Gypsy Dance Top

A month and a half ago, Bree over at Distant Pickles put out a call for pattern testers.  I volunteered and was able to work on testing Bree's new pattern, Gypsy Dance. I had some LouLouThi fabric that I has been hoarding that I thought would be perfect.  It was!

I thought I was going to make a twin, but it ended up being a queen(ish).  The finished top is 81 x 100. 
Do you know how hard it is to get a good picture of a quilt that big? :-)

This pattern has a lot of pieces, but they are all squares and rectangles.  I usually avoid designs that require so much precise piecing, but I'm glad I did this one.  I took my time with the piecing and most of my points are pretty good!

 

 

The brown with the butterfly and roses is my favorite piece of fabric!  I ordered some more to incorporate into the backing.

I had a PILE of triagles left over, so I started sewing them together, just so they wouldn't end up in my scrap box with nothing to do.  I ended up triming them into 3 1/2 inch squares.  I'm piecing them into a strip of diamonds to put on the back. It looks like I'll have enough for a baby quilt left over after that!  (Maybe not a whole baby quilt, but certainly enough to make blocks for one!)

This pattern was very easy to follow.  It wasn't hard at all, just time consuming with so many pieces.  If you are interested in trying it, Bree over at Distant Pickles is finishing it up and I think you'll be able to order it soon!

A boy and a bug

I've been working on testing a pattern (which my husband deleted all the pictures of), but I found time to make this chevron baby quilt.  The baby shower was this past weekend, so now I can share it!

Don't you love it when you know exactly what you want to do for a gift?  The nursery for baby P is grey and turquoise.  The shower invitations had grey and turquoise chevrons on them.  I have loved this Backyard Baby fabric since I saw it and knew it would be perfect.  I had the grey in my stash (which I've been trying to use!) so I was ready to go.


I cut my own 6 inch squares so the zigzags would be a little larger than if I had a charm pack.  This ended up being about 45 x60, so it's a good size for tummy time!  It will also work on a toddler bed quite well. 

I love this fabric.  Click on the picture to see it better.  The green is jars of bugs.  The x's are the little helicopter things that fall from trees.  (My sister used to feed them to my brother and tell him they were peas.  Parental supervision?  Nah.) The trees with the swing hanging is my favorite print, but I really like them all.

The binding is some fabric I found at Hancock's at the last minute since I forgot about the binding when I ordered the fabric.  You can't see very well, but it's actually 2 shades of green that look like blades of grass.  It matched perfectly.

I used the tree print and some leftover pieces for the back.  I love that little dog under the swing. 

I can't wait for baby P to be here to enjoy it.  Baby quilts are my favorite. 

What I've been working on

After not sewing much for a month or so, I've been very motivated lately!  I made a huge bag to take to the beach... like my kids can sit down inside of it big.  I had big plans to take pictures of it while we were on the beach, but that was obviously a ridiculous plan.  Have you even been to the beach with 2 kids?   I will try to get some pictures of it soon. 


I made the one on the left.  I have a friend who has twins and she bought the one on the right at a consignment sale and wanted a match.  The fabric is exactly the same even though it doesn't look like it.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but I'd like to see how it looks on a kid!  I think if I tweek my pattern a little, I'll love making these.

This is my new project.  It's going to be a twin sized quilt.  I'm testing a pattern (woohoo!) for a blogger.  It has close to 400 pieces, and I miscalculated how much fabric I had in this bundle I've been hoarding forever.  Now I have to find some more of it or find something to coordinate with it.  You'll see more about this project in the weeks to come.  I even have a deadline, so hopefully I'll get it finished by mid August!

Baby Quilt for Little Lela

My friend Mandy recently had her 3rd baby, Lela.  I had made quilts for both of her other sweet babies, so Lela wasn't going to be left out! !I had some Summer House by Lily Ashbury charms that I thought would make the perfect bright blanket. 


I think it would be great for a little fun in the sun!   

I had a few HSTs left over, so I used them to make a diamond on the back.  I quilted around the diamonds on the front using green and blue thread. 

I have never done bias cut binding, but I knew that these stripes need it.  I didn't find a good tutorial, so it was a little harder than I thought it would be, but I LOVE the stripes!

I stitched her name on it, just so she'll know it's especially for her. 
My skills have improved ALOT in the last 4 years, so maybe Lela's won't come apart a little everytime it gets washed! 

Beat, Beat, Baby, Beat

My husband's best friend and his wife recently found out their going to be parents.  My husband was going for a visit, so a gift was in order!  Uncle M. used to play at DJing, so what better than a baby turn table?


I freezer paper stenciled this design on and used a small button for the slidey thing. 

Perfect for a little record spinning baby!

Pinterest Copy Success!

My crafty friend, CAR, recently posted this blog.  Her shoes and the pin they came from inspired me to make some cute shoes of my own!

These are $5 Faded Glory canvas shoes.  $2 worth of dye and some scrap elastic resulted in these.  I love them.  They are comfy and just slip right on.

Perfect for sitting outside, enjoying the day...

Or for slipping on to check out how the garden grows.

I also made a small pair for my daughter, but she says they "itch" her foot.  I don't know what that means, but she won't wear them even though I went with yellow because that's her new favorite color!  One packet of dye did both pairs of shoes, and we also did a onesie that I had on hand.  I love them.  The hardest part was not sticking my finger while I sewed on the elastic.  I've read Target has them with the elastic already in, so I'm on the lookout.  I think a turquoise pair would be perfect for summer!

Kiwicrate Review

One of my favorite bloggers recently posted about Kiwicrate.  It's a company that send you a box of themed crafts for your child each month.  I was intrigued and thought I'd give it a try.  We recently dug into our first box.  It was about wind power.  The 2 projects for the month were a wind-powered cars and a wind sock.

For the car there were enough parts to make 2 cars and to decorate 4 different sails.  When we opened the box there was a pair of scissors and a nice little note.  There was a very good instruction booklet and ideas for exploring wind more.  Everything is packed very nicely and of good quality.  For the car there were wooden wheels, heavy foam for the body, thick paper for the sails, colored sticks for the mast, and tons of stickers for decorating.  There were even extra sheets for making your own stickers, which is what my daughter is doing here!  The decorating was definitely her favorite part.  The box also included play dough for keeping the wheels on and precut tape strips.

My son is still too little, but he had fun helping us.

Our finished cars

He wanted to be sure you saw the striped sail!  We used our wind to race them across the kitchen floor. 

The second project was a wind sock.  It was my daughter's favorite project of the two.  It came with nice oil pastels for decorating and lots of ribbon.  She didn't want more than one ribbon of each color, but there was about a yard of 4 different colors. 

The Kiwicrate came with an observation chart.  It has a guide for rating the wind and a place to draw what your wind sock looks like for 7 days.  We've been faithfully going outside to check, but we certainly can't leave her beautiful creation outside!

I wasn't sure if these boxes were going to be worth $20, but she loved it.  Besides enough supplies to do the craft, there is lots of stuff left over for other projects.  It all comes in a nice box addressed to your child.  The instructions are clear and come with great illustrations.  Everything was of good quality.  I think my daughter may be a little big for them (3-7 is the age range), but she still enjoyed it.  We've already gotten our second box about gardens and she's pumped.  If you think your child might like it, use this link, and you can get your first box for $10.  (I also get $10 off of mine!)  It's definitely worth checking out.

New sewing space!

So I finally took some pictures of the new "office."  This is my sewing room part.  It's about half sewing space and half everything else.  Besides what's in the pictures, there is another desk for the computer, my closet, and a shelf with the TV and Wii  on it.  This room was lavendar before I started this whole switch around!  I'm very happy with the new light grey color; it makes the room brighter.  I don't have curtains yet, but I'm on the lookout for some fabric I like.


The big cabinet is new.  It replaced my wire cubes and a set of plastic drawers.  All of my fabric is in it, and the projects I'm working on are in the drawer at the bottom.  We also got 2 new bookcases to replace the ones that we've had since we got married.  (In fact, we had a blow-up fight when putting on of them together the night before we got married, but that's a story for another time!) 

My new desk.  I got this desk for $15 from a yardsale FB group.  It sat in our carport just long enough to push my husband to the limit (2 months, I think), before I brought it in to refinish.  I wish now that I had done it in black, but it's too late.  This desk is super wide and had a long drawer in the middle and 2 drawers on the side.  It also has one of those pull out pieces that accountants use.  That's the part that sold me.  I figure I can put my instructions/pattern/tutorial on that part.  I also decided that I wanted it situated in the room this way.  It gives me more room to work with large projects, and I also have the other side for my cutting mat.  This is a big improvement over my previous cutting table, the floor.  I got the chair for $8 at Goodwill and spray painted it .   (The box on the floor is stuff to pass along to my friends who might use it!)

 

Our family Christmas picture also works really well in here.  I hadn't intented to hang it in here, but it looks much better than in the living room.  I like it because my sweet boy gets excited everytime he notices it and tells me who is in the picture.  Precious.

It's still a work in progress, but so is everything else in my life.  I have alot more room to work, and there's alot more room to have other people in here with me.  I like it that my daughter can watch a movie while I sew noisly in the background.  She does not.   Don't let the pictures fool you though, there are still 3 small piles of stuff that have yet to find homes in the new space.  I'll get to them one day....

Wild Olive Stitch Swap

Mollie at Wild Olive hosted a switch swap in March.  You were supposed to stitch up a 4 inch hoop and send it your partner.  I was very excited when I got mine since I had totally forgotten it was coming.


A swirly S.  We were supposed to say what colors and motifs we liked.  I wasn't very helpful with motifs, but I did say that I liked green.  It's like Sarah knew me.  She did have this blog to look at!

This is my hoop.  My person, Jennifer, said she liked floral motifs and pink.  I'm pretty sure that I'll never get the glitter all cleaned up, but I do like the way it looks on the hoop.  This is one of the Garden Gals from one of the patterns over at Wild Olive.  I really like how she turned out.  I had a hard time finding something small enough that I liked. 
If you've never done a swap, I would encourage you to be on the look out for one that's interesting to you.  It's a nice way to challenge yourself and get something made just for you in return!

Back in business!

So I had the great idea to switch the office/sewing room with my daughter's bedroom.  I thought that I could get it all done in one long weekend.  Apparently that was a ridiculous thing to think!  I've spent the last 3-4 weeks trying to get this project finished!  I had to paint both rooms, clean the carpets, assemble some new furniture, empty both rooms, and fill them up again.  We are all pretty happy with how it is turning out.  I have a small pile of stuff to give away still and a small box of stuff to find places for.  My daughter loves her new yellow room.  I love my new gray office.  I'm going to try to post about it tomorrow.

I've wanted to make my son a bunny shirt for weeks now because he LOVES bunnies for some reason.  This was my first project on my new desk!  Simple and quick.  Very satisfying!

 

Rotten little thing!  He was excited about wearing his bunny shirt and wouldn't stop playing with the fluffy tail! 

I'm very excited to have a clean (for today!) space to be sewing in again.  I feel very motivated to get some things made!  Off to schedule some more posts....

McEgg Baby Quilt

When Mandy sent an email with the fabric she had chosen for little Salvador Dali, I remembered I had some scrap packs with it in them.  I just love the little blue and green animals and got inspired when I was looking through the scraps for them.  I used several other blue and green "boy" scraps that I found.  I think the sketched cars and truck are my favorite.  My boy like the dinosaurs and carried the fabric around.  A pair of dinosaur pants is now on my list of to dos!

The back is a dot striped sheet from Target.  It wasn't the plan, but it matches perfectly! I also used it for the sashing on the front. 

I didn't get a great picture, but I quilted it with swirly circles, I guess I'd call them.  I also outlined the squares.
I hope little Snoop Dogg McEgg loves it.  (No?  Speedy Gonzales?  My favorite, Sammy Davis?  What do you have?)