Simple iPad Cover Tutorial

This is a simple yet elegant cover for iPad. If you know the basics of stitiching, then you are ready to go. I made a cover before 2 months for my iPad. Hubby dear took it to one of his clients' office and his client was impressed. He wanted an iPad cover and hubby passed on this request. The first one I made was a quilt block I learned from a friend and I didn't have patience to repeat it. So I went for this simple design and prayed to God that hubby likes it. And yes, he loved it. 

Recently I added a walking foot to my machine accessories and was so happy to use it in this project. With the usual presser foot, it is very hard to quilt all the three layers but with a walking foot, it was so easy. I love this. For thew batting I used the regular sponge sheet. If you want you can go fro cotton batting but it is optional.

Materials Required:

For The Main Body:

1 Main Fabric  - 25" * 10"

1 Lining Fabric - 25" * 10"

1 Batting - 25" * 10"

For The Flap:

2 Main Fabric - 10" * 6"

1 Batting - 10" * 6"

A small piece of velcro

A fancy lace which suits the main fabric

Attach one part of the velcro in the main fabric( forgot to click a snap) Place the main fabric and lining right to right and place the batting below the lining.

Stitch 3 sides leaving one side open. The side with velcro must be stitched. The other side must be open.

Now turn the fabric inside out and turn out the corners neatly.

On the flap pieces make a U cut to shape the flap.

Now on one main fabric, place the velcro's other part and stitch leaving 1 1/2" from the edge.

Place the fabrics right to right, place the batting below and stotch leaving the straight edge open. Give small cut marks along the stitch line. Be carefuland avod slicing the stitch.

Now turn inside out.

Fold both the open edges of the flap and main body. Insert the flap inside the main body and pin it.

Though it may not look very neat it is OK.

Stitch along the line.

Now on the lining, draw lines. This is the quilting lines you are going to make to secure all the three layers and make the cover neat. I went for uneven spaces between lines. You can do however you want - vertical lines, criss cross or evenly spaced horizontal lines.

To make the flap different, I made some vertical lines.

Now it is time to quilt. This is my new walking foot. Stitch on the lines .

Keep on folding the quilted side to make it easy for stitching.

All done. I successfully completed all the lines..

Now fold the main body as shown and stitch the sides.

Stitch a lace along the flap's curved edge.

And the iPad cover is ready..

Enjoy!!!

My daughter was so happy to hold it...

My First Try at Foundation Piecing

My daughter has been pestering me for a mat after she kept the mat I prepared earlier in school for her yoga practice. When there was a Quilt Along (QAL) last month at Desi Quilters, I thought of making a mat with the technique. Nima of Made To Treasure taught us the basics of foundation piecing. She provided us with the design For free down load of the design you can visit her blog. All we had to do was to take a print out of the design and stitch it according to her instructions. 

After I brought home the printed copies, I started out to stitch the mat. But the mat came out small. So I added three extra rows and ended up with a 28" square mat. The last row was supposed to be small rectangles pieced together. But half way through I became so lazy and finished it with a pink solid piece on both sides of the small rectangles. Anyhow the result looked promising. Then came the toughest part of my mat making. I had to arrange the quilt top, batting and backing and quilt it. I recently bought the darning presser foot and used it to quilt. At first the lines went crazy but some time later, I was able to control the stitch. Though it is not very neat, for me the mat has come out beautiful. I need to improve my quilting and buy a walking foot to quilt straight lines.  My daughter liked it very much.

These are the foundation pieced pieces.

Nima also taught the technique of mitering the corners.

The toughest piecing. Needed lots and lots of patience to complete this.

My finished quilt top.

I took care to press all the seams so that the back looks neat after finishing.

The finished quilt top. Ready to be quilted.

I made backing with the scraps I had after stitching my daughter's dress.

Black And White Scottie Dog

I came to know about this scottie dog when Madhu of Desi Quilter's group posted a snap of the dog she made for her friend. That was so lovely and My daughter would love it. So as my daughter is at her aunt's place, I wanted to make this as a surprise gift for her. I know that she would shower me with her kisses when she sees this beautiful dog. This also serves another purpose for me. For this month's Desi Quilter's Challenge, we need to make a quilt with black, white and a printed fabric. So I think I hit two birds with a stone. This is also my entry to the challenge. I searched the web for a tutorial and came across a free download for the pattern at dsquilts. I followed the tutorial and ended up with this lovely looking dog. The toughest part was the joining of the side strip. I struggled to get it neat and it was worth the effort. I recently bought a 1/4" pressure foot and it was of great help when joining squares. The squares came out neat and aligned beautifully.

The dog uses squares black and white along with a long black stripe.

Black- 2 1/4" square -26 nos

White- 2 1/4" squares-26 nos

Black stripe 55" long and 2 1/4" wide

Printed cotton stripe 26" long and 6" wide for the collar

Cut all the squares and the black stripe.

Arrange the squares as shown. You need to make another piece which is the mirror image of the given pattern.

First join the near by squares in the same row. Press the seams flat.

Now join the rows. Press the seams flat.

Make the other side which is the mirror image of the first side.

Join the stripe along the sides and finally join both the sides of the stripe.

Now join the stripe with the other side leaving 5" for turning over.

Bring inside out through the opening.

Stuff it neatly with synthetic cotton.

Finish off the opening with a hand stitched zig zag stitch.

Knot it up.

Join the stripe along the side keeping the fabric right to right.

Turn inside out and press at the seam.

Stitch off both the ends.

Tie it around the dog's neck and secure it with a stitch. Stitch two buttons for eyes and a flower at the knot.

Strip Quilted Mat

There are challenges for every month in Desi Quilters. The rules will be given at the start of the month and we need to make a quilt according to the given rules. For the month of October the challenge was to make a strip quilt. Any quilt involving strips qualify for the submission. I saw the method of paper piecing a strip quilt blog at FITF blog. I used that method for the 8 blocks which form the centre of the mat. Both sides of the centre piece are strips of different colours matching the centre piece. The quilt is completed with batting, backing and binding. This is the first time I am using batting and I was nervous. Though the finished mat looks good, it needs some fine tuning. May be I will get the finishing works perfect in my next quilt.

The quilt measures 34" * 36" and I will be using it for meditation after yoga. The fabrics used are printed cotton. The backing used is also printed cotton and the batting is also cotton. I finished the quilt with a 3" wide binding.

Cut out strips of fabric. I used four printed and one solid white. For the blue strips, I used 1 1/2" strips and the yellow and orange strips measured 2". The white strip measured 1 1/2". Cut out 8 paper squares measuring 8" * 8 ".

In the centre of the paper, stick the white strip diagonally using gum stick.

Stitch the darker blue strip placing it right to right on the white strip.

Open the seam and iron it out.

Now place the lighter blue strip right side facing the darker strip and stitch.

Open the seam and iron.

Continue until you reach the corner of the paper.

Stitch the orange and yellow strips to the other side of the white strip.

Now turn the block and trim the fabric to the size of the paper square.

Your block looks like this.

Now remove the paper from the block. It will be easy to remove as the paper is perforated with the stitch.

Press the block and it is ready to be stitched.

To get an idea of the finished quilt, arrange the pieces on the floor. Now stitch all the pieces together.

Cut out batting and backing fabric to the size of the finished piece.

Pin all the sides and centre before stitching.

Stitch the sides and along the lines of the blocks.

Finish the quilt with the binding.

The backing fabric seen after folding over the quilt.