Some August blocks

I've actually fired up my sewing machine again and have been getting back to work little by little.  I spent a lot of time cutting my fabrics for the Double Wedding Ring Quilt along at The Plaid Scottie. Yes, I'm totally behind, but whatever - I'm still doing it!

And I got my bee blocks done. I didn't have to do anything for Sew Modern since it's my month and I sent out fabrics to the ladies.


Do.Good Stitches has us doing red and blue Dutchman's Puzzle using this tutorial.

For some reason it never occurred to me that if I place my fabrics like this I would get a pinwheel in the center. My brain must be a little hazy with hormones? This is why I should leave things up on my design wall a few days before I actually sew them. I've decided not to rip them though because my points were pretty dang perfect!

And I have to share a photo of my daughter because I love seeing quilts in use. Last year I made this quilt for my daughter. She's always used it in her crib/bed. But recently she's taken to dragging it around the house (and out if we let her) and telling everyone "mommy made this for me". Oh, does she know how to melt my heart!?

Tulle Pom Pom Puffs

For Halloween my daughter wanted to be Abby Caddaby (she's two, I gave her a couple choices). For those of you who haven't watched Sesame Street in a few years, this is Abby:

I found the perfect fairy costume at The Children's Place by accident. So I decided not to make the costume. What was missing though was something for those cute pigtails. My daughter doesn't have a lot of hair so I thought I'd make some tulle pom poms.

 These are so super simple and could be used for wedding embellishments or something I'm sure. So I took a few photos and here's how easy.
Take your tulle or netting and cut into long strips. This is customizable depending on how large you want your pom-pom. For my purposes, I did about 3 inches wide by about 15 inches long.

Select a thread and do a loose running stitch up the center of your tulle. I had two layers (blue and purple) placed together. First I tried Monofiliment thinking it wouldn't show but it was way too slippery. Stick with regular thread and knot the end so it doesn't go all the way through.

Then simply gather the tulle up into a little puff.

 

You could use the string to attach it to a barrette, or hot glue it like I did. I didn't have enough hands to tie it with the string.

 

And there you have it... Abby Caddaby pigtail puffs!

We're back!

We just got back from our week in Florida. It's always hard adjusting to reality isn't it? And Samantha got used to a level of entertainment that I just can't provide. She keeps talking about all we did and telling me how fun it was. I took close to 600 photos! I won't bore you with all of them, but here are a few high points.

We celebrated Samantha's birthday with my family. Samantha perfected her pout during this trip. Not sure why she was pouting at this point.

She has always hated the beach. This time she decided the water was okay and the hard wet sand. Still "no like" the dry sand. Her daddy taught her how to build sandcastles.

We took a boat tour of all the fancy houses and some dolphins decided to join us. Pretty neat huh?

Then we headed to Disney World. It was a good time to go because kids under 3 are free. Samantha loved her Minnie dress from her grandmother and wore it to the park the first day. I thought she was going to explode from the excitement of seeing all the characters.

And what is a trip to the beach without a beautiful sunset.


I potentially have jury duty tomorrow. I will know after 6 pm tonight. If I get selected it will be another quiet week here. Think they'll let me bring my sewing to work on?

Sewing and fabric and quilts, oh my!

I finished my first dress for Kids Clothing Week Challenge! My model wasn't really happy to comply. Here she is waiting to go back inside. I think her face says it all.

Here's the front detail. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  No, the model isn't examining her manicure. She's upset because her long sleeves are going over on her hands. Models are very fussy you know.

I realized I don't have brown shoes for her. I'd rather not buy any if I can. What do you think? Yea or Nay on the blue shoes with this dress? Normally I will put white tights on her, but since it's going up to 90 today and that's a corduroy dress I didn't want to torture her anymore.

This doesn't count as sewing, but I added some embellishments on some of her clothing with some patches I've had for a while.

I added some cupcakes to these jeans. They have a sparkly shine to them so they were really hard to photograph since they reflect the light.

And of course a sparkly princess shirt.


I'm not sure if I'm going to do any more clothing this week.  I have a stretch knit I would like to work with, but I don't have a good pattern for it. I have to search some more. If you have a recommendation, I'd love to hear it.

Also, the quilting keeps calling me back. I have a quilt to finish for a wedding on Saturday which I will photograph as soon as it's done. And this beauty showed up in my mail the other day!

That is a fat quarter stack (27 fabrics!) of Free Spirit by Lila Tueller.  The best part about this stack - it was FREE!!  I won the give away from Pam at Del Ray Fabrics! Squeee!   She's got some great stuff so if you want to shop, go check her out and if nothing else, sign up for her newsletter (that's where she does the giveaway).

And last night was my first meeting of the Philly Modern Quilt Guild. So much fun! It was so great to meet so many awesome, creative people. Part of the night was a show and tell and it was wonderful to get to see so many projects first hand. 

We also showed off our Project Pure quilts. It was a lot of fun to see what people came up with from the same line of fabrics. If you want to see them, they are here.  Mine is the green one. I'm already looking forward to the next meeting!

Kids Clothing Week Challenge

Is anyone else participating in The Kids Clothing Week Challenge over on elsiemarley.com? I just discovered this and plan to join in.

On Elsie's post she asks why people do so much sewing in the spring but not the fall. As I started searching for patterns I realized why. It's so dang easy to make spring/summer clothing! And there aren't a lot of patterns for the fall. The other issue I have is that I don't put a lot of dresses on Samantha. They aren't very practical for day to day playing. And of course most of the patterns are dresses.

The first thing I will be making is pattern "A" from this NewLook pattern. Yup, it's a dress, but so cute I couldn't resist. Note that this pattern is "easy". Those are the only ones that I will do!

I found this corduroy fabric to make it with (yes, I'm still obsessed with brown and pink).

I also found this adorable stretch knit covered with owls. I think I have a top pattern already that would work with it. But I'm nervous because I've never worked with stretch knit before!

Either way, it should be fun. Join in if you can!

On a separate note, as I was offloading these pictures from the camera I found that my husband took this photo this morning while I was in the shower.

Melted my heart to see my little one snuggled in her quilt!

Samantha's Quilt

Last night I finally finished the binding on my quilt for my daughter. This is an Alex Anderson pattern called "Petit Fleur". I decided to tackle a scallop border. Here's the full quilt.

I'm curious to see how the scallops hold up over time. There wasn't anything  providing extra stability for them, so I hope they don't warp or fold over.

Here's a peek at the backing.

This was also the first time I attempted quilting a border that wasn't continuous.  I did half flowers around the sides and the corner has the whole flower. It mimics the yellow flower on the fabric.

I made a newbie mistake that I will share. Maybe there is a way to solve this problem?  I made the back too different of a color than the front. As a result, I started getting some "connect the dot" action with my quilting. Meaning - the thread from one side was coming through the other side.

I played with the tension on scraps to try and fix this, but no luck. So I decided to have it show on the back. Fortunately, you really have to be up close to see it.

The best thing about this quilt for me was Samantha's reaction. I haven't really "given" it to her yet (i need to label it). But when I was done the binding, I stood up and held it up to take a look at it and she was mesmerized. She kept saying "Wow" and asking me to turn it around and show her more. It was so adorable. And I was blown away by it because she's two... I fully expected her to not have any interest. Maybe I have a future quilter on my hands!