more charity quilts

Here are 10 more of the charity quilts made by KC Modern Quilt Guild members. Again, these will be going to families who have babies in a local NICU in a few days. I had a couple of helpers available to hold up quilts shortly before the sun went down this evening.

This panda one has a super soft minky backing that gives the quilt a really nice drape and weight.

This one's kind of super-size compared to the rest. :)

This is the back of the dinosaur quilt--cute!

This one has a special back:

Such a fun surprise to see this little appliqued rocket ship! I never noticed it before today, when we were taking pictures!

and here is one of the labels that will be sewn onto each quilt:

I have 5 of them done--must do at least 10 tomorrow.

More of the quilts for this project can be seen here and here. I will do one more photo post with the last few quilts later this week. 

Three Shirt

I finished this up for a sweet three-year-old friend this morning. It was nice to make this, so refreshing to work on a small project with a quick deadline and just be done with it. I had a couple hiccups with the lettuce edge hem--the back is made from the cotton floral interlock that the "3" is made from, and I was stretching it quite a bit, like I stretched the cotton/lycra stripe fabric on the other shirt I made in this style. But it was cutting the hem off as it sewed. So I got out a scrap of the interlock and realized it would still do the "lettuce" thing if I stretched more gently, and the hem wouldn't get cut off either.

The sleeve hems are the original hems from the fuschia/heart shirt--I like doing that. Also, this is a boys' pattern and the sleeves on the pattern are much wider than the fuschia/heart sleeve ends were (it was a "large" girls' shirt, but close-fitting), so I had to taper them down quite a bit. I hope it fits the birthday girl all right!

I have 65 pages left in the book I'm reading, The Passage. It is very suspenseful, but not too scary, and sooo good. (yes that's an affiliate link yo.) I'm going to go see how it ends... and if I'm going to be dying that I have to wait until 2012 for the sequel.

Charity Quilts--KCMQG 2010

Here are photos of 10 of the charity quilts made by KC Modern Quilt Guild members this year. They will be delivered to parents at a local NICU later this month. I will have pictures of more quilts later this week, too!

more links to share

Hi! Hope you're having a good weekend!

I don't have much to say on my sewing progress--I did get more quilting done, and my Dear Jane (affiliate link) book came today! I ordered it used from an Amazon seller in Missouri, turns out they were in Kansas City and the book arrived less than 48 hours after I ordered it. I love it when that happens.

My boy and I tried to take pictures of the charity quilts today too, but it was too windy so I'll try again tomorrow.

Here are a few good things I came across online this week:
This post by Dawn, about praise and approval and needing to be seen.

A great post on Zen Habits about doubts and getting past them.

A collection of free quilting tutorials on Cluck, Cluck, Sew. I need to add some of my tutorials!

And, a collection of (also free) quilt block tutorials on Gen X Quilters. 

Dresden Plate (and another quilt dream)

Here's my October block for Michelle. Better late than never, right? I'll be mailing it tomorrow. I made my signature block right after I took this photo and folded up the block and got it snug in its baggie. This is the first time I've made this kind of block--it's different from what I'm used to making, but I like it. :)

And here's a progress shot of my quilting project:

I have both the horizontal and vertical lines about half way done; this picture shows the corner where they are both done.I am pretty sure I will also be quilting straight lines just inside the edges of the 9-patch squares too. It will take a few more days of work to finish the straight line quilting and then I still need to decide how to quilt the borders.

Something I've been thinking about, because I need another project, is the Jane Stickle quilt. I bought the Dear Jane book finally and am excited for it to come in the mail next week. If you don't know about this, well, it takes the term "insane quilt project" to a whole other level. The original quilt was made (finished?) in 1863 by Jane Stickle and it was made of 225 different quilt blocks. There are squares in the center section and triangles going around the edges of the quilt--again, each one is different. Here's a link to the That Quilt flickr group if you want a quick look at what the blocks look like, and here's a group that showcases finished Jane Stickle quilts. And, look at this blog post to see several more finished quilts as well (scroll all the way down, you won't regret it.)

So, I have a color scheme in mind and hope I can find enough different fabrics in the colors I want. Have you made a Jane Stickle quilt? Started one? Do you want to? How crazy do you think I am?

Thursday Update

Working on my 9-patch quilting--I'm almost done sewing diagonal lines through the 9-patches, both ways. Then I will add horizontal and straight lines too. I started out with horizontal lines and had a bit of shifting, and realized that quilting diagonally causes less shifting, so I decided to do the diagonal lines to stabilize the layers and then add the other lines and hope it works out well without any/many tucks or puckers. I'm a little worried about quilting the borders and might do some free motion quilting there.

I went to the school for the Veteran's Day program. The kids all sang so well and it was touching to see all the veterans who attended the assembly. The only down side is that Sissy didn't get her nap. At the normal time, I mean. She fell asleep when I went to get #1 from Scrabble club at 4:30, and slept for almost an hour.

I have gotten a headache in the afternoon for 3 days in a row now. Not fun. Today is the first day I ever put a hot rice bag on my head and it felt good.

Wordless Wednesday

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Six Ideas to Use up Scraps

... is what I'm blogging about in my first post* at Stash Manicure today!

*yes, I'm already on the schedule for next month, too! I have something really cool to share in December. :)

Bee Blocks So Far, and Quilt Basting

Here are the blocks I've received for my turn in the Bee Beautiful online quilting bee. I love how they look together!

I will eventually get 4 more in the mail from my friends, and make one myself.

Also--I basted my quilt today. 

I didn't have enough pins though, so I basted the last corner area with needle and thread.

Now that I think about it I wonder if I did it "wrong." It will probably be just fine. :) I am still pondering the quilting question for this one. I may end up straight line quilting it 1/4" away from the sashing seam lines. It's not my favorite way to quilt but I think it will look good on this quilt and not take away from the scrappiness and the variety of the blocks.

Making a Quilt Back

Yesterday I finally got the back all put together for my 9-patch quilt. These big quilt projects take me a long time; sometimes I feel like other quilt-makers are faster. But here's a bit on what it takes to put together a quilt back for such a large quilt. Nobody can accuse me of not posting enough about process, especially this month while I'm posting every day!

I went to JoAnn's to get backing fabric and found the cute Heidi Grace bird/leaf fabric (primary colors on white) and would have loved to back the whole quilt with it, but there wasn't enough. So I got the yellow and red prints too and a blue fabric as well. When I got home I decided to use the light weight denim that I already had on hand instead of the blue quilting fabric. Each piece of fabric had to be cut in half crosswise and then pieced together so it would be wide enough (over 66 inches according to the quilt-along post at crazymomquilts, I'm not going to measure it myself right now). I needed to make sure all the edges were straight and square, too. So I got all the fabrics ready and laid them out on my railing, then stretched the quilt out lengthwise on top of them to see if it was going to be big enough.

And... it's kind of hard to see in this photo, because I couldn't back up enough to show the whole thing really, but they aren't sewn together here, just lined up next to each other, and it was obvious that it wasn't going to be long enough once I sewed all the pieces together. Plus, I wanted to cut the red piece into two pieces so adding another seam would make it even shorter. I went to bed not sure what I was going to do. I was thinking about making a pieced strip to stick in there, but it wasn't what I really wanted to do.

The next day I decided I would use the red polka dot fabric that I had got from the JA remnant bin a week before I bought the other backing fabrics. I cut the red floral, started sewing the strips together, and then figured I needed the polka dot to be about 7" wide. And here it is!

I had to spread it out on the deck; I couldn't find a piece of floor big enough to photograph it this morning. Things have since been straightened up in my house and I am planning on pin basting it tomorrow. (I hope it's really big enough!)

Links to Share!

Here are a few things I've come across recently that are cool/interesting. Hope you like them!

Smashing Magazine monthly calendar wallpaper. Every month, Smashing Magazine has a collection of beautiful, free wallpapers that you can download, with or without a calendar, to your desktop. Last month I had the cutest little gnome couple on my screen; now I have a beautiful fall tree with leaves on the ground.

Melissa of Living a Creative Life has great ideas about going to bed at a decent hour, as my dad would say. I totally need to work on this.

Family feeding dynamics. I was getting a little caught up with telling my kids (one in particular) to clean their plates every night at dinner and it was causing some stress in our family. I love so many things about the feeding philosophy taught at this site--having sit down meals with your family, not feeling guilty about what you are currently doing, all food has nutrients, the division of responsibility between parents and kids with regard to kids' eating habits. You totally need to check this out if you have kids and you feed them!

Inspired Ideas magazine. This is a gorgeous, amazing, free online magazine chock full of beautiful holiday crafts. I love the white wreath idea and there is an adorable Mary Englebreit printable craft in there too. Check it out!

Holiday Gift Swap

I had a great time at the KC Modern Quilt Guild meeting last night. We had our holiday party and for the gift swap we were divided up into groups, then we had discussion questions to talk about so we could get to know each other better. We talked about our sewing spaces, what "modern quilting" means, what we want to learn next year, and more. (My goal is to learn how to do invisible zippers.) Then we opened gifts in our small groups according to age with the oldest going first. (I was not first, or last.) Here's the present I got, made by Stephanie:

Isn't she pretty? I think so. :) My little girl likes her a lot; we are calling her the "Christmas lady."

And then the youngster of our group got the last present, which was from me.

I had a hard time deciding what to make but here's what I ended up with. I sewed all the applique on ticker-tape style, after the 3 layers of the quilt were all layered. I wish I could have come up with something for that upper left corner but I guess it's ok the way it is.

My 6-year-old is in a VERY LITERAL phase of life right now and he did not approve of my crooked and messy lines in this project. He said, "That's not a star" about my star and then told me the whole thing isn't very good. It's ok though, I told him it was supposed to be this way, but he thinks everything should be as neat and realistic as possible right now.

Here's the back:

It has the look of a string quilt block, only I didn't use any foundation paper or fabric for it. My advice on this kind of back is not to trim it the same size as the front until after the quilting is done! I wasn't thinking quite right on that one, should have left the back a little bigger.

Oh yeah, I didn't point this out last night, but one of the tree fabrics is the feather fabric designed by Lauren--I'm glad she ended up with this and I hope she likes it as much as I do!

ready to finish my 9-patch quilt

I've been busy sewing, but I'm making things I can't share right now--we are having a gift swap at our next KCMQG meeting, and I'm also finishing some small projects to submit for publication in 101 Patchwork Projects (cross your fingers for me!)

Here's what I'm going to be finishing, very soon: the other day I went to my LQS and got this diagonal stripe; it's going to be perfect for binding my 9-patch quilt. I need to piece the quilt back out of the other 4 fabrics here. And I forgot to take a picture, but I got a really pretty variegated thread for quilting it.

PSA

Hey, just in case you were wondering, or even if you weren't, I changed my blog URL to http://www.sewinspiredblog.com

I'm still on blogger even though I'm not using the blogspot URL... we'll see if I decide to change that but I'm happy for now.

Anyway, you might want to update your feed readers or bookmarks. I have feeds for the old URL and the new one in my google reader and the new one updates right after I post, while the old one updates several hours later. Just letting you know!

question for you

I got an email recently asking me how often I change my needle on my sewing machine. Here's what I replied:

"I don't change needles super often... I try to change after I quilt a quilt, or if I can hear the needle popping through the fabric. I don't think you need to change your needle as often as "they" say if you're sewing wovens. Knit fabric on the other hand, you can ruin it easily if you don't replace your needles fairly often, after every 3-4 garments probably."


So what about you? How often do you change your sewing machine needle? Anyone out there who hasn't ever changed their needle?

Oh yeah, and I've been meaning to do this for a while, if you have any questions for me, sewing or otherwise, feel free to ask in the comments! 

vote!

Good morning! I just got back from taking the boys to school and voting. I wanted to share a couple of great blog posts about voting and women:

It's that time of year! Vote! by Meg at Material Mama.
and
Women's Duty at the Polls by Laura Ingalls Wilder, posted at Beyond Little House.

*****
Also, one more Halloween photo:

This was carved by my 10-year-old. It's supposed to be 3 skulls. I think he did a great job!

Halloween wrap-up, NaBloPoMo

Hi friends! I am so glad it's November, and that we are past Halloween! I like it, but it wiped me out this year. I've had a stuffy cold over the past week and that combined with Halloween activities at school and church and plain old trick-or-treating was just... a lot! I went to bed totally exhausted a couple nights this last week and am looking forward to getting all caught up on my sleep soon.

Here are some pictures:

"Paul the Business Gorilla." He is wearing his dad's fur hat from Romania along with a gorilla mask that has the bloody parts covered with electrical tape (no scary costumes allowed at school.) He used a bandaid to cover part of the blood, too.

Indiana Jones. He didn't want to wear his full costume at any of the events, it was even hard to get him to let me take a picture. (He loves the hat though and it will get lots of dress-up play use.) He was "Indiana Jones slash vampire" for trick-or-treating and wore the vampire cape I made last year with his Indy pants and shirt.

Here's the little fairy. I ended up finishing the hem on her skirt with narrow bias tape. She accidentally ripped a section of it off when I first finished it, but it was a pretty easy fix. I don't know how long this skirt will last though, we'll see. I finished her shirt hem right before we had to leave to go to the school party.

 I got the wings at JoAnn's, I'm glad I didn't have to make them.

She really loved jumping in the big bounce house at the church party.
********

A couple more things--I am going to be posting every day in November for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I did it last year, including the week we were gone on our cruise, so it should be a breeze this time!

And I have been enjoying the Quilt Festival over the weekend. I love that Amy has it set up with thumbnail images this time; it is so cool to look at her link-up and get a tiny glimpse of everyone's quilts. I have to say though that the best part is the conversations with quilters. I am trying to comment on every quilt (it might take me a few weeks to get through the list) and most people have emailed me back. I have added a couple of new blogs to my reader and am loving seeing all the quilts and reading their stories.

Oh yeah, one more thing--HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!! I LOVE YOU!!

blogger's quilt festival--a charity quilt

I made this quilt for a charity project that the KCMQG has been working on over the last few months. We are making baby quilts that will be given to NICU babies (to be taken home and kept) at a local hospital. I made the quilt top and did the binding on this quilt, and it was quilted by the wonderfully talented Angela Walters, who blogs at Quilting is my Therapy and does lots of amazing things with her quilting.

This main challenge for me when putting this quilt together was dealing with the limited number of fabrics. I like to use lots of colors and fabrics when I make quilts, and this quilt only has 5 different fabrics total. I really enjoyed making the improvised blocks--I wanted to make blocks that looked balanced and went well together, but I also tried to use up my scraps as I went. :)

Here are some close-ups of Angela's quilting. It is so beautiful! I need to find out what kind of batting she used because I really like how it fluffed up after being washed.

Here's a little sneak peek of most of the KCMQG charity quilts. Over the next couple weeks I'm planning on sharing photos of each quilt too. (We will have over 30 quilts to donate when we are all done... getting close!)

Apparently some of the Modern Quilt Guild leaders have some kind of friendly competition going on and I'd like stick my nose in and invite and encourage challenge the other Modern Quilt Guild folks to find a need in their communities and make quilts for a local charitable cause. Let's use our talents, our love of fabric and quilting, to bring some love and comfort to others in need!

Now if you don't already know about this, please visit Amy's Creative Side because she's hosting her 4th Blogger's Quilt Festival this week! It's a great opportunity to see amazing quilts and meet new quilting and blogging friends. Thanks so much to Amy for all your hard work putting this together!