Block Swap Blocks!

Finished up my blocks for a swap I joined on Flickr.  It was my first swap, so I was a bit nervous about the time commitment, but it looks like so much fun when other people do it.

This one might be my favorite, probably because they're totally my colors!

The way this one works is that you pick some colors, and send it out to the Flickr-verse and you get paired up with five other people who send you colors.  Then you choose a block pattern to make and make it five times in the colors that the other people have chosen, and just send it on to them.

This is supposed to be low-volume.  The fabrics low separately, but I think their volumes have added up to too loud.  We'll see.  

Love that it's super quick, since you don't have to wait for other people to send you their fabrics, or learn how to make a bunch of different blocks.  And, with this group you can jump in for a month or jump out for a month, depending on how crazy life is.

This was my mosaic for the group to use.  I've been wanting to make myself a quilt from these colors for a while, but selfish sewing always tends to get shoved to the bottom of the to-do list.  But, this was the perfect opportunity to use this, and I can't wait to see the blocks all together in person.

WIP Wednesday

Pulled a bunch of fabric from the scrap bin to work on blocks for the Sew Pieceful Block swap.  Almost finished, just have to do the last couple and decide if they're good to send or if I want to redo the colors.  (It's so hard to pick colors for other people!)

Trying to figure out the layout for my flying geese.  Drew this up, did some geometry, realized that I forgot how geometry worked after my half curve up at the top left turned out wrong.  I did salvage it and managed to get both half curves done, but now I'm a bit sewing machine shy.  So I'm putting off the two full curves.  

Hemmed the second Washi Dress in the car. Yeah, that's right, I got some coffee and hemmed in the parking lot.  I have a problem. 

Finally got past the ribbing!  I'm redoing my Sweatshirt Sweater and practicing my Continental Style knitting.  It's pretty slow-going since I'm still trying to form the muscle memory, and because ribbing is sometimes evil, but now that I'm past it, we'll see how just straight up knitting goes. 

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

Hugs and Kisses Wristlets

I love going to the Farmers Market.  We get to go play in the park, buy some veggies that hopefully my kids will at least look at before snubbing them, and there's maple ice cream.  I could write sonnets to that maple ice cream!

So my mission is to always get some veg, get some ice cream, then go lounge while kids run around like wild beasts.  I usually just walk by the other stalls so we can complete the mission (and get to the ice cream faster), but I decided that the kids needed to pet the lambskins and poke the balls of fluffy wool at the wool stall.  Plus, Riverslea Farm is right down the road, so we should at least go say "hi" and check them out.

So we stopped and I was completely taken in by their colorful display at the back.  Why is it not right up front?  It was like they'd picked out all my favorite, ridiculously bright colors and made them into yarn.  And at $9 a skein I couldn't not buy some.  

(Fingers free to do Metal Horns!)

Little man helped me pick out this awesome purple-y blue, though he was a little concerned that there were color variations.  He kept looking for a skein that was the same color throughout, and I had a hard time convincing him that it was okay.  Silly kid.

(Thumbhole!)

And with my two skeins (though I ended up only needing one) I made these Love Me Forever Wristwarmers from Gecika Knits.  The x's and o's are begging me to call them Hugs and Kisses, though.  It's a free pattern on Ravelry that was really fast and easy to follow.  I was able to knit these up in a week, though I don't know why I was rushing through them in the middle of summer.  At least I know they'll be ready for me in the winter when I'm trying to quilt in my freezing cold basement.

(Love the color, but it looks different in every light.  When I bought the yarn, it was blue, and at night it's purple.  I don't know, but I love it)

Best part is that the pattern is really great, but it can be a blank canvas for whatever design you want.  I might try an owl cable pattern next, or this one from The Walker Treasury.  

Linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday at Better off Thread!

Multi-Tasker Tote

I logged onto the Anna Maria Horner Rummage Sale (which is over now, but the patterns are here) I was looking for the Socialite Dress pattern, but I couldn't resist getting the Multi-Tasker Tote pattern too. 

I've made my own bags before, but they were usually just basic bags.  The second I start getting clever and add pockets or flair things start going wrong.  So I obviously need a pattern to get me started. 

(Giant bag with ukelele for scale, and that ukelele would totally fit inside the tote should I ever need to bring it to music lessons)

This bag is huge, like way bigger than I thought it would be, but it ended up perfect.  On it's inaugural run, I managed to stuff my giant Form and Fabric knitting pouch, camera, toddler quilt, and a library copy of Game of Thrones.  That's a whole lot of stuff, and I still had room to spare in all the outer pockets. 

Oh, the pockets.  There's four on the outside that are kind of crazy shaped.  I got all nervous to sew them, but the instructions were awesome and made me feel a little badass when they turned out right.  There's another pocket inside that I sewed down the middle to split into two. 

(Love that tracing the pattern just looks like a horrible Matchbox traffic accident)

I think the next time I use this pattern (which will be as soon as I get to the store for more interfacing) I'll try to scale down the pattern and make more of an around town purse.  That's simple enough to do with a trip to the Staples' Copy Center.

(These Amy Butler prints would be kind of awesome)

I may also try to get more grownup fabric.  The birds and chevrons are from Cloud 9 fabrics at Joann's, and they're so cute, but might be just a little too diaper bag-esque.   Still, wicked cute and I'm pretty happy about how it turned out. 

Linking up with Sew Many Ways!

So Many Pictures!!

Instagram Saturday?  That could totally be a thing.

(Captain Kirk is very helpful with layout)

So here it is; a bunch of pictures of stuff I'm working on!  (And some cats!)

(Kitty photog assistant)

(Little Dude checking my stitch consistency)

Plus Quilt

I'm totally in love with these colors.  Aqua is my go to color for just about everything; clothes, wall paint, toys.  Even my glasses are aqua.  And orange is just a given.  Everything benefits from a little bit of the right orange.

But I was a little scared and in love with the citron in Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley Line.  I bought a bunch for another quilt for a friend, but only ended up using a little.  So I've been staring at the rest of it, trying to figure out how to use it.  Turns out, if you just add navy, everything plays nicely. 

I used a tutorial from For The Love of George (now you can just download the PDF!).  She provides all the measurements and cutting requirements for a queen size and a toddler bed sized quilt.  It's really a quick and easy pattern to follow.

I used two citron prints and one of the orange prints from the Hope Valley line, and the aqua and the other orange are both from Denyse's line for JoAnn Fabrics. The navy is from Dear Stella, and the teal is an Amy Butler print.  I think the aqua dots are from JoAnn's as well, though I bought it so long ago I can't be sure. 

The back is a big piece of Four Square.

For the quilting, I wasn't really sure what to do, so it hung off my shelf behind my sewing area for quite a while waiting for inspiration.  I love doing super dense quilting, but couldn't think of what motifs would really go with the plusses.  I almost did it alternating straight lines and pebbles, but I think the textural contrast would have been too weird here. 

So in the end, I went with all straight lines done with my free motion foot in a color that matched the fabric of that plus sign.  I just eyeballed the distance, trying to keep the last line just to the outside of my free motion foot, so they ended up being around a half inch apart.  At the ends of the line, I just looped gently to the next instead of stitching in the ditch to get a crisp end of the line.  I think it's more fun this way.I also alternated which way the lines went, so each plus sign's quilting runs at a 90 degree angle from the one plus signs it touches. 

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts' Finish It Up Friday!

Socialite Dress

I love making clothes.  My kids will never run out of pj pants, and I love dressing my daughter up in crazy cute dresses, but I haven't made much for myself.  Clearly I needed to fix this, since clothes in stores are usually boring and not made to fit me. 

Enter the Socialite Dress from Anna Maria Horner.  Thanks to her site's rummage sale, I was able to get it half off because of a rip on the cover.  I love how simple it is.  It just drapes off the body, but it's cut so that there's just enough shape and you're not just wearing a sack.

(The aqua fabric at the bottom of the stack is a Michael Miller that became my second Socialite Dress)

I'm so glad I made a muslin first with this dress.  My measurements were in different proportions than the suggested size, so while I kept the top mostly the same, I added a bit more wiggle room in the booty.  Luckily, I was able to just mark out how much more room I wanted to add, an inch at the armpit and two inches at the hip down, and then mostly just followed the original curve of the dress. 

Then, to make sure that the pockets would still line up, I measured from the armpit down to the first mark for the pocket and made sure that these were the same on both pattern pieces and the original.  I used the same method to make sure the notches would line up too.

And I almost forgot to give myself extra fabric for the armhole facings.  Remembered that just as I was about to cut them, and was able to add two inches to the end to compensate for the inch I'd added to each armpit.

(Goofy face, because running around the backyard taking photos of myself is just weird.)

The result is perfect (maybe a little short, but perfect for leggings).  I love this crazy firework pattern from Anna Maria Horner, called Shattered from her Innocent Crush line.  And how perfect is it that this was the yardage I'd bought to make a dress a month before I decided on what pattern to use.  I only wish I'd been able to finish it before the Fourth of July, because it would have been breezy with just a hint of patriotism. 


Linking up with The Train To Crazy's Make It, Wear It Thursday!