My latest creation

I have been making a concerted effort to finish this quilt I started before Mac was born. I would work on it, and then it would get moved off the sewing table in favor of projects with a deadline. I decided to make it happen at the beginning of the year. I have worked on it, but I have also read 9.5 books since Mac's birthday too. I am so glad it is finished.

I used a pattern called All Aboard from The Teacher's Pet. This quilt is for Blanket, and so much of the personalization is geared to him. I left the elephants out of the gondola 'cause elephants would never ride in a gondola.

Close-ups of the quilting

The big reveal

It's hanging up right now if you want to come inspect it.

Fabric Creations

Here's the promised post about what I have managed to sew over the last few months.

Two quilts that were donated to Firehouse Quilts. (scroll down to Littleton, CO)

Reversible apron for me.

Apron for Grandma Stitches

Apron for Leprechaun (nephew)

Apron for Froggie (my SIL).

Apron for Grandma B.A.R.

Apron for Grandma Stitches.

Not pictured ('cause I was in to much of a hurry to get them mailed for Christmas):

Apron for Birdie (niece)

2 pairs each pjs for Leprechaun and Birdie

Work on a quilt for Blanket (photos when that is finished).

I guess some things never get old.

Last year I did this great post about Tiger and his love of shoes. At some point after that Tiger just got too grown-up for the whole thing until a couple of weeks ago. When he showed Blanket how to wear Daddy's shoes:Here they stand posed so that I could get a good picture of both of them. Tiger can walk around in big shoes, but he has big feet for his size. Blanket still has very small feet and is very small for his age so he has difficulty walking around in adult shoes. One day I even caught Tiger wearing Blanket's shoes. Now if only I could get him to put on his own shoes!
Yes, they are both holding Snoopy dogs. I will post about Snoopy at a later date.

Tiger is wearing 1 of 3 pairs of pajamas I made for him. They weren't hard. In fact I just made another set for someone else this last weekend. I got them done in 4 hours or so including the time it took to cut them out.

Staying busy

While I took a break from blog posting for a while I did take some time in August and September to finish this quilt I started for Tiger back in the spring. I had done everything but hide all my threads. It sat around as a UFO (unfinished object) for many moons until I got motivated to get it finished and up on the wall.

I made it from a pattern called Around Town published by The Country Quilter. I like using patterns (instead of kits) because then I can customize it and use fabrics that I like. I did add a few personal touches to the quilt that weren't included in the instructions.

• I made the flower delivery truck into a FedEx truck.
• I made the gas pump a diesel pump
• I changed two of the yellow signs. One I put on a U-turn and the other I put a tractor on. Both of these are legitimate signs that I did find on the internet. (Where do you think I got the picture for the tractor from?)
• The two white signs say "DO NOT PASS" and "RIGHT LANE MUST TURN LEFT." The former being a legitimate sign and the latter a little bit of humor all tucked up in my quilt.

The border/sashing fabric has roads with all sorts of cars and trucks on it. I bought it at Great American Quilt Factory but I also saw it at High Prairie Quilts. I also used it for the backing fabric. I machine appliqued all the cars and signs. I used Sulky Totally Stable iron-0n tear-away stabilizer during the applique process. I fused it to the back of the fabric at the same time I fused the appliques to the front using Steam-a-Seam 2. This worked well for 2 reasons: 1) I fused both in one easy step and 2) because I had to move each piece in and out of the machine many times and the stabilizer didn't become separated from the fabric. This is my favorite stabilizer for working with iron-on appliques. I quilted in the ditch around each block and then added some lines in the borders. I used a blue/green varigated thread for this and for the back when I quilted around each car/sign individually in clear monofilament thread.

I did cut out all the pieces individually. So each time you see a fabric change it is a different piece of fabric. The only things I did "color" myself were the checkerboard on the taxi, the lines on the RR crossing sign and the lettering on the diesel pump, stop sign, RR crossing sign, "DO NOT PASS,"and "RIGHT LANE MUST TURN LEFT" signs. In some cases there is thread painting of detail lines on the vehicles.

I have since completed 2 other sewing projects. The Halloween costumes and pajamas for Tiger. I think I will post pictures of the pajamas at a later date.

Advent calendar

Here's my excuse for not blogging.  It's an advent calendar.  All the little things are pockets and I can hide candy or quotes or toys or whatever in it for Christmas next year.  This is what I wanted that shimmery fabric for, I wanted it for the star, but I didn't find what I wanted so I used a yellow piece that I had instead.
Why? Why did I make a Christmas decoration AFTER Christmas, you ask?  Well, because all the fabric was on clearance.  The yellow for the star was a piece I had bought and never used. The green and red for the packages were left over from when I made stockings 2.5 years ago. The  rest was all on sale!   And I was much more in the Christmas spirit after the holiday this year than I was before it.  I also felt like Christmas lasted longer because of this.

If you can't tell, I love stripes and plaids.  Love them.  So orderly, so mixed up, so great.

Shimmery fabric, a need for

I know, it's been ages and you all thought that I had fallen off the face of the earth.  But not so.  I have been busy with my sewing machine, Christmas, guests, guest's dog, planning new sewing projects, taking advantage of fabric sales, and dreaming about the mending that awaits me as soon as my guests vacate my sewing room.

I have 3 or 4 projects in the works, and I need a small favor from all you fabricaholics out there.  I am looking for a piece approx. 7"x 14" or about a fat eighth of shimmery gold or silver fabric.  I need to make a 6.5" star and I am just not finding what I want at the fabric store. 

Email pictures of fabric to me with the link in the right sidebar.  If I like what you show me I will compensate you with in-kind fabric, money, or some other prize (I even FEDEX fresh pumpernickel if you want).

The rest of the clothes

So here are my other 3 triumphs of fabric. If I was smart I would have chosen fabrics that hide mistakes and flaws. I however, love plaid, and those can show your mistakes if you don't take great care to match lines and such.
This second one was even harder. Not only is it argyle, it is corduroy too. It means you have to pay super close attention to the pattern, and the direction of the fabric.
This last one is a wrap skirt, and the only one not to feature either black or green. It is plaid though, and I found some nice ribbon to accent the top.
If any of you, besides Jenny, were paying any attention; I wore the top one on Sunday. Thanks for noticing Jenny.

Hooray for new clothes.

In case you think that I haven't been doing anything these last few weeks, lookie here:

This is a new skirt that I made. Lots and lots of learning, consternation, frustration, and fabric later I have a skirt that I like.

If you think I am nuts or merely neurotic to make my own clothes, understand this: When I was growing up all my dresses were homemade or pre-owned. I always got the dresses and skirts that I wanted because my mom or other women made them for me. Call it being spoiled. As an adult, I have a very hard time going to the store and buying something off the rack because I never had to do it as a child. Occasionally I can find something I like, but this often comes after many moons and many stores and much frustration. When I shop for clothes (especially dress clothes) I am very picky. It is seriously easier for me to find fabric that I like and a pattern I like.

I have two more skirts in the works, and then maybe I will be brave enough to try shirts/vests or tops of some other kind to go with them.

Ta-Dah

Ok, so this post has been a long time coming. I keep writing about "my quilt" and its perpetual state of unfinishedness. Well, no longer. It's done. Really. I finished it about a month ago, but I was waiting until I applied a layer of Scotch-Gard until I called it done for real. It has even been moved to its permanant home on the bed.

I didn't make any crazy patterns, or anything because the focus of the quilt is the buckmark, and I really wanted that to draw your attention. The buckmark is thee logo for the Browning gun company. It matches our lamps.

The name of the quilt is The BuckMarks the Spot. The pictures are big enough to get great detail if you click on them. In case you are wondering, each square is 12 inches. It is backed in the fabric I dyed in coffee a few months back.
Each square is quilted with the buckmark, and then stitched in the ditch around the edges. The binding is pieced to match the leather lacing on our faux leather lampshades in our bedroom.
I designed this quilt about 2 years ago to match our lamps, ceiling fan, and log furniture. Now I just need to pick out a wall color to pull it all together. If you have ideas, or would like to come give suggestions, feel free!!! I need all the color help I can get.
Forgive the clothes dying to jump out of the closet to be photographed too.

My latest sewing project

I have put my quilt on hold while we did vacation things and the pink buntings.  Since my machine was set up for no project in particular and I had extra pink thread I decided to make a sampler of all the stitches on my new sewing machine.  This is a good way of seeing what all the stitches really look like.  Think of it as an index/reference card for your sewing machine.  I used up a lot of old thread, or thread leftover from other projects that I really wasn't going to need ever again.  In case you are wondering it is over 8 feet long, and it is made up of 180 stitches and 3 alphabets.  I spent Monday-Wednesday working on it.

Pink

There was a point when I was much younger that pink was my favorite color.  That is no longer true.  I did, however, spend most of my weekend playing with pink.  I made these for my niece, Birdie, who will be born in October.  Sorry to spoil the surprise, Froggie, but I wanted to show off what I have been doing.  I have two little things to fix, and then I will pop them in the mail.

About the pink, I have boys and love to shop for boys' clothes.  When I go looking for gifts for baby girls, I usually end up in the boys' section looking for boys' clothes that little girls could wear.   I think the ships and lions and trucks are so much cuter than the flowers and butterflies and birds.

If anyone else wants  one of these, email me or comment and I will get back with you.

Curtains

Here is the long awaited post about those curtains.  The first pic is the ones that I just finished last week.  They were fairly simple since I made the ones for the other windows 2 years ago.

These were much harder because I had to do all the measuring and calculating of everything.  I had no pattern, and so I just went out on the internet and got a feel for how to make them with all the seams and such.   Last year I took them down and added black-out material to them so that the room would be much darker.  I made the new ones in with the black-out fabric too.  I almost think BC's room is too dark in the afternoon, now he sleeps forever when he does take a nap (which is what he is doing right now).  Someday both boys will sleep in there after BL learns to sleep all night.

Yes, it is the same fabric.  I had to wait a month for Wal-mart to get have it in stock so that I could make the second set.  There are blinds behind the new ones so the light is different for the two windows.  

I'll send you instructions for them if you want.