.  Other times, it is like a little whisper in my ear, "You want me, you know you do, you should take me home."  Even more often than that, it's like a three year old throwing a temper tantrum, "But you have to take me home with you!!!!  You like me so much!!!! How could you even think of leaving here without me!!!!"  And so I buy some.  I think this goes a long way in explaining my extensive fabric collection.

A while ago, I was at Bolt, a local fabric store that has very cute quilting fabrics and crazy gorgeous clothing fabrics.  And I happened upon this beauty:

It screamed awesome bag.  I knew I had to have some, but without a super specific project in mind, the question is, how much to get?  I knew that there were several cute bag patterns in the One Yard Wonders book but figured I would want something bigger than that, so I settled on a yard and a half.

After walking by the fabric several times at home, I realized that what made the most sense given it's cutesy, fun, bright nature, was to make a diaper bag.  Plus, I knew a friend who was in the market for one :)  I went to my favorite bag book, A Bag for All Reasons and there it was, the darn cutest diaper bag ever!  The best part, I totally had enough fabric!

The Making

I went to Fabric Depot to get all the interfacing and lining and got cutting.  It was so much cutting.  I took me over four hours to get all the pieces cut, so many pockets!  Then began the epic search for hardware.  Wow, this was SO HARD.  I went to ever store I could think of, including the leather supply store, including JoAnn's (and I don't go there for much).  I finally found some good stuff back at Bolt, thank goodness.  The sewing went pretty smoothly and I was very happy with my choice to go with a little lighter weight interfacing on the exterior and compensate with a little heavier interfacing on the interior.  Again, this was a lesson learned from making Amy Butler Weekender bags (you can find photos of those on Flickr, I promise, one day, I will take better photos!!!).

I also took the bag to work  to confirm that I had added enough pockets in the right places (the directions were a little confusing).  There are a lot of moms at work and since I am not one, I had no idea what you put in a diaper bag.  They were uber helpful, thanks ladies!

Getting ready to sew the interior and the exterior together!
Also, a good view of all the interior pockets.

The Bag

It turned out terribly cute!!!!!  I actually went back to Bolt and bought several more yards of the outside fabric so I could make a couple more :)

The pattern is just fantastic with this fabric.  Squeal!

One of my favorite things is that the bag is big, but not TOO big.

Jitterbug in Shelburne Falls: A Work in Progress

Shelburne Falls Jelly Roll

A while back I ordered a Jelly Roll  of Denyse Schmidt's Shelburne Falls fabric. It was quietly hiding in my stash until I decided that I wanted to make myself a quilt to take to work.  Originally, I thought it would be cute to make a quilt in the company colors since it was going to hang on the back of my chair and although the colors are fun (navy, aqua and orange), when I was wondering around Fabric Depot, they didn't excite me. So I figured I should turn to my rather extensive stash and make something that was on my very long "Quilts I Want to Make" list. 

Jitterbug

As I mentioned in my post "All Quilts Have a Story", I love the cover quilt from this book:

And I thought that given the vintage feel Denyse Schmidt's fabrics tend to evoke, my Shelburne Falls jelly roll would be a perfect fit!  The only trouble was the jelly roll only had 30 strips in it and the pattern called for 40.  After some hymning and hawing, I decided to pick up five coordinating solids and cut two strips out of each color.  I also decided that I was going to be lazy and purchased a jelly roll of cream colored strips so that I didn't have to cut my own :)

I was pleased with how bright most of the solids were.  There are a lot of darker prints in the line so I like getting that extra pop of color.  Also, I was hoping they would help accentuate some of the colors that are used sparingly throughout.

Getting Organized

It took me awhile to sort the strips into the different groups: squares, flying geese, half square triangles (HST), sashing and border.  I wanted to make sure to get a good variety of light and dark in the different groups.  I used little pieces of paper to identify what piles of strips where going to turn into what.

Cut, cut, cut, sew, sew, sew

There are A LOT of pieces in this quilt.  I was encouraged by my relative success with my Hopscotch blocks so I wasn't too scared to take this on.  The only real trouble I had was with the HST.  The Shelburne Falls strips seemed be 2" to 2.25" instead of a full 2.5".  They were always smaller than the Moda strips.  But I plugged along, cut out and sewed all my HST,  and the squares.  I only managed to get four flying geese sewn and was unable to resist the urge to put a full block together.

Here it is!

Isn't it fun?  This is the kind of gratification that can keep me sewing through the night, but I needed to go to a dog party with the Husband, Elma and her husband, Steve.  The dogs had a blast and Maddie even got to rip open a pinata full of dog cookies!

Once we got  home though, I was back to it!  I finished all my flying geese and chose square blocks to pair them up with.  The only thing left was to sew the HST together and WHAT. A. PAIN.  I keep sewing them the wrong direction, not in the pattern I want, ironing my seams the wrong direction, anything but what I want them to do.  Finally, I got four groups of four together (though not in the layout I intended) and was able to sew together my second block.

It looks so different from the first one!  I can't wait to finish getting the top together and share it with you!