Mermaid Quilt Finished

I finished up the binding on L's baby quilt today.

I'm so happy with it, and happy to finish one of my bigger projects.
Some specs:
*Heather Ross Mendocino fabrics (mermaids and swimming girls and seahorses and octopi)
*Moda Snippets fabrics (orange dots and grid)
*rick rack :D
*hand dyed aqua and deep oranges
*peach baby corduroy back and little bit on the front
*a few other fabrics too
*quilted with waves and fishies and a few swirly lines, mostly in aqua thread but some orange too. Her name is quilted on there as well.
*37.25"x45.25" before washing and drying; 35.25"x43.25" after. I used Warm and White batting

back:


detail:


happy baby--I think she likes it!


peekaboo!


more pics here, if you're interested (or a grandparent):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17723088@N00/sets/72157622161346350/

some stuff you should know about

Have you heard about Craft Hope yet? Right now they are collecting handmade sock monkeys for Little Heroes Preschool Burn Camp. The deadline is Sept. 18. I forgot to get a pair of long socks during my epic Target shopping trip last week, but I have a return to make (the ankle cuff socks will NOT DO for D, he wants the totally short socks!) and will get monkey making socks then.

And, another cool thing: Iraqi Bundles of Love--send your extra fabric, yarn, any craft stuff to folks in Iraq who can use them. Mailing due date for this one is September 7--hey wait, that is Labor Day (and my birthday :D) so maybe you should get it sent out by 9/5.

I have several big projects in line to finish up in the next few months. (I am busy with my baby. And the boys. And trying to improve my life in other ways and be balanced). But after I get about 7 or 8 of them finished, I am going to start one of these. Here's a partial list of my started quilt projects:
My watercolor quilt, aka insane quilt project. Going on 7.5 years since I began it.

Figgy Pudding Christmas Quilt

9-patch quilt--I am thinking about making it queen size. Sigh.

Geese Quilt


And also the quilts that are on deck for finishing this week (baby quilt, Grandpa's quilt).
There are more. I also have quilts in my mind that I need to make--one for my newest baby nephew, and a monkey one for my monkey 5-year-old. I really want to start a Dear Jane quilt, but must shrink my UFO pile first.

ready for binding

I just finished up the quilting on L's baby quilt.


I will probably put it away for a bit so I can work on quilting and binding a quilt for my Grandpa's 85th birthday. My mom made the top and sent it out for me to quilt; it's going to be signed by guests at his party in a couple weeks.

I have been busy the last little while with buying school supplies and getting my boys into school. It is adding some much needed structure to our family and hopefully everyone will be fully adjusted to the new schedule soon.

A couple weeks ago I went with the family to First Friday where we saw Jacquie's quilt show and Lacey's exhibit, too. It was such a fun night out, and I really enjoyed it. All of the quilts and paintings were wonderful.

I put together a dresser for my baby girl (finally) and decided to store some of my fabric in the bins where her clothes used to be. I had fun folding up and color sorting all my smaller pieces of quilt fabric:


They used to be all crammed in one big blue bin and I think this is a big improvement!

The Winner

Front:

Back:


The winner is #6, Sedna-is-my-own-last-name. Sedna, I don't see an email address on your blogger profile or blog, so send me an email with your mailing address and I'll get the mini quilt mailed out to you next week. (I need to figure out how people put the random.org picture on their blog.)

I am on day 2 of a yucky sinus headache and probably won't sew today. I'm going to watch Coraline with my 5-year-old in the cool basement. Hope you're having a good weekend!

giveaway update

Things got busy today. I finished up the mini mermaid quilt though and will do the drawing later tonight or maybe tomorrow. If you haven't entered yet, there's still time!

200th Post Giveaway!

Well, here I am, at 200 posts. I started this blog a little over three years ago and I'm really enjoying having it as a place to show off my work and share a few tutorials for things I know how to do. I appreciate everyone who subscribes and reads and (especially) comments. Thank you all so much! I have been thinking about what to do for a giveaway and, well, will get to that in a minute. I have a few things I want to show off first:

A neighbor friend had a birthday so I made her this skirt:

And a little wristlet. It's my first try; I need to make some more and perfect my technique:

I got some fabric the other day. I love this pink Sultry floral print and will make something for my little girl to wear from it. Not sure what I will do with the charm pack yet but I love charm packs.

This little set is a belated baby gift for a friend. I don't know if she reads my blog, if so I hope she pretends to be surprised when I give it to her! I love how this turned out:

The tag blanket has some ribbon, some wide twill tape, and some bias tape for the tags. I love the colors on this and think it turned out so cute. I made a couple of similar tag blankets a while ago for my girl and my friend Heather's baby and just used one layer of quilt cotton and one layer of baby corduroy. L's seems a little flimsy so for this one I decided to sandwich a layer of flannel in the middle of the two fabric layers to give it some body.

Ok. Finally, on to the giveaway. I started piecing this together as a bit of an "enders and leaders" project while I was making L's strip quilt. I decided to make it into a mini quilt and give it away to one of my readers. Here it is all basted:

It is already halfway quilted. I am doing some ocean wave quilted lines and some just plain wavy lines. I will probably do the quilting on L's quilt very much the same. As soon as I finish it up I will mail it off to the lucky winner. All you have to do to enter is comment here. Please tell me your name, where you live, and what you are making, what you are reading, or just plain old what you are doing these days. I will close the comments and have my assistants help me draw out a name on Friday around lunch time. (I am leaving the computer off until after lunch these days.)

I hope you are having a good Wednesday!

Open Source Quilting

All right, I want to try something with the Simple Squares quilt pattern and I need your help. I'm calling it Open Source Quilting, and what I mean by that is that you can use the Simple Squares quilt block patterns, and the quilt layout patterns that will be here eventually, to make things for sale, or to give away, or for whatever you want.

The part about needing your help? I'd like to invite anyone who's interested to design quilt blocks or quilt layouts using the block patterns here, and create tutorials (or diagrams or instructions in whatever way works for you) to share. For example, you might decide to make the existing block patterns in a different size--great! Figure out the measurements, make a tutorial, and send me the link. Or you might have an idea for a new Simple Squares quilt block to add to the collection. Please share!

Another thing I am planning to add, and hoping that others will also want to contribute, are quilt layouts (patterns) with fabric requirements included. I am planning on adding sashing instructions so the pattern for the original blue and green baby quilt using Simple Squares blocks will be complete. I've also figured out a layout for my Christmas Simple Squares quilt and will eventually post fabric requirements and instructions for that project too. And, yesterday I drew out a twin-size quilt for my 5-year-old using these blocks (I'm going to use Goodnight Monkey fabric) and will share that project with you too.

So... what do you think? Any questions? Eventually I'd like to have a long list of Simple Squares blocks and projects in the sidebar. I'm going to make a few more blocks for my Christmas quilt now, talk to you later!

Simple Squares Quiltalong Block C

Hi everyone! First off I've decided on a name for this pattern and it is "Simple Squares." I appreciate all the suggestions and will probably ask for quilt or quilt pattern naming help again. So please don't be upset that I didn't use any of the suggested names.

Second, it has come to my attention that I have 197 posts (before this one) on this blog and I think that 200 is a good spot to do a giveaway, so watch this space!

Third, block C. Here's a little preview along with the other four of my finished blocks for this quilt so far:

Down here on the bottom left. I hope you like it. I'm not sure if I do yet. But I'm going to go with it, anyway.

Here goes, Step 1: Cut pieces for the block sub-unit. Center square is 2.5" on all sides. The first two strips are 2"x2.5". The longer strips are 2"x5.5".


Step 2: Sew the shorter strips to the center square, using a 1/4" seam allowance. Press seams.


Step 3: Sew the longer strips to the other sides of the center square with a 1/4" seam allowance. Press seams. You've now completed one block C subunit.


Step 4: Make 3 more subunits. I used that directional Christmas tree fabric again so I had to pay attention to how I cut my strips.


Step 5: Sew the subunits together. First sew them into 2 pairs and press the seams opposite ways:

Then sew the two rows together into a square and press that seam:

And, as my 5-year old would say, "Voila!" Block C is finished. I'd love to see pictures if you make one!