Pillowcases and Dolls

Today I spent the day sewing. I should have taken a nap because I work tonight and I know that by one or two o'clock in the morning I am going to totally regret my decision. And I definitely will when I have been up for 24 hours by 6 in the morning. Oh well....

I was having fun sewing! My niece's birthday is this week and I wanted to make her a pillowcase. I have discovered it is easier to make several at a time so I also made Christmas pillowcases for my daughter and her roommate. Hooray for getting something done early!!

I discovered the website www.shinyhappyworld.com recently. I just love all of her stuff! I have ordered a couple of kits and patterns but thought I'd start with a free pattern for a little dolly. This dolly is designed to be a doll for another doll pattern that I have ordered! So adorable! A doll with a dolly, who can resist?! So I cut one of my pieces backwards and I didn't want to waste it so I made a second one. I still have to stuff them and sew up their backs. But aren't they sweet?!? One will probably go to my great niece for Christmas. Not sure where the other one will wind up. If she stays with me, I'll be ok with that ;) 

PS--I am super proud of my embroidered faces!!!

Make It Monday

I needed to sew today but I don't have time (or the desire) to work on a big project. I was inspired by my daughter. I worked Friday night and Saturday night. I ended up leaving work late both mornings and was exhausted so I pretty much slept all day Sunday. I didn't get to spend much time with my daughter. On one of those days while I was sleeping she got out our Tula Pink blocks. We've been working on these blocks slowly, when we just feel like it, and it has been stress free and fun! We draw a number when we've finished a block to determine which block we will work on next. Here is the block my daughter made this weekend:

I love it!! 

So today I needed to do laundry, I have to work again tonight, but I wanted something quick to sew. I made my next Tula Pink block. I like how fast these blocks work up and they come together nicely. We are just using scraps. These fabrics looked kind of fall-ish to me so I think they were a good choice for today. Here is my block:

Here is the lovely book we are using to make our blocks:

And now I can say I made something today and that makes me HAPPY!! Did you get to make anything on this Monday?

Pineapple Blossom & Guild Project

I finally settled on borders for my pineapple blossom. As you can see the wind kept blowing my top around so I finally just snapped a couple of pictures. Anyway, the top is done!! Woohoo! It will go in the pile with the rest of my tops for now. I need a break from it AND I have other projects I need to work on! 

And I have a FINISH! Yea! In our guild this year we had an opportunity to participate in a project called "it's all in the bag". We were given a gallon size zip lock bag to put fabric and embellishments in. We returned the bags and they were swapped and given back out anonymously. With the bag we received we were supposed to make a wallhanging at least 24 X 24 inches using the fabrics & embellishments. We could add our own fabrics if we choose to but the idea is to make the wallhanging using the items given to us. Here is the one I made:

I was so happy to get a bag filled with bright fabrics! My bag also had lots of buttons, sequins, jewels, pearls and ribbon! Eeekkkk!!! That part scared me! My initial thought was to make a crazy quilt of sorts, but I let time slip away and doubted my embroidery skills. I had purchased a Spare Change ruler which uses 5 inch squares and 2.5 inch squares recently and wanted to try it out. I added ribbon and ricrac around each little square. The only thing on the entire quilt that I used that wasn't in the bag was that blue/torquoise ribbon. I added buttons in the centers. I didn't have enough red to go all the way around so I glued on some jewels. I opted not to use the sequins or the pearls. All the leftover fabrics and embellishments go back to the owner as well as the wallhanging. Thus wallhanging measures 27 X 27 inches. I hope my person will like it! I was pleased with it. I free motion quilted it in a meander with a torquoise thread. The only part I don't care for is the machine stitched binding. I have tried this method twice and haven't been pleased. I know others that machine stitch their bindings beautifully, so I know it can be done. Oh well... I decided not to take it out and redo it. We get to do a special show and tell at our upcoming guild meeting and find out who we made our wallhangings for and who made ours! It will be fun!

Too many choices

So I am pulling possibilities for my final border:

I don't really like any of the above choices. The brown one matches alright but it looks too harsh to me. The blue one is pretty but there is something about it I am not liking. I am not sure what?

 I am leaning towards one of these three below.

I like green. There is a lot of green in this quilt which just happened by chance. I like the shade of the first green one but I am afraid those flowers will make my border way too busy. 

I like the polka dot fabric because it looks cheery and this is a cheerful quilt. 

The solid green seems like a safe choice. There are some solid green pieces in this quilt already so it goes ok. But I am still not sure... I keep thinking that a solid border, or one that reads solid, or a dark border is going to take away from the center of the quilt. I think that is why I kind of like the sage green with the flowers. It isn't really bright or dark and it is still busy so it goes with the busy-ness of the quilt top BUT is it too much busy???. Maybe I would be better off skipping the final border and calling it done? But I think it needs a final border...

Borders

So I thought long and hard on the decision to put borders on my Pineapple Blossom....  My friends all thought borders were a good idea. Then I thought long and hard about what kind of borders I wanted. So I started with a tone on tone white 2.5 inch border. Next I decided to use some of those bonus triangles. I set mine differently than the pattern and anyone else that I've seen. Why did I set them this way? Because I wanted all of my corners to be the same. Maybe it is an OCD thing? Anyway, I opted to piece my triangle borders a bit short and then filled in the corners with more tone on tone white. It's ok...it's starting to grow on me. Now I am thinking long and hard about border number three. I don't want to purchase any fabric, since so far the entire top is made with scraps and fabrics on hand. So I am thinking it is going to be a 5 inch solid green border....maybe...I might change my mind..again!  I am tempted to make a scrappy border using random lengths of 5 inch strips instead of a solid border, but I wonder if it will be too much scrappy? On the other hand since the entire thing is scrappy will it look odd to have a solid border?? I will be glad to have this top completed because I seem to be having trouble making all these decisions!

Pineapple Blossom

Finally I have my Pineapple Blossom top together. I decided on 48 blocks and no sashing. I like it a lot! This is a Bonnie Hunter pattern which is free on her website. I also used her webbing method to put my blocks together and it worked perfectly! I think if you look on her tutorials tab on her website you will find the directions for webbing near the bottom. It took me a few minutes to understand it but once I did it was easy.  I am pleased that my seams lined up nicely. I am trying to decide if I want to put any borders on it. While I like the look of borders sometimes, I really don't like making/sewing borders!! I think I get to this point and just want to be done with it. At any rate I am glad to have the blocks together :) 

I still need to press it good! 

Done!

What does it take to get me motivated? A deadline, I guess! Quilt show for the guild I am in is coming up quickly and I decided I would put this quilt in the show. A friend let me quilt it on her long arm. She is teaching me, but I think I am a slow learner! I'm getting the hang of it though :) and I am super proud that I finished it completely myself. It seemed so much bigger when I was putting it all together, but it measures about 57X67, I believe. It will shrink some after I wash it. 

I have grown to love this little quilt! 

I often use 10 inch squares of leftover or random or I buy special fabrics to piece the backs of my quilts. Sometimes I have extra squares from my backing and I keep them all together. I was super pleased to have enough extras to piece the back of this quilt. It is like a scrap book filled with memories, because I remember each quilt that I made using each square on the back. 

And here is one with my sweet cat, Tangerine! She is a good cat and walked very carefully around my quilt but did not get on it. I am sure if I had left it out there for very long she would have gotten comfy! 

So, recently someone asked me "how long does it take you to make a quilt?" I actually get asked this question a lot! This time I answered "2 years" and they looked at me like I was crazy! Haha, but Truth is, that seems to be my going rate. I believe I started this quilt almost 2 years ago. I should have been able to finish it in 2 weeks to a month, but obviously I work on way too many things at once. I will note that it took me 5 hours to quilt it on a long arm, and that was probably the part of this quilt I spent the shortest amount of time on! Except maybe the backing, only because all of my squares were already cut out. I am so happy to have this finished! It feels good :)

Now I need to finish my challenge piece for the quilt show...time is ticking!