Monthly Archives: June 2015

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At the beginning of this year, I taught my son to quilt. He has just finished his second quilt. This time he designed and made a doll quilt for his sister. She celebrated her 3rd birthday last month with a rainbow party, so he made her a rainbow doll quilt. (It's a bit of a belated gift. When she opened the present yesterday morning, she thought that meant that she's 4 now. ;-))

He started by deciding on a finished size (16" by 24") and drafting a plan before raiding my stash for fabrics.

For his last project, he pieced the top by sitting on my lap, sewing with me. This time he did all the piecing by himself. He was so proud that he finished the quilt top in one day. ;-) Like last time, he did all the quilting solo. This time he decided to jazz things up. Each strip of the quilt has two lines of quilting, one in straight line quilting and the other in some fancy stitching. This was a compromise, because he really wanted to quilt "swirls all over" and I just didn't have it in me to start teaching him free-motion quilting just yet. He chose the binding fabric, but I pieced and attached it for him. (I sure love a striped binding!)

And, of course, the label. I just love his handwriting on the project. (My daughter was a little put out that her name wasn't on it anywhere, so maybe we'll have to squeeze a "to" line on there somewhere.)

Thank you for visiting.

Helping with this finish is one of my Q2 Finish Along goals. I'm linking up with the Q2 Finishes party.

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This is the second mini that I shipped off this month for an Instagram swap. This one was for the Cotton and Steel Mini Swap (#cottonandsteelminiquiltswap) and was my June goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes. My partner said that anything and everything C+S is great, and indicated that she didn't like black. I did some sketching and ended up with this quarter log cabin block design on point which used each of my five feature fabrics in each block, without like fabrics sharing seams. It was a bit of a puzzle. This solution makes the mathematician in me very happy. :-)

If you're familiar with Cotton and Steel and look closely, you might have noticed that I cut the Tiger Stripes and XOXO (navy) fabric on the diagonal so the direction of the pattern would show in its normal orientation with the blocks on point.

To finish it off I did some walking foot quilting, I just started stitching without too much planning in advance.

I had a little bit of an issue with the bias edge of the quilt top, but I'm overall happy with it. I have a second set of these blocks sewn in other fabrics, so I'll try to improve on my technique when I piece the quilt top to alleviate the slightly wonky edge that happened (which I think also caused a little bit of an issue with the backing).

Here's a closeup of the label. It hasn't been received yet, so the great white shark is hiding my partner's name. ;-) (It was shark week at our house, so the shark seemed appropriate for the photo shoot.)

 

Once again, I received my mini in the swap before I shipped. Check out this pile of awesomeness that Michelle sent me! Those of you with a Tiny Box Zippy, what do you use yours for? It's so adorable! I just love the mini and the texture from her quilting. It's such a beautiful addition to my wall of minis.

Thanks for visiting.

I'm linking up to ALYoF June finishes party.

This finish is one of my Q2 Finish Along goals. I'm linking up with the Q2 Finishes party.

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I had seen some really adorable pin cushions on Instagram and Pinterest and had yet to try my hand at making one, so in February I signed up for the IG Pin Cushion Swap (#IGpincushionswap) to make my first pin cushion. My partner, Maja, lives in Croatia and she mentioned that she loves Disney, Smurfs & bright colors." I like to send extras along with my swaps and found a little set of Smurf figurines. That gave me the idea to make the actual pin cushion be a Smurf house.

I made it out of felt and went through a process of trial and error for what would work to make it the right shape. Since I do not enjoy sewing felt on the sewing machine, the whole project is hand sewn (oh, except for a little liner pouch to hold the crushed walnut shells). I don't typically hand sew, but I think it worked out well.

I started with a 8 1/2" circle. My first prototype had a base that I made by folding darts in the circle. The roof of the house is close to a semi-circle, as large as I could cut from a single 8 1/2" x 11" piece of felt. It didn't look like much at this stage, but I figured it would work and just hoped it would come out as cute in reality as it was in my head.

My second prototype base had less bulk because I cut Vs for the darts instead of folding the felt. Still a little wonky looking.

At this point I started the long journey of hand stitching. This meant the project could go on vacation with me for some car sewing. You can see how I cut my circle for the base of the house. Nothing is measured. It's all just eyeballed. So unlike me.

I purchased crushed walnut shells to put in the base of the pincushion and poly fill for the rest of it. Once I'd stitched the walls of the pin cushion I was concerned that my stitches might not have been perfect enough to keep the smallest crushed walnut dust inside, so I created a little pouch to hold the walnut shells. I slipped it into the base of the pin cushion before stuffing it with poly fill.

pouch holding crushed walnut shells

 

The finished pin cushion. It's a little giant. Maybe 8" tall and 6" across the base. ;-)

 

Here's the entire package I sent for the swap. Maja told me that it was "absolutely amazing and [she] only wants to use it as display." ;-) The best part is that she forgot that she mentioned Smurfs on her swap form so she was totally surprised. Win!

 

Here are the three pin cushions (and so many other goodies!) that I received from my partner, Jenipher. Aren’t they cute! The little ones are a bracelet and a ring pin cushion. That's right! Pin cushion jewelry!

I'm linking up at TGIFF, Finish It Up Friday, and Needle and Thread Thursday.

This finish is one of my Q2 Finish Along goals. I'm linking up with the Q2 Finishes party.