Yearly Archives: 2016

WIP Wednesday: Kids, Kids, Kids • 16 Comments

sarah • August 24, 2016

It's Back to School this week for my household. My son went back Monday and my daughter returns tomorrow. This is why, as you may have realized, that it's nearly Thursday... though technically still Wednesday here. Today kind of snuck up on me. I'm hoping that with the kids back in school I can get into a better routine where I can keep track of what day of the week it is, among other things. :-)

As I pulled together all of what I've been working on in the past week I realized that this Back to School week has been very kid-centric in my sewing as well!

Cloth Napkins for School

I send cloth napkins in my kids' lunches. We have a couple dozen 10" solid napkins that I use for that. This year in first grade my son is required to bring a 12" cloth napkin each day as well, to use as a placemat. I had him choose five fabrics from his fabric stash so I could make these placemat napkins and followed this tutorial for Mitered Corner Napkins by Erin at Sewbon. I cut mine 14 1/2" square to finish at 12". True to procrastinator form, I've been sewing one each evening since Sunday. I keep meaning to finish the others the next day, but well... I haven't even done today's yet and it's 10pm. Here's the first one I finished. I just love his tiger fabric and wonder what he'll use the rest of it for.

My Son's Twin Sized Quilt

My son is working on his fourth quilt, a twin sized bed quilt for his sister. He's two seams away from the quilt top being finished and I think we've decided that I will be quilting it for him. Here's a glimpse of his project. We had to scramble a bit to add an additional row and column, since it ended up smaller than twin. He pulled all his fabrics from my stash. I just had to order a bit more of the solid greens.

My Daughter's First Quilt

And while I'm on this subject of helping my kids with their projects, my daughter finished her first quilt this week. More on her big finish soon, but she's already sleeping under it.

To Do Cards

With two quilt finishes in a week (I count my daughter's since I'm a full time assistant), it's time to regroup and figure out what my sewing priorities are. Unless you're new here, you probably know that I'm a "lots of WIPs" kind of gal. I'm pretty organized, but I'm still overwhelmed sometimes. Right now I'm looking at a couple upcoming swap deadlines, plus some challenge quilts. I decided that I needed a system to be able to see what my priorities are. My planner is great, but it's just not in my face enough. So, I decided to use index cards for each project. I'll be adding the deadlines (self-imposed or non) for the ones that are time sensitive, and that will help me focus my time on the "right" project. The advantage of the cards is that I'll be able to pin them up on my design wall, so there's no forgetting what I should be working on. I'll let you know how it goes. So far I've listed out all the projects.

Secret Sewing

Back to the kid related sewing, I've got a secret project in the works, here's a peak at just one of my fabrics. Everything is cut out on this one as of this evening.

Race Car Quilt

I'm also getting to work on this race car quilt. I've had to rework my design a bit since my backing fabric is a bit smaller than I need it to be. I added the yellow fabric tonight and my cutting list is all ready to go so I hope to get this one cut out tomorrow.

Upcoming Blog Hop

The last thing on my mind at the moment is the upcoming New Block Blog Hop. I'm not sure yet if I'll use one of the designs in my sketchbook or if I'll come up with something new... but it's getting close to crunch time. I love the colors and can't wait to see what people come up with.

Thanks for visiting!

I'm linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday.

Finally, A Finished Quilt • 26 Comments

sarah • August 18, 2016

Yesterday, about seven hours before my brother arrived for his birthday dinner, I finished his quilt. I finished his quilt that I started for him in 2004. Let's just take a second to put that in perspective. That was before I lived in this house. In fact, it was two homes ago. It was before I had kids. It was before I was married. It was before I had even met my husband. Yeah, basically, I was a completely different person back then. The single, middle school math teacher, who really didn't have much time for her newish quilting hobby.

baseball quilt

Oh, and by the way, I actually gave my brother this quilt as a Christmas present in 2004 (photo above). I think that was his Junior year of high school. I wrapped up about eight finished blocks for his gift and then "was going to finish it up for him." See, he even tried them on. And fake slept. ;-) Well, here we are, twelve years later. I know there are people with WIPs older than mine, but come on. They are snowball blocks. I've completed over 40 quilts (granted, many of them mini quilts) since I started his. Sheesh!

I'm thrilled to have finally finished this gift for him. I'm also relieved to not have the weight of a twelve-year-old WIP on me. I haven't yet determined what my next oldest WIP is, the quilt that will now fill that taunting role in my life. It's just better not to know. ;-)

While I was working to quilt it in the last few days, my son came in and asked me what I was doing. Now, he's a quilter. He knew I was quilting the quilt. I was confused. It turns out, what he wanted to know was what patterns I was quilting. He said he thought I would be quilting baseball players and baseballs and stuff. (The kid clearly thinks my free motion skills are beyond where they are.) So together we joked that maybe we could find some parts that looked like players in my meandering quilting. Here's what he, my sister and I came up with:

Player fielding a ground ball:

Pitcher:

Catcher:

Runner:

The back is simple. I used up the last of my baseball mitt fabric. (The last of the red baseball fabric went on the back of my daughter's first quilt.) and I snuck in some of the red fabric that I used when I made my kids' baseball clothes.

Here's the 58" x 83" quilt all washed and crinkly, just in time to give to Chris.

My son excitedly helped deliver the gift.

I named this quilt Finally. I'm glad that got a chuckle from Chris when he received it. He also appreciated that my label has washing instructions on it. :-)

Happy 28th Birthday, Chris!

I'm linking up to the Q3 Finish Along finishes party. See all my Q3 WIPs in my goal post.

Save

WIP Wednesday: Star Light Star Dark and Other Stuff • 16 Comments

sarah • August 17, 2016

Star Light Star Dark

I've made progress piecing my Star Light Star Dark quilt, and I can't wait to finish up! I showed off my big stars in my last post. Here they are with my small stars. I'm holding off on showing my other fabrics in favor of the big quilt top reveal when I get it all pieced together. :-) This project has been so quick and easy. Now to start thinking about how I want to quilt it. See others' progress on Instagram. There are so many beautiful versions in progress.

Quilting with the Kiddos

My kids continue to make slow progress on their projects, but mostly I had to help my daughter do her next two line of quilting so I'd have enough pins to baste my 58" x 83" secret project!

La Passacaglia

I was out of town on a family vacation last weekend. Since it was a relaxy, hang out in the vacation house kind of trip, I finally got my act together to pack along my La Passacaglia project to start basting and piecing. I'm happy with the progress I made, but I'll have to make an effort to work on it. I figure by the end of the first rosette I'll know if I'm hooked for the long haul or if rosette #1 is destined to stand alone as a mini quilt or on a bag. Right now it feel like magical bonus sewing, since it was done at a time I couldn't have been machine piecing. At home, I might work on it while watching TV in the evenings with my husband, and I intend to tote it around to work on when I find myself with a few minutes waiting for school pickup time and such. Here are the first ten (of 90) pieces in rosette #1.