Day 5

Well, where do we start? Obviously, Jina did not finish her quilt that weekend. We've both had a lot of personal stuff going on, including getting a new apartment and packing, moving, etc. But lets see if we can't get a little caught up here.

We FINALLY got all our strips of cloth sewn into squares! Hurray! Let the celebration begin! While Angela was away for a night, she watched the quilting network...(I know, I know!) and she discovered a life-altering tip! Instead of sewing together one square at a time, snipping thread and starting a new one, she learned you can sew together one square, and then start another one right after the other. Angela calls this technique "the fancy pants" technique. Jina calls it the "chain."





After finishing our squares, it was time to hit the ironing board again.





A lot of ironing. To be truthful, we're still not done...



Now we purposely did not show you the pattern we're following, because it's a surprise. But to tease you just a little bit, here's a possible layout that we were tinkering (because we're fairies) for Jina's quilt.

Day 4

We began quilting our squares together tonight. It was a very interesting, comical night. We will try to post pictures tomorrow, but we won't be doing anymore quilting until Saturday.

Stay tuned to see if Jina finishes her quilt this weekend!

Day 3

Today's a brand new day! We start off feeling like we can accomplish anything we set off to do. Unfortunately, our sewing machines think otherwise. Jina is convinced that Angela's sewing machine must be from 1928 and today it's acting like it. The strips we're sewing are only 20 inches long today, but Angela can't seem to get through even one strip without her sewing machine acting up.

Every strip of cloth must be sewn together. Does anyone else think it's silly that we cut a bunch of fabric up only to sew it all back together?

And then... ironed flat, to press the new seams down...

Then, its back to the cutting board.

Bad news: We will not finish these quilts this weekend after all. (Angela didn't REALLY think we would - but Jina is forever optimistic) Maybe we'll get a snow day tomorrow?

Day 2

Jina was like a little kid on Christmas morning this morning. We stopped working on quilts last night around 11, and by 7:30 she couldn't stand it anymore! She was waiting for Angela to be ready to quilt, too, but had been up since 5:30 and was more than ready. Angela isn't really a morning person, but she's not really a night owl either...So we finally got started around 8 this morning. 4 hours into our day, this is what we've accomplished!

A little bit more cutting of background strips this morning...

It was at this moment that Angela thought she had cut ALL her background strips too short!!! Oh the panic of it all. After a couple minutes, she realized that everything was fine...no harm done. Whew.

Off to the storage unit, to retreive Jina's sewing machine and Box O' Pins... and magical magnetic pincushion (more about this later.)

Pinning is oh so very important. It's tedious and time consuming, but essential, to making (hopefully) straight seams in a quilt. Today, Jina has used 193 pins. Angela has used 252 pins.(But Angela is making a bigger quilt than Jina)

Day 1

Angela and Jina are making quilts. The same quilt pattern. Very different fabrics.
Today we went to the fabric store to pick out fabrics. It wasn't our first trip to the store to pick out fabrics, and it wasn't the first day we looked at patterns. We've been talking about this for about a week now. But today we were ready to make our purchases and get started!


Jina's is a colorful assortment with a dark artsy background. No rhyme or reason, just whatever suits her fancy.

Angela's is a blend of pretty cream prints, that will become an heirloom quilt to be passed down through generations. The neutral colors will be versatile for any decor.

Our first mission is to wash, iron and cut our fabrics.

Fabric washed: Check. Fabric ironed: Check. Fabric cut: well, let's just say it's important to make sure the blade is in the rotary cutter BEFORE you try to start cutting!
Disaster averted. Mission: Accomplished.

Stay tuned... sewing will begin tomorrow!