my monkey

I made a monkey for Craft Hope's 4th project. I was a little too close to the deadline, but I hope my monkey got there in time to go to the preschooler's burn camp. Here she is:

and a close-up of her face:

I also made a few 9-patches last week:

Isn't the "unmentionables" fabric cute? Sorry to be shocking if you're reading here and you're my father-in-law. :D

This week I am going to finish up two baby dresses and two Project Improv quilt bindings. And some other stuff, too. I have the backing fabric for my watercolor quilt! I have baby pirate costume fabric, also!

baby gift

Our friends Jennifer and Jared had a baby shower last week and I made a few things for them.

Their nursery has a monkey theme; I got this cute monkey knit from The Fabric Fairy. It's a good, thick, cushy rib knit. The pants and hat are made from the NCBE pattern; shirt is Ottobre, from 5/2006.
I also made this little set:

While I was at it I made this top for my girl:

From Ottobre 3/2004. I kind of like the green thread on this; mismatched but cute.
I am working on more nine-patches today, and thinking about finishing up another big quilt.

my birthday week

My birthday was last week and our family went to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve near Emporia, KS, for part of the celebrations. It was interesting to see the old ranch home and other buildings, all made of limestone starting back in the 1880s. There's even a limestone chicken coop and a limestone outhouse.

There was also a quilt show.

This was one of my favorites. I took a whole bunch of other pictures but I'm going to share them later.

We missed the bus tour of the park while we were there but had a good time looking at the quilts and walking through the house on a self guided tour, and talking to the women who were there demonstrating spinning, natural dyeing, weaving, and outdoor cooking.
Here's my oldest with the bookmark he wove:


So, that was a fun family field trip and we got to see another interesting part of our state that we hadn't been to before.

Also for my birthday, my parents and my husband's parents gave me this:

Actually, they gave me money and I searched and searched and hemmed and hawed about which fabrics I really wanted, and finally found a smoking deal on all these precuts at Jojo's Gift Shoppe. I love it all. I really really love the Eva charm pack, there are some great dark purples and pinks and chartreuse greens in there. That's a Neptune honey bun there, in case you couldn't tell.

So--it was a good birthday. I'm also planning on subscribing to Quilter's Home for my birthday... maybe I'll go sign up online this morning. Have a great day!

This week's Sew -n- Tell

Park City Amy and Amy Lou Who are hosting their second Sew and Tell--head on over and add yours if you have something to show off!

This is the quilt for my grandpa's 85th birthday. My mom pieced it, and I quilted it and did the binding. The birthday party is tomorrow, and the white and tan squares are (mostly) unquilted so guests can sign the quilt. I used a variegated blue thread; it shows up a little better in this picture:


I have been working on a custom project for my etsy shop and needed a break so I made these little pants for my girl:

The pattern is from Ottobre Design 1/2007, size 74. They fit really well with some growing room (she is maybe just under 16 lbs now and 12 month size store bought pants are still a bit too long). I love those front pockets; they crack me up.
I finished the dress a little while back but hadn't shown it yet. Once she's up and walking I figure she can wear it as a top in the winter too--layered over long sleeves, maybe. And, she is getting close. We were in the bookstore tonight and Cory was showing L a stuffed dog. She stood up and was actually able to stay balanced for more than just a second.
Here's the pants back view:

(The color is way washed out in this picture, sorry.)
Oh yeah, and these are made from some of my Target tablecloth stash fabric. I love finding fabric at Target, and bought this table cloth and a similar pink one a couple years ago.

Finally, today I worked on a few small things. Here is my no-schedule 9-patch progress (I made 5 of them today, on the far right):

If you're interested in seeing what some folks have been doing with 9-patches, go here. I am just working on mine when I want to, and I am not quite sure what I will end up making with them (I am thinking, maybe queen size?) I am hoping to swap some with a few friends so let me know if you're interested in doing that.

I also made four cloth napkins from Katie jump rope fabric today, and two blocks for my Christmas quilt. It was a fun day.

Mermaid Quilt Finished

I finished up the binding on L's baby quilt today.

I'm so happy with it, and happy to finish one of my bigger projects.
Some specs:
*Heather Ross Mendocino fabrics (mermaids and swimming girls and seahorses and octopi)
*Moda Snippets fabrics (orange dots and grid)
*rick rack :D
*hand dyed aqua and deep oranges
*peach baby corduroy back and little bit on the front
*a few other fabrics too
*quilted with waves and fishies and a few swirly lines, mostly in aqua thread but some orange too. Her name is quilted on there as well.
*37.25"x45.25" before washing and drying; 35.25"x43.25" after. I used Warm and White batting

back:


detail:


happy baby--I think she likes it!


peekaboo!


more pics here, if you're interested (or a grandparent):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17723088@N00/sets/72157622161346350/

some stuff you should know about

Have you heard about Craft Hope yet? Right now they are collecting handmade sock monkeys for Little Heroes Preschool Burn Camp. The deadline is Sept. 18. I forgot to get a pair of long socks during my epic Target shopping trip last week, but I have a return to make (the ankle cuff socks will NOT DO for D, he wants the totally short socks!) and will get monkey making socks then.

And, another cool thing: Iraqi Bundles of Love--send your extra fabric, yarn, any craft stuff to folks in Iraq who can use them. Mailing due date for this one is September 7--hey wait, that is Labor Day (and my birthday :D) so maybe you should get it sent out by 9/5.

I have several big projects in line to finish up in the next few months. (I am busy with my baby. And the boys. And trying to improve my life in other ways and be balanced). But after I get about 7 or 8 of them finished, I am going to start one of these. Here's a partial list of my started quilt projects:
My watercolor quilt, aka insane quilt project. Going on 7.5 years since I began it.

Figgy Pudding Christmas Quilt

9-patch quilt--I am thinking about making it queen size. Sigh.

Geese Quilt


And also the quilts that are on deck for finishing this week (baby quilt, Grandpa's quilt).
There are more. I also have quilts in my mind that I need to make--one for my newest baby nephew, and a monkey one for my monkey 5-year-old. I really want to start a Dear Jane quilt, but must shrink my UFO pile first.

ready for binding

I just finished up the quilting on L's baby quilt.


I will probably put it away for a bit so I can work on quilting and binding a quilt for my Grandpa's 85th birthday. My mom made the top and sent it out for me to quilt; it's going to be signed by guests at his party in a couple weeks.

I have been busy the last little while with buying school supplies and getting my boys into school. It is adding some much needed structure to our family and hopefully everyone will be fully adjusted to the new schedule soon.

A couple weeks ago I went with the family to First Friday where we saw Jacquie's quilt show and Lacey's exhibit, too. It was such a fun night out, and I really enjoyed it. All of the quilts and paintings were wonderful.

I put together a dresser for my baby girl (finally) and decided to store some of my fabric in the bins where her clothes used to be. I had fun folding up and color sorting all my smaller pieces of quilt fabric:


They used to be all crammed in one big blue bin and I think this is a big improvement!

The Winner

Front:

Back:


The winner is #6, Sedna-is-my-own-last-name. Sedna, I don't see an email address on your blogger profile or blog, so send me an email with your mailing address and I'll get the mini quilt mailed out to you next week. (I need to figure out how people put the random.org picture on their blog.)

I am on day 2 of a yucky sinus headache and probably won't sew today. I'm going to watch Coraline with my 5-year-old in the cool basement. Hope you're having a good weekend!

giveaway update

Things got busy today. I finished up the mini mermaid quilt though and will do the drawing later tonight or maybe tomorrow. If you haven't entered yet, there's still time!

200th Post Giveaway!

Well, here I am, at 200 posts. I started this blog a little over three years ago and I'm really enjoying having it as a place to show off my work and share a few tutorials for things I know how to do. I appreciate everyone who subscribes and reads and (especially) comments. Thank you all so much! I have been thinking about what to do for a giveaway and, well, will get to that in a minute. I have a few things I want to show off first:

A neighbor friend had a birthday so I made her this skirt:

And a little wristlet. It's my first try; I need to make some more and perfect my technique:

I got some fabric the other day. I love this pink Sultry floral print and will make something for my little girl to wear from it. Not sure what I will do with the charm pack yet but I love charm packs.

This little set is a belated baby gift for a friend. I don't know if she reads my blog, if so I hope she pretends to be surprised when I give it to her! I love how this turned out:

The tag blanket has some ribbon, some wide twill tape, and some bias tape for the tags. I love the colors on this and think it turned out so cute. I made a couple of similar tag blankets a while ago for my girl and my friend Heather's baby and just used one layer of quilt cotton and one layer of baby corduroy. L's seems a little flimsy so for this one I decided to sandwich a layer of flannel in the middle of the two fabric layers to give it some body.

Ok. Finally, on to the giveaway. I started piecing this together as a bit of an "enders and leaders" project while I was making L's strip quilt. I decided to make it into a mini quilt and give it away to one of my readers. Here it is all basted:

It is already halfway quilted. I am doing some ocean wave quilted lines and some just plain wavy lines. I will probably do the quilting on L's quilt very much the same. As soon as I finish it up I will mail it off to the lucky winner. All you have to do to enter is comment here. Please tell me your name, where you live, and what you are making, what you are reading, or just plain old what you are doing these days. I will close the comments and have my assistants help me draw out a name on Friday around lunch time. (I am leaving the computer off until after lunch these days.)

I hope you are having a good Wednesday!

Open Source Quilting

All right, I want to try something with the Simple Squares quilt pattern and I need your help. I'm calling it Open Source Quilting, and what I mean by that is that you can use the Simple Squares quilt block patterns, and the quilt layout patterns that will be here eventually, to make things for sale, or to give away, or for whatever you want.

The part about needing your help? I'd like to invite anyone who's interested to design quilt blocks or quilt layouts using the block patterns here, and create tutorials (or diagrams or instructions in whatever way works for you) to share. For example, you might decide to make the existing block patterns in a different size--great! Figure out the measurements, make a tutorial, and send me the link. Or you might have an idea for a new Simple Squares quilt block to add to the collection. Please share!

Another thing I am planning to add, and hoping that others will also want to contribute, are quilt layouts (patterns) with fabric requirements included. I am planning on adding sashing instructions so the pattern for the original blue and green baby quilt using Simple Squares blocks will be complete. I've also figured out a layout for my Christmas Simple Squares quilt and will eventually post fabric requirements and instructions for that project too. And, yesterday I drew out a twin-size quilt for my 5-year-old using these blocks (I'm going to use Goodnight Monkey fabric) and will share that project with you too.

So... what do you think? Any questions? Eventually I'd like to have a long list of Simple Squares blocks and projects in the sidebar. I'm going to make a few more blocks for my Christmas quilt now, talk to you later!

Simple Squares Quiltalong Block C

Hi everyone! First off I've decided on a name for this pattern and it is "Simple Squares." I appreciate all the suggestions and will probably ask for quilt or quilt pattern naming help again. So please don't be upset that I didn't use any of the suggested names.

Second, it has come to my attention that I have 197 posts (before this one) on this blog and I think that 200 is a good spot to do a giveaway, so watch this space!

Third, block C. Here's a little preview along with the other four of my finished blocks for this quilt so far:

Down here on the bottom left. I hope you like it. I'm not sure if I do yet. But I'm going to go with it, anyway.

Here goes, Step 1: Cut pieces for the block sub-unit. Center square is 2.5" on all sides. The first two strips are 2"x2.5". The longer strips are 2"x5.5".


Step 2: Sew the shorter strips to the center square, using a 1/4" seam allowance. Press seams.


Step 3: Sew the longer strips to the other sides of the center square with a 1/4" seam allowance. Press seams. You've now completed one block C subunit.


Step 4: Make 3 more subunits. I used that directional Christmas tree fabric again so I had to pay attention to how I cut my strips.


Step 5: Sew the subunits together. First sew them into 2 pairs and press the seams opposite ways:

Then sew the two rows together into a square and press that seam:

And, as my 5-year old would say, "Voila!" Block C is finished. I'd love to see pictures if you make one!

mini-quilt monday #2, "summer breeze"

I have no idea how often I'll do mini-quilt Monday, but here is my second one:

Photo taken at night, the color is sadly off a bit in this picture.
Circles were appliqued and quilted in one step, by hand, with embroidery floss. All the quilting was done by hand.

Pieced back.

I haven't named a lot of my quilts but I decided this one was to be called "Summer Breeze" because it's made mostly of vintage bed linens. And maybe several of them spent some time on the clothesline a long time ago.

This was given to TDK Katie for the sewingmamas.com summer 2009 doll quilt swap. I haven't swapped there for ages but this was a good one and I'm glad I joined in.

a few things I made

These are from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. Made from a cute sheet I got at goodwill a while back. The pants are so, so comfy. The bloomers need leg elastic, I found a good deal on a 144 yard roll (that ought to be enough), so as soon as that comes, they'll finish up quick.

A few 9-patches. I'm not exactly following AmandaJean's quiltalong, but eventually will make something inspired by this. I made 6 more of these after taking this picture.

This is baby L and the quilt I received from Katie for the sewingmamas.com doll quilt swap. I really like all that pink and green. And the strips and straight line quilting. And that dotty binding.
:) I have a busy week ahead but hope to post about a few other things I've finished in the next couple days. I have another quilt block tutorial photographed, too.

quiltalong Block B instructions

All right, here we go with block B. This block is comprised of 3 concentric squares. I used three fabrics in this sample block, and I'm calling them "inner, middle, and outer" here. You could make this block with two fabrics if you want--one for both inner and outer squares and a contrasting fabric for the middle square. Maybe I'll try that on another block soon.

Let's get started!
Step 1: Cut a 2.5" square from your inner fabric. Cut two 2.5" squares from your middle fabric.

Step 2: Sew the middle squares to two sides of the inner square. Press.

Step 3: Cut two 2.5"x6.5" strips from your middle fabric.

Step 4: Sew these strips to the top and bottom of the block. Press.

Step 5: From the outer fabric, cut two strips 2.5"x6.5". I used fabric with a directional print again so I had to pay attention to which way I cut my strips here.

Step 6: Sew the 6.5" strips to the sides of the block. Press.

Step 7: From the outer fabric, cut two strips 2.5"x10.5". I cut these strips so the directional print is going the same way as the side strips.

Step 8: Sew the 10.5" strips to the top and bottom of the block. Press.
You're done!


p.s. If you're wondering, I still don't have the right name for this quilt pattern. I'm thinking about it and it will come to me eventually!