Design Wall - January 28

Wow, January is almost over!

My Design Wall has something different this week - Little Dresses for Nicaragua.  This is my quilt guild's charity for this year.  We had a work day Jan. 19, which I wasn't able to make it to, but I did make my share of dresses at home.

These little dresses were really pretty quick to make, once I got an assembly line going for myself.  This is the small (2-4) size.  I also made two mediums, two larges and two extra-larges.   The pattern for these is free on the Nancy's Notions website.  There is only fabric, elastic, and double-fold bias tape involved in making these.

These dresses will be donated to a group making a healthcare mission trip to Nicaragua in June.  I hope some little girls there enjoy them.  It's hard to imagine wearing a sundress right now - we had several days below zero last week!

So, this is the fourth item of my four things to do for January.  I can start on my February UFO list a few days early.

Thanks for stopping by!

January Progress Report

I'm excited to make this blog post - I have lots of progress to show on my January UFOs!

My Column Quilt is done, and I love it.  This quilt is made using all scraps, and I used it to practice my Free Motion Quilting.  I'm really happy with the daisies in the purple stripes

and the leaf quilting in the green stripes.  I also love the sunbursts in the yellow stripes

and the Caryl flowers in the red stripes (those could use more practice, but I can live with them).  I don't love the feathers in the blue borders, so I'm not going to show a close-up of those!  I watched Cindy Needham's Craftsy class and got some nice tips, but I obviously need a lot more practice on the feathers.  I did try some different threads on this quilt.  Some of it was quilted with Aurifil cotton and some with Superior polyester.  I stitched in the ditch along all the long lines.  Much as I didn't want to do it, I have to admit it did help a lot, and it looks a lot better as a result.  I guess Cindy was right about that.  I got a sampler pack of threads from Superior, so I'm anxious to try out some of the other threads that came with that.

I've been thinking my machine bindings could use some improvement, so I did the Sharon Schaumber glue thing on this quilt.  The results were better, but still not wonderful.  I think that's something that takes a little practice, too.  I managed to get glue all over everything - this is obviously a technique that will require me to develop some glue skills!

So, anyway, this Column Quilt is done.  It's a very happy looking quilt because of all the bright colors, so I think its name is going to be Happy Go Lucky.  The pattern for this quilt is free here.  I had originally planned to use this as a charity quilt, but I've gotten pretty attached to it with all the hours of quilting (!), so I think I'll make a smaller version to donate.  This one is a twin bed size, which is usually a little big for charity quilts.  A lap size would probably be better, and I still have plenty of these scraps to make another quilt.

Boxy Stars is finished, too; quilted and bound and ready for a new home. 

I did a lot of FMQ practice on this one, too - that same starburst is in the sashing.  I did some loops in the star/box part of the block, and some flowers and leaves in the outer borders.  I'm happy with how this quilt turned out, and it used up a lot of 2 1/2" strips I've had forever.   Our guild is having a scrap workshop on March, and I'm going to show them how to make this quilt and another Bonnie Hunter scrap quilt.  The pattern for this quilt is also free on the Quiltville.com website.  After the workshop, this will be a charity quilt.

Annie decided she wanted to be a pillow with rick rack (thanks for the suggestions!).  I added a double row of baby rickrack, and found four matching red buttons in my grandma's button box, so this has antique buttons in the corners.  She looks right at home on my guest bed with Chatty Kathy (also an antique by now, LOL).  She was my favorite doll when I was little.  She doesn't chat anymore, but she's still in pretty good shape for her age.  This Annie stitchery was really fun to make, and Cleo and Me has an Annie for every month, so I may need to make some more of them.

So, that's my January UFO progress!  I still need to make the little dresses for Nicaragua - that workshop is coming up next Saturday, so I will get going on that then.  One thing about January in Wisconsin - it forces you to stay inside and tackle some quilting.  Our snow mostly melted, but it's pretty cold here now, so it's nice to stay inside and sew.

Thanks for stopping by!

Making Plans

Happy 2013 to everyone.  It started out pretty cold here - only -5 degrees F this morning.  I hope we don't do this all winter!

One thing about all the cold and snow - it makes it easy to stay inside and quilt.  My sewing room is nice and warm (thanks to the 13 lightbulbs in there). 

I'm going to participate in Carrie's UFO Challenge and Judy's Getting It Done Challenge.  Although I don't always get everything done, it does help me stay on task a little better.  With that in mind, here are my UFO/Getting It Done items in January:

1.  Finish quilting and binding Boxy Stars.  This is going to be a charity quilt, and also used up a bunch of older fabric.  A lot of these fabrics I recognize from when I owned a quilt store, which was from 1995-2000, so these fabrics are at least 13 years old, and maybe 18 years old! They still play together nicely, though.  I made a lot of progress on this today.

2.  Turn this cute Valentine redwork Annie into something - pillow, wall hanging, framed picture, Valentine postcard?  Anybody have any great ideas about this?  It's not too big, about 5" or so.  I won this pattern last year in a giveaway from Barbie at Cleo and Me.  I love to do stitchery, but frequently don't get around to finishing the stitchery into a usuable item.  That's going to change in 2013!

3.  Add borders, quilt and bind this Column Quilt.  This is another charity quilt to use up scraps.  My goal is also to practice my free-motion quilting skills on these quilts. 

4.  The fourth item, although not a UFO (yet!) is to make this pile of fabrics and trims into some dresses for Nicaragua using the Little Dresses for Africa pattern (free on the Nancy's Notions website).  A group from our town makes a medical mission trip to Rosita, Nicaragua each year, and our guild is going to make dresses and shorts for them to take with them.  We have a sewing retreat on January 19 to make these, so hopefully this is one item that will get done this month.  There is enough fabric here for at least 8 dresses, depending on the size I  make. 

That's it - that should keep me out of trouble for January!  Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Final Finishes for 2012!

To finish up 2012 - it's Morsel, the December A Year of Schnibbles!  I just decided Saturday night that I wanted to do some of these - love those .pdf files that you can purchase.  I wouldn't have been able to do these if I had to go out to hunt for the pattern, but clicking and printing is so easy.  The two on the left were made with a candy pack of Marmalade.  I added some rickrack and French knots to the left one, and added one of my grandmother's old buttons to the middle one.  The right one is made with leftovers from fabrics from the quilting cruise I took in August, so this is a remembrance from that fun trip.  I added some antique buttons to that one, too.  These were really fun to make, and I may make some more. 

Besides the holidays, we've been doing a lot of this:

We've had 21" of snow in the last week and a half.  The first 15" came the Thursday before Christmas - that storm was when this picture was taken.  Since then, we've had another 6".  We're about full up on places to put snow. Plus, I missed out on all the quilt shop after-Christmas sales, since I didn't want to drive on slick roads.  Probably a good thing for my wallet, though...

I made a couple new Christmas tree ornaments for this year.

The sheep is from the Primitive Blog Hop and is free here. The Noel ornament is a Primitive Gatherings pattern from a couple years ago.  I won't have much time to look at them on the Christmas tree this year, but I'll be really surprised when I open the box next year!  I'm sure I'll have totally forgotten them by then.

Hope everyone is having a nice New Year's Eve!  I've got to go do some internet shopping now, since my bricks-and-mortar shopping was thwarted by snow!

Design Wall Monday - December 17

It's December 17, so it's time to start some Christmas presents!  I did start a Christmas present this weekend, but in an effort to not drive myself crazy, I think this will be a gift for Christmas 2013.  I bought this pattern at Primitive Gathering's Christmas Open House, and have been chomping at the bit to start it. 

Here's a closeup of one end.  Don't look too closely - miniature piecing isn't completely my thing, but I gave it a shot!  The little corner connectors were only 1 1/8" square.  The friend this is intended for isn't a quilter, so I don't think she'll be too critical of the piecing.  I'm ready now to give the snowmen some blanket stitching and faces and arms.  This whole runner is only 12 1/2" wide, so it should be easy to machine quilt.  The ends of the runner are cut off at an angle after the stitching- you can probably see my chalk lines for that. 

So that's what's on my design wall.  With Christmas coming up so fast, I don't think my design wall will be seeing much action for a couple weeks.  Hopefully, I can show this as a finished product before too long!

A Christmas Party

SewCalGal is hosting a virtual Christmas party today, so I think I'll join in!  The party is a fund-raiser for Operation Homefront - go to her blog to check it out.

We're ready for our party - all the rabbits and bears have on their holiday finery!

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is our Cathedral Mouse tree.  A church in our area makes Cathedral Mice ornaments, with a different theme each year.  They've been doing this since the 1960s, so they've thought of a lot of themes!  This year's mouse was a Fitness Mouse - a girl with an iPod and earbuds, and a boy with little barbells in his hands.  Mouse Pickup Day is always the first Saturday of December, so that's when the Christmas season starts for me.  There's also a bake sale and craft sale there, too, so it's a fun errand. 

We have a small tree with just the mice on it - you can see the golfer, a Milwaukee Brewer, a jester, Santa, a railroad guy, and lots of others in this picture.   This tree creates quite an opportunity for our cat - she loves to bat at these and knock them off the tree.  Then if the dog picks it up to play with, the dog gets in trouble - it's a win-win for the cat!

The elves have been busy in Santa's workshop, too.  I've finished a few cosmetic bags for our guild gift exchange this Thursday.  This is a bag with a vinyl inset so that you can see what's in the bag.  I just love them, and I've even conquered my fear of zippers with these.  The pattern is "What's in Your Bag?" from Stitchin' Sisters.

A couple new ornaments are prepped for stitching.  When I was decorating our big tree, I pulled out an ornament I made in 2010.  I really like these ornaments, so I thought I would make a couple more to tie onto gifts this year.  These are a pattern from Primitive Gatherings.

And speaking of Primitive Gatherings, I finished the free pincushion from their Christmas Open House.  This is a Christmas gift for myself.  It was fun to make.

Thanks for dropping by my Christmas party!


   

Design Wall Monday - November 19

Finally, a blog post from me!  I think about posting a lot, but it just never seems to quite happen.  I have been working on some things, though.

 

I have three goals right now - reduce the size of my stash, get some charity quilts finished and on hand, and reduce my pile of UFOs.  The quilt above meets the first two of the goals.  It's a column quilt from a free pattern at Nancy's Notions.  I saw this quilt a couple years ago at the Quilt Expo in Madison.  It used up a good amount of scraps from kids quilts and is destined to be a charity quilt when it's done.  It needs a border and then I'll quilt it.  It's twin bed size, so a fairly large quilt.  I love the colors in it, and the little bit of solid black really makes the colors pop. 

 And this quilt meets my third goal.  It's Harvest Jumble from a book by Jo Morton.  I bought this kit from Country Sampler several years ago and finished the top, but just recently got it out and machine quilted it.  I love how it turned out!  Country Sampler does such a good job of choosing colors, and their kits are almost too pretty to take apart so you can start sewing.  The cheddar print surrounding this is a great color.  This quilt got done a little late for fall decorating this year, but I can't wait to get it out next year.  It's about 60" square, so a nice size for a lap quilt.  This quilt was also one of my UFOs in the UFO challenge on my sidebar, so I'm excited to get to cross one off!

Thanks for stopping by!  I have some extra time off over the Thanksgiving holidays, so I'm hoping to get lots of quilting done and have some good things to show you next week.