W.i.P. Wednesday #8

I feel like this week has been busy... but maybe more so with other things, like taming my children and trying to keep the house clean, and helping the young women get ready for trek. :) It's been a good week. Though I don't think I've finished anything.

In Progress:
I finally got the rest of my picnic blanket pinned and is now ready to finish. I am just waiting for a free minute to sit down and go at it! One thing I've noticed is that with FMQ on a sewing machine the design always seems to be a lot smaller and closer together, whereas FMQ with a long arm (is that what they're called?) is a lot more spaced out and bigger. I want to try to get that larger pattern on my sewing machine,  but it's hard. Any tips?

I also have Lola's Coin Quilt that I still need to cut my tree out for (instead of using berries that Quiltstory has) and piece the backing. I also have Mabel's quilt to finish, but am nervous to FMQ it, I need more practice with the design I was planning on doing. Although I just might pick a different design. I don't know.

I have my fabric picked out for my Kaleidoscope QAL! I'm so excited to get started on this! I can't wait to see how it turns out! :) I'll post more on this later.

I also have finally made some progress with my Bottled Rainbows QAL. I decided to do it a little bit different though... ok, in the end it'll be quite a bit different, but I'm excited for it as well. It will either turn out great, or be a total disaster. :) And I'm ok with that. :) I'll post more on that later as well.

That is mostly what I have lying around.

New Projects:
I have my sewing machine cover planned out. I am super excited about it! I am going to do a bunch of diamonds on the back that wrap around to the front and top, and then on the front I'm going to have a column of hexagons in different sizes. Both things I've never done before. I want to see if I can use my jelly roll of American Jane's Punctuation for it because I love the bold colors.  Although I'm struggling with how big to cut my strips for my diamonds to get them to finish up the right size. It just might turn out to be a total disaster. :)

Last night for church we had dinner with the Relief Society and then helped with some humanitarian projects. The girls cut out some felt pieces and started sewing them together to make hand puppets. They are so stinking adorable!! :) They got way more cut out then they could sew up before everyone was ready to go home, so I snatched them up and told them I'd finish them. Don't you love them?!

I don't know where they'll end up, but I'm sure those kids will love them! :)

A quilt for my sister. I told her she could buy this fabric that I considered for the Kaleidoscope QAL
for me and I'd make her a quilt. :) And it seems that she is on board. I think I'm going to do a version of Mabel's quilt, which I'm really excited for because then I can make it again without all the funky kinks that mine came out with. :)  I think it will look fabulous!

That's it. I'm trying to cut down (yeah right!) ;) so that I can finish up all my projects before we hopefully move this summer. {crossing my fingers for a new job!}


This weeks stats:
New Projects: 3
Completed Projects: 0
In progress: 7

W.i.P. Wednesday #7

Finished Projects:
 Last week I totally forgot about a couple of projects that I had finished up. It took a while to get back to the sewing machine after coming home from the hospital, but the first thing I started and finished were reusable nursing pads. :) No more buying boxes of cotton ones that stick, if you know what I mean. ;) I used this tutorial, but ended up cutting little wedges out of them so I could give them a little more shape, which I am really glad I did. I just used some old flannel fabric that I've literally had for 15 years+/- (it was supposed to be for a siblings Christmas present, but my mom didn't finish them in time so I never gave them away. Lol. :) The joys of being young and wanting to give home made gifts that I didn't know how to make myself.)

The second project that I finished up was a new car seat cover! I have one that is two layers of fleece that I made for my first son, but that would be death in the summer, so instead I went to Savers (the thrift store here) and bought a few old sheets and cut them up and sewed them. I really actually love how it turned out.  Plus, in the hot summer it won't be too hot to keep on, and the thin fabric will be very breathable. If it ever warms up here I'll be able to test out my "theory" of hoping it will keep her shaded and cool, but still protected. Until then we are enjoying it and getting a lot of use out of it.

 

Since last week I finished up the travel/take-along car mats for my boys. They love them. which I love. I decided after finishing the first one that it would have been nice to number the pockets, to help add an extra place in life to learn numbers and counting, but I didn't want to redo anything, so I made sure to put them on my younger sons mat. They told me the colors they wanted, and then I picked out the fabric from there. I think they're fun. The design of the yellow one reminds me of the jungle, I'm not sure why.

I also finished the top of Mabel's Quilt! You can read more about it here (I was going to post about it yesterday, but that didn't end up happening). Hopefully later today I'll get that done. Can I just say that this was probably the biggest improv project I've ever done. I messed up so many times right from the beginning, but I just kept going with it and it still worked. :) It's like they say, the only thing constant is change... and that is this quilt in a nutshell. :)

I love the pictures that everyone takes from the back of their quilts, aka showing all the seam allowances, so I had to give it a try. I think it looks better from the back then it does from the front. ;) At least I haven't quite figured out how to get a good picture of it that way.

Still in progress:

I'm still working on my picnic blanket! (click on the link for a few fun sample squares and for where to find the rest) And it's coming along nicely! I think I got about 10 more squares quilted since I posted last week (and that was all in one day.) I'm so excited to finish it! I didn't have enough safety pins when I first pinned it, so I need to lay it out again and pin the rest of the squares so I can finish them. It's been a fun creative process. There is only one square that I really think is ugly, but oh well. ;)

I still need to finish up my mug rugs, as well as Lola's Coin Quilt. Instead of the flowers that Quiltstory put on theirs I want to put a tree to match the fabric, but who knows when I'll end up making that. ;) I know how I want to do the back, so I think if I can just do it it will be done lickity split.

I also need to pick out my fabric for the Kaleidoscope QAL.  But after reading this post  by Jeni from In Color Order, on organizing your fabric stash by color, I really want to re-organize my fabric first. I already have it sorted by color, but I like the detail she goes into - which I think would make it easier to pick out fabric as she talks about here. (Actually there are lots of little posts about it, so just go here instead, and you can see the whole series.)

One more thing I want to finish up quick are my felt alphabet letters. They just get so tedious and boring... I mean, zigzagging around 26 letters isn't the most exciting project. ;) But they are fun to use and help Hunter with learning his letters and colors. I already have the numbers done.


New projects:
I've finally figured out what I want to do for my sewing machine cover! I want to do the back in diamonds like this quilt, and do the front a simple solid color with vertical wonky straight line stitching, with some different sized hexagons on the left side. We'll see if I can pull it off. Trying to figure out how to get the right sized diamonds is proving to be difficult. It will be fun to try something new though, so no promises that it will actually look good. ;) Though I am crossing my fingers. I found the tutorial for the quilt, and this tutorial to teach me how to do diamonds. I think on the latter you're actually supposed to cut your strips 1/2" narrower than the finished height that you want. At least with playing around that is the conclusion I am coming to. We'll see if I can figure it out. Any tips?!


Still on the side lines:
Bottled Rainbows QAL (so much for quilting along. I still have a little time to catch up though.) ;)

This weeks stats:
New Projects: 1
Completed Projects: 3
In progress: 6

I feel like I type so much in my WIP posts, but life seems busy, and I feel like this is the only time to blog about half these projects, so until I find more time to blog, I guess it will just be that way. ;)

Made It: Baby Quilts

This is the first quilt I ever made:

 

It's Hunter's baby quilt. I started it about 5 months before Hunter was born. My wonderful quilter step-mom helped me out. I remember being at the checkout at Joann's buying the fabric and commenting on how I hoped I would finish it before he was born. lol. My step-mom AND the cashier looked at me like, "Are you serious?! You have 5 months. of course you'll finish it." Little did they know, I didn't finish it until he was 1 (I think I finished the binding a week after his birthday). :) Oh well. :) It was quite the experience of re-sewing and sitting, and ug moments. :) But it's finished and we like it. Though doing it again, I would have picked totally different colors. Oh well. I did want it to kind of go with the baby book I picked for him: Guess How Much I Love You, so the colors do fit, and I do love that book. :)

For Jackson's baby quilt I knew I wanted to use brighter colors, like in the book the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

I went with a MUCH simpler pattern and this was definitely a LOT quicker to make! :) Thanks to Crazy Mom Quilts, the binding turned out a lot better too. :) Fun.

I love the quilting on both of them!! :) They each have their names, birthdate, birth place and {heart} Mom and Dad around the edges.



I "knew" I was going to have a little girl, so quite a while ago I bought this stack of Nicey Jane fabric. I LOVE it!!!!!!

I can't wait to get started, but I have NO IDEA what pattern to use. I actually do REALLY like this quilt that is in this banner picture, but I don't know if I can see enough of it to figure it out. I did make up a pattern based on what I think it is, but I'm a little nervous to get started incase I don't end up liking how I figured it out.

This is from The Gracie Jane Project blog. You SERIOUSLY have to check it out. The whole idea of it is to make super cute baby quilts for babies in the NICU. Sometimes I wonder what I'm ever going to do with all the fabric that I have, and if nothing else, I want to do this! (p.s. Isn't that such a cute little baby?!)

If you have ANY idea how this pattern goes, will you help me out??? I will love you forever! :)

I really do love quilts, and quilting, though it makes me SO want a super nice quilting machine - which I do NOT have. One day. :)

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