Fun Back Packs for Summer or for School

A month or so ago I made some backpacks I forgot to share.  With some minor changes, they would be fun for school.  My family has gotten into triathlons.  Most of my siblings and spouses do one or two of the short ones each year.  Some of our children are getting old enough to want to do them as well.  So we decided to have our own -- for all the kids around here. 

Each of the adults were in charge of something different.  I designed t-shirts and had them printed.  My sister was in charge of making up the goodie bag.  Last minute I couldn't let the kids get their goodies in a plastic bag so I made these back packs.  I think there ended up being 18 of them. 

I started with a tutorial from Make it and Love it for their "Easy as Cinch" bag.  HERE's the link.

I couldn't handle opening up a seam to sew the straps bag in so I came up with another idea that turned out well.  I sewed diagonally across each corner so I could put the tie through a grommet.  I just eyeballed that diagonal seam.  That was fine.  I did get larger grommets and cotton clothesline which worked better -- except last minute I didn't have what I needed to put the large grommets into the fabric.  We just mangled the large ones. 

That's the only thing I would change -- use larger grommets (or eyelets) so I could have used the cotton clothesline as the straps.  Also, if you were making this for a school bag, you would probably want to line it or use heavier fabric and make it bigger. 

Anyway, we stuffed these bags with all sorts of goodies.  This is the only picture I got of what was inside.  Yes, my sister made sure there was lots of stuff the kids would like besides water.  Now the kids drag them all over the place filled with all sorts of treasures.

Love my baby's fat feet there.  My babies all have fat feet.  I love it!  She was asleep on a blanket.  Guess her feet wanted to play in the grass.

Finishing Instructions

Here's my finished quilt top:

Yeah!!!  It's size is 58" x 72"  here are the instructions to make your quilt this size:

Cutting Instructions:

1)  From the background/sashing fabric, cut 12 -- 2 1/2" strips.

2)  Take 6 of the 2 1/2" strips and cut them into 17 -- 2 1/2" x 12 1/2" sashing rectangles.  (There will be one left over.)

3)  From the border fabric, cut 1 -- 2 1/2" strip and 6 -- 7 1/2" strips.

4)  From the border 2 1/2" strip, cut 6 -- 2 1/2" squares.  This doesn't take the whole strip.

Sewing Instructions:

1)  First lay out your quilt.  When you are doing this, try to balance your blocks.  Spread out strong colors.  A design wall is nice to be able to hang the blocks, leave them, and come back with fresh eyes.  Don't worry if you don't have a design wall.  Grab your digital camera and look at your quilt through the camera.  It gives you a different perspective.  One other tip is to squint.  It sounds silly, but I do it all the time. 

2)  Once you have the blocks the way you want, you can start sewing.  Assemble each row sewing a sashing rectangle between each block as shown:

3)  Also sew three sashing rows together with 3 sashing rectangles and 2 of the 2 1/2" squares from the border fabric as shown:

4)  Sew the rows together by sewing a sashing row between each row of blocks as shown below.  This center should measure 40 1/2" x 54 1/2."

5)  Now for the borders.   First the sashing border.  Take the 6 sashing strips.  Sew them into two long strips that are each 3 strips long.  Take one of these long strips and cut the left and right borders from it.  The left and right borders should measure 54 1/2" long.  Sew these on first.   Press and measure your quilt and cut the borders the size of your quilt. 

6)  Then sew on the top and bottom borders.  Take the other long sashing border strip.  Cut two pieces 44 1/2" long from it.  Once again, make the borders the size of your quilt.

7)  Now for the last border.  Once again, sew the outer border strips into 2 sets of 3 strips.  From these strips cut 4 pieces 58 1/2" long.  First sew on the left and right borders.  Then sew on the top and bottom border.

8)  That's it!  For the backing, take the 3 3/4 yards, cut it in half (or two pieces about 67" long) and sew them back together along the selvage.  You will need a twin size batt.  Quilt it by hand, machine, or by checkbook, and then bind.  For the binding you will need 7 -- 2 1/2" strips.  I do have a binding tutorial HERE if you are interested.

Alternate layouts:

For my swanky quilt, I decided to forego the sashing and just sew the blocks together.  I was going to make the borders the same size, but I didn't have enough fabric.  The first border is cut 2."  The second border is 5."  The quilt measures 48" x 60."  I am surprised at how much I like it.

Also, I got this picture from a fellow quilter, Terry.  HERE is her blog post about this quilt.  Terry made just nine blocks.  I think a couple of the blocks are her own design.  I love her pieced border. 

So put your quilt together however you choose.  Did you only finish 3 blocks?  Make a table runner.  4 blocks?  Make a baby quilt or a table topper.  7 blocks?  Make a baby quilt out of 6 blocks and put the 7th on the back as the label.  Just finish it!!!!

Than post your pictures on Flickr so we can all revel in the fun quilts whether you use my finishing instructions or not. 

Drawing Dates:

Monday, August 16th from the Flickr pool
Monday, August 30th from the Flickr pool
Monday, August 30th from the Participants Blog Post

Information for Locals:

For those of you who live around here, I would love to see these quilts in either the Peteetneet Quilt Show in June or the Spanish Fork Pioneer Day Quilt Show on, well, Pioneer Day during their Fiesta Days.  Those are two shows I am involved with.  If you don't live around here, consider putting your quilt in one of your local quilt shows.  It is so fun to see you quilt hanging with other lovely quilts.  You get to see it in a different perspective. 

Another Drawing for Jelly Roll Participants

If you have made at least ONE block in this Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along, please comment to this post. 

If you have a friend who is not computer savvy, and you have been giving her/him instructions, post a comment for that person.

I want to get a better idea of how many have been playing along.

We will have a drawing on Monday, August 30th from all those who have commented to this post.

In the near future, I will be asking for your opinions about what I have planned next so think about this Quilt Along and if you have any feedback for me. 

Thanks!  Now off to see who my kids have for their teachers this year.

Jelly Roll Schedule

Alright, now to answer some burning questions.  Or rather, one burning question, "What now?"

1)  Tomorrow, Wednesday, August 4th, I will post the finishing instructions.  I will show you three or four layouts. 

2)  There will be a drawing in two weeks from the Flickr Pool for those finishing block 12.  That drawing will be on Monday, August 16th. 

3)  There will be a drawing two weeks after that from the Flickr Pool for all those who have posted a picture of a completed top.  (It doesn't have to be quilted or bound - just pieced together.)  The date of that drawing will be Monday, August 30th.  That is a change from what I initially said way at the beginning when we started this.  I initially said the beginning of Sept which is Labor Day.  Hello!?!  So we will keep with the two week time period.  I think it is better. 

4)  There will be one more drawing on Monday, August 30th.  This drawing will be held from the comments of my next post.  It is just to get an idea of how many are playing along. 

Any other burning questions, let me know!

The Last Block, but not the Last Winners

We have two more winners this morning!  First we have the winner of the prize from Scott Hansen of Blue Nickel Studios:

stefgaul!

and the winner of my jelly roll:

magentaleaves!

As always, winners have been notified through FlickrMail.  Please email me through Flickr or directly at kluckau@moosequilts.com with your mailing address!

Sewn Spaces Giveaway

Okay, so I should keep this quiet, but I am a quilter and quilter's are nice people.  I have recently fallen in love with Joel Dewberry's fabric.  I made this quilt:

out of Deer Valley.  It is in my newest book, Simply Charming Kids, that I was just reminded isn't available for purchase on my website yet!  I will have to fix that.  Until then, ask for it at your local quilt shop.  I would love to send them a few. 

I have also made a quilt out of Modern Meadow that I can't show yet. 

Anyway, I have noticed that Joel and his wife Laurie have been very generous with their new book Sewn Spaces.  

I have seen several copies being given away on different blogs.  We all have another chance to win a copy of this book right from Laurie. 

Click HERE to go to her blog. 

They will be picking a winner next Monday.  This is one book that is on my Christmas list.  If any of you have it, I would love to hear how you like it.

Block Twelve with Scott Hansen

Block Twelve! WOW! All of a sudden that happened quickly. We've got a great last block for you. It was designed by Scott Hansen of Blue Nickel Studios.

Scott and I "met" in a way that only quilters could meet.  One of my quilting friends did a doll quilt swap and Scott was her swap partner.  So I looked online to see who Blue Nickel Studios was.  I know some of you know Scott, but for those of you who don't think you know Scott, you may know Scott through his quilts.  Hop over to his blog and see if you recognize his work.

Now from Scott:

Hi everyone, I'm Scott Hansen and the person behind the Blue Nickel Studios name....which you may or may not have heard of ....but as time goes on I hope you will hear more and more of the Blue Nickel. I have been quilting since 1993 pretty regularly, although my very first quilt was back in 1976 or so when I was really into Americana, and wanted a "crazy" quilt. My mom knew very little about quilting, and that first quilt that she helped me with was tied...and weighs a ton! I am not sure what we used for batting, but it is nothing like what we have these days. In the mid-80's I picked up counted cross-stitch to keep my hands busy (I always need something to do) and then in the early 90's, I discovered I could accomplish bigger, more useful, and faster items with quilting. That and we had babies popping up all around us in our social circles (including 3 of our own)

I have always been creatively minded, but somewhere along the way, a lot of that got somewhat pushed back. Being a man, creativity is not so much applauded as is productivity, and I could not get the two to co-exist for many decades. Now I am working on remedying that. Back in 1995 or so, I was seriously thinking about leaving my life in retail for a different life in quilt-shop retail but never had the upfront $$ to get started, and didn't want to borrow money. Somewhere along the way, I decided that I would almost rather design than run a shop, but that may come along eventually.

Through a long slow chain of Divine events, I am now at the point where I have been professionally designing quilts for the fabric companies of Free Spirit, Michael Miller, and Robert Kaufman so far and I have an upcoming Moda Bake Shop project as well. On the websites of those first three companies, you can find the free downloadable patterns that I have done for them (there is also a link on my blog to make them easier to find). I have been published now in more magazines than I can remember....but if I was to take the time, I could still probably count them on my fingers...(I think). I have four more coming out this fall and winter with 4 different magazines. I am also working on self-publishing patterns that will start off in PDF form selling online only, and as time goes on, getting them actually printed on paper and in shops all over the world. The block that I have designed for this Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along is going to be one of my first patterns with three different layouts in three separate color schemes. You can follow my blog http://www.bluenickelstudios.com/ for news on when and where those will be available.

Besides magazines, I am also one of 30 men featured in Joe Cunningham's upcoming book Men and the Art of Quiltmaking, and I am thrilled that Joe included me in that book, as there are a lot of "bigger" names in the book as well, but there still aren't that many of us guys in the world of quilting (although I KNOW there are more than 30!!) I try to keep my blog fairly fresh with entries every so often, sometimes 2-3 times a week, sometimes I miss a few weeks, if things get really crazy around here with home projects, teenager stuff, or quilting deadlines. I still have that DayJob in retail that won't pay me if I don't show up either! :) You can always sign up for email prompts that tell you when I post if you want on the right sidebar of my blog.


I was very happy to be invited by Konda to join in with the fun on this quilt-a-long, and hope to see you stop by my blog at http://www.bluenickelstudios.com/. If you stop by before the 5th of August be sure to join in the naming contest for the Blue Nickel Prop Girls here on this link http://bluenickelstudios.com/?p=2191 Fat Quarters and a Layer Cake bundle are being offered as prizes. Also check out post #240 which as I write this isn't done yet, but it will have a prize that goes with Konda's quilt along as well. You know, I could just go on and on, but as it is an early Sunday morning, and it is the end of a week of wonderful vacation, I am just going to say thanks to Konda for the wonderful opportunity to meet you all, and please do stop by the Blue Nickel Studios site as often as you like, I love the company.

And now for our LAST BLOCK!  Here are Scott's pictures:  (He must be an over-achiever because he made three different blocks!)

Click HERE for instructions to Scott's block. 

Thanks Scott!

And since we love seeing how different each block can look, here are my blocks!  First with Attitude Girls,

and then with Swanky.  In each case I used the background fabric as the -- well where the plain white is in Attitude Girls.

Drawing tomorrow morning for Block Eleven!  We have two prizes again -- one from Scott and one from me!  Yipee!  (Tomorrow I will tell you what I have planned for the rest of the schedule.)

Update:  Yes, sorry, forgot to mention. . . . the alternate color schemes were causing problems with the pdf so Scott took them out of the pdf.  The pictures that were there are those you see above.  Thanks!