Finished Pillow Shams

I did it! It was looking like I might not finish these by today, but I decided I needed to just do it. 

I really appreciate having Amy's challenge this month--I have a lot of things needing to be finished by the end of August and the One Thing, One Week challenge is a good opportunity to choose something that needs some attention and get. it. done. 

I did work on something that was not on my list, I couldn't help it.

My 9-patches now have all their initial sashing strips sewn on. My Kona crush fabric was delivered last week and I couldn't help but cut into it and get this next step done. Now I need to work on the layout... I have a couple more before-September things to do first though.

In non-sewing news, we have a garden photo or two. This is what happens when you don't pay a ton of attention to the garden because of fear of chiggers (I hate them oh so much.)

The sunflower is getting heavy... it's like a mini-umbrella here. (FYI, it's a Russian Mammoth, if you wanted to know.) It was about 7 ft tall before it started drooping. And you can kind of see the front-yard cherry tomato creeping out onto the sidewalk in the background too.

New York Beauty

Finished up this block for Heidi in our Block Swap 2 group.

The inner curves are challenging to piece! When I made a small quilt with NYB blocks a while back (oh! it was 5 years ago!), I hand pieced the curves. These ones were done by machine, and didn't turn out as nicely as I would have liked.

I am almost done cutting my 2" squares for my turn in Bee Beautiful. I just need to cut purples and a few blacks and greys.

This is about 750 2" squares.

I am a little distracted from sewing--reading my first e-book. (My first, you know, commercial novel-type e-book.) I got the kindle app on my Droid and bought Mockingjay today. I haven't ever read a novel this way before; I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm glad I didn't have to go to the store to get it though, or wait through the library hold list that is about 500 people long.

Iraqi Bundles of Love II

Check it out.

Last year, IBOL guy asked for flat-rate boxes filled with fabric, thread, notions, yarn, or any other sewing or knitting supplies to be sent to northern Iraq. 3,445 bundles in boxes were sent. He's doing it again... can you send a box this year? Or two? Mailing deadline is October 1!

Happy Monday!

We had a busy, crazy weekend here. I spent a large chunk of my Saturday painting a bedroom:

my 10-year-old set up the ironing board at leprechaun height this morning

I am so happy with this color! When I was painting, it reminded me of a paint color from my past, the bedrooms in our tiny house back in the day in Provo. It was lighter than I wanted. But when it dried it was a little darker and it's exactly what I wanted. This is a big accomplishment for me because I did almost all of it myself--I had help from my husband on the tallest parts but I did almost all the prep work on my own and 90% of the painting, too. I got a lot of exercise moving the ladder and going up and down it--my legs were my sorest parts the next morning.

This is going to be my little girl's room, and it will continue to be my sewing/fabric room as well. I can't wait to have my 9-patch quilt finished and laying across the bottom of my little girl's new bed! I am also planning on hanging my collection of doll quilts on one of the walls.

While I was painting, my husband was fixing toilets, one that has been running (the flapper was leaking) for a long time and the other one was making weird groaning sounds off and on. We thought things were pretty good... but found a puddle in the garage (below the master bathroom) on Sunday. So Cory got to spend most of the rest of the day after church working on fixing that. He did call and get expert long-distance help from my dad, and now it seems like that problem is properly fixed as well.

This week has some busy-ness coming up with Back to School night, one night for each boy, a Cub Scout bike ride, dentist appointments for the boys, and then sewing Saturday with my KCMQG friends. As usual, I have a big sewing to-do list, and I'm joining in with the One Thing, One Week Challenge at Amy's Creative Side again. My main goal this week is to completely finish the Mendocino pillow shams. This morning I pin basted, and started quilting:

It's going pretty quickly; I love how the quilting looks so far. I will also be cutting many 2" squares and getting my quilt for DQS9 in the mail this week.

Before

ready to paint in the morning...farewell, yellow!

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pillow shams progress

I finished the fronts of these pillow shams this afternoon--the rest of what needs to be done on them just takes time but isn't really difficult. Layering and quilting, assembling the backs, and then sewing backs and fronts together!

Eileen from Ladybug Lovelies

Recently, I asked my friends Eileen and Diannalynn to guest post for me. They are both amazing, creative women and I'm excited to introduce them to my blog friends (if you don't already know them, that is!) A little background: I first met Diannalynn (aka DL or Dielle) during my first year of college at BYU. We became good friends and were roommates during the (super fun and laid back) summer of 1993, right before she graduated. I first met Eileen, DL's mom, when she came with DL's family to graduation that year. 

Here's Eileen: 

I've always been a crafter.  Mom worked at a toy store when I was little and gave me a set of about six 6-inch dolls I had at about four or five years old.  I can remember making clothes for them then and for a school project at about age 10, I made outfits for those dolls for different eras of history.  Mom taught me to sew on her old Singer machine (which Dad bought her for having me) when I was ten, so I have been sewing for over 50 years.  I have done a lot of different crafts.  Did decorative painting for years--have always loved the feel of well-sanded wood (friends teased me about how much sanding I'd do before painting);  have done a lot of paper crafting--stamping, card making, making paper, scheerinschnitte either patterns bought or ones I designed such as of Mt. Rainier, a family tree, or one from my mother's window.  Am a very tactile person, so texture of papers and fabrics have always fascinated me.  Did a lot of types of needlework and especially loved cross stitch but it makes me dizzy going from pattern to cloth now plus wow, have those stitches gotten smaller and smaller the older I get!

Marabella quilt top

My favorite current project is the Marabella quilt I've done for my newest girlie girl (granddaughter).  It's by the lady at Ivory Spring but I used totally different fabrics.  First saw it in the quilt festival.  Top is done, so it's just waiting for me to get the back done and get brave enough to home machine quilt it.  I hand quilted a very modern twin bedspread for Adam about 20 years ago--bright colored strips that meandered over huge black squares.  Wish I had a picture of it now.  My hands didn't work well for a couple weeks after doing that.  

Victory Garden

My other project I love is the Victory Garden from Eleanor Burns.  Made a king size with black background for my husband, Randy, and he loves it.  My friend Shirley long armed it for me.  I've made over a dozen what I call comfy quilts for all my immediate family and a couple others in the last year and a half.  They're a variation of what my friend called a Fiesta Quilt and backed with fleece.

Sabrina's quilt

My blog is Ladybug Lovelies which DL set up for me last year.  I've collected ladybugs since 1969 when I was just out of college and found a little ladybug crewel kit.  I have loved and collected hearts since about '76 when we were stationed in Frankfurt, Germany, and they were in all the craft shops and stood for good luck.  

Pat's quilt

Turtle Quilt Finished!

I kind of drove myself crazy working on three separate projects yesterday (including repairing a very sad, torn out binding on an old quilt) so I decided I needed to finish my quilt for DQS9 today.

I did the quilting over a few days this past week, and at the end I decided to do the little star stitches in the hexagons because they didn't really have any quilting in them and they needed it. All I had left to do this morning was half of the hexagon stitches and the binding. I am really happy with this quilt. I am still not done with the "twin" quilt that I'm keeping for myself; I'm going to work on it though and make myself get it done before I start my 9-patch finish. It will have different binding fabric, and the back is different too. But it's mostly the same.

Here's the back of this one:

I have a couple weeks until I need to mail this, and I am going to gather some of my fabric scraps and maybe a few small things to send to my swap partner along with the quilt. I'm so relieved to have this done! On to the next big thing!

Gifts

When we were in Utah, my dad let me pick out a couple of bowls from several that he's made recently. He took a pottery class last semester (I think that's when it was) and has also been making wooden bowls and other items. I cleared off a section of my usually cluttered shelf for this photo, but I think I'm going to have it be their permanent home and stop keeping clutter there.

 

I think the hole in the wooden bowl makes it extra unique and just... cool. My little girl likes to take the ceramic bowl down and play with these beads. (They are from a little Thomas train set.) She called them "beans" for a couple days and I try not to correct her when she has adorable incorrect pronunciation, but she says "beads" the right way now already. I love both of these--maybe I should put in a special order with Dad before he and my mom come to visit us in a few weeks.

When we came home from the Utah trip, these pretty fingerless gloves were waiting for me:

These are from my friend Janelle, who is a talented knitter and a genius microbiologist as well. The note she sent with them said to stick them in my coat pockets and they'll be a good surprise this winter. We planned to swap something handmade, sometime last year. She's done her part, and I still need to make her something. I have an idea, and I think she'll like it, as soon as I have time to get to it!

This weekend we are planning on buying paint for my girl's bedroom, maybe starting the painting, and buying a mattress for her too. I think we are getting the full-size bed so it can double as a guest bedroom. Also looking forward to things cooling down a little bit--we have had temperatures in the high 90s (heat index 105-110) for the last week or so, it's getting really old!

Sewing stuff I'm involved in

I am juggling so many projects these days... well always, but I decided to make a list of the current goings-on just for fun. Here are some of the sewing things in my life now and in the near future:

*Charity quilt project for KC Modern Quilt Guild:

My last 2 blocks, in process this morning. They are almost done now... I thought I was done but the last block came 1/2" shy of the size it needs to be so I need to sew another strip onto it.(due today)

*Secret quilt project that I'm going to try to have published--just needs quilting and binding! (due whenever I can get it done)
*Doll Quilt Swap 9 on flickr (must be mailed by Sept. 1)
*Two online quilting bees that require 2-4 quilt blocks from me each month (due at the end of each month)

*Custom etsy order:

This is the start of one of two king sized pillow shams... I love how it's coming together so far. (no deadline really but I don't want to drag it out for too long)

 
*I'm going to sew up something small for the church service auction (Sept. 1) (should I say? ok... I have been admiring Noodlehead's gathered clutch for a few months now, so I'm going to make one for one of my lucky church friends.) I just need to figure out where to fit it in with my other deadline projects.
*And I signed up to make another Downy quilt as part of our next church service project. (I don't have the kit yet so no deadline on this one for now.)
*Oh yeah! One more thing, I need to finish cutting squares to mail out to my Bee Beautiful friends as September is my month. I'd like to mail them sometime in the last few days of August.

As soon as I have time, and have finished the quilt I mentioned above, I'm going to finish up my 9-patch quilt! I really want to use white Kona crush fabric for the sashing and need to find a good source for it. I have sort of (mostly) decided that for a while I am not going to be buying fabrics for any new projects--I want to focus on finishing some of the many UFO projects I have laying around here. I am still trying to decide if I might need to make an exception for my birthday next month though.

More charity blocks, and miscellaneous other stuff

Here are some more of my blocks for our guild charity project. I have 2 more to make by Thursday. I really like both of the pink/green ones here. 

I needed something new for leaders and enders, and decided to make some monochromatic squares from my scraps:

These are made from some of my larger scraps. I decided to make them 6.5" square; I think a bunch of these could make a really cool looking quilt. Or maybe a rainbow table runner. I don't know yet.

I spent some time today hand quilting while watching Bones, and also cutting 2" squares for my bee beautiful group. I have about 130 green squares added to my collection now. 

And last Saturday I finished up the training pants for my girl:

The other two pairs were already in the laundry when I finished all of them up and was ready to take a picture. They fit really loosely until after they were washed and dried the first time, and now the elastic is shrunk up and they fit her just right. The pattern is from Wonderbaby Designs and it's a good one.

I have also been working on a custom order that involves Heather Ross Mendocino fabrics and diamond piecing. I'm making pillow shams to match ones I made last year... and I didn't save my notes. I'm doing my best to make the new set as similar as possible to the old ones, and I'm writing down my measurements in a notebook that won't get lost or thrown out.

It's too hot to cook, again. I'm making breakfast for dinner.

Turtles

I made some progress on my swap quilt this week.I decided to stitch the hexagons to the background by machine as the turtles will be machine appliqued, too. There will be hand quilting though; I found 7 blues and greens in my embroidery floss stash and will try to use most or maybe all of them in some kind of wavy, watery-feeling stitching.

I saw this cute idea in my google reader and wanted to share it: DIY quilting gloves! I love this idea.

I am making waterproof training pants for my girl today... she has outgrown the first group I made for her and some of those I never even finished. So I went a size up and am finishing them one at a time. I finished one so far toda; 3 more are cut out and started.

And I'm in the middle of a big fabric reorganization/purge. I am trying to decide whether I should offer some fabrics from my stash for sale... I have a bunch of vintage sheet fabrics, an Orla Kiely for Target tablecloth and some placemats and napkins, some PUL for diaper covers, and maybe some apparel fabrics that I am willing to part with. Would any of you be interested in any of these?

*I'm linking up at Sew & Tell Friday, go see what everyone's been doing this week!

Charity Quilt Top Completed

It is so hot today. 99 degrees, feels like 106. I have been sitting for a few minutes and am on my second really big ice water so my hair feels like it has stopped sweating. I had a hard time getting started this afternoon but I got going after a little power nap and finished this:

For a while when I was in the middle of making these blocks, I was doing pretty well at using up scraps as I went (see the bottom left corner). But then I laid them all out and decided I needed the last 3 or so to be more calm blocks. I really like the "word" fabric but it was getting too overwhelming in this project--I finished up with a few more blocks with the linen and white outer squares and I think that was a good move.

This quilt is for our first KC Modern Quilt Guild charity project and I secretly hope it will be quilted by Angela. I was thinking about that and then I started worrying if the linen would be a pain to quilt and just hoping it would be good enough. Oh well. I think it would look good with the solid brown fabric used as binding, too.

I have made 4 other quilt blocks for this project and need to make 4 more. Next week is our meeting when everyone is supposed to bring their finished blocks--several members went above and beyond the call of duty and have already made entire completed quilts. I can't wait to see everyone's work!

A couple of other things--my progress has been so slow on my doll quilt swap quilt but it is happening.

These are all ready to be sewn down on white background fabric, two for my partner and two for the twin quilt I'm keeping. I made a mistake in one of these, but I'm keeping it. I think it will add character. There will be turtles appliqued in the middles and multicolored hand quilting, eventually.

And I made my Block Swap 2 quilt blocks, kind of last minute: 

These were fun and quick. I added a couple of my own greens to personalize the blocks a bit.

I have also been cutting many, many 2" squares for my upcoming turn (September) in Bee Beautiful. So far, I have way too many pinks and just enough reds. I will cut another couple of colors out this week and maybe show you a picture of the pretty stacks.

It is almost time for another glass of ice water. And I'm going to have to go to the basement for a while. We are under a heat advisory until 8 p.m. tomorrow. Oh yeah, and should I go vote? I am not affiliated with a political party, so I'm only eligible to vote in the county commissioner primary. Maybe we'll go for a hot voting field trip in a bit here.

Collaborative Baby Quilt for AmyLouWho!

A few months back, I got together with a small group of blogging friends and we decided to collaborate on a baby quilt for our friend, Amy, of AmyLouWho! Today we are all blogging about the project--I'm excited to show you my part, and more excited to finally see pictures of the finished quilt!


First off, Candy from Candied Fabrics dyed several wonderful colors of fabrics. We decided together to go with two shades each of both blues and greens, a brown, and a beautiful mottled pink. Candy sent all the fabric to me, along with fat quarters of the pink fabric to pass along to everyone who was working on the project. I haven't decided what to use mine in yet, but it is lovingly tucked in with my stash and I'm thinking about it!

We decided to use my Simple Squares quilt pattern, and when I received the fabric for the quilt, I cut the fabric for the blocks and sewed up the A blocks.

I sent them off to Rita of Mochi Studios so she could add some cute appliques, and sent the strips for the B blocks to Amy over at Amy's Creative Side. I also put the binding together and pieced the quilt back:

And then, after Rita and Amy got their blocks done, the quilt was taken to Natalia for quilting and binding. Finally it was sent on to Amy, who got it last week. Her baby girl is 3 months old now, and I think that's a great age for getting a new baby quilt!

I had a great time working with Candy, Rita, Amy, and Natalia on this project--please stop by their sites and learn more about this collaborative project!

Challenge Week 1--Finished Circle Quilt

Amy of Amy's Creative Side is full of great ideas! Last week she hosted the first One Thing, One Week Challenge. Once a month, participants can choose one project to focus on for one week and see if they can get it done. I decided to hunker down and finish up the circle quilt for my soon-to-be-born niece. I just finished the last few inches of binding hand-sewing this morning:

Here's the back:

I'm still planning to add a label, but I consider it finished anyway.
Sometimes finishing a big project is a bit like finishing a good book... I'm happy to be done, but a bit sad that it's over, too. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

Spiderweb Blocks for Natalie

Here's another new-to-me block. I had fun making these on Saturday. After I finished them up I realized that the spiderwebs in the finished quilt will be made from four separate blocks... and the way I made mine might not have been the best approach. Oh well. Also, I tried really hard to be precise with the placement of the gray kite shape, and still ended up a bit off when I sewed the two halves together. These are picky blocks!

Natalie asked us to make a little quilt for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative with the scraps. If we wanted. I didn't have time to do anything fancy, but I pieced this together this afternoon. I kind of like it, and these Hope Valley colors are growing on me.

Quilting My Circle Quilt

Here's the last sewing thing I wanted to share from my vacation:

I finally got to try out my mom's quilting frames, all set up with a cool Juki machine and a stitch regulator. 

I wasn't able to do what I'd envisioned for the circle parts of this quilt with my mom's machine, but I quilted all the background area. It was pretty amazing to see how fast it went and how much different it is to quilt this way compared with using a traditional machine. I had to keep reminding my brain to move the machine the way I wanted the stitches to go, not the opposite. I had some thread breakage issues which were frustrating, but overall I was happy with how it went.

This week, since we've been home from vacation, I started to feel a little anxious and scattered about all the projects I either have started or wish I had started. Amy posted about her new one thing, one week challenge, and that really got me thinking. I decided to focus on finishing up my circle quilt. 

I finished up the quilting this afternoon. I got the binding made the other day and will be doing the machine part of sewing it on today. Here's a close-up of the quilting in the circle:

I thought I was going to quilt it using the loopy flowers technique shared by Elizabeth at Oh, Fransson!, but decided to do a sort of carnation-y spiral to fill up the circles instead. I like it!

editing to add... here is the roundabout quiltalong post from A Commonplace Life that inspired this project. I needed to make smaller blocks for this baby quilt though, and here and here are my previous posts on designing the quilt and making a template for the quarter-circle block. If anyone is interested, I can also post about figuring out the yardage for this type of quilt and how to cut the segments and sew the blocks together. 

And... since I knew I wouldn't be able to quilt all the circles in one go, I gave myself a second focus project this week--charity quilt blocks.

The KC Modern Quilt Guild is working on a bunch of baby quilts for babies at a local hospital NICU. (Actually, the one my girl stayed in after she was born.) I am going to make a whole quilt top using these fabrics, and my goal was to finish 6 of them this week. I've made 2 more since this photo was taken, so I'm taking a break from them for a while. It has been really helpful to have just two things to focus on, knowing that my other projects are all written down in a list, and hanging out in their piles, and they won't go anywhere while I'm finishing other things. I'm looking forward to finishing the binding on the circle quilt so I can mail it off to my sister-in-law and start the quilting on my next finished quilt top!

It's been a while... I'm going to link this over at sew-n-tell Fridays--go see what everyone's been making this week!

Vacation Recap 2--Quilt Show

So, I decided to enter my watercolor quilt in the Annual Quilt Show at the Springville Museum of Art, since we were planning to be in Utah when the show started this year. I've had a couple other quilts in this show in the past, and I was happy to find out that my quilt was accepted into this year's show. I went and looked at the quilts in the show on one of the last busy days before we came home. I took photos of a few quilts that I really liked. I wish I could have been able to get each quilter's name written down but it just wasn't possible--I was wrangling kids and trying to get as good a look at the quilts as I could in the limited time frame I had with kids and behavior.

If you are or will be in the area, this quilt show goes until September 1 and is wonderful. There are lots of quilts (maybe around 80?) and there is a good mix of traditional and more modern/contemporary quilts.

Here's my quilt, up on the wall. I was amazed at how... small it looked in a room full of bigger quilts.

But I was happy to see it there and think it looked good!

Some other quilts from the show:
This one won an award for machine quilting:

I liked the scrappy look of this one (I put it in the box as my favorite)

Beautiful Cathedral Window quilt. I want to make a small one of these some day.

Detail shot:

This was just amazing.

Really cool t-shirt quilt.

I had to take a picture of this quilt because it's made using the same pattern book I used for my niece's Noah's Ark quilt.

I liked the black and white with the colors in this one.

Best in Show.

Signature wedding quilt. Pretty colors!

This was a fun one.

30's double wedding ring quilt.

Another award winner. The kids and nine-patches look like the ones from the book Quilts! Quilts!! Quilts!!! : The Complete Guide to Quiltmaking. The quilting on this was so beautiful, and the kids are all embellished with trims and shiny things. And there are sparkles all over the quilt. I really like the rainbow-y stars in the corners, too.

I have one more quilting-related vacation post to share and then will get back to posting about my current projects and stuff. I am having a bit of a revelation this week, and it's about focus. More on that later!