Woodland Bloom Quilt

Finally made this quilt out of the Woodland Bloom line of fabric by Lila Tueller:

A shot of the quilting

I absolutely love the pink damask fabric on the border and backing.

Glad it's finally done since I got the fabric before Jocelyn was born and now she's 3. :)

Repurposed shirt quilt

I finally made something!!!!  Remember how I used to make lots of things?   It is a distant memory at this point, but I did do something!

I made this baby boy quilt from his Daddy's old button up plaid shirts.

 I cut up the back piece into the biggest rectangle I could make and then cut it in half lengthwise.  Then each was cut up into 3.5" strips and sewn together to make the columns.  The sashing and backing was from a white sheet that we don't use anymore.  The sashing was also 3.5".  I machine quilted it with a walking foot-just a simple stitch in the ditch.  For the binding, I pieced together different lengths of 3.5" width shirt fabric.  If you cut up the very top of the back, right underneath the collar, the fabric is doubled, so you only have to cut once to get 2 pieces.

Pretty simple, but with lots of significance for me and it was nice that it didn't cost anything :).  I can't wait to use it when he gets here!

Dress Quilt

This is the quilt I made for my mom for Christmas. We saw the pattern a long time ago and fell in love with it!

Busy, busy!

I have had lots of baby showers to go to recently so I've been sewing a lot for them. It's been so much fun! I would sew all day long if I could! On a side note, my best friend Susan and I are going to start a little etsy shop selling our baby gear. I like to make slings, nursing covers, appliqued/ ruffles onesies and baby legs. Susan does great diaper bags, purses, nursing covers and burp rags. I'll let everyone know how that is going! But back to the pictures:

I made this nursing cover for my friend Katie

with a burp rag corner sewn in

Matching quilted card for her

These are from my phone= poor quality

This was for my friend Savannah

Burp rag corner

Made these baby legs for my chubby bubby.

Once again, bad photos. The colors are really much prettier!

Susan and her mom made me an AMAZING diaper bag out of these fabrics

so as a thank you to her mom, I made this quilted card out of the scraps

Made this card for my MIL's birthday. 

I made myself a baby sling to replace the one in the Yukon. I created my own tutorial for it! I'm so proud! Photos to come! 

Thanks for looking!

Craft Overload...and Loving it

(Excuse the photography)

I have been engulfed in crafts lately. After cleaning the house and doing homework, and in between taking care of the baby, I have a bit of time to work on my many projects I have started. My mom made my Afton this fabulous quilt:

And gave me the scraps, so I made this quilt top:

and back:

Since I have never put a quilt together, it's still in these two pieces. I have also discovered the greatness of English Paper Piecing. I got the idea from here at Craftsanity, and the instructions from here. 

 

And I'm making a mini one, for a doll blanket or something. 

I did it a little bit different than the instructions though. I got the precut fabric from my aunt who got it from her mom who got it from her daughter who got it from her sister-in-law who got it from her mom. In other words, it's been through a lot of people and it's probably 50's fabric. The fabric's pretty cool and like Shayla said, if you hold onto something long enough, it'll come back in style. 

I'll post more pictures when I get more of them done.

ALSO:

I made this plastic bag holder cause I had them all over the place. 

I also LOVE these. Dorset Buttons. All you need is plastic rings, embroidery floss (I just use the cheap stuff) or yarn and a large eye, blunt end needle. They are so fun. 

I plan on putting them on crocheted hats or even a scrapbook page. I got the idea from craftstylish. And whenever I get to it, I'm making this scrappy quilt. I plan on having a jean back and it will be an outside quilt. This is one of the blocks. It looks ugly when put together but that's why it's being used outdoors.

PHEW:  that's all for now. Notice how all of these are started but most are not finished :) My favorites right now are the paper quilting and the dorset buttons. You can take them anywhere, even on car rides. 

Finished quilt top

Although I'm so proud of myself for finishing this quilt top, it kinda takes the wind out of your sails when you realize it's New Years Day '09, and it's supposed to be a Christmas gift for '08. Oh well...Here it is. It's made from Moda's Posh pattern by Chez Moi and I can't wait to see it all done! It's for a guy with a new apartment...

Operation: finish all projects

I'm the queen at starting projects and then never finishing them, so I have been trying to actually finish all my unfinished projects before I move on to the next thing... I just love how crinkly these turned out! This first one is the finished product of this tutorialclose up of the quilting. This second quilt is done from this tutorial. This one is for my own bebe...I love how it turned out. Hopefully it will be a good lovey for her!

Tutorial: 7 patch quilt

Okay, so I'm not the type to start cutting and sewing without having any directions to follow (which is why I love tutorials), but I'm trying to branch out. I bought the fabric for this quilt with a pattern in mind and then changed my mind about it and just started doing my own thing... I was going to just do a bunch of 9 patch blocks and sew it all together, but I had one fabric that I really wanted to showcase and little 4" squares just don't do it, so I made a 7 patch. The end result was pretty fun because it is such a versatile quilt block, there are so many variations you could use.

Here's how you do it:

You can start with pieces of fabric that are any size you want or scraps from your stash. I got fat quarters. Then you pair up the fabrics that you think look good next to each other and iron them together, right sides facing with starch so they stick together a little bit. Then cut each pair of fabrics into 4"x4" squares. Move them carefully into a stack so they don't separate. They're completely ready to sew at this point. Cut all your fabrics this way and lay them out next to your sewing machine so you can sew all of them at once. Stitch one edge of each of the squares together with a 1/4" seam allowance. All seams in this project are 1/4". After you sew the first piece, don't cut the thread, just feed the next piece in and keep going until you've finished all of your squares. This method is called chain piecing. It saves time and thread. I separated the pieces a little more than usual so you could see what was going on.Now you have your twosies. Cut the threads between each one and press all seams toward the darker fabric so that it doesn't show as much once you're done. Do that to all the pieces and then lay them out again by your machine so you can see what you've got.Then take two of your twosies and sew them together to make a 4 patch. The only pinning I did was to just pin the two pieces of fabric together where the seams meet to make sure they line up. It's best if each block is different so you get the random look when you're done. Press seams.Then take your 4 patch blocks and sew another twosie on top of it to make a 6 patch. Press seams.Then take the fabric that you really want to show off (in this case a yellow and blue toile), and cut it in strips of 4"x11". This will make up the third column. Sew it onto either side of the block, on the side that has 3 squares. The finished block looks like this:You may have to do a little bit of trimming to even up some of the sides. Then lay the blocks out on your design table (I like to say that because it makes me feel like Fons & Porter, but really I just lay it on my living room floor) and move them around until you are happy with how it looks. As I said before, there are a lot of variations in how you can put them together. You can do something more random:

Or something more organized:Once you decide on a layout, sew the blocks in one row together and press seams and do the same for the rest of the rows. Make sure you're lining up each seam.Then sew the rows together, and press the seams. Again, make sure you line up the seams. If you don't want a border, then you're done! Quilt or tie and bind as you like. If you do want a border then you're almost there! You can put as many borders on in whatever thickness you like. I did my inner border 3" wide and my outer border 6" wide. Cut your fabrics into 3" strips and sew as many strips as you need to cover all 4 sides. Repeat for the outer border. And...Voila!! You are finished. Quilt or tie and bind as you like. I'll post a finished product picture once mine gets back from the quilter.