Advent madness

A few weeks ago I made an advent calendar for L.  The advent calendar itself came together pretty quickly but I was nervous to quilt it because of the pockets.

I'm not a huge fan of appliqué so I used a fabric paint pen for the numbers.

I liked the way this advent calendar turned out so much that I made a second one for my niece.  The advent calendars are almost identical but I added some fabrc with a little more pink for hers.  She will be celebrating her first Christmas this year.

Practice quilting words

This was the first year my little one was able to go trick or treating.  Every year on Halloween the poor kid has had an ear infection.  He actually had his first ear surgery on his first Halloween and last year he had a ruptured ear drum.  This year he could actually hear and was more than ready for some trick or treating!

Surgery Pants

My sweet baby is having surgery tomorrow to have tubes put in his ears, again.  This time around he'll also be having his adenoids removed.  I am hopeful this will be the end of his ear infections.

A good friend  of mine has been making some adorable baby pants and inspired me to make some for L so he has something comfy to wear after his surgery.

Baby L's favorite color is orange (and I didn't even have to encourage that).  I used some of my favorite Riley Blake fabric, All Star 2.

Here's to an easy recovery!

Tic Tac Toe!

The season of crazy Christmas sewing has begun!  I'm a little crazy and I've had almost all of my Christmas shopping done since last month.  All that's left to do is sew.  

The first project completed is for my nephew.  It's a game quilt, based on this adorable Tic Tac Toe quilt.  How cute is a game quilt that little ones can toss bean bags at to claim their square for Tic Tac Toe?

I still had a ton of fabric left from the quilt I made for Baby L's bed that I've been anxious to use on a project for a special little boy.  Ready, Set, Go! by Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman is one of my favorite lines.  And as a proud OSU grad, I have a special place in my heart for the color orange.

I made my quilt a little bit larger (it's about 44 inches square) than the pattern and I did not appliqué on the words "Tic Tac Toe".  The small squares are about 3 inches instead of 2.5.  This was a great way to use up scraps. 

Can't take a picture without Bear.

I still have to make the bean bags so my adorable nephews can play.

One project down, many more to go!

Bags!

An embarrassingly long time ago my mom requested I make her a lunch bag.  I followed this tutorial for a totebag.  I made mine a little bit bigger with wider straps and added a pocket.

Reversible!

My friend Kira loves gnomes.  A few months ago I bought some Gnoming Around by Michael Miller and I've been waiting for the perfect project.  This bag fit the bill.

 

Gnoming around, indeed!

These bags are a great evening project.  Baby L has already requested his own bag so I'll need to get working on that. 

Checking out Oma's bag.

Yep.  This bag will definitely hold stuff.

The LAST film strip quilt

I finally finished the last of the film strip quilts!  This one was for my baby rhino.  The uniform I used in this quilt is extra special because it was one of the uniforms Adam wore on his deployment right after L was born.  

Here it is!

Deep in thought.  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is very intense.

Baby feet

I think he likes it.

A finish, finally!

The past few weeks have been crazy.  We moved, again.  All of the packing and unpacking didn't leave much time for sewing.  But now that we're all settled in, I busted out my sewing machine.  She was feeling a little neglected so I put her to use.  I'm sure now she'd like to go back into hiding.  And yes, she's a girl and I talk about her like she's a person.  It's annoying, I know.

First on my list of unfinished projects were the film strip quilts.

J's quilt

We do have some green in El Paso!

I decided to quilt this in straight lines.  I love the way the quilting turned out but it was actually a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be. 

Baby L's quilt

I decided to quilt this one with a large free motion wandering pattern.  I wasn't sure how it would be to quilt through the ACU material so I didn't want the free motion quilting to be too close together in case it didn't go well. The ACU material wasn't exactly easy to piece so I had images of multiple needles breaking during the quilting.  I quilted a little slower than I normally do and everything was fine.

I'm quite fond of how both of these turned out.  The bright colors are perfect for little ones.  My goal is to finish my baby rhino's quilt tonight so I should have pictures tomorrow.

Home is...

Not much quilting these days.  I've been super busy with other things, mainly physical therapy.  I injured a tendon in my shoulder awhile ago.  I think it was from carrying my precious toddler around, but in reality it's probably due to years of neglect.  In any event the physical therapy has put a damper on any heavy use of my shoulder, including quilting.  :(

So I've been busy creating other things.  I've been wanting to make a "Home is where the Army sends us" sign for quite some time.  After auditioning what seemed like a million different handwriting styles, I decided to just buy a stencil.  I found this one from the Stencilsmith.  They have reasonable prices and super fast shipping.  Fast shipping is always a priority for me.

Here's the final result:

x2- I also made one for my awesome friend, Ashley

  

We're still on our first duty station so those empty ones on the bottom are currently just wishful thinking.  As much as I want to see other parts of the country (and possibly the world- Germany anyone?) I'm grateful we've had a pretty good Army experience.  My husband and I were married in El Paso, I got my first professional job here, we bought our first house here, and of course our baby was born here.  We've had some good experiences here but I think we're all ready to move on.

I'm hoping to regain some use of my shoulder soon because I have a lap quilt waiting to be quilted, three toddler sized lap quilts waiting to be assembled, and a baby quilt waiting to be pieced.  I'll be busy for the next few weeks!

New Wave, cont.

The top of the New Wave quilt is finished!

Quilt top!

And my best friend.

I used a combination of pressing the seams to the side and open.  I normally press to the side and haven't had many problems with bulk.  I'll probably stick with pressing the seams to the side only because I seem to burn my fingers a lot when I press them open.  Oops.  Of course, when bulk is an issue (as it is with half-square triangles) I'll press them open.

I'm not entirely sure what I'll do for the backing.  I'm torn between a turquoise that really matches the front or something completely different that will really pop.  Thoughts?

New Wave

I'm not normally one for following patterns.  I usually get a vision in my head and try different things until I figure it out.  This is probably why organic chemistry suits me; just dump in some ether and see what happens.  Who needs measurements?  Anyway.  I love every quilt by Oh, Fransson!  So I decided to follow this pattern.  Her quilts are amazing.


I've been working on this quilt mostly as a side project because I'm making it almost entirely out of scraps.  Everything about this quilt has been incredibly time consuming, but I love the way it looks so I'm sticking with it!

I'm not quite done with the top.  Hopefully these line up well when the time comes to sew them together. We shall see.

The Film Strip quilts are on hold until I find a good way to get a picture onto fabric.  Or until I get fed up with the picture idea and decide to do something else with the final block.

Tonight will be more half-square triangles for the Lil' Rascal quilt and I'll have to figure out how I want to assemble the rest of the blocks.  I have a lot of extra squares cut, so I might try to incorporate them somehow.  I guess it depends on my mood!

Lil' Rascal

In between cleaning up the lake that is currently forming in our living room and washing towels, I've started another baby quilt.  Our good friends are currently stationed in Korea and will be welcoming a little boy to their family this fall.  Adam actually picked out this Lil' Rascals fabric from one of my favorite stores while we were up in Oregon.

beginning of the blocks

half square triangles

Eventually these pieces will all make a quilt.  I have an awesome Kona solid in khaki for the background.

Tomorrow I will finish the half square triangles and hopefully finish the blocks.

Quilts in progress

I stumbled upon this Film Strip Quilt awhile back and knew I had to make one.  I've been wanting to make a quilt for Lucas out of Adam's old ACUs and decided this would be perfect.  I know three little kids that don't get to spend nearly enough time with their dads; so I'm making each of them one of these quilts to cuddle with.  This may have been a little ambitious.  As it turns out, ACUs are not fun to sew with.  Ripping them apart is a nightmare and cutting them up isn't much better.  That's all behind me now though.  So here is a picture of what I have so far.

The start of L's quilt.  There will be a third row at the bottom but I'm waiting to have a picture printed on fabric for that one.

Hopefully I'll get these finished this weekend.  Now it's time to rebuild L's train tracks.