I feel like it’s been ages since I’ve done any sewing. It has been a long, busy summer and while I’ve done a few projects here and there, I haven’t worked on anything big. I’ll have to round up pictures of the crafts I made for a recent women’s event I was in charge of, but for now here’s a sneak peek of what I’m working on next. When it’s finished it’ll be a Christmas present for my almost sister-in-law who really wants to know what I’m making. Here’s your hint! Hope you like it!

I do have several other projects in the works. In addition to my brother’s wedding quilt, I have another quilting project that I’m hoping to finish for Christmas, some clothes for me and the girls and some home decor projects. More to come soon!

Wow! I have about fallen off the planet, haven’t I? I took a brief haitus from crafting and blogging, which turned into a longer stretch than I would  have imagined. No point in offering excuses – I don’t have any that are that worth telling – so here’s a picture of the baby quilt that I finally finished. I had it quilted with an allover star pattern and just love how well it turned out. There’s just something about a finished, washed quilt that is all crinkly and beautiful.

Now that school is over for the semester, I have a few weeks to sew before it picks up again in September. I’m going to try to finish some Christmas presents so I won’t have to rush to finish them near the end of the year. Can you believe it’s August already? Where did the summer go?

Earlier this week, I went to visit a friend of mine who recently had a little baby boy. I had been wanting to make a quilt for them, but just couldn’t find the right idea or the right fabric. So I decided to bring my quilt books with me when I went to visit.

We poured through idea books for a while, as I tried to get an idea of what she liked. I mentioned that I have friends who really like log cabins, another friend who loves pinwheels, but I tended to gravitate to stars. She told me that they used to live in Philadelphia so maybe something red, white and blue may be fun.

On the way home, I pulled off the road to call a friend (trying to be responsible and not talk on my cell while driving). As I did, I noticed a sign for a fabric store. I figured I’d go and just see what they had. I’m so glad I did! I found the sweetest fabrics that I knew were perfect for this quilt. I ended up with some red with little tan stars, blue with tan stars and tan with red stars. I got home and pulled out these red, white and blue charm squares I had – I bought them months ago on a whim and wasn’t sure what I’d ever do with them. I didn’t have a pattern I wanted to use, so I figured I’d wing it. Starting with the charm squares, I put together some pinwheels (and some four patches that just didn’t make the cut), then got the idea for the star blocks. Add a few borders and a few extra pinwheels and presto! A cute little baby quilt!

I’m off to the fabric store tomorrow for batting and backing fabric so I can put this little quilt together. I think I’m going to bind it in red. I hope they like it!

My mother-in-law was here this week and taught me a couple of things about sewing. She taught me about the mending stitch on my sewing machine, how to add godets to a skirt to add extra fullness and a couple of finishing techniques. I wished I had been able to watch her a little more closely while she sewed my dress. What she accomplished in two days would have taken me at least a week! Probably two!

Here’s what she made for me. She was able to use the pattern I drafted with some minor (and not-so minor) adjustments.

My husband took one look and told me it looked like a dress someone’s grandmother would wear. Nice, huh? My sweet four year old tried to make up for his blunder by exclaiming, “Mommy! You look so pretty!” (She’s been complaining for months about the lack of dresses in my closet.) My six year old son was typically boy – “You look very…flowery.”

I did sneak in a little time at the sewing machine to make a top and pants for my baby girl.

I’m really pleased with how this sweet outfit turned out, though there was a scare. The shirt turned out shorter than I had planned (I guess I didn’t read the pattern closely enough before I cut the fabric) and I had sewed the pants pieces upside down, so there wasn’t enough room around the top. Without intending to, I made a belly shirt and low rider pants for my baby! Fortunately I had more fabric to add to the pants to fix them and they’ll be okay. Not perfect, but wearable. I am pleased with how ruffly the ruffles are.

And, as promised, here is a picture of my other daughter in the pink and tan outfit I made the other week. Her brother is behind her in the sock monkey shorts I sewed. (He asked me to make something and these are the best I could come up with!)

I have a couple of things cut out and ready to sew – a dress for the baby and a ruffly top for the middle one. Hopefully I can get to them this week!

Happy Easter! Here are my three, all decked out in their Easter finery (minus my son’s tie, which met it’s untimely demise somewhere between the beginning and end of Primary).

Hopefully this week will be a big sewing week. I started my brother’s log cabin quilt – you know, the one I nearly severed my finger while cutting. My finger is remarkably better – really another week or two and I should be good as new. Amazing!

I’d like to make some more progress on that quilt and since my mother-in-law will be in town, I’d like to make some headway on that 1930s dress. It obviously won’t be my Easter dress, but it will be springy and fun nonetheless.

I’ll be sure to take some pictures this week. Thanks for reading!

It was another rainy day here, so I spent the afternoon sewing an outfit for my middle daughter. I found these beautiful fabrics – Henry Glass’ Asian Pacific line – at our $1.99/yard fabric store and turned them into a pair of cuffed capris and a reversible A-line top, complete with button closures. I need to get some elastic to finish the pants, but I’m so pleased with how they look.

I’ll have to snap a better picture after I get the pants finished. Maybe I can convince my daughter to stand still long enough to model them for me.

As for my 1930s dress…that’s put on hold until next week. My mother-in-law is coming to visit and she’s an amazing seamstress, the kind who can see a picture and then re-create it without a pattern. I’m going to admit defeat and turn it over to her. For now it’s probably wise that I stick with patterns that actually have sewing instructions!

So I think I’m going to live. I’ve finally taken off the huge bandage they put on at the hospital and have started bandaging my finger with telfa and coban – this really great elastic bandage stuff. So instead of looking like my hand went through WWIII, I now look like ET because I have this big flesh colored ball at the top of my finger.

The good news is that even though it’s pretty sore, I can still function. I can type (good thing since I have a major school assignment due this weekend). And sew (I made a pair of shorts and a dress yesterday. I think today I’m going to pull out the ruffler I bought ages ago and figure out how to make it work for me. I’ve decided I absolutely detest making ruffles and gathers. Hopefully using the ruffler will take the pain out of it for me.

It’s a rainy, gross day here so I’m going to clean the house and then get sewing!

Rule #1: When using a rotary cutter, keep your fingers safely out of the way.

1 hurt finger required

2 hours in the ER (2 1/2 actually)

3 children going on an impromptu playdate at the neighbors

4 neighbors inconvenienced by my stupidity.

I was cutting the fabric for my brother’s quilt into strips and my finger (which I usually keep safely in the middle of the ruler) slipped into the path of my rotary cutter (nice to know my blade was sharp). I sliced a chunk of skin off the side of the pad of my finger. Since my husband was pretty much unreachable at work, I enlisted the help of our teenage neighbor to help me get the first aid supplies down while I put pressure on the finger. She took one look at my gauze-covered finger and turned gray. I had her call her dad to come help me, but he couldn’t find the right supplies in our box, so I called our other neighbor who brought over some different gauze and volunteered the services of her nurse husband. He came over, wrapped my finger tightly and drove me to the ER.

Lesson learned: Quilting is a very dangerous hobby!

I’ve decided to order one of these. I can use it as a grip for my quilt ruler to get a better grip AND keep my fingers safely out of the way.

The good news: I didn’t bleed on the fabric.

It was overcast and off-and-on rainy today, so we were inside again. I took the girls on an impromptu trip to the $1.99 yard fabric store where I found all kinds of good things. Too many things. I had to put about 1/3 of my pile back when I started running too far over budget. (Shh…don’t tell!) I finally broke down and bought some thread that is not white. Since I haven’t done much sewing, save piecing some quilt blocks where it really doesn’t matter what color thread you use, I’ve stuck with white. And black since I had to do something with black thread once. I can’t remember now quite what it was though. I went totally thread crazy and ended up with cream (I know…I’m a wild one!), light blue, light green, darker green and pink. And white.

Why did I buy colored thread? I bought the most beautiful fabrics to make dresses for the girls and figured they’d look better if I used matching thread.

I spent naptime today cutting the pieces for the dresses. I’m making matching ones for the girls – Camille in blue floral and Chloe in the same print but on a green background. This afternoon I stitched Camille’s dress. And this evening I finished everything except the hem. I figure I’ll have her try it on before I hem it to be sure it’s the right length. It’s so cute. I’ll have to take pictures with her in it. I’m hoping to make time to work on Chloe’s tomorrow. Rob will be home tomorrow, so I’m not sure how much sewing will be accomplished.

In between cutting and sewing, I (tried to) organize my little sewing corner. Since I sew in the dining room, I try to keep all of my supplies fairly neat. I have a three drawer cart that I had filled with my scraps and other quilting pieces. Since I had to hide my new fabric somewhere, I cleared out the drawers and filled it with the yardage fabric. The scraps I separated into different bags, keeping the washed scraps apart from the unwashed ones. At some point I’ll organize them by color or size, but for now I have all of my bags of scraps in a larger bag and stashed upstairs in another room. It’ll be nice to have all the new fabric handy – I may get more sewing done if I can see it staring at me.

Tonight I broke out the manual to my sewing machine and taught myself to make buttonholes (not as hard as I thought) and experimented with some freehand machine quilting. I tried my hand at a meander or stipple stitch. I made a good first attempt but will need lots of practice before I start something bigger.

I spent this morning sewing together those wonky pinwheel blocks. I had originally decided to sash them, but when I couldn’t find just the right fabric for the sashing, I scrapped that idea. My sister, visiting for the weekend, suggested I arrange them this way. I really like the way it looks so far.

The top is now done and is partially basted. I ran out of pins and am waiting for my husband to get back from the store with a fresh box. Now I just have to decide how I’m going to quilt it. It will likely involve me running to the store for thread since I’m running low.

Here’s an important quilting lesson: When you sew your seams, be sure to leave 1/4″ seam allowance. If you don’t leave enough seam allowance, it may not be enough to hold the material pieces together. This was the problem I encountered when I was working on the quilt top this morning. I sewed the entire thing together and was in the process of ironing it when I noticed this:

I had to take out the stitching and replace the piece since there was no way to fix it. I’m anxious to get the whole top quilted. I think once that is done the quilt will be much less fragile.

Sewing was really fun today. Not only did I come nearer to finishing one of the projects on my list, but I was able to look at these while I worked.

So pretty!