In progress - a spring wallhanging

I started this piece back in May (or maybe late April?) and finally completed the applique over the weekend. It took me awhile as I am waaay out of practice and had to take it pretty slowly.

The design is by Edyta Sitar and can be found in her book, Seasonal Silhouettes. This is the "April" block. Bonus: I didn't have to reverse the pattern for hand applique! Included in the book are full-size placement diagrams, so I was able to trace all of my pieces from that.

In the picture above, you can see a couple of the fabrics I'm auditioning for borders. I'm not quite ready to decide, so I'll muse a bit longer. I plan to finish this up and hang it in my entryway. I think this will work as a "generic" wallhanging so now it won't just be Christmas/Easter/Halloween all year! My ultimate goal is to try and have a nice collection of seasonal wallhangings to display through the year.

Another McCall's 6612

Feeling inspired by the Sew Crafty Chemist and her recent finishes, I decided I needed to sew something. It needed to be a low-impact kind of project-- one that would not require lots of fitting or fussing. I was looking through my patterns and McCall's 6612 caught my eye. I had made View B previously and knew it was a good fit. So I decided to go with view C for a fun summer dress:

I cut a size 16 and didn't make any real fit adjustments, but I did veer from the instructions construction-wise. The fabric is an ITY knit bought a couple of years ago from Fabric.com.

The most challenging part of this dress was the neckline. I determined that I needed to do more than just turn and hem, because I felt certain it would just stretch and get all funky if left to its own devices. So, taking my cue from the last time I made the dress , I used a tip from PatternReview as my guide, "Using Clear Elastic to Stabilize Necklines," except this time I attempted to stabilize the entire neck and not just the back. (And now I just have to take a moment to celebrate the fact that I actually thought to look at my blog post on the dress to see what, if anything, I should adjust! Woo!) Anyway-- the whole clear elastic thing was challenging for me! It took probably ten times as long as it should have. I mean, it seems pretty straightforward, but the actual doing of it really just was not clicking for me. My fabric was not holding a press at all well, the elastic made turning the hem weird, and even with a ton of pins, I just couldn't keep everything in place.

As a result, my neckline is not beautifully finished (as you can see above). But it is done. And the ugly parts are on the inside where no one can see.

Other than the whole neckline extravaganza, the dress came together very quickly! To save a few steps, I attached the top of the sleeve to the body and then sewed one long seam from the bottom hem all the way to the sleeve hem instead of setting in the sleeve. I also used a 1/2" seam there instead of 5/8" just to give a little extra room. I did a lot of extra pinning throughout the process to help ensure the stripes aligned. The hemming was done with my coverstitch machine.

Overall, I am thrilled with my new comfortable, flattering and happy dress!

A Mail Sack for me!

For the last few months, I have been teaching a friend how to sew. We usually meet about once a week. For her first couple of projects, she made dresses for her baby girl. For her third project, she wanted something we could work on together. We chose the Mail Sack pattern from Pink Chalk Studio. We finished our bags this week!

It was a great project for a budding sewist-- a straightforward (and fun!) design, great instructions, and a few more challenging bits to grow skills (zipper, accuracy, and lots of edge stitching). We made the Large/Adult size, resulting in a nice, roomy bag (perfect for outings with the boys).

For the main body of my bag, I used a gorgeous print ("Deep Sea Beauty Contest" by kayajoy) purchased from Spoonflower (back in 2011) in a linen/cotton blend. It is a great weight and quite nice. There was a bit of fading when I pre-washed it, but the colors, while not as vibrant, are still lovely. I pulled a couple of other fabrics from my stash for the straps and lining.

Love the zipper pocket! I shortened the strap by 2" but made no other changes. I wish I had a picture to share of my friend's bag-- you'll just have to take my word for it that hers turned out great as well!

I've made this bag twice before in the mini/child size for each of my boys (Big Bear and Little Bear). Both times I stated that I wanted one for me-- and now (finally!) I have one! Even better, it was a project I got to make with a friend.

Serenitea Quilt

Thanks to motivation from The Sassy Quilter's Triangle Quilt Along, I have managed to finish my triangle top just in time to enter into her last-chance link-up! Woo!

The design is simple enough-- lots and lots of 4.5" equilateral triangles. They were super-easy to cut out using my Hex N More ruler. A bit of starch before cutting and careful handling made them pretty easy to work with as well. The print fabrics are all from Patty Young's Sanctuary collection from Michael Miller Fabrics that came out a few years ago. The solids are Kona cottons in Glacier, Medium Gray, Spring Green, and Bahama Blue.

For this one, I went wavy lines all over. I knew I wanted something with some curve to it, and that would give it some texture. I looked about for inspiration and found a couple of triangle quilts (here and here) quilted with wavy lines and really liked the effect, so I went for it. Aurifil Mako 50/2 in Light Juniper (2845), a pretty sea green-colored thread, was used for all of the quilting.

Continuing on my perpetual quest to use my stash, I pieced together the back with fabrics I had on hand. I can't even remember how long ago I bought that pretty blue/green print...

The quilting really shines on the solid sections of the back.

I decided to leave the jagged triangle edges along the sides mostly to have the experience of binding them. I used a a couple of tutorials from Jaybird Quilts to guide me through the binding process: "Quilt Binding Basics, Part 2" for cutting the bias binding; then "How to Bind 120° Angles Tutorial" as a guide for dealing with the funky edges.

As I didn't have quite enough striped fabric to get around the whole quilt, I used a bit of Kona Green Tea to supplement. I wasn't sure about the stripes at first, but I loved how well the colors went with the fabrics in the top so used it anyway. It actually doesn't look too bad!

My mother-in-law's favorite colors are teal and turquoise, so I've decided that this quilt will be for her. She is a tea drinker and I found a beautiful tea cup on Etsy that matches the quilt beautifully that I will give to her at the same time. The cup is what inspired me to name this one the "Serenitea Quilt."

I think this will make a happy Christmas gift-- now the trick is managing to wait until then to give it to her!

Finally!!!

A quilt for Little Bear!!!

The design is from Abbey Lane Quilts and is called "Meter Maid." The pattern was straightforward and easy to follow. I also appreciated that it accounts for directional prints in the cutting directions (a big plus since I was using some directional prints!).

The bulk of the fabric was from a fat quarter set I purchased at Quilt Festival last fall from Hearts to Holly Quilt Shop. I added a couple more from my stash, and chose Kona cream for the solid frames.

Since the frames were solid, I really wanted to do something interesting quilting-wise as I knew it would show up really well. I decided to do circles (traced from a spool of thread) in the narrow parts of the frame and outside border, and the fun loopy design in the wider frame parts and border. I used Aurifil Mako 50/2 in Pale Flesh (2315) for all of that. Then I quilted the prints with a simple meander using Aurifil Make 50/2 in Dove (2600).

I love that the quilting is so visible on the back!

I also love that I was able to use up the last bits of fabric from the front in the back. They add some nice color, too.

And the label... I decided to name this one, "Vehicles Vroom!!!"

As I was taking pictures, I noticed this:

Doh! I think that happened in the wash. I prewashed all of my fabrics, so didn't think to put a color catcher in with it when I gave it a wash after completion. At first I thought it might be the wash-out blue marker I used-- except that I didn't mark that part at all (I only marked the circles), and that is the only spot in the quilt where the stain appears. I'll definitely be more careful in the future and use a color catcher. Fortunately, Little Bear doesn't care about the stain. :)

It only took four years. Ha! But, he finally has his own quilt made especially for him. Yay!!!

Fancy tote bag

A friend of ours recently turned four-- the perfect excuse for me to make something fun and frilly!

She had recently seen a tote bag at a local farmer's market and fallen in love with it. Her mama was not in love with the price and so they did not pick it up that day. I said, "Hey! I can make something like that!"

Using purple fabrics from my stash (because that is her favorite color), and a couple yards of purchased trim, I designed and put this together. It is very similar to a bag I made for myself a few years ago-- just a wee bit smaller (and much fancier looking!).

This girl is all about the bling, so I found some super-sparkly pink trim that I layered atop some ribbon for the mid-section of the bag. Then I used one of my machine's fancy stitches to attach the beaded trim along the top.

Even the lining is purple. And, of course, I had to put a little pocket in there.

Best of all-- our friend LOVED it! Yay!!!

Digging out the next UFO

I finished up the top and backing for my triangle quilt and it is ready for basting. I've also got a plan for quilting it up. So I'm feeling ready to tackle something "new."

A few(!) years ago, I joined an online 9-patch swap. As a result, I have this pile of 60 9-patches. I've been thinking about how to go about using them for awhile now and have narrowed it down to two options.

Option 1:

My first thought was to do something pretty straightforward and simple. Classic! I'm definitely thinking navy/dark blue sashing and borders. It would be about 60" square. I might even have enough in my stash to make this one happen.

Option 2:

This, however, is the option I'm leaning toward: an on-point square of sashed 9-patches with setting triangles. It is more interesting to me visually, and would give me some fun quilting space, and be a little bigger, finishing about 80" square. The downside is that I would definitely have to buy some fabric.

Either way, I need a few more 9-patches to make it work, so I dug through my little 2.5" scrap box.

If nothing else, I think I'll be putting together a few of those this week as I ponder the options.