My First Pouch {and Zipper}

My sister-in-law is an avid knitter, so whenever I see cute sheep fabric, I can’t resist buying it.  Her birthday was earlier this month and I made this pouch that measures 5.5” x 4.5” and tucked a gift card inside.  I love this fabric!  It is Monaluna Bah Bah Black Sheep. 

I lined it with a pink wavy grid fabric that I picked up from Fabric.com on sale.  And I used some fusible interfacing to give it a little shape.

I had a real duh! moment when making this.  Last time Joanns had a big “Coupon Commotion” sale, I bought a bunch of zippers with the idea that I’d make pencil cases for my daughter and her friends at Christmas.  Well, that didn’t happen (maybe it will by Easter…) and when I pulled out the 6 or 7 zippers I bought, they were all only 4 inches long!!!  I guess I was more concerned picking the color than reading the label.  It said 10 centimeters, not 10 inches.  Ugggghhhh!  What I am going to do with those tiny tiny zippers?

Putting in the zipper wasn’t as complicated as I thought it would be, thanks to a great tutorial I found at So Sew Something.  Making this pouch was so easy, so maybe I will tackle those pencil cases before Easter after all.

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!

Giveaway Winner!

Warning:  this post contains a gratuitously cute baby photo.

Congratulations to commenter #238,  Barbara, who won the Sew Mama Sew giveaway!  I have emailed you for your address and will get the jelly roll of Christmas fabric out to you this week.

I finished up another quilt this weekend, dubbed the “Knitting Sheep.”  It is for my sister-in-law who has knitted tons of hats and accessories for my kids, keeping them warm and in style!

I quilted it in fmq squiggles with light gray thread and machine bound it with a Moda Pampered Pooch black, red, and white plaid fabric.  The batting is Warm and White, which is my favorite to use.   The back is semi-pieced and has a custom fabric label.  I am pleased with how this quilt looks.  It is one of my better attempts at making a modern-looking quilt.

Lastly, my littlest girl Veronica turned one last week.  We had her party yesterday.  Here’s a photo of her taking her nap yesterday, still my little baby.

Finished Quilt Top

My husband was on travel for work the past week.  It was quite an experience taking care of three kids ages 5, 2, and 7 months singlehandedly for a week.  On the last night, after returning from the pool, I gave the kids a bath and was mentally patting myself on the back for being the most  awesomest mom in the world—all three kids had had a bath every day since my husband left, when my eyes rested on the toothpaste sitting on the sink counter.  I couldn’t remember the last time they had brushed their teeth—2 days ago?  3?  Oh well, I did a pretty good job!
I didn’t get any sewing done last week (or much sleep for that matter—thanks, Esther), but last night I finished up my sister-in-law’s quilt top and I think it turned out quite nicely.  I can’t find my measuring tape anywhere since my kids spirit them away every time they see it to play doctor, but I estimate it finishes around 60” x 68”, the perfect size for a couch quilt.  I am going to piece the back and have 3 or 4 blocks left over to include in the back, but I can’t get started on that until I find those leftover blocks.  I guess I need to straighten up my sewing room!

I love the way the quilt came out, and what I love even more is that every single fabric came from my stash except the 4 fat quarters of knitting-themed fabric I bought as the focal point for the quilt.  I think I might use solid black for the binding. 
Up next:  I have 2 more UFOs to get out of the way that are close to completion and then I’m going to get started on Crazy Mom Quilt’s star quilt from the MBS new book Fun Fresh Treats.  I ordered that book and the Farmer’s Wife book 2 weeks ago and have been ogling them every time I nurse my baby (which is still a couple of times a day, so I get to look at them a lot)!). 

Sashing Dilemma

I am in the process of making a quilt for my sister-in-law who has graciously kept my daughters fashionable in knitted hats, blankets, and legwarmers for ballet over the past five years.  Every time we go somewhere sporting one of her creations we get so many compliments, and when I saw some fat quarters celebrating her pasttime, I thought it was a sign that I needed to repay her generosity.  This is the first time I've ever used a true "novelty" fabric to make something.  I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do, but I like Crazy Mom Quilts Flea Market Fancy  quilt for inspiration.  (Funny story...she made this quilt back in '08, about two years before I started reading blogs or really knowing much about quilting.  I swear I thought the reason she called the quilt "Flea Market Fancy" was because she had bought all the fabric at flea markets--which was quite impressive to me.  This was long before I realized there was something called a local quilt shop and that not all fabric came from Joanns!).   

Veronica helped lay everything out.  I have changed the layout about 20 times since I took this picture!

 Anyway, all the blocks featuring knitting had to be fussy cut out, so I spent my mornings before the kids got up this past week cutting out all the pieces.  Then #1 #3 baby took a four hour nap today and I was able to piece everything together.

Mickey also offered his assistance.  He has an eye for style! 

Here's a close-up of the novelty fabric.  Very cute!  Although, my husband thinks it's canibalistic in a sense.

Dilemma:  I used a cream Aunt Grace with red dots as some of the frames around the blocks.  Can I use white sashing and still have the block "pop" out to be noticeable?  There is also a block with gray and white stripe around it.  In Amanda Jean's quilt, all the frames really contrast with the white.  I am thinking I need to get out my seam ripper and replace those frames.  Any ideas to fix this problem without redoing those blocks?  I am open to any design really.  I was thinking of instead of adding sashing all the way around each block to instead join the five blocks, then put white sashing above and below only, and then add a white border around the entire thing.  Or, if I used white sashing, quilting the heck out of it and then just lightly quilting each of the blocks with just outlining. 

This is the light gray Lecien stripe.  I'm not sure if it will show up enough if I use white sashing.

Any advice???

***I think I am going to frame each lighter block in solid black, and each darker frame in white, alternating black, white, black, white in each row.  On my final layout, it looks like they alternate anyway.  What do you think?***

Do Ewe Knit?

I don't, but my sister-in-law Robin does!  She has made my daughters some beautiful and unique hats, blankets, and sweaters over the last five years.

Here's Bea in her swingset after our Easter egg hunt wearing a sweater knitted by Robin.

I haven't really reciprocated much, but when I saw this new line of fabric at Over the Rainbow, I knew I had to make her something from it. I plan to make a lap-sized quilt and possibly do some wonky blocks, which I've never done, but the fabric is silly and wonky seems to make sense.   It is a preorder and hasn't been released yet, but I read on some blogs you can get some of the newer lines of fabric on Ebay or Etsy early somehow, so I've actually bought a few things before they've been released, including these 3 fat quarters.  I happened to have some Heidi Grace Midnight Kisses yardage from Joann's that matches perfectly, and I ordered a couple half yards of Robert Kaufman Konas in red, slate, and gray to go with it too.  I hope she likes it!






I've got yards and yards of the Midnight Kisses fabric because it was only a dollar a yard on clearance.  It has a pretty silky feel.

  I'll have to make the wonky blocks pretty large because of the scale of the fabric.  If I had realized it, I would have ordered 1/2 yards instead.