Polaroid Quilt

This summer I participated in a very cool swap for little Polaroid blocks on Debbie’s blog A Quilter’s Table.   Then a bee mate, Lindsey, very generously sent me dozens of little blocks after she caught the Polaroid bug, too. 

This quilt measures 45” x 51”, hopefully just the right size for a three year old’s lap quilt.  I used three different Kona solids (chartreuse, marine, and ash) for the background fabrics and a cute frog print I won in a giveaway for the border—thank you, Leona!

I just love the little dogs on the back, although for the record I am a cat person.

My favorite part of this quilt is the little boy’s name appliqued on the front.  It was kind of a last minute solution to not planning the number of Polaroids I would need to make the columns even and then coming up short.  One of the most difficult parts of the quilt planning was picking “boy appropriate” pictures since little things sometimes escape my attention.

I was kind of undecided as to how I would quilt this one, but I ended up going with just fmq squiggles which is always my go-to choice.  Since I’m gifting this quilt I wanted it to look its best and not do too much “learning” on it.

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.  What have you been working on this week?

Another Pouch

I joined another swap last month and here is the pouch I made for my partner.

I was inspired by this tutorial at Sew Happy Geek.

The outer fabric and wristlet are Millie’s Closet and the lining is Kona aqua. 

I’m really happy with how it turned out and want one for myself!

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!

Swaps Goodies

Today I got my fall swap package in the mail.  I sent my partner, Kim, this fall table runner, some Halloween candy, and a wristlet key fob I made.

 

The leaf fabric has a linen look I really like.

Today the mail lady Donna drove up our road and delivered these goodies Esther is modeling in the photo…a cute pumpkin bag, a tabletopper, a Halloween mug rug and new mug, and candy.  You can’t see the chocolate pretzels because Esther has already eaten them all! 

Thank you, Kim!  Everything is lovely!

I also mailed out my block for my Block Swap Adventure partner Linda yesterday.  I never took a photo of the complete block, but here is the sneak peek.  She asked for bright colors.

I really wish I had taken a photo of the whole block.  It is by far the best one I’ve made for BSA and I think it turned out really nicely.  My points were all in the right place and not cut off for once!

Here are the three blocks I’ve received so far along with two I made myself. 

I plan to make a quilt for my brother-in-law in civil war repro type fabric once I amass enough blocks.

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? 

In the doghouse…

I guess my husband thought he was in trouble at home.  He brought these lovelies home on Friday, complete with a funny card.   Can you believe they actually make this card?

Truth is, my husband wasn’t in the doghouse.  We’ve just be plagued by colds and lack of sleep, so I’ve been a bit crabby.  We got out all our Halloween decorations today which improved everyone’s moods.  Esther was thrilled to hang bats and spiders on our front porch.  We don’t happen to have a mantle above our fireplace, so our piano is where I put a lot of our holiday stuff.

See those pumpkins in the bowl?  My mom and dad had a reunion yesterday and used a ton of mini pumpkins for decorations.  Trouble was, my mom wrote all over them with permanent marker.  So the girls and I spray painted a few with metallic paint we had in the garage and put glitter on a few of them. 

The fabric in the tablerunner is Pumpkins Gone Wild.  It is definitely my favorite fall fabric line of all time.   I have made several tablerunners either for swaps or gifts recently.

Thank you, Tanya!!! And Little Forest Quilt Along

I received my swap package in the mail yesterday.  In it was a beautiful handbag, a box of pins which I can definitely use, and a little zipper pouch.  Everything was so lovely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And color coordinated!  My husband really likes the houndstooth check on the bag.  And I love the butterflies on the pouch.  Thank you, Tanya!  I loved being a part of this swap and can't wait to do another in the future.

I have joined another quilt along, too.  It's called the Little Forest Quilt Along and information for it can be found here. 

The Little Forest Quilt Along quilt is really modern looking.  There is a Little Forest Quilt Along group on Flickr and it seems like many people have chosen bright, non-green colors for their trees.  From what I gather from the pattern on the Purl Bee website, it was originally a very small wallhanging, but I am hoping to make it into a lap size quilt for the couch this winter.  But this picture here from the Little Forest Quilt Along looks much bigger than the original on the Purl Bee.   Here are the fabrics I selected.

They are from Connnecting Threads and are currently for sale right now.  Here is a close up of some of my favorites.  I love the red flowers the best.

30's reproductions are my favorite fabrics, but I don't normally like the traditional 30's style quilt patterns.  I think this will be a nice marriage between 30's inspired and modern.  Is anyone else doing the Little Forest Quilt Along?

Swap Goodies

I participated in a swap sponsored by Pink Stitches.  My partner has received her package, and although I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read my blog, I wanted to wait to share a photo of everything I sent.

The apron and key fob turned out great (brown & pink and black & white are her two favorite color combos), but I’m a little skeptical of the mug rug.  First of all, I guess it’s smaller than most.  It only measures about 4 x 6 inches.  I have never seen another mug rug in person before, so I thought they were pretty small, like a coaster for a mug.  It was a challenge getting the binding on.  I had to cut off the first faux binding that I attempted, so it probably would have measured about 5 x 8 if the first try had been successful.  I bit the bullet and put on traditional binding the second time.  It still is cute.

I think I will make more mug rugs in the future.  They are fast and fun to make. 

The pins came from Michael's. Many quilters have mentioned them on the Farmer's Wife Sampler Yahoo group.  I thought I'd give them a try and bought an extra box for my partner.  I do like them, but I like regular pins too.  I might not be an experienced enough piecer to make an accurate comparison.  They sure do get easily lost in my carpet though, because the glass pin heads are so small and translucent.  I've never used the no-melt pins with the cute, bright flowers on top.  They will be next on my list:)

Apron

I joined a swap last month.  I can't remember when the "due date" is for this one, but I have my items ready for the mail.  One project I made is a half apron I just winged.
I have seen some really great aprons on Etsy that I tried to incorporate into this one.  I like a couple of different fabrics, ties that go all the way around so it can be tied in the front, and a look that says it is well constructed and durable.  Here’s what I came up with:

My partner likes pink and brown, so I chose a pink floral for the front of the apron, brown pockets, and a brighter pink waistband and tie.

And I backed it with some nice dark denim that I bought when I first learned how to sew in the hopes that I would sew myself a nice pair of jeans.  I am not making that up.  It is time to use that denim for something else:)
Here are a few photos of me modeling it and taking photos at the same time!

 
I hope she likes it!

A “Cheeky” Request

I follow the blog Mummas Time To Create.  Its blogstress, Kat, made a “cheeky” request last week for happy, summery, log cabin blocks.  Specifically, she asked for Russian nesting dolls, birds, butterflies, teapots and no Civil War, overly pastel, or too much brown and dark color log cabin blocks measuring 15 inches or over.  Here’s what I came up with :
And a close up of the bird block:
The other block didn’t turn out so nicely since I didn’t start with a square in the middle.  Lesson learned.  It was fun to pick out scraps and see reminders of projects from the past.
So, these are off to Australia on Tuesday, along with this stash of fabrics:

And these goodies I made for her two daughters:

Hope the package gets there soon!  I wonder how long it will take to make it to Australia?