It's been awhile...but I got my groove back!

I finally broke out of my crafting funk!  Anyone still here to read about it?

I decided to make Kiarda her first big quilt (I made her a small floor quilt before she was born for tummy time and the like).  The focus fabric is the paisley that I used to make her room decor stuff.  I've had this pattern and fabrics hanging around since before she was born, and I figured now was a good time to make it for her.  It took about 20 hours total.  I'm particularly pleased with how my binding came out (save the one off miter on the back by the label, the only one that got photographed, go figure!).  I used Sharon Schamber's gluing method, and MAN, that binding is damn near perfect.  I'll be using it every time - it's so worth the results!

Kiarda loves her new quilt!  She got all excited this morning when I gave it to her.  She proceeded to dance on it, roll all over it, pretend to go to sleep on it, and just be silly on it.  While she likes to get tucked in on the couch, she still doesn't want blankets in her crib, so she's not currently using the quilt for covers at sleep times.  Ah well...in due time.

Here are a few pictures of the silliness:

She's got a pretty good downward dog, dontcha think?

The label. I decided at the last minute to use some of the leftover binding around the label, and I like how it turned out!  "Futterflies" is how Kiarda says "butterflies" right now, and it seemed appropriate given the backing fabric.

I also found a mini quilt - likely a round robin quilt in progress, from the looks of the piecing - in my UFO pile tonight.  I think I inherited this from somehwere, because I can't for the life of me place where it came from.  It did have the coordinating fabrics with it to continue adding onto the center.  I opted to just square it up as is, quilt it, and bind it.  I'm pleased with my binding, but I'm still figuring out what the "magic" strip length is so that I can machine stitch down the back of it and not have too much extra overhang.  I went with 2.25" on this one, and I think 2 1/8" woudl be perfect.  Ah well.

Again, I didn't piece it.  It did lay flat, though, so that's good.  It came out ok overall though!

Christmas stockings in progress

I have been wanting to make Christmas stockings for my husband and myself since we got married. I decided to wait until after we had children to do it, though, so we could have a family set. I did not get to make them in time for Kiarda's first Christmas, given that at that time I was averaging about three hours of sleep a night spread across the entire night.

Anyways, I finally made a decision about how best to create the images in my head about how I wanted them to look: wool felt! I'm about halfway done with them so far, so here's a picture.


Each will have a white cuff with the person's name on it. There will be a few embroidered details, as well as a few snowflake sequins added to the background of each one. I think I will opt for a "less is more" with these - I want them to be whimsical and too much detail can detract from that. The stockings will be lined. I may use fun prints for the insides...will have to dig through my stash and see what I can find!

Turning 20 top completed!

I'm calling it "Turning 20 30" as I celebrated my 30th this February. (The pattern is called "Turning 20" for the non-quilters out there.) I thought it fitting. Edit: I goofed. This is a Yellow Brick Road. I'll have to come up with another name, DOH!

There's a little bit of yellow in two of the fabrics that I wanted to bring out, so I added the thin inner border. I'm really pleased with how this came out! The black dot fabric was the perfect finish, IMHO, as all of the colors of the dots are in the center. I thought a plain black border would be too plain for the fabrics I used.

Christmas swap top completed!

I finally made a decision about the borders after much deliberation and several inputs - thanks everyone! I opted for a narrow inner border in cream, with the green holly fabric as a larger outer border. I'm pleased with how it turned out. I'll probably bind it in either cream or red - or maybe mix it up like a candy cane? That might be too much. We'll see. I'm glad I finally got this done - I've had the borders cut and sitting on my ironing board for a month. It's about time!

It turned out much larger than I had thought it would be in my head, oh well! I'm holding it up as high as I can, and I'm 5'8" - DH couldn't even get it all in the picture. Sorry the color is a bit off, but you can get the idea.

Another top done!

I started this top about a year ago with the intent of giving it to my friend's daughter Leah on her first birthday, which is tomorrow (as is the party). You may remember I made this pattern in the same colors, but reversed, awhile back for older sister Shannon's first birthday. I've been so swamped, I knew I wasn't going to finish in time. Thankfully, Molly (the mom) understands. :D I did get the top done tonight, though, so that's something! I have some fun flamingo fabric for the back (sort of like I did for Shannon's quilt!) that I'll take pictures of when the whole thing is complete.

Fabrics close-up:

Fun stuff!

I'm not at home this weekend, but I wanted to put up a quick post about fun quilty stuff from this week! I'll post pictures in a few days, maybe Sunday night.

I need to check my mail more often - I got a surprise package from Toni! She had been collecting lots of cute flamingo things, and packaged them up just for me! Thank you thank you! I have no idea how long they were in my mailbox, as I'm bad about going to get the snail mail unless I know something is coming. :D

I went to my sewing bee last night. There was a lady who was a dear friend of one of my bee-mates who recently passed away, and the lady's daughter asked Mary to clear out the woman's quilting room. Mary said there was TONS and TONS of fabric, and she brought a boatload of it to bee last night. We picked out the red, white, and blue fabrics for some Quilts of Valor, as well as some cute juvenile fabrics for baby bundles. After that, it turned free for all. I got probably twenty yards of fabric...free!

I took Jöran in today for his tune-up and bath. :D While I was there, Amber, the girl who sold me my machine, said, "Oh my gosh! I was thinking about you just two days ago, and your group of young quilters that you get together with. Rafaelle here is learning to quilt, and would probably be interested." Raff and I hit it off instantly, and she's super excited about coming to Squad. She's working on her first quilt, a Stack-n-Whack, and is also interested in dyeing fabric. We exchanged information, so I'm going to do my part to keep in touch! Yay for new quilty friends. :D