A Week of Finishes: Mabel's Car Quilt

This  is one of my original 1st Quarter FAL projects. You can find the original post with all the projects here. I'll be linking this up at She Can Quilt here.

A Week of Finishes is all about blogging and finally sharing the things I have finished. I hope you'll join me! The linky will be open until Monday night, March 4th.

Yesterday I shared Mabel's doll quilt, so I figured today would be a good day to share her car quilt! I've wanted to make all my kiddos car quilts for a few years now, but obviously never got around to it. It is SO cold here in Iowa that I couldn't wait any longer, well, at least for one of them. Winter isn't quite over, so I'm glad she'll get to use this one at least for a little while longer. :) (and I'm sure we'll keep it in there into the summer. I like having a blanket in the car.) Originally I was going to put a pocket on the back to stick your feet in to keep them warm, but when I tested out the idea, it was pretty bad. lol. :)  Anyway, here it is!

The front
Made with a jelly roll of Lola's Posies, Riley Blake and kona white

I love the back too!  Made from Anna Maria Horner folksy flannel. SO SOFT!! :)

I decided to only quilt in the sashing, which some I love and some I don't. I mostly did a different design in each strip, but by the end I started repeating my favorites. I need to keep practicing my FMQ, and this is a fun way to do it.

These are my favorite stitches

And the other ones

Sometimes I wonder if everyone's quilts are always perfect?! or if all the amazing pro quilters out there ever had "practice" quilts, or quilts that weren't so perfectly awesome. Mine definitely are not the later, but that's ok. Maybe one day I'll get there! :)

So here's to another finish! Yeah! I have one more quilt to bind and another small one I haven't shared yet. All I can say is that binding is getting so boring! Ha! I'm glad I have these out of the way! I still have two more quilts that are waiting to be basted, then onto some other not-so-close-to-being-finished projects. :)

UPDATED to add: The piecing of the strips was inspired by the back of Elizabeth Hartman's "Touch This Quilt" quilt. I've wanted to do this ever since I saw it, and am planning to do the back of my kaleidoscope quilt the same way.

Go ahead and link up your finishes! Be sure to link back here so others can come join in the fun. :) (the linky is the exact same every day this week, so if you posted on Monday, it will show up on every day's list. just fyi.) :)

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A Week of Finishes: Mabel's Doll Quilt

A Week of Finishes is all about blogging and finally sharing the things I have finished. I hope you'll join me! The linky will be open until Monday night, March 4th.

The Front

Next up on my list of finishes is this little doll quilt for Mabel's new doll. Since she's the first girl, and we have SO many toys for boys, I've been going overboard to make sure she has at least a few things that are all girl. :)

This quilt is made from leftovers of the car quilt I made for Mabel (I'll show that in the next day or two). I already finished a matching pillow last month, and now I really want to make a little bed for it, even though right now it sleeps in the crib with her. Every time we get Mabel out, we also have to get her doll, doll's blanket, and doll's pillow. She's so funny. I love the little things that are so important to kids!

In an attempt to practice some free motion quilting (really in preparation to finish Mabel's big quilt) I decided to do some swirly flowers. I used some variegated Gutermann thread and I love how it looks on the back! (just ignore some of the top stitching showing through, it took a little bit to get the tension just right). I still need more practice, but I'm getting there. :) I think this little mini will get lots of love. :)

The Back

Do you have a finish, or a few, or twenty that you want to share?! Link them up!!and be sure to link back here in your post (old or new) so others can come join in the fun! :)

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A Week of Finishes: i LOVE you Pillow!

This pillow was a last minute Valentine's gift for my sweet hubby. We don't really go all out on holidays, especially Valentine's Day. We have done fun things in the past, but it's just not one of those holidays that gets top priority for us. Sometime during the morning hours I told him if he wanted to get me anything, he could get me some chocolate! (which I ended up going out and buying for myself. lol.) Anyway, then I thought, if he's getting me something, I need to get him something. I tried thinking of something awesome prior to the day, but for some reason that doesn't work. I'm such a in-the-moment-idea-person that it is near impossible for me to plan anything in advance. Drives me crazy!


Anyway, then I saw this picture on instagram from Littlebitfunky. (Did you click on the link? You have to look at it. ... I'm still waiting!) :) Ok, I saw that and fell IN LOVE with those hearts! SO cute! I knew right away I wanted to make them into a pillow. So of course I dropped everything, pulled some fabrics, and started cutting! It really didn't take long at all to put together! We fit in naps and quiet time, and in between all the mom moments, I almost got it finished... but the embroidery took WAY longer than I had expected. In the end, I am really happy with it and feel like I am actually getting better at it. It wasn't done when the hubby got home, so I hid it under a blanket and stitched away in secrecy while we watched some Downton Abby. I still didn't finish it.

I think I broke 3 or 4 needles on this thing. Originally I only sewed two or three hearts together before sewing the bigger one to the next layer (so I wouldn't have to sew through so many layers) but I didn't like how puffy it was. I wanted everything to be sewn down, and so when I went to sew down the very middle ones, I broke needle after needle. Oops! It was worth it!

The next morning I whipped it all together, wrapped it up, got everyone dressed, buckled all the kids in the car and we drove off to Dad's work! (We usually don't visit him at work. Except to drop off the kids when I have a dr's apt that I can't take them all too. We did actually go the day before Valentine's Day and brought him some sugar cookies that we all decorated for him. It was a  lot of fun!)

pre-decorated sugar cookies :)

He wasn't supposed to have any meetings at the time we showed up, but I guess one got rescheduled. We stayed for a minute and gave him his surprise pillow! He had no idea what I was working on, and I think he thought I was just going to make it into a wall hanging. He LOVES pillows! And he was so happy to get this one! He said he showed everyone he worked with. lol. So funny.

Front

Back - orange is his favorite color, I think.

Anyway, now that it's home, he uses it a lot, and I love it! I've made him things in the past that he never uses, so I kind of went on strike for a while and wouldn't make him anything. lol. I'm glad I finally found what he likes. :) (As a kid his mom wanted him to do something, I can't remember what, and said that if he did it he could have anything he wanted. A bike, a toy, anything. All he wanted was a new pillow. lol. Since we've been married he has also bought a few new pillows. I think it's cute!) :) He is also very pretective about it. Sometimes I hear him tell the boys, "That's my pillow! Be nice to it!" or "Bring my pillow back in here! What are you doing with it?" lol. So funny, but makes me so happy. :)

I definitely do love this guy!!

So there is my finish for the day! I hope you'll keep linking up your finishes! I am really enjoying reading about them! You all make some AMAZING items! :)

Oh, and be sure to add a link in your post back to here if you link up (even if it's an older post) so that people can come join in the fun! :) Thanks!

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A Week of Finishes: Activity Book

I have finished a lot of things lately, but I can't keep track of what I've done, or what I still need to finish. And obviously I haven't been blogging about them. I decided, right now, that this will be the Week of Finishes! Every day this week I'm going to share with you something that I've finished recently! :)

A Week of Finishes!

Do you want to join me? I'll add a linky to every post so you can link up anything and everything you've finished recently too! (It'll be the same linky, so there won't be any need to go back and re-link up any of the same posts. They'll show up every day!) :) Maybe I'll even try and make a button for it. I'm sure I'll want to do this again sometime. :)


For my first finish, I'll share a custom order activity book that I made. Everyone seems to really love purple (glad I have some in my stash!) :)

The Front - using Cuzco by Kate Spain

The Back

The Inside

I still need to finish Hunters. Every time I start making one he asks if it's his. Oops. At least he enjoys using the other two I have made for my other children... :)

I used some heavier interfacing for this one, and I really like it, though I still have one more adjustment to make for the final pattern. I'm getting pretty excited about this one. These are so quick and easy to whip up! :)

Hooray for a finish!!

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If you link up a project, or two, or twenty, be sure to link back here so others can come join the fun! :)

THANK YOU!!! + a few finishes!

THANK YOU 

everyone who participated in my sale yesterday! 

I am overwhelmed by the response and absolutely appreciate all of your support! Thank you!!

It's super exciting to see my pattern at the #1 spot on Craftsy's trending patterns! What an honor. I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks! (I know this sounds cheesy, but I really mean it.)

Yep. I took a screen shot. ;) (nerd alert!)

Anyway, I realized yesterday that I probably should have put my pattern on sale on Etsy as well, as I know that not everyone likes to use Craftsy. I'll do another sale soon! :)

I did sneak in a few pictures on my blog post yesterday of my finished Word of the Year wall hanging, but it wasn't until last night, so I wanted to share it with everyone in case you missed it. :) (Sorry the pictures are dark... I took these at night) (using My First Alphabet pattern)

After I pieced the words, I added a border around the whole thing and simple basted the edges, added the binding and called it good! I was going to do some hand stitching, but for now I like it just like this. :)

The back - with my hanging corners

I have too many little projects hanging around that need to be finished so I can put things away. I feel like I'm going to get swallowed up one of these days when I sit down in my sewing chair! lol. So this morning I finished up a new scrap basket (I desperately needed a new one!) using my blue Heart Art crosstitch heart that I had made earlier. I LOVE it!!

The colors in these fabrics are so gorgeous!!

I used Pellon 71F for the lining to keep it's shape. It works great! Though I should have made it just a little bit smaller for the inside, as it kind of stretches in parts. It's still good though. 

 

And I did a bit of a rough job sewing around the top... I used the wonder clips instead of pins to hold it all in place, and they did not hold it enough. Oh well. It's for scraps...

Ok, well I guess the picture overload makes up for my lack of blogging. ;) I'll have more pictures of another project later this week too!

 

Happy Tuesday!

and thanks again! :)

My First Alphabet - 1 Day Sale + Pictures + Tips

The sale is up on Craftsy! Price changes are for both the Personal Use and Limited Use patterns - TODAY ONLY!

 I've had a few questions about the pattern, so I thought now would be a great time to answer them, in case others have the same questions.

I also want to share with you Hunter's pouch that I finished last night. I LOVE how it turned out! He really likes it too. Phew. ;)

I decided to leave the zipper long to act as a handle for him to carry it around by. 

I think it's similar to Noodlehead's Wide Zip pouch??? I don't know. If you want to know how to do this, you can check out her pattern. It has good reviews.

The Back.

I accidently cut the back panel too short, so I added the green strip. I am SO glad I did! I actually really really love it. So glad when it works out like that. I think it really brings out the green in the animals eyes. ;)

Inside

The green is a Lizzy House print, the lines and tigers is Ed Emberly print. And the letters are Saltwater I think? the solids are Konas. I got the zipper from Zipit on Etsy.

The pouch measures 7" by 11", which I really like the size. I don't know what he'll use it for, but he's already found stuff to carry around in it. :)


Updated to add my PEACE wall hanging:

Now onto some Q's & A's:

Resizing:

You CAN resize this pattern. It's rather simple! Just change the % or scale at which you print it at. A larger number will make it bigger, and smaller number will make it smaller. 100% or No Scale will print a 3" tall finished pattern piece.

**One thing to note when resizing:

On almost all paper piecing patterns there is included on the pattern a 1/4” boarder which is the seam allowance (I include it on all of mine). It helps to make sure that you paper piece your block large enough to join them together without overlapping your pattern.

The seam allowance is the shaded area

If you make the block larger, that boarder also gets larger. You can ignore the difference and piece as usual until you are ready to trim your final blocks. Just measure from the inside square (the inner square of the seam allowance) 1/4” out and trim. Or trim the paper before piecing.

If you make the block smaller, the seam allowance will also get smaller. You can do one of two things,  before cutting out the pattern pieces, measure 1/4” from the inside box and redraw the lines, or cut out like usual and compensate while piecing your block, which means let your fabric overhang the edge of your blocks by the needed 1/4”. And again measure from the inside square out 1/4” when trimming up your block. I would prefer the former for smaller blocks as to avoid any errors of having my pieces too small.

This applies for any pattern that has a boarder, not just mine. You definitely do NOT need to adjust anything in the actual pattern. So don't be frightened of this, it's really easy. :)



Personal Use vs Limited Use License:

If you purchase the Personal Use pattern (of any of my patterns) they are ONLY for Personal Use. You can make whatever and however many items you want with it, but you can not profit off of them. You can make them for yourself, your family, friends, for gifts, swaps, for donations (charitable auctions are fine), etc. But you can not use the pattern for something that you will sell and make money from.

The Limited Use License means that you CAN make items (bags, pillows, quilts, notebook covers, etc) with my pattern and sell them for a profit. ON A LIMITED SCALE. You can't mass produce items. On this pattern I put a limit of 50 items per year that you can sell with this. I'm not strict about this, but for an idea that this needs to be on a small scale, made by you. If you are in a group where a bunch of people are assembling items together, every person that uses the pattern needs to buy their own copy. It only grants the purchaser the right to use and make money off what you make.

You can NEVER sell my patterns, either alone or in a kit. Please do not copy, sell, alter, redistribute, or share my patterns with anyone. The purchase of any of my patterns is for the purchaser only to use. I hope you understand that I do this to protect my work and time that I put into my patterns.

Please always credit me as the designer of the pattern in any descriptions of what you make. I would really really appreciate it! And of course, more than anything, I LOVE to see what you make!! It makes me giddy and all giggly. ;)



If you have any other questions about this pattern, or any pattern I have, please ask and I'll add it to this post. :)

Thank you so much for all of your support!! I love making patterns, and the fact that they sell at all is definitely my greatest encouragement to keep on designing. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday!!