365! Week 4!

I know I am late with last weeks photos. That is because I totally forgot. I planed to share my denim posts through the weekend but as Saturday flew by all my schedule was mixed up. But no worries, the pictures are here.

January 19th

January 20th

January 21st

January 22nd

January 23rd

January 24th

January 25th

Second Denim Quilt. Part 2

Today I’ll tell the rest of my second denim quilt story.

Since I had every piece I started putting them together.

In the middle of finishing my top I had a meeting with some of my local quilting friends. And I told them about my quilt. They asked me some questions and told me something that surprised me. My finished quilt was supposed to be about 2 meter on 1,7 meter. And I was planning to quilt it straight lines with my sewing machine. And what surprised me is their question: “How do you plan it to fit it into your sewing machine?” This made me realize my inexperience in quilting. So I started searching for alternative methods. I found one. I was planning to do only half of the quilting and sew other half and quilt it. At that time this was the best option for me. So I started with this option. I pin basted half of my quilt. It was quite difficult. The backing was too big and also batting disturbed me, but I somehow managed to pin it all.

And then I went to my sewing machine and started quilting.

Oh Boy…. It was something. My only other quilt this big was simpler. And so I started my adventure, and it ended soon…. Main problem was lack of pins and too big batting and backing. So on the front there were some puckers, on the back too, but the front looked awfully. And after such problem I decided to put it away. After about half a year I took it out and decided I wanted a nice quilt so I started with redoing some blocks. Few of them turned out to be not so good looking. So I redid them. For the quilted half, well it met my seam ripper, they actually became friends. :)

Even after redoing and preparing for quilting I still could not find a way to quilt it. I didn’t want it to be quilted by had so again it sat there. After few months while I was browsing through out the internet I found a tutorial for “quilt as you go” technique, for joining blocks. Only few days latter I realized that this was a perfect technique for me. But this realization came in the middle of my review so I waited. And after the review I have a week to rest and I made it my goal to finish as much of this quilt as I can. I actually started and even quilted half of this quilt. I still have few days to finish it. Let's hope I do.

See you tomorrow! :)

Best wishes,

Dovile

Second Denim Quilt. Part 1

Let's get right to the point. I missed my post yesterday. I went to my village and I had no internet there so there was no way I could post and when we got back I was really not in the mood to post, but in a mood to quilt. So today I'll share a quilt that has been my WIP for quite some time. I promise a story and a lot of pictures for it :) 

For quite some time after I finished my first quilt I've been planning to do a second, bigger denim quilt. I made a sketch and planed it long ago.

And I actually cut first strips in 2013 spring. Then put it in a box and left to wonder around my room. And in autumn as I was doing general cleaning in my room I found a box. It was full of my strips that I cut few months ago.

It was only of light shades, so I needed dark ones. So I started cutting them up, after some time I had all the strips. I cut 20 jeans for these, 10 in light and 10 in dark.

After I had all of them I was really happy to see it. And I even exhibited them in my room. They looked quite nice with my denim pillow.

It took some time to pick a layout and sew all them together. First I saw 8 big squares.

And I immediately laid them to see how it looks. And I admit I fell in love even more!

Letter I started doing the small ones. I had to make 30 of them. It took some time, but it was so fun to make them, since they are a lot smaller than the big ones.

I cut the middle squares and I had every piece ready. What was left is only to piece them.

And that’s where the story is supposed to end simple, pieced, quilted and enjoyed, but not for this one. I had some problems, a lot of them. And I’ll share them tomorrow, well probably because this one turned to be a long post. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my quilt history and I promise to be back with the continuum of this quilt.

Best wishes, 

Dovile

Pillows for my Cousin

Yep I am here again and today I'll show you a simple pillow that I made as a gift. I already mentioned a little bit of it on my previous post.
Anyways I'll tell you again the story behind this gift. I love my Cousin, she's so nice and loves handmade things. So before Christmas I had an idea to make her a gift. After a long wondering I came up with the idea to make pillow, but one doesn't look so good so I made two. The design was based on her living room wall decor.

Also they were supposed to be 40 cm x 40 cm. But in the process they turned out to be 35 cm x 35 cm. The main reason for that is binding. I love pillows with binding, but somehow I didn't like the idea of binding on this one and so without binding I did double edge and it turned out nice from the inside and outside, and that's how the measurements became smaller.

These pillows are quite simple and fast to make, but look so nice in the interior.

Pillows were supposed to be gifted around new year, but only this week they saw the light. The reasons are the same as my potholder. Still considering I'm late my Cousin was really happy with them.

For the back I did a simple zipper, one light, another one darker. And that turned out to be only different between these pillows, anyway else, they're identical.

Few more pictures, since I won't be seeing them I took a lot of photos.

What I learned from this project is that I need to start making gifts from early on. But still they were made and she was really happy to receive them.

Best wishes,

Dovile

College review

I mentioned a review. And so today I'll share more about it. And some of my works I did for it.

I am studying in a college. I started in September so it's my first semester. And my first work review. At the end of every semester we have something like a mini exhibition of our works. So I had to prepare mine. And some needed to be redone so I spent almost entire week working on them. My exhibition was of 10 cardboard. They we're full of my works and some models. At home it was a mess paper, glue, cardboard everywhere.

But the experience I gained is immeasurable. It was really something. So here is my mini exhibition together with me :)

And I want to share some of my works. This one is a model of an interior. We had to choose an inspiration, idea of architecture, and do it. So here is my inspiration. And we also had to photograph the model with different kind of lightnings. Here are few pictures of it:

One more interesting project I loved working on is my kitchen isometric projection:

Information Technology was really something. I learned to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Here are one of the works. We had to change colors of an interior.

And there are many more works I enjoyed working on. I could talk about them for days. And now I have two weeks to rest. Do you know what that means? Sewing time! I plan to finish my second denim quilt. About which I promise to share in few days. And I really want to do a painting for my teacher. So these are my two goals for the upcoming week. And let's not forget another goal, post! I have a lot of things to share so this will be perfect opportunity to do just that!

Hope to see you tomorrow!
Best wishes,
Dovile

Denim pillow

I almost forgot.... my promise to post each day. But a good thing is that I remembered! And I want to share a pillow. This one I made from the strips. They were left from my first denim quilt. And it turned out to be kind of a match. It is made in the same log cabin pattern. So a perfect match.

One side:

Other side:

And this is how they both look together.

Best wishes, 

Dovile

365! 3rd week

I admit I'm late with the post of my project 365 pictures, but I haven't given up on this project. I just had a lot of work. Yesterday was my first semester review. It was tiring, but also informative and motivating. I plan to write up a post about it. And to atone for my sins :D I plan to have one post each day, for two weeks. How about it? Anyways on to the last weeks pictures:

January 12th

January 13th

January 14th

January 15th

January 16th

January 17th

January 18th

Best wishes,
Dovile

Potholder for my Aunt

I admit I'm missing form her, but the work is going on behind the scenes. I have two more days to prepare for my collage works review. When everything is done I promise to share.
So I decided to sneak in and share one of this years finishes, that's a mug rug. For Christmas I wanted to do some handmade gifts for my aunt and cousin. Since my aunts gift was smaller I started with it. Here is what I did:

I got my idea for a design from here. But made the calculations myself. And this is how large it turned out to be.

Since I love mini things I really enjoyed working with such small size HSTs. But still... they're tiny:

My aunt loved it. And that's what made me happy.

With this project I also tried to press seams open. But somehow I didn't really enjoy it. I think I did something wrong and that's why it was a mess. Well, I'll take a look at the tutorials for pressing seams open, and maybe I'll try again.

I admit I had to do it for Christmas, but I couldn't make it in time. But I met my aunt after New Year and gifted this little one, She really loved it. She actually chose the design while looking into my design notebook, of course she had no idea I was going to make her something, so it was a surprise. I knew her favorite colors were light blue and yellow, so I went only with those two. It turned out great! My aunt is in love with it! And that's what makes me happy.

One gift made and one left. I planed to make two simple pillows for my cousin. But only the design and math is done. They are really simple, so I plan to whip them up in the next week. After my review is done. And that's on Monday, so I am of to work. See you then.

Best wishes,
Dovile