Stranded - in the Best Possible Sense of the Word!

Have you seen the headlines at the Moda Blog?

 

 

I was lucky enough to get stranded on this mysterious island too! It has sewing machines and Moda fabric! This is my dream island! Find out what I would want with me on the island HERE!

 

What would you want?!?

Doing A Favor

My husband quickly learned not to ask me to make baby quilts for everyone. If he wanted to give something, I would often make a receiving blanket instead of a quilt. I have only made a quilt for someone he knows a handful of times. This is one of those times. A few months ago, he asked me to make a quilt for someone at work. I agreed. Lately he has been kindly reminding me that he needed it by the end of March. Today I thought I better take care of it.

 

I wanted to make something easy. I looked in my Simply Charming Kids book.

 

I decided to make the Times Square pattern.

 

 

The baby is suppose to be a boy. I thought an old Max and Whiskers charm pack I had would be just the thing. I added a 2 1/2" border around 4 blocks.

 

 

A couple hours later, the quilt was done and on the machine.

 

I quilted it with a dog bone stipple.

 

Now I just hope it doesn't take me two weeks to put on the binding!

Sand Dollars

This is another quilt I designed for Timeless Treasures. It uses their batik fabric, Tonga Coastal. In this picture, it is the one hanging behind.

 

 

It uses 10" squares and 2 1/2" strips. Here is the link to the free pattern:

Sand Dollars

 

 

I love this quilt! I guess these are my colors browns and blues. I may need to make it again since Timeless Treasures has this one. Lately I have really loved 16 patch blocks. I think this quilt would be fun with a lot of different fabrics.

Lemon Poppyseed Picnic

Lemon Poppyseed Picnic is a free pattern I designed for Timeless Treasures. It uses their batik fabric Lemon Poppy. They showed it at Fall Market.

 

 

 

It uses 5" squares and 2 1/2" strips. Here's the link to the pattern:

Lemon Poppyseed Picnic

 

If you would like the pattern, download it now. They only keep it online for a few months. It's not my favorite quilt, but I like it. I love the dark blue fabrics in this line.

 

A Secret Project

Last month I spent hours and hours and hours making half square triangles for a magazine project that will be out in August. The colors are fairly light. I wanted it to look sun faded.

 

 

It's queen size with yards of white background and practically a gazillion half square triangles. By the time I was done, I hated half square triangles. I have almost recovered. I still can't stomach the thought of squaring up too many of them right now. They look so good in a quilt! I can't wait to see the pictures the magazine takes of it!

Christmas Sewing Part II

I am not quite sure how I got this bee in my bonnet, but I ended up making 6 quilts for my kids for Christmas. This is the first time I have made all my kids quilts for Christmas.

 

 

 

Last summer I made a scrappy irish chain from a brown bag guild challenge. The post about it is HERE. The baby got the red one. She was the first one that spoke for it.

 

 

It is the first time I have hand quilted something larger than a tiny wall hanging. My kids loved it. I decided to make one for each of them. They all have quilts of mine. None of them had a hand quilted quilt of mine. I will not be hand quilting often, but I wanted them each to have one.

 

Here is four of them that I took to show at guild.

 

 

The pink one is the fifth child's. It has a light blue scooby doo print on the back that she loves. Pink is also her favorite color.

 

 

The gray one is my son's. For this one I didn't use any pink scraps or flowers so it would look more boyish. I pulled out some fabric that I had bought for him that I hadn't ever figured out what to do with.  

 

The mottled purple is my oldest daughter's. Her favorite color is purple. The other solid is light gray like her brother's instead of white like all the others. This one has a lightweight woven fabric on the back. It was the easiest one to quilt and has a nice drape.

 

This one is the third child's. She has an affinity for Hawaiian things and doesn't like pink. This blue Hawaiian print was perfect for her. She took it to school last week for their Read-a-thon. She came home and said her teacher loved it. I knew she would. Her classroom theme is Hawaii, and she visits there often.

 

I don't have a picture of the last one all spread out. Here's the "X" block. It has robin's egg blue down the middle. This one is my favorite. I am making one like it for me that is queen size.

 

 

These six quilts are one of my favorite projects I have made. I don't think I will be making all the kids a quilt for Christmas again any time soon though. I took pictures when I was making the robin's egg blue one so I could make a tutorial. I hope I will get to it sooner than later. It may be later though.

 

Christmas Sewing Part I

One of my sewing projects for Christmas was pajama pants. Usually I buy my kids pajamas at Target on Black Friday. This year for some reason I decided to make them.

 

For the girls, I bought a bolt of Kate Spain's purple dragonflies from Good Fortune.

My son got rockets that I had - Rocket Scientist by Keri Beyer.

 

It took two days to sew them at a sewing weekend with some friends. It was a retreat where we went home at night. That's the kind of retreat I can go on right now! It's also perfect for finishing Christmas sewing projects!

 

I was excited to see how the kids liked the pajamas.

 

 

First thing I heard, from my son, was, "My pajamas match my curtains!" The fabric was indeed the same fabric that I had made his curtains from. He wasn't impressed.

 

My oldest daughter's didn't fit. I tried to adjust the pattern so she could wear them lower on her hips than the pattern called for. It didn't work. I adjusted them too low.

 

My second daughter's fit perfectly, but she wanted them longer. She, however, is about the size of her brother, and likes her brothers pajamas. I am sure she will take them from him before too long.

 

The other three girls' pajamas fit great, and they loved them! I think I may try again next year. Then if it turns out like this year, I will go back to getting them from Target.