Skill Builder Sampler: Month 1

The first month of the Skill Builder Sampler, hosted by Lelia of Sewn, is finished. And I am all caught up on my blocks!

First up was a log cabin or courthouse steps block. After making an entire quilt of log cabins, I opted to make the courthouse steps since I have never made one before. I love how it came out, and the fussy cut snail in the center just makes me happy :)

The second block was a nine patch. I actually wasn't thrilled with this block, but it came out okay. If I did it again I would probably make sure my tan fabrics were more similar and not so light/dark to make those lines a bit more obvious. As long as it looks good with the other blocks it's all good.


Third was a churn dash, another block I had never made before. I struggled with fabric choices but in the end, I am really happy with my choices. I love the floral background and solid design instead of the other way around. And I even like the more subdued colors, which is weird since I generally tend to gravitate toward more bright, saturated colors.

Finally, a challenge was issued for the final week. We had to break out the graph paper and design a block. It took me all week to land on something that I liked. Everything I drew ended up involving a whole block of HSTs which I was just not feeling after the christmas quilt I just finished. In the end I went for super simple and started messing with the idea of some smaller log cabins. I ended up with a cross block, which I had been wanting to try. I even managed to keep the directional prints the right direction! Two of the log cabins are reversed so that I could keep the longer pieces in the middle.

And here they are all together. I think they go together really nicely and I've used each of my 12 fabrics at least once.


I love it so far and I can't wait to see what blocks are next. Only 33 more blocks to go! This is definitely a fun project :)

WIP Wednesday {7.13.11}

Another week gone by. I've made some good progress on things, but most of them aren't quite completed. That's what this is all about though!

Completed:

Tote bag


It turned out so well. Better than expected really. The "M" really makes it :)

SBS Block 3

Definitely more subdued in color than the other two, but I like it. I had never made a churn dash block before so it was kinda cool. This quilt should be so interesting, I just love it.

Still Going:

Christmas Quilt

Not a great picture, but it's all I could get before my camera died

No longer pinwheels. I laid it out and didn't like it so after playing around with it, I decided on stripes :) I love it. I am so super glad I went with the stripes. The top is pieced and quilting is underway. Hopefully I will have it all quilted and the binding attached by this weekend and I can curl up with a couple good movies and bind this sucker! Maybe I'll have to name it Christmas in July.

Swoon

I just couldn't wait anymore and had to test out a block to see what it looks like. First of all, I love love love the swoon pattern. It's great. The big block is awesome and has such an impact and it is really not that difficult. As for the colors/fabric, I don't mind the blue as much as I thought I would, but I am concerned that a few of the blocks have a similar blue as one of the colors and I just hope it doesn't get lost in the background too much. We'll see. I'll probably hold off on making more until I am done my christmas quilt, and then this will be my main project. Since ideally I want it done by the end of August. We'll see.


Hexies

Nada. This will probably be ignored for a while.


Skill Builder Sampler

I am debating whether I want to do the challenge block for this week. I am thinking yes if I can figure out what to do. Maybe I'll get to work on that today at some point.


New:

Table cloth

Inspired by this. Made with this. I just have to stop being lazy and get more binding....I didn't realize it was more than 3 yards around and I haven't felt like going back to Joann's yet. It is still on the table though, even with only 3/4 of the binding around ha. Maybe today or tomorrow I will get going and finish it.

Farmers Wife

I got sucked in! It's not my fault! I tried to resist, but they are so pretty (thank you flickr group)! And I just had visions of rainbow/white dancing in my head, I couldn't stop thinking about how cool it would be! So I got the book, the fabric is on its way (!!!) and I just need to print the templates and get started :) I can't wait!!! Seriously, so excited.


I also really want to do the summer sampler series, but I can't decide on fabric and I might have enough samplers in my life right now haha. We'll see what the other blocks posted this week are and I'll decide then.


starting count: 5
completed: 1
new: 2
total: 6

Tote bag for a little girl

I love tote bags. And as far as I know, little girls also love tote bags. And I had a lot of extra squares from the pillow I made (as in, I didn't have to cut any at all for this bag, just the straps which are strips, not squares). Consequently, this nice little tote bag for my 3 year old friend was born. It matches her pillow, her dolly, and her quilt and is just the right size to store little treasures in. Hopefully she'll like it :)



I decided at the last minute to applique her first initial on it. In a circle because recently I love circles and it makes it stand out so nicely. Once again heat n bond is my bff. It makes things so nice an easy! It is such a great detail, it just makes me love this thing even more.




I think it ended up being about 10"x12". The strap is longer than I meant for it to be, but I just couldn't bear to cut down the pretty strips. I'm a sucker. But it's okay, a little girl with a slightly too big tote = way, way cute.

And now almost all the scraps of these fabrics are used. Which I am a little sad about because it is such a beautiful, happy combination of colors. Both times I made something from it, I secretly wanted to keep it all for myself. It just cheers up a room.

And now, back to sewing a quilt top. Even though there are approximately a million other thing crying out for my attention. It's okay, I'm good at ignoring them :)

Urban Lattice

Finally, this quilt is given and I can talk about it! This quilt is a wedding gift, and a fairly belated one at that. I am still within my year, but not by much haha. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make the happy couple a quilt and I tossed around quite a few idea. The first thing settled was the color scheme. I decided to use their wedding colors--she wore and ivory dress, him a white suit, the girls purple (ish) dresses, the accent color was sapphire blue, and the favors were chocolate. Then the fabric collection began. I collected the prints while I was quilt shop hopping in the fall and then sat and stared at them for a while. I was originally going to make a film strip quilt a la crazy mom quilts. But I just couldn't get going on it. I was unmotivated. So it sat, undone for many a month.

Then one day I happened across the Urban Lattice Quilt Along and I fell in love. I just had to make one so I started looking through my cabinet and saw these and it was perfect! It kept the colors from becoming overwhelming, and created a very modern look. I quickly made a test block to see if I liked it (I did) and got to cutting. It was my first paper piecing so that was interesting, but it went pretty well and definitely kept things nice and lined up. I did change the measurements a bit from the QAL and made the color squares a bit bigger. My center strip is still 1" but then the white/ivory part is 3.75" I think instead of 5". I just messed with it until it looked like the right proportions to me. I tried to keep the colors balanced and I think it came out well. It is actually kind of hard to tell in the pictures that the squares alternate between white and ivory, but it looks really cool in person.



The back is a strip piecing of 3 fabrics that I had sitting around. It worked out perfectly actually. One was on clearance at ikea and two of them my dad was going to throw out and I saved them. The strip piecing helps them blend and really I think it looks kinda snowy which is perfect for a quilt I think. I also like the different shades of blue. I was worried about them blending well, but I love it. I quilted in the white/ivory squares; I did 6 squares in each, roughly 1/2" apart and I love love love it! The binding is scrappy pieces from cutting out the squares.



They really like it and say it reminds them of their wedding (before I even said that's what I was trying to do). I hope they will spend many a night cuddled under it :) I actually have a coordinating project in my head that I plan to make with the scraps. Maybe they'll get that by their next anniversary.

In Action

We had a lot of fun and everything looked great, but I'm glad it's over. The little lady was a champ (without a second nap) and really enjoyed herself. She looked so cute in her dresses and the headband was great even though it didn't stay on for long. I love the fabric garland and I think I am going to hang it on her ceiling in her room :) Oh, and she got enough clothing for her birthday that I don't think I should make anything else for summer. I guess now I have to work on some fall clothes.

WIP Wednesday {7.6.11}

Well I'm back from traveling, but don't have much craftiness to show for myself. We just got back yesterday so now I begin getting life back in order. I don't even want to talk about how my child cried the entire car ride both directions or how I missed the parade due to the longest nap yet. Ah well, we had a pretty good weekend and now my baby girl is 1!!!

On to the WIPs!

Still Going:

Christmas Pinwheels

Same as last week. Waiting for me to lay it out and decide on a design. Hopefully I will have a quilt top done by next week. If I don't get distracted....

SBS

Now I guess I am behind. I have the fabrics picked out for block 3, I just need to do it. Maybe today, if naptimes go well.

Hexies

This is the only thing I worked on in the past week. I now have 4 nine patches sewn together so I can almost put them together into a big row. They look pretty good. This is going to take me forever, but I am enjoying it :)

Tote bag

This is another project for this week. I still have everything piled up waiting. The little girl apparently loves the pillow, so a little matching tote bag will be great. Maybe I'll even applique her name on :)

New:

Swoon


I may or may not have fallen in love with this pattern a few weeks ago and promptly purchased it. I am making my parents a quilt for their bed for christmas and since I didn't even dare to guess what they would want, I picked the pattern and they picked the fabric. I am skeptical about using that bright blue there as a background instead of white, but they didn't want a neutral. We'll see, it's for their bed so whatever they want is fine. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised...the colors do all look good together so I'm hopeful. I reeeeally want to make a block and see what it's like, but I'm trying to hold myself off until I do a couple other things. We'll see how strong I can be.


starting count: 4
completed: 0
new: 1
total: 5

travel high chair

A travel high chair is something I've been thinking about for quite a while. It started with this one that I considered buying, but just couldn't justify the money. I thought about trying to make one like it but never got around to it. I kinda forgot. Well with this upcoming trip it seemed like something that would be useful. I settled on a different design that I saw circulating online. I used the measurements I found over at Homemade by Jill, and put one together accordingly.

I debated fabric, and probably shouldn't have gone for such light colors since it is going to get messy, but as I was considering the fabric I had in my cabinet, I thought about this Nicey Jane combo and couldn't get it out of my head, so I went with it. It will wash and really, I'd rather have something cute get a bit dirty then something ugly to begin with ha.

Perhaps the two most important things I did (which hopefully will help in the long run) are: 1) I went through the trouble of actually sewing in the little middle attachment piece instead of just topstitching it in. I figure the double stitching should help reinforce it since it will be taking a lot of strain. It was a pain, but I think a good decision and 2) I used my 2" velcro instead of skinnier stuff. It really makes it sturdy and easy to put on and makes it much harder for her to get out of. It also folds up nice and small and will just slip into the diaper bag.




As you can see she was completely bent forward and it was having no problem containing her. We'll see how it works as we travel, but I'm excited. And I am pretty sure it will work on most chairs so we should be good to go.



And now, I'll see you in a couple days while I go relax and enjoy a weekend filled with birthday and 4th of July fun! I hope everyone has a good long holiday weekend :)