I didn't have time to share a quick little project I whipped up before Tuesday and I left on our trip, so I will now.
These little clean up rags were inspired by Amanda's. I bought two microfiber kitchen towels and cut them up into fours, then using Sciarrino's serger I went around the edges, and done!
It was the first time using a serger and was pretty easy. I had been afraid of cutting myself, but now that I've tried it I don't think you could easily do so. I have a bigger project almost done (yes the quilt!). But of course that didn't stop me from getting some more fabric while in Vermont:
I love Ashley's blog, and she lives in the same city as Ceara so I contacted her to see if she shopped in the area. She said sometimes she did and was kind enough to send me a coupon for a local shop and let me know that they were having a big sale that Saturday. That was all the prodding I needed, and Ceara and I went there on our way to Montpelier. I was fun to go with Ceara because I am going to make her little baby a quilt so I got to see what sort of things she liked. Plus she gave me a paint chip of the room color. It's going to be green and yellow (Oregon duck colors, where she went to school), but I might pop in a bit of some other things so I don't get too nauseous (I joke, but did go to the rival school – unfortunately our colors are orange and black). The bottom two pieces of fabric are repurposed from a duvet cover I got from the Company Store:
Looks like they are out of it now, I got this on sale with the thought that I could make a whole cloth quilt with it (or several, as this is a king size duvet cover). I got 13.8 yards out of it (figuring the yardage like this: 36" x 44" – the common width of quilting cotton), and it worked out to be about $4.70 a yard, including shipping. I'm excited to practice my free motion quilting around the "blocks". I said I would share with you the formula I used and what yardage I figured out for quilting with sheets and bed sets. Here is how I did it: I figure out the square inches of one yard, by the measurements I gave above to be 1584". Then I figure out the square inches of various combinations of sheets and pillowcases. This isn't exact for every sheet, but should be helpful if you are trying to figure out a price comparison:
Twin set (with 1 pillowcase): 6.6 yards
Full set: 9 yards
Queen set: 10.3 yards
King set: 12.3 yards
and if you are just looking at flat sheets:
Twin: 4 yards
Full: 4.9 yards
Queen: 5.8 yards
King: 6.9 yards
A standard pillow case yields about .65 of a yard, and a king about .9 of a yard.
I figured out that twin sets seem to give you the best value, but bigger ones are nicer if you don't want to piece a back. Also I read somewhere that anything over a 200 thread count can be hard to sew/quilt through, fyi. Oh also it takes less yardage than piecing a back because there is so little waste. For example, traditionally you would need 5.25 yards of quilting cotton for a twin back (quilt size 63 x 87).
AWESOME thanks for posting those sizes!
so if I don’t have a serger, or access to one, would I just use a zigzag stitch? Or what would be the best way to finish those? pillowcase turn? those are screaming christmas presents!
More projects… You’re amazing! and Yes the yardage for sheets will be very helpful for any future projects I may have
thanks for the sheet yardage – great idea!
and i love those cloths…
i’ll have to add that to my (ever growing) “things to do” list!
I never grow tired of yummy fabric pics, I love the white with red diamond pattern!
again, you amaze me. Seriously cool cloths! I think I will make some of those too. They will come in handy for all of the drool my little baby girl produces! Gotta drool in style!