Doll quilt

I had a bunch of extra squares leftover from my Christmas quilt project that I realized would be perfect for a doll quilt for one of E's Christmas gifts. She is very very into playing with her animals and baby dolls lately, and spends a lot of time making elaborate beds for them out of couch cushions, blankets from her own bed, and bits of fabric from my scrap bag. It's actually pretty hilarious to see her "sleepover" set up all over the living room floor.

The doll quilt also was the perfect opportunity for me to get some practice with free-motion quilting, which I'd never done before but have been wanting to try. I have to say, it was a bit difficult, but I really enjoyed it! I think I still have a long ways to go before I really get the hang of it, but I'm fairly sure I'm going to go ahead and use this technique on my big Christmas quilt.

Here's the finished doll quilt, front:



And back:


And an "action shot" where you can see the quilting in a bit more detail:


I cheated on the finishing and instead of making binding, I left a 1 1/4" border all around of the backing fabric, which I then folded over twice, pressed, and stitched down. WAY easier than dealing with binding. I'm actually pretty happy with it overall. Not bad for using up odds and ends I had laying around!

The only thing I have left to do now is wash it, which I'm actually sort of terrified to do. Normally, I prewash and dry all my fabric, but since I used the layer cake, that wasn't an option. The ladies at the quilt shop told me that it was better to keep it all the same, so wash everything or nothing. I'm really nervous about how badly the red fabric is going to bleed, especially since I have pure white squares in the mix. I think I'm going to do a trial run with one of those 'color catcher' sheets and see how it turns out. I keep telling myself, "it's only for a doll, it's only for a doll..." But if it does bleed, I guess that means that the full-size version will never be washed. *sigh* Keep your fingers crossed on that one.

Of course, now that I've made this little doll accessory, I feel compelled to make some little clothes for E's dolls and animals as well. She's actually been asking me to do this for a while, and I think I'm finally going to suck it up and make a few outfits for her stocking stuffers.

Way way behind

I've been sick on and off (but mostly on) for the better part of the last month. It's been really frustrating to not feel 100%, but even more than that, it's been driving me crazy how far behind I've fallen with my holiday crafting. I swear, my list just keeps getting longer and longer as I see more and more cute ideas for gifts and such.

The only project I've managed to finish recently is the tree skirt I started over a month ago for E's little Christmas tree. She's so excited about Christmas this year that we thought it'd be cool for her to have her own little (fake) tree in her room that she could decorate herself. I decided to make a little tree skirt for it, loosely based on this tute. Obviously I made hers a lot smaller, 26" diameter, and because of that, I also opted to only use 6 pieces instead of 8. I won't go into boring details, but if anyone's interested in how I did that, just post in the comments. ;)



I actually am extremely unhappy with how the tree skirt turned out, mainly because I screwed up the binding pretty badly. It's extra sloppy (and don't even get me started about how the backside looks), so sorry, no close-up shots.





So since I lamely have nothing else to show for the past few weeks of sickies, I thought I'd post about some WIPs and a few links to cool projects that I'd like to attempt to have done in time for Christmas. Some are decorations, some are toys, most are holiday-oriented.

I have a couple commissions I'm almost done with, one knit and one sewn, and I'm also trying to concurrently work on some handmade Christmas gifts for friends and family. I really want to post a tutorial for the gifties, but I also don't want to ruin the surprise...decisions, decisions.

I'm also still hopeful that I might be able to finish the Christmas quilt before Christmas. I have, however, given up on hand-quilting. Partly because I just didn't like the look of it, but mostly because I regained my sanity and realized that it would take me about 10 years to finish it by hand. Now I'm thinking I may give free-motion quilting a go.

This weekend's big project is baking! I'm hosting a cookie exchange next week and I have LOTS of baking to do. I still haven't entirely decided on what kind of cookies I'm going to make for the exchange, but being the overambitious nerd that I am, I also want to make decorated cookies for everyone. Going to be a busy busy weekend.

In a perfect world, I'd also have time to make some of this stuff:
Felt circle garland
Origami star
Paper evergreens
Salt-dough ornaments
Crochet snowflakes
Snowman decoration

Slowdown

Sorry as usual for the lack of posts, but life has gotten in the way of crafting. I recently found out that our beloved dog has renal failure, so I've been too busy worrying and tending to her to be very productive. Here's a pic of my sweet girl in her prime, back when we lived in Chicago.

I have, however, still managed to finish a few items in the last couple weeks, mostly commissions for friends.

Black and white pompom hat for a toddler. I don't usually make hats with the squared-off top like that, but I think I may start. With the pompoms, it's super cute!

And this one is one of my new favorites - owl hat!

My friend's son is obsessed with owls and she asked if I could make an owl hat for him with some extra soft yarn since he's been having issues with hats being scratchy. I was really excited to find some yummy wool/cashmere yarn (Debbie Bliss Como) at my LYS in what I think are perfectly owl-y colors. I came up with the pattern on my own, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. His eyes and beak are 100% wool felt, and stitched on by hand.

E was also very excited about the owl hat, so I of course now I'm making her one too. But being the cheapskate I am, hers is made from Lion Brand's Wool-ease Thick & Chunky, which I got on sale not too long ago.

Currently, I'm working on another commission (a football themed hat in yummy wool/bamboo yarn), and I'm also making slow but sure progress on the Christmas quilt. I'm determined to have that thing done by Christmas, come hell or high water! However, in a bout of insanity, I decided I wanted to hand-quilt it. Let's just say it's not going so well right now. There may be a total about-face in the near future.

Here's some pics of the finished quilt-top and the back.

Biggest project yet (WIP)

And I mean that quite literally. I think I mentioned at the beginning of the summer that I had bought a "layer cake" of Christmas fabrics (moda's ultra-yummy Figgy Pudding line) with the intention of making a big quilt. Well, only about 4 months later, I finally got started. It's odd. I never in a million years thought that I would take up quilting, but after making one for E's toddler bed, I've totally been bitten by the bug. Something about the excuse to buy so many different yummy fabrics is irresistible to my fabric-hoarding self.

As usual, I got a bit overambitious with this one. I decided that instead of doing straight squares like last time, I'd try to get a bit more fancy and do a pattern. After googling around and reading up on the basics and such that I'd skipped last time around, I settled on what's called a "disappearing nine-patch" pattern. I was drawn to it partly because it looks way more complicated than it is, but also because it can be done in so many variations, each with its own distinctive look (one of my favorite was this one, which used almost all black and white fabrics, with a splash of red in the center of each 9-patch).

Basically, what I ended up doing was cutting each of my 10" layer cake squares into four 5" squares. Then I sewed those into 9-square patches. Here's all the 9-patches, laid out together.

After all the work involved in sewing & squaring off these patches, I was sorely tempted to just leave it like this. But I decided to push on and, holding my breath, cut each 9-patch into quarters, like so:

This felt like it took FOREVER, especially squaring everything off, but I finally ended up with 64 squares. Then I spent a while arranging them on the floor until they were "random." After all that, sewing them together was a snap, although as usual, there was a lot of ironing involved.

Here's the quilt top so far. I'm pretty happy with it.

I had held off on ordering any yardage for the backing, binding etc. because there are so many colorways and I wanted to see exactly how the pattern was going to look before settling on coordinating fabrics. The big disadvantage to waiting was that a lot of this line is now sold out. I did manage to find a few different fabrics that I'm going to piece together for the border, backing and binding, so I'm hoping it'll all work out.

I'm on a bit of a knitting kick of late, so it may be a while before I get back to this quilt, but I WILL have it done by Christmas!!

I'm really in trouble now...

I think I've been bitten by the quilting bug. I don't quite know how it happened. I always swore that I had no interest in quilting, that the idea of cutting and sewing all those small pieces would surely drive me insane. And yet...

OK, so I did make a little quilt for E. That was sort of the start of it. I never knew that you could buy pre-cut squares of fabric (called charm packs)! So when I came across them at this amazing fabric store a few months ago, I thought, how hard could it be? Half the work is cutting, and that's been eliminated! That was the the beginning of the end. I actually finished the crib-size quilt in (for me) a reasonably quick mannger, even though the actual machine quilting was such a pain that I swore I'd never make another one.


Then a few weeks ago, I came across a "layer cake," which is big 10" squares, in this adorable set of Christmas prints and at almost half off! How could I resist? I thought, "This would make a wonderful Christmas gift for a family member." I resolved to pay someone else to do the quilting with a long-arm machine, since that was the part I most disliked. And that's where I got totally sucked in.

I started thinking to myself, well, just sewing these giant squares together is sort of boring. Maybe I should try and do a slightly more complicated pattern. So I started looking online at patterns and tutorials. And then I wandered into another cool local fabric shop with the idea that I'd at least pick up coordinating fabric for the backing and binding, and pretty much all was lost. I came out of there with a pattern, a ridiculous number of fat quarters (I'll save my stash issues for another post), a million ideas for new projects, and neither backing nor binding fabric. Eep.

So now I'm waffling on whether to actually use the pattern I bought or to save it for some future new quilt (because I'm realizing there WILL be more quilts in my future). And I've realized from the yardage requirements on the pattern I bought that I don't have quite enough to make as a big a quilt as I had originally intended, so I've started debating whether I should try and find another layer cake, or maybe get some yardage and do more borders...and it just gets crazier and crazier. My initial savings of $20 is probably going to end up costing me hundreds.

Although I'm happy to say, at least I'm taking others down with me; I think I've managed to suck a few friends into my new quilting mania. Haha!

The quilt...

is done! Hurrah! After much griping and the loss of maybe a pint or two of blood via a million little pinpricks, the quilt is finally finished! I have to say, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. But I'm also unlikely to ever try this again. I did get to test out this very clever little trick for making my own bias tape that I will definitely be utilizing more often. It's a bit labor-intensive and heavy on the ironing, but the end product is SO much nicer than store-bought binding!

Anyways, here are some pics of the finished product, as well as a bonus shot of E rolling around with it in her new "big girl" bed. I have to say, I'm really quite happy with how it turned out. I absolutely love the fabric. On the off chance that I ever lose my sanity and decide to make another one, I'm definitely sticking with the charm packs.



Next up, some crafting-for-hire in the form of another crayon roll and some crochet shapes. And I'm also working on making a little backpack for E.

More weekend sewing

A friend and I ventured out to Fort Worth to check out this fabric store we'd heard about. I was a bit skeptical about taking an hour drive for fabric, but I have to say it was totally worth it! I didn't have anything particular in mind when I walked in, but one hour+ and $50+ later, I had the makings for a quilt!

Never mind that I've never made a quilt in my life. In fact, I'd previously said I'd NEVER take up quilting because I've always been intimidated by the precision required (read: cutting and sewing straight lines), not to mention all the steps to get a finished project. But of course, once I mentioned offhand to E something about making a blanket for her, she got very very excited. A little too excited - she was way too unfocused to express any kind of preference (shocking for a 2-year-old, right?), so I decided to pick on my own. Now if someone had told me before that you could buy the fabric already cut into squares, I would have been all over this years ago!! Cutting is easily my least favorite part of sewing.

So with about 4 "charm packs" of some gorgeous Moda fabric, I managed to get all this pieced together at my mommy sewing night last night!


I'm really excited, albeit still nervous about how it's going to turn out. I had originally had the bright idea to do sashing inbetween each row, but I'm thinking now that maybe I should keep it simple. Although I did already spend the money on the fabric, so I keep going back and forth on it. *sigh*

Last, but not least, I FINALLY got around to making a zipped lined pouch from this tutorial that I've been dying to try. If I'd had any idea it was going to be so easy, I would have done it ages ago! I see a lot of little makeup bag gifties in my future. Hee! This one is made with some leftover fabric to match the Amy Butler Birdie Sling I made a few weeks ago.