My Little Piggy

Before I started working on my Sis in Law's quilt I caught up on all the quilting bees. I wasn't as far behind as I thought except for the above one from March. I forgot to take pictures of all the rest of them. This a Cathedral Window. Not overly difficult but there is no way I would make a whole quilt this way. Maybe a nice pillow. Here is a tutorial if you want to try it out.

I also wanted to introduce you to my little piggy. My mom was having fun with pincushions and this is my favorite one. He actually gets used although I feel bad poking him in the face. Poor guy.

Why aren't my quilts ever the right size?

My sister in law is getting married this September and I wanted to make her a quilt. My hubby wants to give his little sis cash for their gift so I decided I would make the quilt for her Wedding Shower. That gave me a months less time to procrastinate so I got started. I figure if I can have it done by this Friday I can take it to get quilted and the turn around is about three weeks and that would give me a week so sew on the binding. So here is my start.

Is it loud enough? I was just fascinated with the Coats and Clark advertisement that featured this quilt. Its Kaffe Fassett's Hot Diamonds.

But I am not one to have this much color in my life. I like color but as you can see this is a lot of color. My Sister in Law and her fiance are not afraid of color. She's an interior designer and he does some sort of design . He creates chandeliers and light fixtures for some of the rich and famous. Anyway, they have an orange wall in their living room so I figured this would be a great lap quilt. So, here is my problem. I sewed everything together and according to the template if I made the large diamond, 144 pieces, 12 rows up, 12 down the quilt would be like 54x90 inches (that's a lap quilt to me). Some how the quilt is only like 59x56. I don't know how it happened. I swear I used every piece and I even had extra that I used. So, I am going to add a 15 inch border and make it a Queen Size quilt. I can never make my quilts the right size. Oh well. When I am all done I will take a completed picture to share. I like it but it sure is LOUD! I hope she likes it.

Oh and Diamonds are not that easy. Way too much brain power needed. You can't just line the seams up and sew. It has to be off slightly so it lines up right. Luckily, I figured it out on my third row of where the placement needed to be. I think I might have to make myself a diamond quilt now.

Madeline Quilt

This is actually my mom's. I was at her house and we went shopping and I bought this pattern. I had been thinking about it for a while. Well, my mother stole it as soon as we went home and made herself this. Now it is supposed to be much larger (like 27" x 39") but she made it for a 12x12 frame. She just didn't enlarge the pattern. I think she actually shrunk it a bit. I think its adorable. I might have to make a small one for Doll Quilt Swap 9. Great little scrap buster.

Tea Towel #1

We are going on a trip to Hawaii to visit a friend and the sun and I realized that the friend that we are visiting is having her birthday a couple of days before we arrive so I wanted to bring her a little something so I thought I would make her a couple of tea towels. Also, this is a great little project for sitting and waiting during ballet or tee ball or swim lessons and kids are so fascinated by it. This is the first one. I bought pattern from etsy but it is no longer posted so here is her blog. I am making one more which I should finish this week of a little girl on a swing in a tree from the same artist. I think I want to make myself a set so like 3 or four. I would use some of these patterns (probably the one with the butterflies) and this one ( the tree), the one I will show you next week and the one above. I need new cute towels. I bought the towels themselves at the Sewing Expo in Puyallup, WA earlier this year. I couldn't tell you more than that though.

Embroidery Mini Quilt Swap

I really liked this Embroidery Mini Quilt Swap held over at Quilting Gallery. It was fun to see how one design could look so different. Here is mine. You can check more out at flikr. I also love these small embroideries because they are perfect to take to swim lessons or tee ball. What else am I going to do for a half hour or so. I can only facebook or play tetris for so long on my phone. :) I think next I am going to do a set of dish towels. That is if I can find where I put the dish towels I bought several months ago for this project!

Oh, Doll Quilt Swap 9 is on its way for sign ups. I saw it late so I hope I made it in.

Phew, it's done!

I don't know what convinced me to make this but I did. I had seen the pattern numerous times and wanted to make it but it seemed above my skill level. Well, my mom and I were shopping and she said she would help me make it if I wanted so that's what we did. I made the Amy Butler Weekender bag with the help of my mom. The only thing my mom did was help me translate the instructions, guide me and I made her sew the outside bag together although I could have done it but it got really thick and I was using her sewing machine and I didn't want to be the one to break it. We only broke one presser foot! At least it wasn't her $10,000 machine! It actually wasn't horribly difficult to make just a lot of it to make. I can't wait to use it! We did make a few changes. I added pockets on the inside and instead of making a stiff base we only used the false bottom. I put all the stiffener in the false bottom and used Velcro to hold the false bottom in place. I still plan to put some sort of closure on the outside pocket. I haven't decided but I think I will need something to hold its shape.

The fabric is Anna Maria Horner's home dec fabric and the lining is just a light colored bottom weight. The trim and the side pockets are a black bottom weight.

Would I recommend making this bag? I guess it would depend on how badly you want something unique. The supplies cost maybe $75 and the labor...add about 15 or so hours to that. But I do love my new bag!