Tuesday, January 27, 2015

On my design wall...

...a new quilt top, recently completed but shown here in progress. I've been calling this one my 'man quilt'.


Awhile ago I thought it would be fun to make a quilt with a more masculine flair. And I wanted it to be scrappy. So I dug out all of my blue and green scraps and cut them into rough strips (if they weren't already). I didn't have enough green and blue so I added grey and black too. I wasn't being very discriminative in my fabric inclusion...so there are some interesting, arguably non-masculine prints in there. But that's OK, I like it.


I've wanted to make the cover quilt from Sunday Morning Quilts for a long time. This seemed like the perfect project to try it out. It's so much fun! No worrying about perfectly straight strips or precise 1/4" seams, this one is charming for it's imperfections. And for all of the pieces of fabric, it still comes together pretty quickly.


This quilt will go to a special guy, I'm pretty sure he doesn't read my blog so it should stay a surprise. I hope he likes it. BTW, there are over 75 different fabrics in this quilt top! A record for me :-).

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Christmas gifts - Part 2

I finally got around to photographing the Christmas goodies I made for Lorelai! Between the dreary unphotogenic weather and normal mothering business it has taken me far too long. Plus we were using them already so there was the matter of getting them through the laundry ;-).

In a previous post I mentioned that I'd be turning these lovely towels into embellished hooded towels for Lorelai. She has outgrown the infant hooded towels and I still really like having a hood for her...plus this project is just cute and fun!


I used this tutorial. It's a very simple project, the trickiest part was sewing over the really thick parts of the towels. I broke a few needles. I found ways to avoid the thickest parts though, so no more needles were sacrificed in the making of this gift. The blue towel went to my nephew, and I wrapped it up before snapping a photo of the finished product.



I love this raspberry towel, it's probably my favorite. As luck would have it, around Black Friday towels were on sale everywhere, so I got a really good deal on all of these. I wasn't thinking during my online ordering frenzy though, you can make two hooded towels out of one hand towel so I should have doubled up on the colors. Next time. Flannels were on sale at JoAnn too. They had so many cute prints to choose from!



When Lorelai was born my dad nicknamed her 'little cupcake'. It stuck. So when I saw this festive cupcake print I had to have it. I didn't have a plan for it when I bought it, but I think it's cute on a towel.



This was my attempt at getting Lorelai to model her towel-ha! She wouldn't keep the hood on for more than a second and she was off before I could even get her to face me! Too busy for momma I guess.


And here they are, all stacked up. We've been using them regularly now and we love them. They are so cozy and plenty roomy for our little cupcake.

On to my second project. This was a big one. By big I mean intimidating for me. I decided to make Lorelai a Christmas dress since I made her one last year. This time I actually bought a pattern off of Etsy. I thought that would make things a little easier, take some of the guesswork out of the project. I am not much of a garment seamstress. I've made a few things in the past but I get so discouraged when things don't fit perfectly and need a lot of adjustment.

The pattern was great, detailed instructions and great photos. It comes with several options-short, long, or 3/4 sleeve, sash or no sash. Since this is a winter dress I went with long sleeves.


I think it turned out pretty cute! It was a bit big on her (I made the 12 month size), and I wasn't surprised because she is such a peanut for her age. I ended up shortening the sleeves a little. And that fabric! This was the year of the penguin. It started with a cute little penguin decorating we have in our living room. Then we found a cute little stuffed penguin at a craft fair for one of her Christmas presents. So this fabric was perfect.



And here we are on Christmas Eve, getting ready to go to church. She had just woken from her nap, like momma it takes her a while to wake up!


Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Christmas gifts - part 1

Did Christmas go by in the blink of an eye for anyone else?! Weeks of preparing, anticipation...and then, in a whirlwind, it's over. I have to say, for the most part we had a really wonderful Christmas. Lots of quality time with family and friends, cookie baking, Christmas movie watching. I loved it!

This year I wound up making more gifts than I ever have, which had me working over time the month of December to get it all done. Yes, that's why I've been absent here. But now I'm excited to share all I've been working on!

I still need to photograph a few things so let me share the handmades that have found new homes. Please forgive the poor lighting in these photos! We had an unusually warm, dreary Christmas here in Wisconsin.

This past fall my mom requested a mug rug to take to her new office. She wanted soothing teal and blue tones, which happily I have a lot of these days :-). I recently discovered the quilting section of my local library and checked out Quilt Improv by Lucie Summers. Great book! I've been interested in improv, in a hesitant, look-from-a-distance sort of way. This book was a great intro, it helped me get my feet wet without being scary or overwhelming. So I tried her string diamond block (not sure if that's what she called it). What a fun block to make! My scraps seem to mostly come in the form of strings, so this is a great way to use them up. I love that it ends up looking a little complex even though it's a very simple and easy block to make.


Around the same time my dad requested coasters for their new home. He didn't really give me any input which made this project really challenging for me. I usually like some sort of design guardrail, a spring board to jump from. Since fall colors tend to be their go-to I went that direction but a little funkier. A little brighter. My husband understood my color vision right away (and I didn't even coach him!) so I guess I got it right.



But as I finished these up I started to see an 80s geometric aesthetic. Gah! NOT what I was going for. After contemplating MANY other coaster designs, none of which seemed quite right and in any way exciting, I ended up gifting these. And now I think I like them after all. In all their 80s glory!


Of course about a week before Christmas I added two quilted stockings to my 'make' list. Because I needed more to do ;-). These stockings are for my brother-in-law and his fiance. When they asked for stockings for Christmas I just couldn't NOT make them. As fate would have it, I had bought some adorable camping themed fabrics at a local quilt shop just a few weeks prior. I thought maybe I'd make something for my husband's side of the family because camping is in their blood. Here was my chance!



They are not traditional stockings I guess, no Christmas fabric or even Christmas colors. But I like tailoring stockings to each person's tastes. I think it's a little more special that way. I kept a couple of the camping fabrics consistent in each stocking and then added fabrics from my stash to customize them.

I really wasn't sure how I'd like all these fabrics together, I had several scary 'do these fabrics look hideous together????' moments, but I think they ended up looking nice. I just love those little retro campers! And the guitars and fish are perfect for my BIL.



The backs are not pieced. I was crunched for time...and you don't see the back anyway! I finished them just in time (December 23rd!) and I think they were well received.


Now to track down my daughter's handmade gifts and photograph them...