What I've been up to....

Yesterday was the classic blizzard snowed-in day, so I decided to give soap-making a try... here's a picture of the bars just cut up...

I have been wanting to try this for a while & yesterday was the perfect day for it. I was a little leary of the whole lye- thing, but it went fine & was pretty much uneventful.

This batch is vanilla scented. The bars have to cure for 3 weeks before using.

The weekend before, I started on this baby quilt- it's all frayed-edge applique, if you can even call it that. The squares are just laid down & I quilted 1/4" from all the edges to hold them down. I'm going to wash it to fray the edges & hopefully it will be a nice snuggly quilt.

And lastly, here's the picture from our front window, after the raging winds have died down today. I have a feeling C will stay busy with the snow blower this winter. Do you see the snowman little C & I made a week ago? It looks like it's got it's arms up calling for help! "I'm drowning!"

Some quilts...

I haven't posted in a while... the kids have had the flu, and I haven't left the house for a week....

I thought I would post some pictures of quilts that I've worked on in the past few weeks..

Here's an Irish Chain, quilted with a pantograph pattern called "Rhapsody":

A picture of the back, that shows the pattern well:


This one is custom quilted. She wanted traditional feathered wreaths in the open cream colored areas.

Another custom quilted one... she wanted feathers in the open columns. I also crosshatched the borders, and stitched in the ditch in the basket blocks.

Christmas stocking

I'm working on stockings to hang on the mantle... here is the first one. I am hoping to make one for each of the kids & embroider their names on the cuff. We'll see if that gets done. They're taking a bit longer than I had hoped.

And the winner is.....

Roxanne Ashland! Her name was picked for a $25 off gift certificate from the craft show. Thank you to everyone who came out to the Boyden craft show last Saturday. I had never done anything like this before, so I didn't really know what to expect. We started at 9AM, and it stayed pretty busy until around 2, things really slowed down after that. I think everyone there was happy with the turnout. I had some quilts hanging that I had made- including the B-H t-shirt quilt. That got the most comments. I had quite a few non-quilters come up & ask about what I do.
It was a busy Saturday, though, and I am happy to be back at home again. That day I had the craft show from 9-3, a wedding to go to at 4, and a family get-together at 6:30. We got home after 11. Yikes~ that's enough for one day.

Mini bread loaves

I found these cute little mini bread pans today... aren't they adorable? The kids got off early from school, so I knew I wouldn't get any quilting done this afternoon... here's what I did instead. I had just seen some new recipes in the Family Fun magazine we get. These little bread pans are 1/4 of the regular size- each recipe made 4 mini loaves.

One batch was Pumpkin Chocolate Chip bread, and the other was Double Apple Bread. The original recipe was for Double Apple Walnut bread, but I decided to leave out the walnuts. The recipe uses applesauce in the batter & also diced apples.

I brought them along to the Thanksgiving church service tonight & handed them out to some friends. It was so much fun giving them away.!

They were so cute on their own, but I did add a little slip telling what kind it was & a little strip of some flannel fabric (don't throw away those selvedges!!!).

30's prints wallhanging

I've had this little quilt pieced & quilted for quite a while... just last week I found it in a tub somewhere buried under a stack of unfinshed projects. All it needed was the binding. I guess I put it away earlier, as I wasn't sure if I wanted to make a pillow out of it, or a little wall hanging.

So, this Saturday, I got the binding on.

It's all reprodution 30's prints, which is far from my usual fabric picks. But, I like it alot. It's bright & cheery & fresh looking. I added the bee & 2 ladybugs & the embroidered verse.

It's machine pieced, and hand quilted & hand appliqued. I don't do much hand quilting, this size project was just the right size for me to hand quilt. I admire those of you who can hand quilt a bed-size quilt!

It came from a pattern in this book:

Her version of the pattern was made into a "Good Morning" pillow... As I am very much not a morning person, I think the wallhanging suits me better!

Freehand feather meander

A customer quilt finished this week... I did a freehand feather meander on this one. I used a variegated thread that matched the darker fabrics well.

The thread doesn't show up well enough in the picture to see the different colors in it. :-( Trust me, it's variegated.... The thread color is called Mocha Almond Fudge... how fun is that? It's changes from rusty red to brown to tan.

New baby quilt top

Yesterday I put this together... I was feeling like I needed to accomplish something other than washing dishes & making meals. And there are quite a few baby showers coming up... it's nice to have some quilts ready to go when I need them.

I found the cutest cat fabric at Jo-Anns fabric when we were in Des Moines in October for the AQS quilt show there. I used a free pattern that I had gotten, called Speedy Baby 2. It went together in under 2 hours. I did veer from the pattern a bit, I changed that last border into 2 borders, because I wanted to repeat the cat fabric from the middle section.

The cat fabric makes me smile. :-)

T-shirt quilt & matching tote finished!

I finished the t-shirt quilt this weekend.... here it is! I did the binding completely by machine- do you know how hard it is to see black flannel binding on a black flannel background? Yikes! Anyway, I hope they like it.
I quilted this with a freehand version of my "hurricane" pattern, I thought it could stand in for the school's "comet" mascot.

And, I think I am more tickled with this than the quilt... it's a tote bag I made for the quilt out of the leftover t-shirt pieces. I just *love* how it turned out! The t-shirt fabric is fun to work with, because it doesn't unravel on the edges. I just made a simple bag & cut a 1" strip folded over in half to bind the top edge- I zig-zagged than on. Then I zig-zagged the edges of some 2" strips for the handles & sewed those on. It's so fun when I have an idea in my head, and it actually turns out like I hoped it would. What a great way to recycle all those out-grown shirts. These might even work for all the "green" grocery bags that are all the rage.

T-shirt quilt

I am working on making a t-shirt quilt for C's cousin and their family. They have 2 boys a bit older than ours, and they give us all their out-grown clothes. It has been so nice for us- our boys are excited to get a new bag of stuff to look through (& fight over who gets what!). They have given us so many great jeans and shirts over the years... I've been saving all the school t-shirts & am making them into a quilt to give back to them as a thank-you. We are so grateful for all the time & money that they've saved us. Clothes shopping with 2 boys is not my favorite past-time.

They never wanted even a thank-you note for the clothes, but they never said anything about a thank-you quilt! :-)

Here it is, it's not quilted yet. I hope to get that done soon. It's about 65"square- I guess kind of a throw size. The sashing & borders are flannel. I think I will do a black binding, since I have some of that fabric left.

Flip-Flop quilt

Here's the latest customer quilt to come off the frame. A fun little flip-flop quilt, in bright cheery colors.

A close-up of the quilting- it's my own freehand design. It remineded me of sun-shine, especially with the yellow thread.

The corner block... she wanted the recipient's name & the date quilted on it. I think that's a great idea... I should think to do this more often on my own quilts & then I wouldn't have to make those dreaded lables. What a nice personalized touch for a quilt that's a gift.

Fabric Gift Basket

Another fabric basket. This one will be a baby shower gift, filled with little things- not sure what, yet. Maybe some baby shampoo & little toys. Watch out, these baskets are addictive.

How long can I surive without my sewing machine?

A month or two ago, my sewing machine puked out on me. Loops on the back & it had been making this terrible squealing noise when I'd go anything faster than crawling. So, knowing that the repair guy was going to be at the local quilt shop in a few days, I thought I could make it until then & bring it in. You could've just as well cut off my right arm, I felt so lost without it. Just recently our minivan was in the shop for 1.5 weeks, and I missed it far less than my sewing machine. Far, far less. I use my sewing machine every day... and the fact that I couldn't use it really got the creative juices going & I was thinking of all these things I wanted to make, but couldn't.
I finally made it to Wednesday night when the repair guy was supposed to be there, but when I got there, they told me that he hadn't come. What!?! I was just about gasping for breath.... how will I make it another day? I had used every ounce of determination to make it to now & he's not here??? Doesn't he realize that this is a crisis? It's not like I need a toaster repaired! It's my sewing machine!
So, the next day the 45-minute trip to the repair store was made, and thankfully, C could pick it up the next day. Phew! I just made it through alive. I almost bought a new one to have in the interim. My first Singer sewing machine is currently living at my sister's house, but she never caught the sewing bug like I did. I've talked her into sending it to a good home (mine!) so I can have a back-up.

Recycled Denim Bib

I have been looking for ideas for baby gifts. I often give a quilt, but want to have some other things on hand for when I can't (read: not enough time) make a quilt to give.

Here are a couple of recycled blue-jean bibs. I was tickled with the finished product. What's more American than Levi's?? (Well, apple pie, maybe, but that wouldn't make a very good baby shower gift, would it?) I thought these would be fun for a baby boy. The denim is nice & heavy to protect against those big spills.

A bib I had on hand became the template. I just cut out the pocket part & crazy-pieced the rest using a zig-zag stitch, with the pieces butted up together. I made a very skinny single-fold bias binding from some red fabric & bound the edges with that, applying with a very small zig-zag stitch. A little velcro sewn on for the closure, and ta-da! you're done. And $0 spent. My favorite part.

New bathroom curtain

My new bathroom curtain.... yeah! I saw one similar on the SmithandNoble website that I really liked the shape of. I thought maybe I'd just buy it from them, but found out it would be something like $200, that was the end of that idea. So, I thought, "I can make that. "

1 yard of $10 batik fabric for the front, $13 curtain rod from World Market, $23 total. Yeah! That's more like it. I lined it with some cotton duck fabric that was leftover from another project. I was super easy- 1.5 hours or so. It's really just a flat panel with a header, and the loops to hold up the gathers. Easy, peasy, as J would say.

Little fabric basket

I've been enjoying reading so many others' blogs, and was inspired to try making a fabric basket from this tutorial from Pink Penguin. I thought it turned out so cute. The tutorial didn't indicate the finished size, however, so it was a little smaller than I pictured it would be. Not that it was any less cute, mind you. It went together quickly- less than an hour, I think. I love finding ways to use fabric I have on had already. I used batik for the top strip, a linen-looking fabric for the bottom, and another batik for the lining.

I had a wedding shower to go to the next day, so I made another one, but bigger (I regret not getting a picture of it...) and I filled it with office supplies- envelopes, stapler, sticky notes, paper clips, etc. I was really pleased with how it turned out. I think the hand-made tote gave it a nice touch.

Challenge quilt

This is a wall quilt for the TSMQ group challenge. TSMQ- Tri State Machine Quilters- meets every few months or so in Sioux Falls. Everyone pieced the same pattern & quilted it differently. Their goal was to have quite a few differently quilted pieces to send to shows so people could see how the quilting changes the look of the quilt. The only problem is, I'm not sure I want to send it away.... I spent quite a bit of time on it, and while it's far from perfect, I like how it turned out.

There's going to be a craft show in Boyden on the 29th, so I'm going to hang this in my booth to show an example of my work.

The quilting patterns are my own, I drew them out & used washable blue fabric markers to mark on the quilt. It was really a mess before I washed the whole thing.

I wish now that I had done the background filler a little smaller, but done is better than perfect. It will be a good lesson for next time.