leo baby quilt finished

I finally finished this quilt! I wasn't able to make it to the store to get more thread. I was cleaning up all my notions and so forth when I found some thread that was the exact same color. Score!

So I was able to finish quilting and add the binding. I went with machine binding for two reasons:
1. It is faster
2. It holds up better in the wash on a baby quilt.  I figure if it is a baby quilt it will be washed many times so I want the stitching to be as strong as possible.

I hope the recipient likes it!

making progress

One of my goals/resolutions for 2013 was to spend at least 2 hours every week sewing, cutting, pressing, etc. I didn't make my goal for January because I was gone for a week in San Francisco, followed by a week of being super sick and sleeping all the time!  So I'm trying to make it up.  What has amazed me is that once I get going, I actually get a lot done. I realize this is pretty obvious, but it just bolsters the point: schedule time, make time for being creative. When you do, even if you don't feel "inspired" you will eventually get in the groove and the juices will flow.  Pushing myself to put in the time this week (and step away from the computer!) has really made me feel proud of what I can do if I put my mind to it.

With all that being said, this is what I was working on this week.

My "Plain Spoken" quilt from the Modern Quilt Workshop by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle.

I'm actually pretty excited about the progress I'm making and hoping to make significant progress on various projects in the next few weeks. Ash Wednesday is next week and I am giving up Facebook for Lent. So I imagine that I will end up with a lot more sewing time and a lot less wasted time.

so close!

I was working on quilting this baby quilt (the pattern is called Leo Baby Quilt).  As you can see I was almost done when I ran out of thread! I haven't had a chance to make it to the store either. :(
I'll definitely post it when I finish!

more handwork!

One of my goals last year was to make at least one project involving handwork.  After my fun with sashiko, I saw some adorable embroidery patterns to try.  I got the Penguin and Fish pattern for  "L" because my daughter's name starts with L, and the little lion was super cute.  I've never really done embroidery before.  It amazed me how fun it was, as well as how little time it took!  I took this to a barbecue and finished it while chatting with folks and drinking beer.  This will also go on my daughter's wall (her room is generally jungle-themed already, with pale yellow walls).

I think I may have more embroidery in my future....

Garden Gate Quilt finished

This is one of those quilts that has been lying around for a long time, waiting to be finished. I had no urgency to complete it, as I started it after my daughter was born and I was hoping to hang it on the wall in her room.

I wanted to do something different for the quilting, so I took a cue from the gate and looped up into the top of each "gate", then back down, in a sort of figure eight.  Then I kept going to the next piece. To stabilize the quilt, I quilted in one direction, flipped it, then repeated in the other direction.  I think it worked well because the quilt lays pretty flat now. I later learned this pattern has a name! It is called "wishbone".

All that is left is to add a hanging sleeve and hang it up!  Although, when I left it out, my daughter pulled it off the chair and started laying on it.  It was super cute and made me think that maybe she might enjoy it as a blankie instead.  She has been enjoying laying on it for the last few months and I still haven't had the heart to put a hanging sleeve on it. It may happen some day, or maybe not!

Little Girl Aprons

As I mentioned before, Pinterest has encouraged me to try some new sewing. I thought it would be fun to make this apron and chef's hat for my daughter for Christmas. She loves to "help" in the kitchen when we are cooking so I thought it would be something special for our cooking time. I decided to make one for my niece as well. Of course, I forgot to take pictures before I gave them away and they got dirty, but here is my niece wearing hers.

Here is my daughter wearing hers, standing on the kitchen tower, ready to help Dad.

It is really quite adorable and has a little ruffle along the bottom. When we take out the apron she gets excited and points to Dad's apron so he can wear his as well (his doesn't have a ruffle).

Christmas tree ornaments

I admit I am pretty addicted to Pinterest, but I feel like it has been really good for me, actually. Instead of having bookmarks all over the place and trying to remember what they are, my Pinterest board helps me keep the link and a photo to jog my memory. I've even got an entire board of recipes that I've tried from Pinterest. Basically I try to put things into action rather than just pinning like crazy.

One of the ideas I found on Pinterest was this lovely tutorial for fabric ornaments from V and Co. It was lots of fun and is a great way to use up those fabulous fat quarters you have been hoarding but weren't sure what to do with.

I decided to do all of mine with Japanese fabrics that had some sort of metallic thread in them. This makes them a little more "fancy" and the metallic shines nicely next to the Christmas tree lights. I really love how they all turned out!

My Christmas Tree is no longer naked

For a long time I have been meaning to make a Christmas tree skirt. Of course, I see them at the store and think maybe I should just break down and buy one.  Well, it was one of my goals for 2012, so I made it happen.  I decided to use a bunch of scrap strips to do it, rather than cutting into yardage.  This hit two goals with one project!

I have to admit, I don't *love* it, but at least I have something, and when it is under the tree, with presents, you hardly notice if it isn't the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen.

I'm just glad to be able to check it off the list!

Goals 2013

As seen in my goals review for 2012, I did alright but there are still things I'd like to accomplish.  I have to say, the process of setting goals at the beginning of the year is a very helpful one for me. It helps me to focus when I know I want to sew or make something, but don't know what. Once I get into the actual doing of it, I find it hard to stop. With that, I have some different goals this year:

1. Spend at least two hours average per week doing something sewing related. Looking at Pinterest and blogs does not count! By this I mean things like: designing quilts, cutting fabric, washing fabrics, ironing fabric, sewing, basting, quilting, etc. Honestly I think this is the key for me to growing as a sewist and reaching my goals. I don't spend enough time doing sewing related things, so it's no surprise that sewing doesn't happen. This can definitely be hard because of my work travel schedule, but I figure there will be weeks where I spend much more than two hours on sewing and quilting, so it will all average out.

2. Make a piece of clothing for myself (finally). I should probably pick out the exact piece of clothing to increase the likelihood that I will actually complete it. I'm thinking some sort of skirt. If you have a favorite skirt pattern, please comment below with a link!

3. Make at least one pillow with each of the below enclosures:

• envelope
• hidden zipper

Can you believe I've never actually made a pillow cover? I have various orphan blocks that would make great pillows but for some reason I've never actually made it to turning them into a pillow.

4. Make a bed quilt. My husband and I have a lovely down comforter, but it would be nice to have our own bed quilt instead. Maybe in time for our 5th anniversary (in August)? In addition, we're moving to Austin, TX in July, so we may not really need a big down comforter anymore.

5. Put together my bee quilt. I have some lovely blocks made by fellow bee members in the Hip 2 Bee Square bee, but I have yet to put them together. I think it would look great, I just have been tripped up by the lack of a design wall in my house, which would make the layout process much easier.

6. Give away at least one charity quilt. I have some quilts in mind already, and as I mentioned, I'll be moving in July, so it might be a good time to clear out the closets a bit.

7. Actually post about my sewing and quilting in a reasonable time frame!

Just to fill you in a bit--as I mentioned, I'll be moving to Austin in July. My husband will be a professor at UT Austin, and we're thrilled for him to take this next step in his career. I'm sad to have to leave my lovely friends at the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild, but I know that Austin has a great arts scene and has its own modern quilt guild there. It should be an exciting adventure.

Goals review 2012

As the new year begins, I always like to take a look at my goals for the past year and see how I did.

1. Make a piece of clothing for myself, and one for my daughter
I sort of met this one. I made a dress for my daughter but didn't make anything for myself. I also made her an apron and chef's hat (still need to blog about it).

2.  Make at least one project involving handwork.  
I met this goal, twice! I did a sashiko piece and an embroidery piece as well. Both were super fun and made me wonder why I have avoided handwork in the past! I still need to blog about the embroidery piece, I know.

3. Use more of my scraps.
I sort of did this. I made a scrappy tree skirt, so that counts. But I'd like to do more to work through the pile.

4. Make 7 8 quilts.
I definitely didn't do this. I finished 5, three of which I haven't yet shown. Anyone notice a theme developing here?

5. Finally make a tree skirt.
I did it! Once I got going on it I also wondered why it took me so long to do. It was actually really easy.  I'll be blogging about that one as well.

As you can see, one of my big "misses" in terms of goals for the year was that while I was making good progress, I wasn't blogging about it.  That will probably be seen in my "goals for 2013" post.

What about you? How did you do on your goals for the year?

reversible baby pants

I saw the challenge on Craft Buds to make something from a craft book and it inspired me to finally make the adorable quick change trousers from Anna Maria Horner's book "Handmade Beginnings".

I've made two other projects from her book (the dad bag and a diaper bag for me).  I though some cute pants would be a great baby gift.  I seem to always default to making people baby quilts for their new arrivals and I thought I would try something different (as well as less time consuming!).

My friend knows that she is having a girl, so I thought I'd make some nice pants that would be girly without being pink (I hate pink actually).

I think they turned out pretty cute!  The instructions were very clear and easy to follow. The trickiest part was sewing the elastic in at the end. Other than that I would say it is a great pattern for a confident beginner to tackle.

Back of both inside and outside has a little yellow patch

Front doesn't have the butt patch, but you can see how the inside cuffs add a nice touch.

Of course these will be much more adorable with a baby in them. I can't wait to meet her!

CMQG Modern Art Challenge

 Back in June, the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild organized a "Modern Art Challenge". The idea was that you would get a piece of art and an inspiration fabric, and put it in a bag. Then at the June meeting, you would pick someone else's bag and make them a quilt based on that inspiration.  The idea was to use it for inspiration--there was no need to make an exact replica of the work of art.  I got the card and fabric below from Jennifer Lowe:

It's a work by Charley Harper of a cardinal.  Jennifer said that she liked bright colors and also liked the highly stylized version of nature that Harper presented.  I made quite a lot of sketches in my notebook until I finally decided to go in a different direction.  Rather than worrying about the bird, or the colors, I thought about the concept of abstracting something in nature and building off of that.

I had also recently gotten Jacquie's new book, in which she covers a technique for making "pods" using curves.  I thought those pods would make great abstracted fish.  I also really liked the linearity of the Harper piece, so I used that idea to add the columns of bubble fabric (below).  Before quilting, this was all pretty simple. I figured it needed to be spiced up a bit.

I used Leah Day's tutorials for "cave points" and "sea algae" to add more texture to the quilt. And finally, I added some bubbles/pebbles on the side to further echo the bubbles.

It ended up being very simple in design, but I think that was a good reminder to me that you can have impact without a lot of pieces or complicated colorwork. It was also a good chance for me to work with "negative space", especially with the quilting.

happy mail!

I haven't bought fabric in quite a while, so for my birthday a few weeks ago I "gave" myself some fabric shopping!  I just love that map of Paris fabric.  Of course, I've never been there but I love any kind of map fabric, so that hopped into my cart along with the other fun fabrics.

Drunkard's Path Finished

I finished this particular quilt a while ago but didn't want to post about it until I had given the quilt to its new owner.  It was a wedding present for a dear friend.  She reports that she and her husband love it and it is the perfect snuggle size!

Overall:

 The detail shot:

 The backing and the lone extra block.  I found a few later but at the time this was the only one I had!

It measures 72.5x62.  I quilted it on my home machine. It was tough because of its size, but as I showed in a previous post, it was easier once I got my sewing cabinet. I think the next big one is going to be sent to the long arm quilter instead.

Sewing cabinet!

I always lament that it is difficult to sew because my sewing room requires that I go through my daughter's room.  Of course the only time I have to sew is while she is sleeping.  I also found that the desk I had for sewing was not very comfortable for sitting at longer than an hour.  So I came up with a solution: purchase a sewing cabinet that we keep in the dining room.

I got it a few weeks ago and I finished quilting a huge quilt with it.  It worked out great! I could spread the quilt out on the leaf to the right, and the back is my couch, so it held up the quilt as well.  I am super excited to get more sewing done now that I have a space that works and doesn't hurt my body.  It's got the cool lift that allows you to lower your machine, fold up all the doors, and put everything away.  It's great and I highly recommend it (Arrow) if you are looking for one.

I'm looking forward to getting a lot more sewing done!

Baby clothes

So my daughter is hardly a baby anymore, which means that I have even more desire to make her adorable clothes. When she was really little clothes would last about 2 weeks before she grew out of them.  Now they last a little bit longer.  I made this pinafore dress and it was surprisingly easy.

Here she is wearing the dress with Daddy's shirt. 

And this was the best I could do to get a better shot of her in it.  She really moves A LOT and every time I take out the camera and put it in her face she wants to eat it, or at least touch it.

I get too intimidated sometimes about making clothes when it really isn't that hard (at least for simple patterns like this). The pattern is Favorite Things Blossoms and Bloomers.  It comes with a pattern for a cute hat and a diaper cover as well.

She gets a lot of use out of it and it is nice to put it on with nothing but a diaper.  Of course if I know she is going to be sliding on the slides at the playground we throw on some shorts underneath it.  As she gets bigger it will be more of a top, which extends its life even more. I highly recommend if you want to make a quick gift for a friend.

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2012

Welcome!  Thanks for stopping by.

 This is a quilt I finished last year but kept forgetting to post about.  Well, I didn't forget, I just was busy as my sweet baby girl took all my time.  Anyway, I made this quilt for another friend who had a baby.  This little baby girl happened after a miscarriage, molar pregnancy, and lots of chemo treatments, so I figured she deserved something special. Her parents waited for her for so long!

 The pattern is "Big Dots" from Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle's Quilts Made Modern.  It introduced me to a new technique for applique, which involves freezer paper.  I had never tried it before so it was nice to try something new. I think that the edges look really nice.

I quilted it myself on my home machine.

I was definitely hesitant at first about the turquoise for the background, thinking it might be too bright.  I ended up really liking it.  This is a great project for fat quarters that you've been hoarding for a long time--the dots really allow you to show off those prints.
Enjoy the rest of the festival!

CMQG retreat

Last weekend I went with the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild to our retreat in Wisconsin.  I had such a lovely time.  There was lots of sewing, laughing, and just plain relaxing (for me at least!).  The setting was gorgeous, as we were right on Lake Michigan with beautiful views. I went down to the beach one day just to breathe in the fresh air.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera, but a few of the other ladies did not, so you can read their posts here:

Emily
Official CMQG Blog Part I
Official CMQG Blog Part II
Donna
Erika

I'll be writing up some posts to showcase what I worked on.  I'm glad I brought a variety of projects though.  I was working on quilting a very large quilt and it got to be SO exhausting I needed a break.  I needed to finish something quickly, and feel a sense of accomplishment.  Some people think I accomplished a lot on the retreat. I'll let you decide:

pinafore for my daughter
zippered wetbag for a friend
quilted half of a full size quilt
pieced a quilt top (the party of four color variation here)

Pictures to come soon!

forest quilt finished!

I finished this quilt top at the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat in October 2010. It was inspired by a photograph of a carpet, but I found it ended up reminding me a lot of a walk in the woods. It is completely done improvisationally--I just started putting strips of different sizes on the design wall and came up with it.

Ebony got her long arm machine around the time I finished this quilt and had her "free quilting" offer, so I prepared it and handed it off to her.  She finished it much quicker than I expected, and so I've been leaving it around to finish binding for awhile now.  I finished this in March 2011 (before baby L).  It took me a while to blog about it!  The quilting Ebony did is fantastic.  It's hard to believe that she was "practicing" because it looks very professional. 

I didn't really have a plan for the quilt when I made it, but it turns out the my DH really loves the colors and the quilt in general, so it has made a good lap/napping quilt for him (we take a lot more naps now that we have a baby around!!!).  I see so many quilts and fabric collections on the internet, and I have to say I am always a little disappointed that there aren't more options that appeal to men/boys.  I know that you can take any quilt  pattern and change the color scheme, but finding inspiration for "manly" quilts is sometimes hard.  The same could be said for fabric collections--so many collections out there are very "girly" and although I love them, I think there is a lot of room for that area of the quilting fabric industry to grow. I'm actually pretty excited to hear that Amy Butler's husband David has started his own brand, Parson Gray, with all sorts of awesome fabric. There may be some in my future....

Handwork: Sashiko

One of my goals for 2012 was to finally do some handwork.  I have always loved Sashiko, a Japanese style of stitching.  I finally took the plunge and ordered a pre-printed panel from Purl Soho. You don't need a pre-printed panel, but you would then have to transfer the pattern onto your fabric with a white marking pencil. There are a lot of different traditional patterns out there. The one I used is called shippo-tsunagi or "Linked Seven Treasures"--I think. I don't know for sure.

Once I started, it was very easy and meditative.  It was so nice to have something to do that didn't require pulling out my machine, especially because my sewing room is through baby's room.

And it turned out great, if I do say so myself.  Now I'm going to turn it into a pillow. This definitely won't be the last.  I really enjoyed it!