projects

I finished up some underwear for my boys the other day. I really like the football fabric, as underwear at least. The gray and olive fabrics are recycled t-shirts. I might make spring jammies for my younger son with the football fabric.



And, I started work on my watercolor quilt again. It's going pretty well! I'm not sure if I have enough of the medium-light fabrics to finish. I better figure that out so I can send out requests for fabric if I need to. I will be working on this more today.

linking love

I was so excited yesterday when I saw that the Annie Smith of the Quilting Stash podcast talked about my blog and linked it on her website! Thanks, Annie! She talked about my "Made in 2007" collage and I should have done this in the first place, but that post was inspired by Kristi at Lost and Found. I've been reading Kristi's blog for a while, and ought to get to know her better because I'm good friends (in the real life, down the street way) with her sister (who ought to get her own blog one of these days). Kristi has great vintage and thrifted finds and seems to be a very accomplished mom, always doing lots of great activities and projects with her kids.

Also I need to mention Jan here, the Creative Instigator. Jan is another real world person in my life; she works with my husband and I'm glad I've been able to get to know her. I love the creativity tips at Jan's blog. I love today's tip--when you want to apologize for something you've made, say "It's fairly new, but it smacks of genius." Can we come up with something like this for the housekeeping apology? I really want to stop apologizing for my house when my friends come over.

Fluffy, ruffly, outfit.

My niece just turned 6. I think she's going to like this. Just about a year after I made a similar outfit, I finally got hers finished. This is the Redondo skirt with flounces in between each panel, and the Hermosa shirt. Both patterns are by Studio Tantrum, which has cute and interesting and fluffy, ruffly, flouncy girl patterns. I get mine at Sewzanne's Fabrics.

J is requesting underwear. He is dragging around the fabric he wants it made from. I'm going to do that (have to trace a new pattern size) and then get out my infamous insane quilt project. I'm going to finish it this time, really.

Cuteness

I finished my small scrappy log cabin quilt. It is good to make one just for me, for fun, after making 4 complete quilts and working on at least 3 others last year, all for other people.



Not the best photo, I'm working on that.

I did not do a traditional binding because I wanted each side bound with a different fabric. I decided not to worry about the quilt police on this one.

I did small swirly quilting all over. It was fun and easy.


I pieced the back with some of the leftovers from my (small) 30's print stash.


I really like it.

Next up, I'm working on a flouncy outfit for my niece. More cuteness!

Made in 2007

So here's a collage I made... a sampling of things I made in 2007. I wonder what this year's will look like?

I have finished all 9 of my tiny scrappy log cabin blocks and will be putting them together soon. I thought my camera batteries were dead, but they're not, so here's a pic.



I'm probably going to use a layer of flannel instead of batting, and I don't know what the quilting will be like yet. I'm planning on putting plain white sashing between the blocks, and for binding... maybe a different color on each of the 4 sides. We'll see.

disappointing projects

I made a Japanese stab-stitch bound book today. I had such high hopes while I was working on it, and it ended up kind of a flop. I used the instructions in the current issue of Craft and in theory it worked out ok but there were a few minor issues that left it looking kind of... lame.

So I keep telling my perfectionist child that he isn't supposed to get things exactly right when he's a beginner, but I'm feeling that feeling right now, the frustration of things not working out how you'd hoped, when really, they should have. I really thought it was going to be so good, and it's weird, and some of the pages have 2 sets of holes punched, and the holes don't all line up as nicely as I'd hoped. Oh well.

I was really happy with how the paper cutting went; I put an old (not good for fabric anymore) blade in my rotary cutter and it worked wonderfully. So at least I'm not intimidated by cutting paper anymore.

****
I wanted to say hi to the folks from Craftster.org; I was super excited to see that I had a bunch of visits from there yesterday. I've had a membership at that site for a long time but don't hang out there often. I should poke around there a bit and see what's going on.

sewing for the New Year

I'm going to do a fun run tomorrow in approximately 20 degree weather. I've had this wicking fabric for a while and made it into a shirt today:



This was really weird fabric to sew. It stuck to itself and was really rolly. Using the self fabric for the binding wasn't a great idea, but it'll work for now.

We aren't really celebrating the New Year at our house. We got some Chinese fast food, which was mediocre. The kids watched Shrek 2 on tv. The 7-year-old is staying up, he thinks, until midnight. Last year we tricked him; we switched several clocks back an hour right after he saw the ball go down in New York--Eastern time. He still thinks he stayed up until midnight. He got up super early today, I really don't think he'll make it until midnight, but if he does, I don't know that we can pull off the deception again.

Christmas/New Year Post

I had a cute picture of the gingerbread cookies I made with the boys but it is mysteriously missing from the camera. Oh well. We decorated them with M&Ms and Skittles and they were really pretty. The ones with M&Ms tasted the best.

We had a good Christmas, if a bit overwhelming. D was very excited when he opened the Wii and he's had fun making Miis and playing games on it. We had a turkey dinner with friends on Christmas afternoon and it was really nice. I made a turkey breast, the fabulous mashed potatoes from the Pioneer Woman Cooks blog, and Rhodes rolls (which were a dismal failure). My friend L brought green bean casserole, ham, and a jello dessert (and something else? I can't remember for sure). We made gravy together and I think we were both surprised at how well it turned out. So that was my new kitchen success.

I got the Aranzi Aronzo Cute Dolls book for Christmas and need to make something from it soon! It's my first Japanese crafting book. It is very cute, with comic book style instructions with funny side comments throughout. Also... interesting characters to make including a kidnapper (???) and a Bad Guy who is actually pretty cute. The dolls are supposed to be made with jersey knit, which is interesting to me. I'll probably make some out of knit but try making them out of wovens as well.

I should be folding laundry.

I have been thinking New Years thoughts, a little bit, and I need to come up with a new name for my blog next year! There are 3-4 other Sew Inspired sites, and I want something that's mine alone. I'd like to eventually upgrade to better blog software, and my own domain.

I haven't sewn for days. A little burned out maybe? I have a cute little purse I'm planning on making but I need to go look thru my stash for some good fabric.

finished the quilt, now what?

I finished R's quilt yesterday in a mad rush because I wanted to send off my Utah packages. I got to the post office about 4:30 and it actually wasn't that bad. I'm feeling a bit of the overwhelmed, don't know what to work on next feeling. I have the tiny quilt I'm making for myself, there are 2 shirts cut out for my son, and I started decluttering my sewing bins yesterday. I could always clean and organize some more in the sewing room, too.




There are plenty of mistakes in this quilt but I'm not going to spell them out. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it came out.

Finished quilt.

finished scrappy log cabin quilt
Originally uploaded by vickivictoria

I wanted to post this photo of the finished quilt. It was my first time doing binding all by machine and... I don't love the results. But I was needing quick, and it was quick. I like this design and might try something similar another time. Of course I *do* have an expecting sibling so maybe I'll do something like this for her baby quilt. I heard she's having a Noah's Ark nursery theme....

blue green baby quilt top

R quilt top
Originally uploaded by vickivictoria

Trying out the Flickr "blog this" thing. This quilt still needs outer borders; they will be from the same stripes as the sashing. I'm actually thinking of quilting this with straight lines; with squares maybe 1/4" from each square's seams. I've gotta finish this in the next day or two so it can be put in the mail.

Productive

Finally I had a productive sewing day. I finished the flannel pants for my husband. I made a bag for the megabloks. I love megabloks, but hate how they are spelled. I think they are a great toy but we had too many for the existing bag, and it was old and cracked vinyl so it had to go.



Here are the blocks all bagged up:


I ironed the fabrics for the baby quilt I'm making:


And, to help calm down a frustrated 3-year-old who wanted to go outside but only through the GARAGE door, and I said no, because he was standing there with the door wide open and letting in cold air, and he refused to go out the regular front door, and then he carried on, crying about this, loudly, for about 25 minutes, well he brought his cute webkinz Toto to me, along with a little scrap of fabric he's been carrying around for days, and asked if I'd help him make pants for Toto. So I did:


Silly, huh?



They aren't quite perfect, and I forgot the tail hole, so it was a total afterthought but still worked out ok. I would like to figure out how to post a PDF pattern of the pants pattern and my webkinz t-shirt patterns too. If anyone has any ideas on that, let me know.

Also, I went running. It was 37 degrees and after I warmed up, it felt really good. Running in the cold is much better than running in the heat.

progress

I'm slowly making my way down the list of things I need to sew. I finished this quilt top today:


And I made a couple little pairs of polar fleece socks for my boy and his friend. I had visions of a cute photo of 4 fleecy feet but wasn't able to pull it off, so you'll have to imagine them.

I have a couple patterns traced and cut out, as well. And I have my nephew's baby quilt planned out; need to go to the quilt shop and find fabric to coordinate with the stripe I already have for it.


And finally, who's in Mission? Just wondering. Do I know you?

What I've been working on

I've been piecing quilts for a sort of service project for a family in our homeschool community. I think this one will be getting 2 more borders. Figuring out how to do those angled segments was quite the brain exercise.


And, another scrappy log cabin project. I like squares. This quilt will have some strips of the balloon fabric, same as the blue quilt above, in between the log cabin rows and those scrappy square rows. Here are my dimensions for the 12" scrappy log cabin block: center square is 3.5" cut, 3" finished, and log strips are 2" cut, 1.5" finished. You can read more about scrappy log cabin blocks here. I've done them in 9-inch and 12-inch sizes now.

Something I've been thinking about for a day or 2 now is making a quilt (or 3) to submit to this show. I have one idea that I'm going to start on for sure. I don't feel like I do really "modern" quilting, at least not as I see on all the trendy craft blogs, but I'm going to see what I can come up with.

Also, I have another baby quilt I need to make for a nephew who was born in August. And... I have another pregnant sibling so that'll be one more baby quilt to do by the middle of next year.

Belated Halloween Shot

I got burned out on Halloween this year, which is partly why it took me so long to post about it. It makes me a little worried about Christmas, since the advertising and sales have already started. Christmas music too, although I'm not listening to it yet. We're not going to decorate until after Thanksgiving. I need to figure out the budget and gift lists and decide how much I can actually do handmade and stay sane.

So... here's the official Halloween portrait of my kiddos:


J. wore his costume from last year. I have to admit feeling like a bit of a costume snob. I love that this firefighter costume held up so well over a whole year of dress-up play and still fit him well enough to be worn a second time (Last year I made it too big on purpose.) I'm so glad it's over and that I don't have to think about it for a while.

And here are the pajama pants I finished up for the boys last week:

I now know that 2.5 yards of one kind of fabric is enough to make them each a pair of flannel pants. That might not be the case next year when J will be in a larger size. My secret is that I have a whole bunch more of the dark green flannel (it's printed with submarines and radar graphics) and I'm going to make flannel pants for my husband, too.

Other sewing news:
I've been working on quilts for a service project type thing. I may post a picture of, yep, scrappy log cabin blocks, later on today or tomorrow. Or soon.

The Winner!

The winner is Lesha! Lesha, I've emailed you using your email address on your Blogger profile. Thanks so much to everyone for participating!

Fall, Y'All!

This giveaway is over now, thanks everyone for participating!
Just for fun, I decided to participate in the Fall, Y'All giveaway carnival hosted over at Bloggy Giveaways. I finished up my redwork Christmas ornaments (I'm going to make more, though), and I'm giving away one of them. The lucky winner can choose between the Joy, Tree, or Gift ornaments. (The snowman was embroidered by my son and isn't part of the giveaway. But isn't it cute?)

If you want to make your own, these ornaments are made from patterns in the Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Crafts magazine that is currently on newsstands.



All you have to do is leave a comment here before 9 a.m. on Saturday, November 3, and we'll randomly pick one lucky winner later that day. If your post doesn't link back to your blog, please include your email address in your comment.

#1 on Google

Saw this on Jody's and Dawn's blogs--

search terms where my blog is #1.

So far, I've found one:
t-shirt neckband

Oh! and there's also:
t-shirt neckband tutorial

Not very impressive. But better than none.

Pirate Costume

I finished this up for D with just a couple hours to spare before the church Halloween party on Saturday. The shirt and vest were made using Kwik Sew for Children. I altered the sleeve--adding gathers at the shoulder seam and cuff. I also attached a collar and made a slit down the front with a facing. I might post a more detailed pic of the shirt because I'm kind of proud of it. The vest was done with no hems--just a 3-step zigzag around the edges. Pants were made from the most recent jeans pattern for him, morphed on the cutting table into simple elastic waist pants. (That's how I'm going to make his pj pants too--flannel is $2/yd at JoAnn's this week.)

The hair... is a bunch of yarn braids with beads attached. I sewed them to the bandanna with the sewing machine.

I'm happy with how it turned out, and so is he!