WIP Wednesday

Three projects are at various stages of completion.

Garden Walk (actually called Pave the Way but I couldn’t remember the name of the pattern when I put it on my UFO list) is quilted and ready for binding.

My Madrona Road challenge project is almost done! 

And I started a Valentine’s pillow I put on my “Just Three” list for January.  It won’t be done by the 31st, but at least I have all the squares cut out. 

I love checking out what everyone is working on.  Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

Two Pillow Finish

This past week I’ve finished up two Christmas pillows. 

Katie of SwimBikeQuilt posted a modern Christmas tree wall-hanging/pillow on the Free Spirit blog this week.  The tutorial was easy to follow. 

It was amazing to see how the texture of the straight line quilting changed the total look of the Christmas tree.  I decided to bind the pillow after adding the envelope back.  This gray polka dot fabric is one of my favorites. 

This Ho Ho Ho pillow is straight from the book “Pretty in Patchwork Holidays” by Quilt Dad.  I am giving away a copy of the book and 16 fat quarters here, and there are a few more hours to enter the giveaway.

The fabrics are mostly Connecting Threads and a few favorites from my stash thrown in.

I used Finca Presencia Perle thread size 8 to quilt around each letter.  I didn’t have an embroidery hoop at first, but I bought one after doing two of the letters and it made the stitching a lot easier.

The Santa buttons were the perfect finishing touch!

The pattern suggests using linen for the back, but I substituted this cute bird fabric I’ve had in my stash.

So now I think our living room is sufficiently decorated for the holidays!

What have you been working on?  Any Christmas projects?  Linking up to Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Fabric Tuesday

This year my daughter’s teachers will be getting homemade Christmas presents.  I actually sent in a little questionnaire to find out their tastes and  decided to make them each a pillow.  One teacher’s favorite color is yellow and her favorite season is summer, so I stitched up a snowball block with some yellow and and a summery feel (as I type this, I realize that perhaps snowball wasn’t the most aptly named block to choose!).

 

I didn’t use any batting, just placed it atop white muslin and quilted a simple grid pattern with the assistance of painter’s tape.  I made two actually, an extra one for my mom for her birthday in December.  No worries, it will still be a surprise since she doesn’t read my blog.  She doesn’t even have an email address!  I am going to make an envelope style back with the yellow check fabric.

I really, really like how they turned out.  They measure exactly 16.5 x 16.5, so they will be perfectly sized for the couch.

My daughter’s other teacher’s favorite color is moss green, which is not a color I really have on hand that much.  It worked out great that I made a few blocks for the Charmed Prints Quilt Along that came up just short of the 5” needed for the quilt, so I used 4 of the 5 that were duds to make this pillow cover.

I am going to use the DS Quilts print for the back.  The pillow cover is okay, but I really need to work on not cutting off triangle points.

I’m not sure what my major malfunction is, but sometimes the points turn out perfectly, and other times they have disappeared in the seam allowance.  The white sashing didn’t look quite right without a border, so I added a 1.25 inch striped border which finishes it nicely I think.  This pillow measures 17 x 17 so it will be slightly bigger, but once I’ve inserted a cushion they will be roughly identical sizes. 

I recently bought some Alexander Henry starling fabric

  

and some Kate Spain Flurry birds

so if I get a chance, I might make them a quick Christmas pillow cover, too.  Can you tell I love cardinals?  I am a total bird lover…swans, hummingbirds, and cardinals are my favorites.

I also asked the teachers if they prefer Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, and they all said Starbucks????!!!!!  I’m a Dunkin Donuts gal myself.  In fact, before their stores became so prolific, I would order two five pound bags of beans online every 6 weeks.  I had my own coffee grinder and had to have real cream in mine.  I don’t drink coffee any longer.  My first daughter had a heart murmur and I had to cut out all caffeine when she was in utero.  It was tough, but I did it.  She turned out just fine with no heart problems at all, but after that experience, I abstained from all caffeine during my other two pregnancies.  And after I had Veronica last year, I made my husband stop at the grocery store on our way home from the hospital in a huge SNOWSTORM to buy cream for my first cup of post pregnancy coffee.  But it tasted terrible to me, and now I’m a Tazo black tea gal and haven’t touched a coffee in almost two years.  But if I had to choose between a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts gift card, I’d still go with DD because I love me a Bavarian creme donut!

How about you?  Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?

I’m linking up my almost-complete pillow covers to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story.

Mom on duty

Well, this past week was a bust.  Pretty much everyone has been sick at least once, if not twice, in the past two weeks including myself and my husband.  Bea even had to miss her school fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch.  Amazingly, I did manage to get these pillow covers made for Halloween.

Esther LOVES to decorate for Halloween, so on Thursday while Veronica took her nap, we made these out of a Moda Haunted Mansion charm pack I bought last year.  Here she is looking quite unwell while modeling the new covers.  We had several takes of this photo and this was the best shot…

 

These were easy to make.  I didn’t even quilt the fronts.  Since the edges of the charms are already pinked, I wasn’t too worried about unfinished seams.  Plus, the window for Halloween decor is kind of short, so I don’t see them getting washed too often. After sewing together the charms in a 3 x 3 square, I added orange or purple frames to make the front 16 x 16 and then sewed a contrasting envelope style back.  Super fast and easy!

 

I have some pieces cut out for a Halloween quilt, but realistically I won’t get it done until next Halloween:)  I was thinking of trying to swap some of my Halloween fabric leftovers.    Does anyone know a reputable site for swapping fabric? 

Recycling an old pillow

This yucky old pillow needed a facelift.  I bought it around Christmas, but with three kids running amok, it got destroyed pretty quickly.  And since the cover was not removable, this ice cream/caramel stain was permanent.  So, I decided to recycle the stuffing.

First I cut two 19 x 19 inch muslin squares.  Then I sewed them together using a 1/2" seam allowance backstitching at the beginning and end while leaving about a 3 inch hole (enough to get my hand into).  I pressed the seams and turned it  right side out.  I used a chopstick to poke out the corners gently and pressed it again.

Here is the 3 inch gap.

Now comes the fun part!  My five year old stuffed the old polyfill fiber into the new pillow.  First I refluffed all the fiberfill by "combing" it through my fingers to make it puffy again.  I also helped push the fiberfill evenly down into the corners of the pillow.

Then I handstitched the gap closed.  I hate handsewing, but luckily this step only takes two minutes.  Your pillow will measure 18 x 18.

And, voila!, I made two pillows using this method.  I love this fabric.  I found it at Joanns on Sunday when I was buying some Warm and White batting.  I turned around from the cutting table and it was thrown on the bottom shelf in the craft area.  Must have been kismet!  It's Alexander Henry "Kelo" and the selvage said 2005.  Now my living room looks great!

The pillows have contrasting back fabric and you can find the tutorial here.

New Pillows

Once I made the pillow covers with the Alexander Henry Farmdale prints, I realized that my original calculation of 5 inches of solid around the center was indeed correct, and I shouldn't have cut each 5 inch strip into 2.5 inches like I thought!!!  These pillows turned out 12x12 instead of 14x14 as I planned.  After a quick phone call to my local Joanns to find out if they carry the 12x12 pillow insert as advertised online (they don't), I decided this would be a great time to teach my daughter how to use my sewing machine.  She machine stitched two 12x12 muslin pillows in about a half hour (it would have only taken me 5 minutes, but that's no fun!), we stuffed them with fiberfill, and then stitched the opening closed, and VOILA!--two beautiful pillows to give to Grammy for Mother's Day.  Now my duaghter is planning a daddy-sized pillow for her dad!