The Plus Quilt

            So for christmas I needed a new quilting pattern for my new nephew and I found this pattern and idea on Pinterest, Plus Quilt . On this pattern there are 3 options you can have a quilt using 9 colors, 4 colors or 3 colors. I chose the 4 color option. I really enjoy primary color quilts so I went with red, yellow, blue, and green, but all with different patterns. 

            When I first started cutting my fabric I was cutting pluses but then I started thinking that sewing them together would be difficult so I change to cutting squares for the top and bottom and rectangles for the middle.  

                                         

Then I laid the whole quilt out in the correct pattern and pinned one line at a time and sewed the lines together.

            After I sewed the lines together I ironed the seams flat. 

I laid the whole quilt out again to make sure my pluses were in the right pattern.  And then I pinned the lines together sewed and ironed the seams. And repeat till the front is all done. So my pattern didn’t line up exactly right and that was frustrating but I made it work, if you want to make sure all your lines meet up really pay attention to your cutting and your seams and seam allowance when you are sewing. 

After the front of my quilt was all done I cut the back fabric and the batting to the size of the front of the quilt.  This is when the real quilting begins I did a simple quilting pattern of lines.  After the quilting was all done I used biase tape to close it all up. The hardest part of biase tape was the corners where you do a mitered corner. To do the mitered corner I completely cover the whole quilt one way and then folded it into a right angle and then pinned the crap out of it before sewing.

The hardest part of this quilt was organizing the pluses, they are not organized in a line but they are organized in a diagonal, and that was really hard for me to get my head around luckily with the pattern I was able to muddle through.

 (and here is the little cutie I made this for)

Crochet Triangle Scarf

I found this pattern for a triangle scarf on ravelry, if you are a crochet or knitting person you have to have an account here. The account is free and you have access to so many free patterns. There are also people on ravelry who sell their patterns but you can usually find something similar to what you want for free. Ok enough about ravelry. Here is the link to the pattern I used, Triangle Scarf with Fringe .

            This is the second triangle scarf I have made and seriously it helps so much if you are already familiar with how these scarves work.  If you haven’t done a triangle scarf before don’t worry you can do it, also when you start the beginning looks like crap but don’t worry it will turn out well. This pattern isn’t very difficult and once you get going it is really easy.  You do the same stich over and over and add 2 stiches in each row, one at the beginning and one at the end.  Also this scarf calls for fringe but I wanted to use this for winter so I didn’t add the fringe.  

I chose to use a mint colored 4 medium yarn for this one, cause well I love mint right now.  I also used a different size hook cause I am super unorganized and couldn’t find the right one, so I used a J 6.00mm hook. 

I am also going to gift this scarf to a friend and I am always worried that someone isn’t going to be wearing the scarf right so I like to take a picture and send that with the gift so they know how to wear it.

Up-cycle Using Chalk Paint

This was a side table my friend was getting rid of because she was moving. I had just finished my dresser makeover and this time I was really excited to use a different type of paint. I used chalk paint. So as someone who has not done a lot of furniture painting or up-cycling, I was super excited to see what this was like. I went onto youtube and watched some videos on how to use chalk paint.  These videos were super long and boring so I never really made it all the way through a video, lets be honest. 

            So I watched a video that said you didn’t need to prep the surface at all and it would only take one coat of chalk paint.  This did not happen for me I did 3 coats to get a nice even consistent coat. I also wanted to put a pattern on the top of the table, so I had some extra latex white paint around and I bought a stencil and a stencil brush. This was a little tricky I wasn’t very good at the painting and there was a lot of bleeding and the lines weren’t so crisp and also when I was taking the stencil off after painting it took the chalk paint off. This was by far the most time consuming and frustrating part of this up-cycle.  I redid and retouched this maybe 4 times and it never really came out perfectly. If I was more motivated I would totally redo the top, but I am not that motivated and it will stay as it is.

            The top coat for chalk paint is wax I was super nervous about this top coat, and again watched more youtube videos.  I was very nervous about this everyone was saying don’t use too much wax so I was very careful to use the wax sparingly, and because of this I had to do 3 coats before I thought it was really thoroughly coated. And then you have to buff it and supposedly the more you buff the shinier it gets, this was not the case for me I buffed and buffed and it was the same. Also the feel of this finish was different than any other finish and honestly I prefer the feel of more classic finishes.  Other people say they do not like plastic feel of the more classic finishes but I actually prefer it. So will I be doing wax paint again…….. yes yes I will when the mood strikes me but I think I will mostly be using latex paint and more traditional finishes.  

My First Furniture Up-Cycle

            For years we had these two shelving units in out guest bedroom with some crafting supplies in them. But these shelves were super cheap and falling apart, I decided enough was enough it needed to be replaced, and preferably with something with more storage, my crafting supplies are growing.  I bought this green and flowery dresser from Goodwill for $20 bucks, oh yeah.

The project started off pretty good I took the hardware off and started sanding. I thought it would be a great semi easy up-cycle. I mean come on I had a sander I would just sand off the paint, right? WRONG!!! I was so so wrong after hours of trying to sand that down I was sitting dejectedly on the couch and my mom goes “why don’t you use a stripper?”  Bam my problems were solved but alas it wasn’t a easy as it sounds but it got the work done. The stripper worked and it easily got the paint off, on the flat smooth surfaces. On the more detailed parts of the dresser, mainly the drawers it was much harder to get all of the stripper off the dresser.  Ok so FINALLY I was ready to move on to paint I used a roller on the flat surfaces and paintbrush on the detailed parts.  Using these tools I was not that happy with the brush strokes, so I bought a paint sprayer. When I started to use the sprayer things were going great woohoo.  And finally after probably 5 coats 3 with the roller and paintbrush and 2 with the sprayer I was ready for the topcoat. Now I love topcoats some bloggers don’t like the “plastic feel” but I really like it.  To me it feels like a finished piece of furniture. After I was done with the main dresser I used steal wool the hard ware and used brushed nickel spray paint, I put on 3 coats of the spray paint and the hardware looked great. 

( I apologize for the final pictures I was so excited I moved the dresser into the closet before I    took pics :( sorry)

At long last I was done I moved the dresser into the guest bedroom closet, me and mom had to really work to get it in there my margins for getting it in weren’t that great. But now it fits and I have ample room for my craft supplies and more, which I plan to fill up. 

COMING UP NEXT TIME:

Chalk paint on furniture. OHHH AHHH