My Last Finish of 2012

Also known as: I'm going on a vacation and won't get to sew for the rest of the year.

Don't worry. Since I'm seriously not capable of twiddling my thumbs whilst at my in-laws, I'm taking my small cutting mat and some things I can cut and prep while my kids play at their Nana's house.

But here's my last little finish:

I had some leftover triangles from my Lucy's Crab Shack quilt (which is just waiting for some backing to go on sale). I thought at first I'd make some pillow shams, but I saw some fun patchwork bathmats on flickr and since I hate my ugly bathmats, I went ahead and made some.

Backed in navy blue terry cloth with corner thingies so I can add a slip-proof mat underneath.

Right now, this one is residing in front of my washer and dryer, and I kinda like it there.

Marking this one off the 4Q FAL list and ready to link up after New Year's. I'll still try to blog from Boise if I actually accomplish anything. Maybe I'll get to drool over my SIL's Gammill. And we always go do some fabric shopping, so I can't wait to see what I come home with!

Happy New Year!

Friday Finish: An old finish, but I need to blog it!

Can't believe I haven't blogged this quilt! I was going through my 4QFAL list, making sure I'm ready for the link up after the first of the year. Couldn't find a blog post about this quilt for my awesome little man James. So here it is:

Backed in orange minky because that's his favorite color. I've got enough fabric left over from this project to make one more. Can't hurt. It's SO flippin' cold downstairs in our house. I want my babies warm!

And since you were so nice to let me post an old finish, here's a new one. I'm excited about this one. Made some e-reader covers for Christmas gifts (one for me too!). I love this London one:

I had so much fun trying to fussy cut things, make sure they lined up just right. Love the crowns, and the "I heart London" line.

I even made sure it showed up on the binding! Love it all!

Then I made three library bags for my book-loving niece and nephews.

Those, along with some new books, have been wrapped and shipped off.

I've got most of my Christmas sewing done (with a vow to myself to get it done a whole lot sooner next year!). Finished the law student's jammies. Bagged the softy idea (one pattern was making me lose my religion, so not really what I want to be doing during the Christmas season!). Working on a robe for my oldest son and more gift bags. That's about it!

Have a lovely weekend!

Friday Finish and giveaway winners!

Based on the extensive research I just did, I've discovered the following:

• A whole lot o' Jerry Maguire fans are out there crafting. Someone should warn Tom Cruise. I'd thought from all the "Hey Girl" pictures on Pinterest that I'd see more quotes from "The Notebook."
• Another group pays attention to the crazy lines I missed: "I carried a watermelon."
• And then there's the Princess Bride contingency. I think we can safely say Sweet Wesley could successfully run for President on the "As You Wish" campaign and sweep the nation off its feet. Inigo could be his Defense Secretary.

But there can be only one winner of the gift certificate, and that winner (chosen at random) is:

32. Lyanna L. said...

"Tinsel, not just for decoration" -- the santa clause

For some reason it makes me laugh. Thanks for the chance to win - love that shop!

I've sent you an e-mail Lyanna, just to confirm, and then we'll get you your gift certificate.

But wait, I said winnerS up there in the title.

I have a confession to make. I had a totally different prize planned, but then it hadn't arrived and I didn't want to promise something and have it be late. So I went with the gift certificate. In the meantime, a package arrived from fabric.com and I cut it up and I now have a second prize:

10 fat quarters of London-y fabric (I ordered a yard o' each because I'm using it for some fun Christmas gifts).

Since the gift certificate winner was chosen randomly, I figured I could be more selective with the London fabric winner.

I only showed you two of my favorite movie lines. But my all-time favorite is this one (you just have to watch the first bit, because who wants to see Mr. Darcy get turned down?):

And a close second is this one:

Love my Jane Austen! So, from the Jane Austen submissions, we selected a winner for the London fabric. And that winner is:

160. Vivian said...

My favorite movie line is when Mr Darcy professes his love and says, I most ardently love you... or something like that. I always rewind like 5 times. Vivian

I've sent you an e-mail so I can get your address!

Congratulations to the two winners!

And now, my finish for the week. No, not the quilt I was supposed to be finishing. Do you ever have tension/thread breaking/skipped stitches issues and bag the whole thing for now? Yep, had all three and couldn't take it anymore. So it's in the corner, waiting for the seam ripper. After Christmas is over. We might be taking a road trip, so that's the perfect project for a long drive.

Instead, I finished this cute little passport wallet:

See my little helper's fingers?

The wallet is a gift for my new French sister, who loves guitars. She's from Paris (I know, right?), and she's an exchange student staying with my parents for the year. My kids adore their new auntie and I wanted to make her a little something. 

Now excuse me - I've got a eleventy thousand Christmas projects to get done and not nearly enough time to do it all! And just to make it fun, I've got a teething, fussy baby. Yikes!

Friday Finish: Red and White Christmas

I love the film "White Christmas." It's been a favorite for a really long time. Love it when Bing and Danny Kaye dress in drag and do the "Sisters" number.

Go ahead. Watch it. I'll wait.

But the finale is my favorite. Makes me cry, every time. And I love that everything is red and white. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against green, but red and white are my Christmas colors. The tree gets to be green. Everything else is red and white.

I finished two red and white HST quilts last year.

This top was in the works all year. I've been hoarding the last of this Holiday Hostess fabric.

If I could, I'd make myself a dress like this one. I'd wear kitten heels. Think I'm kidding? I also would love to recreate Vera Ellen's dress up there. Nope, not kidding at all.

Now, normally I wouldn't love such a matchy matchy quilt. I've actually come to adore scrappier looking quilts. But for Christmas, and for this fabric, I'll make an exception.

And when it's backed in red polka dot minky . . .

And bound in red and white stripe . . .


Well, it's going to be hard to share.

Checking this one off the 4Q FAL list. Eleven down, ten to go! Ooh, and this one is on the 100 Day Hustle list too! Hallelujah!

Linking up with Sarah at Confessions and Amanda Jean at crazymomquilts. 

Make-A-List Monday: We need a little Christmas . . .

What a week that was! I made a quick trip to my hometown on Saturday, so that cut into my sewing time a bit. I was supposed to come home yesterday, but there was some seriously thick fog that I did not want to drive through. Not with all the crazy college students returning. So I stayed an extra night and drove home this morning. It was a nice visit, but it meant that not a lot got done.

How did you do? Here's an update on me:

• Quilt and bind Holiday Hostess quilt

Nope. Gotta get this one done right away and mailed this week!

• Make my tree skirt

It's official. My tree has cuter Christmas clothes than I do!

• Baste, quilt and bind Easy as Cake Christmas quilt

It's basted. I'll finish this one up this week too.

• Work on my, erm, Halloween Spider web quilt 

The strips are sewn and pressed. I've got to get the cutting done. Later. Those Christmas quilts are top priority now.

•  Make my Christmas gift bags

Three are done and waiting to hold gifts. More to come, but I can check this off my 4Q FAL list.

Less than a month left until Christmas. I've got WAY too much planned. Here's my list:

• Seven new stockings
• Five sets of dragon wings
• Five different softies: a dolphin, a shark, a sea turtle, an alligator and an owl
• jammies for my husband
• The rest of the gift bags
• Five dragon softies for my little dragon lovers - I'm SO excited about this one 
• Library bags and zipper wallets for my niece and nephews

So, for this week:

• Project organization
• Quilt and bind Holiday Hostess quilt - ship it off!
• Quilt and bind Easy as Cake Christmas quilt

That's it. When those three are done, then I'll get to this stuff:

• stockings
• gift bags
• softies (I'll start with the owl for my baby girl)
• library bags

What's on your list, fellow elves? Linking up!

RED Friday

I don't do Black Friday, for the most part. I've done it once, at JoAnn's, and it was a nightmare. Great deals on flannel, but not necessarily worth my time.

So I declared a Red Friday, crafty Christmas style. I stayed at home, in my comfy clothes, with my Christmas socks, Christmas music and Christmas movies (and leftover turkey and pie), sewing Christmas crafts.

A tree skirt. Or maybe a tree petticoat? Whatever it is, it's done and in need of a tree. And off the 4Q FAL list officially! 10 projects down, 11 to go!

Seven stockings. Which means chain stitching a whole lot of HSTs.

Gift bags. I'm loving the gift bags this year!

Oh, and watching my University of Washington Huskies lose the Apple Cup. I should have called it a purple Friday. :)

How was your day?

Vacation, anyone?

I need a vacation.

Not because I do anything more difficult than anyone else. I'm a mom to five kids. I homeschool. I bake my own bread. I hound kids about piano practice. I read stories. I fix dinner. I do laundry. Lots of laundry. I do dishes. I buy groceries. I help my law student stay focused. And I sew.

But that's not why I need a vacation.

I need a vacation so I can use this gorgeousness:

I love this bag. Everyone says that, right?

And, don't hate me, but it wasn't all that difficult. Maybe because I'd built it up in my mind as some sort of sewing Mt. Everest and it was totally manageable.

A few things:

• Buy a cording/piping foot. A narrow one. Way better than a zipper foot and I could get so close to the cording and keep it really tight.
• I used the steam-a-seam tape for the piping. The ONLY way to go.
• I lengthened and widened the handles a bit. Good move.
• I made a inside zipper pocket, my first EVER, and I love how it turned out.

• I didn't break a single needle, and I didn't use a special needle. I should say though that my machine is a beast, and super strong. And I went very slowly.
• Since I was using directional prints, I had to piece the top panel dandelion pieces. I also wanted to match the patterns, which took some figuring out. It would have been nice if there had been some small pointers on doing this in the pattern.
• I attached the lining by machine at the zipper opening. Just followed along the original stitching and it's just fine. I put on some old Downton episodes and hand-stitched the rest.Give yourself time to do the hand-stitching. It's worth it.

I've got requests for more for Christmas, so this won't be my only one. And I'm okay with that. In fact, I've got my second one cut out and ready to go! On second thought, maybe these should be birthday presents . . .

So where should I go? Just for fun, here are my most realistic fantasy vacation spots of the moment:

Source: creaturecomfortsblog.com via Jennie on Pinterest

A treehouse in Issaquah? Near my favorite city with my favorite bakery and Greek restaurant? Um, yes please?

Source: runoftheriver.com via Jennie on Pinterest

Or a fabulous B&B near Leavenworth, Washington. They have a fabulous Christmas festival. It's a great little Bavarian village in the Cascade Mountains. Love it.

I just need a babysitter for a weekend . . . I have the fabulous bag covered now!Oh, and I'll need a somewhat fabulous wardrobe to go with the bag. You know. Because that's important.

The Official stats:

• Fabric: Premier Prints Small Dandelion Candy Pink/White (it's on sale right now for $5.98/yd.), Ticking Stripe Azalea/Ivory
• Lining pocket tutorial
• Zippers purchased here

Marking this one off the 4Q FAL list and linking up!

Friday Finish: A Little House Christmas

I love Little House on the Prairie. We have all the seasons on DVD. But this little Christmas episode is one of my favorites. They didn't have lots of money for gifts, so they all snuck around and made gifts for each other, or earned money for them doing all sorts of things. Charles built wagon wheels to sell, and made Mary's fur shawl. Laura dyed yarn to knit a scarf for her Pa. Mary worked with the local seamstress to make a shirt for her Pa. And Laura sold her horse to Nellie Olsen to buy a stove for her Ma.

Well, I don't have a horse to sell, but I'm working on some homemade gifts this year. And the first one is done:

A quilt for my little nephew. He's 20 months old, so it's plenty big enough. It's backed in chocolate Minky for extra snuggle factor. And I have extra fabric, so I'll make a couple of pillowcases and crib sheets for his toddler bed.

And crossing this one off my 4Q FAL list.

My extra lining fabric arrives today, so I'm going to get that Weekender Bag done right away so I can link up this weekend. Hope to see you tomorrow!

Linking up with Sarah and Amanda Jean. Have a great Friday!

Friday Finish: My Secret Source of Power

Source: tribaltattoos24.com via Suh on Pinterest

Hee hee. I love Wonder Woman.

I've had, like, eleventy hundred (okay, maybe five) comments about how I get so much done. This makes me laugh, because boy do I feel like I never get anything done. But I guess I do. So I got to thinking: how do I get so much done?

Let's not consider that the laundry doesn't always get sorted. And sometimes I'm loading the dishwasher right before dinner. Or the fact that sometimes my youngest son spends most of the day in his underwear. Hey, at least he's not naked. And in my defense, he does have clean clothes. He just refuses to put them on and I don't feel like fighting.

It's nothing magical. Just organized.

First, it totally helps to have a designated crafting space. With a door. I can leave my project out and go back to it when I can find five or ten minutes. Chicken nuggets in the oven for 15 minutes? Sew some blocks, or work on some binding, or quilt a bit of a quilt. Older kids working on lessons? Cut fabric at the counter.

I also live by lists. I love my lists. I make a "to-do" list for each week. I put everything on it. Dinner plans. Lessons. Piano practice for the kids. Sewing things I want to get done. It's all there. I love crossing things off my list.

I deviate from my lists, but being organized lets me play fast and loose sometimes. Take this past week as an example.

My husband accidentally broke my ironing board. I know. How can you piece a quilt top without an ironing board. Don't ask. He got in some serious trouble for that one.

Fortunately, I had just basted a quilt. So I wound some bobbins and got to quilting while he got to fixing (that is his super power: fixing anything and everything!). By the time Henry's quilt was finished, my ironing board was back.

So here is my official finish for the week:

Used the Slideshow quilt pattern (although I omitted the outer border). Used a FQ bundle and panel of Richard Scarry prints from the Fat Quarter Shop. Quilted in a meandering loopity loop, because that's what I do quickest and best. I stuck with reds, blues, greens and oranges for the accent colors. Some pezzy prints, some Essential dots, some stars. All boy-ish, in my eyes. I tend to lean towards girly quilts, and my boys don't mind them, but they need something manly every now and again.

The Pickle Car and Apple Car are my favorites.

Scrappy binding, green Minky back.

My quilt model/holder was at school, so this is the best I've got for full shot.

Here is the happy little owner of his very own quilt:

Checking this one off the 4Q FAL list. Slowly but surely, it's getting done. And now I can claim my string quilt back. Phew.

I also worked on this:

Isn't she purty? I got my fabric allowance and ordered the rest of the fabric I need for the lining. I also ordered the liner for my umbrella girl bag, so I'll be getting started on that soon. I've got interfacing to cut in the meantime.

And I have to give a shout out to my Prince Charming, who slayed dragons and went on a late night run to Walmart to get me binder clips. He didn't even bat an eye when I said I needed them for a sewing project. He's awesome that way.

Hope you have a great weekend. I have to go turn my sewing space into a guest room for my parents. I might sneak in some cutting though. Can't help myself!

Linking up with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, who once again proves how awesome she and her sweatshop of sewers are by helping out whenever they are needed. Read all about it!

And linking up with Amanda at crazy mom quilts, because I've got a finish to share!

Make-A-List Monday: I'm dreaming of a white . . . Halloween!

Hey y'all!

How was your weekend?

This is what it looked like from my sewing room on Friday afternoon:

Yeah. My kids were so excited. Me? Not so much. To battle the unwelcome snowfall, I grabbed a cup of drinking chocolate (I have a killer awesome recipe that is more like drinking melted chocolate than cocoa - AWESOME!) and browsed through the Friday finishes and the Blogger's Quilt Festival. I made my list of nominations for the festival, which was fun.

As for my list last week, well, here it is:

• Quilt and bind zig zag quilt

Done and my James is so happy (he claims it is HIS quilt because I backed it in orange Minky, and orange is his favorite color, so of course it's his!). Checking it off my 4Q FAL list. Hooray! That's four done. And a gazillion to go!

• Cut out my Weekender bag (and accessory bags from the extra fabric!)

Done. I cut out the dandelion bag, complete with lining and piping and handles, although I need to cut one more top panel. This pattern doesn't give you great instructions when you're dealing with directional prints, so I have to order more of my lining material before I can cut that top panel. Not super happy about that one.

I also cut out the duck for my quilted version and the exterior fabric for my umbrella girl one. I might have also cut some more duck for a Christmas quilted one. Yes, I'm getting carried away. It's what I do.

• Slowly get started on my Weekender bag

I've got the piping made and I'm working on the exterior panels with pockets and handles - my machine is giving me fits and skipping stitches. It did it on a line of topstitching, so of course I had to pick it out. The bag itself is not so bad. It's my machine giving me fits!

Just waiting for payday so I can order my zippers. Making the piping was . . . tedious. I used Steam-a-seam, which is awesome and I've read makes it even faster, which terrifies me to do it the other way.

In the meantime, I made my quilted pieces of out Gypsy Girl.

 

When these are done, I"ll start on a Christmas one. Because I need a Christmas Weekender bag. You don't? Whatever. You're just in denial, that's all. You really need to just embrace the insanity.

• Finish piecing Richard Scarry #1 top

Still working on this. Once birthdays are over (did I mention I have THREE birthdays coming up - the 3rd, the 4th and the 6th), I'll have more brain power to devote to piecing a top. I need to hurry though. The little man who will get this quilt keeps saying my string quilt is his. Silly boy. But I can't correct him until HIS quilt is done. I'll share until then.

Could you resist this face? I know I can't!

• Piece minky backs for 3 quilts

I pieced the back for my Holiday Hostess quilt, that Richard Scarry quilt, my Easy as Cake quilt, my nephew's Max and Whiskers quilt, and my other Richard Scarry quilt. So I did FIVE! Wahoo!

Okay, on to this week:

• Finish piecing the Richard Scarry quilt
• Sew up some birthday drawstring gift bags (I hate wrapping paper!)
• Baste, quilt and bind the Richard Scarry quilt so Henry will stop feeling left out!
• Cut the white fabric I need for James' Richard Scarry quilt
• Continue working on the Weekender madness bag

That's it. In non-sewing lists, I have to go trick-or-treating on Wednesday, make three birthday cakes, and three birthday breakfasts, and three birthday dinners, and get all the gifts together for those three birthdays (I'm so very glad I did the shopping back in August!). I also woke up this morning with a super fun head cold. And I think I got it from my sweet baby girl, so we're chilling in the recliner until we feel better. Ha! I wish.

Have a lovely week!