Endings and Beginnings

Last week I finished up two projects:

This mini quilt for a challenge.

Backed with a pretty plaid from the Aunt Edna DS Quilts line.

And this little skirt for my daughter who only wears skirts and dresses.

We saw this cute Little Lisette ice cream cone and popsicle fabric at Joanns and I had grosgrain ribbon and pink pindot fabric to coordinate.

I even put in a little label (first time so go easy on me!).

Then over the weekend I dumped out my scrap basket and got started on a new challenge.

Those scraps became a pile of squares.

And the squares became a star!  This is a pattern I bought on Etsy.

I am not sure about this project.  Using different fabrics is always a challenge to me.  I kind of like the way it looks in the photograph better than in real life.  What kind of background fabric should I use?  Dark blue?  Black?  White?  Help!

I am linking up to Fabric Tuesday on Quilt Story.

Ellison Lane Modern Mini Challenge

I finished up another mini quilt last night.  This one measures 18” x 18” and is made mostly with DS Quilts Aunt Edna and some Hope Valley small gray print.  I know some people are sick of gray, but not  me!

This pattern was from a 2006 copy of Patchwork Quilting magazine.  I got a bunch of older quilting magazines from a friend, and this little mini caught my eye.  It was really good practice for me.

I almost didn’t buy that green houndstooth print when I saw it.  But I’m so glad I did.  I think it looks so pretty with the tomato red color and these little blocks were only 1.5”, so I needed small scale prints.

The backing is this great Aunt Edna plaid and the binding is from another DS Quilts line. 

I auditioned several prints for the binding, but I’m glad I went with the red and white stripe. 

Even the new cat approved!  I am entering this mini quilt in the Ellison Lane Modern Mini challenge.  There are some great prizes, and I picked fabrics that I thought my husband would approve of, hoping her husband likes them too!  His pick wins a $100 gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop and I could put that to good use!

I am linking up this finish to Crazy Mom Quilts.

Read Across America Dress

One of the reasons I wanted to learn to sew was to make my kids’ clothes.  After I bought my first couple of Simplicity and McCalls patterns, though, I put that dream to rest because I had  NO IDEA how to read and follow the patterns.  They were simply too complicated for me!

Then last week when I was volunteering at my daughter’s school, there was an announcement about the Dr. Seuss-inspired Read Across America week and I knew I needed to make Bea an appropriate dress for the celebration.  She’s only in kindergarten and not too old for dresses-made-by-mom yet. 

I bought the Reese Peasant Dress pattern on Etsy because it promised lots of photos and many reviewers said it was easy to make.  And it was!   I whipped this dress out in about 2 hours from cutting to finish, and it fits perfectly. 

Last year I traded some DS Quilts fabric on Etsy (probably not officially allowed) for a dress from Wild Olive Kids.  I asked the owner for any advice to learn to sew dresses, and she said to pick a good pattern and practice.  So I picked the Reese pattern specifically for its versatility with sleeves, ruffles, different fabrics, etc.  I am so happy I did!  I also bought two other dress patterns and plan to put them to use when it gets a little warmer out since they are summer styles.

Here is Bea posing next to the dress I traded for.  She hasn’t had a chance to wear the Christmas dress yet because although it’s a size 6, it probably fits more like a size 7 or 8. 

I happened to pick up some of that Michael Miller deer fabric on sale after Christmas and hope to make my other girls similar dresses because I didn’t have three daughters for no reason!  I am linking up this dress to Melissa at Happy Quilting’s Trying New Things Thursday.  This project was so much fun and I see lots of dresses in the future, as soon as I learn how to use my serger.

I’m drinking a Sprite…

…which only means one thing.  I’m sick!  I don’t drink soda.  Ever.  Except two or three times a year when I have a cold.  And this is one of those times.  Luckily, my husband just finished up a real bender at work and will be home today and tomorrow.  Do you ever feel like your body “knows” when it can get sick, so it makes it to the very point where you’re about the get a rest and then shuts down?  Like vacation right after college exams. 

Anyway, that means when my medicine head wears off, I can head to the sewing room for some RNR of a different sort.  I just finished up my STASH BEE block to send to Sam.  (Confession:  I totally forgot about SB because I never added the blog to my Reader for some reason.  Thank God I saw someone else’s block on their blog or I would have been an absentee bee this month.)

This is a pineapple block and I had a little trouble with getting it the right size.  Sometimes I feel woefully inadequate when it comes to my sewing skills.  Things go right most of the time, but when there are so many pieces in the block, things tend to go wrong.

This beauty was my first block, but it weighed in at over an inch too big!  I will mail it anyway and maybe she can use it on the back.  The fabrics are some of the first ones I bought when I started quilting.  I know lots of people make the mistake of buying too much fabric before they figure out their “style.”  Guilty!  I do like them, but they don’t go with my house too well.

Both blocks are made with fabric from Blank Quilting, and the smaller block also has some Moda American Jane in it.

A new pincushion

The first thing my one year old does when she goes into the sewing room is head straight for my pincushion.  She loves to pull the pins out and put them back in, and it doesn’t help that I tell her “no” and try to take it away,  making it all the more desirable. 

For the past few weeks I have been organizing my sewing room and painting the walls.  It’s been a major switcheroo—moving stuff from one side and back so I can move bookcases out from the walls and get behind them.  In the process, I put the pincushion somewhere that Ronnie couldn’t find it, and I lost it for good.  Haven’t seen it in at least 2 weeks.  So, I decided to make a new one following Svetlana’s super easy tutorial at SOTAK Handmade.

It was really pretty simple and I loved how her trick using Heat n Bond Lite really kept the small squares together perfectly.  I even did a little hand stitching around the perimeter with a dark green embroidery floss I had on hand.  The fabric is mostly leftover scraps from Punctuation by American Jane.

You can see the miniscule little pin holes in the fabric because I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of it and this is what it looks like when it’s in daily use:

Thanks for such a great tutorial, Svetlana!

I have been making a dress for my daughter for Read Across America.  It is Dr. Seuss themed and here is a little sneak peek of the body of the dress.

I just finished it up completely and it’s hanging on a hanger waiting to be tried on by Bea.  I do believe it will fit just fine.  I used a directional print with words on it for the sleeves, and they are not quite right (one is turned one way, and the other is turned upside down—but when viewed from the back one is going the right way and the other is upside down, so we are going to live with it).   Otherwise, I am pretty thrilled with the results and am definitely going to learn how to use my secondhand serger before I attempt to make another one.  It would make finishing the seams so much faster.

Also, we got a new addition to our family yesterday.

Our older Siamese cat, Mickey, has been losing weight for no medical reason, but I think he’s lonely since he’s always had his brother (from the same litter) and two other cat friends, all who have passed away in the past 5 years from various ailments.  So we got him a friend and her name is Oreo.  Good thing she likes sewing!  She fits right in.

They grow up so fast

My youngest baby is now 14 months old.  The time passes so quickly.  I have never made too many handmade things for my kids besides quilts.  I have spent hours staring lovingly at all the beautiful items in Anna Maria Horner’s Handmade Beginnings book, but actually making stuff, I’ve never quite gotten around to it.

For Valentine’s, I made everyone in my family a homemade gift.  New hairbows for the older daughters, and white-chocolate-chip-macadamia-nut cookies for the hubby.  But for the youngest, I got off my duff and made her an array of new bibs.

She will be wearing them for at least a few more months, and now that she demands to feed herself—which makes an unholy mess—they will get some good use before she’s too big to wear one.

Most of the materials came from my stash (fabric & Velcro) and I bought some really soft pink chenille from Joanns for the back of the bibs.  It wasn’t on sale, but with a 50% off coupon, a yard only cost about $7-8.  The flannel was super cheap—all the pieces were collected by me from the remnant bin that I check out every time I go in to Joanns, which is about once a week.  I found the Velcro in my sewing room stashed in a drawer.  I never used it before, but LOVE it!  There is no separate hook or loop piece.  Instead, the piece sticks to itself, so you don’t have to keep straight what piece you sew where.

The owl is my favorite bib.  I made two of these and two from the heart fabric (they were for Valentine’s, after all), so she has eight new bibs total.

The little owls have hearts on them!

I made two bibs to try out the pattern I drew before I committed to making the rest, and Ronnie wore them several times and they were washed in the washing machine and dried in the dryer, and they came out soft and cuddly and looking good as new.  I was a little worried since all the fabric came from Joanns, but I have a new faith in their flannel and chenille.

With a 1.5 yards of chenille, I was able to make 14 bibs total.  My cousin is having a baby this summer, so six of them will be for her baby if it’s a girl.  If it’s a boy, I’ll be buying some blue chenille!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Last week we had a fun cupcake party for my kids and their friends.  One of the crafts we did came from the Disney magazine Family Fun.  If you have kids age 8 and under, I can’t tell you how much I recommend this magazine.  The magazine is chock full of great recipes, and more importantly, lots of easy crafts.  The publishers have created a new magazine aimed at kids, but mine aren’t quite old enough for it yet, but when they are, I will definitely subscribe to it.

One of the easy crafts we did at the party was create these cute heart doily t-shirts.

Making them only took a few minutes and the cost was cheap:  $3.48 a shirt on clearance at Target, $.99 for a pack of 4 sponge brushes, and $.99 for a tube of white fabric paint.   The most expensive item was a pack of twelve doilies.  They were $4.99 at Joanns, but 50% off, so only $2.50.

I saved some yogurt containers to reuse for the paint.  Just center the doily and dab (don’t brush) the paint through the holes.  You have to be careful at first not to shift the doily around, but as it gets saturated it stays in place better.

Peel the doily off, and voila!, a cute homemade heart shirt.  Bea wore hers to school today for the Valentine’s Party.

A package arrived from my sister-in-law for me yesterday…what a treat! 

Around Christmas I got a hankering for a hat that I could tuck my extremely long hair into and some fingerless gloves.  So I went off to Michael’s and picked out two colors of yarn.  It’s a big surprise I picked my two favorite colors, purple and green!   Thanks so much, Robin, they came just in the nick of time since it finally feels like winter here in southern Maryland!