Sundae's Best

I was recently asked to sew a shop sample for a local sewing store. The owner had a specific quilt in mind - and a specific fabric line. She wanted me to make a quilt designed by Scott Hansen that she had seen at market. The pattern can be found here. Scott made his quilt using Nicey Jane fabric, designed by Heather Bailey. The store owner wanted me to use the Amy Butler fabric she was carrying in the store.

Yes - all those half-round pieces are only attached along the straight edge. This made it quite the bugger to quilt - but I managed to get it done without sewing over my own fingers! I love how the top stitching along the outside round of "petals" makes them really stand up. If I were to ever make this quilt again, I would top stitch around the inside "petals" too.

All pictures are clickable for a larger view!

Thanks, Scott, for a great pattern!

Are you sitting down, Nina?

My aversion to ORANGE is well documented. Growing up with red hair made me avoid orange at all costs. Through the years, Nina has tried to get me to like orange, all to no avail. But then my sweet boy gets old enough to fall in love with football - the Florida Gators, to be exact. Yes, their colors are ORANGE and BLUE!

While digging through my sewing closet looking for something else, I found a bag with the leftovers from Nina's birthday quilt from 2006. After I pieced all the leftover pieces together I had a good sized baby quilt, but it is kind of loud for a baby quilt. So I decided to make it large enough for Ian to use. You would think that since we live in a town whose university colors are also orange and blue, I would have an easy time finding fabric. I went to Hobby Lobby first and they had one orange fabric. I am looking for fabrics that are reading as solid. Ian has requested "No Flowers!". After hitting the other two small sewing stores in town, I was able to come up with a hand full of fabrics. So far I have added the rows of flying geese around the outside. Since Ian is growing like a weed, I want to add one more round of something around the quilt. Any suggestions?

Nina should also be surprised that I am kind of flying by the seat of my pants on this one. See the strips of fabric I had to add to make it wide enough and long enough so the flying geese would fit correctly.

The picture should be clickable for a bigger view!

What are you up to?

Labor Day

Friday afternoon I got in the mood to dye some fabric. I even had about 6 yards of white cotton sitting in the closet - so I threw it in the washer and got started setting up the stuff in the garage. It was then that I realized that I had no soda ash - so everything got put on hold. Yesterday Ian and I made a Walmart run and found some soda ash (sodium carbonate) in the pool supply section.

Today Ian and I got an early start, before the heat set in. Ian was being very helpful! I teased him that next time I was going to do this while he was at school - because he kept insisting on doing the fun parts!

Here are the fruits of our labor all spread out on the lawn to dry. This picture is probably a little depressing to Nina - lots of blues and no ORANGE! I have a specific project in mind and needed more blues and greens.

Hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend!

Per Nina's request

Apparently I have been too slow in my posting! Sorry - the summer got away from me. Lots of traveling and the painting of bedrooms. And now school has started back up and I have been working on organizing two different fundraisers for two different schools. But I have been sewing in my spare minutes. Tonight I finally got pictures taken and now I can share them with you!

In July, I made another Schnibble. This one was for my sister. The pattern is called McGuffey. Another charm pack gone from the stash!



My mom and I also got the pleasure of having a sewing day while we were at their house. Since I had my Schnibbles Times Two book with me I decided to try the bigger version of Open Season. I love the flying geese. The flying geese were made from my mom's stash. I added to it when I got home. Another entirely stash quilt! I am starting to be able to tell a difference in the size of my stash! It feels good to be using it instead of just collecting.


This Christmas quilt was inspired by Nina! I started off making enough blocks for three table runners - one for me, my mom, and my sister. Then I changed my mind and decided I wanted another Christmas throw. So I am keeping it for myself!



My most recent finish is a baby quilt for a dear friend. She is expecting a baby girl in just a couple of weeks. She already has two boys and we are all excited that they are adding a girl to the family. Their request was for an old fashioned looking quilt. I went with a nine-patch alternated with solid blocks. The solid blocks are actually a daisy print - but it didn't show up too well in the picture. That's what happens when I take pictures with my iPhone instead of with hubby's nice Nikon! I love how the quilt turned out.




OK, Nines, is that enough of an update for you? I will try to do better!

My first Schnibble!

My birthday was a couple of weeks ago - and my sweet husband bought me two new quilting books. The first was Schnibbles Times Two . The book features Carrie Nelson's adorable Schnibbles as well as a larger version of the quilts. The Schnibbles use charm packs and the larger versions use layer cakes. I had a couple of spare charm packs sitting around so I whipped up this little table topper for my mom for her birthday. It measures about 24"x36". It went together very quickly and turned out adorable. I have plans to make many more of these! In fact I already started on the flying geese units to make the larger version. The other book I received was Amish Abstractions - which I can't wait to spend some quality time with!



I just got home from a week at my parents house. On Tuesday, my sister, niece, daughter and I got to have a girls' day out. We drove up to Bowling Green, Kentucky and had lunch at a cute place called Chaney's Dairy Barn and of course we had to indulge in some of their yummy ice cream! We then drove on up to Whittle's Fabrics - where we each ended up with some fabric - some of us more than others! Maddie and Abby ended up with a fat quarter pack and Naomi chose a turnover. I, on the other hand, found about 10 yards of beautiful background fabrics. After Whittle's, we went to Hobby Lobby and Barnes and Noble. We had a wonderful day!

On Wednesday, Mom and I had a sewing day! I had to wrestle with her old New Home sewing machine. It didn't have a quarter inch foot and kept pulling everything to the left - but I did manage to get a big pile of flying geese made. This is the machine my niece sews on so I am hoping to find a new foot for her. Mom managed to finish piecing the top for Maddie's quilt. Mom is making and hand quilting a quilt for each of the grandkids. Maddie's is the last one she needs to do - which Maddie finds appalling because she is the oldest grandchild.

Thursday was the perfect memory-making day. First of all -the weather was amazing with the high being around 80. After a month of above 90 days, 80 degrees was wonderful. We had the windows open and the A/C off! Papa and Ian went fishing all morning. Maddie and I went to watch my niece's gymnastics class. In the afternoon, Papa flew kites with the kids. We had grilled brats and fresh corn planned for dinner. The weather was so beautiful that me and my sister hauled the dining room table out onto the back deck - thankfully only about 10 feet away! For dessert we had a blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. The cousins and Naomi spent the night with us.

Now to spend a week with Maddie - while Ian enjoys another week with Grams and Papa and the cousins! Next Friday we will meet up and switch out Maddie for Ian.

Have a great 4th of July!

Another month....disappeared!

This week, we are childless. Last weekend we met the in-laws in Birmingham for a charity event my father-in-law had organized. My MIL asked if the kids would like to come home with them for the week. I was a little nervous that one or both kids would get all the way to Little Rock and change their minds, but I think they are getting so spoiled that they might never want to come home.

So with a free week on my hands, you would think I would get to be in the sewing room but so far, not! Back in March, I told my daughter we would repaint and decorate her room for her birthday. This has been my project for the week. The walls are pink and we are going to have black and white decorations. A Paris theme! The walls are done - except for some touch-ups around the edges. Today I need to start on repainting her dresser. When I found this dresser a couple of years ago, it was already painted with a beach theme, which went fine with a yellow bedroom - but now I need to sand it and repaint it solid white. Then tomorrow we can start moving the furniture back in and decorate. Her birthday quilt is going to look great in here!

This quilt was made for the son and new DIL of some dear friends. It is lap sized and perfect for the newly-weds to cuddle under! Maybe not right now - Alabama is in the midst of our usual summer heat wave! This pattern went together so fast!




Time to get moving! Here's to getting some more sewing time in soon!

How did she like the quilt?

I was able to get a few pictures of my son's teacher opening her quilt.
She was surprised to say the least!

I guess I caught her in the middle of saying something!

Ian took this picture of Mrs. T and me holding the quilt. Every time I saw Mrs. T that day she would give me a hug and tell me thank you - again! But how can I tell her thank you for all that she has done for Ian?

Such a great way to start the summer!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Amy, over at Amy's Creative Side, has been hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival for the past week. If you are in need of some inspiration, head on over there right away.

My entry for the festival is also my latest finish. I made this quilt for my son's third grade teacher. She is one of those teachers that changes your child's life. Before her, Ian tolerated school. Now he LOVES school. She has truly inspired him to want to learn!

I am a substitute teacher at my children's school and subbed for Mrs. T several times this year. One day I took all the house pieces into class with me and each child got to design their own house. We then put their house into a baggie and labeled it with their name. Even the intern got to make a house! Then I brought everything home and assembled it. I love how each house shows a little bit of the child's personality. (All the pictures are clickable.)

This is a close-up of my son's block. As you can see, I labeled each house with the child's name.


I presented the quilt to her this past week at our end of the year party. She was speechless! She said she is going to hang it in her classroom next year. This group of 3rd graders is looping up with her to 4th grade. We are all very thankful and excited to have such a wonderful teacher for another year!

Thanks to Bonnie Hunter for such a wonderful pattern!

And thanks to you for checking out my blog! I hope you will check back often!

Summer is almost here!

Summer is almost here! Two more days of school and several end of the year/season parties and then two and a half months of freedom. Maddie's 5th grade graduation was on Friday. Grams and Papa came down for the ceremony. Maddie earned a "President's Award for Academic Excellence" for straight A's. My smart girl. Next year is on to middle school. It will seem strange not having the kids at the same school - that won't happen again until Maddie is a senior in high school.

On to quilts - here is my (our) latest finish. Over a year ago, I talked Mom into making these blocks with me. We were each making two blocks and then we would exchange them and each end up with a lap size quilt. We decided about six months ago to combine them into one quilt. I finally got the blocks together and quilted. Me and mom were scheduled to give a short talk/show and tell at my local quilt guild in May- so I was rushing to get it done. I'll share pictures from our talk later. We both love how it turned out.




When Mom and Dad got here Wednesday night, Mom handed me this heavy trash bag and told me happy birthday. When I got inside, I found my grandmother's antique Singer sewing machine. This is the machine my mom learned to sew on. It was originally a treadle machine but was at some point electrified. I looked up the serial number - are you ready?? 1892! Wow! The bottom case need to be replaced and I haven't checked to see if it even runs - but I am thrilled to own it!


And the week's other big score - a Singer sewing table and machine. The machine runs and dates to 1930. What I really wanted was the table. It is in excellent condition. $60 at the thrift store!! I felt like Nina, finding one of her excellent finds! Now to figure out where to put it!


This weekend I need to put the binding on a lap quilt for Ian's teacher. The party is on Monday. I will post a picture as soon as it is done.

Here's to more quilting time this summer!

May??? How???

How did it get to be May already? In 9 more days, my baby boy will be 9. I have decided to stop feeding him in hopes that he will stop growing!

This quilt (above) started life as a baby quilt, but turned out to be too big. So I tried a second time and ended up with these quilts. So this one has been hanging out for about six months with no purpose. Every spring the kids' school has a spring festival and silent auction. I decided to quilt this up and donate it to the auction. The school's art teacher ended up winning it! She was excited and I was happy someone I knew won it. Next year, if I do another , I will do a Auburn themed quilt - simply because Auburn stuff always does well.

This week I am hoping to quilt a top that I have made for Ian's teacher. Only three more weeks of school so I had better get moving! It is another one of Bonnie's wonky house quilts, like I made for Maddie's first grade teacher. I cut the pieces out and then let each child pick out their own houses. I labeled each house with the child's name. The top is ready to go and the back is ready to be pieced. I will show it when it is finished.

I also need to work on the top me and mom are making together, shown below. We each made half of the blocks. I need to add a couple of borders (one skinny and one wider) and then get it quilted. It needs to be done by the 20th when Mom and I are supposed to give a presentation at our local quilt guild. The talk is supposed to be about quilts we have made together - but we are starting to realize that we haven't really made that many together. I have quilted a lot of her quilts for her and we have made several quilts from the same pattern (sometimes at the same time). We have also done a couple of quilts where I have pieced the top and she has hand quilted it for me. It is going to end up being more of just a show and tell.


Nina has inspired me - again! Go check out the quilt she is working on! I drew it up in EQ6 and plan on working on it as a leader/ender project. It should be a great stash buster. I am hoping to make it in colors similar to Nina's.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Three finishes in one day!

This week I have been struck by the mood to finish up some UFOs that have been sitting around for too long. Last Saturday night I went into the dresser where I store works in progress and pulled out these first two quilts. All either one needed was to have the borders put on. This first one is going to go in the mail Monday to some friends of ours in Pennsylvania who just adopted a sweet baby boy. Hopefully they will send me a picture of Elijah enjoying his quilt!


This second one was pieced from leftovers from another quilt. Once I got the borders put on, it was either stick them back in the drawer to marinate some more or bite the bullet and get them quilted. I love having a quilting machine but the Hinterberg frame isn't the easiest thing to use. Lots of adjustments to make every time you advance the quilt. Anyway - I got both of these baby quilts quilted this week, along with another top that my mom had pieced for my cousin who had a baby girl on Monday. Thankfully I didn't have to bind that one! Just stuck it back in the mail to Mom!

Nina - are you sitting down? Today I managed to get bindings on all three of these quilts pictured! Aren't you impressed? Nina knows how I hate putting on bindings. I put it off if at all possible.



This last one is from Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Christmas mystery pattern. It has been sitting in my sewing room, quilted, for about 2 months now. Yes, I hate binding that much! So once I got on a roll today I knew I couldn't stop until this one was done too! I love it! Thanks, Bonnie, for such a great pattern!



Now - will I be as productive this coming week? All the pictures should be clickable for a larger view!

Oops!

Time has slipped away from me again! I have been sewing some, substitute teaching lots, and on top of it all, I got the flu last week.

Here is the latest quilting projects: (All the pictures are clickable for a bigger view!)

This baby quilt is made from the BQ quilt pattern - using the smaller sized blocks. I have got a large version of this same quilt cut out for Maddie. I guess I over-estimated how much fabric I would need for a baby quilt - I had enough for a lap size quilt for Maddie too! I just had to buy a tiny bit more of the green.

This baby is due at the end of March and her name is going to be Pepper. Never heard of that one before!


Then there is Maddie's Paris quilt. Right before I got pregnant with Maddie, Stacy and I got to go to Europe for three weeks. While we were in Paris, we saw the name Madeleine on a subway stop. Stacy fell in love with the name and the French way of spelling it. Since his previous choice of a girl's name was Mathilda, I quickly agreed with the new name. A year later, Madeleine arrived! I started quilting when Maddie was about 10 months old and immediately started collecting Eiffel Tower fabrics. This is the BQ pattern again - using the large block size to show off the Paris fabrics. Maddie loved it. I gave it to her for her birthday last week. We are going to repaint her bedroom and do a whole Paris theme!











Now that that big project is out of the way, I have started on a end-of-school present for Ian's teacher. I subbed for Mrs. T a couple of weeks ago and was able to get the kids in on the project. I cut out tons a wacky fabrics and let the kids put together their own wonky houses from Bonnie's pattern. We put each kid's house into a baggie and labeled it with their name. After I sew each house together, I will label it with the child's name. I made one of these quilts for Maddie's first grade teacher - and she loved it. Ian's teacher this year is a jewel. She has made such a difference in how Ian feels about school. I went in and talked to her right after school started and she was willing to make some homework plan changes to help Ian with his reading. He loves going to school. Mrs. T does such fun, cool projects with them. Can you tell that I love her? I am making myself sew a few houses each day - so that the end of May doesn't sneak up on me!

Carolina Christmas

I have been able to spend a lot of time in my sewing room in the past week or so. As I said in my last post, I have been working on the blocks for Bonnie's Carolina Christmas. I had made all of the pieces for the green pieced blocks when I decided I would never finish a bed size version. So I downsized to a lap quilt. I love how it has turned out! The big blocks are ready to be sewn together and then to add some borders. The gold (yellow) really makes everything pop!



My question to you is - is anyone out there interested in my leftovers from this quilt? I have enough of the green pieced blocks (4 inch) to make another 8 large blocks (16 inch). And I have lots of the background/gold two patches. Also a pile of the 4 patches with the red half square triangles. I would love to send this to someone who will put it to good use! Who wants to claim it?

First finish of 2010 !

For the last several days I have been working on my Carolina Christmas blocks. Very slow going! Ian came into my sewing room Sunday night and kept me company for nearly an hour. Just jabbering and poking around the general mess of the room. At some point he comes across some yardage that we had bought over a year ago to make a blanket for him. Footballs and soccer balls. Ian decided he had waited long enough for this quilt - it must be made NOW! I finally made a deal with him - I would work on the quilt for him as long as he was working on cleaning his bedroom. If he quit - I quit! Monday morning he was ready to get busy at about 8 a.m.! Unfortunately his room only took about an hour to get to a livable state - where as the quilt took slightly longer! It about killed him last night when I told him that I would not be able to get the binding put on until today. Tonight he started buttering me up with tons of kisses - yes - I caved and got back to work! He stood right beside me the entire time I was making the binding and sewing it on. He finally got tired of standing and pulled up a chair. He cracks me up! He was very happy that he was going to get to cuddle up under his new quilt tonight. What more could a mama ask for than such great appreciation! He couldn't resist giving me a cheesy grin for the first picture. What a sweet face!

Overwhelming!

I hope everyone out there in blogland had a wonderful holiday season. We were so happy to get to stay home this year. Usually we are either going to my parents or to the in-laws. This year, the in-laws came here for Thanksgiving and my parents came for Christmas. This means that a much greater percentage of my time was able to be spent in pajamas! The kids still have a few more days until they go back to school so I am sure the laziness will continue.

I got to spend most of New Year's Eve and New Year's Day sewing. I have been admiring Bonnie's Carolina Christmas since she posted the picture of her completed top. I really didn't want to start another project when there are so many unfinished things sitting around here anyway! But the Christmas fabrics were already out .... yes, I caved. I completed step one and was working on step two when I got the itch to see one of the finished blocks. They are huge.... and beautiful... and each one has 88 pieces in it! UGH! I have decided to make a lap sized version - which could also be used as a table topper. Since I have most of the green 4" blocks already pieced, I will probably use the extras in a border.

What are you working on right now?