Monday Odds and Ends

Lots going on, but mostly in progress stuff to show you today.  I have started sewing for Christmas.  I have made a list, sort of,  and am working on it.  Here are a few peaks at some of the stuff I am working on:

 I cut out all the pieces for making 5 of the 6 wristlet phone pouches I plan to make.  I have blogged about this pattern before here.  It goes together really quickly and easily.  It almost takes more time to cut out than it does to assemble it.

 This is a sneak peek of some blocks I am working on for the Leafs Me Happy blog hop that begins next week on Sew We Quilt.  I think my day is the 3rd.  I will verify that of course.  You should come check it out.  The last blog hop was great and this one will be as well.

 I am also working on some coin purses for another blog hop in November on Sew We Quilt.  I can't wait to make a couple of these.  I only bought 2 frames, but if this goes well, I will definitely be getting some more.

 These I whipped up this morning for baby B.  He is in the drooling phase now and in need of bibs.  Purl Bee had a tutorial for these (how timely) and I loved making them.  Needless to say, I will be making some more of these cute things as well.

 Lastly, with the change in the weather, Halloween is on the brain and V and I have been working after school to make lots of cool decorations which we will be putting up in a couple of weeks.  We made a list of all the things that meant Halloween to us and set out to make them.  These are the spiders we made out of pipe cleaners, pompoms and googly eyes.  We just glued the eyes to the pompoms and the pompoms to the pipe cleaners after twisting them together to form the legs. 

I hung them on the hurricane lamp and I have to say I think this is my favorite of the things we've made so far.
Hope you have a great week.

The Best Quilting Day!!

This is going to be a picture heavy post, but I am so stoked!  I finished TWO quilts today and I decided that rather than do two separate posts, I'm going to do one big one.  I have been working on these for awhile now and, well, lets look at them, shall we?

First let's look at this one.  I borrowed the idea from Camille this summer.  I only wanted to make a small lap quilt.  I really just wanted to use the Summersville jelly roll I had.  This was perfect.

 I decided to bite the bullet and try my hand at bias binding.  I have been too afraid to try until now.  What was I afraid of?  I thought it would take lots longer and I am lazy when it comes to a longer process for anything.

 This is how my binding would have looked if cut on the grain.  Plain and boring, right?

 This is how it turned out.  Soooo cool, am I right?  I used Amanda Jean's tutorial for bias binding.

                                       Here we go...

                             Love the way this looks.

                         Here is a bit of the back with the binding sewn in place.

 I had quite a bit left.  I didn't measure, I just made a bunch because is was so easy.  I will use this later on something else.  I have a few more strips I can add if I need to.

 A close up, fresh from the dryer.  I hope you can see the zigzag quilting pattern I used.

                                         One last shot!

                                 The inspector...doing his thing.

 Now for my favorite Quilt!!  This first picture isn't great, but I kept it to show the chevron quilting pattern on this quilt.  I felt like all those dots needed a linear quilting.  After doing the other quilt above, I knew this was what I wanted on this quilt.  I did half of it and then my husband suggested reversing the points to point in the opposite direction toward the faded dots.  Perfect.

 I used the black/grey Ombre Dots for the binding, which is not bias because I didn't want to lose that fade to grey look.

How cool is this little quilt?  And I still have lots of Ombre Dots left to use in other projects.

Have a great rest of the week.

Really Random Monday

I've got lots of different stuff to show you today.  This was my only sewing since early last week, so I tried to cram lots in.  Ready?  Here we go:

 First of all, here is my red mini ticker tape all finished and bound in a soft blue green.  I am so loving making these.  It's like a story of past quilts, revisited.  Fun to look at all those scraps again.

 Next, I received some very happy mail from Aunt Marti at 52 Weeks, 52 Quilts.  I won her giveaway last week and this is what I got.  Yes, those are some Kate Spain note cards, note pad, journal and emery boards.  How cool is that?

      The cute pink polka dot box holds these lovelies.  Sew cute!!

 And how about these?  Yes, pink snips with white polka dots on the handles.  Love them!!

 And some awesome polka dot fabrics.  I love both of them.  I really need to make something using all the different dots I have.

 And to top it off, this lovely thank you card, for being a follower of her blog.  Marti, it is my pleasure.  You should go check her out too.

 Next, I spread out all the blocks I have received so far from my Bee mates in the Sunday Morning Quilts Bee.  I wanted to look at them all together, and I am already thinking: sashing, or no sashing?

 Here is a bit of a peak at my Ombre Dots project.  I can't wait to finish this one up and show it to you.  I decided to pin baste it this morning and had no idea how to quilt it, but as I was pinning, it came to me.  Has that ever happened to you?

And I also decided to use a similar quilting pattern on this one.  I got it all quilted, just need to bind it.  I am thinking of trying bias binding for the first time.  I am trying to push myself to learn new tricks.
Since I had such success with these, maybe I will get some batting and go ahead and baste my Swoon quilt. Maybe a quilting pattern will come to me on that one too.  I have waited a long time.
Have a great week and I hope to see you soon.

How I Spent My Weekend

This was a very important weekend for us.  My husband ran in his first half marathon.  And on top of that, it was in very hilly Asheville NC.  I did the 5K walk, but that was easy in comparison.

                  It was a very foggy morning, once the sun came up, you could tell.

                  Here is a shot of the main street where the start/finish line was.

                                        Mountains near Asheville.

 Here he is before the race.  He is still smiling.  He did finish and received a participant's medal.  I am very proud of him.

                              And here, a post race toast.  Congratulations, honey.
Once we got home, I did start a bit of sewing.  I will have lots more to show you in a day or two, but for now, this is it:

                                    I started my red ticker tape mini today.

                      Block number one for September's Sunday Morning Quilts Bee.

                          Block number two for September's Sunday Morning Quilts Bee.
Hope you had a great weekend too.

Lots of Organization to Sew

Have you ever had one of those days where you want to sew, but you really aren't motivated to sew?  I tried to sew, and I wanted to sew and I kept getting distracted.  So I quit trying to sew and started to get my room tidied and organized.  Now, I think I can sew the next time.  Let me show you what I did.

 I got out a bunch of red scraps for my September Sunday Morning Quilts Bee blocks and pressed them, ready to sew.

 Since I had the red out, I decided to start organizing tiny scraps for my next ticker tape mini quilt.  This one will be #4.

 I found a big stack of 2.5 inch squares, which is just what I need for my Comfort Quilts Bee blocks for September.  Now I shouldn't need to cut any.

 I tidied up a stack of charm squares I have been rummaging through for the last few weeks.

 I pinned 13 more sets of 5 inch squares to stitch together for my Fusion Blanket Crochet Along.

 I pulled fabrics to audition for my Retro Flowers Quilt.  I need to look at them for awhile before I decide to start cutting.

 I sorted all the scraps in my scrap box.  I haven't done that in months!  It felt so good to empty that box.  And I discovered that I need another bin to separate the blues from the aquas.  That blue tub is packed full!

I cut out two more pair of pants for baby B.  I did get the cuffs sewn on before the organizing bug bit.  And I finished these two pair last week.  That baby is growing like a weed!!

Hope you get lots of sewing time this week and if you can't sew, organize!

Labor Day Sewing

It's been a busy weekend here and not too much time for sewing, but I did carve out a couple of hours yesterday and plan on more today.  My sisters-in-law came to visit.  They haven't been here in a long time, so of course we made lots of jokes about once in a blue moon, referring to Friday's full moon.  Lots of chatting and great food.  But I digress...on to the sewing.

I made another one of these cute wristlet pouches from Caroline at Trillium Designs:

 I made a couple for my daughter a while back and they are so handy and easy to sew, I knew I would make more.  Before I start sewing for the folks I want to gift them to, I wanted to make one for me.

 You know how that goes, right?  We get all caught up in making things for others, and we love doing it, but at some point we realize we have none of our own handmade quilts or other items.  Especially if it's a favorite pattern.

 I love how it fits my phone and my ID and credit card.  I daresay I could slip in a couple of bucks and my keys if needed.

 Here it is all closed up.  I love the Children at Play fabric and this is the last of my blue and red stripe from that line.  I am happy to have a little bit of it for my own.

 In my reading of blogs this weekend, I came across this.  I know we have all seen it, as it is not new, but I resisted until now.  I bought the pattern and can't wait to start pulling fabrics for it.  I might even do that today.

The last thing I did yesterday was to play with these pretties which I pulled a week or so ago.  They are all from my stash and the selvedges say some were printed in 2003.  I have been looking at them for a bit, waiting for inspiration to strike.  These are for the Leafs Me Happy block Blog Hop that is coming up in October.  Don't you just love fall?  The colors, the cooler temps...the yummy foods.  Okay, I have lots of sewing to cram in today.  Maybe I'll see you back here later this week.
Have a great Labor Day.