quiltalong block A

I'm finally ready to move along with something I started way last year, my quilt-along for this quilt:


Jan at Creative Instigation is hosting a brainstorming session for the name of this quilt here. I like the ideas so far, and have another possibility I came up with myself, but I'm still open for suggestions if you have them.

So. Here is my original quilt-along post that includes yardage requirements for making the quilt as pictured.

And here are the directions for block A, which finishes at 10" square (it will be 10.5" before you sew it into the quilt):

Step 1: Choose two fabrics. For the center, cut a 6.5" square. For the first two sides, cut strips 2.5" x 6.5". (Don't you love these fabrics? This is the fabulous Figgy Pudding line designed by Basic Grey for Moda. I'm so happy to finally have this fabric in my grubby little paws.)


Step 2: Sew the strips to the center piece using 1/4" seam allowances. Press seams.



Step 3: Cut two more strips, for the top and bottom of the block, that are 10.5"x2.5 I used a fabric with a directional print (is that a word?) so I needed to cut these strips the opposite way from the side strips.

Step 4: Sew the strips to the block top and bottom using 1/4" seam allowances. Press seams.



Done! Let me know if you make any of these blocks, I'd love to see them!

In the next couple days I will post the block B tutorial. And I'm thinking about adding a couple more block designs to this pattern, too. And maybe a flickr group, and I'm having some thoughts about open source quilting.... Stay tuned....

My First Quilt

Camille and Carrie are hosting a Parade of Quilts! Here is my first quilt:

Sorry, it's not the best picture, but hopefully you can get a sense of the wonderful polyester double knit goodness that is this quilt. My grandma helped me make this quilt when I was 13. Now, this wasn't what I had in mind when she asked me if I'd like to make a quilt with her. I don't know exactly what I had in mind, but it wasn't double knit polyester. And I have to confess my heart sank a little when Grandma brought out the neat stacks of already cut poly squares. But I went ahead with it, and it turned out ok. The main skills I learned from Grandma while making this quilt were chain piecing, and how to piece batting, when we made this quilt. We put it up on quilt frames in her living room and she helped me tie it. (When I was growing up that's how I thought all quilts were finished--tied with acrylic yarn.)

After it was off the frames, I wasn't in love with the quilt, and I just put it away with unfinished edges, for a long time. My grandma passed away about 5 years after we made this quilt, and soon after her death I got the quilt out and finished up the edges by just folding them in and zigzagging close to the edge. I like the quilt a lot, because of the memories of my sweet Grandma that it holds. I call it my "ugly quilt" and I tell everyone about it, and about my grandma. I still use it on my bed every winter.

And... here is my most recent quilt:

My kids' handprints for my mom, for mother's day.

Happy Independence Day!

I made this quilt in 2001. It's hand quilted, and one of my first improvised quilts. I remember really enjoying making it. Not exactly the colors I would choose this year, but it's still cute. It would be fun to remake it in brighter colors and with wonky stars.


I spent the morning sewing and going up and down the stairs to work on the laundry backlog. Baby's quilt top is done. I'd like to start on piecing the back but will feel better if I spend some time cleaning the kitchen. I'm thinking about using the peach-y baby corduroy for most of the quilt backing. I ordered 2 yards from fabric.com a while back, thinking it was a baby pink color, but it turned out to be a bit orange, which means it works well with these Mendocino fabrics.

Mendocino Quilt

This is what I'm working on today. Baby quilt for sweet Miss L., made from Mendocino fabrics by Heather Ross. I'm taking a lot of time to think about it. Maybe too much? I don't know. Some of the oranges don't go together so well but hopefully I can pull it off and make it look good in the end.

Also, here is the picture of her dress I promised:

Fun, huh?

I just saw some cute 4th of July quilts on Freda's Hive and it reminded me of an old patriotic mini-quilt I made long ago. I think I'll go get it out so I can take a picture for tomorrow.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

back from vacation

We just got back from our annual Utah pilgrimage on Sunday evening. We were gone a little over a week. The drive out and back is sooo long but over all the kids did ok. We packed a lot in to our time there, doing things like visiting BYU bookstore, swimming, barbecueing with family, eating Gandolfo's sandwiches, and working on my sister's new roof. I got to go to a fun quilt shop while we were there, Corn Wagon Quilt Co. I bought some (more) Figgy Pudding Christmas fabric, some Snippets oranges for my daughter's baby quilt, and some fabrics for 4th of July skirts and dresses for my baby and her cousins. I made a 4-tiered skirt for my niece, and Mom and Tami and I started on peasant dresses for our two baby girls. Our oldest niece came too and had her first experience using a sewing machine. She was a little intimidated at first but she did great! I helped her make a... scrunchy. It was all her idea. She's 11 and apparently scrunchies are coming back. I finished my baby's dress yesterday and will post a photo soon. I will have my sis email a picture of her daughter's skirt too, so I can show you that.

A while back, I listened to a good episode of the Quilting Stash podcast. It was an interview with Diana McClun and Laura Nownes, the authors of Quilts, Quilts, Quilts. This is the first quilting book I bought, probably in 1997 or 98, and it's still one of the best ones out there for learning quilting basics. It was really interesting to hear the authors' voices and learn the story of how Quilts, Quilts, Quilts came about.

last week's projects

Last week I made shorts for J, finished up a pay it forward gift for my friend Jan, and made the flag for Cub Scout day camp.


The shorts pattern is from Ottobre Design 3/2007 and they run really large. I made them in size 92 and they fit J, who's almost 5, with plenty of growing room. 92 is supposed to be somewhere around a size 3, by the way. Anyway I really like them and since they are made from lightweight twill, my poor wimpy machine was able to sew them just fine. I added elastic in the waistband, just thought that would make sense.



Here's a little kitchen towel all spruced up with some Moda Snippets charm pack goodness. And coasters, front and back. Also made from the Snippets charms. This was my first finished gift for a little pay it forward swap I signed up for on Facebook a while back. Four more to go!


And here's the pack flag for day camp. This was fun to make. I couldn't find my fusible stuff so I just pinned and it went together ok anyway. Then I figured doing the fusing would have taken a lot longer with all the added steps. The background fabric is black denim. You can see the back of the flag if you click through to my flickr page.

I took some pictures for a little quilt block tutorialtoday. I will be working on getting that ready to share in the next day or two. And I'm thinking about hand sewing projects for our vacation. I'm not sure what to do yet, any suggestions?

quilt binding and vintage sheets

 

Vintage sheet fat quarters from the Chaletgirl swap. Lots of possibilities here. I'm thinking maybe cute tiered baby peasant dresses to start.

 

The first three (I think) totally finished Project Improv quilts (I did the binding). I really enjoyed being able to have the time to really get a close look at these quilts. They are so amazing. I can't wait to do more of them.

dyeing

My dharma trading order came today and I dyed "robin's egg blue" and "deep orange". I might need to do another blue batch, lighter. I tried some different fabrics in each batch, interesting how the linen looks different than cotton. I wonder how they'll look dry. I think they will both look good in the strip quilt I am planning.

new cool things I'm interested in

I have some pictures I've been meaning to take, of quilt bindings and vintage bedlinen fat quarters, and I've been busy. So, maybe pictures tomorrow.

I just opened up one of my BurdaStyle emails and found out about the Alabama Stitch Book. I have an Amazon GC that's starting to burn a hole in my pocket... but first I checked my library website and found out my library does have it, so I put it on my hold list and hopefully will be able to get it soon. I love the library! I've been looking up various people's blog entries and photos of projects from this book and they are sooo cool. I can't wait to make myself a shirt, and a skirt, and who knows what else, after I get the book.

Another thing. I looked at a LOT of blogs last week with the Blog Giveaway thing and found this. A princess pavilion tent that goes over a table. How is it that I never knew something like this even existed? We had a teepee when I was a kid, and I remember it being very, very cool. My mom made it. I had been thinking about making one, off and on. But this seems easier, although still quite a large project. I don't have a round table, and won't be making a princess tent, but I have a kitchen table, and another table in the garage that we've brought in from time to time for the kids to make forts with... so another project I'll be wanting to make, let's say sometime this year, is a cool table tent.

Finally, then I have to go to bed, is this family summer planning station from Future Craft Collective. (This is the thing I kept telling you I would email you about, Lorilee. Sorry. But here it is now.) We went to Hobby Lobby in search of stamps and paint today, and found cute foam stamps for $2.79, woohoo. I decided to get the "dimensional" fabric paint (what, is it too '80s to call it puffy paint now?) and we squirted it out onto an old container lid and then painted it onto the stamps with a paintbrush. I had help from 4 kids, two in my family, and we got two months stamped out on the calendar part of our banner. It was a good rainy day for that. We'll work on it some more tomorrow.

I also decided I need to start thinking about handmade Christmas gifts. The online quilt shops are getting cute Christmas fabric in.... I'm not sure how much I'll try to do handmade but I want to give some things that I've made this year.

Reading... DailyLit and Obama: The Historic Journey

I got in on another MotherTalk blog tour, this time for Obama: The Historic Journey. This is a young reader's edition and I'd hoped to get my 9 year old to take a look at it but it's been kind of crazy busy with the end of school so I'm hoping to stick it in his pile of library books or look at it with him in the next couple weeks.

I did get a chance to read this book and I really liked it. The book has lots of great photos and tells clearly and concisely about President Obama's life growing up, people that influenced his life, and the campaign story ending with his inauguration. There's also an interesting section that talks about the New York Times' preparation for the newspaper the day after the election.

I really liked the recap of election night, and the inauguration photos. The inauguration photos show those amazing crowds; I've never seen anything like that before and it's cool how the photos in the book capture the enormity of the audience that day. And election night... well, that was the last night we slept over at the hospital with our baby girl before she came home after being born prematurely. I remember watching the election coverage on TV and being so amazed that it was over so quickly. I remember being impressed with McCain's concession speech and thinking that's how he ought to have run his campaign. I remember parts of Obama's speech and all the teary, excited people shown on TV. All this in between and amongst taking care of our tiny, under 5 pound, sweet baby girl who was almost ready to come home.

Anyway, to sum it up, this book is a great young reader biography of President Obama and it's also a keepsake of the historic campaign and election. Check it out!

In further reading news, I found out about DailyLit a few weeks ago and just finished reading my first book through their site. They have a whole bunch of old books that you can read for free, or you can pay to read some newer selections if you're interested. All you do is sign up and they send you installments of your book(s) every day until you're done. I started reading Walden, The Lost Princess of Oz, and Little Women. I finished The Lost Princess of Oz last night; it was fun to read it this way but I found I missed the pictures. I've read about 5 of the Oz books with my 9 year old and they are all wonderfully illustrated. The author has so many fanciful creatures that it seems to help see an artist's interpretation of them.

I'm continuing with reading Little Women; I haven't read it as an adult and I'm really enjoying it. I decided to put Walden on a break for now; it's some heavy reading. I will get back to it though. Now that I finished my first book with them, I'll probably go back to the DailyLit site and pick out something else to read.

weekend update

I was all set on Friday to start sewing up some jeans for my boy and count them in Jacquie's Spring to Finish UFO challenge. And my machine, pardon the french, kind of crapped out on me. I have 5 machines that sew in my house (OK one is an antique and doesn't actually sew, but it could if I took it in and got it tuned up) and I can't make a stinking pair of jeans. This led to me using my trusty pocket knife screwdriver, and undoing things, and removing globs of lint, and putting things back together, I thought the right way. (What a terrible sentence. Oh well.) Well, it wasn't the right way, so I undid it and found that I smashed a part. This was on my ca. 1980s machine, the heavy duty one. My newer machine is a lightweight and cannot topstitch on denim, no way.

Anyway this led to me going to the sewing machine store yesterday, and finding what I hope will be my new machine sometime in the next couple of months. Maybe for my birthday. It's the Janome 6260, and the saleswoman had it stitch through 9 layers of denim for me, which it did fearlessly. It's also a quilting machine and has lots of great features but mostly is a sturdy machine that can handle the dread denim.

I will still need to take in my old Viking and get it repaired. Ugh. It hasn't been in the shop for several years though (since we were in Oregon) so I guess that's ok.

Yesterday I worked on my blue/red scrap quilt some more and it has a layout planned and everything now. It's going to be similar to my lavender scrap quilt I made at the beginning of the year, only this one will have navy blue fabric and denim for the sashing. This week I'm planning on working on that some more, hopefully getting the top finished, making shorts for J, sewing up some more napkins, and something really fun--making L's first baby quilt. I'm going to use my Heather Ross Mendocino fabrics and hopefully add some hand dyes for a quick and cute strip quilt. We are going to do strip baby quilts for church sewing group starting in July so I will be getting yardage figured out for making a strip quilt in baby quilt size and lap size. I will also figure out how to use Moda honey buns to make a similar quilt. I'll post the yardage/instructions here when I get them figured out.

The Winner

Thanks everyone, for coming by and commenting on my drawing for Giveaway Day. I had a lot of fun browsing through the blogs and seeing all the cool stuff up for grabs. I hope I win something!

I did a random.org drawing (197 comments, wow, but too many to print out and draw out of a hat). And... you're going to have to take my word for it, the winner was #17. That is Barbara at WilliamGeorge! Congratulations, and send me your address soon so I can mail out the napkins!

May Giveaway Day

Hey there everyone--I made a set of 8 cloth napkins to give away this week, as part of the Sew, Mama, Sew May Giveaway Day. Make sure you visit their site to see lots and lots of other cool giveaways! I've been wanting to start using cloth napkins in my own home and decided to make some extras for the giveaway. Four of them are Katie Jump Rope prints and the rest are made from some vintage fabric my friend/neighbor got freecycling. These range from 10" square to 12" square (I'm trying to decide the size I like best).



If you'd like to win, all you have to do is comment here. Tell me your name, where you live, and a project you're working on these days. I'll have one of my vice presidents of fun (I totally stole that from CraftSanity) help me pick a random winner.

This drawing is open to anyone, U.S. or international. You have until 8 p.m. central on May 31 to enter, and I'll post the winner that night. Make sure I have a way to contact you!

Mother's Day sewing

I saw this on Craftzine.com back in December and decided I wanted to make something similar for my mom and mother-in-law for Mother's Day. My husband's folks have just 4 grandkids so I talked to my SIL about a collaboration and here's what we did:

I stitched the hands (my three kiddos plus little cousin Ryan) and Amy found a cute poem and then matted and framed it, and shipped it to Utah in time for Mother's Day.

My parents have 13 going on 14 grandkids so I opted to just stitch up my own babies' hands for Mom. And make it into a quilt. I was LATE getting it done and sent, but that's just how it goes sometimes.

mini-quilt monday

I just found out about mini-quilt Monday today on my google reader thru AmandaJean and Apple Cyder. And Jacquie mentioned it a while back too, when she posted her cute clothesline quilts.

I picked up some Orla Kiely fabric, I mean tablecloths and napkins, at Target on Saturday and am planning on finally opening up my etsy shop. Today I made some mini-mini quilts aka coasters:

These will be for sale later in the week along with some other things, maybe a tote bag, maybe a baby dress, maybe a cute little girl skirt or something. I have a funny idea for part of the huge pear fabric I got.

Just for fun, here's a list of some of the in process projects I've got going on here:
Project Improv quilt bindings (I was given 3 to do and have one left)
blue/red scrap quilt
hourglass quilt
pillows
jeans (darn those jeans, I really need to just buckle down and make them)

and in my mind but not yet started:
baby gifts for 3 different friends
all manner of cute baby clothes for my sweetie
cloth kitchen napkins
shorts for the boys
pin cushion for example for church sewing group

I did finish some things last week and today so I think I'm doing well!

new pants for baby

I feel like I have been working on things so much and not finishing, so I decided to make these pants for the baby. Finishing a project is a good feeling. I actually decided I didn't like the floppiness of the ruffle on these purple pants after I took the picture and ended up cutting some of it off and then sewing a decorative stitch about 1/4" in... going to try the raw edge look and see how it goes. I will post a picture of it after they are washed.


This pair is made from a vintage pillowcase I got at Goodwill and the trim is also vintage... bias tape my mom gave me a while back. I don't even know where she got it or if she just had it forever. I wanted to put some blue bias tape instead but didn't have the right color of thread. There are little side vents at the hem but they don't show up in this picture.

My mother's day gifts are both received now so I'm going to post pictures of those too after I upload them.


Also! I am going to participate in the Sew, Mama, Sew! giveaway on May 27. I will be giving away something made by me, to a random someone. I don't know what it will be yet. Am open to suggestions. Have a good weekend!

Happy Mother's Day

Thanks for teaching me how to sew, Mom. Do you remember helping me make a little teddy bear from a kit when I was 6 and we lived in Granger?

Thanks for letting me use your industrial sewing machine when you traded your old Bernina in for it.

Thanks for signing me up for sewing 4-H and supporting me through 4 summers of it. I didn't like modeling in the county fair, though.

Thanks for the Barbie clothes pattern I got for Christmas when I was 10. I had a lot of fun making Barbie clothes.

Thanks for supporting me when I decided to forgo extra years of math in high school and took two whole years of sewing classes instead. I had a lot of fun! And I still don't regret missing those math classes.

Thanks for paying for my fabric so I could do the wool contest both those years.

Thanks for buying me the fabric I really, really wanted to make my wedding dress.

I love sewing, and I love you!

new dress for baby

I finished up this little dress for Lauren on Saturday night. I started it two or three weeks ago. The skirt is made from a Moda Soiree charm pack--20 squares of it for this size dress. It's just sewn to a purchased t-shirt.

I really, really like these fabrics. I'm hoping to get some more of my favorites to make another dress or something for Lauren when she's bigger.

4-patch baby quilt

This is my 7-year old niece's baby quilt. I actually haven't seen this quilt for years. I'm sure it has faded a bit as my sister says her daughter still uses this quilt. At any rate, the colors are not quite the same as I remembered. This was probably the 4th baby quilt I made; my oldest son has two baby quilts and my oldest niece has one that I hand quilted. I was going to say she got the only one I hand quilted but Natalie's quilt has quite a bit of hand quilting.

There were some fun fabrics in this quilt. I really liked the Pooh bear honey bee fabric. The mottled pink, I believe, is the same lacy pink print from JoAnn's that I used in the birthday calendar quilt I made for my mom (hey Mom, would you mind emailing me a picture of that quilt? It's another one I don't have a picture of.) The cute, bold pink plaid and the purple hearts fabrics were bought by Mom for this quilt specifically. I didn't have much of a fabric budget in those days. The border and some of the blocks have a cute, tiny lavender gingham in them. I made my first scrappy binding for this quilt. I really like the sole blue and green four-patch--that blue is also in the scrappy quilt I made at the beginning of this year and is scrap from the dresses Mom made us girls for Jim and Marilyn's wedding reception.

I have been looking at more of the quilts in Park City Girl's blog quilt festival today. And napping. Have a good week!

more scraps

I'm making another scrap quilt, this time with blues, reds, creams, and some yellow. Oh and some natural linen scraps too. I'm just working on this as I do other projects, these are pieced at the ends of my chain stitching so I don't have lots of thread tails to cut off.


I also wanted to show the skirt and hoodie I made for my niece while she was here a while back.

Ottobre design, issue 6/2007.

Skirt is from Ottobre 4/04. I also made a pair of pink shorts for her to wear under the skirt, again from Otto 4/04.


This past week I also made a blanket and burp cloth for my cousin's sweet new little baby. I have no idea if she reads this blog, oh well. I love this tiny pirate print flannel. I bought the fabric way before I was even pregnant with her, because if I was going to have a 3rd boy he needed this fabric. I decided my girl baby needed a pirate blanket even though it's not "girly" fabric.

There are a couple other projects going on that I'm not ready to share yet. But I've been having fun and enjoying cool fabric.

Noah's Ark Quilt aka secret project #1

Well, it took more than a year from start to finish, but I finally got my niece's Noah's Ark baby quilt finished and sent to her.
Last year, my sister announced her pregnancy and soon after decided she would be having a Noah's Ark themed nursery. I've made baby quilts for all my nieces and nephews (well, except for two who came into the family as older kids) and I looked all over for Noah's Ark fabric but I couldn't find any. I got out my copy of A Quilter's Ark by Margaret Rolfe, and thought about using her paper piecing patterns to make a Noah's ark quilt. I talked to my mom about it and decided I would go for it. I changed the pattern in the book, which uses 4-inch square animal blocks, to a simpler one with 16 animals, all pieced in 6-inch blocks. I planned on making the ark block a bit smaller than the one in the book as well. So I got some striped and pink fabrics, and made my first couple pairs of animals (zebras and flamingos). Then I got pregnant with my baby and lost almost all the energy I had for sewing or anything besides resting a lot and barely getting by.

I ended up working on the quilt off and on a little bit during my pregnancy, and then bit by bit in these last months since my baby has arrived (she's 6 months old now!) (I better get going on a baby quilt for her!)

So, our other sister was coming out to see me this month for her spring break, and I decided I would finish up the quilt so she could take it back to Utah and give it to baby Natalie. I'm pretty sure I had it pin basted when Shelly got here. I started out with machine quilting the sashing.

I had thought I should probably hand quilt the animal blocks. But I didn't want to. I told my mom I thought they wanted to be hand quilted, and she thought it would be ok if I machine quilted them. But then... I didn't have quilting thread in all those colors, and, well I actually went ahead and started machine quilting one of the lions with an echo-quilting design. And I hated it. I picked it out (I've never unpicked quilting before, I don't think) and decided it was going to be hand quilted.

I worked on the handquilting, a lot, while Shelly was here visiting. I thought I would get it done. I had also promised to make some clothing items for Shelly's kids though. After a couple days, it became clear I wouldn't be able to send the quilt back to Utah with Shelly on the plane. So I went ahead and sewed up her daughter's pink camo skirt and pink-heart-shaped-leopard-print hoodie (pics of those another time). She went home (miss you!) and I finished the Noah's Ark quilt a few days after she was gone.

The animals are pieced mostly from scraps I had on hand, and some with new fabrics I bought specifically for the project. The sashing is JoAnn linen blend, scraps from maternity pants I made for myself when I was pregnant with Jacob, who's almost 5. Hand quilting was done with 2 strands of embroidery floss, various colors. This was my 4th quilt to have this rainbow binding fabric. It's officially all gone except scraps now. I got my first spool of Superior thread for the machine quilting, and I kind of like it. It's a very slightly variegated natural color and it's a bit heavier than regular sewing thread or the silk/cotton Mettler thread that I use sometimes for machine quilting.

The project was kind of discouraging at times, especially in the middle when it was taking so long. But finishing it up and seeing how it looked as I did that hand quilting was kind of fun. Kind of exciting. My fingers hurt really bad after all that hand work though. It feels really good to get a big project like this all done.







(You can see all the pictures at my flickr account, even super-enlarged, if you want. Link is in top-right corner.)

10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea

This review is part of the MotherTalk blog tour for Suzy Welch's new book 10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea. I enjoyed the book--it was a fairly quick read, and the main concept of 10-10-10 makes sense to me and seems like a good way to be conscious and present when making decisions about life. In a nutshell, when faced with a decision, consider the effects of your choices in the next 10 minutes, in the next 10 months, and in the next 10 years.

You don't have to really be that literal about it though; 10-10-10 is a catchy way to remember to think through things and possible outcomes in the immediate future, in the foreseeable future, and quite a ways down the line. In her book, Welch discusses the basics of "10-10-10-ing" followed with examples and discussions applying the thought process to work, love, family, and friendships.

Reading 10-10-10 helped me consider some situations in my life a little more deliberately, maybe even more objectively. I don't think 10-10-10 will necessarily make difficult decisions become simple or easy (and it doesn't claim to), but it does provide structure for pausing, taking a little bit of time, and thinking things through completely while considering the right now, far in the future, and also, time along the way. I liked 10-10-10 and think it could be useful to anyone wanting guidance for living a more clearly and thoughtfully.

Finished Churn Dash Quilt

 

I finished up the Churn Dash quilt, oh a couple weeks ago, and washed and dried it. It came out really nice and crinkly and snuggly. It is quilted with swirly circles and a few stars. I did scrappy binding with mostly reds, and some chambray blue too.

 

I wanted to show my Paper Dolls fabric that arrived the other day. It is so gorgeous and I'm excited to make some dolls out of it for my sweet girl when she is a bit older. The dolls are about 8 inches tall, way bigger than I'd expected from seeing them online.

 

And look at all the clothes. Aren't they sweet?

 

These fabrics are by Sheryl Marquez, by Windham.

Quilt Festival

I was hoping to have secret project #1 ready to share for the Blogger's Quilt Festival that Amy at Park City Girl is hosting. The good, great, wonderful news, is that I put the last stitches in it today, and I even labeled it. The bad news is that I'm not going to post photos of it until the recipient gets it. So... sometime next week.

Anyway this is a bit of a recent repeat, but my scrap quilt with the purple border is my festival quilt.



I made this at the beginning of this year, after a long year of not quilting much at all. I blogged about it here. Right now it is lying across the bottom of my bed, on top of our aqua and white bedspread. I'm liking the lavender and aqua together. I really like the border, and I think it's kind of funny that I had so many different purples that are so similar.

I really like the back, too.


In other sewing news... I found out about the FabShop Hop last month and went crazy hunting for bunnies at a bunch of online quilt shops. The grand prizes in March were 50 yards of fabric, a new sewing machine, and a really cool storage caddy. I didn't win the grand prize but I got a happy surprise this week in my email--I won a $10 gift certificate to Hidden Country Quilts. They have lots of great quilter's quality kids' fabrics, and I decided to get some sock monkey fabrics for the big quilt I'm going to be making for Jacob later in the summer or fall months. I'm working on finding bunnies for the April hop too, maybe I'll win again!

busy busy

I have been madly hand quilting for two days. I didn't think I was going to hand quilt but this project called out that it needed some handwork. Park City Girl is hosting a Blogger's Quilt Festival starting this Friday and I really hope to be ready to reveal secret project #1 as my quilt to share.

Today I also cut out some clothing items for my niece and nephew who are visiting. Pink camo, pink heart leopard print, and boy space and fire truck prints.

sewing basics--choosing a pattern

I've been thinking about doing a series of posts about sewing basics. I want to share some of the going-by-the-rules, "classical" sewing steps that I learned while I was growing up, as well as some of the internet resources that are really helpful to me now.

So, here goes! There are free patterns and tutorials online for all kinds of projects, but I'm going to talk about making a project where you need to buy a pattern. What we used to do in the old days was go to the fabric store, sit down at the pattern books area, and thumb through the pattern book until I found a pattern I wanted to make. Then Mom and I would look for fabric, and buy the pattern, fabric, and notions and then go home and I'd start my project. Now, I don't live so close to the fabric store, and I have small people that don't love fabric shopping, so I search for patterns online. The "big 3" pattern companies, Butterick, McCall, and Vogue, are all found here. You can pick a pattern brand and then search their pattern catalogs by category. Simplicity and New Look pattern catalogs are also available online here, and you can find Burda patterns online as well. This pretty much covers the patterns you can buy at JoAnn or Hobby Lobby. We also have a Hancock fabrics near where I live and they sell KwikSew patterns there along with the others. So--find a pattern you like, or a few, and write down the brand and number. Next, you can go to Pattern Review and search for reviews of the patterns you like. Pattern Review is a great website where you can find out other people's experiences using the patterns you are interested in. You'll find out if the sizing was off, how the directions were, and what others have done for altering the pattern for better fit. You'll also get to see pictures of other people's finished products. Using the resources at Pattern Review, you can determine which pattern you want to buy.

The next step is going to the store to buy it. For big 3 patterns, I like to wait for a sale. You can sign up at JoAnn and Hancock's for mailers, and then get notification of all the sales. I don't buy patterns from these stores unless they are on sale. Usually when there is a pattern I want to buy, I only have to wait a few weeks before that particular brand is on sale, usually for a dollar or $1.50.

There are lots of other patterns in the world besides the big 3, and you can also read reviews of these patterns at Pattern Review. I use Ottobre Design patterns a lot for kids' sewing, and I've also used Jalie and Kwik Sew too. Here are Pattern Review's top patterns of 2008.

Coming soon--shopping for fabric. Fun!

Churn dash quilt progress. And a couple other things.

I finally got some time to post pictures. Here's the Ottobre dress I made for L. It's cute, and looks cute on her, but I don't love how wide it is. If I make another dress like this, I will probably go ahead and use the lap shoulder tee pattern with a narrower torso fit and improvise it a bit to make it into a dress. Also, I shortened the sleeves about 3/4 of an inch. Even though the dress looks so wide, it fits well through the shoulders and neck. I really like the Baby Lulu fabric this is made from, it is a ribknit with good body.


I got six of the March blocks done for the Twiddletails BOM. A lot of orange, and I thought I didn't have enough oranges. I have fabric picked out for 3 or 4 more. I'm out of solid white fabric except for some small scraps, so I'm going to use some white on white prints I have. I think they'll look good.


And I'm ABB (all done but binding) on the churn dash quilt. I'm almost halfway done with handsewing the binding to the back side. The picture of the front was taken by a 4-year-old. I had fun quilting swirly circles and occasional stars on this one.


I really like how the pieced back turned out. It was quick and fun to make, especially those strip stacks. I might have to be like all the cool kids and make a stacked coin quilt one of these times. This quilt is going to be sent to the Mountain Baby Blankets project.

The only thing bought recently for this quilt was the batting. It feels good to use up fabric I've had for a long time. Let me tell you about the blue bandanna fabric--it's from 1995 and it used to be a dress. It was really cute, but not quite the right fit for me, and definitely not the right style. (Empire waists aren't good on me.) I wore that dress at a sweet friend/roomie's wedding (we lived together for 3 school years) and maybe one or two other times. I like it much better in a quilt.

My next project will be finishing secret project #1. I will also be making more geese blocks. I will be starting secret project #3 (which isn't a quilt, and is actually 2 projects). I'll be making more dishtowels with my friends at church sewing group, and also probably cutting up a Martha Stewart tablecloth I got on clearance at Kmart... for another baby dress. This time I will check the width of the pattern before continuing with the project.