some stuff you should know about

Have you heard about Craft Hope yet? Right now they are collecting handmade sock monkeys for Little Heroes Preschool Burn Camp. The deadline is Sept. 18. I forgot to get a pair of long socks during my epic Target shopping trip last week, but I have a return to make (the ankle cuff socks will NOT DO for D, he wants the totally short socks!) and will get monkey making socks then.

And, another cool thing: Iraqi Bundles of Love--send your extra fabric, yarn, any craft stuff to folks in Iraq who can use them. Mailing due date for this one is September 7--hey wait, that is Labor Day (and my birthday :D) so maybe you should get it sent out by 9/5.

I have several big projects in line to finish up in the next few months. (I am busy with my baby. And the boys. And trying to improve my life in other ways and be balanced). But after I get about 7 or 8 of them finished, I am going to start one of these. Here's a partial list of my started quilt projects:
My watercolor quilt, aka insane quilt project. Going on 7.5 years since I began it.

Figgy Pudding Christmas Quilt

9-patch quilt--I am thinking about making it queen size. Sigh.

Geese Quilt


And also the quilts that are on deck for finishing this week (baby quilt, Grandpa's quilt).
There are more. I also have quilts in my mind that I need to make--one for my newest baby nephew, and a monkey one for my monkey 5-year-old. I really want to start a Dear Jane quilt, but must shrink my UFO pile first.

ready for binding

I just finished up the quilting on L's baby quilt.


I will probably put it away for a bit so I can work on quilting and binding a quilt for my Grandpa's 85th birthday. My mom made the top and sent it out for me to quilt; it's going to be signed by guests at his party in a couple weeks.

I have been busy the last little while with buying school supplies and getting my boys into school. It is adding some much needed structure to our family and hopefully everyone will be fully adjusted to the new schedule soon.

A couple weeks ago I went with the family to First Friday where we saw Jacquie's quilt show and Lacey's exhibit, too. It was such a fun night out, and I really enjoyed it. All of the quilts and paintings were wonderful.

I put together a dresser for my baby girl (finally) and decided to store some of my fabric in the bins where her clothes used to be. I had fun folding up and color sorting all my smaller pieces of quilt fabric:


They used to be all crammed in one big blue bin and I think this is a big improvement!

The Winner

Front:

Back:


The winner is #6, Sedna-is-my-own-last-name. Sedna, I don't see an email address on your blogger profile or blog, so send me an email with your mailing address and I'll get the mini quilt mailed out to you next week. (I need to figure out how people put the random.org picture on their blog.)

I am on day 2 of a yucky sinus headache and probably won't sew today. I'm going to watch Coraline with my 5-year-old in the cool basement. Hope you're having a good weekend!

giveaway update

Things got busy today. I finished up the mini mermaid quilt though and will do the drawing later tonight or maybe tomorrow. If you haven't entered yet, there's still time!

200th Post Giveaway!

Well, here I am, at 200 posts. I started this blog a little over three years ago and I'm really enjoying having it as a place to show off my work and share a few tutorials for things I know how to do. I appreciate everyone who subscribes and reads and (especially) comments. Thank you all so much! I have been thinking about what to do for a giveaway and, well, will get to that in a minute. I have a few things I want to show off first:

A neighbor friend had a birthday so I made her this skirt:

And a little wristlet. It's my first try; I need to make some more and perfect my technique:

I got some fabric the other day. I love this pink Sultry floral print and will make something for my little girl to wear from it. Not sure what I will do with the charm pack yet but I love charm packs.

This little set is a belated baby gift for a friend. I don't know if she reads my blog, if so I hope she pretends to be surprised when I give it to her! I love how this turned out:

The tag blanket has some ribbon, some wide twill tape, and some bias tape for the tags. I love the colors on this and think it turned out so cute. I made a couple of similar tag blankets a while ago for my girl and my friend Heather's baby and just used one layer of quilt cotton and one layer of baby corduroy. L's seems a little flimsy so for this one I decided to sandwich a layer of flannel in the middle of the two fabric layers to give it some body.

Ok. Finally, on to the giveaway. I started piecing this together as a bit of an "enders and leaders" project while I was making L's strip quilt. I decided to make it into a mini quilt and give it away to one of my readers. Here it is all basted:

It is already halfway quilted. I am doing some ocean wave quilted lines and some just plain wavy lines. I will probably do the quilting on L's quilt very much the same. As soon as I finish it up I will mail it off to the lucky winner. All you have to do to enter is comment here. Please tell me your name, where you live, and what you are making, what you are reading, or just plain old what you are doing these days. I will close the comments and have my assistants help me draw out a name on Friday around lunch time. (I am leaving the computer off until after lunch these days.)

I hope you are having a good Wednesday!

Open Source Quilting

All right, I want to try something with the Simple Squares quilt pattern and I need your help. I'm calling it Open Source Quilting, and what I mean by that is that you can use the Simple Squares quilt block patterns, and the quilt layout patterns that will be here eventually, to make things for sale, or to give away, or for whatever you want.

The part about needing your help? I'd like to invite anyone who's interested to design quilt blocks or quilt layouts using the block patterns here, and create tutorials (or diagrams or instructions in whatever way works for you) to share. For example, you might decide to make the existing block patterns in a different size--great! Figure out the measurements, make a tutorial, and send me the link. Or you might have an idea for a new Simple Squares quilt block to add to the collection. Please share!

Another thing I am planning to add, and hoping that others will also want to contribute, are quilt layouts (patterns) with fabric requirements included. I am planning on adding sashing instructions so the pattern for the original blue and green baby quilt using Simple Squares blocks will be complete. I've also figured out a layout for my Christmas Simple Squares quilt and will eventually post fabric requirements and instructions for that project too. And, yesterday I drew out a twin-size quilt for my 5-year-old using these blocks (I'm going to use Goodnight Monkey fabric) and will share that project with you too.

So... what do you think? Any questions? Eventually I'd like to have a long list of Simple Squares blocks and projects in the sidebar. I'm going to make a few more blocks for my Christmas quilt now, talk to you later!

Simple Squares Quiltalong Block C

Hi everyone! First off I've decided on a name for this pattern and it is "Simple Squares." I appreciate all the suggestions and will probably ask for quilt or quilt pattern naming help again. So please don't be upset that I didn't use any of the suggested names.

Second, it has come to my attention that I have 197 posts (before this one) on this blog and I think that 200 is a good spot to do a giveaway, so watch this space!

Third, block C. Here's a little preview along with the other four of my finished blocks for this quilt so far:

Down here on the bottom left. I hope you like it. I'm not sure if I do yet. But I'm going to go with it, anyway.

Here goes, Step 1: Cut pieces for the block sub-unit. Center square is 2.5" on all sides. The first two strips are 2"x2.5". The longer strips are 2"x5.5".


Step 2: Sew the shorter strips to the center square, using a 1/4" seam allowance. Press seams.


Step 3: Sew the longer strips to the other sides of the center square with a 1/4" seam allowance. Press seams. You've now completed one block C subunit.


Step 4: Make 3 more subunits. I used that directional Christmas tree fabric again so I had to pay attention to how I cut my strips.


Step 5: Sew the subunits together. First sew them into 2 pairs and press the seams opposite ways:

Then sew the two rows together into a square and press that seam:

And, as my 5-year old would say, "Voila!" Block C is finished. I'd love to see pictures if you make one!

mini-quilt monday #2, "summer breeze"

I have no idea how often I'll do mini-quilt Monday, but here is my second one:

Photo taken at night, the color is sadly off a bit in this picture.
Circles were appliqued and quilted in one step, by hand, with embroidery floss. All the quilting was done by hand.

Pieced back.

I haven't named a lot of my quilts but I decided this one was to be called "Summer Breeze" because it's made mostly of vintage bed linens. And maybe several of them spent some time on the clothesline a long time ago.

This was given to TDK Katie for the sewingmamas.com summer 2009 doll quilt swap. I haven't swapped there for ages but this was a good one and I'm glad I joined in.

a few things I made

These are from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. Made from a cute sheet I got at goodwill a while back. The pants are so, so comfy. The bloomers need leg elastic, I found a good deal on a 144 yard roll (that ought to be enough), so as soon as that comes, they'll finish up quick.

A few 9-patches. I'm not exactly following AmandaJean's quiltalong, but eventually will make something inspired by this. I made 6 more of these after taking this picture.

This is baby L and the quilt I received from Katie for the sewingmamas.com doll quilt swap. I really like all that pink and green. And the strips and straight line quilting. And that dotty binding.
:) I have a busy week ahead but hope to post about a few other things I've finished in the next couple days. I have another quilt block tutorial photographed, too.

quiltalong Block B instructions

All right, here we go with block B. This block is comprised of 3 concentric squares. I used three fabrics in this sample block, and I'm calling them "inner, middle, and outer" here. You could make this block with two fabrics if you want--one for both inner and outer squares and a contrasting fabric for the middle square. Maybe I'll try that on another block soon.

Let's get started!
Step 1: Cut a 2.5" square from your inner fabric. Cut two 2.5" squares from your middle fabric.

Step 2: Sew the middle squares to two sides of the inner square. Press.

Step 3: Cut two 2.5"x6.5" strips from your middle fabric.

Step 4: Sew these strips to the top and bottom of the block. Press.

Step 5: From the outer fabric, cut two strips 2.5"x6.5". I used fabric with a directional print again so I had to pay attention to which way I cut my strips here.

Step 6: Sew the 6.5" strips to the sides of the block. Press.

Step 7: From the outer fabric, cut two strips 2.5"x10.5". I cut these strips so the directional print is going the same way as the side strips.

Step 8: Sew the 10.5" strips to the top and bottom of the block. Press.
You're done!


p.s. If you're wondering, I still don't have the right name for this quilt pattern. I'm thinking about it and it will come to me eventually!

new fabric

We went on a little day trip to Lawrence today and I got to go to Sarah's Fabrics. I had fun looking and admiring all the beautiful fabrics. Here's what I got:

I have admired the Neptune fabrics for a long time so I was glad to get them, and the bugs are by the same designer, Tula Pink. I am working on a bit of pink and aqua and red stash I guess.

This past week the boys had swimming lessons and somehow that seemed to take a big chunk of my time. I worked on a swap quilt for the SewingMamas.com doll quilt swap... It is all hand quilted and I really like it. It is -this- close to done and I'll post a picture of it after the recipient gets it.

I went through my sewing stuff (in one location, there is more in my bedroom closet) and folded and packed it away more neatly. I made a list of started projects and projects I hope to start soon. I need to start making a dent on that UFO list.

Oh I also took my Viking in to the shop yesterday. It is my only machine with a walking foot so when I get it back I will be able to finish something I started quite a while ago.

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.