Finally! A finished Swoon!

You may remember that I was making this swoon for my MIL, Linda... for CHRISTMAS! lol. Oops! It took me a while to get up the desire to hand sew that binding! The whole thing is pretty fabulous!!

I'm so glad to have this one finished - it's off my table and into the home of my MIL already! (just an hour after pulling it out of the dryer it was gifted!). Linda loves it - which wasn't a surprise since she had seen it at every step of the way! I'm so glad.

A funny thing is that this picture above is the closest thing I've gotten to a "full" shot of this quilt! It's big and Wally gets frustrated holding it. The wind was not on our side today so perhaps sometime later we'll have to take a pic at Linda's house. Even funnier than that, is that while we were taking pictures of it (in the back yard) our landlord yelled down, out the second floor window, telling me how beautiful it is! :) hehe.

So there you have it. Swoon finished. The end. I followed a pattern. I still hate following patterns. I've already set up a flickr swap to get rid of the Swoon pattern. Designed by me quilts only from now on! :) Don't get me wrong, I love the outcome of following this pattern, but it would be so much more "me" if I had drawn them out and sized them down to a more me size. I would have bordered them out with some cool colors and backed them in curry instead of white. Who knows? Well, either way Linda loves it! :) Happy Swooning!!

More about this quilt can be found here.
Linked up with Fabric Tuesday.

Swoon Quilting...

Finally some pictures of my swoon quilt all quilted up. I free motion quilted it on my home machine. Although first I aquired a larger machine! I used a Juki, which is much faster than my normal machine, and also has a longer arm length.

I found out really quickly (after two broken needles) that I should avoid quilting directly over the dense area where all those points come together. So I simply worked it into my FMQ stipple, so that I would rotate around the points without going over them. Annoying? Yes, but not terrible.

Here we are. From the back it all looks pretty nice too! In all the quilting took about two and a half hours! Very speedy just like the Juki!

Finally, the cute part. I snuck some FMQ'd hearts throughout. They're really obvious from the back, but sweet and intentional. I think my MIL will appreciate them. :)

As you can see above, I've started to bind it... and I'm sewing the binding by hand... it's going to take forever. I also sewed the binding the "right way" adhering it to the quilt front 3/8" away from the edge instead of my normal, lazy 1/4" away. I keep thinking that maybe this year will be the year that I'll show a quilt or two at a state fair or something. We'll see. 

A Good Mail Day!!

Hawthorne Threads never fails to amaze me. While they may not tie their bundles up with pretty scraps of fabric like Sew Mama Sew does, they do ALWAYS ship in a timely manner! I ordered this fabric about two and a half days ago - using the generic cheapest mailing method. And here it is!

Merry Christmas to me! Thanks to my lovely husband who gave me a one size fits all gift certificate! I bought this  lovely FQ bundle of Joel Dewberry Heirloom. It will be used for my month (Feb) of the {Sew} Beautiful Bee. I'm really excited about it. 

I also got a bit more of my fav. print.

And a couple half yards of pretties that I just couldn't pass up. I can't remember what that blue one is, but it's so much prettier in real life and now I wish I'd bought a bit in each color. :)

This has nothing to do with this post but I have a serious desire to make some 3" sawtooth stars. Serious. After seeing this on flickr.

Also, I want to make something like this. Free pieced and wonderful. I've never tried the ringo-pie type pieced stuff. I'm a little intimidated but who knows? Maybe I'd be great at it!

Oh and I want to make one of these ModMood Quilts. If I could figure out how to make it miniature I would.

And... while we're daydreaming, I want to finish my Bee quilt from last year! Now!! :)  I just need to finish piecing the backing (I have about 1/4 of the backing left to finish)... then it's on to quilting that bad boy!

Swoon - to be quilted!

Here it is... hopefully by the time this is posted I'll at least have it all basted! 

Last night I pieced the back together, which puts me a bit closer to quilting. I need to work on a label. I'm thinking a tiny star and some free-motion stitched names. :)

Now that the blocks are all sashed and completed... here's a glimpse at why I'm so crazy. All that extra work! For each of the flying geese units I sewed 1/2" from the normal sewing line to form an extra two HST's for each geese unit. I couldn't bear to throw away all those bits. Now I have a whole pile of HST's that will measure 2 1/4" finished. Who knows what I'll use them for... but they're not wasted!

**Edit**
The quilting is finished! I can't believe how huge of a difference it made using a better machine!!! 2 needles, 6 bobbins, and 2.5 hours later and the quilt was finished! I can't believe it! No major puckers (which is abnormal for me, I typically have at least one annoying pucker). Beautiful. I may need a name for this Juki machine! Pictures of it all quilted up will come soon. :)

...

Our first Christmas tree.. it's tiny like Allie. And she loves it!

(Dear family, especially Roseann and Linda don't read this post!)

I've been a busy little sewer this year... somehow I decided to whip up a few projects for gifts... and that ended up with me sewing for everyone! Here's part of the tally.

Tons of Zip Pouches for my sister, brother in law, and two other relatives (although most are for my sister). The cloth bags are all made from scraps, sized according to the uses my sister wanted (example: snacks for the purse). The plastic type bags were made from cutting up plastic coated re-usable bags from various places. Michaels, Pier One, and of course my grocery store! lol.You can get about two whole FQ's worth of material out of a single bag for $0.99! that's a deal! I also used this tutorial/measurement guide for those box pouches. they turned out perfectly!

 Stockings for the little girls. From right to left  Allie's stocking (made several years ago... I didn't get around to making her a new one, this one is really poorly made - I didn't know how to sew a 1/4 seam then!). Then the green and red one is for Rosemarie made with scraps and porthole blocks. Then Katee's which is actually almost entirely scraps from my mom's quilt - much more grown up (and my fav!). Then last is Gia's which sat in my head long enough that I HAD to make it! lol. All these were using scraps (except the backs) - so it's like a free project right? I used the pattern from Purlbee for the shape.

Some close-ups of the insides of a couple pouches. I used these adorable printed iron-on labels that I received in a swap this year. I'm sorry that I can't for the life of me think of who it was that sent them! Step up if it was you, because they're awesome and add such a finished touch to these bags!

Finally a couple rice pocket warmers!

And a still WIP... Swoon Quilt! I finished four blocks yesterday! I'm ready for sashing but wasn't frugal enough with my white... I'll have to buy a bit more to sash it!

That's it... ok well there's still quite a bit more... and another whole quilt that's so close to being finished!!

Odds and Ends...

 What has happened this week in my sewing life? Not much. I've cut some more fabric for my Swoon quilt (which I've decided will be called "Free Spirit" As in the fabric manufacturing company. lol. I noticed as I was gathering fabrics that the majority of fabrics were Anna Maria Horner, Tula Pink, and Joel Dewberry... all printed by Free Spirit. Above are the fabrics that I ordered last week to round the others for the Swoon quilt. I'm really in love with that roundish Joel Dewberry print (the one in two different colorways). And who knew it'd play so well with that random AMH print? Spectacular. :) That stack makes me happy -- I haven't decided if the blue/white print on the left will make it into the quilt. Probably not.

Then there's this canvas bag from the Sewing Summit. I worked on this at the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild last week. In giving us all blank canvas totes at the Summit they challenged us to decorate them however we saw fit. I used some strips of charm squares roughly sewn together and then sewn to the bag. I've got more to do to the bag before it's finished, but I'm really loving it so far.

Speaking of the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild meeting... we made MorsBags - pretty awesome. Allie used mine for her trick or treating. This was the first time she went and she had no idea what she was in for!! She won't stop talking about trick or treating! lol. As you can see she went as tinkerbell - in a store bought costume that we already owned. :) At least I made the bag! :) I hope you all had a great Halloween! :)