Bee a {modern} Swapper - Pincushion Swap

I finished up my pincushion!! :)

I added a bit of embroidery to spruce it up.

I feel like it is missing something, and that the white strip in the middle is a little bit too wide. But my embroidery skills are not adequate to add anything that will enhance the overall esthetics. I would only destroy it. lol. :) 

It finished up just shy of 3" x 4". I used some Heather Bailey and Kona Chartreuse along with some Kona neutral? I went out and bought some pearl cotton with a gift card my sister gave me last year. :) I was bummed that Michael's didn't have a bigger variety of size 5, so this is 8, but it works I guess. I love colors and it's hard not to buy every one! Though I resisted, because I know I probably will never use them all. well, maybe.

The piecing was really fun! It took a while to get the design just right, but it works. :) I am really loving working with curves lately!

If you have never sewn curves, you can see my technique here. Working with a pattern is basically the same, just make sure you have your 1/4" SA and you are good to go... everything else is the same. :)

Make sure to come back tomorrow for the beginning of the Cash Envelope Sew Along! :)

linking up at Canoe Ridge Creations & Quiltstory Tuesday

The Cash Envelope System: a Giveaway, a Sew-Along, and lots of fun!

In December, for the Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway Day I asked people what their New Years Resolutions were, or goals as many of you don't make actual resolutions. I think for many of us, and especially for me, a constant goal is to save money, learn to stick to a budget, get out of debt/pay off student loans, etc. To sum it up: Finances!!

This is what I made a year and a half ago!

I don't know if you have seen my post about the cash envelope wallet that I made over a year ago?! I still love this thing! And love the cash envelope system (that doesn't mean that I am perfect at it, but I love it and totally believe in it!) Since thinking about resolutions and goals, I thought it would be a great idea to do a Sew-Along using this same pattern from Walter & Veronica! (It is currently being sold her their etsy shop or on Craftsy for a steal of a deal!! She has given me permission to do this, but you must buy the tutorial from her. I will not be sharing any measurements or other details required for the assembly of the item - only how to put it together. It is less than $2, so it's not bad. I will be helping anyone through email that has questions pertaining to any of that information, who has bought the pattern.) 

I totally believe in being in control of our finances and being self sufficient. Along with doing a walk through of the tutorial, I am also in the process of contacting shops and businesses to provide free products for giveaways as well as discounts to their products to help all of us in our financial lives. (The people I am contacting are people and products I would fully endorse on my own, no strings attached. I won't be receiving any compensation for anything I say during this event, and am only contacting them to help provide benefits to all of you who would like to participate!)

lots of pockets and fun zippers!

Here is the schedule I am planning on for this event! The tutorial is pretty easy, so the actual Sew-Along will only be broken up into one week. Though to allow time for the delivery of any supplies, and the initial giveaway (one person will win all supplies need to make the wallet, including a free copy of the pattern!!), the actual tutorial segment will not start for 2 weeks. 

Schedule: 

Start off Giveaway (including supplies list and more fine-tuned details): this week (depending on when I hear back from vendors, I'm hoping Tuesday, maybe Wednesday.) Winner will be picked early Monday morning.

Week of Monday Feb 13-17: order all your supplies and anxiously await their arrival! :) (or sooner, I'll list the supply list with the first giveaway)

Sew-along week: Monday Feb 20th - Friday Feb 24th

Finishing Giveaway: Link up your wallets starting on the 24th to March 10th. Winner will be picked on Saturday March 10th.

These dates are a little tentative right now, as I am still ironing out the details, but I think this will be a good time frame for everything!

I will be making two more of these for the Sew-Along pictures. If you don't sew, but are interested in having some, they will be part of the final giveaway! So wether you are making one or not, be sure to join us and learn with us!! :)

I am SO excited about this and can't wait to get started!!! Now I'm off to fine tune the details and get the tutorial posts perfected!! :) 

I really HOPE you will join me in this, and that together we can become strong and concur the never ending temptation to buy fabric, or chocolate, or whatever your financial weakness may be! ;D And I hope that you can realize my true and honest desires to help you gain the peace that comes from being financially sound! (and me too! We are still on that road ourselves.)


I'm hoping I can get some good and useful things for the final giveaway! How about a copy of this?!? :) I think this is a fantastic book!

 If you have a story that you would like to share, please share a link to it in the comments, or feel free to email me! I would love to share real stories throughout this event as well!! :)

Thank you!

Posts in this Event:

• Giveaway and Supplies List
• Zippers and a change in Schedule, and Fabric Sponsor
• Giveaway Winners
• Do you have your fabric?
• Day 1: Starting & Cutting
• Day 2: Assembling the Cover 
• Day 3: Zippers & Zipper Pockets & the finish
• Share your Envelopes & Linky Party Giveaway! closes March 10th

Grab the button:

<a href="http://fromblankpages.blogspot.com/2012/02/cash-envelope-system-giveaway-sew-along.html" target="_blank"><img alt="from blank pages... Cash Envelope Sew Along" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7200/6858274813_1f9d1d49d9.jpg" width="250"/></a></center>

Custom Crafty Sewing

My cousins boy is the exact same age as my youngest boy (I think they are only an hour or so apart) and they both have crazy curls! :) Too fun! For her baby shower I made her a carseat blanket. Simply some minky sewn together, and some turtle applique, along with a couple of elastic loops to hook to the carseat so it doesn't fall out and get dirty. (the WORST thing to happen, especially during a snowy, dirty, Utah winter.) ;)

Well, a little while ago she asked for another one for her second boy (it made me so giddy when she said the first one was her oldest's *favorite*). :D  So I went looking for fabric, and with a request for some orange, here's what I came up with

I love this fabric!! :) (Riley Blake flannel - I think the line is "All Boy" or something?) 

I hope they like it too!

I added some stitching in the stars to hold the layers together.

I used flannel for the top and minky for the back (turquoise dimple dot).

I made one of these for Mabel for Christmas, but added a layer of batting in it. I do not recommend batting. It made it way too stiff to really be useful. I think I'll make her a new one... ;)

This is happily on it's way to the post office today! :)

(I always get anxious about making things for people. What if they hate it??? :/ but I like it, so if they don't I'll keep it and happily do it over.) ;)

I tested it out with Little M to check the size

Hum, I wonder what she thinks of it?!

"It's a winner!" ;)

I also took pictures of something else today... but those pictures will have to wait! ;) ;)

Starting with Finishes

Happy New Year!!!
Can you really believe it's 2012?!?!! Crazy! I am excited to see what this year has in store... as I'm almost positive it will definitely be better than last year. Last year was good, but rough with all the health stuff going on. I'm crossing my fingers that things won't get any worse. And if they do, I'm used to it so I think my attitude this year is already better! ;) Besides that I look forward to the adventures in store and for many new things going on! :)  My family is getting bigger! (no, not as in new members, yes that everyone is growing and getting bigger! It is bitter sweet watching my children grow!)

This year has already started off well! Last week I got an energy burst despite a bad cold and rearranged ALL of my closets! Yes, even my storage closets under the stairs. Wow! I got rid of so many boxes and made up a huge donation pile! Yippy! It's nice starting fresh and organized! :) I also finished up some curtains for our downstairs that I started 2 years ago! I look forward to finishing a LOT of wips this year!


Anyway, to start off I wanted to highlight a lot of the things I did last year! So here are a few of my mosiacs! I feel like there should be more things, but I also think this is a pretty good collection! :) I'm excited for more quilts and projects to come!


First off, all my do.Good Stitches blocks! This has been such a fun group! I love the girls I sew with! It's been a lot of fun getting to know them a little better! and I can't wait for this year and many more quilts to donate!

Next, here are my quilts I've finished, and not finished. As well as a few swap minis, a pillow top and a block. :) I have more quilts in the works, but a few are going to have to wait...

and the rest of my random sewing projects, or at least some of them!

Happy sewing, crafting, and everything else to you in this New Year!! :)

p.s. I just found that on Lily's Quilts she is having a little blog party where everyone can share their 2011 finishes! Awesome! So I am linking up there! Be sure to check out what everyone else is doing too! :)

do. Good Stitches: September Blocks FINISHED!

Yay! It feels so good to have these done early! I think it also helped that this is my month to pick the block pattern. :) But either way, it's good motivation to always knock them out at the beginning of the month. Here are my two blocks!

I'm sure I'll take more/nicer photos later. Lately I've been a only-sew-at-night-when-it's-dark kinda gal, so most of my photos aren't so great. But I will get some more before I sew them all together! I can't wait to see all the other blocks people put together! There is already one in the flickr group! Yippy! :) It will be fun to get all the other blocks and assemble them together... it's my first time working with other peoples blocks. :) I think I could get used to this. :)

W.i.P. Wednesday #11

*** Wow. I am so off. Today is Thursday. oh well. :) ***


The first things that come to mind when thinking of all my in progress projects are: laundry, dishes, and general cleaning. Those things never seem to get finished. ;) Though sometimes it seems that none of my sewing projects ever get finished either, at least they are a lot more fun to think about. :) (plus I'm sure no one wants to see pictures of the piles of clothes that need to be washed or folded, or the dishes piled up in my sink, or the fridge that needs to be cleaned out. maybe another day. lol.) :)


Finished Projects: uh... still working on this... though I am SUPER close with so many of them, I'm crossing my fingers that next week will be packed in this category!

In Progress Projects:
Kaleidoscope QAL, boy is this one going to be tricky. I can't wait to have it finished and I know it will look great... if I can get my squares to sew right. :)

Here's a little sneak peak of my Pretty {little} Pouch Swap pouch. I think I might have a hard time giving this one away. ;) It's all ready to be put together! almost done! :)

I didn't actually make all these matchbooks, the young women did (which saved me a ton of time) plus they all turned out so cute. Now to add a finishing touch to them and they're ready for next week!

I have this stack of fun fabrics which will be turned into a million reversible pocket tissue covers. I realized that it really is hard to pick out fabric for people!!! You think you know someone and what they like, and then when you try to pick a pattern that they will also like, at least for me, it made me feel like I don't even know them! Some were easy, but boy oh boy I hope they like them! :)

Here is the pile of fabric that is waiting to be cut for my nieces quilt. It's going to be a BIG one!!  At least bigger than I've ever done. All of those prints are going to be cut 5 1/2" by 5 1/2" and have a finished 1" boarder in 21 shades of 7 colors. Then they will be randomly sewed all together in 12 x 13 block strips. With 156 total blocks! I think it will be really cute! I'm excited to see how it turns out. As she was picking out the fabric she found some extra turquoise minky that I didn't use for another project and fell in love with it (and wants it for the back)! This project is almost going to be completely from my stash! I feel so good about that. :)

can I also add this post! ;) that and updating my side bar. :) I love lists.

I guess that's it for now... though I'm sure there are more in progress items, but this is what I'm currently focusing on. Until next week, Happy Sewing!! :)

Ei-yi-yi!

Have you ever seen "The Gods Must Be Crazy"? That show cracks me up!!! In it there is this guy that is the biggest klutz and after every thing that happens to him he always says that, "Ei-yi-yi-yi-yi!" Well, that's how I feel about everything right now.

Last night I tried to start piecing my half blocks together for my Kaleidoscope quilt, but I am having p.r.o.b.l.e.m.s.  Either I get a weird protruding center - like they have outie belly buttons, or the points don't line up, and anyway, it is driving my crazy. :P I don't even know what to do to fix it - which is rather frustrating. I have this whole wall of half squares to sew together and I can't do it. I must have really messed up sewing my triangles together? I don't know.

 

Then I found out who my partner is for the For Love of Solids swap, and she is one of those quilters that I can only dream about being as good as she is, so having her as a partner - and having to make something FOR her, is rather intimidating and takes me quite out of my comfort zone. I don't even know where to begin to think about what to make for her. ;) It will be a lot of fun, but for the moment I'm content to just sit here and look at that swap from a distance.

Then I just have a lot of projects to finish by tomorrow for girls camp next week, and I don't really know where to start (even though I just finished one thing and it only took me about 5 min). I think this just makes me more tired than frustrated.

My niece is in town and the other night we picked out all the fabric for a quilt I'm going to make for her. Then my sister and I stared at it all for a long time and decided to start over and make her pick a different pattern. (I honestly think it would have taken me a year to finish it, though it would have been SUPER cute! Maybe I'll have to make a mini quilt in the same style.) Anyway, we kept most of the same fabrics, but picked a simpler design and in the end I think it will look fantastic!!! Plus be so much easier and faster. :) But for the moment it's just another pile of fabric to look at. (though it's nice to think that we found all the fabric in my stash and we won't have to buy any. It's such a good feeling to use things up!)

I also have a number of things that I should just sew the bindings on so when I'm just sitting and can't be at my machine, I can at least have some hand stitching that I'd be able to work on and do.

So really, it's not that I'm frustrated, I just feel overwhelmed, and all of a sudden have this feeling that sewing is hard. I've never thought of it as hard before. But I guess this week is my week. I'm hoping it will pass.... soon.

plus, I need to get some blogging done that I'm way behind on... just one more thing. ;)

Made It: Almost finished!!!

 You can find the pattern for this quilt over at Quiltstory.

I am SO close to being done with this quilt!! I am so excited! It was so much fun to make, especially with the trees and the flowers (though they were the hardest to quilt - having to turn the whole quilt in circles as I sewed, and trying to fit it through my machine a million times. I'm glad it's small!)

Here are some close ups of the stitching I did around the trees and flowers. 

I quilted the rest of it with some random wonky straight lines, but kept the stitching on the patterned fabric only. It will be interesting to see how it washes up. I'm actually really nervous about that.

I kept the thread white on the back so it would for sure show up. I think it's really fun! (I purposefully didn't applique it until it was all sandwiched together. I think it adds a bit more interest on the back of the quilt. Plus since making my picnic blanket, I think one of my favorite new things is seeing the stitched design on the side where you can't see the picture.)

Since taking these pictures (10 min ago) I've trimmed it down and it is now ready to bind! I am thinking about going with a solid orange binding. What do you think???



oh, AND I can't forget to mention my ugly gloves. :)

I picked these up at smiths for a couple bucks a while ago. I originally bought them to help me with the FMQ because I've heard quite a few people say they really like to use gloves, but I have found that I really love them for everything that is remotely big and takes effort to feed through the machine. It made appliquéing this quilt, as well as quilting it, SO much easier! I love the rubber fingers. And my boys love to feel them too. :) High fives all around when I wear these things!

QAL: Bottled Rainbows

Well, it's almost time for this QAL to be over. And guess what?! I'm finally getting started! LOL. But It's not my fault. ;) I had ordered the fat quarter pack from Whipstitch Fabrics about a week or two into the QAL (is it QAL? or QA? I've seen it both and I can't decide which I should use. :) oh well. maybe I'll use both.) Anyway, so after about a month I finally received 9 of them (they were waiting for the rest to come in, which I didn't know they didn't have at the time, otherwise I wouldn't have ordered it. probably.) but just ended up sending the ones they did have. Then I didn't hear anything and thought they forgot and I had just lost my money, but after a lot of emails and waiting I found out they were still waiting and had no idea when it would come it. ( I later found out I wasn't the only one with this happening.) Anyway, I decided to just cancel the rest of the order and find my konas somewhere else. It took forever to do that, and finally I noticed that Fabric.com is selling practically ALL of the colors. They were also on sale, and I love that you can always find a coupon = I got the rest of my konas at 1/2 yard for cheaper than I had paid for a fat quarter! SWEET!


Anyway, I was kind of bugged by the situation, but it's understandable so I'm not. I was more bugged by the lack of communication. Anyway, I'm done. And now you all know why it took so long to get started... which I'm sure you were dying to know. lol. :)

HERE'S MY PLAN:

I guess I'm glad it happened like that, because now I get to see everyone's finished products before I begin, and although I absolutely LOVE the blocks, I don't really love them all together. First I considered rearranging them differently - like in just some random color arrangement, but I don't think that would fix it, so I decided that... well, first I decided that instead of all the random scraps I want to do stripes across each block. I think it will look kind of cool! Then I thought of not putting the side boarders on each block and just kind of fading the colors together, but no. Finally I got out my lovely graph paper and started experimenting.

I originally tried different patterns, as well as doing the center colors a different color than the boarder color, but it was a little too chaotic.

Here is what I came up with that I think I like. It might change before I finish completing each block, but I'm going to cut them up in 4ths and then arrange them randomly and piece them back together. Like this:

Looking at the picture now, I can see a ton of different ways it could be arranged. If you look every 4 blocks the boarders meet up in the center - I could do similar colors in each four and kind of do a pinwheel design. Or I could do each row or column in a different color - because each row kind of makes an egyptian line thing. I don't know how else to explain it. Anyway, it will be fun to play around with the blocks when I get to this point. :)

Now to finish my blocks, and find my scraps! :)  I'm crossing my fingers that I have enough scraps in the right colors. I did read that one person found out that you can get "sample" strips from Joann's. They'll cut a 1" strip for free - as long as you don't ask for 50 1" strips. (I just might have to go see if I can get some samples in the colors I need.)

I can't wait! :)

Made It: Take-along car mats

IMG_2051, a photo by db By Design on Flickr.

Here are the take-along/travel car mats.  So far the boys love them! Hunter likes to drive on the roads and Jackson likes to put the car in and out of the pockets. I think as they get a little older they'll like them even more.

How to: 

CUT:

2 pieces of fabric and 1 piece of heavy weight interfacing 18" by 11"

1 piece of fabric 9" by 11", then fold in half hot dog style

one piece velcro 2" long

fabric or ribbon pieces for road:

  2 pieces: 1 1/4" by 14"

  3 pieces: 1 1/4" by 8 1/2"

Arrange the roads onto one of the main pieces of fabric. (On the yellow one I also sewed the roads to the interfacing at the same time.) I used a glue stick to hold the roads in place and then zigzagged all the way around them. The two longer roads will go an inch or sew under the pockets. I also did a straight stitch in yellow down the middle of all the roads to mimic the yellow line on real streets. 

Line up the pocket piece edges with the edges of the fabric that you just sewed your roads onto. Mark a line down the center, and a line on either side of it that is 2.5" away from the center line. Sew the pockets on over the drawn lines. (On the yellow one I free stitched numbers on the pockets BEFORE sewing it to the main fabric.) 

Next place the soft velcro piece next to the outer road (see picture). Again I used a glue stick to hold it in place until I sewed it. Sew it on. :)

Then sandwich everything together (your roads piece, interfacing, and the backing piece, all pieces right side out - how you want it to be finished. Then start to fold it up, turning the pockets in first. When you fold over the last fold, mark where the velcro is and glue the scratchy side of velcro where it meets the soft side so you know where to sew it on. Take that back piece off and sew the velcro on.

Now place the back piece on top of the roads piece, right sides together. If you haven't sewn the interfacing in yet, place it on top of the back piece, so it's on the outside of the sandwich. Now sew around the entire thing, leaving a 2" opening on one side, using a 1/2" seam allowance. Clip the corners and turn right side out.

Poke out the corners and flatten it nicely, sew around the entire mat close to the edges, sewing the opening closed. And you are finished! Enjoy!

If you have any questions, feel free to comment or email me. If you have a no-reply account, I'll answer your questions in the comments, so be sure to check back.

I'd love to see your pictures if you end up making this!! :) If you're on flickr, you can add your photos to my flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/fromblankpages/

Sharing at Skip to my Lou and Quiltstory!