Baby in the Hood

I have had Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings book for months. My baby is starting to get too big to fit in some of the clothes, but there is always a baby around to sew for.  I did make two of these little Baby in the Hood jackets.  One in the 3-6 month size and one in the 18-24 month size. I made them out of the same fabric and with the same notions. Tessa loves coats and jackets and promptly put hers on. The other was a gift for a sweet baby girl from my old neighbor hood.

I stitched a label in the back with the size tag on it. Maybe one of these days I will get around to buying some premade ones, but I do like the look of the little fabric labels.

 

The instructions and pattern were really clear and easy to follow, but there were a lot of steps. It felt like even more making the jacket two times.  I used Riley Blake Sugar and Spice by the Quilted Fish for the jackets. It's been around for about two years and it's about time that I destashed it!

Valentine Hearts

I made this heart wristlets for the girls for Valentine's Day. They came from a tutorial on Sew Mam Sew that has disappeared-or I would link to it. I used scraps (yay!) for the whole project. They are pretty small, the zippers are just four inches across, so just coins or small treasures fit inside them. The girls loved them though and Tessa totes her 'purse' around regularly.

Finish-Irish Flag Quilt

 I love how this quilt turned out.  I loved that it used up a lot of scraps and that I actually made something with scraps!  I backed it with a super soft fabric that gave me terrible fits.  It was plush and soft on both sides and made for a lot of broken needles.  I wanted to give up at one point, but I am glad I didn't.

Diaper Bag and Baby Blanket

 I don't know how many times I have made this bag, it's such a convenient diaper bag.  This one is made with Madrona Road fabric, I love the way it turned out.  I had just enough of these prints to make this bag with hardly any scraps. 

I also made a little receiving blanket.  It is flannel and cotton.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out the baby had a nursery decorated in a space theme.  The orange rockets fit right in!  It's a self-binding blanket.

Works in Progress

I have been sewing quite a bit this past month, just not blogging.  I am terrible at taking pictures, which may be the main reason for this blog.  It forces me to record the things I have made.  I give a lot of stuff away and a few times I have seen a friend with a blanket and almost asked where they got it!  I think it's outta sight outta mind.  And it's usually been quite a long time since I gifted the item when that happens.  Anyway I don't usually do a lot of WIP's, but I have a lot right now and I want some motivation to stay on task and some progress shots.

I have seen a lot of flag quilts hanging around these days.  Mostly they are Union Jacks, which I love and will try one day.  In the mean time I decided to get out a bunch of orange, white, and green scraps and put together an Irish Flag quilt.  I haven't quite decided on what to back it with quite yet.  I love the way it turned out though.  I am shocked at how many scraps I have left in these colors.  I am not great at scrappy quilts and this is really my first true attempt.  I will be making more!

My third baby turned five this past week and I made her a new coat for this winter.  The pattern is by Favorite things and I have had it for quite some time.  I made Jack a coat from the pattern seven or eight years ago.  I used the Sophie fabric by Chez Moi by Moda.  I lined it with some minky and have batting between the  layers, it is super soft and super warm.  She loved it!

 I cut the name off the selvedge and sewed it onto the front and on the inside. 

This is a Halloween quilt kit I bought years ago at Deseret Book when they had a Mormon Handicraft section and the store was inside the mall.  I finally decided to put it together and now I just need to get it ready for quilting.  I have been wanting to try basting spray and I think this is the project I am going to start with.

This quilt has been coming together slowly over a long time.  I posted about it long ago before I had the borders sewn.  Well, now it is all pinned and ready to quilt.  I just want to make sure and get the quilting right, so it's a bit slow.

The Broadbent's Modern Quilt group had a patriotic stripe swap over the past session.  For three months everyone exchanged eight inch striped fabric blocks.  I cut the blocks into two and a half inch strips then pieced them together with white.  I offset each row to get a feel that it's waving.  You can see the large striped fabric peeking out on the bottom, it's also pinned and ready to quilt.  It is what I would call a plus sized throw.  Not a full twin sized, but pretty close.

I have a lot of projects I want to start on the horizon, but I really need to finish these up first.  September was a busy month.  I have hope that October will afford me a bit more sewing time.

A few baby quilts

Isabella's teacher was expecting a baby boy just after the school year ended.  So for end of year teacher gift I made her a baby quilt.  Bella helped pick out the pattern.  She liked the idea of some nautical fabrics.  Because we moved at the beginning of June, I tried to keep this one pretty simple.

The fabric is by Dear Stella for the most part.  I am always a sucker for binding with stripes.

The next baby boy quilt was for some dear friends who had a baby boy also in June.  The daddy is a big VW bus enthusiast.  I knew Heather Ross did some fabric and pj's, so I scoured etsy until I found some.  Then I took my time trying to decide on what to do, I didn't have a lot of the fabric, so in order to maximize I did a square withing a square.  I wanted to give it a read beachy feel. 

I pulled colors from the vans and used those as my outer squares.  I went with a minkee backing in a sand color.  I also used four squares on the front with the minkee.  The mom and dad loved it, which is what I was aiming for.  

I Swooned and Swooned and Swooned again!

I loved the Swoon pattern the moment I saw it.  I bought it as soon as it was available and then hemmed and hawed over what fabric I was going to use to make it.  Then I came across some Kumari Garden by Dena Designs while I was reading a book that was set in India.  I added a few other prints and some solids and before I knew it I was piecing together three swoon quilts.

Now, I don't know that I would advise doing it this way, I cut out all the parts for each quilt, pieced all twenty-seven blocks, and put the tops together in succession so they would all be finished at the same time.

I quilted them on my machine, and then bound them all at once.

They now live with three lovely ladies who have given a lot of their time and support to me over the past few years.  I loved making them and loved seeing them go!

Mermaiden

We are big mermaid fans around here. So when I saw this mermaid pattern by wee wonderfuls, I knew I wanted to give it a go.

The directions were clear and very easy to follow.  I used scraps for the whole doll.  Perhaps I should make more.  I love that I am finding ways to use up scraps.  This one was for my middle girl for her fourth birthday.  It was a success!

Wheels!

This is a simple baby quilt made from Riley Blake's wheels line.  It is so cute and boyish.  Nate needed a baby gift for someone he works with and so I put together this  I also added a few soft blocks for the baby to squish around.  I just did a big stipple for the quilting, it went together really fast and I am really pleased with the result.

I have quite a project list building right now.  I am going to try to start and finish each one with minimal overlap.  Overlap is what gets me in trouble and causes UFO's.  I am behind on my Pinwheel party quilt-a-long, but have plans to really get going on that next week.

Table Runner and Crayon Rolls

I made this table runner from Moda Rounierres.  I really loved the pattern and colors in this line.  I used charm squares for the middle and some yardage for the borders, binding and back.  It's off to a friend in New England, hopefully it will coordinate somewhere in her home.









Also in the package I included a few crayon rolls for her kids.  We got one of these as a gift and love it.  They go together fast and easy and make coloring not at home so nice.  They hold sixteen crayons, though you could make them bigger or smaller.  So enough colors to have variety, but not so many that we are losing them every where and finding them melted in the car.

Done!

Sophie's stocking!  Finished!  Complete!  Ready to stuff.  This is her third Christmas though.  Nonetheless, this unfinished project was weighing on me and I really needed to take it off the UFO list.

Also, I have new niece!  She is a darling little thing!  We were so excited to go meet her yesterday.  The kids were very excited to have a new cousin. 

Anyway, I put together this pink and black quilt.  I always refer to this as a wall paper pattern, I don't know if I have seen it called that somewhere or not.  I used Minkee for a few of the stripes and various cottons on the rest.  I love making baby quilts.  It's always quick gratification.  My sister-in-law liked it, which is of course the best part. 

I have no further sewing projects between now and Christmas, which seems kind of weird.  Not to say that all my UFO's are all gone, I just don't need to get anything sewn for Christmas specifically.  I did a lot of knocking things off my unfinished list.  I am hoping for an uneventful January where perhaps I can knock out a few more.  Then I need to start and finish some new things as a stash reducer, more specifically, a scrap reducer. 

Sultry

Here is one of the quilts from all the sultry blocks I made about a month ago. I also have a twin size ready to quilt and some more blocks to make into something else. I love the whirlygigs, they go together so fast and look so cute. The colors in this are so soft. I used a light pink thread for quilting a meandering daisy design. Then light green loops on the small border. The finished size is 40 x 50.

Tumbling Blocks

I love the colors in these fabrics. They are from the All-Star collection by Riley Blake. I was really excited when I got the opportunity to make a baby boy quilt from them. I love the honeycomb look you get when you put the same color blocks together. This quilt went together really fast. I quilted the middle with an echo of the honeycomb shape. Then I stitched swirly stars in the border.

The mom-to-be loved it! Which is always the most exciting part. The Young Women threw her a baby shower and we also gave her some coordinating burp cloths and soft toy block to go with the quilt. It is always hard to find boy fabric and I love this line a lot. There is something about orange that really draws me lately.