Mid-February Already?!

I don't have any big quilts to post but I have finished a few things, and I'm expecting a couple quilts back from the quilter soon. I have one at my custom quilter's, and she texted a week ago that she was getting started on mine, which is exciting! And I have one at my regular quilter, that is waiting in line for an edge-to-edge. I also have a finished top that I need to decide what to do with; do I want custom quilting, or just a regular panto? Decisions...

Other things I've been working on are pouches for Sewtopia and belated teacher Christmas gifts, which I'm helping my girls sew and which are not done, yet. They are now cut out and pinned, but getting girls to sew when they don't want to is hard. 

I am really excited for Sewtopia, even though I'm going alone...I keep crossing my fingers my friend will get a ticket, but so far she hasn't had any luck on the waitlist. :( I want to participate in the Sewtopia Swap, and I thought it would also be nice to make little pouches for my tablemates, since I don't know anyone...so I've got those done. 

This is the pouch I made for the anonymous swap. It didn't turn out as great as I'd hoped; I used the zipper I had that I thought matched the best among my stash, but it's too light, and the fabric I embroidered on is too dark for the thread I chose. I did use a cool Tula print for the lining, the same one I used to make a chapstick key fob. I hope it's good enough even though it didn't turn out like I'd hoped; I'm finding I'm having a hard time judging because it's different than my expectations.

And these are the pouches I made for my tablemates. I tried the large one first, because I wasn't sure how large it would really be, but it was too big, in my opinion, so I made three of the smaller ones. It's a tricky pattern; I used Sotak Handmade's pattern, and I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or what, but I end up with fabric that isn't completely stitched down. It's basically enclosed, and I guess as long as you don't wash it, it'd probably be fine, but I handstitched it closed because you could also see the stitch lines for the other side through the gap it left. Shrug. It's not my favorite pattern, I'm pretty disappointed, actually. But it's okay. I got them made, and I think they're cute! The fabrics all came from scraps, so score!

We had sewing night last weekend, and I also got a bunch cut out for my Candlelight quilt, so I'm looking forward to starting to sew that. 

Reading Pillow

Teacher Appreciation Week is happening at school right now and in the past, I've not given teachers gifts until the end of the year, but for some reason, I felt like doing it this week instead of waiting until the last day of school. I feel like it's kinda one or the other, right? Or am I really supposed to do both? I do give them Christmas gifts at Christmas (this year was a handmade embroidered linen kitchen towel and some homemade marshmallows), but it starts to feel like overload if we do teacher appreciation WEEK (when did it morph from a day into a week?!) AND year end gifts. It stumps me. 

So, teacher appreciation gifts this year. I had a great idea for my twins' kindergarten teacher and I'm actually really excited about it. I decided to make a reading pillow for her and include a picture book picked out by my girls. She has a preschool-age son, and I figured this would be something fun she could enjoy with him. So one day when I needed to stop by Joann's for thread, I looked at the canvas they had for something nice for a pillow. Joanns fabric is NOT my preference (I can't remember the last time I bought fabric there that I was intending to use for a serious project) but I didn't really want to wait for shipping. I found a perfect canvas print and a matching solid and I bought it so fast (well, as fast as shopping at Joanns can be--I always wait at least 10 minutes, often 15-20 to check out...so annoying!). 

I pitched the idea to my girls and they were...lukewarm about it. But I know it's a good idea, so they can just deal, haha. 

I spent a good hour picking a font and digitizing the READ embroidery design, and then got out my embroidery machine and got to work. 

Pillows are great because they really are decently fast as far as sewing projects go. I had a bit of trouble with the embroidery at first, but I got it all resolved and then spent another hour and a half sewing it all up. I'm really bad at invisible zippers. I find them incredibly frustrating, honestly. I have the invisible zipper foot, but my fabric always gathers anyway. It's like the foot is too tight for the zipper teeth, so it feeds the fabric on the bottom faster than the zipper can go? I don't know, it's really frustrating. But, I got it to work, and there's only a tiny little pucker that is more of a looser spot than a pucker, but it's hardly noticeable once the pillow form is in.

Let's talk about pillow forms, eh? A neighbor from my last neighborhood used to sew a lot and even sold pillows on Etsy a good 15 years ago. She turned me on to pillow forms from Crate and Barrel. I think they've gone up a bit, but they're still really affordable for what you get--a great down pillow. I order the 23" ones, that are now $18 but I could have sworn I paid $15? I bought 5 or so maybe 2 years ago and just kept them in a closet to slowly be used. I've now used 3 as gifts, I think? I made a monogrammed pillow for my cousin's wedding, and a Christmas pillow for a new neighbor who hadn't unpacked Christmas decorations yet. I'm out now, so I'll have to order more, but the quality is top notch and they're not much more than you pay at Joanns for crappy synthetic ones. 

My girls picked Sophie's Squash for the book.
It's really cute, one of their favorites!

Also, while we're talking pillow forms, let's talk about sizing. When we moved into our house, we bought some pillows from our interior designer's storefront (I hadn't yet tried making my own) and they were so luxurious. So full and firm, and great fabrics. One of my kids spilled on one so I took out the pillow form so I could more easily spot treat it or machine wash it, and I was amazed to see that inside the 18" or 19" pillow case was a 23" pillow form. No wonder they didn't look saggy! I follow the tutorial for pillows at deepthoughtsbycynthia.blogspot.com, and she says to cut your fabric no more than half an inch larger than your pillow form (with a half inch seam allowance) but I find even this too baggy. 

Unfortunately, I made this reading pillow a bit larger than I should have. With the additional pocket, I didn't want it to be too snug, and some of my pillows I've made are REALLY snug. So, I cut it 22", figuring that 21" finished would be snug enough. I wish I'd made it just a tad snugger. It's acceptable, but I would prefer a bit more full. Oh well, c'est la vie. But, if you are reading this and wondering how to make your handmade pillows really stand out, this is the trick and don't make the same mistake I did. Cut your fabric at least 1-1/2"-2" smaller than your form. 

Hopefully, our teacher loves it, because I think it turned out so cute. I'm really happy with it, and I think it's the perfect kindergarten teacher gift. 

Christmas Banner

 I finished up my Christmas banner I mentioned last week just the other day and I love how it turned out! It was pretty quick, and I guess I was just nervous because of placing the embroidery, and then trimming them after to a uniform size...and not really knowing how long to make the binding...I do much better with patterns with measurements, haha. Flying by the seat of my pants is not my specialty!

But, it turned out great and I didn't need to trim too much. I did end up redoing a few as I mentioned, and instead of wasting the squares, I used them as backings for the blocks. This may not have been the best choice...I hang my banners in my stairwell in front of windows, and so during the day, especially the afternoon with the strong western sun coming in, you can see the outline of the embroidery. At the very least, I should have matched up the replaced blocks to their replacements so it would be less obvious...but it's okay. The color doesn't show through, just the outline of the letter, and its mostly not too noticeable. I was glad to not waste fabric. 

I used a gray stripe from Camille Roskelley's Christmas line and I think it turned out really great.

Now if only the rest of my Christmas projects can go as quickly and as smoothly as this one...

*fingers crossed*

Christmas Sewing

The craziness that is Christmas sewing has commenced. And it snuck up really fast. I planned last year to make Christmas pajamas for my girls because they're just so tall and it's disheartening to hear the cries and complaints on Christmas Eve that the pajamas that Santa delivered don't fit. I've tried numerous solutions over the past few years, and this is the final attempt. If this doesn't go over well...I'll probably ditch the Christmas pajamas altogether. As it is, I've been planning on making them all year, and I bought fabric over a month ago, but wanted to finish a few things before I pulled it out and got started. Now's the time!

In addition, I've been wanting to make a Christmas banner and decided that would be the project I work on when I'm visible, since the pajamas need to be a surprise. So that's what I started this week and here's the progress! 

I decided I needed to remake the aqua and cream letters, which made me sad, but I'm glad I just redid them instead of regretting later that I hadn't.

I'm using a linen from fabric-store.com and some fun Christmas prints. The black and red are by Lella Boutique and the green is by Sweetwater. The embroidery design is by meringuedesigns.net. Looking at it again, I might do two more redos, and make the I red and the s on the end black. Sigh...

As if that wasn't enough, I also decided to make another Christmas quilt. I blogged about the fabric here, and I decided to make another Shimmer quilt (pattern by Cluck Cluck Sew)

And, this probably won't get done, but I bought the panel by Sweetwater for a new advent calendar. It was too cute to pass up, what can I say?

Finally, my girls all said they wanted me to make them Christmas dresses this year. *sigh* Christmas does fall on a Sunday this year, so it's actually a good year to do it...but man, I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. However, I found a knit pattern on Vintage Little Lady, and a black and white polka dot hacci knit on Girl Charlee, so I might just cave in. I couldn't think of anything to make them this year as a gift anyway, so maybe this is a good idea. We'll see...

All the sudden I'm pretty overwhelmed by Christmas sewing. At least, the banner, quilt, and advent calendar are all things that can be ditched. But the clothes for the girls need to happen when they're not around, which is trickier, especially since my oldest likes to stay up late and often finds herself in my sewing room while I'm sewing. 

A Memorial Quilt

I think we've all seen the elusive traveling quilts, where a small group of quilting friends get together to piece together quilts. Each person starts with a theme and a color scheme and creates the center. They mail it to the next person who adds to it, and then it continues on through the circle until it makes it back to the owner, much larger than when it starts. I say elusive, because there don't seem to be that many but they always look so interesting and spectacular. I was always intrigued by them.

And then, my dad died. He had early onset dementia and was not doing well, but he died from a stroke. We all had a chance to say goodbye, it wasn't a sudden death from the stroke and we felt very blessed. But, I was five months (or so?) pregnant with my twins and was already extremely uncomfortable. I didn't feel able to really mourn the way I wanted to, which was to go to the mountains, his favorite place. So I sat and mourned as best I could. I brainstormed quilting ideas. 

First I made a mountain mini quilt, designed by Amy Ellis. I love it and it hangs in my living room. 

And then I thought of those traveling quilts. And the wheels started turning. I started brainstorming memories that could be turned into quilt blocks. Mountains, obviously, specific phrases, favorite books, favorite foods. I originally thought I might assemble it as a traveling quilt but quickly realized that it would be best to assemble the blocks and then try to work out how they all fit together. 

So I made blocks. Lots and lots of blocks. For nearly four years. Periodically I would see a pattern that was perfect and it would get added to the list. Lots are paper pieced and by the end, I was really done with paper piecing. In my mind, it's a necessary evil. I love how the blocks finish but I sure don't love making them. Here are few I liked a lot (not necessarily the making part, but the design, haha). Hufflepuff was from Fandom in Stitches (which has reliably good paper piecing patterns, usually for free) and the aspen leaves are by Center Street Quilts, available on Etsy. The lettering is all paper pieced as well, designed by From Blank Pages.

I also really liked this camera block, a free block of the month block from Fat Quarter Shop years ago as part of one of their charity fundraisers.

Finally, I finished the last block. Somewhere between the first block and the last, I purchased an embroidery machine and so there are several machine embroidered blocks I designed. I love what they add. Possibly my favorite is this digitized version of an illustration from the book Me and My Dad by Mercer Mayer. It took HOURS of digitizing, and at least four attempts at the multi-hooping before I got it right.

Once they were all finished, I laid them out and they fit pretty well together, I got pretty lucky. I added strips of fabric here and there to make them fit, but it wasn't as hard or awkward as I feared. I'm really glad I assembled it this way, I never would have thought of the camera strip otherwise, and I think it's a fun detail. And it turned out to be a great size: generous lap size. Nearly twin? Maybe it is a twin. But it lives in the living room, not on a bed. 

I took it to Marion McClellan, who is absolutely fantastic with custom quilting. She gets all my really special quilts, and she did a great job with this one. 

I love it. I love pulling it out and remembering. And I love pulling it out and telling my daughters the stories of their grandfather. They were too young (or not born yet) and only remember him in his illness. He was among the best of men, and, as Billy Joel says, only the good die young. I ache that they will never know his goodness. 

In Memory, long arm quilted by Marion McClellan, started in 2018, completed March 2021.

Passages Quilt

 This quilt came about unexpectedly. 

I had visited Corn Wagon Quilt Shop in Springville and they had a pile of Moda scrap bags. I'd always been fascinated by these scrap bags; they seem slightly less expensive than a jelly roll (though, it doesn't seem by much...) and you get a variety of good sized scraps. But, just about everywhere that sells them online sells them on a mystery basis. 

That is not me. 

I don't even buy any of those subscription boxes, though I would love a surprise in the mail, because it's so hard for me to justify spending money on something I might get and absolutely hate. There are a lot of great Moda designers that I would enjoy receiving scraps of. But there are also plenty that are way too traditional for my taste, and then the fabric wouldn't get used. 

No thanks.

But, seeing them in person...that was different. I could peek through the window, and one was already open! So I got to see what it was. They had Ruby Star Society scrap bags and I found one I really liked. It was a mix of multiple lines, and they worked together well. I added in some from my own stash and bought some solids to go with them, and came up with this design based on some that I had seen on social media. It's made up of two different blocks made in the same way, like a 3 sided log cabin block, one with 2 rounds and one with 3. It reminded me of doorways or a covered walkway, so I called it Passages. I opted to make it large enough for our guest bedroom, and then after, I made a couple of throw pillows to go with it. The Essex linen is metallic and I used a rust orange color that I think works well with the quilt colors. I backed it with a Robert Kaufman wide back that I had purchased for my bed quilt, but when it arrived, I knew I couldn't use it on my bed. It's stiff and rough. My quilter, Abby Latimer, said that she heard that white prints are really tough to manufacture so that may have contributed. Maybe. But I don't mind putting it on the guest bed. It doesn't get used often, and I don't mind not encouraging guests to overstay their welcome ;-)

long arm quilted by Abby Latimer, completed March 2021