Sock Monkey Quilt

A while back I got a grab bag of 12 pounds of fabric from the Fat Quarter Shop. It had some great stuff in it, including several pieces (around 1/3 yard each) from Erin Michael's 5 Funky Money line. I finally decided to use it for a baby quilt for my dear friend's first baby.

I slightly altered the 4 patch pattern from Quilts for Kids to include more fabrics and increased the size of the blocks so I could get the number of them I wanted. I used 4 pieces of monkey fabric, plus two blenders from my stash for the front, and two other pieces of monkey fabric for the back. This whole quilt was from my stash besides the green solid on the back (Ikea sheet!) and a little solid blue for the binding. Also, I got my brother to buy the sheet for me :)

Front

Back! My first pieced back, it was going to be a strip all the way across but I love the brown polka dots and decided this would be cute.

Maybe next time I will actually do the binding "correctly" and handstitch the back. I'm still cheating and machine stitching it.

I still have some of this fabric left, definitely enough to piece another baby quilt (with a lot of sashing or blenders or something!) My friend really liked it!

AccuQuilt Giveaway!

Amy, who has a great quilting blog that I like to read, is giving away an Accuquilt! These cutters are super cool! Check out her giveaway!

http://www.amyscreativeside.com/2010/06/accuquilt-go-cutter-giveaway.html

Quilting (Piecing) Overload

I'm kind of exhausted this week, probably more mentally than actually physically. Work has been a huge hassle since we are learning a new system, that is both poorly thought out and has a lot of glitches in the computer programming. Since I only work weekends, I only had two days to get stressed out, but procrastinating on various crafty projects certainly hasn't helped.

I do like selling my crafts, it's nice to know that I can make things that other people are willing to buy, as well as pay for some of my crafting supplies. But sometimes I just feel like it's not worth it, like it sucks the fun out of it. If I wasn't such a procrastinator, maybe I wouldn't feel this way! Although, when my soap and assorted bath products were in a physical store, it definitely wasn't worth it. I didn't enjoy losing the creative control of what I was making, when I was making it, how much of a certain product I had to make, and how it needed to be labeled.

Anyways, I finished the Monkey Quilt last week and this week am making a baby girl quilt for the same customer. I am just having trouble getting started! Since I have a busy day friday (ie, I would rather do other thigns than still be working on this), and told her it would be done friday, I really need to complete it thursday night before bed. 

These are the fabrics I am using, a really cute line I got from Quilter's Biz. I have a jelly roll and a charm pack, plus I got some matching/coordinating fabrics for the backing and binding (not from the same line) to complete the quilt. Having 3 sweet/monster nephews I don't have a lot of chances to make baby girl things, so I am excited to work with these fabrics! Flower-y and stripe-y in pink(!), off-white, lime green, brown, and gray-blue! Pink polka dot backing and green binding. Hopefully I will have pics of the finished quilt soon! I am not planning on really using a pattern, just making little blocks of the charm packs bordered with pieces of the jelly roll (in a different color from the charm pack in each center). I think I may do a pieced border, kind of Chinese/Stacked Coins style? I probably would have made a Chinese/Stacked Coins Quilt if I had bought fabric for sashing.

I spent the beginning of the week completing quilt blocks for my Quilt Block Swap on Craftster that I had procrastinated a bit on, and then lost a couple days on with problems at work and watching my nephews when my sil got sick.

Here are the blocks I have been working on for my 8 partners over the last couple of months. These pictures only show 1 block for each partner...there were 3 blocks total! So happy to get the last blocks in the mail today! I did have fun learning some new patterns and techniques, but 8 partners + organizing the swap, plus all my other stuff going on may have been a bit much for me. Also I need to remember that procrastinating doesn't always work out since what I have planned to do last minute might get bumped by something more important (helping my sil).


Triple Irish Chain Quilt. This would be easy to make as the only block in a larger quilt, I only made 3 blocks in 3 different colorways though. It uses 2 1/2 inch strips, so if you cut all your strips at once, or used a jelly roll separated in lights/mediums/darks for a scrappier look, I think it would be a breeze to put together!

String Quilt Block, with white as the center string, and rainbow colors.

Raw Edge Circle Quilt Blocks

Wonky Houses

Wonky Log Cabin Block

Bug Jar

Scrappy X block

Raw Edge Applique

The rest of the blocks I made can be found here, except for two of the three blocks I made for klum78. She is my friend in town, so we met up and exchanged blocks in person, and of course I forgot to take pics of the second and third block!

Soaping, Quilting, Blogging

Going by the dates of my posts, I am the worst blogger in history. Since blogging hasn't been around THAT long, at least it's a short history to be the worst of. I did read a cool article (somewhere) recently about not putting too much pressure on yourself to blog, but I guess a little consistency isn't a terrible thing.

I have been working on a ton of crafty things in the last couple weeks. I made 8 batches of soap over the course of two days about a month ago. It's now nicely cured and I need to label it. Ick. Labeling is probably the worst part of soapmaking. At least it's the final step before gifting or selling, so that is its redeeming quality, I guess. I am coming up with new labels, which incorporate fabric, scrapbooking paper, and possibly yarn or crochet thread. They are much fancier than the old labels, but I have increased the time it make to complete them at least three-fold.

What's a blog post without pics?

Soapy Soaps!


I was getting ridiculously low on soap...I had probably less than 2 dozen bars that would be reasonable to swap or sell, and I have had several e-mail or Craftster pm inquiries lately! So I got myself into the soapin' kitchen (it's my regular kitchen actually) and got to work. 4 hours and 1 frantic call to my friend Jen later, I had 4 batches of soap! 82 bars altogether.


The following day, Aidan "helped" me cut them and put them on the curing racks. I have an awesome professional cutter that cuts a whole log at once, and after I positioned the soap log he pushed down on the bar to slice them. He's a good helper. :) He also said that I'm a "good soap cooker." I don't cook my soap, it's cold process, but compliments are always appreciated! I love 4 year olds!


Calendula Green Tea, with dried Calendula petals and green tea powder for a light green color (that will fade to a brownish green) with a light, fresh green tea fragrance.




Unscented Oats 'n Honey, yum! I actually put in a little less oats than usual, but I think that's ok. I've been out of this for soooo long, but luckily I had a nice bar from Jen that was similar, but also contained egg yolk!


Lavender! This is wonderful for sensitive skin, and I love the light purple swirl in it.

And my absolute favorite bar of all time~Shea Luxury! This is 60% unrefined shea butter, without any colorants or fragrances. Yeah.

Crafting and Dieting!

My mom and I are eating healthy via the Flat Belly Diet! After an initial 4 day "Jump Start" of 1200 calorie days to de-bloat and get the salt out of our system, we're both down 4 pounds. Even though that's probably mostly water weight, that's ok!

Besides being low-salt, this way of eating is kind of Mediteranean based. The focus is having a MUFA (mono-unsaturated fatty acid) with every meal or snack to get a healthy fat in that provides a feeling of fullness. Yummy things like avocadoes, nuts, seeds, olive and canola oil, and olives are all required!

I realized that I need to get my crafting into high gear. I have a swap to go out Oct 30th that I have, oops, two different partners for! Today I think I just finalized what I am sending. Luckily each one is only 2 mediums and a small, so I should be able to take care of that, as long as I get started soon. Some of the projects are crochet, so if I meet up with the Portland Crafty Vixens tomorrow I will have a portable project to take along! No details yet since I don't want to spoil the surprise if my swap partners are stalking me!

My friend Kim shared some awesome patterns with me for toddler pants, so Sandora and I whipped up 3 pairs the other day for the boys. We have a bunch more fabric to make into pajama pants but wanted to get it right before we cut out too many of them. They turned out really well except Dane and Aidan's are a wee bit low rise! Oops. Oh well, I already adjust my home made pattern pieces for next time! Although when I saw Dane last night he looked inches taller than the last time I had seen him (a week ago!) He can now reach on top of the tv, as demonstrated by his ability to bring the remote to grandma! I'm going to measure him carefully before I finish any more pants for him, don't want to dress the poor kid in high waters!

Today I had a breakthrough~I finally got my serger threaded! I have only had it for like 6years, but every time I tried to thread it I wanted to cry, it was so frustrating!

I have been doing a little sewing lately, a few pouches for swaps, and I need to sew a big U shaped pillow for the boys' bunk bed.

After a 4 month swapping hiatus I am back on with several, two of which I am ready to send out and another that I am organizing. Sometimes it seems like a lot of pressure, but other times it is good to have something to work on and keep me going.

I'd like to take a beginning quilting class, but the dates aren't jibing up for me this month. Also this is a bad time, money-wise.

Projects:

Ninja Turtle Outfits (started)

U Pillow (materials bought)

____ for Friends Swap )1/3 done

Soap for upcoming IYP swap--2 partners (need coconut oil)

Curtains for birthday swap (need material)

Projects to start:

scarf for me out of that sport weight yarn I like

wall organizer for me (have fabric)

purse for me (have fabric)

purse for Amanda (have fabric)

play mat for the boys

Current projects:

semi-complicated scarf for my mom, I lost interest a little when I had to frog it and re-start with a bigger hook. It works up fairly quickly, but it's not really a pattern I can do in front of the tv. It's gonna be awesome if I ever finish.

inchies! nuff said, for some reason have to be really in the mood to work on these

scarf for a swap, she wants blues and blacks. I think Iwill do some kind of a wave/ripple pattern with color changes every 4 or 6 rows or so.

random crocheted and other projects for wishlist swap

sewn project for swap, don't have partner yet

getting recipes together for a swap "healthy kit" have everything purchased

Finished projects:

Just finished booties and calorimetry for a personal swap with my friend Kim


These are her pics, I spaced on taking any!



wall organizer for swap