Sunday, January 15, 2012

Sew Happy Quilt QAL

I decided to join in with the fun over at Sew.Happy.Geek's Sew Happy Quilt QAL.


Since I joined in a little late I had some catching up to do, so after making my fabric selections I set to work yesterday and made the first four blocks.

Block 1: Woven

Block 2: Snowball

Block 3: Friendship Star

Block 4: QST Pinwheel

Now that I'm all caught up I can do the rest at the leisurely pace of one a week until I have all 12 blocks made.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

12 Days of Christmas Sampler Quilt, blocks 5-12

As I've said before I was a little ambitious at Christmastime.  A little over-ambitious.  With my "to-do" list getting larger I ended up abandoning my 12 Days of Christmas quilt blocks after block 8, but I'm happy to say that I picked the project up again this week and finished the last 4 blocks!  I had so much fun making these blocks that I've actually joined two more quilt-alongs.  I have all the fabric picked out and purchased for the Sew.Happy.Quilt mixed sampler quilt along hosted by Sew.Happy.Geek, but have yet to make decisions about fabric for the Solstice Stars quilt along-- I'm thinking solids.

But anyways, back to the 12 Days of Christmas Sampler! Looking at my previous blog posts though I realize that I never posted blocks 5-8, so I'll just go ahead and show you the last 8 all in one post.

For blocks 1-4 please refer back to this post.

Block 5: It's All About the Presents Block (designed by Elizabeth @ Don't Call Me Betsy)

Block 6: Modern Selvage Snowflake (designed by Riel @ The Q and the U)

Block 7: Christmas Tree (designed by Jennifer @ Ellison Lane Quilts)
Block 8: Paper Pieced Noel (designed by Lindsay @ Lindsay Sews)
Block 9: Hanging Ornaments (designed by Jessica @ SewCraftyJess)
 I actually ended up not doing this block.  Since I improvised a little on the Noel block and added hanging ornaments, I decided not to do this block because it would look too similar.  (Sorry Jessica! If I had known you were planning hanging ornaments I wouldn't have done it, I promise!)

Block 10: Christmas Stockings (designed by Sarah @ Fairy Face Designs)

Block 11: Wreath (designed by Heather & Megan @ Quilt Story)

Block 12: Peppermint Candy (designed by Kim @ My Go Go Life)

*Block 13: Home For Christmas (designed by me!)*
This was the block I came up with to replace block 9 that I didn't do.  I wanted something that kept with the feel of the other blocks, but I wanted to paper piece it, and it needed to be on a white background (I had already decided on block placement and knew that a white background would be best).  After designing the house and preparing all the pattern pieces (which took a few hours) I did the piecing in 20 minutes.  I absolutely love this block!

So far I haven't been able to take ANY photos where the colors end up right.  What you see above is my best effort to tweak balances to get the right colors, but they're still far from right.  I'm hoping once it's all together I'll be able to get some beautiful photos of it.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

All About Dolls!

Before Christmas I had my hands full whipping up these custom order dolls.  Aren't they adorable?


The three taller dolls are all 18 inches and I made them using a pattern from the Wee Wonderfuls book that I modified slightly.


All of their faces are hand embroidered and their hair is stitched on by hand.




As for their clothes I had to make up wee little patterns to fit their wee little bodies.  Since I'm no pattern drafter it was a bit of a challenge, but overall it was fun to see how I could take what I did know about patterns and how they work and apply them to making clothes for the dolls.
















The short doll wearing the pink dress is a style of doll I made when I was first starting to take custom orders.  She's a pattern I made myself that I generally don't make anymore, but I made an exception since the little girl the doll went to has an older sister and brother who both have dolls in the same style, so I wanted her's to match.



I do take orders for these, and am willing to make them in whatever skin/hair/eyes/features combination you might want.  If you want a specific type of clothing I'm also willing to stretch my pattern drafting skills a bit to make whatever kind of outfit you want.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Happy 2012!

Happy New Years everyone!

I had planned to write this post yesterday but a surprise trip to the ER after my husband cut the tip of his thumb off with his table saw while making cutting boards nipped that plan in the bud.  We're home now and he's fine, his thumb's now just the *tiniest* bit shorter.  We actually got a great laugh out of the trip, since this same time last year (January 3, 2011 to be exact) I was rushed to the ER with a pulled shoulder after passing out at the gym (embarassing, I know).  But anyways, he's fine, and he's taking every opportunity he gets to make "thumbs up" references and jokes to show off his bandaged thumb.


Now onto the sewing... the good stuff.  My two month absence from blogging was because everything I worked on in the months of November and December were Christmas gifts, so I didn't want to post about them because I didn't want the people receiving them to see what they were getting and ruin the surprise (I'm all about surprises).  While I wasn't posting here, I WAS posting over at the Christmas Challenge blog.

These are just a few of the things I made.  Since there are so many I'm going to spread out posting about them over a few days or maybe a week.

I made these potholders for my aunt to match the tablerunner I made her last year.  It was only after finishing them that I realized the red stripe fabric wasn't the same that I used on the tablerunner (the other stripes were thinner), but they look close enough I'm going to not worry about it.

 I followed the tutorial from Amy of Lots of Pink Here! for her travel sewing kit that was a part of the 12 Gifts of Christmas blog hop hosted my Ellison Lane Quilts and made five of these for my family.

They weren't all the same, I switched up the fabric for different ones, but in the effort of not overwhelming this post with pictures I only included the pictures of one (the one for my sister).  I included some spare buttons and safety pins with each kit as well as scissors, white and black thread, needles and pins.  Everything you could need to face any sewing need while traveling.

Unfortunately the sun was bright on the day I took photos of these so the color's a little off.  Oh well, I guess that's what happens when you live in southern California.

 I also made four thread catchers using Candace of Made with Love's Squirmy Worm Studio pattern.

They were amazingly easy and quick to make, so much so that I made myself one even though I was rushing to get Christmas presents done in time.  I made just one alteration while making them and that was to sew the non-slide backing on the back of the pin cushion using my machine before sewing the cushion together instead of sewing it on by hand after finishing the cushion as the pattern directed.  It seemed more secure to me that way and took a lot less time.

 I made an iPad case for my sister's BF using Faith of Fresh Lemons' tutorial that was also a part of the 12 Gifts of Christmas Blog Hop.

I used the viewfinder fabric from Ruby Star Rising and some grey Kona on the outside, and some super soft grey flannel on the inside.  I bought enough fabric to make one for Hubby too, but he was uninterested in having me make him one until he saw Ryan's made and ready to go.  Since he waited until the last minute to decided he DID want one I haven't made his yet, but it's either going to be out of the same fabric or out of the transistor radio fabric from the same line, haven't decided yet.

 I asked my mom what she wanted me to make her for Christmas and she told me a tote bag of the quilted variety, in dark colors.  I could have easily made my own pattern but I happened to have the Simplicity 2600 pattern so I used it for the tote.

Anyone who quilts and sews using patterns should laugh at what step one of the pattern was: "cut out all pattern pieces and quilt", yeah, simple as that.  Needless to say step one was the one that took up the most time, but enjoyed it because it gave me a chance to play with how I quilted it.

All of the pieces were quilted differently.  I used Pellon Thermolam as batting because I read somewhere that it was a perfect thickness for bags, and whoever wrote that (I'm sorry I can't remember who) was definitely right.  It was exactly what I needed.  I opted to not get the fusible kind since quilting was step one and it was $2 cheaper a yard, and it worked great for me.

I really liked the prints I used, and thankfully so did my mom!  They're both from Joann's and I have no idea who made them or what collection they were from, but the green is very pretty up against the floral main body fabric.
 The alterations I made to the pattern were to skip the zipper closure.  I figured that my mom wouldn't really need it and I didn't like the way the pattern called for it to be added on.  Since I skipped the zipper I made some binding out of leftover main body fabric and used it to bind the opening of the bag.

I also changed the inside pocket a bit.  The pattern called for one giant pocket that spanned all the way across the inside of the bag.  The problem with that was that it was super floppy since it was so large.  I didn't want to add a vertical line to the front of the bag by connecting the pocket to the body of the bag in the center, so I opted to hide where I sewed the pocket to the bag by putting the line where the straps were.  It ended up working out perfectly that I made the pockets two different sizes because the larger pocket was just the right size to tuck a magazine in.  I also got my mom a year subscription to McCalls Quilting magazine so I bought the current one and made a "one year subscription" tag and attached it to the current issue then slipped it into the pocket of the bag and wrapped both together.  She loved it.

 For my aunt who doesn't sew I made an apron.  A few months ago I went to a scrapbooking show with her and one of the ladies demo-ing something was wearing an apron decked out with a tulle skirt, and when she saw it she turned to me and said "I want that".  Okay, hint taken.

 I could have made it easier on myself and bought an apron to add the skirt to, but I didn't do that.  Instead I made the whole thing and embroidered her name in pink on the front-- she's girly like that.  The tulle is five colors layered to make a pretty purple-pink effect, and then doubled for poofy-ness.

And since Barbara takes her mini dachshund Daisy with her everywhere I made a matching apron for Daisy.

Here Daisy is on her dad's lap on Christmas Eve.  Sadly I didn't get a photo of her in her apron, but I'm sure I'll get a chance at the first party Barbara throws in the year.

I have a few more things I've made recently, but as I said, I'll save those for another day.

Happy Sewing!
-Stephanie
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