Daydreams Quilt aka “Spine”

I won a copy of “Sunday Morning Quilts” from Connecting Threads earlier this year.  This is my favorite quilting book ever!  I love all the quilts in the book, and especially the part where the authors give ideas to make the quilt your own—things you can do to make your quilt unique and one of a kind.

When I saw this quilt in the book, I knew I had to make it.  I tried to follow the spirit of using up scraps to make this quilt, so I used mostly 1/4 yard cuts that I had in my stash.  In fact, I ended up making so many stripes that I have enough left over to make another quilt. 

The fabric I used is called Woodland by Natalie Lymer.  The fairies and toadstools and gnome homes are just so adorable!  The finished quilt measures 61 x 73, not quite a twin, but I have to quilt this on my home machine, so that was really the biggest size I felt comfortable trying to quilt.

See, I am giving this quilt as part of a birthday gift today to a five year old neighbor.  This will mark the first time I’ve given away a quilt to anyone but a family member.  I’m not even sure my neighbors know I quilt!  I am a little nervous about giving it away because it’s not perfect.  My fmq could be a little better, and the binding is not super, but it’s probably the best I’ve ever done.  There’s not a lot of waviness and the stitching looks good.

The background is Kona aqua.  I used spray basting which I will always use in the future.  It made the basting so easy and fast and there was virtually no shifting when I quilted it.  Trying to use up my stash, I used several big pieces of leftover fabric from other projects to piece the back.  And I even used some leftover thread from other projects to do the quilting.  I wasn’t sure what color to use, so I used up two (yes 2!!!) spools of rainbow Sulky thread that would be perfect for a little girl.

The binding is a super awesome Quilter’s Candy polka dot from Connecting Threads.  The little girl who this quilt is going to loves the color green—even her bedroom is painted green.  Then a few days ago she informed me that her favorite color is now red.  Uh-oh!  There wasn’t much red in this quilt, so I knew the binding would have to be red and this polka dot fabric finished it off perfectly.  I really hope she likes it.  I haven’t washed it because I want it to look crisp and new when I give it to her.  I’ll include a couple Shout color catchers in the gift bag!

I am linking this up to Amanda Jean’s linky party celebrating everything scrappy.

Friday Find #3

These “finds” actually found my daughter.  On her last day of school, she came home with this pretty little canister her teacher had made filled with thimbles and this heart warming letter:

Dear Beatrix,

First, I want to say how much I love your name.  It brings to mind Peter Rabbit and all of Beatrix Potter’s wonderful characters.  I will never forget you.  Then, I want you to know how much I have enjoyed having you in our class this year.  Listening to how much you enjoy sewing, canning and making jelly and jam with your mom is a joy to my heart.  Most children nowadays, even smaller children, are into playing with video games, are on the computer, or some your age even have phones.  Your Mommy has blessed you with the knowledge that you can use throughout your entire life, and pass onto your children and theirs.  Be sure to thank her everyday.

I am giving you a special present.  My children, and so far my grandchildren, have shown no interest in sewing or crafts, which I love and got from my Mommy; therefore, I am starting you off on your own thimble collection.  These are a few of the fun ones that I have.  I hope that you enjoy them and continue collecting your own.  I have thimbles from all over that people have gotten me on their vacations, but Mrs. O’Connor is getting older and I need to begin cleaning out my things.  It’s amazing how much stuff you accumulate over the years.

I wish you a fun-filled summer with your sisters, Mommy and Daddy.  May God bless you all.

Lots of love,

Mrs. O’Connor

P.S.  I’ll be looking for “Quilts by the Cooley Girls.”  So keep on stitching!

Wow, this letter just rocked my whole world.  It got me thinking about how I started this blog a few years ago, when I was getting ready to stay home with my kids.

Three years ago, when I stopped working, I spent a few weeks looking into opening a local quilt shop near my house.  I would have named it The Busy Bee Quilt Shop after my daughter Bea.  I was utterly aghast at the price of rent (and the as the renter I’d have to pay to put flooring, light fixtures, toilets, etc. in), the cost to have a contract with Bernina to sell their machines, and overall how expensive and risky it is to open a small business.   I had enough money saved in my retirement to open a store and pay the bills for eight months.  At the time I had only two children, and now I have another, and I didn’t want to risk all my life savings.  So, I just stayed home instead.  We could live on one income comfortably and safely.

After Bea received this letter, it got me thinking about how it would be the most AWESOME thing in the world to have that shop.  I kind of imagine it being like Dakota and her mom in the “Friday Night Knitting Club” book series, except hopefully I don’t die.  I’d love to have my kids get off the bus at the shop and help me in the evenings.  They can learn to count money and be friendly and have a good work ethic.

So, I still want to do it.  I am going to spend this year living thriftily and simply.  Maybe next year too. 

This year, to celebrate my new commitment to making my dream come true, I am going to be sewing exclusively from my stash and I’m just going to pare down my life.  Like Mrs. O’Connor said, you can really accumulate a lot of stuff.  I have too much.   On August 1st I’m going to kick off my year with a challenge and giveaway.   So stay tuned!

Here are a few of my favorite thimbles from Bea’s collection.

A chicken, an owl, a rabbit with a carrot (don’t worry, his ears aren’t broken off, they are just flattened on the back of his head), a castle on a craggy rock, and another owl.  I love owls!!!

And my friend just returned from a European vacation and brought Bea another owl from Athens, Greece. 

Now we need to find some way to display these on the wall.  I am thinking maybe I’ll find something at Salvation Army one of these days kind of like this typesetter’s drawer I found and use to store my thread.

Here’s a quilt I made when Bea was three (she is six now) and never quilted.  The top has been sitting in my bedroom for four years.

Luckily I made it so big back then that it will still fit her now!  I used spray basting and did not put any batting in it since the top and back are flannel.   My stash challenge goal is to get this quilt done.

Have a great weekend!

TNT and Giveaway

New things I’ve tried:

1.  Basting spray!

Why didn’t I try this sooner?  I love to piece quilts, but I never get around to basting and quilting.  Switching from pin basting to spray basting may make all the difference!  I used an entire can this weekend, so I’ve got plenty of quilts ready to work on.

2.  I made a blog button!

Actually, I made two.  I am going to start a year long of giveaways on my blog, starting with a $25 gift certificate to Fabric.com.  Come back to my blog on August 1st for all the details, and if you’re interested, you can grab my blog button from my sidebar.

In the meantime, I have this book to give away.  As part of my giveaways, I am going to be paring down all the stuff I’ve accumulated in my three short years of quilting.  The first is this:

I love this book!  It is filled with beautiful photographs and fabrics.  But as part of my paring down, I have decided that I am not going to be attempting to make “fiddly things” anymore.  So, potholders are out.  I like quilts and that’s what I’m going to focus  my time on.

To enter, you must be a follower and tell me what you like to sew best.  Do you like quilts, too, or maybe zipper pouches, pillows, tablerunners, or bags?  The drawing will close on August 1st and I’ll randomly pick a winner.  Open to US residents only.

Don’t forget to check back here on August 1st for the first of many giveaways!!!

I’m linking up to TNT Thursdays at Happy Quilting.

July Bee Blocks & Polaroids Update

First up is this log cabin in bright colors.  The center is a Hello Pilgrim butterfly.  So much fun to make and choose all the fabrics!

Next up is a stained glass block using Kona medium gray and also bright colors.  This was fun to make, too.

A few weekends ago I made about 120 polaroid blocks for a swap.  Somehow, I misplaced about 60 of them and looked high and low and everywhere in between and couldn’t find them.  I finally got over it and made 60 new ones.

Well, yesterday I smelled burning in our bedroom.  I quickly ran all over the house looking to see what it could be.  Finding nothing, I took the kids out of the house and called 911.  The fire truck and hoses and everything arrived a few minutes later.  Turns out a lamp had malfunctioned and the bulb was brown and smoking.   I was just thrilled that my house wasn’t going to burn down!

When the firemen moved our nightstand to unplug the cord from the outlet, someone must have pulled on a knob that opens an extension table that I rarely use…and in there were all the missing Polaroids!!!  God works in funny ways sometimes! 

Today is the last day to mail them to meet the deadline. I never would have found them otherwise!

Linking up to Freshly Pieced.

My Precious QAL

I broke out some fabric to make Esther a little summer quilt.  I haven’t quite finished it up yet and plan to add a coordinating border, but I pieced all the blocks and sashing this week.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to omit the batting and  just back it with soft flannel to make it even more summery.

The rules stipulate that this needs to be out-of-the-ordinary stash fabric, and I hope these blocks qualify!  I think they are Alexander Henry and I bought them years ago from The Fat Quarter Shop.  Each block depicts a different fairy tale, like Rapunzel and The Princess and the Pea.  They are just so fun!

There are Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella.

And what story is this fox from?  I have no clue, but I like him!

Linking up to Kelby Sews for her QAL.

Scrappy Log Cabin Trivets

What is your favorite quilt block?  For certain mine is the log cabin.  Stars are a close second.

I made these trivets for our dining room table.  They are so bright and cheerful and a perfect accompaniment to summertime dishes like Caprese salad.

They were first inspired by a fat quarter bundle of veggie fabric I bought on Etsy.  I love fresh produce and the way the veggies are so modern yet classic.

I also experimented a little with these small quilting projects.  First, I tried spray basting for the first time.  The trivet on the left, which is significantly larger and less wonky was spray basted.  I just pin basted the one on the right.  You can see the spray basted one shifted around a whole lot less, so when I squared it up, it finished at 8 1/2” square instead of 8” like the pin basted one, which needed a lot trimmed off to make it square again.

I also tried some free motion curves on the trivet on the far right.  I left the feed dogs up and I think my quilting was a little better.  Maybe.  Maybe not!

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday and Quilting by the River.

Polaroid Quilt Block

I made stacks and stacks of polaroid blocks to swap via the Flickr Picture Perfect Polaroid Swap.  Then I lost half the blocks (no joke).  But I got my mojo back and cut out a new stack.  Then I sewed a few together to see how they look.  I followed the tutorial found at capitolaQuilter.

I found that you can use 2” strips to make the background, and I have one tip for making your blocks tip (ha ha).

Whatever direction you angle your ruler, your finished block will tip the opposite direction.  Leave 1/2 inch at each corner so you will have at least 1/4 inch seam allowance.  Don’t angle your ruler too much (see my block above—look closely at the tomato—it’s too tippy and a little corner was sewn off), or you’ll sew through the corner of your picture.

Now trim to 4 1/2 inches the other way.  Again, make sure you leave 1/2 inch at each corner.  Then you’ll end up with a perfectly wonky block like this.  And yes, I use a broken ruler.  Also, it is not the only ruler my kids have broken in half.  

I try to be organized, and I found that it was easiest to sort my pictures into two stacks of blocks—ones I wanted tipped one way and ones I wanted tipped the other way.  Then I just remembered to tip my ruler the opposite direction.  Sometimes I would get confused (especially since I had all 3 kids in my sewing room) but I’d just remember it would go the opposite from how I cut.

I finished up two blocks with 12 pictures each today and also my bee block for July’s Beejeebers.  Here’s a sneak peek, but I want it to be a surprise.

I also mailed out this vendor apron I made as a custom order for a local jewelry seller.  She saw my apron at the Maker’s Market last summer and asked me to make one. 

The front is separated into three pockets and the back is lined with denim. 

Friday Find #2

First of all, thank you to everyone who left a comment about Bea’s quilt.  She was tickled to read them all and is already working on another quilt—she is learning to chain sew charms together using 3 charm packs, one each of Little Apples, Sherbet Pips, and A Walk in the Woods.  I tried to take a picture of her at the sewing machine today, but the battery was dead…of course!

Here is another “treasure store” find.  I believe she is Tom Kitten’s mother, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit.

The figurine has a little basket on the back where I keep all my scissors, marking pens, small rulers, and ephemera.  I do love all things Beatrix Potter.  After all, my first daughter is named Beatrix!

It’s pretty folk artsy and I think made by a student maybe because it has some initials on the bottom scratched into the porcelain. 

I have been sewing up a storm and finished up a few quilt tops in the past couple weeks.  I bought some basting spray and hope to give that a try to see if it helps speed up the process of getting from a quilt top to actually quilted.  That seems to be the big hurdle for me.

TGIF!

Bea’s first quilt

It’s finished!  Bea sewed all the squares in rows and sewed all the rows together.  Then she tied all the floss at each block intersection.  I sewed on the binding.   It measures 38” x 46”.   The fabrics are all from Joann’s, has no batting, is backed with soft pink flannel, and is bound with pink and white striped fabric from Connecting Threads.

We had a little trouble getting a good shot because “someone” was being very helpful by playing peek-a-boo.

Bea created this tiny label that I sewed to the front  bottom corner of the quilt.

It’s  says:

To Ron

From Bea

July 2012

and is very decorated and written with fancy letters. 

I foresee a lot of quilts in Bea’s future!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

Where I Sew

Kathy is having a Where I Sew linky party, so I am posting this photo of my sewing tables.  I am ashamed to say that this is what it always looks like.

This is where Bea sews.  It’s on the wall to the side of my tables so I can keep an eye on her crafting or she can do her homework while I sew.

And just yesterday I borrowed back my first sewing machine that I let my friend borrow when she wanted to learn to sew.

It’s so cute, with purple knobs, but it sews so FAST!!!!  There is just no way to sew slowly on this machine, which is one of the reasons I never sewed much until I got my newer machine.  The plan is that I am going to sell both of these machines and buy Bea a Janome DC1050.  On that model the speed is adjustable and it has a needle up/down function.

Everybody is hard at work sewing and coloring this morning!

Leaving the nest for the first time

Esther started a Zoo Art camp today.  This is her first time going to anything without me or her sister accompanying her.  Here she is leaving in the morning.

I had to crop out a lot of that photo!  Don’t want you the see the general disarray of the kitchen in the morning!

Here she is in the parking lot after I picked her up.

She happens to be sporting a cute little fabric bauble on her headband.  Svetlana of Sotak Handmade sent 6 (!!) of these cute little fabric sandwiches held together by a button and I knew they’d be perfect hair accessories. 

What a great way to use scraps!  My girls love these clips and wear them all the time, in fact I had them get their portraits done earlier this summer and they were each wearing one.  I covered an alligator clip with grosgrain ribbon and then hot glued the clip to the back of the felt on the fabric sandwich.  Like this…

I used sage green and light pink grosgrain ribbon for them all.  The nice thing is you can clip them in hair as is, or clip them on the side of a thin headband for an extra dash of style!  A great way to use up scraps and get the kids interested in making stuff from fabric.  All it took was felt, pinking shears, some scraps and a button to make the fabric sandwich.  The clips you can easily buy on Ebay or Etsy cheaply, or a little more expensively at beauty supply stores.  And the grosgrain ribbon is available easily at all the chain craft stores.  I added a little non-slip sticker on the inside top of my alligator clip, which helps hold it in place a lot better.

Thanks, Svetlana (and your daughters who made them)!!!  The kids love them!

Update on my front door…I painted it right after I posted pics of the ugly old plain front door.

The new door color, which happens to be Ruby Red by Duron, is a major improvement!‘

 

I’m really happy with it and it’s just such a great pop of color that adds some life to the front of our house.  My girls LOVED the new color because they think it looks pink, but I think it’s just the right shade of red for the blue siding.

I’ve read that red is the most welcoming color for a front door, and I’m hoping that holds true for our door!

Picture Perfect Polaroid Swap

I saw this swap yesterday, and I knew I had to join up!  When I painted my sewing room and reorganized my stash a few months ago, I realized I basically had a collection of novelty fat quarters.  Hardly any solids, no blenders, and a few polka dots.  Since then, I’ve made some major fabric purchases to round out my stash.

When I saw this swap, I knew it would be a great way to use some of those fun novelty fabrics I have a preference for.

I just love those turtles.  I used them to make a zipper pencil case as part of a birthday gift for a friend’s daughter, along with this great book called The Girls’ Doodle Book.  I highly recommend this book for any girl ages 8-11 who likes to draw.  Now I only have scraps of the turtles left.  Perfect for this polaroid block.

I have relatively few “boy” fabrics in my stash, but the cowboys were just a perfect fit for the 2 1/2 inch center.

And you can’t go wrong with ladybugs and garden gnomes!

I wonder who will end up getting these guys???  Also, I’ve been thinking, how cute would a polaroid quilt be with Aneela Hoey fabrics?  I guess I’m going to have to pull out some of my Sherbet Pips and Little Apples scraps and make a few more…so far I have 50 done!!!

Bea and I finished her quilt for Ronnie and will be taking photos today!  Stay cool!!!