A finish...and Another Swoon Block

I was able to quilt and bind my Hometown Quilt this week, and cross another item off my 2012 project list.  I started this quilt awhile ago.  Just looked and it was back in September.  It was a quilt I saw on Moda Lissa's blog, but the pattern came off of the Moda Bake Shop.  The piecing was fairly quick and easy, and then life got busy so I just folded it up and put it aside.  Part of the reason for that was I couldn't decide how to quilt it.

 I am a bit lazy when it comes to quilting in that I hate the process of marking the quilting pattern.  So I outline, or stitch in the ditch, or do an all over design.  But this quilt needed something else.  So I caved.  I made a template of houses.  It's a pretty small quilt after all, only about 43 x 50.  And I marked the whole thing.

 I used my walking foot and did the bottom lines first, all the way down to anchor the quilt.  Then I used my Bernina Stitch Regulator to free stitch the houses themselves.  The lines aren't too straight, but I don't care.

 I love the effect of the rows of houses...Hometown!  Get it?

 I used the grey scallops from the Ruby line by Bonnie and Camille for the back, with a red boarder.

 And here it is in its just washed crinkly goodness.  A perfect lap size.

                                            Here is the back.

Don't you just love the rows of little houses?  And now, my next accomplishment for the week:

 Swoon block number 7!!! I like this one so much.  It might just end up being the center block in my quilt.  I will audition it there as soon as they are all done.  Only 2 more to go...sew exciting!

Spent most of today helping my oldest daughter to nest.  Looks like baby B will be here sooner than originally expected.  Gotta get that dresser painted and loaded up with cute baby things.
Have a great week.

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.

I think I can, I think I can

Sometimes I feel like that little engine and only if I keep "thinking I can" will I accomplish anything.  This is a tough work week for me and I am tired already, mentally as well as physically.  For my mental well being, I am trying to sew every spare minute I can.  So to that end, yesterday before I had to go to work, I got a couple of quilt tops finished.

The first one I got finished is my 36 Patch Quilt Along that I did with Crazy Mom Quilts this summer.  I am so glad to have it together and now I will begin piecing the back.  I already know what I want to do, so I just gotta do it.

The next one I finished is on my brother asked me to make for a special little girl on his wife's side of the family.  I had wanted to make a simple strip quilt, and that's how I started out.  But anyone who has quilted for awhile knows that sometimes a quilt wants what it wants and your best option it to go with it.  So this is what happened:

My strips needed a bit of something else, so I made some small strips going the other way and put them in.  This is good, I thought. I continued adding more strips and then WHAM! the quilt needed something else. So I gave it this:

Since there is a pinwheel print in it from Children at Play, it seemed to fit.  I like the scrapiness.  And then it seemed happy and fine with the progress.  I ended up with a thin green border and a larger pink border.  I measured all the leftover fabric and I think I have enough to piece the back without buying more fabric. YAY!

 I was also able to finish piecing these blocks and got the layout done.

And I did all of that in just about 3 hours before work.  So today when I got home, I pieced my October Birdie stitches block and started putting the hometown squares together.  Sewing soothes my mind and my soul somehow.  I can still think about problems, but they seem less urgent somehow and I feel calmer.

I hope you all get lots of sewing time this week so you can feel it too.
Have a great week.

Lake Wobegon

Sometimes as I sit here an write my weekly post, I feel a bit like Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion fame.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, he has a radio show on NPR on Saturday evenings about 6 pm.  It is formatted like the old time radio programs with music and skits.  Every week he does a news update from Lake Wobegon Minnesota, which is his fictional hometown.  It always begins "It's been a quiet week here in Lake Wobegon, my hometown."

It's been a busy week here in my hometown.  The wedding is just 5 more days away (including the day itself) and there's still plenty to be done.  Now I only have a few things to do, and most of them are done.  But I was waiting until this week to hem V's pants so he didn't outgrow them.  I have him every day after school, so I decided to try them on today and pin them up.  How do you get a 5 year old boy to stand still for such a thing?

hand him your iphone

He loves to play games on it and he's good.  Then he got kinda casual:

Well the pants are hemmed and I am stitching closed a couple of seams on some double sided napkins and my wedding sewing is totally done!  So I worked on a couple of other things over the weekend.  I am finally putting my 36 patch blocks together to get ready to quilt.  I want to piece the back too.  I have an idea.  I was hoping to make progress on this:

still a bit to do

and I did!

all done...just in time for October's block

Also, all the mug rug talk going on right now has me stirred up so I dove into that too.

Hometown scraps...I'm wasting nothing.  I love that line.

My daughter has a Mac

Still more Hometown scraps

I'm also piecing two other quilts and have more in the cue for the rest of the year.  I hope to have some more finishes to show by the end of the year too.  I hope you get plenty of sewing time too.
Have a great week.

She's Back!

I really missed Nina, my Bernina.  She went in for a check up last week.  I thought I was to a point in all my projects that I had enough hand work to keep me busy.  But instead, the minute she was gone, everything I wanted to do involved Nina.  She was only gone 5 days, but every day brought another idea that needed trying.  Torture I tell you.  But now she's home!

And the sewing has begun again!  Such chaos, such clutter; I am one happy quilter.  But the first thing I need to do is make some pants, a vest and bow tie for V for his mom's wedding in a few weeks.  I got the pattern idea/advice from Dana.  She drafts patterns all the time for her son and they are adorable.  I can do this!

Well, it took several tries with "junk" fabric, but now I think I've got it!

It's a very nice linen and the vest will be the same.  I have drafted the pattern for the vest, but haven't started it yet.  I am having trouble getting my Nina to sew over the elastic in the casing at the back of the pants.  If anyone has advice on how to make this work, I would be grateful.  The needle hits the elastic and won't go through.  It is one inch non-twisting elastic.

So I thought, since I have been so good about working on this must do project, I am going to reward myself with a want to do project.  I am starting my Hometown quilt.  I bought a layer cake of Hometown a while back and was waiting for inspiration.  I found it on Moda Lissa's blog.

This is an easy pattern that will really showcase the fabrics.  Since I really couldn't indulge myself with more of this line, I wanted to make the most of it and this pattern does it for me.  First seen in Moda Bake Shop, it's simple, but fun.

The rest of my weekend was spent helping my husband get some things done in the back yard for the upcoming wedding.  We will have family here with us, and want to spend all our spare time just hanging out and talking and cooking and eating.  So we needed more outdoor space to do this.  He found plans on line and we built a picnic table and are working on a fire pit.

it's nice and sturdy.

needs a few more bricks

We are going to have so much fun!! I can't wait.  Now, back to Nina.  I've got lots to do.
Have a great week.

Chugging Along

Just trying to get through all the gotta do projects here.  It's so hot here and supposed to be over 100 degrees tomorrow.  Good time to be indoors sewing.  I am trying to give each of my projects a little bit of my time every day so that they all make progress.  Stitch, stitch, stitch.

This is what I have got going on today:

Quilting the 1001 Peeps quilt.

The hemmed stack of napkins is growing!

I also wanted to show a little quick project I whipped up from 4 strips of a jelly roll.  I needed to make something to protect my Kindle.  This is some of my favorite fabric!

It has an easy Velcro closure.

I am trying to stay on task with the napkins, but then the UPS guy stopped by my house and look what I have!

Hometown!

 

 

I have been dying for this fabric ever since I first saw it.  Now that I have this layer cake (thanks to Kimberly Jolly at Fat Quarter Shop-so fast) I know I will buy some yardage as soon as it becomes available.  Another winner from the ladies at Sweetwater.  I will try not to let its presence disrupt my napkin hemming.

One more thing.....where do you get your inspiration?  I surround myself with things I enjoy looking at while I sew.  This is the latest addition.

love the labels

Have a great week and stay cool.