precuts | Lori Miller Designs

From Quick to Stitch Precuts Magazine 2015

Here is my second project featured in a new magazine, Quick to Stitch Precuts 2015. These super cute Pinwheel Pincushions are made using mini charms, in this case V & Co Color Theory. These colors are so bright and cheery. I used new and vintage buttons to set them off. The tiny newsprint fabric background makes a great neutral to make them pop. You can also find my Summer Harvest Quilt on the cover of the magazine. I blogged about that HERE. But I thought I would show you a few pics of my prototype and share some of my design process.

I was trying to come up with designs to use Precut fabrics for the magazine. Precut fabrics include mini charms 2 1/2″ squares, charm squares 5″ squares, 10″ squares or layer cakes, jelly rolls and fat quarters to just name a few. I had some extra mini charms floating around and started to play with them. I scribbled some designs on paper and had the idea to create a pincushion of some kind. This was the first prototype that I made. I ended up just sewing a fabric back to it like a little bean bag to start.

Now I knew that I wanted to use 2 1/2 ” mini charm squares, I wanted to find some fun fabrics. V & Co Color Theory was just coming out so I quickly ordered some packs. I went through the stack of squares and started to put together squares I wanted. The beauty of a coordinated fabric line is that the colors match and they all go together. I matched up the colors. When you make my pinwheels, you end up with two pincushions each spinning the opposite way. That was sort of cool.

From Quick to Stitch Precuts Magazine 2015

I liked the idea of a boxy pincushion, so I added the side pieces to my finished design. I had just bought the tiny newsprint fabric and it made it look so fresh and fun. I dug out some fun buttons including quite a few vintage ones from my stash. What a great way to highlight some special old buttons! The designing and sewing part is the best part to me, afterwards, I write up my directions and type them up. Then I use my directions to make the pattern again and make updates and corrections. If I have time, sometimes a sewing buddy with take my instructions and make up the project with a fresh set of eyes to offer suggestions and corrections. Those are great friends.

Then you wait for the magic day when the magazine comes out. I did not have an exact date, so I actually discovered the magazine while I was shopping in Kroger! And I got a big surprise to find my quilt on the cover. Have you ever whooped really loud in a Kroger store? I couldn’t help myself. People were wondering why I was trying to take a picture of the magazines with my phone, LOL.

There are a ton of great projects in this issue of the magazine. Look for it at JoAnn Fabrics, Kroger, Meijer or your local stores.

Happy Stitching!

From Quick to Stitch Precuts Magazine Spring/Summer 2015

I am so pleased to announce that my work has been published in a new magazine, Quick to Stitch Precuts 2015. This magazine is from the folks that produce the fun and modern Fresh Quilts Magazine. I had worked with the editors, Deb Gore Orhn and Riane Menardi, on a small startup crafting website a few years ago. When I had the opportunity to submit a few ideas for their new Precuts concept magazine, I jumped at the chance. Fortunately, they accepted two of my projects, my Summer Harvest Quilt and some cute Pinwheel Pincushions. I documented my adventure and thought you might like to see how I put together the projects. I am first going to share the making of my quilt.

Yes, I was kind of delighted to be on the cover.

For the first project, I decided to use 10 inch squares which are also called a layer cake. I had just gotten myself Electric Quilt 7 software and I was working my way through learning how to use it. Here is what the initial design concept looked like. I was very new to the software, so I did not know how to add the thin sashing that I eventually added between the rows of leaves.

I knew I wanted a bold, modern print and I had seen some fabric designed by Malka Dubrawski called Outside in. So I grabbed a layer cake package of it to work with. I started out by string piecing the corners in an natural linen.

Since the corners were pretty big. I did double stitching so I would have some instant left over half square triangles.

I started laying out the pieces in rows. At first, I mixed all the colors and squares up but the chaos was too much for me. Then I started to arrange in groups of color and prints and it came to life. i have a design floor instead of a design wall. A design wall is on my to do list.

Here I have it all pieced and sewn together. There were two squares in the bundle that were about the same color as the linen I had used for the squares. So I just flipped that leaf pair and used some poppy red corners for it. See it on the right hand side? It kind of added a little spontaneity in the quilt.

Here I am trying to pin the quilt on the floor. It is too hard to move that rug, so I just vacuum really well and then I use painters tape and tape the quilt back right to the carpet. There is a lot of smoothing and adjusting and then I pin from the center out.

This quilt is a large throw size, so I decided to quilt it myself. I got out my trusty BSR Bernina foot and I marked a few of the leaves but after two or three, I just went for it free hand. On the corners, I just zig zagged bag and forth. All of the leaves had the same quilt design except for the solid fabrics. In each of those, I varied the design for interest.

The middle sashing just got meandering rows of sort of straight lines. The effect was still very nice. I think I am going to do that on a whole quilt next time.

From Quick to Stitch Precuts Magazine Spring/Summer 2015

Here is the full finished quilt. You can see I used the poppy red print for the binding with a little bit of an extra print here and there.

What did I do with all of those extra half square triangles? I used them and the leftover linen and fabrics to create a fun back for the quilt. You can really see the quilting of the leaves on the linen.