Around the Sewing Room + Summer Picnic Basket Quilt Progress

I am still working along with the QAL using the Summer Memories Book by Susan Ache.  Use Hashtag #summermemoriesqal to join along. The book is an eye-candy filled with great projects and is sure to inspire you to pick up some red and blue fabrics to get started. I knew I did! But what really caught my eye was the basket quilt.

I am a little behind, but that is okay, the point of the quilt along is to enjoy sewing along with others, and it’s always fun to see other people’s blocks popping in my feed on social media. Are you following along?

Summer memories quilt along is brought to you by Fat Quarter Shop and they are having a 20th Birthday Bash SALE, so come and check it out while it last.

As I’ve blogged earlier in this post HERE, I am using some of the pulled fabric from my stash. A good mix of sweet blues and pinky peaches. 

Quilting Tools and Notions I used:

• My trusted workhorse, Janome Horizon Memory Craft QCP8200
• I used Superior Thread Snow for piecing this quilt
• My favourite Ergonomic Rotary Cutter – this have saved my wrist a lot!
• Large cutting Mat
• Triangle on a roll papers
• Wool ironing Mat (I have no issues with the smell, but sometimes it can burn if the iron is way too hot and no steam)
• Oliso Pro Iron (I love this Iron, it lifts as you let go, saving the wrist from too much work and it gives a good heat and steam)
• Portable Design Board
• Quilter’s Clapper
• Wooden Seam Roller
• Diagonal Seam Tape –  the tape I have on my machine to guide my 1/4″ seams and diagonal stitching. Game changing! Buy the original, it’s worth it and it will last for a very long time.

I have been loving a few of these tools around the sewing room for this project. So I thought I’d bring you along around my honest sewing room (with all the project mess and all) while making some progress with this project. 

Portable Design Boards

I swear that these boards will be game-changing when you need to piece lots of blocks and little units! I put the units up on the board and then carry them to my sewing table all in place so I don’t get confuse and make mistake.

You can buy a ready-made ones HERE >> Portable Design Boardor you can make them yourself too like I did HERE if you don’t mind working with hot glue gun. 

Here are the boards near my sewing table ready for me to start piecing the little units together.

After piecing, I put the pieced little units back up on the design so I can plan what to piece next. Really handy!

Wooden Seam Roller

You can get this one HERE>>Wooden Seam Roller

Since there were a lot of little units, I was not going to have each seam pressed with the iron until the whole is done. So this little Wooden Seam Roller does the trick! It keeps the seams crisp enough to keep piecing until the blocks are made. 

I made the corner pieces a little larger than the instruction just so I can trim it to size. Bias seams is tricky and I find it best to make the unit slightly larger and trim it off. For that, I love the mini ruler and a small mat or the mat underneath my sewing machine. I use an old Large cutting Mat to put my machine on. It helps keep the machine from sliding and I can also make small cuts around the sewing machine when I need to without getting up. 

Small Rulers

This 1.5″ x 6.5″ ruler is one of my favourite to pick up when I just need to trim up little units. 

Diagonal Seam Tape

I use this to make half-square triangles and sew on the diagonal, but in this project, there was no diagonal line to sew since I made all the triangle units using the Triangle Roll Papers. But, I did use it as the 1/4″ seams guide. It helps a lot! Because without it I do tend to sew a little wonkier than I thought I did. 

You can get the tape HERE>Diagonal Seam Tape

Since the baskets are 6.5″ in size, there is quite a lot of piecing involved. I love that the Summer Memories Book has the direction for pressing the seams. It always saves me some sanity when the direction is already there to keep the seams as flat as possible.

Triangle Rolls Paper

Since there was sooooo many half-square triangles, the best way was to use the triangle paper. 

This month the triangle papers are 30% off HERE> Come check it out. 

I have a free printable 2.5″ size version to try HERE if you’ve never paper pieced before, there’s also a video tutorial in that post. But using the preprinted rolls will save a lot of time too, the papers are also so easy to tear. 

I went through a whole bunch of tearing the papers off and trimming the dog ears while watching a good movie. 

Well, I guess that I have been up to with the sewing, slow but surely. 

I also hung up these shelves up and I am loving the display!

I got mine from a local store, but there’s a similar one HERE on Amazon.These can easily be decorated with your favourite quilting tools, little pots of flowers and bundle of fabrics!

Speaking of fabric, have you checked out the Birthday BASH sale over at Fat Quarter Shop? Happy Shopping!