No Prints Allowed/Jane Stickle 9-Patch

Last night was the big reveal of our guild's No Prints Allowed quilt challenge. Back in December we were given charm packs of Robert Kaufman's Kona solids. The challenge was to make a quilt using at least a little bit of every color and not adding any print fabric.

Here's what I made:

I had been thinking about making my own version of the Jane Stickle quilt for a while... I decided this challenge would be a good time to try some of the blocks. I made 16 blocks from the pattern book, all 9-patch variations. One of them had a little bit of hand sewing (top right block), all the rest were sewn by machine.

Here's the back:

I thought about hand quilting it at first; I have done that on a lot of the smaller quilts I've made, but in the end I decided that would be crazy and take too long this time. I had fun with the machine quilting and am really happy with how the quilt turned out!

Here's a closeup of the quilting, with a quarter to show the scale (sometimes it is hard to tell from a photo how big these kinds of things are):

I strip pieced those tiny aqua 9-patches! I strip pieced several of the blocks actually. Anina's That Quilt blog is a great resource for the Jane Stickle quilt; she has posted directions for making each and every block on the blog and I am grateful for the time and effort she has put into it!

Here are some other blog posts about last night's meeting:

Deb Rowden's report on our guild, I think it was her first time coming.
Carla talks about her quilt and has pictures of several quilts from last night.
Nikki's entry was an art bag to hold big art projects made by her kids.
Jenifer's quilt "Don't Lead Where I Won't Follow"

The quilts were all so beautiful! Thanks again to Robert Kaufman for the gift of the charm packs!

A skirt I made and some other stuff

So I made this skirt for my girl; it's the On the Border skirt from Little Girls, Big Style: Sew a Boutique Wardrobe from 4 Easy Patterns (affiliate link). It's really cute and it was easy too. A couple of things--it's very wide and a tad shorter than I like on her. I had a mistake while cutting so the lower tier is basically the width of my fabric, and I made the yoke pieces about 1.5" narrower than the pattern recommended as well. I am probably making it again--well, the apron skirt version first--and I will keep the width the same and make the lower panel an inch longer. Oh yeah, also wanted to mention I gathered the lower panel and the ruffle at the same time. It worked ok but probably wouldn't be a good idea on heavier fabrics.

I need to get or make leggings for her to wear under it for now, and then maybe bike shorts or something like that for summer. 

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In other news... who knows about Pinterest? It was really confusing to me at first, but I figured it out. It's basically an online bulletin board for keeping track of cool things in various categories. I'm going to use it to keep track of all the quilts I want to make, all the cool shoes and bags, and probably other stuff too. After I signed up, I had to wait a few days for an invite, just so you know. You can follow my boards here, ok?

Other than that, I hope you're having a good Monday and I gotta go get the boys from school! We started watching The Fellowship of the Ring as a family last night and I think we're going to watch the rest of it tonight. 

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

I was helping out at my boys' school this morning and got to take a peek at the Seuss Cafe. This thing sounded cute when I first read the information sheet my 5th grader brought home. But it was even better than I expected--totally stinking adorable, and fun, and just so sweet to see in person.

This is the entry arch, photo taken from the inside. (It's really small.) They had the main library lights off and this sheer fabric hung from the ceiling around a center "cafe" area. Twinkle lights and bobbly Seuss-like things were hanging down too. Tables were set up with tablecloths, centerpieces, and menus. 

The fifth graders wore white shirts and dark pants and were given Dr. Seuss hats and bow ties to wear when they worked their shifts at the Cafe. They presented the kids with the menu and while the kids who were being read to picked out their choice of story, the 5th grader went and got them a cookie. Then the 5th grader got the book and read out loud. All the kindergarten through 4th grade students got to participate in this over 4 days this week.

This is my 5th grader reading Arnie, the Doughnut to a first-grader.

I love that my kids' school encourages reading the way they do (we keep track of minutes read, and they can read anything they want, for a fun yearly challenge) and that this event was part of their commitment to making reading fun!

What I'm working on this week

I'm so glad it's March! This has been a challenging winter with more snow than usual and lots of kid illnesses as well. I really need spring to come soon; I'm glad it's sunny and warming up a bit today!

I've been working on a couple projects, one with a deadline:

This is for the KCMQG "no prints allowed" challenge--it needs to be finished next week!
Here's another peek at what I'm doing:

(These are some of the sewable scraps and will be part of the back.) I'll reveal the whole quilt after our meeting next week (crossing my fingers that I get it done, I'm afraid I'm hand quilting again!)

I've also been working on this blouse for my girl:

I need to get buttons and ribbon for the front still but decided to get started. The bottom ruffle is ready to attach, and the gathering stitches are sewn in the sleeves too. It was a bit tedious marking and making all the pintucks, so I stopped after finishing them on the back. They aren't pressed yet because I want to remove the water soluble marker first.

My computer speakers bit the dust so I was listening to Pandora on my phone while I sewed. :) Makes it a little more fun, I think.

And these books came in the mail today:

I've looked through them both and there are some great projects in them. I am looking forward to making the little knotted jumper top or dress and probably a skirt from Little Girls, Big Style. Also I think I'm finally going to dive into shirring; I've only tried it a couple times before. I have a huge cone of elastic thread and I love the shirred look on some of the blouses in this book. And Amy's done a great job with Modern Basics; maybe I'll use one of her patterns for my sister's new baby who's arriving at the end of summer.  

How about you? What are you working on? Are there any signs of spring where you are yet?

Neptune Pillows

I started making the blocks for these pillows sometime last year, and then they got set aside and eventually added to the list of UFOs I hoped to finish. I was glad that Sew, Mama, Sew hosted a pillow contest this month because it gave me the little push I needed to get them done!

Here's the aqua pillow:

and the midnight one:

I got the idea for this type of quilt block from this Moda Bake Shop recipe.

The backs of the pillows are made from ivory (I know that's not the official color name though) quilter's only cotton from JoAnn's and have pieced strips using the same fabric (and a few leftover blocks) as the pillow fronts (Moda's Neptune, isn't it pretty?) I lined the pillow backs with muslin but they aren't quilted.

It's been a while since Amy's hosted a Sew and Tell Friday and I'm excited to link up with her! Go see what everyone else has been making!

trapped under sleeping toddler

Waiting for my little one to feel better. I'm afraid I'm going to have to skip dinner-making again. I think I'm past frustration now, just resigned to wait this stupid virus out. (We are on day 5 of her feeling crummy.)

I got these jeans (in the picture) at the thrift store and they are a little too flared and a little too long. I think I'll look for some cute brocade-type ribbon and make them into capris with ribbon at the hem.

I quilted my pillow fronts this morning (also in the picture, see them?) while L worked on a pedialyte popsicle in the high chair. I did a squared off meander and question my use of navy thread on the darker one. But I'm not changing it. I'm excited to finish them, soon.

making pillows

I started these a long time ago...

this is not weird in the top right corner even though it looks like it in the pic.

it's really straight in the top right corner, just not pressed super flat or something

And decided to work on them some more today. It wasn't what I was "supposed" to be working on, but I had fun and I like what I ended up with.

A couple weeks ago I found and bought pillow inserts at Target, 2-packs for $3.48. They are 18" pillows and I had to change my plan from what it was however many months ago.

I realized one of the reasons I had put this on hold was that someone suggested I put solid color strips between the rows. I hadn't planned on that and for some reason I never bought the fabric to do that. I found that there were enough solid-ish fabrics in the honey bun to separate the rows and give the eye a calm place to rest.

All the blocks were done (and partly sewn into rows) for the light pillow; I put it together and then also made the dark one today too. I need batting before I can proceed :) so I will probably put these aside for a few days or maybe I'll go get batting tomorrow. Anybody have any suggestions for the quilting?


Also. It was over 70 degrees here today. My girl wanted to go out on the deck and see the neighbor's dogs and it was warm. Where 16 days ago it was under more than a foot of snow. Spring makes me happy. (It's going to snow again next week.) The snow pile that was nearly 8 feet tall in front of our house will probably be all the way gone tomorrow, yay!

I mopped the kitchen floor today, too. And dealt with my girl feeling crummy off and on throughout the day. What is up with a fever that comes and goes, and comes back again? I think she'll probably feel a lot better tomorrow.

More Monkey Blocks

I sewed up this set of 4 monkey blocks yesterday and cut out the group of 6.

And today I was able to get all 6 sewn together.

I now have 22 of these finished and need to make 13 more. I am starting to be a little short on some of the fabrics--I only had 1/2 yard of each of the solids and a couple of the monkey prints. I might need more fabric to finish this baby up. :)

If you want to make similar 13.5" quilt blocks with these measurements, the diagrams and cutting measurements are here.

p.s.Check out the We Love Jenny Auction, you can bid until 10 p.m. EST tonight (February 15).

the one I made

Finally I can show off the little quilt I made for Julie, for PQS5!

For this quilt, I started out just by making some selvage rainbows. Then I trimmed them all down to the same width (4", 4 1/2", I can't remember for sure) and made half-square triangles with the selvages and some Kona crush.

I wanted to do something interesting with the quilting... I think I achieved that. The swirls weren't too difficult, it was the straight-ish line spiral in the colored triangles that was challenging to get right.

Here's a view of the back, another look at the quilting:

These swap quilts are a good chance to try out new patterns, or piecing ideas, or quilting ideas, without committing to something huge and super time consuming. :)

Hope you had a great Valentine's Day! The We Love Jenny auction will be open until 10 pm EST, Tuesday February 15. Please check it out, and help out if you can.

Placemat Quilt Swap Arrived!

I decided to sign up for Placemat Quilt Swap 5 a few weeks ago, and got the mini quilt I made for my partner sent off this week. I'll show a picture of it here as soon as I hear that it's arrived safely...but meanwhile, the one she made for me arrived today!

It was made by Julie aka jgmehlin on flickr. I like it a lot! My main request (I think my only request) was that she use some white in it. I love how bright and cheerful it is. I love those different-sized triangles and the rainbow strips too. Thank you Julie! (I can't wait to show the one I sent to her...)

I also finished up my quilt for the We Love Jenny Auction, which is taking place on February 14-15. The auction will be raising funds to help Jenny Reeder with her medical and housing expenses while she is fighting leukemia. Check out the donated items at the auction blog and see if there's anything you're interested.

Here's the heart quilt front:

and the back:

I had fun with the quilting inside the heart--I got some good ideas from Leah's Free Motion Quilting Project blog. If you are a quilter and are at all interested in improving your free motion quilting skills, you should subscribe to this blog.

I hope you're having a good weekend! I have 4 quilt blocks for my boy's monkey quilt cut out and ready to sew so I might do that tonight. I also helped my 6-year-old set up a blog. He hasn't written his first post yet but I think it might be really cool (and fun and funny) when he does.

have a heart

Last night I read Amy S.'s latest blog post and was reminded of the We Love Jenny Auction which will be held on Valentine's Day. The auction is to raise money for medical and housing expenses for Jenny Reeder, who was diagnosed with leukemia in November and is working hard to beat it! I met Jenny when we were teenagers and have a lot of great memories of our neighborhood, camp, and church activities during our high school years. I was so sad when I found out she was sick... and I hope and pray she will make it safely through this ordeal. So anyway, I decided to go ahead and make something relatively quick for her auction. I found this Valentine Flag tutorial at Nanette's blog--I saw it a couple years ago and finally decided to make one.

I made one heart instead of two... The fabrics are mostly from a Love is in the Air layer cake I've been slowly using up. :) I will be finishing this mini-quilt up in the next few days so it will be ready for the auction on Monday!

9-patches week 12

How's everybody doing? Just how snowed-in did you get this week? We were homebound for a couple days--Tuesday, the day of the blizzard when we got 13.5" of snow, and then the next day, which was beautiful and freezing cold and the snowplow didn't get to our street until about 10:30 p.m. The kids had 3 snow days this week, and today's a professional day at school, so they only went to school on Monday. We have had fun playing video games and reading books (including Dr. DeSoto, Cannibal Animals, and finishing up The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). The boys have played out in the snow a lot too--I haven't ventured out in it much yet this time. Anyway, we have another storm coming over the weekend, but I hope we don't have another week like this for a long time!

Here are this week's 9-patches! This is the last installment of weekly 9-patches for a while as I have all the blocks made for my second 9-patch quilt. :)

And here's a shot of the rainbow of blocks I made this time. Plus one lonely black and white one.

Guess which colors are difficult to find in quilt shops these days?

I have a lot of time to think about it, but I wonder what color scheme I should do for my 3rd 9-patch quilt. (Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm going to make a third one. And then I'll probably move on to something else.) I could do a 2-color quilt, or even go monochromatic, or do something with a lot of black and white... what do you think?

If you're interested in making your own 9-patch quilt, I used the instructions from the crazy mom quilts one-a-day quiltalong. Here's the blog post about my first finished 9-patch quilt using this tutorial (I made another 9-patch about 10 years ago as well....) This time however, I'm making a smaller, throw-sized quilt with 48 blocks instead of 70.

my next project

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Hat #2

I have 2 sick kiddos... we were up most of last night. One was croupy and not breathing very easily, the other has strep throat. They are feeling a bit better today and I'm hoping we all sleep better tonight!

I didn't sew today but I finished up hat #2. I changed the pattern a bit this time--knitted the earflaps and first few rows in garter stitch instead of stockinette and omitted the crochet around the edge. I had been feeling weighed down by a couple of UFOs I've been procrastinating, and I told myself I'd just work on one for 15 minutes. It turned out that it didn't take too much more time than that! :)

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9-patches week 11

Only 7 more to go!

I've been working on some other projects this week, too.

This doll really needed to not be naked, and my husband said something like "well, do we have any fabric in this house, and  a sewing machine?" So I made a couple of diapers for her. This is baby Arabella, by the way. The diaper has velcro closures in the front and I put some elastic in the back waist to make it fit better.

And a baby gift:

A flannel blanket, 2 burp cloths (with little ribbon loops), and a hat (pattern from Ottobre design 4/2004).

We have been busy this week with a meeting about middle school enrollment, 5th grade vocal music program (sooo cute!, um I mean really cool), pinewood derby, and my husband's birthday. I made my mother-in-law's peach cheesecake for birthday cake; I love it. I bought extra ingredients so I can make the cake again soon. I'll try to remember to take a picture and then share the recipe here--it's so yummy!

Monkey Quilt Blocks

I sewed four of these blocks today and now I have 12 done, plus one that will either go on the back or get fixed--I accidentally made the outer strips too narrow. I cut them the other day and it was nice to have them all ready to put together. I planned out the next 4 as well, maybe I'll cut them tonight.

So I'm pretty much 1/3 done--I'm going to make 35 for a twin-size quilt for my 6-year-old. If you want to make blocks like these, here are the diagrams for the 5 blocks with cutting measurements included.

I like how they look, especially the dark brown. Those outer strips really eat up fabric though and I may need to reorder more solid fabrics before I'm done.

9-patches week 10

Only 14 more to make!--I'm making a throw-size quilt with 48 blocks this time.

Hearts

Here's what I've been working on the last couple days:

It's going to be a table runner for a little table in my living room. After trimming it I think the top border is a little too narrow and I'm not sure if I should add on more, or cut some off of the bottom. I'm going to put it away for a while to think about that and try to figure out how to quilt it. I'm thinking maybe some hand quilting... I seem to always think that when I make these smaller quilts.

We have another snow day today (we got  8 or 10 inches starting at 12:30 p.m. yesterday) and I think I'm going to knock out this week's 9-patches and finish another couple of small UFOs. What are you working on? Have you made any Valentine quilts or other projects?

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

Back in July, I made a couple quilting bee blocks for Natalie of beyond the reef patterns. She requested that we use the scraps to make a quilt for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. I made the quilt top but didn't finish it right away.

Fast forward to 2011--a few days ago I got an email from Rene' at Rene' Creates, asking for help in getting the word out about the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Rene' has come up with a challenge and will be hosting monthly drawings for those who make and submit quilts to AAQI.

So the other day I was feeling the need to finish one of my many UFOs... and here it is!

I just got it registered on the AAQI blog and am awaiting shipping instructions. It didn't take too long to finish and the binding fabric is kind of special. It's from one of my husband's grandpa's shirts, that I used to make the shirt quilt for his grandma. I couldn't find any other fabric that matched, and I'm glad I remembered one of the shirts was a dark blueish green fabric.

If you're interested in making (or buying) a quilt to benefit Alzheimer's research, visit the AAQI website. The quilts must be 9x12 inches or smaller, so it can be a quick project if you want (and if you're not a procrastinator). I tried out a new free motion quilting design on this quilt, and I think these quilts would be a great use for scraps, too. The most difficult thing for me is that you must give the quilt a name--I'm not good at naming my quilts.

I'm going to make another one--this time I'll plan on having it done by the end of February. What do you think? Will you make one too?

patchwork days

The knee on my son's corduroys ripped. (Pre-distressed cords are a bad idea, really, but they were the only brown pants we could find when we were shopping for Indiana Jones costume components a few months ago.) He requested a red patch. This is my first time doing this kind of patch. I unpicked/seam-ripped the non-topstitched leg seam in order to be able to do this.


I like it! (I hope it doesn't rip again near the edge of the patch!)

I also mended a backpack and hemmed jeans for my talented bow-making neighbor today, too. I think I'm going to make a few quilt blocks next. :)

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Happy Friday!

I'm so glad it's Friday!  It's been kind of a crazy week--the boys had 2 snow days at the beginning of the week and it's been super cold here. We are finally warming up a little too--it's supposed to be 34 degrees today, so much better than single digit temperatures.

I did some sewing this week--here are my week 9 nine-patches:

I made nine this time, so I'm a little bit ahead. I have the fabrics picked out for the next batch, too.

Yesterday I worked on my son's Sir Francis Drake costume for the 5th grade wax museum that's happening today! Nothing like the last minute, right? (I would have worked on it earlier in the week but the insane weather kept me indoors.) Hopefully I'll have pictures (and his permission) to share after the event this afternoon.

I also wanted to share some good finds from my local thrift store:

Patterns! This store used to have their patterns bundled up in bags with maybe 4 patterns in each bag. You couldn't see what they all were, so I never bought any. Now they are selling them individually so I picked these ones. I have to say that the main picture on that top right pattern is downright ugly, but I've been wanting to make one of the cross-back sundresses for my girl, and I'm pretty sure view D (the bottom middle image) of this pattern is the one I'm going to make. Maybe without the ruffle, though. Also. I have no reason for buying the baby layette pattern, except that it was too pretty to resist.

I do love all the little dress patterns; the three from the 60s/70s all look like they should be made from double knit polyester though. I'm going to have to come up with a better fabric choice than that. Any suggestions?

I also found a pretty Pyrex bowl:

Finally, I'm excited to be featured on Gen X Quilters today! Head on over to read a little more about me, if you want. :) Thank you, AnneMarie!

Baby Maggie

Here is Baby Maggie, short for Magpie. My husband has named several of the dolls in our house, including this one. The other dolls, because I know you wanted to know, are Baby Lucy, Baby Ruby, Baby Abby (named by the boys), and Baby Arabella (I picked that name). The old baby that used to be J's doesn't have a name.

I enjoyed making Maggie, even though it was kind of stressful because I was trying to do it in secret before Christmas and my daughter was having a difficult time sleeping the nights I wanted to work on her.

Here's some of the information about making this kind of doll, if you're interested:
I got the kit to make her from Weir Dolls and Crafts. It included "skin" fabric with the pattern printed on it, yarn for the hair, thread for sewing the body and hair, wool stuffing, embroidery floss for the eyes and mouth, and the stockinette and string for making the head. I purchased doll needles at a local craft store--you need a long needle because sometimes you are sewing through the head.

I worried a lot about doing the stuffing just right, and I think I did ok, but it's the kind of thing where you probably get a lot better at it each time you do it. I think I ended up stuffing the arms a bit too firm.

I did the hair using the 3-layer hair tutorial at Ashtabeulah. I wasn't sure if I should do it this way or with the more traditional crocheted cap/stranded method I read about elsewhere, but I liked how the hair looks on the dolls from Tumbleberry Toys and Bamboletta so I decided to go with the sewn hair. If I make another doll like this, I will probably try a smaller one (I made the 16" doll this time) and try some fun hair colors.

The kit I bought came with a clothing pattern--I modified the shirt/dress pattern to have short sleeves and made the pants out of lightweight denim. I think it would be fun to make her a sweater, some underwear, and cute shoes someday too. :)

Snow Day!

My husband woke me up around 6 a.m. to let me know school was canceled. (He left early for work, that's why I got to get the news so early.) I had a good day with the kids--I spent some time being a star bit helper on Super Mario Galaxy 2, did some laundry and dishes, took the 2-year-old out in the snow, and shoveled some snow until a wonderful (teenage!) neighbor came over with a snowblower and finished the job. I love my neighborhood; I love my neighbors. We have a great crew on our street but usually don't see a lot of each other over the winter months. It was fun to see over a dozen kids and several moms out in the cul de sac today.

I got some good sewing time in too, while the kids had a movie event in the basement. We had 3 extras here and Lauren fell asleep leaning over on Ashley... so cute. I made 4 secret quilt blocks and finally finished my daughter's doll... why do I procrastinate things that only actually take a few minutes? Tomorrow I might tackle another procrastination project. It's going to be another snow day, but probably too cold to be out in it much.

13" quilt block diagrams & measurements--new and improved!

Here are the new diagrams for my 13" square-in-a-square quilt blocks.

1/4" seam allowances are included in the measurements given here. A few of the blocks I've made so far can be seen here. The .pdf file is here. Feel free to use these diagrams to make all the quilt blocks you want!

Thanks so much to Dielle for making the .pdf! You rock!

13" quilt block diagrams and cutting measurements

I drew up these diagrams for my 13" (finished, they are 13.5" square until they are sewn to each other) quilt blocks with the measurements for cutting each square and strip. I thought I'd share them in case anyone else wants to make these same blocks. I'm planning on making 35 for a 65" x 91" twin size bed quilt. You could make 12 for a large-ish baby quilt, or 24 of them for a throw-size quilt. Um, these diagrams are probably not to scale. I might draw them up all fancy on the computer and make into a pdf if anyone's interested. Let me know what you think.

Edited to add--the bottom strip on the bottom left block should measure 2.5" x 13.5". Thanks for pointing that out, DL!