Of course, if you’re from Alabama you know that means FOOTBALL, not fall. It can still be 80-90 degrees in the fall, so we get vibes not from the trees, but from the stadiums!
Christensen Creations will not take sides, so I designed special lap quilts/wall hangings for both University of Alabama and for Auburn. If you’re from Alabama, there’s 99% chance you root for one or the other! These cute quilts are very quick to make and sized just big enough to be a cozy little stadium lap quilt or small enough to hang on the wall (or over the back of couch) or even at the end of a bed in a dorm room! You can decide how you want to use yours!
Click here to buy: U of AL Elephant Flag Lap Quilt or Hanging #CC2321
Click here to buy: Auburn Tiger Flag Lap Quilt or Hanging #CC2320
If you don’t feel like quilting, you can find both of these for sale this week at Market Shoppes in downtown Wetumpka, but I encourage you to make your own. I used Kona cotton. (The red is really a little more crimson than it looks in the photo.) The Kona white is nice and thick. Kona is readily available in most fabric stores, even Hobby Lobby, so it’s easy to find. It doesn’t seem to fade much, but I ALWAY S pre-wash several times just to make sure the intense colors don’t bleed later.
I used a gentle curve of quilting down each stripe and fancier free-motion quilting inside animals. The tiger didn’t show up well, but here’s the elephant. I used a whirl to indicate the eye, some big loops on the ear and some zigzags on the trunk to suggest wrinkles. People complain that “Quilt as desired” is not helpful, so I’m trying to include some ideas along with my patterns.
The pattern is easy to cut because it’s primarily based on strips, mainly 2 1/2″ and 1 1/2″ strips. I love rotary cutting and strip-piecing–so much quicker than scissors and more accurate as well.
However, one issue I encountered was trying to keep track of the pieces that were so close in size: 5″, 4″, 3 1/2″, 5 1/2″, etc. Because I cut and sewed all in one evening, I just lined mine up from largest to smallest on a side table. That wasn’t too bad for the elephant because there were fewer pieces. The tiger with all the similar strips was more confusing.
One thing you can do is mark each piece. We used to mark on the back when sewing garments. Today there are water-dissolvable markers, but I like the heat-erasable even better. Wow! Those new Frixion pens erase with the touch of an iron! You don’t have to order them from a special quilt shop either; they’re are Office Depot! I’ve bought all colors, but I still prefer the black or blue.
A quicker fix is to stack same-size pieces together and just make a little paper note with the size. If it’ll be a while before I sew, I’ll pin a stack together. I love flower head pins because they’re long and very sharp. You can even get some that have numbers on them, which are great to use for inch sizes. You can also sort by colors–I’ve used rainbow order to indicate sizes. A quick tip, though, is that you can WRITE on the flowers! Just use a fine Sharpie. You can indicate sizes or rows or types of blocks. I don’t like to mark permanently, though, so my “go-to” is to have scrap paper tucked under my cutting board. I pull off a piece and write down my number or whatever to pin to a stack or a piece, then throw it away later.
I’m sure there are fancier ways of organizing block and pieces, perhaps in clear plastic bags or something like that, but for a quick quilt like these little gems, you only have to get organized for a couple hours. When worse comes to worst, it’s really not a major issue to have to find a ruler and simply remeasure!
Whether you’re a football fan or a football widow or just looking for a cute gift idea, consider one of these patterns. They’re on sale for just $3.50 for this one week~so hurry! If you have a “divided” family, you may even need both.