No More Bento!

I finally finished up the Bento Box quilt that I have been working on seemingly FOREVER.

My little cousin graduated high school last weekend and I thought that it would be the perfect quilt for her. Naturally, I didn't decide this until 2 nights before graduation, and the quilt was still not bound. I really wanted to try out hand-binding this time around too, so that added to the pressure!

I worked like a mad woman trying to finish the binding on this quilt, and did so just in time for her post graduation luncheon. I was 10 minutes late, but I beat some other family members there, so it was worth it.

It took me a while to get into the hand binding groove. Once I did though, I REALLY got going. 

Unfortunately, I was in such a rush finishing and gifting this quilt that I completely forgot to label it or take any photos of it bound. WOOPS! My uncle snapped a shot of my cousin Taylor and I with the quilt, but I haven't received a copy yet. 

I ended up binding the quilt in a royal blue-ish solid cotton fabric. It really looked great! 

Because I have no final photos, here are some of my favorites from the series:

 (Cutting out the fabrics)

 (Initial blocks put together)

 (Cut up and arranged for the bento)

 (Quilt top all pieced)

 (Quilt top all basted)

 (Chugging along on the sewing machine)

 (All quilted)

(Backed in a gorgeous Soul Blossoms fabric)

Project Stats:

• Fabric from Amy Butler's Soul Blossoms line in the Bliss colorway
• Measures about 75x60 inches. I think that makes it a lap quilt.
• Warm & White 100% cotton batting
• Started the quilt on March 3, 2011 and finished on June 25, 2011. That means it took me almost 4 months to finished this one. BOO! BUT, there were 7 blog posts about the quilt, which means it took me 7 sewing sittings to get it finished. That's not too bad, right?
• It was gifted to my beautiful little cousin Taylor to bring to college 
• Blog posts can be found here:
• Bento Box Quilt
• Chopping it Up
• Quilt Top
• More Bento
• Finished Quilt Top
• Bento Bento Bento!
• Bento Binding

Ooo, this is another item off my bucket list! You can see this finished project at my flickr page along with all of my other finished projects.

As of right now I have been finishing projects at a pace of about 2 projects a month. I was hoping to have a new project each week, but, that's life right? With the moving coming up this month, I hope that I don't slow down to even less than 2 completed projects a month.

xoxo

Bento Binding - Phase 1

Could it possibly take me any longer to finish a quilt? I am still a newbie, so I attribute my slowness to that. I am also super indecisive and take weeks to decide on backing and binding and quilt patterns, all of which really halt the process. 

Does anyone out there actually plan out their quilt from start to finish? Do you find that you still change your mind after you've started? 

Anyway...as I was saying...binding.

 I don't know why, but I always start sewing the binding on after I've pinned it all, but then as I'm sewing, I take all of the pins out and just don't use them. Whatever works, I guess!

All sewn on and ready to be finished! I really want to try hand sewing the binding, but the last time I tried hand sewing it on, I swore it would be the last. I just did a truly terrible job. Any advice out there? Mine always look SLOPPY!

xoxo

Bento Bento Bento!

I finally made it to a fabric shop to grab more Soul Blossoms to back the Bento Box quilt that I've been working on. I decided to use the Temple Tulips pattern from the Bliss colorway. Only if fabric was wider than 44 inches!

I had to come up with a strip of fabric to finish off the backing...I actually didn't end up going with any of those colors. I went with a more subdued blue that matched one of the colors in the backing fabric a little bit better.

Then the basting began. I used my favorite new thing on Earth, SPRAY BASTING! Man is it the easiest and quickest way to baste. The only downside is that it can get pretty expensive. At Joann's, the can is $15.99 per bottle. For this quilt I didn't even use an entire bottle, but I think that I came pretty close. Thankfully I had a 50% off coupon so it wasn't as expensive.

A fully basted quilt all ready to go ...
 

Then I did the usual... lay out the quilt and stare at it for a while until I figure out how to quilt it... thing.

I opted for straight-line quilting. Around each pieced bento box block, I quilted 3 straight lines, 1/4 inch apart:
 

 Here are some action shots:

 

All quilted!

Then I trimmed up with quilt and got it all ready for binding... I should probably rummage through my stash and figure out what I'm going to use for that...

Next on my list is figuring out binding...


xoxo

Finished Bento Box Quilt Top

It took me forever to finish this quilt top. I don't know why, but I left off here, back in March. I picked it back up last week and have done what feels like an ounce of work on it each day since I started up again. It seemed that every time I got the iron hot and the sewing machine on, something else seemed to come up. 

Anyway. I finished it! Of course, not before I played with the layout a little more:

Got it all ready and sorted for quick piecing (only to mess it up later):

All sewed up and doing the final pressing:
 

 

All laid out:

Now if only I could decide on backing and binding....

xoxo

More Bento

I'm making good headway on the bento box quilt. I only have a little under an hour to work on it a night, so that's why there are so many posts about this one little quilt.

I quartered the boxes I already made:

Obviously not going with this layout, but wanted to lay everything out before I started playing around with the bento layout:

After a few tries, I finally settled on a layout that I like a lot! 

Stay tuned for more!

xoxo

Bento Box - Quilt Top

I left off with the quilt in the stage where I still had to pick out my white-ish tone fabric. I was stuck between white white, off-white, or a natural color. I decided to go with off-white. I purchased some Kona Cotton Bone and cut it all out accordingly.

I finally had all of the fabric cut out for the quilt and got some piecing done this weekend.

 (Step 1: piecing 2 3x6 strips to the 6x6 square)

 

 (Step 2: sew the 3x11 strips on)

 (Step 3: sew the white 3x11 strips on)

(Last Step: add the 3x16 inch strips)

I have all 12 blocks pieced and ready to be turned into bento box blocks! Stay tuned for the rest of the quilt top!

 xoxoxo

Bento Box - Chopping It Up

Yesterday I showed you the fabrics that I selected and my attempt at trying to be a better fabric cutter. Guess what? Mapping out all of the cutting really did work!

I kind of knew it would be a struggle to get all of my pieces out of the 1 fat quarter (an 18x21 piece of fabric). So I did a mock up of how I would cut all of the fabric pieces out:

(I know that I needed 2 3x16 pieces, 1 6x6 square, 4 3x11 pieces, and 2 3x6 pieces and that I would BARELY make it)

(Yesssss, I cut it out correctly!)

 (All of the fabrics cut out and ready to go)

(I think that the "Hot Pink Disco Flower in the middle there is my favorite. I think it should be called "Electric Pink" instead of hot pink.)

I am still unsure which shade of white to use in the quilt!! I am leaning towards a middle of the road white, what do you think? Vote on the sidebar!

xoxo

Bento Box Quilt

I might be jumping on this bandwagon a little late.... but who doesn't love a Bento Box Quilt?

(from Red Pepper Quilts)

I started my very own this weekend. So far I have mapped out my pattern, picked out the fabric, and mapped out how I am going to cut it up.

I am going to use part of the fabric from my fat quarter pack of Amy Butler's "Soul Blossoms" line in the Bliss colorway:

(From top left to bottom right: Cyan Buttercups, Hot Pink Disco Flowers, Deep Water Temple Doors, Periwinkle Laurel Dots, Azure Twilight Peony, Lime Delhi Blooms..... phew, that was a mouthful!)

(They do look fantastic don't they!!)

Then I mapped out how I am going to chop up these lovelies. I am REALLLLLLLY bad and cutting up fabric. I ALWAYSSSSSS mess up. I don't know exactly what my problem is, I just don't pay close enough attention I guess. So I thought that maybe if I thought about the cutting ahead of time, then maybe I will give myself a better chance at not ruining things:

I still haven't figured out one thing though..... which shade of white should I use? I was thinking either plain white, or a more off-white/natural/bone color.... 

Can you help me choose? Vote on the sidebar!!! 

Thanks friends....

xoxoxoxox