Vintage Floral Singer Featherweight 221K Travel Set

Happy Friday! Today I want to share this travel set I made for the thrifted Singer Featherweight 221K sewing machine!


In case you missed it, earlier this year I had the thrift find of my dreams! I found a Vintage Singer Featherweight 221K sewing machine at my local Goodwill! For the full story, see this post: Thrifting a White Singer Featherweight 221K

As it happens, I already had a white featherweight of my own when I found that one. Obviously I didn't want to leave it behind, but I decided pretty quickly that I shouldn't keep it. Lucky for me, my Mom had just mentioned she was going to set herself up to sew in the living room and was going to use a little machine. So, I gave the thrifted featherweight to my Mom for Mother's Day!


Giving her this machine was the perfect excuse to make a travel set for it! I used my Sew Portable Travel Set Pattern, which includes a tote bag, extension table cover and a drawstring bag for holding the foot pedal and cord. For the main fabric I used this floral fabric that I found at the Goodwill Outlet store. It seemed appropriate!!


I took this project as an opportunity to adjust the extension table cover to fit the 221K's shorter table. I've updated the pattern to include this modification. The original table cover for the black 221 machines is still included in the pattern. I also just generally refreshed the pattern, giving it a layout similar to my newer patterns. I'm glad I took the time to do that!


On 221K machines the power cord and foot pedal are permanently connected to the machine. This makes the drawstring bag even more needed! We don't want them to scratch up the machine bed.


The accent and lining fabrics I used were all from my stash, all chosen to coordinate with the main floral.


This is the fourth travel set I've made! See the others here:
Nordika Sew Portable Travel Set
Dreamin' Vintage Sew Portable Travel Set
Sewing with Singer Sew Portable Travel Set

Pattern: Sew Portable Travel Set Pattern by me
Fabrics: thrifted quilting cotton, mauvelous pure solid by art gallery fabrics*, peppered cotton by studio e*
Notions: 1 1/4" cotton webbing, binder's board*, cotton twill tape

Happy Sewing!

Vintage Sheet Plus Quilt

Happy Thursday! Today I want to share my finished vintage sheet plus quilt that I made during the Plus Quilt Along!


I had so much fun working on a soft and subtle plus quilt on a larger scale. I made a baby quilt with all low-contrast vintage reclaimed bedsheets earlier in the year, and I just can't get it out of my system! It's bringing me so much joy to work with these fabrics. Since making the first one, I thrifted a few that made it into this quilt which is fun!


Wow, this quilt is big!! It doesn't sound that big (80"x88"), but it's so much bigger than what I normally make! I mostly make small throw (like 60"x80") quilts or baby quilts. I forgot how much longer each step takes on a quilt of this size. This quilt was too big for both of my go-to spots for taking flat shots! I plan to bring it home with us to Ohio this summer so that I can photograph it on my parent's barn. For now, this will have to do!


Update, here is a flat shot!


Because this quilt was so large, I kept the quilting as simple as possible. I quilted lines 1/4" away from all the seams.


I'll admit, I struggled to quilt this quilt. I thought I did a good job basting, but the layers were sliding all over the place on me. I'm not sure if it was the weight of the quilt or a mediocre basting job or some mysterious third reason! Leave it to quilting to continue to humble me. Thankfully my troubles were mostly disguised with a good wash and dry.


Sometime last year I thrifted two King size flat sheets of this brown butterfly sheet! It holds a special place in my heart, I used this print to make a dresden pillow back in 2011 that we still love and use today. Since the quilt was so big, I pretty much had to use a King size sheet to back it.


For the binding I used leftover fabric from the back, my current favorite choice.


My last two quilt finishes I forgot to add one of my custom tags, so this time I made sure to add one!


In the end, I love how this quilt turned out! I wish the quilting had gone a little better, but maybe next time! It did make me realize that this is a bit too big of a quilt for me to quilt myself. I think I'll stick with smaller throws and baby quilts for a while!

Vintage Sheet Plus Quilt
Pattern: Arithmetic Quilt Pattern (Double size, 4.5" squares)
Fabric: Vintage Reclaimed Bedsheets

Happy Quilting!

Plus Quilt Along Week 4

Welcome to week four of the Plus Quilt Along! I'll be updating the Sew Along Page each week with all the posts so that you can easily catch up or reference these posts after the sew along ends!

I hope you'll sew along with us! Sew from the tutorial or the pattern:
Arithmetic Quilt Pattern
Modern Plus Quilt Tutorial


This is our final week and we're focused on finishing our quilts! I want to share a few different ideas for quilting your quilts as well as some posts that might be helpful!


I've quilted most of my plus quilts on my home sewing machine, primarily with my walking foot. My go-to quilting for plus quilts is to simply do lines 1/4" away from all the seams.



The other quilting pattern I like to use for plus quilts is diagonal lines. Especially for the 4.5" square size, I think this looks especially nice!



A word of caution however, for the 8" size, a diagonal line through each block may not be strong enough. I did this on mu double gauze plus quilt, and have had lots of broken seams as it's been used. the double gauze has so much weight to it, I'm sure that's not helping! To remedy this, I've added ties to the quilt. I think this adds to the overall coziness, it felt like the right fix for this particular quilt.


You can't go wrong with a simple free-motion quilting design for the plus quilt. For this one I quilted some simple loops.




I've had a few plus quilts long-arm quilted. I've gone for more structured geometric designs but also an organic loop too. They all look good in my opinion!


Need a refresher on basting/quilting basics? Check out my tutorial: Basting and Quilting Tutorial


It's fun to see how I've gone through phases in binding choices over the years. I think in my early quilting days I favored more bold choices for binding. Nowadays my go-to binding choice is usually the leftover backing fabric! I'm really loving the look of the backing and binding matching, I don't know why! It's also a nice way to use up the extra backing that is cut away after quilting, which is a bonus!


A classic choice is stripes! In my opinion, striped binding is always a good option!!



For non-quilting cotton quilts I love to add some texture contrast with the binding fabric. For both my flannel and double gauze plus quilts I used voile or lawn for the binding. The feeling of the smooth lawn against the soft fuzzy double gauze is delicious!


I am a dedicated machine binder, I have a tutorial for that too, if you're interested in trying it out: Machine Quilt Binding Tutorial


Thank you for quilting along with me! I hope you've enjoyed the quilt along! I'll be sharing my finished quilt later this week! :)

Happy Quilting!

Leftovers Quilt

Happy Friday! I have a recent quilt finish to share. I'm really behind on sharing quilts, I have a bit of a backlog that I hope I can catch up on in the next month or so. We'll see how we do! First up, a leftovers quilt!


I've had this stack of citron and white half-square triangle blocks leftover from making my Interlaced Sampler Quilt since 2016! They were just waiting their turn to become something. I also had a few turquoise ones, but I'm not sure what they came from. I ended up setting those aside and decided to use just the citron blocks. I pulled a slightly Fall leaning palette of prints to go with them. Some of these prints have been in my stash for a long, long time!


To stretch these half-square triangles a bit further and make a larger quilt, I decided to make half-square triangles with them again. I paired a half-square triangle block with a solid square. It's similar to the process of making quarter-square triangles (putting two half-square triangles together). These are kind of a cross between a half-square triangle and a quarter-square triangle.


Making blocks this way gives you two different blocks from each pair. I arranged the blocks in an alternating pattern so that the citron fabrics form a secondary pattern. I love the resulting movement in the quilt!




I quilted this quilt with my signature wavy lines. Felt right! I've got a tutorial for how I do this style of quilting: How to Quilt Wavy Lines with a Walking Foot (video!)


For the backing I decided to use a voile print from my Geometric Bliss* collection. I thought it was a rather good match for the colors of the top! I will admit, it was not the easiest thing to quilt, the backing was slipping and sliding all over the place! I realized after the fact that every lawn or voile quilt I've made up until now I had longarm quilted. I think from now on I'll stick with that strategy!!


For the binding I went with this dusty blue-purple print by Joel Dewberry. I believe this color was in his True Colors* collection.


It felt good to finally use up those half-square triangles. It only took 8 years of marinating for me to figure out what to do with them! That's okay, I'm just happy they are out of my drawer and living their life as a quilt at last!

Happy Quilting!

*Note: Any links marked with an asterisk in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click through and buy something, I make a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Plus Quilt Along Week 3

Welcome to week three of the Plus Quilt Along! I'll be updating the Sew Along Page each week with all the posts so that you can easily catch up or reference these posts after the sew along ends!

I hope you'll sew along with us! Sew from the tutorial or the pattern:
Arithmetic Quilt Pattern
Modern Plus Quilt Tutorial


This week we're working on our quilt tops! It's time to lay out your quilt and then piece your quilt top! Let's dive into some tips and tricks for making this a smooth process.


For these quilts it's ideal to be able to lay out the entire quilt top at once. This means you'll probably need to clear a large amount of floor space, or clear off your design wall. If you're making a throw or baby quilt, you may even be able to lay out your quilt on a bed!

When I lay out a plus quilt, I like to use a large piece of foam board to separate all my squares by print. This makes it easy to move all the squares around the floor as I lay out the quilt. You could also use your cutting mat, or a clean cookie sheet.


Sometimes it can be tough to get a good spread of value and color in your quilt top so that it looks evenly distributed. I find taking a photograph and viewing it in color as well as in black and white can be really helpful! Oftentimes I can see right away a print that's sticking out or where I have similar colors clumped together.


Once I'm happy with my layout, I put my handmade row markers to work! I use these for nearly every quilt I make. Make your own using my tutorial: Easy DIY Row Markers for Quilting.


I like to stack the squares up in each row, then stack all my rows into one big stack of squares! Then it's time to start piecing. Chain piecing helps make quick work of these quilt tops, if you need a refresher check out my Chain Piecing Tutorial.


For even more piecing tips, check out my 8 Tips for Precise Piecing!


Ever lose track of which way you’re pressing your row seams? When I’m piecing a quilt top, I usually press my seams in one direction and alternate directions every other row. A few years ago I made a simple decision that makes my life easier: I press seams in odd numbered rows away from the row marker. I press seams in even numbered rows towards the row marker. I’ve done it this way on many, many quilts and I rarely end up with a row pressed the wrong way! Even if my rows are out of order when I do the pressing, this simple habit keeps things organized.


Pressing a quilt top isn't super high on my list of favorite quilting tasks, but I do love how good it looks when it's neatly pressed! Now it's all ready for next week!

Happy Quilting!