Made in 2010

I look forward to making this collage every year. There were a couple more things I had hoped would be finished by today, but they're not. Here are some of my finished projects from 2010:

1. rose velour hoodie dress, 2. DQS8 finish--"Six of One", 3. Oh Boy Quilt, 4. Eden charm pack dress, 5. 2 chickens, 6. downy quilt, 7. watercolor quilt front, 8. watercolor quilt back--finished, 9. day camp flag 2010, 10. finished circle quilt, 11. circle quilt closeup, 12. finished! turtle/hexagon quilt for DQS9, 13. finished pillow shams, 14. scrappy selvedge gift tags, 15. gathered clutch #1, 16. scrappy shirt, "leggings", 17. maple leaf quilt, 18. for Quilts for Kids, 19. charity quilt lavender and brown, 20. fairy costume, 21. mini quilt for guild swap, 22. 9-patch quilt finished, 23. finished shirt quilt, 24. plus pillows, 25. barn bag

In 2010, I made:
4 big quilts (bigger than baby quilt size)
5 baby quilts--3 for charity and one each for a new nephew and niece
5 quilted pillow covers
12 (I think) mini quilts
and several potholders

plus I knitted a couple of things and sewed a few clothing items.

I'm not going to talk about resolutions or goals right now, but some things I'd like to make in 2011 are:
*twin size quilt for Jacob
*another 9-patch quilt
*baby quilt for my sister's baby who's coming in August
*clothing items for me and my girl
*at least 2 charity quilts
*something quilty and Valentine-themed

What would you like to make or do next year?

Quilts from Grandma (+ pie!)

My mom has 14 grandkids (and one on the way--my youngest sister's expecting her second in August!) and has made a quilt for each of them in the last three or so years. My boys got their quilts from her on Christmas morning this year.

I got another picture with the whole quilt spread out but I like how you can see part of the quilt back in this one, plus my boy had a squinty face in the other photo. This is a really cool quilt, and big, too. He really likes it.

The other one has a surfing theme:

I love the different surfing fabrics in this one and the sand colored border is perfect. Both quilts turned out great, and the boys were really surprised and they like them a lot. Thanks, Mom!

Here's the cheesecake I made the other day. This is the kind we had when I was a kid--no bake, with homemade graham cracker crust. Here's Mom's recipe:

No Bake Cheesecake
8 oz package cream cheese
one can sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup lemon juice

Set the cream cheese out to soften for a couple hours before making the cheesecake so you won't get lumps. Mix the above ingredients together until smooth. Pour into graham cracker crust of your choice. Here's how I made mine (sometimes I use a store bought crust though):

Crush one sleeve of graham crackers
Mix in 1/4 c sugar
Melt 1/3 cup butter and stir into the graham cracker/sugar mixture

Press into pie pan.

You can eat this cheesecake plain or top it with pie filling of your choice. When I was a kid we had sour cherries in the freezer and we would make a yummy cheesecake topping with those.

Happy Holidays!

I took a bit of a blog break there... and then the last couple days I have been thinking, I can't post to my blog yet, the doll isn't all the way finished! I will post about her later; I just need to finish her feet.

So here are a few things I finished up for gifts before Christmas:

Gathered clutches. Pattern is from noodlehead.
The green one was for my niece who is almost 13 (she's a New Year's Eve baby, we were partying hard (and impatiently) while her mom was in labor!) and loves lime green and all neon colors. My sister-in-law LOVES purple more than most people like their favorite colors, so it wasn't hard to choose colors for hers.

I like how these look (love the gathers) but I am still a bit stumped by the zipper. If anyone has tips or tricks for the zipper tabs on this clutch that work really well and easy and it turns out great, please let me know! 

And pillows:

One for my mom, one for my mother-in-law. I had seen a couple of plus quilts on blogs/flickr and used this one as an inspiration when I drew up the diagram for these. I used a jelly roll of Merry and Bright for these, it's a Moda Christmas line from 2008. I love the ribbon candy print, and all the holly leaf fabrics too. I still have a lot of the jelly roll left, and a pillow form that I bought for myself; I still need to decide if I'm going to make my pillow with this same pattern or something else.

And I finished up this quilt for a lovely young woman from church who graduated early and is headed off to college next week:

The white squares all have written/drawn messages from the other young women/leaders. The girls helped sew it together, too. I quilted it and got it bound barely in time for church yesterday. You really do need to use fabric markers; I'm glad I found that out by testing a swatch with my son's permanent bic markers.

We had a wonderful Christmas here. Kids got great gifts and our big family thing, the new TV, is being delivered tomorrow. My mom made quilts for 6 grandkids this year, including my two boys, and I'll show you the quilts she sent soon. They are really cool.
Here's my big Christmas present:

(I LOVE that color!)
and the first loaf of bread mixed with it:

I only made one loaf just to try the thing out, and to try out the recipe. I grew up making 6 loaves of bread at a time--starting around age 10 I made that much bread at least once a week (for a couple years, not my whole life :) ), so it felt a little wrong to mix up the dough with barely 4 cups of flour. This one's all gone now anyway so maybe tomorrow I'll make 2 loaves. I have to say I made a couple of very silly mistakes in the kitchen today, I'm too embarrassed to say more but I've got to pay more attention. I loved how quick and easy it was to mix the bread dough, and I'm looking forward to mixing up cheesecake in the Kitchenaid tomorrow!

Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season! I've started my next quilt already :) and am thinking about the UFO pile and New Year's goals, projects, dreams, wishes. And I'm working on my first quilt pattern. I really like this one; I think you will too.

9-patches week 7

Well, I thought about it and thought about it and couldn't resist. I'm going to make another 9-patch quilt, this time with 48 blocks. It will end up about 55" x 75" (I did the math but now I can't remember for sure) and I'm still going to do the borders like Amanda Jean's original one-a-day quiltalong. This time I'm going to try for fewer pastels, fewer pinks, oranges, and yellows all together. I think I won't use any browns in this quilt, either. I wonder if I could make it kind of rainbow-y? I will need more real blues, and true greens, too. Oh yeah, and purple.

I'm going to do 8 blocks a week and will have enough blocks for this quilt in 6 weeks. Anyone care to join me?

catching up

Last week I finished some handmade gifts that I can't show yet, and one that I can. Here's Grandma M's quilt:

and the back:

I know I've shared some of this before, but here's the story behind this quilt, really quick. My husband's grandfather died in March 2008 and when his grandma was giving some of Grandpa's clothes to him and my boys, I offered to make a quilt using his shirts.

I got a bit sidetracked along the way--it's been nearly 3 years--but the quilt is finished and she'll get it on Christmas. I really hope she likes it. I started out with these somewhat modern quilt blocks and part of the reason the project sat for so long is that I wasn't sure she would like it. I showed them to a friend who told me to just continue and finish the way I'd started, and I'm glad I did. I chose a more traditional floral fabric for the back and hope she'll like that as well. I didn't buy quite enough fabric for the back (by accident/bad memory) and that's why I added the big square-in-a-square block.

I also got my daughter's Christmas dress finished this past weekend (quilt made by my friend Lorilee):

The pattern is from Ottobre 1/2007, #6. I made it in size 80 with 86 length. It's too wide for my skinny girl, but it will be ok. The fabric is embroidered black mini-cord from Jo-Anns. Here's the back:

I'm glad the ruffles show up in this picture. I think they're really cute! The black fabric was a bit of a challenge to work with, especially when I was undoing stitches that I couldn't see very well. I enjoyed making it though... it's nice to remember that making clothing is so much faster than making quilts!

Finally I wanted to show off this hat. It was given to me by fellow KCMQGer Julie, who brought it over to me and said she reads my blog (and had read about my hat making pursuits) and wanted my boy to have this. It didn't fit the oldest (HEED! Pants! Now! name that movie, anyone??) but it's perfect for my 6-year-old and he likes it a lot. Thank you, Julie!!

The Winner!

Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by my blog during giveaway week! I hope everyone wins something, somewhere! (Including me...)

The winner of my stocking miniquilt and notions bundle is

momto2wasd -- I just emailed her and will ship out the quilt and notions on Monday.


Congratulations!

It's Giveaway Day!!

Hi friends! Today I have a couple things to give away to one lucky person!

First is this little Christmas mini-quilt. I'd say it's maybe 8" x 10". The shapes are machine-sketch-appliqued to the quilt through all 3 layers, using my free-motion foot.

And I also put together a little bundle of notions to go with it:

Here's what's in the pile: 3 zippers, red elastic, weird little eyelet tape, mini yellow ric rac, lavender bias tape (over 2 yards, I think), sheer white ribbon, almost a yard of striped red ribbon, some wide blue ribbon, and a couple yards of 1.25" wide elastic.

All you need to do to win is make a comment, but it has to be something interesting, not just "I want to win." You can tell me about a cool gift you've received, what you're making this month, a joke, something funny your kid did, whatever. The winner will be chosen randomly. Please make sure I have a way to get a hold of you. If your email address isn't available in your blogger profile, include it in your comment. If I can't contact the winner I'll choose another one! The giveaway will be open until December 17.

Also, you know about Giveaway Day, don't you? Head on over to Sew, Mama, Sew for links to lots of giveaways, all starting today!

Saturday update

I had a great time at the KCMQG meeting the other night. We have such a fun group of people and it has been great getting to know some of them over the course of the year. The exciting moment of the night was when Jacquie revealed...

 

Kona solid charm packs! One for every member. Someone said it was like Oprah. It was pretty funny. But we each got to pick between the pastel, dusty, dark, classic, and bright colorways... IF we are willing to make a challenge quilt using a bit of each color in our charm pack, and any additional fabric we choose as long as it is solid. I had a hard time deciding but I ended up bringing a bright charm pack home. Then I dreamed about using it to make a mini Dear Jane quilt, with light gray as the background. How crazy is that? I'm not sure if I really will do that, but it would be less intimidating than starting to make the entire Dear Jane quilt.

I got another sweet surprise at the guild meeting, but I don't have a picture, so I'll save that one for another day.

Here's my holiday sewing status:

*finished 2 surprise items today, yay!

*worked on my giveaway day project--it's a sketchy little mini-quilt, holiday-themed

*last night I got this done: 

It's the inner head for the Waldorf-inspired doll I'm making for my little girl for Christmas. I am making my doll (yeah, my girl's doll) from a kit I bought from Weir Dolls and Crafts. I was really nervous about getting this right, and looked at lots of tutorials to make sure I was "doing it right." I worked on the head while watching shows with my husband last night--I really enjoyed working with the wool stuffing. My hands get so dry and cracked in the cold weather and I hate it when different fabrics snag on my fingers... the wool was not snaggy at all; it was really soft and soothing to my hands. :)

Now that I have this much done I'm feeling better about the whole project but am still sort of obsessively searching "how to stuff dolls" and similar terms. I found a couple of absolutely GORGEOUS Waldorf doll websites during my search: Bamboletta  and Tumbleberry Toys. I love the dolls with crazy colorful dreadlocks and the beautiful little sweaters that some of the dolls are wearing. These sellers also have good inspiration for attractive, up-to-date clothing for the dolls as well. I'm thinking I probably won't only be making this one doll....

quilted

The quilting on this quilt went very quickly--big meandering stitches. (Not big stitches--well a few, but they were mistakes. Big meanders.)

Now that the quilting on this is done, I feel like my huge sewing stress of the last couple weeks has mostly lifted. I have a couple more handmade things that need to be finished in time to mail for Christmas, but they are small and won't take too long. And I have a couple more handmade things on the list that will be staying here, too.

Do you know about Giveaway Day? Sew, Mama, Sew hosts this a couple times a year. The next one starts on Monday so be sure to come back here for my giveaway then. Also, you can go to the Sew, Mama, Sew blog next week for links to hundreds of giveaways of handmade items or supplies for making stuff.

fast hat

Here's the first hat, all finished. It was fun working with this super chunky yarn!

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knitting

I started this bag a few months ago... then it got set aside, for no reason really. I have been itching to knit hats for my boys so I decided I needed to finish up the bag. (Pattern info--it's called the barn bag and you can find it on ravelry or here.) It's small and doesn't really take months to make, if you don't have project ADD like I sometimes do.

My son wants one of those hats with the hanging down tassels on the sides. (I still secretly want to make them fish hats. Holy crow the fish hat has its own website now, check it out, soo funny.) Anyway the yarn he liked is the super chunky Thick and Quick Woolease by Lion Brand and I started the hat (orange and black) last week. I need to go get size 13 dpns tomorrow and should be able to finish the hat really soon! I love how fast this fat yarn knits up!

In quilting news, today I got the shirt quilt (scroll down at this link to see the quilt top) pin basted and the quilting is underway. I'm doing a big stipple stitch and hope to have the quilting done in the next 2 days or so.

Sew and Tell--Finished 9-Patch Quilt!

Here's my 9-patch quilt all finished!

I took another pic after washing and drying it, I love how it shrunk up a bit:

and here is the back:

Here's some info on this quilt:
Started sometime in 2009
Finished November 2010
Measurements after washing/drying: 63" x 84"
Quiltalong info (how to make this quilt) from AmandaJean found here.

I'm so happy this one's done!
I'm linking up at Sew and Tell Fridays ... thanks again, Amy, for hosting!

Scrappy Stocking Tutorial

Today I'm guest posting at Stash Manicure... head on over if you'd like to see my tutorial to make a stocking like this one!

finished shepherd costume

I was going to get a picture of the illustration in the book that this costume is supposed to look like, but I didn't have time. It was a busy day! (week, month, yep.) Anyway, there was lots of sneezing from the fur, and I took it outside and shook it right after I cut it and I wonder if the neighbors will find little acrylic fibers on their deck furniture.... I serged all the seams and edges on the vest too.

Anyway, this was done in time for a dress rehearsal tonight, and I'm glad to cross one more thing off my list!

shepherd costume, part 2

I made this little bag for the shepherd costume this evening. I didn't have a lot of fabric to work with but I think it turned out pretty good. I couldn't face the fur again today... first thing in the morning though, I'm going to get the vest done so I can show you the entire costume, along with a photo from the book to compare.

And... guess what? That concludes 30 days of blogging for me. On that note, check this out. So funny. (via Leonie/Goddess Guidebook)

the weirdest thing I've made all year

This is the skirt (I can't think of a better name for it, sorry) part of a shepherd costume I'm making for part of the church Nativity program this weekend. The fur was much more messy than I had anticipated. I liked cutting it into the ragged shape. It is supposed to match an illustration from the book When Jesus Was Born in Bethlehem. 

Also! I finished the binding on my 9-patch quilt. I went out to take a picture before the sun went down, but it was too windy. 

I'll try to get good pictures of the whole thing tomorrow. My 8-year-old neighbor asked me what day I started it, and I told her I started it in 2009. I'm glad to get it done, ready to move onto the next big thing! I'm glad I asked about straight line quilting here; I think I've learned some things that will help me improve in that area next time I decide to quilt that way.

I'm linking up at Amy's One Thing, One Week Challenge. Finishing this up was my goal a week ago--I did it!

I'm thinking about ice cream

... and hot fudge.

I had some good down time today. I have a lot of things I need to do/sew/write in the next couple weeks and last night right before bed I made a very satisfying list of all the tasks, each broken down into steps. I think I can get everything done without too much stress, if I go about things in an organized manner. :) I have my plan for tomorrow which, gulp, starts with me getting up early and going running before my family gets started for the day. I have not historically been very good at a) going to bed very early and b) getting up early, but I think that getting up in the morning (two weekdays each week) is going to be my best option for keeping up with my exercise routine that I've been pretty good at maintaining over the last 2 1/2 to 3 months. I think I can do it, I know I can. I will get my running clothes all laid out in a bit here before I go to bed. 

I need to write down my 1st grader's reading minutes from this last week and that is all the homework he had over the break. Tonight I was lying down with him before he went to sleep and he reminded me that we needed to read. I went to the e-reader app on my phone and we downloaded The Brothers Grimm and The Wizard of Oz. In my mind it wasn't that long ago that we read the first 5 Wizard of Oz books; really it was probably 2-3 years ago, long enough that he doesn't remember. Anyway, we read Rumplestiltskin and Chapter 1 of The Wizard of Oz. I hope he stays interested and we can finish The Wizard of Oz; it's such a good book!

We also started the task of the Christmas tree today. Putting light strings on a supposedly pre-lit tree is not that fun. I'm going to have to get one more string of lights and then we'll put ornaments on with the kids tomorrow evening.

busy Saturday!

Today:
*Spent some time cleaning and crowdsourcing the children to help with the cleaning and laundry folding.
*Had a new friend come over and videotape me quilting and talking about quilting and sewing! It is for a college journalism project and I will probably get a copy of the video after she finishes it up. I was a little nervous at times, worried about what my hair looked like, and didn't know if I was talking too much or not enough. I hope I did ok! While she was here, I quilted a super secret (not very big) project, and finished getting the binding on my 9-patch quilt, woo. hoo. Can't wait to get the binding handsewn and the quilt finished! (Including repairing that quilting mistake and putting on a label.)
*Made a list of things that need to be done before Christmas. Or sooner. I'm busy!
*Started getting out all the Christmas stuff. I got out the Little People Nativity and a couple other things. We might get the tree out tomorrow.

adventures in quilting

Oops. Has this ever happened to you? The red polkadot strip in the backing was about 4" longer than the other backing pieces. It got folded over and caught in the quilting. The cute, circular quilting. Pretty funny, huh? I guess I will undo the stitching and requilt it. I've started putting the binding on this quilt.

Also, this morning I was pretty excited to get this quick quilt top all into one piece:

It is about 60"x84". I am getting batting for it tomorrow and will work on the back soon too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a good day--watched the big parade on tv with the kids, had a yummy turkey dinner that was just the right amount of work, and watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving show, too.

I have a kind of long sewing-related to-do list, and I made some good progress today. Grandma's quilt top is almost done! it was in about 50 pieces this morning, and now it's 3 big pieces. You would think I could have got it all put together, but it'll have to wait until morning. I haven't decided whether to show it here or keep it secret until after Christmas.

We have a 3rd kid with the stomach bug that the others already had. I feel so bad for him, especially because he's sick on the holiday. I hope he feels better quickly.

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Thanksgiving Eve List Post

*Did Turkey-day grocery shopping today.
*Bought quilting thread for 2 quilts and backing fabric for Grandma's quilt (French general, so pretty.)
*Sewed 10 more blocks for Grandma's quilt, only 5 left.
*Did Week 5, Day 3 of Couch-to-5K, yes, I ran 20 minutes without stopping! I love running without the stroller.
*I need to google defrosting and cooking info for a 9 lb. turkey.

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straight line quilting

I spent a good chunk of time quilting this quilt yesterday and got a good start today too...and then I ran out of thread. I had a kiddo staying home from school with crummies in his tummy (name the book!) so I couldn't go out for another spool of thread today. I did get all the rest of the quilt blocks cut out for Grandma M's quilt though which feels pretty good.

I had a reader ask me about straight line quilting the other day and I wanted to open it up for discussion here, if you all don't mind. I've quilted 3 quilts this year with straight line quilting, and it has mostly been challenging for me because of shifting problems. I did a baby quilt with horizontal and vertical straight lines on my new Janome and had significant shifting. I quilted my watercolor quilt on my 80s-era Viking but on the diagonal and the shifting was minimal. And this 9-patch, that I'm almost finished quilting, was quilted first diagonally and then horizontally and vertically, and I'm having shifting problems with some of the non-diagonal quilting lines. (I'm quilting it on the Viking.)

I feel like I understand why it works better on the diagonal because of the way fabric behaves and stretches and shifts on the bias, but it seems like lots of quilters do straight line quilting with the fabric grain that doesn't distort or shift the quilt layers, and I'd love to figure this mystery out and improve my straight line quilting skills.

So, my question is, if you are successful at straight line quilting, how do you do it? Do you use a special basting technique, special sewing machine settings, special sewing machine, period? Or is it something else I'm not thinking of? I would love to hear your tips and suggestions for successful straight-line machine quilting, especially if you can do it without the layers shifting!

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Thankful

Here's a list of some things I'm thankful for right now:

Monday mornings and my almost-alone time after the busy-ness of the weekend.
How my boys always have so much to tell me in the car on the way home from school.
Friends and snacks.
My husband who brings home the bacon and is such a great guy.
The generosity of quilters.
When all the kids go to bed. (notice my introverted tendencies....)
Nice weather, good health, warm blankets.

Natalia is hosting a little Thankful link-up this week; thanks for the great idea, Natalia!

charity quilts delivered!

charity quilts and my 2-year-old girl

These quilts are going to babies who are in the NICU where my daughter stayed for her first 12 days when she was born 6 1/2 weeks early in October, 2008. My family and I took the quilts to the March of Dimes activity at the hospital today and got them ready for parents to choose their favorites:

The March of Dimes coordinator told me that there are 18 babies in the NICU right now so our contribution of 27 quilts will be enough for everyone there now and they will distribute the rest of the quilts as new babies come in.

During the time we were there, only a few moms came in and picked out their quilts, but the March of Dimes volunteers will make sure that all the families get quilts for their babies over the next few days.

Thanks again, so much, to the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild for agreeing to take on this project and working so hard to create all these beautiful quilts. Also, thanks to my mom and my friends Kim and Barbara who are not members of the guild (yet?!) but helped with the project as well. I am so happy this project went as well as it did and I'm grateful for everyone's generosity with their time, energy, skills, and fabric!

The flickr group with all the quilts made for this project is here.

last five charity quilts

Lavender/brown quilt made by Jaime.

Purple/aqua quilt made by Shea and came in today's mail!

Pure quilt made by Alex 

Vehicle quilt made by Paula
 

Orange and blue quilt made by Nikki and Claudia (no blog?) and one other person

These will be delivered to the babies and their families at the NICU at St. Luke's tomorrow!
Here's the flickr set of all the donated quilts made by KCMQG members. Thanks so much to everyone who helped with this huge project!

blocks ~2~

Here's what I worked on today in the sewing part of my life:

These two are for Amy who is the woman of the month in Bee Beautiful. I like the primary colored one best--and it's not the best photo due to being finished after sunset.

I also made these 4 scrap blocks today and yesterday:

I think I have a plan for these, for after I finish some other things and make a few more blocks in other colors.

I also worked on the toy/basement declutter and did some vacuuming (and got a kid to vacuum, too.) Will vacuum more tomorrow. And tended to my girl who's feeling somewhat but not all the way better.

Oh yeah, I had a question for you! What's a good seam ripper? I got the cheap Dritz one after it got a decent review in Quilter's Home a while back, and it is not cutting it for me. Not pointy enough. My old thread snippers were good for cutting stitches, but I've replaced them and the new ones are also... not pointy enough. Do you have a seam ripper that you'd highly recommend? Tell me about it!

sick day

I debated whether or not I should post today or not, because I don't have any sewing finishes or cool links to share, and would it be silly just to post for the sake of making my 30 day blogging day goal, it's just going to pretty much be a journal entry.

So I decided--here's the journal entry: up with sick 2-year-old most of the night. I don't want to be graphic, but I had to wash her hair twice. :( I was sure I'd be able to get a nap today, but it didn't work out. She did perk up part way through the day, which I'm grateful for. I got some laundry done, and sewed labels on 12 quilts while she watched "eye guy" aka Monsters Inc. on Netflix. I only have 5 labels left to sew on.

I didn't feel up to wrangling my big quilt so I worked on one of my bee blocks and a couple of scrap blocks for leaders/enders. (Really cute red ones.)

Tonight was the 1st grade program, and I went with the boys while my husband stayed home with Sissy. It was really cute with the paper pilgrim hats, speaking parts for all of the 90+ 1st graders, and good singing, too.

Hoping for more sleep tonight, and energy to get somewhat caught up on housework and sewing tomorrow. :)

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The Sewing Summit

I'm still plugging away on not-very-exciting straight line quilting and sewing labels on charity quilts. I also spent a large chunk of time decluttering and organizing the toys today. There were so many little pieces and old batteries that I was happy to throw away but wondered why they were still around. I am thinking about making some kind of fabric basket or bucket or two, like this, maybe, for some of the toys we're keeping out.

Anyway since I still don't have anything new to show you I thought I'd tell you about the Sewing Summit really quick. Have you heard about it yet?

The Sewing Summit is going to be next October, in Salt Lake City, and is being organized by the fabulous Amy, yes, the Blogger's Quilt Festival Amy, and Erin, who is the mastermind of Quilting Bee Blocks and also blogs at Two More Seconds. They are still organizing the event but there will be sewing, and great speakers, and swag bags (I think), and networking for those of us who love to sew. You can read a little more about  it here and here. So, yeah, I'm thinking I will be there. I can't say for sure 100% yet, but I'm hoping everything will work out so I can go. What about you--will you be there?