Fabric Friday Week 18: March 3

I've felt stymied a bit with fabric pulls the last couple of weeks. It feels like all my pulls really feel the same. It feels discouraging, if I'm honest. This last week, I pulled out my scrap bins because I want to work on finishing up an old WIP, a sampler project I started years ago. I had 49 6" blocks that I had sashed together with a magenta solid, and I even had a backing prepared. It was small, but I wanted to try my hand at free motion quilting on my domestic, and I felt like it was a doable size. 

But...it never made it to the top of my list to work on because I just didn't really want to. So last month, I decided that I needed to get rid of it or do something about it. I decided to take it apart and do something else. I did some math, and figured that to make a quilt the size that I like quilts, I could do a 10x12 layout, alternating my sampler blocks with hourglass blocks so that it would form a bit of a star pattern. I'd need 60 sampler blocks, so I needed to make more, and I've been working on that this past week. I'm up to 53 now, which is progress. 

I'm using scraps for the blocks, of course, so I've pulled out my scrap bins and they were sitting on the floor. Instead of turning to my drawers of fabric this week for my pull, I turned to my scraps, and this is what I came up with. I think it works pretty well. Not sure I'd use it for a full quilt, but I think it's decently balanced. 

In unrelated news, with my scrap bins out so I can pull fabrics for my sampler blocks, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of scraps I have and should probably work on a scrap project soon...

Fabric Friday Week 17: February 24

 This week, I tried to make use of orange. Orange is a tricky one for me, and I don't think this week's bundle really worked, but sometimes, that's what happens. It's very bright and happy, even if it doesn't work, so I can hardly be mad, right? It does sure brighten up this February, which has been very cold. At least our skies have been bright and clear, even if it did come at the cost of very high and frigid winds which cleared out any pollution. 

I wonder if I just added a bit of gray, now that I'm looking at it on my computer...maybe that would round it out. It's almost cloying the way it is, isn't it? Ah well, c'est la vie. Maybe next time! :-)

Economic Women

Last September, I went to the Garden of Quilts at Thanksgiving Point with a friend. It was so great. I loved seeing so many quilts, and doing just a bit of shopping. I was a bit surprised and disappointed there weren't more vendors, but it's probably for the best. I spent enough as it was! One thing I bought was really out of character for me: a kit. I don't typically buy or make kits because I have an extensive stash and because I like to put together my own fabric bundles. This one was for a baby quilt, I believe, or possibly a large wall hanging? Pretty sure it was a baby quilt. It was a simple quilt, using economy blocks, and it featured Jill Howarth's Little Women fabric. 

Now, I'm not a huge Little Women fan. But, I do have four daughters, and my husband, surprisingly, really likes the movies. The fabric was just so cute, too, even though, again, it's not really my style. I just couldn't say no, and so an impulse purchase was made and I came home with a kit. 

I determined very early on that I would make it larger. So, I bought some additional yardage of the focal prints so I could make more squares, and I pulled coordinating fabric from my stash. I settled on making slightly larger blocks, using a tutorial by Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter for 8" finished blocks, and determined to make it a nice lap size at 64x80 using 80 blocks. But, it had to wait...Halloween, Christmas, birthday gift...so many projects with deadlines ahead of it. 

However, after I finished binding the Swoon quilt, I decided to make it my next quilt. To be honest, I dreaded the cutting and the trimming, but it really wasn't as bad as I expected. And the blocks themselves went together fairly quickly. I finished up the top just a few days ago and it's awaiting the trip to the quilter's. 

Fabric Friday Week 16: February 17

It might be late, but it's still Friday, so it's not TOO late, right? I missed last week amidst a few kids with pink eye, one of which needed antibiotics, so it's been just loads of fun around here. Of course, it only took a day or two for them to kick in and she's much better now, but it did rather throw off my week and weekend. *shrug*

Tonight's bundle was inspired by a newsletter Kate Spain sent out recently, with a color scheme and the inspiring photo. Mine looks dramatically different; well, different, at least. But I really liked the use of teal as a garden inspired color and ran with it. I think her scheme moved more toward red than magenta if I'm remembering correctly, but I liked the pinker hues for this.

Happy weekend!

Swooning Again

In November, I picked up a couple of quilts from my quilter on my way to my mom's house. I was excited to see how the Palais Royale quilt specifically turned out, so I took them inside and opened it up. My mom walked past and saw how large it was and said that if I ever had time to make a large quilt for her she sure wouldn't mind. 

I reminded her that I had taught her to quilt and she was more than capable of making a bed quilt for herself, but she scoffed and said she didn't like making large quilts. I laughed, but squirreled it away because her birthday is in February and figured I could whip something up. She is widowed and sleeps on a double bed now, so it's not like it needed to be king sized, anyway. 

I brainstormed quick-ish quilts and settled on a Swoon, a beautiful classic standby. But it's just a hair shy of being large enough for a double quilt at 80", and considered adding an additional row or a border. I settled on a border because adding another row of 24" blocks would have made it too long. I used mostly fabric from my stash, and picked up just a couple of fat quarters to supplement, and went with blue since it's her favorite color, and then added in some green and turquoise. I went out on a limb with those, but I really thought it would work out. For the border, I took one of the prints I had used and figured out how many strips I'd need and then divided the fabric by that number. It's only 2-1/4" wide, but that adds nearly 5" which helps a lot. 

I hustled and got the quilt wrapped up after my Christmas sewing, and dropped it off to my quilter in early January. Luckily, she was able to finish it just in time. I picked it up on a Thursday, bound it on Friday, and gifted it to her on Saturday when we celebrated her birthday. I bound it with another print I had used in the quilt, which helped tie it all together. I usually bind with solids, but I didn't have enough of any that matched well enough, and I was glad to not have to buy some.

She didn't seem as surprised as I expected, but I think she really loved it. And it fits her bed perfectly. I think it was the perfect birthday gift. 

Fabric Friday Week 15: February 3

I can't believe it's February already! January flew by, even though it's such a long, cold month. Here we are in February. 

I put together a simple color palette today, using a soft blue that I just adore and yellow. I've really loved yellow over the past few years and I'm glad I could pair it today. I threw in a great orange for a pop and I really like it. This palette feels calm and clean to me. I think the yellow and orange brighten it just enough to make in an optimistic calm. I love that colors can convey feelings, don't you? 

Happy Friday!

Hacked Hacci Dress

I made Christmas dresses for my girls and they absolutely love them. Score! The pattern did not include good fabric requirements which I found a tad annoying. Or enraging. Same thing. I found a pretty hacci fabric on Girl Charlee and I was very lucky to find it on a black Friday sale for only $3 a yard, so I was okay with WAY overbuying. I kind of guessed that I'd need 3 yards on average but decided to round up to 4, and also to plan to make one for me. So I bought TWENTY yards. Yeah. Loads of fabric. But the dresses had circle ruffles, which took a lot of fabric, and, to be fair, this means four dress for $60, which is a huge steal anyway. 

As it turns out, I way overestimated on fabric even at 3 yards, so I have SO MUCH leftover. Making myself a dress didn't happen at Christmas because I had so much to do anyway, but I figured I'd get to it eventually.

It jumped up the list when my girls kept asking me to make one for myself so we could all match. I figured, if they want to match, I should make it happen sooner rather than later, especially since they'll eventually outgrow their dresses. 

But...the pattern wasn't available in women's sizing. So, I had to hack it. I used a t-shirt pattern for the bodice, but, like the original pattern, opted to line it instead of binding the neck, so I just cut two. The pattern used straight rectangles for the skirt and gathered them at the waist, so that was simple, and instead of using circle pieces for the flounces on the sleeves and bottom, I just gathered longer rectangles. I made the sleeves twice because I hadn't used long enough pieces to give it a good gather. 

But, since I hacked it, it definitely had tricky parts and it's not perfect. The pockets are WAY too low. I also had to sew the waist band three times. I just kinda guessed how long to make the bodice, and it was way too long. Plus, the fabric is heavy, so it stretches it longer than I expected. And, the t-shirt fits great as a t-shirt but I really needed it a bit more fitted. I didn't want to take it in, but after the second waist, I knew I had to. So I opened it up and took it in on both the front and the lining. That went better than I expected, I think. The third time I sewed it, it still wasn't perfect, but it's definitely wearable. I think it would really benefit from an elastic in the waist band, but it wouldn't be nearly as comfy like that. 

So, here's my hacked dress. Taking it apart and putting it together multiple times was not my favorite, but I'm kinda proud that I could wing a dress like this.