Welcome to the final round of Sew-vivor Season 2! I hope that you’ve enjoyed following along this season. We’ve had some incredibly talented girls who have showcased amazing projects. It’s been so fun to work with each of them. Here were the button results– you can see who we said goodbye to, and the final 3 who are competing in this round.

The final round was to sew something, and it could be anything, as long as it was quilted. Piecing and sewing an actual quilt sandwich (sewing layers together) were both acceptable. And here are the results!

Projects were appeared in the order they were received.

Poll is at the bottom.

CONTESTANT #1:  Melissa from Melly Sews

Squeee! That was the noise I made when I found out I made it into the finals for Sewvivor. And then, AHHHHH! Because y’all – I am not a quilter. Before today there was a total of 0 quilted projects on my blog. I still have a handsewn patchwork doll quilt top I made when I was like 10 that isn’t finished. That’s how much of a quilter I’m not. But. I do have this conference I’m going to, and I want to carry my laptop and camera in one bag, and they won’t fit in my current bag. So I give you my Quilted Camera Bag.

This bag is fully padded on all 4 sides with 1/2″ foam, has removable and re-arrangeable 1/2″ foam dividers inside, and can accommodate my camera body with lens, my 13″ laptop, and two extra lenses with room for another lens or camera body if I made another divider. I pieced the inside flap and the strap out of Kokka Echino Nico Camera fabric in all 3 colors. The fabric is conveniently discontinued, but I had to have it. I’m not a fabric hoarder, but I have fabric hoarder friends and Etsy who came to my aid. Then I quilted a camera outline on the flap, and added the adjustable strap so the bag can be worn on the shoulder or cross body, 2 gusseted outside pockets with hand-drawn camera buttons, a recessed zipper, an inside zip pocket and an outside zip pocket. Phew. Three days of patterning and sewing later, I am in LOVE with this bag, and I hope you love it too. More photos on my blog, and I want to say thank you to Rachel for hosting this contest and to my fellow “Sewvivors” for pushing me in my sewing. Even to quilting. It’s been a blast!

CONTESTANT #2:  Catlin from Call Me Cat

Being in Sew-vivor has been such a great experience so far! I’m so excited to be included in the final three and I want to thank you for your sweet comments! I had a lot of fun with this third and final challenge. I have made a few quilts in my life, my mom makes beautiful quilts for friends and family, and I grew up next door to a professional quilter who would take me fabric shopping for my birthday! I definitely appreciate that a lot of time, skill, and love goes into piecing and quilting. For this challenge, I knew I wanted to incorporate the quilting into clothing for my daughter, Anna, so I made her a quilted puffy vest and pants with ‘quilt block’ knee pads. I bought a beautiful yellow wool at Mood in NYC before we moved last year to use for a different project, but I’ve been holding on to a small leftover piece since then. There was just enough to squeeze out the front and back of the vest. I used a pink and white cotton print for the lining and pockets, and two layers of quilt batting in between to make it nice and puffy. Once it was assembled, I machine quilted straight lines across it to hold all the layers together, as well as a cute heart and a special note to my girl on the back. The pants are made from a striped cotton-poly that is super
soft. I pieced together a quilt block using 1.5 inch squares of the fabric in alternating directions. Once I had a good size block, I cut out the shape for the knee pads, backed them with pink cotton, and quilted them into place. I sewed up a simple gray knit top and butterfly hair clip to complete the outfit. Check out my blog, Call Me Cat, for more details and pictures!

CONTESTANT #3: Caila from Caila Made

Hello folks! Here we are in the final round and I am SO excited to be here! First, let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room: Yes, I quilted my son an outfit. Am I cool for doing this? Um, not sure. I don’t think quilted wearables are big on the five-year-old scene, but I dared to dream. Since our challenge was “quilting,” I brought the most challenging aspects of the craft into my sewing for kids. The quilting skills I highlighted this week are: piecing, quilting multiple layers together, bias binding, and appliqué. The best quilts, in my opinion, are those that use multiple fabric colors and prints to create one seamless design. These shorts were pieced together using 10 different fabrics to create an asymmetrical herringbone pattern. In the third picture below you can see the quilting I used over the top–straight lines and a chevron stitching pattern to quilt the top layer to the lining. These shorts were created to look like Quiksilver board shorts, and I love ’em! The shirt is a button-up made using the Oliver + S sketchbook pattern, but I altered the back to accommodate the wave scene you see below. My husband, talented man that he is, drew this wave for me using various curved lines and I used my long-dormant quilting skills to map the pieces and create this one-of-a-kind quilted shirt back. Creating with my husband isn’t something I do enough of, and it’s a wonderful feeling to look at this and know it’s ours. The pocket of the shirt is a good ole’ chevron, and the shorts are edged with bias binding. This is a quilting challenge after all! For more hidden details, links to patterns, inspiration, and a million more pictures, head over to my blog!

 Quilted wave shirt back. The wave was designed by my husband, and integrated onto the shirt/sewn by me.

 Quilted herringbone shorts. Blue shirt buttons.
Quilted shirt back.

Wave shirt back, bias binding on the shorts, notched sides, chevron
pocket, herringbone pattern on the shorts, front slash pockets, two-tone
collar, blue buttons.

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