uno

So alright, I love the game Uno. I know I am not alone in this, it's just fun and even my 3 year old loves to play, albeit a bit slowly. The thing I don't like about it is storing the huge deck of cards. Am I the only one with this problem?? We just got a new game after losing the old one, and already the box is ripped. There is something about having to split the deck up and get the cards in just so....

The point is, I needed a new way to store my uno cards and a rubberband, the previous solution, was not kid friendly enough. Enter, a new uno card case. I did some measurements and made a little template up and in a very short time, I had this perfect little case. Fabric choice is not ideal, but I was working with the scraps I had on hand so it will do. A little snap and it was good to go.

Works perfectly! And that one has actually been on my list for ages and I was just too lazy to do it, so it feels quite good to cross that one off. Now I need to decide on handle length and finish up the bag for my sister (finally! I got the hardware!) and then figure out what's next. I am hoping to baste my penny sampler and get moving on quilting that, I have some scraps to fussy cut before I use the remainder, and some pony club blocks to pick fabric for. Not to mention a few smaller things I would like to take care of soon. Of course, I might just ignore it all and start my double wedding ring quilt.....

sometimes....

you just have to ignore the list and make the thing that you can't get out of your head. Now I have this amazing basket (using the pattern from a cuppa and a catch up) and my knitting has a home. Definitely a win for all involved

I pretty much ignored everything to make this beauty. Size was determined by the size of my last piece of this elephant fabric (the 8" basket). And I didn't quit have enough gray, so there is a cream colored strip on the bottom. It bothers me a little, but since you really can't see it, it's fine. Really, this basket it just makes me happy. And if that's not a reason to make something, I don't know what is.

A wedding quilt

I am finally going to share this wedding quilt that I made a couple weeks ago. It is simple, came together quickly, and I might as well tell you, I barely got any pictures of it before I wrapped it up and sent it off. Hopefully it has arrived already at it's new home.

This was one of those things where it was hard to figure out what kind of quilt this couple might like. I don't know them very well; in fact one is my husband's cousin who lives across the country and I've met a couple times and the other I have never met. Still, I went off the impression I got and decided that low key and not so 'quilty' was the way to go. I ended up with this large gingham pattern made from 3 kona solids: charcoal, ash, and white. I saw it initially here and it was easy enough to figure out. I went with 5" squares to start with and the quilt finishes somewhere around 63x72 which should be perfect for snuggles. I backed it with a really cute little farm flannel that I found and bound it in kona curry.  These are the few pictures I snapped on my way to wash it and sadly that is all I got.

I am so in love with how this came out, it was hard to send it away. I really hope they like it and will get a lot of use out of it. Sometimes it is so hard to give a quilty gift!

Back to the pony club

Happy Tuesday! After enjoying a lovely long {birthday} weekend, I am feeling a bit more prepared for this shorter week. It's been kinda rough around here recently with a crazy toddler and a teething baby. After the first kid being a late teether and not getting any until she was 9 months, this one having 2 teeth pop through right around 5 months was pretty shocking. But they are in now and things are returning to calmer. Also, I am super excited that I got yarn to make a shawl for my birthday and I've already cast on for that, so I hope to share that progress soon. But today, I am going to catch up on pony club blocks.

Do you know how long it has been since I posted any pony club blocks? I am sad to say the last time was in April. At which point I had 16 blocks done. I have almost doubled that now and have 30 blocks total. So here are the 14 most recent blocks (2 have been done for ages and ages, but since I haven't shared them, I'll lump them in here). Most of them I kept all the color placements the same, but a few I switched up and changed a bit and I like them all the better for it.


children's delight

county fair

country lanes

cowboy's star

cat's paw - I picked out hedgehogs and the little one picked the background :)

confederate rose - oh the y-seams!

cake stand

christmas tree

clover leaf - I made this a 3-fabric instead of 2 fabric block because, birds.

captain's wheel

crystal star -favorite! I changed the color placement to make the star filled in and I love it!

dakota star

doe and darts

elsie's favorite

Not gonna lie, some of these blocks are quite difficult. I have been battling curves as well as tons of y-seams and some of them are....less than perfectly flat. But I think it will all be fine in the end. And naturally here is an updated group picture!

I am loving the way these are coming together and the scrappiness is so fun. I love being able to just grab whatever I am in the mood for and form blocks that way. Clearly I went on a bit of a polka dot background binge there at the end, and I'll tell you, I don't even regret it a little bit. Now I am 1/3 done all the blocks, and at this point there is one that I know I am not going to do and will replace with something else. Once again I am going to aim to get this done by the end of the year. Hopefully as I make more blocks and they take up more space, it will be harder to push them to the side. I still need to print out the next set of templates and then I will get going again. Once I am done being distracted by knitting.  In the meantime, I will be back soon with a finished quilt!

a couple gifts

That about all I got around to this past holiday season, a couple gifts. And only for my sister. You do what you can in the time that you have. And sadly one gift is still, at this very moment, not finished as I am still waiting for hardware. I don't know what the postal service did, but they messed up big time and I am currently waiting for it to be resent since it got returned to sender. But anyway, I did manage to make 2 little things for her. One is technically a birthday gift that I owed her from back in September, but I gave them both last month when I saw her.


First up, the one I marked for birthday was a have it all wallet. I love this wallet. I am still using mine all the time and I hope she will too. It just fits all the essentials so perfectly! And once again I added the d-ring on the side and made a wristlet strap so it can be a clutch on its own.

The other thing was a nook case. It is not the first I've made and is once again from the fresh lemons tutorial. I knew the moment she got out her unprotected nook while she was visiting a while back that she needed one. I used some of my precious mermaid/whale fabric and I was a little sad to give it away.

The big gift will be finished one day. It has been sitting around for almost a month totally finished except for 2 small seams to sew in the hardware and the straps. Super frustrating! But I am hopeful that it will be worth the wait :)

That is all I've got for old stuff that I am going to bother with. From here on out, bring on the new! Starting with some pony club blocks and a quilt once I know it has been received :)

for the littles

What a week! I feel like I have been going non-stop recently and while it's been fun, I think I could use a break. I managed to make an entire quilt and get it in the mail and make some pony club blocks, both of which I will be back to share in the near future. For now, I continue playing catch up.

Today I am going to show off some of the things I've made for my littles recently.

First up, panties. Did you know that the selection of little toddler panties kind of stinks? Because I can assure you that it does. After coming across a pattern by that darn cat on etsy and hearing such wonderful things about it,  I bought it and collected some fabric. It is such a fun way to use up knit scraps and we had so much fun coming up with combinations! I almost can't wait until she needs the next size! And yes, my 3 year old has pink skull panties :)

Then I made some slippers for both of them.I found this great toms inspired tutorial for all different sizes, so I started with the toddler ones which I purchased the pattern pack for to try to get the right size. They did not turn out well. I mean they are cute, but they are huge! She wears them anyway, but still! The baby ones came out a little better and fit her feet, but the elastic in the center was rubbing and turning her skin red so we discontinued those pretty quick. A bummer all around I would say, but oh well, you can't win them all....

perhaps the biggest and most exciting of all was the suitcase that I made! It is the sidekick suitcase by sew fearless and I love it! The perfect size for her little self and it held all her clothes beautifully while we traveled. It was no easy feat, that's for sure, but oh so satisfying when it was done! The hardest part was pushing through the canvas stuff at the end for stability, but otherwise it was pretty straightforward. I'm a little in love with it, not gonna lie.

Those are the big things I wanted to make note of. I still have a small post of gifts given coming up and then let the new year makes begin! 

the final quilt finish of 2013

Ya know, at some point you just have such a pile of stuff that you don't know where to start. It seems impossible to get going and figure out what to do, but eventually you just pick a place and start. (or in my recent life, you pick 3 places and start ha!). I have been all over the place this week but I have a quilt top finished, a big pile of fabric for an overly ambitious project, and some templates cut. It is probably the first time I have had so many things going at once and at this particular moment in time, it suits me. I like being able to pick and choose what I am in the mood for, which seems to be changing by the minute. I have a feeling this is going to be the year of the never ending projects. There are just too many big, long term things going on. Or almost going on I guess.

I also had to just pick a place to start sharing my recent makes and decided that my most recent quilt finish was the way to go. I am happy to say that the quilt I made for my neighbor is all finished and gifted; I even managed to eek out two pillow shams as well to complete the ensemble! Does anyone remember this stack of fabric? I am ashamed to say I have had this stack of fabric sitting and waiting since the very beginning of May.

It is an original design. She told me she wanted it to look random but structured so I sat down with my graph paper and came up with this using a 3" grid.

I went back and forth for a while on whether to get rid of the y-seams since there are quite a few, but in the end I decided that changing that would ultimately hurt the design and the beautiful random simplicity. They really weren't that bad to sew either! I was pleasantly surprised. And once I got down to it, I think it only took me two days from cutting the fabric to a basted queen sized quilt.

I used a sheet that I found on clearance at Kohl's for the back and stuck in a random strip of leftovers to make it big enough and I love it. I quilted it in organic straight lines and bound it in kona sand I think. Or was it stone? I don't know, but it was a nice neutral solid that frames it nicely.

I was cutting it pretty close on the pillow shams and almost didn't have enough fabric. In the end, I made it work and went with a quilted front and bound edges and a nice envelope back. It gets awfully hard to wing it and make it look intentional in situations like this where you have so little to work with. I would say that if I added up all that I have left it would be less than a fat quarter from like 23 cuts of fabric and a twin sheet set.

I'll be honest, this is so far from a style that I usually work in, I am almost surprised how much I have ended up loving it. Probably because it is just so very 'them' and it looks exactly like what she wanted. It was gifted this past weekend and received with excitement and love. Within an hour of their departure I got this picture of it all settled on their bed :)

So there. Now I've chosen my place and begun. Theoretically it will now be easier to continue which means I plan to be back with more soon!

Happy New Year! Hope everyone has had a great start to 2014! We are keeping it pretty low key around here, which has been nice. We are headed back to the real world this week though, which is never much fun.

Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about this year and what I want to do and accomplish. I have a fairly large list of projects to tackle, some of which I have started on already. One of the big things is for me to use what I have and to craft projects around that, which is always a little more difficult than it sounds. I did pretty well last year actually, and I hope to continue that trend this year as well as using up scraps, which is always on the list. The big life questions is why, when the list is so long and you have so much to work with, do you want to immediately go out and buy fabric for a big project (a queen size double wedding ring, for example) instead of working on anything else. And by 'you' I mean 'I' haha. So I may or may not have some fat eighth bundles of some AMH fabric coming my way to make some double wedding rings with some low volume backgrounds. It's going to be epic :) I am feeling like this is going to be the year of the slow and steady. Of the things that I want to do, most of them will not be quick projects. Until my mood changes I guess. On thing is for sure, I have plenty to keep me busy! First up I need to quilt my penny sampler, make the overdue wedding quilt and start working on my pony club quilt again.  Oh, and I am once again having the terrible urge to knit something, so we'll see if I can squeeze that in somehow.

Also, I have a backlog of things to share. Most of it has appeared in wip posts over the past months, but for my own record, I want a bit more detail. So I think I am going to spend the next couple weeks doing some round up posts of some things from the last 6 months or so and that way I'll feel like I can go forward with a clean slate.  So look for that coming up, along with my last quilty finish of last year.

And since I dont particularly like posts without pictures, can I just show you how pretty my new fabric shelf is looking??? That bottom shelf is a pile of things I need to work on plus a scrap basket and the bag on the floor is all scraps too. But I finally folded all my fabric and got it organized and I am loving it! So inspiring! We'll see how long it lasts ha!