Pillows with my Boys

Every Christmas I help my nephews make something for their mamas. This year I decided we'd do pillows. My younger nephews' mom and grandma both drive dump trucks, so when I got this awesome Busy City paper piecing pattern I knew that would be great! The boys picked out the colors and fabrics and I think they did a great job! The 6.5 year old picked out the pinks for his mom (she does love pink!) and the 9 year old picked some cute ones for his grandma.







For my oldest nephew's mom I decided on a simple heart pattern that I just quickly sketched out. Again, he picked out all the fabrics. After I pieced and quilted each pillow, the boys got to use the sewing machine! I did a simple flap style backing with some cute winter themed fabric, used my new-to-me embroidery machine to create a label right on the back, and let the boys stitch them up! I had fun playing with some of the decorative stitches on the new machine as well, very fun for quilting!



Before stitching into pillow top



Proud boy and happy mama!

PMQG Medallion Quilt Finish

I've posted a couple of times about our PMQG project last year. Part 1 and Part 2. Instead of a Block of the Month, we did a Medallion Along. Each month, the five of us officers designed and released a new border for the medallion. It was so fun seeing what fabrics everyone used, and with different options for each round plus everyone choosing different medallion centers, they all came out so unique and beautiful! Here is a link to our Flickr if you would like to see some more!

Here is the finished quilt, hanging at Modern Domestic! I worked my tail off to finish the quilting and binding in time to enter it for our show at Modern Domestic! I free motion quilted a in each round and then bound it in Violet Craft's Domino Dice. I'm so happy with how it turned out and can't wait to get it back! The quilts will be hanging at Modern Domestic through the end of February I believe.

And here it is when I finished the top at our January guild Sew Day...

I really love the back I made for it, but don't have a good picture of it yet. I used Anna Maria Horner's Hand Drawn Garden in Sketchbook and pieced in a bit of Momo Avant Garden along with strips of turquoise and purple solids.

A Boxcar Tote for ME!

A couple weeks ago I won a sewing class to local shop Modern Domestic. And the class was taught by a friend of mine, so that was extra fun! The class was for the Boxcar Tote by Alexia Abegg. I haven't made a ton of bags in the last couple years so I was super stoked! After spending way too long picking out fabric from my stash, I narrowed it down to about 8 fabrics. I only needed 6, so I did some creative swapping with the pattern pieces.

I'm really happy with how it turned out and will definitely make it again! I added a long strap, I like a shoulder strap and the pattern only calls for the small handles. The only thing I don't like is that I used the right kind of interfacing for most of the bag, but a slightly lighter interfacing on the large lining pieces, so the whole thing is just a touch saggier than I like. Lesson learned!









I added a magnetic snap to one of the outer pockets, and divided the other outer pocket into two. (all of the things I changed here were suggested by the teacher! I likes these changes and would do them next time as well)



Inside the bag I divided the inner pocket off-center so the smaller section would easily hold my phone. (again suggested by my friend/teacher)





For the fabrics I used Cotton + Steel, Kate and Birdie, RK Essex Linen in Steel, the alphabet print is Baby Jane, the scissors print is Half Moon Modern, and the main print is from the Handmade line by Macrina Busato. The blue binding is Squared Elements and I have no idea what the tiny aqua dot binding is. Maybe from Joann.

I used another print from the Handmade line a while back on a project for my friend Pam! It's such a cute line, I wish it had received more attention. (I also wish it had a more unique name than "Handmade," it's quite hard to search for and get relevant search returns!)

Catching Up + TNG

You know when you have so many things to catch up on you don't know where to start? Chronologically sounds like a reasonable place to start, but instead I'm just going with what I have pictures for.

Also maybe a brief recap of the last few months~guild quilt retreat, beach mini quilt retreat with friends, Holiday beach trip with the boyfriend's family, lots of baby-sitting the nephs, retiring from being President of the guild, taking on guild Workshop and Retreat Coordinator duties with a friend and successfully organizing our first workshop, and so many projects!

Project recap!~(aka, outline for blog posts to catch up on?) Made Christmas present pillows with the nephews, a Boxcar Tote Bag, charity quilt, Ocean quilt, in progress Fair Isle quilt, PMQG 2014 Medallion Quilt, and successful hand stitched binding!

Waaaay back in the summer I started a Star Trek TNG cross stitch for the boyfriend's August 1st birthday. Now, while I technically finished the cross stitch in time for his birthday, I didn't frame it or gift it until Christmas. I know. Total slacker. But he loved it, I enjoyed making it, and when I posted it to Craftster it was chosen as a Featured Project. Triple score!

And my favorite in progress shot:

And a couple more:

And what do I have planned for the upcoming year? Vacation-wise I've got another guild retreat next month and another in October, a family trip to Tucson, and a family trip to Maui for Thanksgiving! 

Project commitment-wise I have to finish the Ocean quilt for my aunt, a crochet hat for my cousin, I'm still part of the Faith Circle of do.Good stitches (2 blocks a month),  and I joined the Challenge Accepted Bee on IG for advanced paper piecing blocks (1 block a month), and I promised to run another round of the Mini Art Quilt Swap on Craftster. 

And organization-wise besides the 2 retreats we also have 3 more workshops in the works for this year, plus I need to get back to my sadly neglected moderator and blogging duties on Craftster.

Whew! Besides all of that I should probably also, you know, get a job.

Avant Garden On the Go Bag

At this summer's Quilt Knit Stitch show, I was introduced to Patterns by Annie, a very cool pattern company and the makers of Soft and Stable, which is a kind of foam/batting hybrid to give structure to bags. I ended up buying the Patterns, Soft and Stable, and Hardware for two different patterns. This is the smaller of the two I bought patterns for, the On the Go bag.

I love having a smaller purse when I travel (my everyday purse is huge) so my goal was to finish this before I went on vacation. Mission accomplished! I hadn't done much purse sewing in a while, but my good friend Kim is an amazing bag maker and teacher and she said she'd help, so I figured I could figure it out with her help!

I used some of my birthday fabric from one of my favorite designers--Avant Garden by Momo and the purple linen Mochi dot binding is also by Momo. After cutting out the main pieces of the bag, you sandwich the Soft and Stable between the front fabric and the back fabric and then quilt that, then you cut more pieces from that. Very cool way to get your quilted fabric in!

The front flap has a zippered pocket with slots inside, as well as a vinyl pocket.

Slots inside the front flap zipper

A slip pocket on the back

Another vinyl pocket when you lift the flap up

Inside of flap

Credit card slots inside main body of bag (inside zipper)

Overall this pattern was really well written and although some of the pieces were difficult to bind because of going through so many thicknesses of Soft and Stable + fabric, I am pretty pleased with my results!

I'm excited to work on the next pattern and kit I have from Patterns by Annie--Mini Organizer. I'm going to try to adjust it to add an additional zipper across the top of the bag, I like my bags securely closed!