Lots of Blocks

I am happy to have done my Sunday Morning Quilts Bee blocks already for June. I just packed them up to put into the mail. A good thing too, since they are traveling so far this month. Some to Australia and some to England. I love thinking of them going to live in a quilt in another part of the world. Here they are:

 Tessophia requested 16 patch blocks to put into a checkerboard quilt for her daughter. This is going to be a lovely quilt.

 Treewytch requested blocks like the Grass Quilt in the book (Sunday Morning Quilts) but in a different colorway. This is going to be a bright quilt.

And then,  Chelsea at Pins and Bobbins put out a call to make blocks for a Quilt for Aneela, using Aneela Hoey fabrics. So I dug around and found that I still had a few charm squares from Little Apples and Sherbet Pips and I made these to send:

If you want to make some blocks for Aneela's Quilt, go here for more information. Have a great day.

It's Thursday

Not a great title for a post, I know, but I have a crappy cold and it's only 43 degrees and windy here.  Yuck! It's supposed to be much warmer. This is the south you know.  Anyway.  Sewing has been slow going lately due to life getting in the way.  I know you know how that feels, right?  Here is a little of what I have been doing:

 A new pair of Big Butt Baby Pants for baby B.  His mom came over and shopped my stash for fabric combos.  This is the first of 5 pair she picked fabrics for.  Love the cute argyle print.  You can't tell so well in the picture, but the tiny crisscross stripe is a reddish orange that matches the Kona tomato solid.

                               Here it is a bit closer.  So cute!

 This is a Ragged Squares quilt I have been wanting to make for a long time.  I first saw it here, and I loved it.  When I made the Divided Basket by Anna of Noodlehead, I had these 3 inch squares that were cutouts from the side pieces.

 I never throw anything away, and I thought they'd be great for something.  Turns out they were just the right size for the smallest square in this quilt.  I made all the blocks first and then spent a couple of days rearranging them on my design wall until I was satisfied.

 The small squares are perfectly perched in two colorways and some green and white chevrons .  The other sized squares are from several different lines, including Sherbet Pips and some older fabric from Me and My Sister designs.

Now I just have to quilt it.  It's going to make a great quilt for the kids to lounge around with.  Have a great rest of the day.

A Tisket A Tasket

A green and yellow basket.  No, not really green and yellow, but I have made 3 of these now and I L-O-V-E them!!  There are tons of them popping up on the Noodlehead flickr site and each one is unique with all the great fabrics being used!

This was the first one I made:

I love it and the colors are so bright.  I wanted to use it for Baby B's toys at my house but...

They don't really fit and there aren't that many of them.  So what to do?  As I was thinking on that, I made this one...

Which I gave to my daughter.  But we both agreed it was a bit small for what we wanted to use it to hold.  So I asked Anna (Noodlehead) if she thought it could be made larger.  She said go for it.  So I did.  I added 2 inches to each side of the pattern.  Let me tell you, two inches didn't seem like much until I was done, but here it is:

 It measures 13 inches by 10 inches and it's 9 inches tall.  I really had no idea how it would finish, but I am pleased with it.  I had a bunch of Sherbet Pips in my stash from oh so long ago and I decided to use it up.  It worked, not much left now.

 On this one I decided to put the front pocket on it.  I had left it off of the other two.  I really like it and I think it is much more useful on this larger size.

 Baby elephant fits right in this pocket.  The pocket is divided in half with stitching in the center.

 This is the Bag with all the same toys in it as before, but you can see there is still lots of room for more toys.  Yay!

 Here are the two bags side by side for a comparison.  I am going to use the smaller one for my stitching stuff.  I do love that fabric!

For this bigger basket, I didn't have any more of the web handle on hand, so I made my own handles with fabric and some twill tape that came on a Moda fabric bundle.  I always save that stuff for just such an occasion.  If you want a perfect little basket, or even a bigger basket for gifting or storing stuff, this is an awesome and very easy project.  Go see Noodlehead and you can purchase the pattern there.  I can't say enough good things about this pattern.  Okay, enough gushing.  Gotta go to work.
Have a great day!

Progress... 2 by 2 and then some

Wow! What a difference a week makes.  This week I caught up on sleep (a little) I caught up on housework (a lot) and I made great strides in my sewing room.

Now having 2 grandsons 11 months apart in age makes it easy sometimes to think of gift ideas.  But the reverse is sometimes true when you have to then execute those ideas,  imagine...2 of everything.  So I don't do it often.  This time, though I just had to.  This is what I am working on with Christmas in mind:

My mother always made sure to give up PJs for Christmas.  I think the reason was that she wanted us looking good for Christmas morning pictures.  Whatever.  It became a tradition.  It's one I used for all of my girls and now for the grandsons as well.  We have bought Christmas PJs for them most years, and now that they are little men, we (my daughter and I) like this style, but it is hard to find.  I was wishing for a pattern so I could make them and now, BAM! Liesl has done it.  The pattern includes many sizes and I know I will be using it a lot.

For Christmas this year, here is my fabric choice:

Colorful Christmas-My Mind's Eye-Riley Blake

close up of the main fabric

I had to wash and iron all the fabric first

ready to go

I got all this on Stitch Steals for half of the original price.  And you all know flannel isn't cheap!  So I got it all cut out and ready to sew...both pairs.

The other project I am working on for the boys for Christmas is this one, found at the Moda Bake Shop.

It is a bean bag toss game that can be played inside!  Winter can be long people, especially with little ones in the house.

One I am making with a combination of Sherbet Pips and Little Apples by Aneela Hoey and the other will be Cheap Talk by Connecting Threads.  It's a great yellow, orange and red with a bit of blue and green.  Can't wait to see it all sewn up.

I cut out some of the letters just to see this.

Now that I have started these projects, I am really motivated!  I finished piecing this:

My Hometown quilt

And this:

My small quilt for my book/quilting group

And I got this done with 11 days left in the month:

Sew it's been going quite well over here.  I even managed to sew a few yo-yos this past week.  Yes, that project is still chugging along, although slowly.  I just hope I can keep this up.  The plan is to get all the tops done and then quilt my butt off until I finish everything.  Wish me luck.

Hope you all have a great week.