Let the gift giving begin! {a finished pillow}

Last week I received a package of fabric from Hawthorne Threads from a giveaway I won.  In addition to the fabric prize, the lovely people there sent me samples of two of their in-house lines of fabric, Fair Isle and Bengal.  The little pieces of Fair Isle were just begging to be made into a pillow!

The fabric features cuddly polar bears and the cutest smiling narwhals!

My favorite print is the sleds.  The color is more peachy than pink, not normally a color I’d be drawn to.  But I love the combination of blues, peach, and grays.  The cool palette made me think this pillow would look fantastic on my friend’s white leather couch.

Apparently her cat, Prince (who has his own Instagram account) liked the pillow too!  Speaking of Instagram, I finally joined and you can find me as @beacraftygirl.

I also tried something new making this pillow.  Instead of binding it, I used my serger so there are no raw edges.  Maybe no binding gives it a more modern look?  Honestly, I was just looking to finish it quickly, but threading the serger after several months of no use proved to be more time consuming than making and attaching binding!

Most Christmases I give handmade gifts, but I am never organized enough to complete a project with enough time to photograph and blog about it.  Hopefullly 2014 will be different!

Last week I also received my Wild & Free and Priory Square preordered fabric.  I love it so much I cut into it the very next day, and then I ordered more of each line because I never want to run out.  Don’t deny it…I know some of you probably do the same thing!!!!

A little holiday sewing {a finished project}

I’m not sure what exactly motivated me to get hopping on some holiday sewing, but recently I’ve started a few fall & winter projects and have one all finished to share today!  Maybe it’s that reality has set in and I know I need lots more time to finish everything I want to, so I’m getting a head start?

More free motion quilting and even some feathers of sorts (my first ever!!!).

The fabrics are all from my stash—the quilter’s linen (not actual linen, but quilting cotton) is by Robert Kaufman.  The green polka dots is from that awesome shopping trip in Maine from earlier this year.  I thought it was Amy Butler or Kaffe Fassett, but it happens to be by Hoodie, not sure who exactly that is!  And all the low volume background prints are from my stash.

The backing is an Aunt Grace polka dot from years and years ago.  It is from one of the very first quilts I ever made—back before I even had a blog.  That was when I thought you really needed 5 1/2 yards of fabric to back a twin sized quilt.  Ha ha, how times have changed!!!  

And the binding is the same, from a box of bindings I made years and years ago before I started making my binding slightly larger (usually I cut it 2.75 inches wide).  Many of the 2.5” squares came from my scrap box.

I’m counting this as scrap project #3 of 52. 

Have you started any holiday sewing?  Do tell!

Potluck Squares Christmas Pillow

Crazy Mom Quilts posted a really cute pillow last week.  As luck would have it, I had picked up a charm pack of that line a few weeks ago at the LQS and had to try making my own version right away!

At first I tried to include black in the red & green color scheme, but I had a hard time with the layout and decided to omit the black.

I wasn’t feelin’ the love with the scrappy layout either.

So I ended up going with diagonals of the same fabric alternating red & green.  (I had a charm pack of Pezzy Prints I included too.)

I quilted the front of the pillow with straight lines about 3/8” apart with white Aurifil thread.  The binding I copied from my friend Svetlana’s Autumn Penny Patch Quilt.  They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? 

The back is envelope style with 3 buttons to hold the closure in place.  I didn’t think through the buttons though, and need to add room for the bulk of the cushion insert next time by placing the buttonholes closer to the edge of the flap.  The back is just solid Kona ash.

I think it’s a nice addition to our growing pillow collection on our family room couch.  Can you tell a quilter lives here?

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Quilts at the Table

A few days ago my daughter and I whipped up a set of pretty placemats to go with some dishes we got for one of our relatives for Christmas.

Most of the charms are from Connecting Threads and a few are from my stash.  They were so easy to put together, just 3 x 4 charms.

The plates are not actually Christmas designs.  They are more Mediterranean looking and can be used all seasons, but look great with the Christmas fabric.

The mats consist of the top, batting and backing.  So to keep it all together, after turning the layers inside out, I sewed 3 evenly spaced lines around it to hold everything together, which is an idea I got from Svetlana (thanks!).

The fabrics are pretty.  I love that cute deer!

Here are the placemats all tied with a ribbon and ready to be put in a gift bag with her new dishes.

And I finished up my November Beejeebers block last night.

This block is called Cherie’s Carpenter Star and it’s made of a jillion hsts.  A few months ago this block would have reduced me to tears, but I’m happy to say that this one turned out A-okay and is exactly the right size, a first for me!  The bee mama asked for bright colors, so I hope orange and teal fit the bill.

I’m also getting ready to bind another baby quilt. This has got to be my fifth log cabin jungle animal-themed quilt.  I guess I will never tire of making log cabin quilts.  I just love picking the fabrics and chain sewing the blocks together.  It’s so easy, fast, and fun!

Hope everyone had a relaxing and fun Thanksgiving.  I’m officially done all my Christmas shopping (a few days before Thanksgiving even) and now I’m ready to sit back and enjoy the next couple weeks, hopefully making a few things from the book Pretty in Patchwork Holidays.  Come back on December 3rd—I’m giving away a copy of the book and a fat quarter bundle of Christmas fabric!

Linking up to Tuesday at the Table.

Holiday Handmade Challenge

Jennifer at the blog Taken Patiently is having challenge to make at least 5 handmade gifts this holiday season.  Here are my entries:

For my sister-in-law: 3 jams, a quilt, and homemade dog biscuits for her dog, Elmo.  There is also a skein of yarn I bought for her at the local Maker’s Market called “crayon box” and another skein of yarn from Michael’s (neither made by me).

And here is the quilt on her bed in South Carolina:

For my sister:  a cute chicken pillowcase (I never got around to making a match, but I will) and a tablerunner made from Rise n Shine, Glenna Hailey’s chicken repro fabric, and 3 jams.  Bea picked out the chicken dishcloth at Kohl’s and said she had to buy it for Aunt Jody since my sister raises chickens.  Hence the chicken theme…

Here’s a close up of the tablerunner fabric:

And here it is on her table in Maine:

And here’s a close up of the pillowcase fabric (this was a remnant I picked up at Joanns—the fabric is kind of cheap and thin, but super cute, so cute won out!).

For my best friend:

She asked for a tablerunner with extremely specific dimensions for under her nativity scene.  I made it with really cute and fun Christmas fabrics since she has little kids. 

Here’s a close up of the star fmq.  I am pretty happy with it.

I had to have this mitten fabric!  I love the hearts on the mittens.

And the backing is this Santa Claus fabric:

And since she now is into canning and buying at the farmer’s market, I got her this Farmer’s Wife magazine inspired cookbook:

And the cutest ever apple dishcloth from Target (she is a teacher AND her favorite color is red).

A gift to my mom:

The Farmer’s Wife Pony Club book (my mom does not sew, but she did have her own cart and pony as a little girl, and we moved to a horse farm when I was 7), dog biscuits for her 3 dogs, and a set of flannel teacup pillowcases.

For my dad:

Various jams, two kind of pickles, and two jars of canned tomatoes (his favorite) and a set of pillowcases.  My dad is an outdoor writer and his nickname in college was Drako, so he goes by a nom de plume last name “Drake” so I thought he’d like the duck fabric.  I’m not really sure what kind of fish they are, but it’s from the same fabric line.

So, for my entry, in a nutshell:

• tons of canned jams, pickles, and tomatoes I made this summer
• homemade dog biscuits
• a sheep/knitting themed lap quilt
• chicken pillowcase
• chicken tablerunner
• Christmas tablerunner
• teacup pillowcases
• fish/duck pillowcases

Sew Mama Sew! Giveaway

Thanks for visiting my blog!  Staying home full time with three little girls is fun, but I like to escape for a few minutes whenever I can to the world of sewing, quilting, and crafting by reading my favorite blogs.  In honor of all the fantastic blogs I find so inspiring and creative, I am having my first giveaway--a drawing for a jelly roll of 25 assorted 2.5 inch Christmas fabric strips.   The fabrics in this roll include Riley Blake, Connecting Threads, Kate Spain, Studio E, Polar Brigade, & Ann Kelle Remix.
This giveaway is open to international entrants as well as US residents and will close on December 16th.  I will announce the winner on Sunday, December 18th, which happens to be my parents’ 44th wedding anniversary.

To enter:

• Simply leave a comment telling me your favorite romantic movie.  Mine is “Dirty Dancing.”
• Followers or new followers can have a bonus entry.

I'll use the random number generator to pick a winning number.  Good luck and thanks for stopping by!

Handmade Holiday Swap

I am participating in the Craftaholics Anonymous Handmade Holiday Gift Exchange.  I really love this blog!  I have found lots of inspiration for projects that I have made with my kids including this fall (or any season) burlap wreath and a bright Harvest banner that Bea will sew during the Thanksgiving break when she’s off from school.

We made four of the burlap wreaths—one for our door and three to share with family and friends. 

I am really excited to be participating the in the holiday handmade exchange!  My partner has a daughter, so I made her little girl a Christmas twirly skirt like the one I made in my last post.  It was good practice trying to tailor it specifically to her measurements.

 

I’ll be getting it in the mail soon so her daughter can get lots of wear out of it before Christmas!

Twirly skirt

Because I learned to sew as an [older] adult, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to sew from a commercial pattern.  Maybe that’s a poor excuse, but pretty much everything I’ve sewn is self-taught and those Simplicity patterns I’ve bought are anything but simple to me.  I barely have time to go to the grocery store (we often are on “last roll of toilet paper alert) let alone take a sewing class.  The one class I took, I attended the first two sessions and learned how to insert my bobbin and adjust stitch length.  The project we were making was a skirt with a waistband and zipper.  When my instructor helped me sew the zipper, she sewed in a pucker.  I never finished that skirt, but I have learned oodles from all the great blogs I read and even have inserted a few zippers with a little help from some great online tutorials!

I saw this skirt on Kat’s blog recently and knew I had to try it.  I’m so pleased with the results that I know tons of skirts are in the future for my daughters and their friends!  I added rick rack, which I’ve never sewn before, with a zig zag.  After washing and drying, the rick rack looks flat and good as new!  Awesome!!!