I'm a lucky duck!

I haven't done much sewing this month.  I am a Kindergarten teacher and the first month of school is a whirlwind!  I have big plans but I am exhausted!  I do have enough energy to keep up with my google reader, though.

And I won two of the fabric giveaways I entered!  Woohoo!

The first giveaway was from Amber at One Shabby Chick.  I won a Nina pattern download and this beautiful fabric from Lulu from For the Love Designs.  

So gorgeous, right?  I guess I need to get sewing!

And then today, I heard from Faith at Fresh Squeezed Fabrics and I won this fat quarter bundle of Pure Elements from Moona Fabrics!  Yippie!  I am so excited!

Thank you to both Amber and Faith for having such awesome giveaways!  So keep entering!  Because you never know!

Swap Quilt for 15 Minutes

I made a mini-quilt for a swap on the blog 15 Minutes of Play of hosted by Victoria Findlay-Wolfe.  The challenge was to take a painting and interpret it in solid fabrics.

I chose a painting by Matisse found here.  I had it all planned out in my mind (several times!) and eventually started putting my ideas to work on the fabric.  I kept the picture close by and referred to it often.  I was most attracted by the hard boiled eggs!  I started with the white and yellow and made several before adding the table around them.


When I finished the piecing, I wasn't thrilled.  It did not resemble the image I had in my mind.  But I couldn't figure out what to do differently so I sandwiched it and started quilting.

  I was pleasantly surprised!  I liked it much more after I quilted it!  It added a spark and made it look a little less flat.  In this swap, the person I sent my quilt also sent one to me.

The awesome Kathy French was my swap partner. She also chose a Matisse painting.  She was on vacation in Maine and sewed the whole thing by hand! She wrote a post on the 15 Minutes of Play blog about her process.  Isn't it great?  The handquilting is awesome.   I really love it and need to find a special place to display it.

Linking up to:

Summer Sewing

		Patrick and Sarah’s Quilt VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I managed to get a few things sewn this summer.  The biggest project was this quilt that I made for a couple who got married in June. 

I started just after school got out and finished the first week in August (about 6 weeks).  I did a few other projects in between  but this one was my biggest effort.  I saw an inspiration quilt on the cover of Quilt magazine and chose a rainbow of fabric with Kona white.  

I pieced the back and used fabric markers to write a label.  I machine quilted it using my walking foot and straight line quilting.  The size of it was intimidating but it went pretty quickly once I got started. 
I am linking up:

Birds flying west!

I entered another swap at Mary Lou Weidman’s blog/chatroom.  This time we are making thirteen birds each, sending them all to California, and getting one from each of thirteen other birdie makers.  The birds were to be made on a black background from jello colors (bright and cheery!).  Mary Lou sent us some possible patterns. 






I love the birds from the free-piecing study by Sarah and Molly.  So I made a few of those.  I also love the free form chickens spotted at Cactus Needle and several different places.  So I made birds similar to those (although less chicken-y!).  When I was piecing them individually, it was more fun but it took more time. 






Then I got on a roll and made a bunch all the same (it won’t matter because they will be in different quilts, anyway). I kinda like them!  I can’t wait to see everyone else’s. 





I haven’t managed to make the sock quilt yet but the blocks are quite a variety!

I am linking up to Sarah's Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Party and Sew Many Ways So Darn Crafty.  Go over and see what else people have been making.

Crazy Caterpillar!

The day I flew five and a half hours on a plane with my daughter, her husband, and a very cute six month old, I made a soft toy to take with us to hopefully amuse the adorable child.  She was very good, slept a good part of the time, and was somewhat amused by the goofy caterpillar her grandma made her.  I snapped a few pictures before they got here to take me to the airport.


I (obviously) sewed some scraps together with some ribbon to make him.  The only really clever thing I did was sacrifice my pin box.  I sewed it inside the caterpillar with some tiny rocks inside it to make it rattle.  It works, too!  Tada!  It rattles just enough to attract her attention without bothering the other people around us on the plane.


The back is a soft flannel pink polkadot. All the feet and antennae are fun for the baby to try to get in her mouth.  Just the right size for holding and shaking around.

We had a great trip and the baby was very good on the plane, as I said.  She didn’t like the carseat very much, though, so we sang the magic song, The Wheels on the Bus, many, many times.  For some reason, it makes her stop crying.  Magic.





Linking to:

Something from nothing

Victoria from Bumblebeans and Fifteen Minutes of Play has organized a swap of 12 inch mini-quilts made from scraps.  I had a lot of fun making mine (except for the part where I had to unquilt my free motion quilting because it was so jerky! More on that later.)  I took pictures along the way to show you how I made my block.
I started by sewing random scraps together to make an 8” square.  I cut a matching square from yellow solid fabric left from my rainbow quilt.



I sewed the two squares together right sides together around all four sides and then cut along both diagonals.




I ended up with four half-square triangles.

 

I played with them in a few different configurations.



I liked the pinwheel the best so I sewed them together.



Next, I needed borders.  I looked at the colors in my made fabric and decided to go with the turquoise colors.  I found more scraps to sew into borders and attached them to all four sides.




The back of the little mini-quilt could easily have been one piece of fabric but what fun is that?  So I sewed another scrap fabric and it looked like a little house to me, so I made some scrappy sky to go with it.



Then came the quilting.  I love the look of spiral quilting!  I tried it with the walking foot and it was very difficult to do the center of the quilt.  So I ripped it out and tried again with the free motion foot.  The center was definitely better but the outer circles were very choppy.  So, after some debate, I decided to rip out most of the spiral and leave the center intact.  Then I used the walking foot to finish the larger part of the spiral.  This was much smoother (although I can’t imagine doing it on a larger quilt!).  I love the texture.


I used some of my trusty black dot binding to finish it off. I sewed it on by machine and then finished the back by hand.  I am very happy with it now.  It isn’t due for another three or four weeks so I have some time to get some other goodies together.  I can’t wait to see the rest of the mini-quilts!  Click over to the Flickr group to see who has posted so far.

Play mat complete!

I made a play mat/quilt for my granddaughter to use at my house.  Just in time, as she will be crawling soon and not staying in one place!  I was lucky to have my daughter take some photos of Saydee on the quilt on a sunny day.

Saydee trying out the new quilt.  Doesn't she look ready to go?

I used a charm pack and some Marble Moda dots.  I was trying a new idea from Christina at A Few Scraps to make a triangle on one corner (she calls it a Golden Goose!).  She has a lot of designs made from this one idea.  I jumped right in and made the corners a little small (they get a little lost in the busyness of the fabric, I think). 

I did machine quilting (and lots of unquilting!  Lots of puckers on the back and I couldn’t stand it so I redid it several times!).  I did mainly meandering with one flower in the center of the design.  I also wrote the words: Baby Love, oh Baby Love (sing along!) in the white border.  It was fun to “write” with the sewing machine!

I used some more of the squares for the back.  Hopefully Saydee will come over and use it soon!

I am linking to some fun link parties below!  Go check them out!