Sewing Stuff

I just never get as much sewing done as I would like.  I have big dreams of fabulous sewing projects, but life just gets busy.  And my family always comes first!  I did get a few sewing projects done though & I always feel bad for the recipients of my sewing gifts because they are my guinea pigs as I practice & develop my sewing skills.  Ha ha ha!  Hopefully they like their gifts though!

I made this big tote bag for my sister-in-law for her birthday last year:

 She'd been asking for a big tote bag & this one was big!  And I love the fabric!

2013 was the year of the baby in my husband's family.  There were 4 babies born!  And it seemed to be the year of the boy as 3 of the 4 were boys!  It was fun to shop for boy fabric for a change.  I made baby quilts for the new babies & I really enjoyed making each one.  You'll see a chevron theme on most of them.  What can I say?  I {heart} chevron.  And I feel like it's a great basic pattern that goes with just about anything.  And for quilting purposes it was really easy.  I just bought the large chevron print fabric for the front of the quilt & then a patterned fabric for the back of the quilt.  Then after I layered them with the batting in between I quilted along the chevron pattern for the actual quilting.  It was easy & they turned out great!

This one was for our cousin's baby girl, Saylor:

 I just love yellow & gray together!  And after having 3 girls I really love other colors together for girls besides just pink.

This one was for our cousin's baby boy, Ethan:

 I love, love, love these bold colors together!  

And chevron & polka dots together = I die!

This last chevron quilt was for our nephew, Elliott:

I love this pop of orange with the aqua & gray!

My brother-in-law loves Star Wars & so when I saw this fabric on sale I had to get it!  I just made a simple flannel blanket:

And I love the light blue star flannel on the back.

I also made my sister-in-law one of those infant car seat canopy covers:

 I loved this pattern!  It's not a great picture of how it works as the car seat canopy, but I'm sure you've seen those out & about.

This last quilt was for my great-nephew, Hudson:

His nursery is a nautical theme & when I saw this fabric I just had to get it.  I love the bright colors!

Yay for all these babies so I could practice my quilting!  :)

It's Done!

Right in time too! We had a little scare last week when I started having some contractions & we thought this baby was trying to escape a little early. Well, 5 weeks early actually. I've had doctor's orders to rest, rest, rest & so that's what I've been doing. We just need to try to keep her in until 37 weeks, one more week to go & then she will be considered full term. Luckily my contractions have been very few & very far between since then so I think the rest is helping. I am so glad that I was able to get all of my Christmas stuff done before I had contractions too. My plan after finishing the Christmas stuff was to move on to baby stuff. So this rest has put a little kink into getting all of the baby projects done that I wanted to (bibs, burp cloths, knit blanket, knit hats, car seat canopy, etc.). But it did finally give me the time to sit down & bind the baby quilt! I finished it yesterday & gave it a wash in the machine & I love it! I love how soft & ripply it gets after you wash it. I just want to wash it a few more time so it really gets that worn-in look & feel. The colors may be a little different than norm for a baby quilt, but that's how I like my baby stuff-with fabrics that you wouldn't necessarily consider "baby." And you know I love pink & brown together.

The back is all the large flower print too & I just love it:

I am so happy that I finished this before she arrived!

Now let's just keep our fingers crossed that she'll stay in for at least one more week!

The Quilting is Done!

Boy it's been crazy busy around here! But I managed to finish the quilting for the baby quilt. Yay! I simply sewed through the corners of each square, creating an X across each one. My biggest problem was keeping the backing fabric flat & from bunching up & getting pinched while sewing. I had even used a spray adhesive to try to hold it in place too. But I think it turned out pretty great:

And here it is all trimmed up:

Now I just have to do the binding! I love sewing the binding! Ok, so I've only done it a couple of times, but I do love it! I have a couple of projects I need to sneak in first, though, so the binding is going to have to wait for a little bit.

The Quilt Top is Done!

Well I got it all pieced together! Yay! We are on our way to a little baby quilt!

What's Up?

So what has everyone been up to? I have been working on a few gifts. They are finished, but I don't want to blog them before I give them to the recipients! Yesterday I ironed & cut out the squares of fabric for a quilt I want to make for Baby #3:

You know me, I just have a thing for pink & brown together. I'm worried this quilt is going to be a little dark, but I think it will be cute. Hopefully I can start sewing it tomorrow!

Summer Quilted Table Runner

This project has been on my to-do list all summer long! I have been wanting to make a quilted table runner ever since I came across this great tutorial over at Diary of a Quilter. Well, finally with one week left before school starts I made mine! I love these bright fabrics! Perfect for a summer table runner don't you think? And it was so easy to make too which is awesome. I think I'm going to have to leave it out until Christmas just because I love it so much! Or maybe I'll make one for Halloween or Fall, that would be really cute too.

Here's a close-up of the simple strips:

And I just used the simple blue floral fabric on the back which looks really pretty too:

Thanks to Diary of a Quilter for the great table runner tutorial!

My First {Real} Quilt

One of my blog readers mentioned to me a while back about how much she enjoyed taking a quilt class at her local fabric store. Why hadn't I thought of this before? That is a great idea! Especially since I've had "making a quilt" on my to-do list for quite some time now. So back in April I took a quilt class. I learned so much! Not only did I learn a lot about quilting, but I learned some great sewing tricks & tips as well. Plus, it was a lot of fun!

I actually signed up for 2 quilt classes. At the first class we made the quilt top (basically just one large quilt block):

Then at the second class we finished it off just like you would a larger quilt:

And here's the back:

It's just so cute! At first I thought it would be the perfect little quilt for my girls to use with their baby dolls, but after all that hard work, I think I may hang it up on the wall! Even though this is a teeny, tiny little quilt, I am so glad I took those quilting classes. I learned a ton & now I'm not so intimidated to try a larger quilt. I love learning new things!

My Very First Quilt

My hubby's grandma always makes everyone in the family large (60" x 80"), soft flannel blankets. They are awesome! In our house we each use our blankets just about every day. Well, she's always saying how she should make herself a blanket, but she never has. So I thought that it would be the perfect gift for her birthday this year {89 years young!}. Now my plan was to make the blanket how she does with the same flannel on each side, not quilted. I'll spare you all of the details, but I ended up having to make it quilt-style. It took a lot of time since I wasn't planning on doing a quilt so I had to look things up frequently to make sure I was doing it right & I only really worked on it when my youngest was napping & a couple of nights when my hubby was at work & both girls were asleep. But, now that it's finished & has been given to Gramma Mugs I have to say that I really enjoyed the process & although it's not perfect, I am happy with how it turned out.

Here it is all finished (it's folded in half & then hung over the fence since it's so large):

The back is just the pink polka dot fabric:

I really love the bright, cheery colors & I really wish you could feel it-so soft! I hope that she gets as much use out of her flannel blanket as we do out of ours!

Happy Birthday, Gramma Mugs!