Hexie Quilt

 

Mom and dad sent me a few charm packs for my birthday along with a half hexie ruler. I decided to "regift" the fabric back to them in the form of a finished quilt this Christmas. It should help keep them warm in the subzero Iowa temperatures!

Amy Butler Kimono Robes

I made these two robes as Christmas presents for Megan and Anne. The pattern didn't have instructions for a liner, but that was easy to add. I used flannel to make them nice and warm. They will probably too warm for summer use, but nice and cozy for the winter. I am a little disappointed we couldn't find a blue flannel to match the blue robe, but otherwise, I'm pretty happy with them.

Toddler Clothes

Tasha mentioned that Miss Libby -- the Purple Princess -- refuses to wear pants and doesn't have many winter dresses, so I decided to make her a couple. I purchased a jumper pattern and it turns out patterns for apparel have all sorts of strange language -- it was so much more confusing than a quilt pattern!  I got most of it down, except the zipper. The directions were impossible to understand so I just improvised (and not very well). Anyway, I made her two jumpers -- one out of fabric left over from the backpack and one from an old pair of Mike's jeans (I even used the zipper). The dresses are lined so with a long sleeve shirt (which we spent at least an hour looking for) underneath and a pair of tights (white for the plaid dress and light purple with dark purple polkadots for the jean dress), she should stay nice and warm during the winter. Let's just hope the dresses fit...

I also made Silas a pair of pj bottoms out of his leftover backpack fabric. Talk about simple! I used this pattern and tutorial: http://www.danamadeit.com/2008/07/tutorial-and-pattern-kid-pants-the-basic-pants.html. If I didn't already have some flannel pajamas I would totally be making myself some!

Silas' Backback

I am a little worried that Silas' backpack turned out a little girly. The orange/yellow/blue combination seemed more boyish in the store than when it all got put together :( I might have to make him a new one...

Libby's Birthday Backpack

I started working on a backpack for Libby's 3rd birthday last weekend and finished it up today. She loves Dora, and Dora has a purple backpack, so I figured Libby should have a purple backpack, too. I didn't want to make her a replica of Dora's backpack because it's not very exciting, so hopefully Libby won't mind that her's is not completely purple and doesn't have a face on it? Tasha will have to do her, "Libby, I LOVE your purple backpack" act so she goes along with it.

I used this pattern -- http://www.made-by-rae.com/2009/03/finally-here-toddler-backpack-pattern/ -- and made a couple of additions - a front pocket and a side mesh pocket for a water bottle.

I have fabric to make Silas an orange backpack like Diego. His will be next weekend's project.

Mike's Disc Golf Bag

Thanks to Mitchell and Brody's disc diving excursions in Branson, Mike outgrew his disc golf bag from mom. He's been toting around a sort of unwieldy bag and has been wanting a new bag. When I hit up JoAnn's yesterday, I found some native american inspired fabric that he approved via pic-messaging (it's hard to find fabric for guys). I drew up a simple pattern after making my bag (and Krista's) and basically just doubled the size, added a stabilized divider to help give it some shape and made a bigger front pocket. It fits all of Mike's discs and then some. Maybe a little bigger than he wanted, but it'll do the job.

Lone Star Quilt for Baby Girl Berberet

Not sure what I am going to do the rest of Labor Day weekend as I finished the quilt for Stephanie's baby. She is due October 8th so I'm not too far ahead of the game on this one. It is a pretty small quilt -- about 36 x 36 -- good thing babies are small!

I realized too late that I forgot the quilt label. Oh well!

Caterino Wall Hook Sign and Kitchen Chalkboard

Now that we are all moved and have things on the walls at the new house, I can finally post pictures of the Caterino wall hook sign and the kitchen chalkboard. Both are quite useful.

Repurposed Cabinet Doors

I found two old cabinet doors in the small shed outside. I decided to repurpose them into art! I am making a kitchen chalkboard out of one and a entranceway sign that will serve as a coat/purse/key hanger.

I started with two of these:

I sanded and painted the frames today. The chalkboard got a red frame (to match our kitchen aid mixer) and the entranceway frame is white. This is what I have now:

And this is my vision for the final product:

I am in the process of ordering a decal with our last name. There are tons of options out there, but I've got a couple of cool ones picked out on Etsy. We'll see if either of them can accommodate the size I need. More to come on these soon!

A Glorious Green Table

Here she is in all her green glory! I learned that painting furniture is not really my thing -- I'd rather just spray paint it and have it over with. It is a ridiculously long process and I don't have the patience for painting, waiting for the paint to dry, sanding, painting, waiting for the paint to dry, sanding, painting and on and on! I gave up on putting four coats of Minwax on -- that is just crazy. I might try and put one or two more coats on the top of the table since it will be the most exposed to the elements. But then again, a table cloth might do instead!

Now I'm on a mission to find a mix of chairs to put around the table. If they need painting, I'll go with spray paint for sure!!

Lone Star Quilt

I've been working up quilt ideas for my friend Stephanie who is having a baby girl in October. Lone star quilts are popping up all over quilting blogs these days and I've been wanting to work with diamond pieces again since making the Argyle quilt last year, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. I also had the right number of different fabrics (left over from Libby's quilt), and they were the right length the pattern called for, so it was perfect. Oh, and I also have to learn a new skill -- Y Seams -- to make this quilt, so another plus to chalk up on the board. With all of that going for it, I jumped in and put this together in about 3 hours last night. Once I put in the background pieces, it will be about 32 inches square. I'm hoping I have enough fabric to make another 1/2 lone star and then I'll offset the two and have a good size baby quilt. I should mention this looks much more complicated than it is, here's the tutorial I followed:
http://betteroffthread.com/2012/08/19/scrappy-lone-star-tutorial-part-1/

Primed and Ready for Color Coat

Mike and I spent a good bit of the 4th of July priming all the table pieces. We put on two coats of Zinnser Bulls Eye 1-2-3 Primer. Now it's ready for the color coat. We're heading out the door to start now...

Painting Furniture - A New Adventure

Mike and I found a super old table in the garage (it's probably an antique) and when Gene died, the son said it wasn't theirs so we could do what we wanted with it. Mike wanted to dump it, but I wanted to keep it, so we dusted it off and I've decided to try and bring it back to life with hopes that it can live on the deck of our new house. It is a funky old table. It has a leaf in the middle with a cool folding mechanism that stores the leaf under the table (I just googled it and it is called a butterfly leaf). The legs also separate, so the table can either be a little higher than coffee table height, or normal table height. A bit strange, I'm not sure why a table would be designed this way. It also has a decorative trim that looks burned into the wood. It is pretty variable in depth, so I'm going to fill it will wood filler to try and smooth it out around the edges.

I've been getting some inspiration and more importantly, information, on how to paint furniture from centsationalgirl's website. She does some wonderous things to old, beat up furniture. I doubt my first attempt will be as fantastic as anything she has done, but hopefully it'll be good enough to enjoy a card game and a glass of wine around.

Here are some before pictures of the table (I remembered to take them right before I was about to start sanding).

Table top with leaf:

Table leg base:

Decorative trim burned into the wood:

The folding mechanism for the leaf:

I've taken the table mostly apart, sanded it, filled in scratches and the trim with wood filler and primed the base.  I hope to make some more progress this weekend, so check back for more pictures soon!

Go Hawks!

Football season is fast-approching so I made this softie football for Siley boy!

Smuggling Letters Baby Doll Quilt

I made this Smuggling Letters quilt block as an experiment. I found the pattern in one of my many quilting books: Material Obsession: Modern Quilts with Traditional Roots. While I really like how the block turned out, I decided it wasn't what I was after for a baby quilt I'm planning to make. It is an enormous block for a baby quilt -- measuring in around 20 inches square! So I free-motion quilted it, threw some binding around it and re-purposed it into a baby doll quilt for Libby.

Just for fun, I've entered it into a modern mini challenge hosted by Ellison Lane: http://ellisonlane.blogspot.com/2013/06/link-up-your-modern-mini-challenge-entry.html

"It's my purple blanky!"

I can finally post a picture of the entire quilt now. Libby opened the box yesterday over skype and exclaimed, "It's my purple blanky!" She apparently really likes the quilt and pillow and was dragging them around everywhere. Tasha and Josh had to have a talk with her about how the quilt needs to stay on her bed so it doesn't get dirty or torn. It's hard for me to believe that she could even drag it around considering its size to her petiteness. I'm really glad she likes it, it makes me feel closer to her when I'm so far away.

Disc Golf Bag

I've been feeling a little sad that I'm all done with Libby's quilt, so I needed a quick sewing pick-me-up today. I whipped up this bag to tote around my disc golf discs.

Preview of Princess Libby's Quilt

I am not going to post a picture of the entire quilt until it arrives in Iowa and Princess Libby has a chance to open it, but here's a sneak peak of the finished product.

Quilt Top:

Quilt Back and Quilting Lines (the color came out sort of funky in this picture):

Binding and Label:

I am really pleased with how this quilt came out. And I really love how the quilting lines look on the back, even though no one will ever really see that side! I told Mike that Libby better never write on this quilt with a pen or marker and she better never puke or poop on it. But what can you expect from a two and a half year old?! I really just hope she comes to treasure it through the years.

1500 Yards of Thread

1500 yards of thread later, the quilt top is done! In terms we can understand, that's 0.85 miles!

Orange Peel Quilt Blocks

Now that I have the peels arranged, the blocks are coming along slowly but surely...

Peels

Halfway through trimming the peels and fusible interfacing...

Lots of trimmings on the floor...what a mess!

And finally...all 252 peels. They still need to be ironed, but once that is done, they will be ready to be arranged and blanket stitched (I'm having second thoughts about this) to the 10 x 10 inch background squares!

I think this will be the last blog post on this quilt until it is complete. I want the finished product to be a surprise...

Mikey Monkey - aka Kinnick

Siley boy's 1st birthday present -- a Mikey Monkey.

Orange Peel Quilt Progress

I finally had some time today to sit down and work on Libby's orange peel quilt. I've been dilly-dallying around with the prep work, so I pushed through and finished getting all the peels and fusible interfacing prepped. I traced the peel pattern 21 times on each of the remaining 10 fabrics (I already did two of them before) and did a rough cut around each peel. Then I cut 42 - 5 1/2" strips of interfacing. Now I will be able to sew the interfacing and peels together, flip them, iron them and voila...peels with fusible interfacing. This will make life much easier when I go to blanket stitch around the peels because I will be able to iron them onto the white backing blocks and they will stay in place. I also did not want to have raw edges on the peels, so sewing them together with the fusible interfacing solves that issue as well. 


Here is my original design with all the fabric calculations:

All the peels are traced and ready for interfacing:

I finished a few more peels after the prep work was done. I probably have about 54 peels done now. Here's a preview of what the quilt will eventually end up looking like:

Tomorrow more peels will be completed...