Inspired

As I sit here, returned from our holiday journey and waiting for the new year, I am inspired. Overwhelmed by all I wish to accomplish and a little being who simply will not have it, but inspired and excited for the coming year none the less. I have some awesome new books to read which just keep giving me idea after idea. I plan to spend the next couple of days relaxing with the family and getting myself in order for the new year. I have some priorities to figure out and I'm really hoping to start the new year out with a clear idea of what I want to accomplish. Right now my list is 10 miles long and I am feeling pretty disorganized so hopefully I will be able to iron some of that out.


With that I wish you a very happy new year. Next week I will be back [hopefully] renewed and refreshed and with some great christmas gifts to show off and some sort of plan for 2011. We know how well I stick to plans....but I'll keep trying :)

Overwhelmed

And running out of time. 16 Days until Christmas. 9 Days until we begin our holiday travels. 5 gifts to finish.

Since my lovely little lady has decided that naps are for babies (but not her) unless, of course, she is snuggled on mommy's lap (right now for instance), my time to sew has been severely limited (I am enjoying it though, she is already growing so fast I know I have to soak it up while I can!). Thus, out of the many things I had planned to make, not too many of them will actually be done for christmas. And that's okay, I think I should be able to do the rest of the things I have in progress and have something for everyone in the immediate families, but I had to put a lot of things on hold. Sad times. I have only one quilt that I think will be finished...it is half quilted right now, I just need a couple more hours to quilt and then I need to make and attach the binding and sew it down by hand. Easy, right? Ha. But it should be done and at least hand stitching the binding is portable so it can travel with us and be finished in the week before christmas. I have 3 other things cut and ready to be sewn which hopefully will go pretty quickly and then another thing I need to wash the fabric for and then get started on which is a less pressing issue since I suspect I won't see the recipient until after the holiday.

So it is doable, it's just a lot, and the time is that much shorter until the middle of next week when hubbys semester is over and we have a little more breathing room. Somehow it will get done though. And, I have decided that I am just going to go ahead and make the blanket for myself that I have had cut and waiting since June once the holidays are over. I ordered the back and binding and I am super excited. And I think I even have enough to make a baby blanket out of the leftovers :) I also ordered some sweet double gauze to make a set of security blankets for the little one so that once she reaches that attachment stage, we can encourage her to use these. They should be pretty soft and wonderful! I also have the other quilts to make and plenty of other ideas floating around.

I guess at this point I don't know if you'll hear much from me until the holidays are past and I can start posting the things I am giving. Which reminds me, I better take some pictures before I go giving them away. I am very much looking forward to a couple of relaxing family-filled weeks before the start of a new year. Until then, I better get my craft on and get these things done!

My new best friend

So. It's been a little while. It's a weird combination of busy and that chunk of time before Christmas where I can't reveal anything I am working on for fear of the recipient seeing it. Not that I am making a huge amount of stuff this year due to obvious time constraints. And since we are doing our Christmas traveling the week before Christmas, time is even more limited. It's alright though, I am pretty sure everyone in the immediate families will get something.

Anyway, what I do want to talk about is the best thing that has happened in my sewing life. Seriously, I don't know how I survived or what I was thinking. I would like you to meet my 1/4" foot.


Why someone didn't alert me to their existence sooner, I have no idea, but it seriously has changed my sewing forever. We all know I have a particular problem with accuracy. And I've come to terms with that and recognize that my project still look good. But this just changed my life. I now have even seems and they meet where they are supposed to almost every time (the remaining times I attribute to my inability to cut, even with a rotary cutter and mat). It's amazing. I didn't think I would ever be able to do that! It has been particularly good for my most recent project with lots of piecing and seems that need to match up, and they do, and it looks freaking awesome! More on that particular project after it is given. And finished for that matter.



The fabric just lines up so nicely along the guide...clearly I am easily impressed. And I can't wait to use it to quilt and make nice lines 1/4" from the seams. Yep, way too excited about this little gadget. Is it even really a gadget? Ah well, either way. The point is, awesome. And with that I must go. I have some serious basting to do this weekend....in between the family pictures, cleaning, hot chocolate and christmas decorating that must happen :)

hexies :)

So here it is, finally. The real start of project hexie. By way of description, this project is at least starting as a travel project for me. I want something I can do in the car (I tried knitting but my elbows kept hitting the door) and when we are away from home to keep my hands busy. I have recently fallen in love with some hexagon blankets and decided to try some english paper piecing. I am feeling pretty good about it so far, but we'll see how it goes once I am really into it



I didn't want to end up killing myself or having a never ending project so I am doing pretty large hexagons. The finished sides are 2.33" and I am using the It's a Hoot line by Momo for Moda (which I love) and started with a layer cake cut into quarters so basically charm packs, or 5" squares. Once I sat down and figured out the blanket size I determined I needed one more charm pack and will end up with 210 hexies (some of them halved) doing 14 rows of 15 hexies and I am planning on two borders, one small one larger.



The hexagon pieces are a very custom size that I made myself in photoshop and then printed on my Silhouette machine (something else I love, more on that another time) so I didn't have to cut them out and they all came out the same. They fit perfectly on my charm squares with minimal waste. So far I have cut 45 of them so I have enough for 3 rows, but I'll probably have to cut more at some point. We'll see how long this keeps me busy.

I am planning on going through one charm pack at a time and putting them together in clusters of 9 (3 rows of 3) and then arranging them when I am done since I think that will be easier than long rows and I'll have more control over the colors and arrangement of fabrics.



So there you have it. I have my little travel box all ready to go on Tuesday when we start our holiday travels and I am super excited. I did two test hexies to make sure I knew what I was doing and they came out great. Who knows how long this project will take, but I'm not in much of a hurry. I will probably end up working on them at home too after the holidays since it gives me something to do while I'm sitting around on the couch relaxing but for now it is a travel project. I'll keep updating my progress as I go.

Yoga Mat Bag

So before you ask, yes, I should be working on christmas gifts. This I know. But, I started going to a really awesome mommy and me yoga class...and well, it turns out it is really hard to juggle a baby, a diaper bag and a yoga mat. The solution: a yoga mat cover with a strap! It was a pretty quick project, although let's be honest, everything takes longer with a baby. Still I got it done in a day and I love it and it works wonderfully.

I used a free pattern from Amy Butler and since I really didn't feel like a trip to the fabric store, I was determined to use what I already had. A couple of years ago when I started sewing, I made myself a dress. It came out okay, but had a few problems. Well it is now a yoga mat bag. I still haven't decided if I feel relieved or sad, but really it looks so good that I can't be too upset and the dress never fit right anyway. The lining is a yellow check fabric I got from my husbands grandmothers stuff when she moved out off her house and since I did not have any interfacing, I used flannel. It gave it weight and made it sturdy but kept it soft and flexible, and most importantly, I already had it and thus did not have to buy anything! I am really happy with it and it works so well and makes it so much easier. This is one of those projects that I saw and saved for "eventually" and when I started this class it just had to become now.




So anyway, now I am working hard to put together a christmas gift quilt top :) It is pretty big so it is taking a while....I really want it done before we leave for thanksgiving next week which is a tall order since I am in the midst of training for work and everything but I think I can manage it. Hopefully tomorrow I will journey to get a fabric for the back and this weekend finish piecing it together. We shall see! And if I'm honest, the main reason I am looking forward to our holiday travels is that I want to work on my hexies! It is nice having a portable project to bring and work on in the car and when we are all sitting around and people are stealing my child :) More on hexies soon!

Couch Pillow Covers

Well we are certainly entering that incredibly busy time of year. Ya know, the time where I start training for work and the holidays are like, right there. On top of the normal stuff, my parents were visiting this past weekend and the hubby had to get the final draft of his prospectus in so he can write his dissertation at some point....yeah, it's been nuts. At some point in the next few weeks I fear I will have to come to terms with the fact that I may not get all my christmas gifts done in time. I am certainly going to try, but with a whole week of training next week and thanksgiving after that, I am running out of time. It will all get done eventually...

Anyway, one of my smaller projects recently was to re-cover our nasty couch pillows. They were not beautiful and really, we needed something we could take off and wash at a moments notice. They are all envelope back (my favorite) and really brighten up the room. The one is just plain and two others are square in square fronts. Very simple and used some fabric that had been waiting for the perfect project. I think it is a great improvement!

Before:

After:





One of these days I think I am going to make some bed pillow cases, but it's really not very high on the priority list. I have some small sewing goals for this week so we'll see how that goes. If only I could pause life and get some uninterrupted sewing time....what a nice dream :-P

Play Quilt

a.k.a. peekaboo-textures-colors quilt

a.k.a. sensory overload

This is one of those quilts that I am incredibly happy with the final product, but I really hated making it and could not wait for it to be done! It started when I saw the peekaboo quilt that Anna Maria Horner has in her newest book Handmade Beginnings. I really liked the idea of the flaps that lift up to reveal something and decided I could make something similar but instead of just a color pattern under the flap, I thought felt animals would be nice. and then I decided that instead of just using two different versions of the same color for each block, I could make them each have a textured square so the red has a minky square, purple has velour, pink has terry cloth, green has satin, yellow has fleece, etc. And so I set about making it.

The blocks are 14" squares with a 6" center square. The animals were printed off the computer and traced onto some sewable heat and bond which I ironed on and then did some nice chunky stitches with embroidery floss. I like it a lot actually, it looks really cool. I made the mistake of using a poly/cotton blend for my solids, mostly because they were cheap and I figured they would be less likely to wrinkle which is true, but it just didn't sew up as nicely. And of course many of the textured fabrics were stretchy and a pain to work with so that wasn't fantastic...


[the white one is a bunny in case you can't see it]


The back and binding is Michael Miller Loli Dots which is seriously just perfect. It really makes it. I decided to try something different since the quilt is pretty small and wrap the backing around to make the binding and machine stitch it down and it came out really well. I think I like the stability of that for a play quilt that. To be honest, I am hoping it survives the wash since I think it will need to be washed many times, but we'll see. All the fabrics are pre-washed so that should help (and yes, I absolutely made sure that all the different types of fabric were washable before I bought them).



Overall I am really happy with how this turned out and I can't wait until the wee one is big enough to really appreciate it and play with it!