WIP Wednesday

I basted this quilt many weeks ago but it has gotten shoved aside in favor of finishing things for the birthday party (full report to come!). I am hoping to quilt it this week and maybe even get it bound!

Still haven't made any progress on the two big quilts. Need to!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced

KCWC, sort of

So this week is the spring Kid's Clothing Week Challenge (where you spend at least one hour a day sewing clothes for your kiddos). I am not participating this week, because I am prepping for my wee ones first birthday party on Saturday. But I have been sewing some spring clothes, so I'll share those as I can this week.



I recently made this sweet little pillowcase dress for one of my sister's friend's little girls. They are big into giraffes, and I had this adorable giraffe print. I went with a pillowcase dress as it is easy to 'fit' when you can't try it on the kiddo in question and because it should fit for a long time (as a tunic or top when she's older). I used a cute blue ribbon with white polka dots (which is not trimmed in these pictures as I was trying it on Ellie to see how long to make it).



I hope she loves it!

Hey, that's me!

The two quilt tops I took to my new quilt guild were featured on their blog today! Check it out!

I have only been to two meetings, but it is nice to get to hang out with other like-minded folks for a few hours each month! I enjoy getting inspiration from real-life people, as it seems much of my quilting and sewing inspiration and communication comes from my internet friends (and those I blog-stalk! :)

Festival of Half Square Triangles, Part 2

The other half square triangle quilt I've made recently that I really like is another holiday quilt. I purchased quarter yards of all (?) of one of Riley Blake's holiday lines way back in 2008. (I also don't know the name of this line.) I loved how cute the prints were and thought they would make a great Winter quilt for one of my kids. (Well, I only had one kid at the time!) *UPDATE* Thanks to Threadbias, I know these prints are from the Be Merry line! Yay for the internet!

This was the first quilt that I actually calculated how big of a quilt I could make with the amount of fabric I had. I knew I wanted to do zig zags, and I wanted some sort of color pattern. I actually drew out the pattern and did the math for all this on the plane on the way home from visiting my sister and her new baby in the summer of 2010. I cut all the fabric that summer, and marked my sewing lines, and then it sat while I worked on gift quilts that fall and winter, and then massive amounts of baby knits and quilts the following spring. And this summer when I wanted to sew, but didn't want to think too hard, I pulled out the squares and got to sewing. But it wasn't a priority when I had other gifts to work on, so when everything else was done for Christmas, I pulled out those squares and joined them into rows and was able to get it finished in time for Christmas gifting.



The only thing I wish I had done differently was make all those stripes go the same direction! :) But it fits great on Samantha's bed and I really like how it turned out. I quilted on either side of each zig zag line, which was a bit of a pain in the butt, but again, I like the way it looks. I also used light grey thread, which was a bit unusual for me (usually I use white, but every once in a while I'll grab a non-white color for quilting). I did a scrappy binding, as I was trying to avoid another trip to the store the week before Christmas. :)

Festival of Half Square Triangles, Part 1

I have made many quilts from half square triangles over the past few years I have been quilting. When I saw Megan's festival of Half Square Triangles, I knew this was up my alley! However, since I have been working like a madwoman to get ready for the babies' birthday party and to finish their birthday quilts (neither of which have half square triangles), I jumped in the not-so-wayback-machine to bring you two of my most recent favorites. (one today, one tomorrow)

A while back I made a Mary Englebreit quilt for my mom, who loves all things ME (I'll have to share that quilt sometime soon). While I was working on it I had a few squares leftover here and there. I pulled some of those aside, picking out green and red ones. I had also added in some squares from two of her Christmas lines, and I left out the ones that were uber holiday-ish. I had seen Rita make a quilt where she used prints for one side of the square, and a solid linen for the other. I love the way this looked! I used a solid off-white Kona (sorry, I don't know the color name) for mine.



It is a good lap size, and holiday-ish without screaming CHRISTMAS!!! I really enjoy the print/solid combination and look forward to more iterations of that!



I quilted straight lines on either side of the diagonal lines. I really like quilting like this - I feel like it gives more attention to the fabrics than the quilting.

I hope it is a welcome addition to my mom's holiday decorations! :)

WIP Wednesday

I'm linking up to Lee's WIP Wednesday for the first time today. I've got several quilts in progress, which is unlike me!

My big quilt for our bed is waiting for me to decide if it needs a border. What do you all think?

And this big one is Sarah Feike's Made in Cherry quilt. It was just finished today-now to decide on a backing!

I whipped up this quick little hourglass quilt for something springy. I just love the colors in this one! Now to decide on a backing for it too!

I have all the blocks made for Ellie's quilt, they just need to be ironed and trimmed. And I've started joining the tiny squares for Ben's quilt as well. More on them later!

I Spy Quilts

One of my mom's good friends is a long-time quilter. Mom talked to her about me starting quilting and I told her that I was looking for some scraps to make i-spy quilts. She was super generous and gave me a big bag of pre-cut squares! I decided to make mine simple patchwork (these were some of the first quilts I made, so I didn't want them to be too complicated!). I wanted to make two that first Christmas, so I chose 64 squares for the first quilt and 70 for the second. I tried to not repeat themes/animals/etc.



I added a red border, backed them with red cotton and bound them. I quilted in the ditch on these to not interfere with the pictures.



This past Christmas I made another for my nephew. This one measures 10x8 squares and doesn't have a border. My stash of gifted fabrics was low (after two other quilts!), so I used a bunch of my scraps.



For this quilt I used fold-over binding. I quilted 1/4" on each side of each seam and when I trimmed the quilt I left about 1.5" of backing around each side. I folded the edge in and ironed a crease. Then I sewed the binding down very close to the edge on the front of the quilt. It worked pretty well!

I really enjoy making these, but I'm going to need to build back up my stash of cute fabrics - it is seriously low!

Baby Pants

When I was on my 'make the kid's clothes' kick back in the fall, I knew I wanted to make some clothes for Ben. Being our first boy he didn't have any hand-me-downs (though we did get some lovely things from my sister and neighbor, who both have boys). My sister-in-law had made the kiddos some pants when they were tiny, and I loved them. Some research turned up that they were the Quick-Change Trousers from Handmade Beginnings.



I went through some of my existing stash and paired up cute fabrics. I did purchase a few prints, but used mostly stash.



I LOVE them. They are great for winter (two layers of fabric make them nice and warm), and the cute little panel on the top of the back mean that there is no confusion about which is the back and front.




He even got a special Halloween pair!



These might be my favorite pair. Robot Dinos!




And this pair uses some of my oldest stash (the elephants) and a cute stripe!




I loved making these - they were super simple and so cute! I'm hoping that they will be long enough for him to wear next fall/winter to wear uncuffed. I highly recommend this pattern!

Flat dolls

I like to peek in at the Moda Bake Shop every once in a while. They sometimes have cute, simple projects that appeal to me. I saw these and loved them. I LOVED paper dolls when I was little, but didn't think Samantha was old enough to handle them without tearing the clothes. These were the perfect solution!



I had a REALLY good time going through my scrap bin and finding pieces that were big enough to make clothes out of. I eventually had to stop myself, or the dolls would have a bigger wardrobe than I did!

The most 'difficult' part was having enough velcro! I had to make two trips to JoAnns because I kept underestimating how much velcro I would use! (And I really need to find a project that uses the soft side of the velcro, because I now have a TON of it!).

 

None of the shoes made it into these pictures, but they do have shoes! My wonderful crafty friends helped me cut out all the clothes, since cutting large layers really hurt my hand. I have extra batting and plan to make some more dolls as soon as I get more fabric.

I used some scraps of home-dec weight material and some webbing to make a simple bag to put everything in. The one regret I have is that I didn't put any pockets inside - that would have been great for the tiny shoes!



I really enjoyed making these! Great, clear pattern and adorable result!

Color books

Our local Borders went out of business a few months ago, and I stopped by during their going-out-of-business sale, and perused the magazine section. I picked up a copy of 101 Patchwork Gifts, and enjoyed looking through it when I didn't have brain cells for several weeks (twin infants=brain dead).
These cute color books popped out at me. I knew they would be a lot of work (16 squares for each color, 8 colors=128 squares per book), but cute!



I pulled out all my scraps that I could get at least a 2.5" square out of, and sorted them by color. Then I grabbed full pieces of fabric that I needed to fill in colors that were low on numbers. I tried to batch cut them as much as possible, since I was planning to make four books (512 squares!).



I think cutting the squares took longer than sewing them together!



I sewed the pages together in sets of two, put batting in the middle, sewed them rights sides together, turned them right side out and topstitched around each edge.



I used small pieces of fabric (mostly remnants - again with the remnant problem!) for the covers.



Four books later and I had gifts for the small kiddos in our lives for Christmas! They are kind of I-spy books too, which I really like.

For my table 3

I found some adorable fruit/food fabric about a year and a half ago at JoAnn's. I loved it, but didn't know what to do. At the time hubby and I were working on ways to make our home 'greener.' Cloth napkins!



I bought one yard of each of three prints. I wasn't sure how big I wanted them to be, but I wanted at least four napkins from each print, and I wanted them to be thick and double sided. Instead of doing math, I just folded my fabric into 8ths, then cut on each fold line.



I sewed the fabric right sides together, leaving an opening, turned them right side out, and topstitched around each edge. That's it! We use them every meal. I love them, and I love not having to buy paper napkins!



This Christmas I couldn't resist this cute holly fabric, and decided we needed some holiday napkins. We have 8 of these since we usually have guests around the holidays.

For my table 2

I bought some of Denyse Schmidt's Picnics and Fairgrounds line before the babies were born. I had no plans for it, but I NEEDED it. Then, I bought some more. Ahem. (In my defense, some of the second purchase were remnants. And I do have a remnant problem). I thought the cute blues and greens would be nice for something in the kitchen.

I wanted to make a table runner, but I couldn't find good instructions for a simple one online. (I didn't want to fuss with applique or complex shapes - I just wanted patchwork!) So I measured the table, took into account how big the placemats were (but the patchwork ones actually were made after this!), and started cutting.

I cut 4.5" squares (again to take advantage of my 1/4 yard cuts) and cut 42 of them (14 in each row, 3 rows). I ended up with a runner 56.5x12.5" I randomly chain pieced into twos, set three aside. Joined the others into fours, set three aside. Joined the fours into eights, joined the twos to the fours (to make sixes) and joined a six to each eight (I hope that makes sense!). Then I ironed my seams and joined my three rows.

I quilted 1/4" away from each side of each seam, backed with another remnant of fabric and machine bound with some green cotton I had in my scrap bin.

For my table

A few months ago (um, I guess really almost a year ago!) I saw these cute food print fabrics at JoAnn's. I loved them, but what do you do with them? Placemats!!
I chose six prints - bananas, green and red apples, oranges, cherries, and strawberries. I bought a quarter yard of each, and took them home to do some math. Since I had quarter yards, I cut my squares at 4.5" (to get two out of the height of each cut). I measured a current placemat and decided on 13x22 (three squares high by five across).  I wanted to make six placemats (since there are six of us now!)

I cut all my squares (90 total - 15 of each color) and then started chain piecing - I set aside 18 squares (since five is an odd number, I didn't want to piece squares that I would have to unpick). I paired my sets of two up and chained pieced those. Then I added an extra square to each set of four. Ironed my seams and sewed the strips together.

I bought 1.5 yards of red Kona for the backing, and used scraps of batting. I quilted 1/4" on each side of each seam. I used a remnant of orange material for the binding, and tried machine binding (sew down to the front and fold back - sew down again). It didn't go so well, but who is going to see the back of my placemats? (If you come over, don't look!)

We really like them - they are very bright and cheerful!

Easy notecards

My niece is about to have her first birthday. Her parents don't want tons of toys (which I totally understand!), but I had to give her a gift. I wanted it to be useful and simple.

I picked up these initial stamps at Michael's right after Christmas (I have other plans for them), and realized they would work perfectly for this project too.

I have a ton of notecards that I was planning to use as Christmas cards, but they were too small to fit a picture in, so they have been repurposed.

Bam! Instant gift! She can use them as thank you notes or anything else she would like. Simple, practical, what more could you want?

Pinterest Challenge

Several months ago, via Apartment Therapy, I found the Young House Love blog. I throughly enjoy reading their blog, and living vicariously through their home improvement projects (since we have no budget for projects!). A few months ago they did a "Pinterest Challenge." Choose a project you have pinned, do it/make it, post about it. I have become better about doing the things I have pinned, so I decided to do one in a timely manner for their winter challenge.

This was my inspiration for this particular project. We have turned a corner of the playroom into a reading corner with some baskets of books and pillows and a little chair. But it needs some decorations. I liked the letters in this picture, so I perused the wooden letter aisle at JoAnn's the last time they were on sale. I ended up with the same letters used in the inspiration room (completely unintentionally!). But I didn't want plain letters. I have a good amount of craft paint in my stash, so I sat down and picked out four colors.

I had the foam brushes in my craft stash as well (I don't know if these are the 'correct' brushes to use, but they worked fine.)

I assigned each letter a color, laid the letters out on newspaper, and got painting.

I did around the sides/insides first so they would be easier to hold. 

I did two coats of paint on each letter and let them dry. 

They aren't hung yet, because hubby hasn't been home when the babies have been awake since I finished (the wall of their room backs up to the playroom, and I didn't want them to wake up to the hammering). I'm planning to try to hang them on nails, so that we don't have to attach hangers or drill holes. We'll see how it goes! I'll have pictures when we get them hung!

Monthly onesies

While I was pregnant with the twins I saw some sellers on etsy selling cute monthly stickers for onesies. I liked the idea but didn't want to use stickers  - I wanted something that would last longer and could hold up in the wash (I really wanted something they could maybe keep for their kiddos). But it also needed to be easy enough for me to make two of every month. Enter freezer paper.

Freezer paper is awesome. I use it to trace patterns (so that I don't cut up originals), and they store easily. Freezer paper also makes great stencils - you can trace any design onto it (I've heard you can put it through a printer, but mine doesn't like it), and cut it out and iron it onto fabric - the shiny side will stick to the fabric. Then add some fabric paint and voila!

Since hubby teaches math we decided not to use numerals for each month.





For their three month shirts we used iron on transfers, since it would have been a lot to do with a stencil. They don't look as nice quality-wise, but they are cute nonetheless.



This has been a really fun project, and I am looking forward to more freezer paper projects!

Button Bracelet

Several months ago I saw this cute idea on pinterest. It was one of those "ooh! cute!" moments, and I'm sure I was up in the middle of the night with a baby, so I pinned it (because otherwise we all know I would forget it). Fast forward to recently, when I was perusing my boards (deleting pins, checking for original links, etc) and saw this again. I recently inherited a large button collection from my husband's grandfather's wife, and was given a gallon ziploc full by my MIL's boyfriend. (I have a lot of old buttons now. It's awesome!)

I picked out some that sort-of matched and were in colors I thought my sister-in-law would like (this is the other half of her recent birthday gift). I dug out some 1/4" elastic, measured around my wrist and got to work.

I alternated big and little, stacked some and kept the colors from 'touching.' I used white thread since all of my buttons were different colors. I tried laying out my design first, but didn't really prefer that method, as it was hard to tell how much to overlap the buttons when the elastic was flat. I did end up using a few more buttons than I had originally pulled (something to keep in mind if you want to make one). 

modeled by the three-year-old

I think it turned out pretty cute! Certainly not something everyone will have! Now if only I had a reason to wear jewelry, I would be cranking these out for myself!