Sewing Time!

Well, I finally got a day off where no one was sick and I had a few hours to myself. I decided that aside from sleeping (which I did quite a bit of) and tidying up a little bit (enough to make things sane again), I decided it was time to sew!

I decided that I need to get a few UFOs (unfinished objects) finished, so I can feel more excited about sewing again, and I wanted to start with this quilt:

These blocks were made for me by the ladies of the Threads Together Quilting Bee way back at the beginning of the quilting bee craze. I loved these fabrics, and had been collecting them to make a wonky log cabin quilt for Dave and I's bed. Instead, I decided to hand them over to my quilting bee with no instructions, and see what I got back. A few people flaked out and I ended up with only 12 of the promised 16 blocks. Since I had asked for small blocks - 10 1/2 " - this meant I either had to put huge sashing around them or make a bunch of blocks. Discouraged, I put them in a bag with the leftover fabric and left them. Occasionally over the last few years, I have taken them out and played around with them, but always I have put them away again to work on another project. I still love the colours and fun bee and butterfly and owl fabrics in them, and the blocks I received were really stunning, so I've always felt bad that they were sitting in a bag, unassembled. It seems so disrespectful to the ladies who worked so hard to make them.

So I finally decided to just make one block to replace the one block that just didn't fit with the rest, and sash them together, and make a small quilt. Right now this is about 40 X 50, but I might add a scrappy border to it, which will make it about 46 X 56. I figure we have enough little people in the house that its okay to have some little quilts around that are just the right size for their laps.

The other thing I wanted to start on today was a baby quilt for the new baby. I decided I'm going to do really simple square - in - square blocks in these lovely bright colours. Some are from a couple of fabric bundles I picked up at Fabricworm.com, and the Pezzy prints are from a yummy bundle of pezzy prints I picked up at Pink Chalk Fabrics (also online). I wanted to get the cutting done while I had no little fingers around.

Since Emma stays up so late, my old quilting routine of cutting and ironing at night when everyone is sleeping, and then sewing during the day when I have a few moments hasn't worked, so I was glad to get these all done today. I was really happy because I figured out a way to get all the fabric I'll need from two 2 1/2" strips and one 4 1/2". This means I have enough fabric left from these plus the other fabrics I ordered as "potential" fabrics to make a nice log cabin picnic quilt later this year (I want to make a second go at the quilt-as-you-go method in "Patchwork Style").

Emma came home while I was sorting out and spreading out the fabric for the last photo. I gave her the leftover bits and pieces and she had fun playing with them until supper time. Soon she'll be a great quilting apprentice to have around the house.

Here is some of the leftovers from my original stack, although since I cut them in pairs and then folded quickly, you can only see half the fabrics here . . . I am really excited about this baby quilt. It should be super fun.

So, my camera and my computer apparently need a cord to mediate between them now -- but they did agree to download some photos. These are my four quilt-as-you-go blocks so far. My original plan was to do one more black and red one and then four with red in the middle and then white on the outside.

But as I started making these I ended up using these prints with a lot of white for the outside of the square.

So now I'm toying with either doing a series of smaller log cabins in between these four blocks in alternating white and black,

or making the other blocks with white on the inside and darker blues on the outside. Hmmmm . . any thoughts?

I had a birthday about a month ago, and my presents finally showed up in the mail. Apparently I'm really into gray these days. These ones came from Pink Chalk Fabrics (an awesome online store for funky fabrics with fast shipping to Canada), along with two nice organic solids - one brown, one gray.

Aren't they pretty? Can I ever have too much orange? I don't think so.
These ones are from Sewing Geek, who was having a destash sale (go check out her fabric stream, she's got some awesome quilts in there). I wasn't a big fan of Hope Valley when it first came out, but the subtlety of shade and the small prints in these fabrics is quite a refreshing change from the big, bold, bright fabrics I'm usually drawn to. I think it might become part of the bed quilt I'm eventually planning for my bed.

I also picked up a few prints from Anna Maria's latest line, Innocent Crush (isn't it funny being a fan of a micro celebrity and feeling like you can call her by her first name because you read her blog?), which is lovely in person, and a few prints from Gypsy, which I think is a highly under-rated fabric line. I sort of wish I'd got fat quarters of the whole collection (because, you know, I need more brown fabric. I don't think I have enough . . . ), but I'm really happy with the blues and greens I chose .

I sent away the little doll and quilt for the fund raiser without snapping a photo. It was cloudy when I finished her and the doll was cute, but the quilt left a lot to be desired. I hope they can auction it off for something anyway.

This and that

Well, there haven't been many craft photos recently, because I'm sort of in the middle of several big projects. The first is this quilt of Aaron's. You see, every time I've finished a quilt for the last eight or nine months, he's asked, "Is THIS one for me, mom?" And I've had to say no. So after Olivia's quilt, I promised him that the next quilt I finished would be his quilt. Of course, I've also been playing around with Emma's quilt, and I also promised my friend a picnic quilt in time for the nice weather (that would be last week) so I've gradually piecing that one, too. So instead of working on one or possibly two quilts at a time I find myself working on three quilts plus quilt blocks for my quilting bee, plus curtains. This means when I go down to sew in my precious few moments of sewing time, I spend about 20 min. deciding what to work on, about 10 min. sewing, and then the baby wakes up / gets bored / a fight breaks out / someone gets hungry or has an accident and that's the end of my sewing time.

Fortunately, Aaron's quilt now looks like this:
All basted and half quilted. In fact, last night I finished the quilting, so I just have to bind it now. This is such a cute, cheery quilt and he loves it and keeps asking, "Can I sleep with it now, Mom?"

I'll show the picnic quilt when I'm done it (only ties left to do now), but the other things I'm slowly tinkering with is putting a back together for this:

Isn't it a beauty? Made by the ladies of the Stash Busting Bee International. I was supposed to get 12 blocks back, but a lot of generous people sent two, so I was able to make it 4 blocks by 4 blocks and even had to leave one out (sorry, Shannon, but I included your funky 5-sided one) and I shall use the extra block and scraps to make a doll quilt.

I think I'm going to try hand quilting it, so I can have a pick-up-and-put-down project upstairs (and also because I think season 6 of Project Runway must be out of video by now and so its time for another PR marathon). So I've been playing around with what to put on the back. I had a selection of nice soft, cute pinks and greens and browns picked out, but I decided to get Emma's opinion.

So I brought her down to the ironing board and showed her the fabrics, hoping she would grab at a few and give me a hint. She completely ignored them. Not even a glance. She was more interested in my Ikea mini-drawers. So we went over and looked at those, and then I started thinking about something else I needed for a different project and I pulled out one of my bins and the moment I did she reached out a grabbed . . .

my pink and purple Good Folks. And Amy Butler (which didn't make the cut in the end). The girl has a mind of her own and vibrant, expensive taste already. Which is okay, even though I JUST found those Chocolate Lollipop purples (the pink and purple swirls at the top and the big flowers at the bottom) and those Mendoccino prints are highly coveted and out of print. Because I'm trying to be all about using my fabrics, right? Didn't I buy them to use? Isn't a quilt we use every day a better place for them than a bin where they just get patted and then carefully folded away again?

Its just that once you use something it no longer has all the possibilities . . . and I do so love possibilities. Oh well, there will be scraps. And it will make a fun, if mis-matching back for Emma's quilt. And she was cooing and chattering away while riding on my back as I put these on my design wall, so me thinks she will like it.

And I do need to use up some fabric so I have room for all these:
because I have 3 baby quilts I've like to make (twin boys and a mystery baby) so of course I need new fabric. Isn't it ridiculously cute?

A Few Aquisitions

I didn't buy all these while I was gone. Some of them I bought online before I left. And a few of them were from my swap (see below). But I did aquire all of this lovely fabric in the last while. My fingers are itching just looking at it.