Best Friends

Olivia's Christmas gift can finally be revealed! It's a Molly Monkey! I found the pattern for this cute stuffed monkey on www.mmmcrafts.blogspot.com. I thought it would be perfect for little Olivia and I am very happy with the way it turned out. I think Olivia and Molly Monkey will be best friends growing up :)

O is for Olivia's Owl

Tasha really liked the first owl I made last weekend, but I didn't like it enough to give to Olivia, so I gave it another go using left over fabric from Olivia's Christmas present. This attempt is much cuter and less spooky. Tasha especially liked the bizarre look of the first one, but I think this version is less likely to scare O. The tail is better placed in this version also, but you can't see it in either of these photos. I even embroidered Olivia's initials on the bum. I'm sure O will grow up loving this stuffed owl!

Things That Go Hoot In The Night

I thought I would change gears and dabble in some stuffed crafts this weekend. With the long weekend I figured it was time to try something new and do a little experimenting. This funny (almost creepy) owl is what came out of my experiment. The eyes, beak and inner ear pieces are cut from felt and hand stitched with matching embroidery thread. The hand stitching gives the doll a sort of vintage feel. The shirt and socks are made from regular cotton fabric and the head, wings, tail and part of the legs are made from corduroy. I thought the skirt might make it a little more girly, but I think I like the owl better without it. The fabrics are just a little too crazy to be put together. The tail is weird because it hangs between the legs if the doll is standing, but I couldn't figure out any other way to attach it -- it looks ok if it's sitting, though! I should probably stick to quilting after this not-so-successful crafting day!

Potted Christmas Tree Skirt

Mike and I decided to put a Christmas tree up this year, but just a little one. We went to La Sumida (a local nursery where I inspected some small trees for work last week) and bought a Dwarf Alberta Spruce. It's the perfect size to sit on top of one of the speakers. The container the tree is potted in is a green plastic, but it didn't look very festive, so I decided to make a skirt for it. I made a tube with elastic at the top and bottom to cover the actual pot and then a square skirt to wrap around the base. Now it's ready for gifts to be placed underneath :)

Sneak Peek

I've been working on Olivia's Christmas present, but I don't want to reveal too much. I want Tasha and Josh to be surprised since Olivia won't know the difference! But she'll love it. Here is a sneak peek at the fabrics and the applique I worked on today (hand sewing is not my strongest skill).

Pinwheel Quilt Complete

I got the fabric for the backing and binding in the mail on Friday so I knew what I was going to spend my time doing this weekend! I started by making my quilt sandwich and quilted it together on Saturday. For the quilting I followed the squares around the pinwheel blocks and then put an X through each block following the diagonal lines of the pinwheels. It was a little tricky getting through the middle of the pinwheels because there are so many seams that meet there. I broke the thread more than a few times while sewing the diagonal lines through the blocks. There was also a little bit of puckering near the areas where there were a lot of seams coming together. I find that really annoying, but it was hard to prevent. Overall the quilt turned out fairly flat and smooth, though. I put the binding on today to finish the quilt off. It turned out better than I was thinking and I really like the orange flower backing. Now we just have to find some time to give this to Michelle and Shawn.

I've got another quilt idea brewing in my mind. It's a big project though...stay tuned...

Pinwheel Quilt

When I was looking for baby quilt ideas for Baby Melon, I ran across a tutorial for this pinwheel quilt. I really loved it at the time but thought it would be too girly if Baby Melon turned out to be a boy , so I saved the tutorial for a later date. Our friends, Michelle and Shawn, are expecting their 3rd girl in November. I wanted to make them a quilt so I thought this would be the perfect time to use this quilt pattern. I think I like it so much because of how traditional it is and the small triangles around the pinwheels top it off for me. Pinwheel blocks are a lot of work to sew together, but the end product made the effort worth it. This quilt top took me most of today and a few hours of cutting fabric yesterday. I wasn't crazy about how it was turning out at first, but now that it's all together I think it turned out super cute. I have to get some backing and binding fabric to finish putting it together, but it shouldn't take long to finish off.

Owl Gown for Baby Melon

I bought some patterns for baby clothes awhile back and have been searching for cute (and affordable) knit fabric to use to make something for Baby Melon. I finally found some last weekend when Mike and I were in Ventura. How can you not love these little owls?!

I decided to try a gown because Tasha wants these and I haven't seen any tie gowns in the stores (they all have elastic at the bottom instead). As a first attempt I think it turned out on the ok, but not very good side. I thought the front and back pieces were the same so when I sort of messed up the hem on the front neckline side I figured it was no big deal to just switch the two pieces of fabric. Wrong! The front piece actually has a lower neckline. I didn't realize this until it was all sewn together, sleeves and all, so I guess the little overlapping shoulder pieces will just have to be on the back rather than the front. Oh well, I don't think the baby will mind too much -- or maybe it will just be embarrassed to wear the clothes Aunt Katie made?! I also made a cute little hat to go with it -- I think the hat is my favorite part of the whole thing! This was a fun project because it provided me with my first attempt at a couple sewing techniques -- like actually using a pattern. Harder than I thought, all those dots and lines really mean something! It was also the first time I've made button holes, so that was a good thing to learn, and it turned out to be really easy. I also learned it's much harder to work with stretchy fabric rather than just plain old cotton fabric. It was a good learning experience and now I'm ready to make more clothes while Mike is off in Europe, but for now this is a good start!

Porsche Vinyl Sewing Project

I haven't done much sewing lately but Mike and I made some good progress on the interior of the Porsche restoration tonight. Mike is replacing all the vinyl on the inside since most of the old stuff is brittle and cracked. There were two things that needed to be done so Mike could continue working on some other things: 1) the underside of the windshield frame and 2) the lower pleated portion that sits behind the rear seats and the flat upper portion that sits under the back window. The underside of the windshield frame was really easy because I just needed to sew three pieces together. Once that was done, the portion behind the seats needed to be pleated. We did this by measuring and marking lines where the crease should be and then I sewed 1/4 inch from those lines. Mike did the measuring and marking (he'll be quilting in no time).

Once the lines were drawn it was my turn to do some more work.

Here is the completed back panel that goes behind the seats. You can see how much of an improvement this is from the old vinyl!

Then I sewed on the upper piece that goes under the rear window. We tried pinning this is place before I sewed it, but that didn't work, it ended up all bunched up and uneven. So we took out the pins and I just stretched it as I sewed and it turned out perfectly.

Now I hope it stays together once it's installed! We were pleased (especially Mike) at how quickly this project went and how well it turned out. Here's another business venture I could pursue....Porsche restorers might pay good money for one of these. It would cost them about $250 for one of these -- I could sell them for a little less and do quite well :)

Boppy Slipcover for Baby Melon

I had some leftover material from making Baby Melon's quilt (which I somehow managed never to take a picture of before or after giving it to Tasha at her baby shower last weekend -- Tasha please send me a picture!) and was trying to decide what to make with it until Tasha opened a couple of her baby shower gifts. She got two Boppy Pillows without any covers. I looked online to find out how to make the covers, but none of the instructions were very good so I went to Sears and bought a real one. It is super simple to make. Except for the zipper. The real Boppy Pillow slipcover has a lapped zipper. That was too hard for me to do, so my zipper is exposed. Really no big deal considering it's on the outside where Baby Melon won't be spending much time. Here is the real deal that I bought at Sears....I think my patchwork version pictured above is definitely cuter!

Hoot! Hoot!

Here's the quilted tote bag I made for Armando's fiance. I did a few things differently on this tote. The first was that I made the straps one continuous piece that wraps around the entire length of the bag, front to back. I think it looks better this way. I also added a pocket to the outside. I aligned this with the bag and then quilted it separately so the quilt lines are continuous. Then I tucked it under the two straps and sewed it along the sides and then sewed the bottom down. I like this addition best. This version is the best I've made so far. I hope it holds up well!

Jordan and Kady

Michelle, Shawn, Jordan and Kady all came over to spend the evening with us and enjoy some kabobs on the grill, as well as a very tasty and beautiful strawberry shortcake that Michelle made. I gave Jordan and Kady their bags and got them to "pose" for a few photos. Michelle attempted to get them together in a picture but I was too busy laughing at Kady's attempts to put her arm around Jordan to get their posed picture together. First Kady, standing in front of Jordan, tried to wrap one arm around the front of Jordan, then she tried putting her arm up and over Jordan's shoulder, and after a few more unsuccessful attempts, Michelle came over and helped get Kady all situated, but by the time I snapped the picture they were circling around each other and ended up as a jumble of arms and legs falling to the ground! It was quite the scene. But I did capture a few cute photos of the girls with their bags. I hope they enjoy them!

Quilted Tote Bags

Last weekend after I finished HEP's quilt, I made a quilted tote bag from the scraps. It was simple to make and turned out looking pretty cool. I've been using it to carry my lunch and book to to work and one of my co-workers, Armando, asked me if I would make one for his fiance. He gave me $20 bucks to get started. I am really flattered by this, but am also nervous about making it because I've never made anyone anything for money and I want it to stay together. So this weekend I worked up a couple of small totes for Jordan and Kady, the little girls of our friends Michelle and Shawn (who just happen to be coming over for a BBQ tonight), to practice. I didn't actually quilt the first tote I made because I wanted to have a pocket inside and I didn't want to have to hand sew it in. But since I want the bag for Armando's finance to stay together if she ever needs to wash it, I wanted to try quilting the bags for Jordan and Kady. I think they turned out super cute this way and I'm confident they will stay together because I washed them when I was finished making them and they stayed together just fine. The smaller pink and yellow one is for Kady because she's the younger (and smaller) of the two and the blue and multicolored plaid bag is for Jordan. I bought them each a little book to go in them because I don't think they'll be all that excited about just getting a bag :) Anyway, I love the way these turned out and I feel much more confident making Armando's fiance one. I will end up having to hand sew in the pocket for hers, but it'll be worth it to have the bag actually quilted.

Quilt #2 Finished

HEP's quilt is all finished! I am very pleased with how it turned out. I was a bit worried this morning when I was quilting the border because it got a little puckered in places, but once I sewed the binding on, it laid quite nicely. I decided to use the zig-zag stitch to sew on the binding and I really like how it looks and it seems so much more secure. Overall I think the quilt turned out great, but I learned my lesson regarding drawing my quilt lines vs not drawing them. I think I will take the time to draw them from now on. It will just give my future quilts a more polished looked. None of the lines are too terribly crooked, but when I laid my two quilts out side by side, the quilting on the first one looks much better because I took the time to draw the lines. Sorry, HEP! Now I have to wait until mid-May to give this to her.

Almost Finished

It was a big weekend of quilting as I hurt by back at work on Friday and couldn't really do anything very active. I spent all of Saturday building the quilt top. I got all the blocks sewn together and the border put on as well. I really liked how it turned out, but I wish I would have made the pink triangles blue. I didn't know so many of the strips would be pink, so it all sort of blends together when you look at the big picture. I think blue triangles would have popped a little bit more. Oh well, it still looks good. Today I did most of the quilting, but first I had to making the backing so I did that. Then I made my quilt sandwich. This was much easier than the last time. I think it was partially due to the fact that I bought better batting and it laid much flatter. To do the quilting, I used pink thread on top and blue on the bottom. I think these were good choices because the pink doesn't show that well on the top (except on some of the dark spots) and the blue blends nicely with the backing. Here is a rundown on all the pictures above:

Figure A) Shows the quilt top all sewn together and quilted. I still need to go around the edge of the pink triangles and the border, but that shouldn't take too long during my next session.

Figure B) A close-up of the quilting. I bordered all the blocks and then made an X through each box. This took most of today. My lines are not all that straight because I did not draw them this time around. It took way too long on my last quilt so I figured I would just eyeball it. They turned out a little crooked, but they make it look homemade!

Figure C) I love the backing of this quilt. You can see some of the quilting lines (blue) in this picture, too, but I mostly just wanted to show the back.

Figure D) These little birds are so funny looking but I love them.

All that is left to do is quilt the border, make the bias tape and sew the bias tape on. I am only working Tuesday and Thursday nights for the rest of the semester so I'll have some time to work on it during the week. Maybe I'll even finish it before the week ends. But then what will I do next weekend?!

Minor Setback

There was a minor setback in my quilting progress today. The day started off a little sluggish to begin with as it took me a good hour to lay the blocks out like I wanted them. I started laying them out randomly on the bed in the sewing room (really the guest bedroom), but I didn't like the way it turned out, so I picked them all up and moved the the living room floor. I put them out much more methodically the second time around and liked it much better. Now content with the design, I started sewing. I sewed the first three rows together and noticed the blocks weren't lining up very well. I thought about it for a minute and realized this is because the blocks are now 8 1/2" x 8 1/4" because they were only sewn together in one direction. This means I need to go through and trim all 50 blocks 1/4" along one of the length edges. Boo! I also need to trim the triangle pieces because I cut them to fit the 8 1/2 inch blocks instead of the 8 1/4 inch blocks. Quilting is tricky business! Once I figured all this out I started to do some seam ripping. I haven't gotten all the blocks apart yet, but I need to eat lunch and head off to work. I guess more progress will have to wait until next weekend (or maybe tomorrow if it rains enough to cancel insect detection work!).

Lotsa Blocks

After a short hike and a quick run to the grocery store this morning, I spent the rest of the day working on the quilt. First I cut all my 8 1/2 " strips -- 200 in all. Once they were all cut I put them together in groups of four and sewed each group together to make the blocks. I managed to get all 50 blocks finished by 7 pm! All the blocks are pictured below. They are pretty :)

I was curious what the quilt might look like, so after I finished my first 25 blocks, I laid them out with the pink 1/2 blocks. I'm liking it so far. I am going to lay them all out tomorrow and get them sewn together. I'm hoping to get the border on as well, but I have to work tomorrow afternoon so we'll see what happens. I'd be very happy to have the quilt top finished tomorrow, that way next weekend I can do the backing and start doing the quilting. That will take some time. More to come tomorrow...

Quilt Planning

I've been thinking about making another quilt but haven't had a really good reason to until recently. My best friend from college, Heather (HEP), is graduating from Iowa Medical School in May, so I thought it would be nice to make her a quilt as a gift. It will be something she can keep forever and whenever she uses it she can remember me and her med school graduation. I've come up with a plan -- it's going to be diagonally tiled 8"x8" blocks made with 4 - 2" strips. I am going to alternate the direction of the strips to give it a sort of weaved look. After I got the design figured out, I searched for the perfect fabric, and I think I found it. It is the collection called "Blush" by Basic Grey for Moda Fabrics. To make my life a little easier, I ordered a jelly roll of this collection. A jelly roll is precut fabric -- 40 - 2 1/2" x 44" strips -- so it will already be the proper width and I'll just have to cut the strips to be 8 1/2" long. Much easier than buying yardage and cutting it up. So the strips will be all variates of the collection. The half squares around the edges and the binding will be the "Sweetie Grunge" fabric (the pink one) and the border and the backing will be the Mike Chocolate Adore fabric. I'm looking forward to getting the fabric so I can get to work on this. HEP is coming to visit in May so I'm hoping to have it done by the time she gets here.

Matching Tote Bag

I whipped up a matching tote bag for my sunhat! Instead of doing the outside in a solid color or print, I decided to quilt it. I alternated the pink canvas and the pink and yellow plaid on the outside, and then did solid pink for the liner with a plaid pocket. The handles are plaid on the outside and pink on the inside. I think it turned out fantastically. I really love it. It's the perfect beach ensemble! Now if only I didn't have to work so much...

Boxy Zipper Pouch

I found a tutorial on how to make this boxy zipper pouch (http://threebears.wordpress.com/2007/10/15/little-boxy-pouch-tutorial/). It looked easy and cute, so I gave it a try. I made mine longer and shorter for no particular reason except that the leftover pieces of the fabrics were about this size. The tutorial only makes it with a single layer of fabric -- I made mine with two layers, so it's lined in red canvas to help give it a little more support. I meant to make the red stripe more towards the middle, but it didn't work out that way once it was all sewn together. Now I'll know if I ever make one again to put it closer to the zipper. If I make another one I also think I will try to figure out a way to make a little end handle for it -- it'll make it easier to transport. It was an easy, quick project for the afternoon.

Finished Quilt

Hooray! I finished my first quilt today! I worked hard the last couple of days to finish this off and it is sort of a bitter sweet achievement. Sweet because it's cool that I made a quilt, but bitter because it's done and now I have to wait until I get paid (not till the end of February!) to start a new project. Anyway, these are the things I had to do to finish the quilt since my last post. The first thing I had to do was finish drawing all the quilting lines -- that took a very long time and unfortunately, by the time I was done sewing the quilting lines in one direction, the lines in the other direction were extremely faint and hard to follow. I think they got rubbed off from being handled so much. I didn't redraw them, but lesson learned -- I'll remember that for the next quilt. The machine quilting took about a day total. I worked on it some yesterday and finished it today. I can see why most people don't do this with a regular machine. It wasn't that hard, but it was tedious and for a quilt this big, it was hard to keep all the lines straight. However, overall I think the lines turned out fairly straight and evenly spaced. There are a few spots that are wide, crooked or bunched, but for a first quilt, I was pleased and would machine quilt again. Once all the machine quilting was finished, I trimmed the leftover batting and backing on the edges. Then I pinned and sewed on the bias tape. This is what I ended up with:

I really like how it turned out! I'd like to give it a wash to break it in a little bit, but am too afraid. I don't want to shrink it or anything. And I didn't pre-wash any of the fabrics because most of it was scrap pieces and the navy and backing were such big pieces of fabric I didn't want to deal with trying to iron them once they came out of the dryer. I may regret that I didn't pre-wash the fabric, but I'm sure I'll find out eventually.

I realized you haven't seen the backing yet. I couldn't get enough of the navy pindot fabric that is on the front, so I went with a different navy fabric that was in the same collection. It's called marbles -- kinda crazy, but I think it makes it fun. This is what it looks like:

Well, there it is. My first quilt. I'm definitely happy with it! It even looks good on the back of the couch :)

Quilt Progress

I made a lot of progress on my quilt today -- and it shockingly looks a lot like I planned! I started sewing around 7:30 this morning and began by sewing the navy strips and the patchwork strips together to make the first and third panels (as seen above). I then sewed the 3 panels together with a navy piece between each of the the panels. After that, I sewed on the border. It took quite a long time to get this all together -- I think I was finished with it around 3 pm. Once the top was finished, I measured, cut and sewed the backing pieces together. That was the simplest thing I've done all day. Then I made my quilt sandwich with the backing, batting and quilt top as you can see below. I've got it all pinned together and am working on drawing the quilting lines. I think I made a mistake by choosing to quilt it. Drawing these lines is taking forever and it's going to take a long time to sew all of them, too! Oh well, hopefully it will be worth it in the end. I'm going to keep drawing lines tonight and then tomorrow hopefully I can sew the sandwich together and put the binding on. The end is near!

Patchwork Strips

I got the fabric for the last 18 patchwork strips, so I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon and a handful of hours this morning cutting and sewing and finished them off. Now I just have to wait for the rest of the fabric to come in order to finish the quilt off.

The First Quilt Vision

I haven't gotten all the fabric I need to finish the quilt, so today I made the bias tape (binding) that will go around the edges and worked up my vision of what the final quilt will look like. For the binding I cut a bunch of the leftover scrap pieces into 2 1/4" wide strips of various lengths, sewed them together, ironed the seams, pulled the fabric through my handy-dandy bias tape maker tool (thanks, Becky!) and ironed. I now have about 300 inches of bias, which should be plenty to go around the edge of the final quilt.

Here is a photo I mocked up in Photoshop of what I imagine the end product will look like. The horizonal blue strips will all be the same width (3 inches) even though the photo makes it look otherwise, and the vertical and border blue strips will be 5 inches wide. The binding is 1/2 inch wide. So the final dimensions of the quilt will be somewhere around 60 x 80. It's a little on the wild side, but it's sort of neat, I think. What do you think?

First Quilt

I spent a good chunk of today putting the beginnings of this quilt together. Mom bought me a couple of bags full of scraps from The Quilted Forest in Forest City so I thought with a new table and a bunch of fabric I should make something. I started by randomly piecing the squares and rectangles together. This was made easy by the rotary cutter, mat and rulers I got for Christmas. These tools made cutting all the pieces really simple and fast. After I made 5 patchwork strips, I realized there was no way I was going to have enough fabric to make the whole quilt out of patchwork strips. Luckily, there happened to be some strips of fabric that were about the same length as the patchwork strips, so I put them between the patchwork strips to make it longer. There are now 17 strips, each 3 inches wide, making it 51 inches long. It's only about 21 inches wide, so I'm going to use whatever backing fabric I buy to make a border on the sides to make it wider. So far I think it is turning out nicely and now I just have to find some backing and decide if I'm going to use batting or flannel between the top and bottom. Flannel would be easier because then I could just tie it, but we'll see. I've got the next two weeks off from work so I should be able to finish this soon!

New Work Space

For Christmas, Mike got me a new table to sew at! It is really nice and spacious. I am definitely glad to have more working room and was able to get a lot done today and not feel crowded. The table I was using before was very small and really just big enough for my sewing machine. This was an awesome Christmas present and I'm glad Mike thought of it! It is going to get a lot of use. Thanks Mike!