Made It: Blogger's Pillow Party

Yup, amidst all the other projects I'm working on I decided to make my very first pillow, ok pillowcase, and alright, it's my second if you count the one I made in 8th grade sewing class,  and enter it into the Blogger's Pillow Party. :) (I think part of it is from going stir crazy being stuck at home (modified bed rest)... and it's a way to feel like I am having some sort of interaction with others.)  ;)

I've found so many great projects and techniques lately that I want to try, and when I decided to make my pillow I knew this style would be perfect! :)

I really love the background on this little quilt. 

(Delilah from Love.Laugh.Sew made it and shared it at Canoe Ridge Creations. That's where I first saw it.)

But I also love this cute embroidery that retro-mama did and added into her bag.

The design is from this book: The New Crewel: Exquisite Designs in Contemporary Embroidery, which I think is fantastic and is on my wish list. :)

We already have so many pillows that I wasn't sure that I would really use a new one. We do have one giant pillow that my hubby bought a few years ago that we don't use too much anymore. Mostly because we don't have a pillowcase long enough to fit it. I know with having a new baby coming this will be the perfect pillow to prop up on, and how fun to have a cute pillow to go along with a cute new baby?! It will probably mostly stay on our bed, but I wouldn't doubt if it followed us around where ever we might be hanging out. ;)

I used the tutorial at Comfort Stitching for the background, and decided to make up my own picture/design for the flower embroidery. To construct the actual pillow I used the tutorial at Fussy Cut. So simple. :)

The whole pillow was so much fun to make! I loved going through all of my scraps and figuring out where to put them. I thought that I would end up cutting into my stash of bigger pieces of fabric, but I didn't!! I was so happy! Pure scraps. :)

The back isn't my all time favorite fabric, but I had to use it because the colors match the front so perfectly. I also lucked out that I had a solid navy that matched the color perfect. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

Hum. I can't quite tell what he thinks of it. ;)

Links:

pillow making tutorial:  http://fussycut.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorial-basic-pillow.html

scrap background tutorial: http://comfortstitching.typepad.co.uk/comfortstitching/2010/01/raw-edge-applique-tutorial.html

Made It: Scrappy Pincushion + Tutorial

A week or so ago I finished up my scrappy pincushion. I love it!! It's so much more fun to look at than my ugly orange square. ;) AND it was so quick to make and put together, totally worth it.

It was inspired by Megan's pincushion over at Canoe Ridge Creations - which I pretty much copied exactly. Hope you don't mind! But I love it! :)

I went ahead and put together a tutorial/pattern for it too! (a pdf file) You can find the pattern and download it HERE. (http://dbbydesign.webs.com/patterns.htm)

  

W.i.P. Wednesday #3

I did have a few things to report on last week, but never got around to posting anything about them. Here's what's going on now... (it will be a little more impressive since I've had more time to work on things.) ;)


New Projects:
Surprise! Here are some pictures of my latest project, though I'm not telling what it is. Yet. :)
For this part I'm using this tutorial over at Comfort Stitching. LOVE this!

I'm ironing a bunch of small scraps onto some heat n' bond. The other blue is a towel so I can easily get it out and put it away without messing it up.

I'm also going to combine this embroidery project with it. This is the first real embroidery that I've done since I was a kid. It's turning out alright I think, not perfect, but I like it and am excited to get it finished!

I also decided that I want to make a Mug Rug. There are so many cute ones out there! I especially like this small quilt that I found at Stitches and Scissors (but made by Barb from Quilting Barbie. I LOVE IT!) that I would love to use some of the elements from to make one. I am always loosing my coasters, so I think a mug rug would be a little bit easier to keep track of. :)

Scrap projects: My step-mom gave me a BUNCH, and I mean bags and bags of her scraps a few years ago. I've gone  through it before, but since I just finished organizing all of my scraps in preparation for the Bottled Rainbow quilt along, I decided to actually get them all sorted. It was awesome the things I found in there! I found one quilt top that could easily be layered, quilted and bound and finished. I also found a few quilt blocks that are similar to ones I turned into quilted coasters and sold in my etsy shop a few years ago. (maybe last year. I don't know.) :)  Yippy! It's fun repurposing others peoples projects. :) I'll probably move these to someday projects though, because I don't want to work on them now either. And maybe one day when I need something different to do I'll get them out...


Ongoing Projects:
Mabel's Quilt: I made some good progress with this quilt. I finished up the outer border, and have the center done.

I just need to finialize how I want the inner border to look. Any suggestions???

Just a white border?

Only the patterned border?

Or both? The patterned border in the center and then a smaller strip of white?

Or I could do a totally different color... although I don't know if I have any of the right color fabric, so I think I'll skip this option unless it turns out to be the best.
Almost done! :)

Bottled Rainbows Quilt Along: Ok, I really haven't started on this yet. Though I did get my colored fabric cut for the border of each square, but not completely either. Where I ordered my fabric from has been having issues with getting their last order of Konas in, so I still don't have my complete order. Kind of frustrating, but it happens.

I haven't done any more free motion quilting on my Picnic Blanket. I realized that if I do 2 squares per week it will take me 21 weeks to finish quilting it. I don't know if that discouraged me or what, but I haven't worked on it since. lol. It's going to take forever. I'm going to try to find a time to just sit and whip out a lot at once... we'll see. :) I do really want it finished before it's officially summer and picnic weather though, so I guess I'll have to hurry.

Someday Projects:
Christmas Advent Calendar: This is one of my someday projects. I'm going to make it, but it's not urgent, so I'm not going to worry about it now. However, I DID get all the fabric cut for it. Finally. I've had my pile of fabric choices sitting around since December, so it's nice to finally be able to put it away. ;)

Finished Projects:
Jackson's Easter basket: This is one I started and finished in just a few days. Super quick and he likes to wear them as hats. ;) I made one for Hunter last year, so I definitely couldn't leave out Jacks this year. I started making a tutorial for it as well that I'll finish up and post, though sadly probably not before Easter. If you want to make one let me know and I can pass it along earlier though. All I have left to do for it is add the pictures.

 

New Pincushion: Last Sunday while everyone was at church, and I was stuck at home, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed having some super quiet sewing time - with NO interruptions. It's a rarity around here - and finally finished up my pincushion. :) Yippy! I wish I had a darker grey, and being my first time with this kind of scrap piecing, I almost wish that my colors were a little shorter, but I am happy with it. I actually just filled it with leftover small scraps of batting. It works. :)

Temple Plaques: And these I finished up a while ago. I really like how they turned out. So simple and easy, and surprisingly they don't look like a simple and easy craft. They actually have a finished feel to them, so we've enjoyed them. :)

This week's stats:
New projects - 2
Completed projects - 3
Currently in progress -  5 (up one from last week)

Links:

Surprise project: http://comfortstitching.typepad.co.uk/comfortstitching/2010/01/raw-edge-applique-tutorial.html

Mug Rug inspiration: http://www.stitchesandscissors.com/2011/04/getting-to-know-barb-sewers-interview.html

Made It: Temple Plaques

Temple Plaques

During General Conference (you can listen or watch it here - http://lds.org/general-conference/sessions?lang=eng), President Monson talked about Temple's and said,

"To you parents of young children, may I share with you some sage advice from President Spencer W. Kimball. Said he: “It would be a fine thing if … parents would have in every bedroom in their house a picture of the temple so [their children] from the time [they are] infant[s] could look at the picture every day [until] it becomes a part of [their lives]. When [they reach] the age that [they need] to make [the] very important decision [concerning going to the temple], it will have already been made.”

I liked that. We have one picture with the temple hanging in our house, but it's definitely not clear that it is a temple. 

 This is one of our wedding pictures, obviously. It always makes me smile!

These plaques are super easy to make! You can use any picture, drawings (kids drawings), paintings, or fabric to cover the board. Even add some embellishments, vinyl, or whatever else when your done. I used 8" plywood boards that I got from Lowe's, I had the boards already cut from when I was making plant presses (they are about 5" wide maybe. You can ask the people at the hardware store to cut them down to size after you pay for them which is really convenient). Make sure to sand them so they are really smooth.  Find whatever picture you want to use adjusted the pictures to be just a little bit bigger than your wood. I printed mine out on photo paper so they would look nice, and used mod podge to attach the pictures. First I did a layer of mod podge on the board and glued the picture on. Press out any air bubbles. Then turn them over (picture side down), trim the edges

Repeat on all sides. 

I cut a little bit into the picture/under the board so nothing is for sure hanging out.

 Then mod podge over the top to seal it. Carefully press out any air bubbles.  To finish them up drill a small hole in the back, slanted up, to hang them on.

Neil picked the Logan Temple of course.

Hunter picked the Salt Lake Temple... I love this shot!

And Jackson picked the Provo.

These really were super fast and easy to make, and the possibilities are endless!

If you want to use a temple picture, there is this site that has hundreds of pictures to choose from!
(http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/photographs/)

My Favorite thing about these... if my boys just happen to take them off the wall THEY CAN'T DESTROY THEM!!! Yeah! :) 

W.i.P. Wednesday #2

<--- Click on the W.i.P. button to see what other people are working on! :)

Well, this last week hasn't been super productive, but it's been good. Here's the run down...

In Progress:
I quilted two more squares on the picnic blanket. It's fun finding different designs to try, and I do feel like my stitch length is getting more consistent. But I am having one problem, and I don't know if it's me or if it's my machine (if it is I need to figure it out so I can return it if I need to. I think I still have some test time left). Anyway, the top looks good, but then when I turn it over, the tension on the back is very inconsistent. Some places it's great, or really tight, and some places it's really loose, even to the point of leaving loops of top thread here and there. Here are some example pictures.

Does anyone know about this? Or have had any experience with this? It seems to not be as bad in the last few squares, but it is still there.

Otherwise, here are my latest two designs. Fun. :)

The pebble design is my favorite so far!

I also skipped ahead and started another project: Temple plaques (I'm almost done - this is a super quick project). We currently have one picture hanging up in our room that has the temple, though you can't really tell - unless you already know.

I LOVE this picture. So fun! :)

But otherwise, I've been wanting to get some pictures hung up for a while now, but just haven't. Sunday I found this site (http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/photographs/) online with hundreds of pictures of different temples. I picked one to hang downstairs, Neil picked one for our room, and we let the boys pick their own pictures. I'll post more on this when they're finished. :)

I did get the center strips made for Mabel's Quilt, but that's about it on that. It seems so busy, so I'm trying to decide if I want to do the sashing which will be a small border inside the larger border white instead of using the Nicey Jane fabric. It might help calm it down a little, but it will definitely make it look a lot different. Uh... decisions. ;) Maybe I'll sew the main border together and get the outside border sewn and then I can have a better picture of what it will look like. I don't know how ya'll do it! (make such amazing quilts with the perfect fabrics). :)

this is before I sewed the strips. I need to iron them and then sew them in. If I do the white sashing I won't sew on the two on the ends. We'll see how it turns out...

Most of my Kona's arrived for the Bottled Rainbow Quilt and I got them washed. I also organized ALL of my scraps. Wow. That was a job, but now I'm ready to find what pieces I can put in the centers of my squares. :) Fun! I'm so excited! I love color, and I think this will be so much fun!



Finished projects:
I did start and finish a bag to keep the train set in. I didn't plan it out very well when I started it, but it turned out alright. I think I changed it three times while I was making it, but it still works fine. Hunter picked out the fabric.

I made big button holes to string the rope through, and Hunter seems to be able to open it easy enough. I made a smaller bag and strung it to the front to keep the little accessories in that they don't usually use, and I hate having all over the place. :)

It is nice to have some smaller projects going on at the same time as some of my bigger projects... helps me feel like I do accomplish something at least. :)

On hold:
lots of things. ;)

This week's stats:
New projects - 2 (Train bag, Temple plaques)
Completed projects - 1 (Train bag)
Currently in progress - 4 (up one since last week)

In Progress: Free Motion Quilting

I am finally practicing my hand at some real free motion quilting. I have 42 10"x10" squares on my picnic blanket and I figured that filling all of those in individually with give me a LOT of practice! I know, I should probably practice on practice squares, but I don't want to. :)

I finished my first square last night and it turned out all right. I can definitely tell that I need to work on my speed... there are a few spots where the stitches are TOO long, and a few that are too short, and a few places my tension was off just a little so on the back it looks kind of weird. But over all I'd say it's not too bad. It's definitely not so horrible that I'm going to take it out.

I started another square as well, using more of a straight line design. I think it fits the pattern on the fabric, but it kind of covers it up too. (click on the pic to view it larger)

 

(I used the idea found here: http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2009/08/day-2-etch-n-sketch.html)




I'm just using white thread, which I really like on the back of the quilt, but I think it might be too much on some of the fabric colors. Though I'm sure most will be fine. :) Here are pictures of the back - the first design.

 

In my search for designs and tips I found a couple of great websites and tutorial videos. The one with the largest pool to draw from is Leah Day Quilting. Here is a page with a million designs to choose from, and I like that you can sort by level difficulty. (You can also sort by design type, and texture. Pretty great! Thanks Leah!

• http://www.daystyledesigns.com/365difficultymain.htm

This page has two video tutorials that I think are pretty wise. One is on speed control, and one is about quilting a large quilt on a small machine (glad I found this video before I got too far in my large quilt!)

• http://www.daystyledesigns.com/freemotionquiltingbasics.htm

I really love this Pebble design from A Few Scraps:

http://afewscraps.blogspot.com/2010/09/free-motion-quilting-designs-pebbles.html

Here are a few more pebble variations by Leah Day (there are more than this, but these were my favorite two)

• Double Pebble - Love this!:  http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2009/09/day-22-double-pebble.html
• Spiral Pebble: http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2009/12/day-109-spiral-pebble.html

I think if I tried more complex ideas, I would want to practice first. Gen X Quilters makes me see the benefit in practicing. ;)

• http://www.genxquilters.com/2010/07/warning-free-motion-rookie-ahead.html

Really there are so many pictures, designs, and ideas out there. It's fun to look at all the possibilities!

http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=free+motion+quilting+designs&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=SUuVTZK3NobbiAK3jpSdCQ&ved=0CDUQsAQ&biw=1553&bih=864

That's a lot of links, and if you google it, there are a million more. Happy quilting!! :)

Oh! And I LOVE this idea of having rock pockets in the corners of my picnic blanket to hold the corners down. I definitely want to add this feature when I'm done! I found it over at Sew Mama Sew!

(http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=531)