DIY

The Cost of A Quilt

/ pen&thimble / 4 Comments

Quilts are kind of my favorite thing right now. They are the cozy marriage of beauty and function. They are a comfy place for baby to enjoy tummy time, they keep us warm when we are reading a good book in the winter, they comfort your sick kid when you’re warming soup on the stove, they make spaces beautiful.

So during vacation I decided to treat myself and my family, by making us a Christmas quilt. I chose a free quilt block pattern of Christmas trees to save costs (find the pattern and tutorial here). I can’t wait to tell you just how much money I saved making my own quilt!

I made the festively colorful quilt pictured below with the dimensions 38 x 45 inches (96.5 x 114 centimeters). Take a guess the cost of the materials for the entire quilt… fabric, binding, batting, thread, tools. Jot it down even! In fact, write down your guess now before you see the cost of materials below.

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Oh! Before I reveal the cost of materials, I want to mention that the price of the materials is not counting the time (hours/days) it took me to:

  • pair prints and colors for the tree blocks,
  • make the quilt blocks (each of those 8 Christmas trees),
  • arrange the trees and sashing to my liking,
  • trim the blocks to uniform size
  • sew all of the blocks and sashing together to make the quilt top,
  • quilt the top, batting, and back together,
  • hand sew the binding (that red fabric tape around the quilt that hides the inside layer from view.

All told the cost of materials was: $80.11. Is that more or less than you expected? Let me know in the comments below!

Compare the materials cost to the 50 x 60 inch finished quilts I saw on Amazon for $13.85 and $20.99. Those prices include shipping too if you are a Prime member. You can see for yourself by searching “throw quilts” on Amazon. So money saved… um, none. But I knew that going in, of course!

Breakdown of Cost of Materials (Retail Prices):

  • $33.55: Beautiful Christmas-y Fabric for Top
  • $9.49: Batting
  • $17.98: Backing Fabric
  • $11.60: Binding: (I spent more $ by not making my own, but saved $ in time)
  • $7.49: Spool of Thread, Machine Wear, New Needles, Use of Quilters Rulers, Rotary Blades, Shears, Thread Snips, Seam Ripper, Cutting Mat.

The real reason I made my own quilt was not to save money. In fact, I tend to choose handmade expecting it to cost more. It should! It is special. It is unique. It tends to be a higher quality.

I made this quilt because I’ve caught the quilting bug. I can’t wait to share some of my more recent projects with you. (Squeee!) You won’t see any of these creations in my shop just yet, but I wanted to share this bit of my handmade journey with you. And in case you hadn’t considered it before, I wanted to share the exact cost of materials of a little handmade quilt. 🙂

Hope you are all having a happy New Year so far! I’ll be posting again next week!

I Heart You, Valentine! DIY Heart-Shaped Crayons

/ pen&thimble / 16 Comments

Do you have a toddler? Kid? Then perhaps you have a lot of broken crayons in your house too? Turn those broken crayons into Valentine’s Day gifts with my simple tutorial. This is seriously a no-fail, simple activity. Low on time-investiment and high on super cute outcome!

Supplies:

1. Broken crayons (I used multiple brands and sizes)

2. One silicone heart mould tray

3. Oven

4. Baking tray

To Do:

1. Peel the papers off of your crayons if they still reside there.

Next task: Find a use for these pretties!

Next task: Find a use for these pretties

"Those crayons are nakie!"

“Those crayons are nakie!”

2. Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

3. Break crayons down further to fit into the moulds. Great stress relief — snap! snap! crack!

Heart tray + broken crayons

Heart moulds + broken crayons = Meant to be

4. Put broken crayons into moulds. There does not appear to be a right or wrong way to do this. I stacked some vertically, others horizontally, and most were a little of both. I piled them as high as the top of the moulds.

So exciting!

So exciting!

5. Place your heart moulds onto a baking tray and place in oven for 15-18 minutes. We have a baking tray that is too gross to use but have not parted with it yet, so I used that in case there was spillover. There was no spillover.

6. Take tray out of the oven after 18 minutes and put it on the stovetop to cool. The crayons in all but two center hearts had completely melted after 15 minutes. I would not exceed 18 minutes of oven time.

Melted Crayons

Melted Crayons

7. After an hour of cooling, pop those hardened hearts out of the mould.

Look good enough to eat! But don't!

Look good enough to eat! But don’t!

Pop out so cleanly!

Pop out so cleanly!

I'm obsessed with these fun colors!

I’m obsessed with these fun colors!

That’s it! Now you have fantastic gifts! I’m going to give one to Phee’s friends along with a Valentine’s Day sticker sheet! Simple, fun and satisfying to make, and a cute way to share the love with the littles on Valentine’s Day and beyond!