Favorite Fabrics 2009

True Up is having a Favorite Fabrics of 2009 giveaway event, and I wanted to share my faves from last year:

- Favorite Quilting Weight Cotton Collection
Neptune by Tula Pink


- Favorite Trend (Motifs)
deer

- Favorite Trend (Colors)
aqua


- Biggest Fabric World Story/News
Heather Ross won't be putting out any new fabric designs for a while... all her currently available fabric becomes even more desirable!

- Favorite Overall Designer
BasicGrey -- I'm a huge fan and love the grunge solids that come with each collection.

- Favorite Novelty Print
Meadowsweet Strawberry Field

- Favorite Floral Print
dressy  from the Sultry collection by BasicGrey


- Favorite Holiday Fabric or Collection
Figgy Pudding, of course!

- Favorite Juvenile Print:
Goodnight Monkey

- Favorite Reproduction Print or Collection
Hello Betty--retro colors

- Favorite Fabric Shop
Fabric.com for quick service and generous fabric cuts


I have a few of these fabrics that I will be sewing with in 2010! And others I still want to get. What fabrics did you love in '09?

Figgy Pudding Christmas Quilt

Well, here it is, my finished Christmas quilt!

I started dreaming about making this quilt sometime early in 2009 when the previews for the Figgy Pudding fabric line by Moda started showing up on online fabric shops. Sometime in June, I noticed the fabric was available to buy online, and I called my local quilt shop to ask which Christmas fabric lines they had. They did have the Figgy Pudding line so I went and bought a few fat quarters to get started with. Then I bought more of the fabric when I was on vacation in Utah. I believe I made the quilt blocks and pieced strips on the back with 17 assorted fat quarters and then I purchased additional yardage for the sashing, binding, and solid backing fabric.

The back is made up of pieced strips of my Figgy Pudding scraps, and the brown solid is a Quilter's Only fabric from JoAnn's. It is quilted with aqua colored silk/cotton thread by Mettler. Number 0905 (I had to go back to buy more thread a couple times, plus it is the same thread I used on my mendocino mermaid baby quilt. I have about 5 empty spools with 0905 on them, time to move on to another thread color!) This is the second quilt I've quilted with my new sewing machine, and I have figured out that I need to adjust my top thread tension to around 6.5 or 7 in order for the stitches to come out right.

I thought I had enough of the green damask print to bind the quilt but I ended up a little short, so I put in a few little red sections of binding.

Here's a close up of one of my favorite blocks, and the star. I love the blue Christmas tree fabric so much. And the red and white fabric, too.

This quilt is made from my Simple Squares pattern which is a free tutorial-in-progress. In the coming weeks I will be finishing up the instructions for the sashing and getting the fabric requirements for the larger quilt all figured out, so you can make your own quilts with this pattern. Stay tuned!

p.s. I posted about my quilting bee block idea over at Bee Beautiful, go check it out! :)

2010 sewing goals + a couple things I've made

Here's my January block for Block Swap 2. We don't have a group blog (yet?) but it is for Hope who blogs at Going Sew Crazy. The fabrics are mostly hers, but I added in some aqua check strings, red dots, a little bit of Neptune lime green, and one strip of Hushabye pink dragonflies. This is my first time making a string block.

I made this friendship bag as part of my prize donation for Jacquie's Joy in the New Year UFO finishing contest. I used leftover charms from my baby's latest charm pack dress to make it, but I mixed it up and used some 1.5" strips and some 2" strips. I still need to fill it with some goodies.... working on that. I finished 3 of my 6 UFOs I'd hoped to get done at the start of the contest. I'm definitely going to make another one of these. Lauren likes purses so maybe I'll modify the handles on this to make her a little toddler purse/tote.

I wanted to share some of my sewing and blogging goals for 2010...here goes!

Write in the blog about 4 times a week. This one isn't set hard and fast though, I will feel ok if I need to do it a little less and I will feel great if I do more!

Create more tutorials and patterns for you. First off, I am going to get back to my Simple Squares quilt pattern and finish up the sashing and cornerstone instructions. The baby quilt instructions will be complete after that, and then I will also be sharing the fabric requirements, the plain sashing, and star in sashing instructions to complete the throw size version of this quilt. I hope to get this all completed in January and would love to see if any of you use this pattern for your own quilts!

Finish my last 3 UFOs from the challenge. These are: my watercolor quilt aka insane quilt project, my small Recess quilt, and my red/blue scrap quilt.

Make more clothing for my kids and myself! I have so many ideas for dresses or outfits for my little girl. I have a few things I'd like to make myself. And I'm probably making spring dress shirts for the boys.

Make 2 baby quilts for new babies in the family.

Do new creative things, or old ones I haven't done in a long time. I'm thinking about making books, collaging, writing fiction....

And finally, have fun and learn new things!

What are some of your goals for 2010? Or do you skip goals and go for inclinations?
And do you say twenty-ten yet, or are you still saying two thousand ten?

2009 in review

Here's some (most?) of the things I made in 2009:

You can go to my flickr stream to see the links to all these images, if you want.
I made lots of coasters, 5 mini or smaller quilts, 3 throw-size quilts, 3 baby quilts. I quilted 2 additional quilts for my mom.

I also made lots of dishtowels, some clothes for my kids, some bags, and other things too.

I'm happy to be finished with my Christmas sewing and my final quilt of the year--I got the binding all done while watching New Year's Eve shows on TV last night. I feel like I can make whatever I want to right now, and I have several little girl clothing items that I've been dying to get started on.

I'm looking forward to a great 2010!

one last 2009 finish!

Here's what I'm working on:

(Left handers hand stitch from left to right, by the way.)
About 2/3 of the way done. Does anyone else calculate the math/percentage finished while quilting or binding? I was teaching my 4th grader how to reduce fractions while I was quilting last night and today: "Ok, figure out what 16/24 reduces down to...." A little while later "what's 20/24?"

I have 7 more blocks around the perimeter to go.

The unfinished part is not in the picture. (Like the painting stuff? My husband has been working hard painting our tall-ceilinged living room, hall, stairs, and kitchen.)

Check back tomorrow for my 2009 recap/mosaic and a little bit of plans for the new year. Hoping to slow down, at least for a while.

snow kiddos

I spent the longest time bundling up my little sweetie.

She doesn't look like she really appreciated it that much.

Here's some information about our area's 5 day storm. It was crazy, there are parts of my neighbor's lawn where the snow was blown off and you can see the grass, but it is over a foot deep next to my driveway.

The boys had a lot of fun!

Christmas gifts and Christmas kids

Here are a few more of the gifts I made for Christmas this year--lots of dishtowels (I kept one Figgy Pudding dishtowel for myself), a tote bag for my mom, a yoga mat bag for my sister.

I also gave this pear bag to my mother-in-law.

I made pajama pants for the kids to open on Christmas eve. I lost the pieces the first time I cut out Lauren's pants, and still haven't found them. The second time around, I had to cut them on the cross grain to make the pattern pieces fit. It worked out ok though. 

The kids got a good haul on Christmas morning. New jackets for the boys, along with lots of games and books and hot wheels.

Lauren got books, a bath whale, a funny looking pink thing, and some other stuff. She makes great faces.

I hope you all had a great holiday! I'm looking forward to the new year!

dear Mom,

here are the quilts I've been meaning to show you. These are ones I really think I have to make in 2010. I found these while browsing Amy's fall quilt festival. (I still haven't finished looking at all the quilts! I've got to work on that.) The first one is this amazing picnic quilt from Fancy That. Aren't those just the best colors? And I love the denim. The second one is the roundabout quilt from A Commonplace Life. I love the circles and all the bright colors. And how the circles are offset.

What do you think?

my favorite gift

(That I gave, that is.)

I finally get to post about Krista's quilt! In January this year, the Elizabeth's Fabric Focus project on Sew, Mama, Sew was a lovely quilt made from the House collection of fabrics by Annette Tatum. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to make my own interpretation for my sister-in-law Krista, who loves all things baby blue and many pink things too. Of course I had to change things up a little, and I decided to make my quilt with 10" blocks which wasn't one of the options provided in the pattern. That's ok, I can handle a little bit of quilty math now and then.

I got the fabric and worked on sets of 7 blocks at a time, taking big breaks in between. I finished it up in November after we got back for our cruise and labeled it right before wrapping and shipping our family gifts to Utah a couple weeks ago.

I was so excited about Krista opening this up, and I wish I could have been there to see her. I'm trying to decide who I should make a Christmas quilt for next year!

More pictures, better light:
I like the stained glass effect here.

I don't like how you can see my shadow through the quilt here, but wanted to show the whole quilt back:
Please notice the little pink chunk near the bottom. I really like that part.

Had some helpers for this one, and learned that the flash can be a good thing sometimes!

p.s. if you want to make this quilt with 10" finished squares, ending up with a 50"x70" quilt, you'll need 1/2 yard cuts of 10 different fabrics for the stars. I can't tell you how much white fabric I used, because I didn't really measure it or keep track. But if anyone is interested, I can figure that out and I can also figure out the cutting measurements for the star blocks.

the stockings are hung...

Natalia is hosting a Homespun Holiday Show -n- Tell over at her site, Piece N Quilt. I'm getting my entry posted at the last minute, but at least I got it done! Don't forget to head over to her site (click the image above) to see all the other entries.

I got my daughter's stocking done, it's the one on the right. The one on the left was made in 2002 for Daniel, in the same time frame that the Wreath of Doves quilt was started. I made Jacob's stocking in 2006, when he was 2.

I used the same pattern for all 3 stockings and I took photos this time, hoping to make a tutorial to share with you all. It turns out I'm running out of time and I'm thinking I will probably save it and share it for some kind of Christmas in July blog event next year... what do you think? Do you even want to think about next year's Christmas yet?

Here's a little closer view. Can you see the loopy quilting I did in the white cuff part of Lauren's stocking? I like it.

I wrapped almost all the gifts last night. Just one more. I'm going to make some recycled loopy bows today like this. Aren't they cute?

And I still have some stealth sewing to fit in....we'll see how that goes.

p.s. my husband painted the living room--I really like our new color!

Christmas quilt back

Christmas quilt back
Originally uploaded by vickivictoria

I got the back finished for my Christmas quilt. I like it and can't wait to get this quilt basted and quilted.

I finished my daughter's stocking; still deciding if I'll post the tutorial for it or not, it's getting a little late for that. Besides, we have lots of last minute things to do around here!

Hope you're having a good Monday! I'm off to help paint the living room.

The winner!

Sorry I didn't get to the giveaway until now. The winner is #6, L Johnson aka Laurel! Congratulations! I will be sending an email ASAP asking for your address.

I have been working on the stocking, almost done, and spending some time with my family. I went to a new (to me) little quilt shop today and look what I found:

Fun, huh? I'm looking to swap FQs of this for other Flea Market Fancy FQs. Let me know if you're interested in a trade.

busy Friday

Here's a little peek at what I'm working on today... in between cleaning and laundry and the school program and parties. I'm also going to do yoga this morning... Tara Stiles has some great yoga videos on her site or you can download them from iTunes, if you want.

I'm going to get the stocking done as soon as I can and I'm also making a tutorial for it. This one's for Lauren, her brothers both have stockings made from the same pattern but different fabrics.

I'm a guest blogger at Park City Girl today! Click over if you want to see one of my early quilts and read about my sewing life.

And, check back later on today for the winner of the fabric shopping bag!

I won! and a giveaway.

I won one of 100 bags given away by the folks at Green Bag Lady for the recent Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway day. My prize included a sewn fabric bag, and fabric to make another bag for me to give away.

So... I'm going to give the bag that I sew (from the light blue fabric) away to a lucky commenter here, along with fabric, still undetermined, from my stash to make another fabric bag for the winner to give away.

You can enter by posting a comment here. I'll close comments and draw a winner Friday afternoon or evening. Please only enter if you are willing to sew up a bag to give away!

Dear Santa

You've already been really good to me this year, but I've gotta tell you a few more things on my list. Just in case.

1. Blush Layer Cake
I love all the Basic Grey fabric lines and would be thrilled to get this new collection!

2. Happy Campers Jelly Roll
Ok, I also really like American Jane fabrics and would love this jelly roll. I could make a really cute baby quilt with it.

3. Nicey Jane Jolly Pack.
I'd love this cute charm pack, too. It would be my first Heather Bailey fabric, ever. If I got it, I could make a really cute spring-time charm pack dress for my little girl.

I'll be extra good!
love,
Vicki

p.s. take a look here and think about writing your own letter to Santa!

random stuff

Look what I found in my pincushion the other day. Cute, huh? I thought my 5-year-old made it, but I was informed that his older brother made it for me.

Here's a little ornament I made for my husband's friend, Mike Brown. The traditional drink at his annual holiday party is called Gators and I made this little guy based on the cartoon in the invite from Mike. The orange ribbon is in honor of Mike's favorite color. I was going to crop the photo but decided I needed to leave it so you can see half of the pop can angel and the scary baby Jesus hanging out there in the tree.

advent garland

This was originally going to have stockings for the first 24 days of December, but I didn't have time to finish it by the beginning of the month, so we have a 12 days of Christmas garland instead.

The stockings are made from grocery bags, machine stitched together with a zigzag stitch. They are decorated with ribbon, rick rack, buttons, glitter, and stamped embossing. My friend Lorilee let me borrow a lot of her stamping supplies for this project and I'm so glad she did.

I really like the #2 button snowman. The trim on #3 is an elastic that came wrapped around one of my orders from Sewzanne's a while ago.

Don't you love the gold embossing on #10? I have to say I really like the glitter heel and toe on #12, and #11 button stocking is my favorite of them all.

Oh yeah, I also wanted to make sure you noticed my Wreath of Doves quilt hanging on the wall in the first photo. If you haven't voted in the Holiday Traditions Quilt Contest, you can go vote for this quilt of mine. (Scroll down to the small quilts contest.) Thanks!

vintage felt stocking (mine from when I was a kid)

Inspired by this post over on Craft. Doesn't it sound so much cooler if I call it vintage? I think my mom probably made this (and similar stockings for my brother and sister) in 1976. The felt is really soft, it seems different from the craft felt available these days. This stocking was the perfect size for an orange to fit in the toe.

Also. There is a sweet giveaway opportunity over at Twiddletails. Five sets of 4 Wild Thyme fat quarters are up for grabs. Go look, it's cute!

Thanks to everyone who voted for my Wreath of Doves quilt. I have 44 votes now (up from only 4 when I posted yesterday!) and I'm 5th place in the small quilts category. If I can get up to 3rd place or higher, I'll win a prize. If you haven't yet, please go vote for me!

Sew and Tell Friday--Wrap and Tell

I am -this- close to being ready to go to the shipping store tomorrow to send my big boxes of Christmas gifts to family in Utah. Here's some of what I've been working on for this Sew and Tell Friday:


Top left: Drawstring bag. What is inside is a surprise. But the person it is for can't read and his parents already know that it is a whole bunch of Thomas duplo blocks and tracks.
Top right: more fabric gift tags, gift cards in sewn wrap. (The sewn gift wrap idea is from Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. Isn't it cute?)
Bottom right: red and white gift. I might have to take another picture of it tomorrow in better light. It's really pretty.
Bottom left: I love this one. The shipping box this gift is being sent in didn't have room for another boxed gift, and I didn't even have a box that would fit it anyway. I wrapped it in (yes, I'm blowing this part of the surprise, sorry) (like you couldn't tell by looking, anyway) a dishtowel that is part of the gift.

I took more photos today that I'll be able to share in a couple weeks!

One more thing--I recently entered my Wreath of Doves quilt in the Holiday Traditions Quilt Contest over at QuiltingGallery.com.

Voting is open until the 16th! They are offering some fabulous prizes, and I'd love to win. Please go vote for my Wreath of Doves quilt!

busy

I've been busy sewing last minute (secret) projects, shopping, getting ready to pack stuff to ship, and planning out the last minute sewing of things that don't need to be mailed.

Here's our tree:

I think I need to take a Christmas tree photography class or something.

My baby had awesome morning hair today and I thought I'd show you all: