Hands 2 Help Charity Quilt Complete!

Hello everyone! I know it has been a really long time since my last post - over two months! I have been very busy with work and trying to keep on top of household chores so I haven't had much time at all for sewing. I guess I'm still getting used to balancing leaving the house by 8:00am and getting home at 7:00pm but still having the energy to do something creative. I signed up to make this quilt for the Hands 2 Help Charity Quilt Drive the day before I started working, so I didn't know how exhausted I would be at the end of each day.

That being said, I am really glad that I pulled through and finished this quilt. I chose an easy pattern that I knew I would be able to finish, and actually this only took me a weekend to complete. It was really nice to get back into my sewing room, and I'm happy that my weekend efforts might bring a little happiness to someone who is going through more troubles than just trying to balance their work life with sewing time. Sometimes I take it for granted just how good my life is. 

This quilt will be going to the Quilts of Compassion charity which helps people dealing with disasters in their communities. I have never had to go through a natural disaster, but they seem to happen all the time now. I'm glad that this quilt might help make that ordeal a little easier for someone. 

All finished up it is 60" square. That seems to be my favorite size of quilt. It's great for cuddling if you're an adult and you can really tuck in a child with that size too. I also thought the pattern and colors would be OK for an adult or child as well since it's not too grown up but not too childish either. I did a different type of quilting in each of the colors and then a large stipple in the background. For the backing I used a fun teal print that kind of looks like dandelion flowers once they've turned to the white seeds. 

Anyway, thank you all for stopping in. I hope I keep finding time in my schedule to be able to complete quilts for charity. I have so much in this world, so it is important to me that I give some of that back while I am able. Have a wonderful weekend everyone, and happy quilting!

Auction Quilt Finished

Hello everyone! I stayed up way past my bed time last night finishing this up. I needed to turn it in this morning so I was scrambling around at the last minute. My new job has left me with a whole lot less quilting time than I had a few weeks ago. 

Anyway, here's how it turned out:

I really, really loved this quilt. It was so soft, probably the softest quilt I've ever made. I think it was because the pieces were really large so there weren't that many seams to make the quilt stiffer. 

I backed the quilt with an orange floral print. I love the juxtaposition of the orange and blue. It's one of my favorite color combinations. The orange binding gives you just a pop of that complimentary color on the front and then nicely frames the back. I really love it and am kinda sad it won't be staying with me. 

I did straight line quilting on the whole quilt. It was a pretty easy quilt job compared to some other free motion stuff I've done. Other than working through the night, it was very relaxing. 

I didn't want to put a fabric label on the quilt since I'm not sure who will bid on it and actually end up with it. They might not even know who I am since I don't know everyone at the school (in case you missed it before, I'm donating the quilt to a silent auction where the proceeds go toward our church's grade school). So, I made a little paper tag instead and pinned it to the quilt. 

Anyway, I love how it turned out and I hope it makes it's way to someone else's house that will love it just as much. Now to plan my next charity quilt...

2014 Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge

Hello everyone! It's that time of year again. Time to sign up for the Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge!! Don't know what that is? Head on over to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Sarah will tell you all about it. Just click the link above to go to her blog or click on the button on my side bar for more details.

My mother and I participated in this last year and it was so much fun. I know we all love sewing and making lovely quilts, but why not put it to good use and donate a quilt or two or three (or more) to a good cause and make not only yourself but someone else very happy. Last year I made two fish quilts for the Quilts Beyond Borders charity. One went to Europe and one went to Africa to orphanages. It was so much fun to design these and sew all the fish together, quilt them and then give them away. I'm hoping they made a couple of kids very happy.

My mom outdid me and made 3 quilts herself: The first two for the Happy Chemo charity and the last one for the Quilts Beyond Borders charity. She put together the tops and basted them for me. Then I quilted them for her and she put the finishing touches on with the binding. It was really fun to collaborate together on these and to send them off when they were all done.

You can read my posts about our finished quilts here if you'd like: Hands2Help 2013 Charity Quilts.

So, this year I'm going to help out again. I know I can make at least one quilt. I hope I can make more, but I don't know what my time going forward is going to be like yet. I am starting a new job tomorrow and won't really know how busy I'll be until I get going into it. This effort is important to me, so I'm going to make time to make at least one quilt. This year I'll be giving to the Quilts of Compassion charity. This charity helps people dealing with disasters in their neighborhoods. They need quilts of all sizes so it gives me the most freedom in pattern design and time. There are two other charities you can choose to donate to if you get involved. They are all detailed on Sarah's website.

I really hope you'll choose to help out. We all spend time quilting for ourselves or for gifts for our own loved ones, but I also think it is important to give to those who don't have the means to make a quilt for themselves or the people they love. Since I've been blessed with so much I feel it is part of my responsibility to share my blessings and talents with others. 

As an added bonus, if you sign up this week Sarah is having a giveaway for those who commit to just one quilt. The quilts need to be mailed off by June 13th. That's 3 months to get it done, and all through that time she'll have tutorials and guest bloggers and lots of ways to keep us all motivated with the challenge. So, with one more push, I hope you'll join us! :) Happy quilting everyone!

Flying South Baby Quilt

Hello everyone! So I'm a bit behind in making my friend Jason a baby quilt considering his son is a couple months old already... I had planned on making this quilt:

I bought the magazine so I had the pattern. I went out and bought all the fabric since my brown and green selection is very slim. I washed all the fabric. And then I let it all sit. And sit. And sit. I just couldn't get motivated to do this project and I realized I just hated the pattern. Yes, it is adorable and I would love to have this quilt. But making it is another story. It seemed tedious and just completely un-fun. 

I was watching tv one night and doodling on some graph paper when I came up with a quilt that I did want to make. I looked at it and thought, "that's what I'm doing for the baby quilt!" 

I ironed all the fabric this morning and got to cutting. I just used the greens that I had bought and some white for the background. I put these together:

I love how easy the "no waste" flying geese method is. One large 7 1/4" square for the center and four 3 7/8" background squares give you four geese blocks measuring 6" x 3". Once I got these put together I cut the remaining background pieces and before I knew it the quilt top was completely done!

This is a lot of negative space for me. A lot. I've never had this much before and it's kinda freaking me out a bit. I think that I'm going to just straight line quilt this with some diagonal lines in white, but it will be so noticeable in that negative space. Now I'm thinking that I should have just made the whole top out of flying geese and no negative space to make the quilting easier. But... I looooove this quilt top and the look of it. So, I guess soon I will be getting over my fear of negative space. :) 

Stay tuned!

Auction Quilt Flimsy

Hello everyone! I've got my flimsy finished for the auction quilt I'm making. I guess I should come up with a better name for it, right?

It is 60" square. I still need to find a backing fabric for it. I'm thinking some type of blue or gray print. And then I think I'll do a scrappy binding with the left over print fabrics from the front. 

 

What would you use for a back?

Auction Quilt

Hello everyone! I've started a new project that I'm pretty excited about. I just signed up to make a quilt for a silent auction. The auction will benefit the grade school where I volunteer. So, I was looking at pictures of quilts online that might be easy to put together and I came across this one:

You can find and buy the pattern here:

Sparkle Plenty Pattern

I thought it was super cute, but I wanted to change it up a bit. Here's the layout I came up with:

I'm still kind of playing with where all of the colors land, but I'm going to let it rest for a bit - let it soak in - before I sew all the rows together. 

My plan is to only do straight line quilting on this one and to just echo the star shape. All done this should finish up at 60" square. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello everyone, and happy Valentine's Day! I've been furiously working to finish my scrappy valentine quilt and I finished it with 2 hours to go here in Portland, Oregon. I really wanted to finish it before my husband came home from traveling tonight. It is now happily drying in the laundry and I'll be able to wrap him up in it when he gets home. 

So, here se some pics of the quilt. If I remember, I'll try to add some pictures of it after it's dry. 

My cat Leia approves of the final product, even if she did ruffle it a bit as I was taking pictures. She desperately wants to snuggle on it. 

This is the quilting that I did in all of the large white areas. I hashed each area with my walking foot and then added some free motion, free-flowing circles. I was trying not to be too anal with getting them all to be the same size and perfectly shaped. It was bugging me a bit because I really do like things to be perfect. I just wanted them to be more natural as if I was doodling on the quilt. I didn't want this quilt to be too rigid. Luckily I'm not super great at uniformity with the free motion quilting yet, so I think it worked out nicely. ;)

In the smaller white areas I did that same circle design around the edge and left the center empty. In the black and gray star pieces I did some straight quilting from the center out. In the heart I just wanted to keep it simple. It is hard to see, but I just did one large FMQ heart in the middle. 

Lastly, in the red border I did a free motion heart pattern. (Sorry for the indoor picture quality!) I debated doing this in the black border as well, but decided against it. I like it just in the red. :)

So, that's my scrappy valentine quilt! Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you all have a lovely Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Flimsy

Hello everyone! Just a quick post to show off my Valentine's quilt flimsy. I put on two borders actually, a mottled red and a black with tiny white polka dots. 

I love this quilt so much! No pun intended... 

I have some interesting ideas on how to quilt it. It will be a combo of straight line and free motion. I don't know if it will look good, but it will be good practice. :) Now I just gotta get it pinned and quilted up!

Valentine Project Update

Hello everyone! Progress is being made on my scrappy Valentine project. 

Lots and lots of squares ready to be sewn together. 

All laid out and happy. 

My fingers look pretty chubby in this photo, but rockin' a red nail for the project. :)

Six done and three more to go! I really love it. I think I'll border this whole thing out in red for 3 inches and make it 60" x 60". Believe it or not though, I don't have a piece of red fabric large enough to get me the full border, so I'll have to take a trip to the fabric store. :) 

Happy sewing everyone!

Valentine Project

Hello everyone! I finally got some time put in with my sewing machine today. I was doing some doodling last night and came up with a pattern I just couldn't wait to start. Of course this pushes back every other whip I have started. I swore I wouldn't let those stack up, but you just can't beat the fun of a new project. :) 

Here's what I came up with:

It took forever to cut out all of the pieces. Each square on the graph paper finishes at 1.5 inches so there are a lot of pieces to this 9 block quilt. 

So far I have one block put together:

I love the way it looks! I cut up a bunch of left over white-on-whites, grays, blacks and reds to use in the block. It is a great use for scraps, especially smaller pieces. It finishes at 18 inches so the main body of the quilt will be 54"x 54". 

I am looking forward to putting the other 8 blocks together this week. There's a lot of time that goes into each block, but I just love the way it looks. It feels so good to get back to some sewing!

Christmas Recap

Yes, I'm just now getting to my Christmad recap. Things have been pretty quiet here on the crafting front as of late. We've had much too nice of weather lately (and it seems like everywhere else has had a rough winter) that I've been spending a lot of time prepping our yard and garden and not any time in the sewing room. So, since I don't have anything new to show, I'll show off the stuff that I put together for Christmas presents. 

My husband and I went back to Wisconsin for two weeks for both Christmas and New Year's celebrations and my suitcase was packed to bursting. Thankfully I flew southwest and could check two bags free. I definitely needed both! My siblings and I decided to draw names for a secret Santa gift exchange this year so that cut down on some of the presents I would normally bring, but I ended up making a lot of things for my sister. I'm so happy I drew her name, because I had so many ideas for her!

First I made her an apron out of an old sugar sack she had given me a few years back. She had used it as wrapping for a wreath she made me and told me, "you'll do something fun with it." That I did! These sacks are super absorbent too! I had all of this stuff already at home so I didn't even spend any money on this part of the gift. :)

Next I made her a makeup brush holder. I knew she wanted a set of brushes so I got her some on a huge sale at Target for $10. 

Again, I already had all of the supplies for the roll so the only money spent on this was for the brushes. I wanted the inside to be make-up smudge friendly so I used some brown, yellow and light pink fabric. The outside was an orange and yellow print that was begging to be used for this. My sister really likes the color orange along with other vibrant colors. 

I also made her a journal out of a children's copy of Little Women from Goodwill. That set me back a whopping $2. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it. 

Lastly, I made her a set of napkins and napkin rings. I had the fabric for the napkins already. For the rings. I bent forks that I bought at Target. Those were $1.68 for 4 forks, so roughly $3.00 for the whole set. I put them all into a box that I bought at Ross for about $5. So, that's how I managed to stay in our budget of $20 or less and give her so much stuff. :)

I made two other sets of these napkins and napkin rings. One went to my mother-in-law (same fabric) and the other went to her neighbor, (pictured below) the mother of one of my husband's good friends. We've stayed close and she and her husband even visited us here in Oregon. 

I also made a couple of aprons for my sister-in-law. One was a blue floral print and the other was this tiny white heart on red background print. 

For all of the aprons I made, I used one continuous strap for the waist and neck tie. So, you can put the apron on and then just tug on the waist strings to tighten it around your neck. Then you just tie it in back. It makes it so you don't have to tie the neck if it's too long, you can just adjust it each time you put it on. I love that, because the knots in apron neck ties always irritate me and my neck. 

Well, that pretty much sums up what I made for presents. I did all of that between Thanksgiving and Christmas while traveling back and forth to Wisconsin for both of those holidays. It was a busy couple of weeks! I always think that I'll start my gifts earlier, but that never happens. Maybe that should be my New Year's resolution...