Sewing Saturday

Saturday my friend Mary came to sew again. She doesn't have her own machine yet, so she sews on my older machine (we call her Wilma).

She made two of these belts one for her, and one as a gift for a friend.

And a set of two potholders for another friend. They were much easier than the previous attempt at potholders was!

And I folded/ironed a few more squares for my cathedral window DQS quilt. ....and we talked a lot. Four finishes in one night, that's pretty good right?

Fabric flower

Fabric flower
Originally uploaded by emedoodle

A friend from out of town sent this dress for Allie (it's made from a rolling stones concert t-shirt). It was a family favorite of theirs, but their girl grew out of it... and one of the straps had ripped off. I stabilized the back of the fabric where the straps were attached with interfacing, then used a tight zig-zag stitch to reinforce the fabric/straps. The one strap that was ripped off had a much larger rip than the other straps, so I made a flower to sew over it to cover the mend. The tutorial for the flower was found here.  I can't believe this was my first ever fabric flower! I like it.

Father's day!

Father's day!
Originally uploaded by emedoodle

Happy Father's Day Wally!
There really isn't anything like the upredictability of a two year old holding a giant letter. I definately got a bruise during this photo shoot. Ouch!

Father's Day Craft

Today, hanging out with the my sister and her kids (while mine was napping) we made this quick little father's day gift. I'd seen this tutorial last week and decided to try it for ourselves. Granted, I had only skimmed the directions listed there, and didn't have an exacto knife anyway... so we just used a craft stick as our guide and drew spaced lines on the back of each picture. The oldest (almost 10) cut hers into strips based on those lines. My sister and I helped the other niece (almost 4) with the cutting. We made guide lines on the sticks by laying them strait and marking the top and bottom of the picture. Then we used thinned out tacky glue and the kids painted it on in between the guide lines and stuck the strips of pictures to each stick. The glue took almost no time to dry and they enjoyed decorating with stickers too. We made them for my brother-in-law, my husband, and my dad too.

Here they are!

Doll Quilt Swap 9 and the Process Pledge

 

Here are some of my first sketches for the Doll Quilt Swap. I'm thinking of doing cathedral windows, which involves a bit of folding and ironing and then some pretty curved sewing (which I'm doing by machine not by hand as is traditionally done). Last week I did a little sample of this (at the bottom). I think I'm going to test out using white fabric for the base then adding gray squares peeking out of the "leaves" (the narrow ovalish parts) to add some more contrast. Then using bold saturated colors (not the primary ones here - thanks pack of 24 crayons) for the windows. 

I was sketching out some color options. I want to use a full rainbow of colors but to tone them down with some gray and use the white in between to really make it pop. My options shown here helped me to decide that for my sanity (and since my fabrics will work better) I am going to do a random placement. 

I haven't picked out my fabrics yet because I've been visiting with family all week. That comes next week! I can't wait! Hope my swap partner will like this!

Cathedral Windows

I just couldn't wait to post a picture of this (unfortunately it's dark and so are my pictures). I've been looking at pictures of cathedral window quilting here and here... and subsequently reading over the tutorial here... which made me actually try it.

This is really not nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be! It is time consuming because of all the folding and ironing. I machine stiched everything (just pinning the four edges down first) so the sewing went very quickly.

I do think I should have paid a bit more attention to cutting my fabric more perfectly... or folding it more perfectly. Although with just doing it rather haphazardly it still turned out really well! I'll definately do more of these. Someday when I'm in the mood to iron.

It must have been a busy month...

Because I just got another yard of fabric from the One Yard Wonder giveaway and I hadn't even had the chance to post a picture of the last one! Here they both are. Last month's fabric was the lighter one, this month's is the one with the women shopping. Thanks Storey Publishing!

The Process Pledge...

I've been working on a new quilt. The patterned fabrics are all from Valori Wells' Olive Rose collection.

Here are my sketches

Although at the present time I haven't done much with the multiple tiny squares. I really like them but the print of the fabric is quite large and I think it wouldn't look as good as I'd like it to.

Here are the blocks so far:

These are my favorites so far:

And my least favorites (but DH's favorite):
 

I actually think I would like them all better if I would have gone with the Kona Coal grey rather than the Joann's lighter grey. There's just not enough contrast.

A Birthday Skirt

So now that I've finally got a bit of free time... a post about my birthday skirt.

As none of you know, it was my birthday last weekend... so I decided to make myself a skirt. After loving this one I decided that one of the new sheets from the thrift store was destined to become another skirt. I must say this one took a lot longer. Mostly because I put a great awesome ruffle around the bottom. The ruffle, wasn't too hard, but I don't have a serger, so I folded the strips of fabric so the edges met in the middle, then ironed, topstiched each edge, then ruffled it. Much more work but I do love the result. Not to mention that it is my favorite color of green! And, the shirt was $1 at the thrift store's 1/2 off clothing event. Gotta love it!

(bottom hem)

I got in! After a week of wondering if I would, I did get the email Saturday that I am indeed, on the swap! I feel pretty good about this especially since I was just meandering about flickr and found this swap (again) - right after they started taking names for it!

I'm really excited about this and have started compiling my favorites - so my swap partner knows what I like in quilts.

I feel like I should go buy some fabric and start making one of each of these!

I think it'll be another couple days before we recieve the name of our swap partner. I can't wait to see what they like. I'm excited for the challenge of trying something new, pushing my comfort zone, and creating something for someone else!

Quilted Cards

Quilted Cards
Originally uploaded by emedoodle

Because I love love love written correspondance.
Because my bookstore had these packages of -- strangly almost cool - a little too bold designed - not exactly the cuteness my friends deserve -- note cards on sale for one dollar (the before to be photographed in the morning).
Yes you heard me - one dollar. For a pack of twelve cards and envelopes.
Did I mention I get half off with my discount? :)
Can you guess how many I bought?
Seven boxes.
Amazing fun.
Just go buy some blank (or ugly) cards already, grab a glue stick (so the fabric doesn't slide around too much) and go nuts!
Seven boxes = 84
Ok well I already gave one set away... so 72!
Wow. I've sewn up six so far (and I guess I'll never have a picture of that one that I sent to my giveaway winner will I?

Of course I have lost my camera....

...on the day that I finished sewing together this awesome quilt top.

(ok well I didn't lose the camera. To be truthfull I only forgot it at my uncle's house last weekend.)

I also sewed up this cute little dress for my girl. Today while at JoAnn's Allie started saying "Dora, Dora! Pretty!" ...finally I realised there was a bolt of that (what's the proper term for this...) gathered at the top with elastic... perfect for making a five minute dress for a toddler, with Dora on the bottom. Perfect! 20 inches = about $2.

I'm sure to post some great pics of these things soon....

*Updated with pictures*

 

Stupid lost camera.