A while back when a friend was having a baby I came across the pattern called For Baby With Love from the Pattern Basket. I loved the look of this and knew I had to make it - they weren’t telling people the sex of the baby so this was a gamble as the quilt was more for a boy. Well they had a girl so I ended up making her a pinwheel quilt and had the top for this at home. I was sure I would find something to do with it sooner or later. Well it seems like it was meant to be, as recently a friend asked if I could do a baby quilt for her. A good friend of hers had recently adopted a baby and she wanted to give her something special. The little one was a boy and she loved the quilt top, so I got to work on finishing it.

 I was waiting for the backing fabric to come in (I had ordered it in as I wanted something specific and the local quilt shops were out), so I embroidered the little guy’s name on the “ribbon” of the quilt. I just freehand wrote his name on with some disapearing ink and then did the embroidery.

I had recently come across a tutorial for Orange peel quilting on Oh Fransson, and decided to give that a try on this quilt. I didn't want to quilt it to close to keep it really soft, so this was great. I love this quilt and am hoping that it is well loved in it's new home.

 

Playing with Dr. Seuss

I have been wanting to do something for the last year with some of the Dr. Seuss fabric, but could never find a reason to make anything with them. Finally I just gave up and bought a fat quarter pack to play with. I am sure that they will find good homes (actually I already have recipients in mind for a couple of the projects). In my playing on the Internet I had come across a Dr. Seuss quilt that was strips and liked the looks, so I tried my own version with the stripes, but included some of the panels as well. I like the way it turned out - it is so bright and happy.


I quilted this with wavy lines that are randomly “drawn” across the quilt. This gave so much flexibility and softness to it compared to my last few projects that were stippled and I like the effect.


Then I played with some of the scraps from that quilt and a little bit more of the fat quarters to make a Peek-a-Boo Bunting quilt. I had eagerly awaited the tutorial for this, and then stalled as I couldn't decide what fabrics to use that I had on hand. Once the Dr. Seuss came in it was easy to use my scraps for it - as I love the bright colours and having the characters to place under the bunting.



I love how this turned out! The bright colors are fantastic and make a big impact even with using so little of it. I had been looking for a project to try some hand quilting and this seemed small enough and it needed something between the lines, so I quilted just like the original with the triple wavy lines. I would have to say that it turned out pretty good for my first time with hand quilting!



I still have some more Dr. Seuss Fabric left after these two projects and can’t wait to see what other fun things I can make with them!

Birdie Stitches Update

Last year I started the Birdie Stitches BOM by LittleMissShabby. I have finally finished the top!


I designed my own blocks for November (to make it a little more Canadian - thanksgiving is in October here) and the June block.




I liked the original June block, but wasn't sure about it with the other blocks. After finishing the top I have decided to make the original June block and put it into the back of the quilt as a signature block. Now I just have to decide what I want to use as a backing for my quilt so I can finish it!

Family Tree Quilt

December 2011 marked the 55th anniversary for my Grandparents. I was very excited for them, and wanted to do something special for them, so I decided to make them a quilt. I ended up making them a Family Tree quilt with all their kids (medallions), grand kids (leaves) and great grandchildren (leaves) at the time of their anniversary on it.

Sadly I was unable to finish it for their actual anniversary, but I did show them the top which was finished. They loved it.



Now I have it quilted (I love how the tree shows on the back with the quilting), bound and sent off. It arrived yesterday just in time for the snowstorm! I hope it is keeping them warm in all the snow.



I would like to thank my very talented friend Iza for drawing the tree for me - it was perfect.

A Mini Bookshelf Quilt

I finally got a project finished! I started this weeks ago, and had it all made, waiting for the binding. Apparently that was a big obstacle as it sat there for week, with the binding waiting to be sewed on. I got it all finished finally, and I think it looks great. Now I just have to decide were I am going to put it - it will most likely end up hanging on the wall by my bookshelf.

This was a great quick project (except for my stalling on the binding) and was a great way to use up my skinny scraps. I used the tutorial from Don't Call Me Betsy, which was great.

Christmas Presents

This year I am making a few Christmas presents, some are for my own friends and family and some I am doing for a friend to give away.

Among the things I have put together for my own friends and family is this lovely little tea wallet:




I used the pattern from Is It Naptime Yet?, which was great and really easy to follow, and came together very quickly.


A few people will be getting rice heating pads some packaged with baked goods, bath salts or creams. I created the pattern for this based off a heat pad I had picked up a few years ago from a craft sale.


It works fantastic for the upper back and shoulders. I love how it wraps around and the arms hold it in place.

My friend was lucky to be one of the recipients of the bag/neck rice heating pad earlier in the year and decided she wanted to do something for her friends. I had seen the Wellness bag and rice heating pads on Sew Mama Sew and decided to put together something similar for her.



She ended up with 2 sets of bags, each with their own coordinating drawstring bags to hold them. Each bag has card attached with instructions.



Each set included a neck/back bag, an eye pillow with removable cover, hand warmers and an all purpose bag (a mix between the Amy Buttler eye pillow scaled up and the Green Wife for the inside bag).



Hopefully the recipients get some good use out of these bags!

Myah’s Quilt

I have been drooling over the Just Wing It fabric for a while, and couldn’t figure out what I wanted to make with it, until I saw the McKinley Quilt. It was so cute, and I knew just the little girl to give this quilt to.



Using a charm pack of Just Wing It from Moda, this quilt went together very quickly! I decided to do a raw edge applique for the flowers (I wanted to practice for an upcoming project I have and the fact that that with a 4 year old and a new baby on the way, it would just be safer for my recipients than buttons).



I embroidered the little girl's name onto the quilt and used a fabric from the Just Wing It line for the back. I did straight line quilting to outline the boxes, and I think it turned out well.

I love how this quilt turned out and it’s new owner seemed to be pretty happy with it as well. It was quick to put together, and the tutorial was easy to follow.

Birdie Stitches

I first came across the Birdie Stitches BOM from Little Miss Shabby when I was looking for something to make with my sunkissed fabric. I had fallen in love with the fabric, bought a bunch and couldn’t decide what to make with it. Embroidery isn’t something that I have done before, nor was it something that I thought I would be interested in doing, but I couldn’t get those cute little birds and the bright spring colors out of my head. So I decided to do a test run to see if I could 1. do embroidery and 2. if it would drive me nuts trying to do it.



I ended up with this cute little.... something.... I am not sure what to call it, but it is cute! I think it will end up being an oddly Shaped Mug rug, or might end up hanging as a teeny quilt in my quilting room, who knows. This did tell me though, that oddly enough I kind of enjoyed doing the embroidery.

With that knowledge and an upcoming vacation, I pieced together some blocks, printed the patterns, got myself a larger hoop, some thread and a water erasable marker. I have now been working on these blocks for just over a month (I started them on July 2 - really late) and this is what I have to show to date:










I am slowly catching up and can’t wait to see the final blocks and the final quilt. I love this quilt more and more as I work on it.

Relaxing Eye Pillows

There is nothing that helps a person cool down or great rid of a headache quite like a cool pillow on your forehead. I love placing something cool over my eyes when I have a headache or just want to relax. I have a couple of the gel filled eye masks that I keep in the fridge, and while I love how cool they are, they are very uncomfortable to actually put on. I have a heat pad that I picked up at a craft market for my shoulder that I love. As I love it so much, but it is a little big for my head, I decided to make a smaller version to keep in the freezer so i could just pull one out when I wanted to put something on my head, or pop one in the microwave to have something warm.

I started with the free pattern provided by Amy Butler (I love the idea of a slip cover I can take off and wash!), and then made a few modifications to it to spruce it up a little. I had a bunch of solid fabric and some scraps sitting around so I decided to do a little piecing to make them more interesting and fun (why not have them look fun as well?). I do love how they turned out. The blue one is filled with flax seeds and the pink has rice in it. They were very simple to make and I had them done in no time, which is great.



I also tried tracing my old eye mast and making one of a different shape. It turned out nice as well, but the I like the removable cover of the Amy Butler pattern.

I had so much fun making them I am now thinking of making a neck wrap to match!

Mom's Quilt

Last year I decided to take up quilting (I am still not sure why I decided to do that, but I am loving it) and last spring I made my Dad a quilt. Well, then I said I would make my Mom a quilt, as Dad had one and apparently wasn’t great at sharing. It took a while to find a quilt or fabric that would suit my Mom but then I came across the Cherish Nature line by Moda. It was perfect, and even better, I got the kit for the quilt on sale for 50% off! Whoo hoo. My Mom loves butterflies and so I thought that the fabric from Paula Prass’s Flights of Fancy would be perfect for the backing.

The quilt turned out great. I started it in mid January, but had to wait for a little while once the top was done while I waited to get some batting I wanted to try. I decided to use Hobbs 80/20 fuseable quilt batting.

I free motion quilted this (I am getting much better at this), but decided to outline some of the birds and butterflies in the fabric to try and make them stand out a little more. I don’t know if it worked all that well, but I do like the way it looks.



I really wanted to get this to my Mom and as my Dad was coming up for a weekend I wanted to get it done and sent back home for her. Unfortunately that didn’t give me enough time to do the binding by hand like I have done on my other quilts. I had been wanting to try machine binding a quilt for a while to see how I liked it so this was the perfect excuse. Well, I love it! I was able to do the binding in one night and I like the look. I probably won’t to this for every quilt, but I am sure I will be doing it again.

Max and Whiskers Quilt

I finally finished another quilt! The amazing thing - even though I have 3 other quilts in various stages of being worked on, I finished this quilt in 10 days! That is from the day I received the fabric for the quilt top to the day I gave it to the recipient. Amazing what I can accomplish when I ignore the rest of the house and use precuts!

I made this quilt using a moda jelly roll of the Max and Whiskers line by Basic Grey. From the first time I saw this fabric I knew I wanted to make something with it (I love all the cute animals on the prints), but couldn’t decide what to do with it - then I found the perfect project. I used the pattern by Sweetjane, which used exactly one jelly roll for the top (with very little scraps left over). I made a trip last weekend to the local quilt shop and found the backing and binding in the sale rack (bonus for me).



This was also the first time I tried free motion quilting! Yay, I am glad it turned out so well and it was so much easier than I thought it would be (got to love my new sewing machine that came in a couple of weeks ago).

Anyone curious as to why I was in such a hurry to finish this quilt or who it was for? Well this quilt was the perfect thing for the new addition to my household. She is a big sweety and arrived a couple of weeks ago. The fabric was too perfect for her and I needed something for her to cuddle with on the couch.

Meet Abbey (and her new quilt - isn’t she cute?). Abbey is a 10 year old Brittaney Spaniel who has come to retire as a spoiled house dog. She loves living in the warm house (especially since it has been -25 or colder for the last couple of weeks) and is soaking up all the attention she is getting. She used to have to share people attention with 5 other dogs, now she has two people all to herself and is taking full advantage of that!



Anyways, why does Abbey get a quilt? Because I broke down and decided I needed someone to keep me company on couch, we needed something for her to lay on. The backing fabric should hide her hair nicely (thankfully she has pretty much stopped shedding - for now).

Review of the quilt:
It is pretty busy, but it came together very quickly (the binding took me longer than anything else). It will be great for what I needed it for and it looks like Abbey enjoys it.

Pheasant Quilt

So sorry for the delay in getting this up (it has been done for a few weeks, and is residing in my parents living room now). I will get to the reason for the day in the next post (I promise I have a reason!).

Anyways, I got the quilt for my Dad done (albeit a little after father's day). He loves it and it goes well with the chair. Oh, and he had to try it out as soon as it arrived, despite the fact that it was the end of June and in the 20s (that is C) outside.



The quilting projects seem to be piling up quicker than I can get them done. I have a sock monkey quilt that will be finished in a couple weeks (just waiting to get the time to do the binding), doll quilts for some of my cousins, a quilt for my mother (fabric is on the way) and some small projects for a friend of mine. I can't wait!

Quilting - The next project...

My Dad's birthday was in May and Father's day is coming up so I thought I would try making him a quilt (I doubt it will be done in time for father;s day, but here's hoping...).

Here is the fabric that I have for the quilt:



When I saw this I thought it would be great to go with the glider chair in my parents house:



They raise pheasants and pointing dogs, so they have a bit of this stuff around the house.

Anyways, I am hoping to get this done as soon as possible (as well as getting ready for my thesis defense in 3 weeks) so wish me luck!

First Quilt - Finally Done!

Around Christmas time I was looking for something to keep me occupied during the long dark cold evenings of winter. For some reason I decided that quilting would be a good thing to try, I don’t know why quilting struck me as something to do and have yet to figure it out. No one in my family quilts (well my mother started a quilt some 15 years ago – it is still sitting unfinished in a closet somewhere).

Anyways, I wanted something simple – I don’t do much sewing generally, and wasn’t sure how this was going to go. I found a cute kit on connecting threads, and thought that would be a good way to go. I loved the fabric and then I didn’t have to mess around, finding a patter, picking fabric, determining yardage and such. It looked like a simple enough patter, a lot of squares, in only 2 sizes.

The fabric came in in January, and I got to work. A few weeks later I had a quilt top done and ready to be made into a quilt – the kicker? There is not even close to enough room in my living room unless I move out a bunch of furniture, to put the three layers of a quilt together. This meant that my poor project was left sitting for months until I went to my parent’s place and took over their dining room to finish it.

Well, it is done now, after 1 weekend spend ironing, sewing, pinning and quilting and one weekend spent hand sewing on the binding. I am very pleased with the results, and it turned out much better than I had expected. I have found quilting to be relaxing and a great way to let me procrastinate working on my thesis. In the time since this quilt has been finished (or almost finished) I have somehow come with 4 more quilts I would like to make and am trying to figure out what I can do with other fabrics that I love.



Hopefully there will be more quilt posts to come!

Baby Quilt

A friend had her lovely baby boy a few weeks ago, and I had offered to make him a nice warm blanket for watching hockey games in – he came to his first game to watch his Dad play at only 2 weeks old, I would say he is going to be a hockey fan. Anyways, I decided to do the blanket in the colours of the team’s jerseys (they are basically the same as the Nashville Predators jersey).


I got the idea from a pattern I had seen with nice large blocks and made a trip to the fabric store. Lucky for me they were having a sale on fleece, and that would make a great hockey blanket! I didn’t do the 3 blankets like the original pattern called for, so I kind of re worked the cutting and fabric amounts to work for me.

Materials:
¼ m Fabric 1 (yellow)
½ m Fabric 2 (White)
½ m Fabric 3 (Blue)
1 m Fabric 4 (patterned)
36 x 42” batting

Squares:
4 – 9X9” squares (Fabric 1)
1 – 18 x 24” square (Fabric 2)
2 – 9 x 18” square (Fabric 3)
2 – 9 x 24” square (Fabric 3)
1 – 36 x 42 square (Fabric 4)

I sewed everything together following the original instructions, and then quilted it with a random curved line. The only thing I added as a stitch around the edge of the blanket to make it neat with a ¼” seam.

Reviews:
I love how thick and soft this blanket it. Sadly the total size of 35 x 41” is a little too small to be of much use to me. I really hope the new hockey fan enjoys it!

Quick Gift Bag

We use a lot of cloth gift bags for the holidays in our house. They are great as you can reuse them from year to year, they get packed away with the decoration and fold up nice and small, and last, Christmas fabric is so much fun.

Well this year we were a little short on bags, I don't know why (most likely the fact that more get sent out some years than come back from family depending on which side we are mailing gifts to and which ones we are visiting or it may be the fact that we have a few extra people coming for Christmas this year). Whatever the reason, Owen couldn't find a bag to wrap my present in and didn't want to use any of the paper bags we had around the house. I didn't want to go and get fabric to make new bags until it went on sale and he wanted something fun.

I can not take credit for the solution - Owen came up with the idea, all I did was a little sewing. He found a cute stocking for cheap while he was picking up something else and thought it would make a cute bag - well he was right! I love this back, and am thinking of making more like it!




Need:
1 stocking (this can be bought or made)
Ribbon
Thread

How To:
1. Fold the top of stocking down to create a place for the ribbon to thread through and act as a drawstring. Pin in place.
2. Optional - put the ribbon in it's place, making sure that it will not go were you are stitching. I like doing it this way, as I hate threading drawstrings.
3. Stitch around the stocking at the bottom of the folded area (not along the fold).

Your done (unless you need the thread the ribbon through) and can now fill it with the presents of your choice!