Happy Halloween - I crocheted!

Happy Halloween!

This year, I got it into my head the the boys (now almost 2) NEEDED to dress up as little minions for Halloween.  You should see them when they run around - they bob up and down just like real minions - they even TALK like them.  :)

For some reason, I'm kind of opposed to buying premade costumes.  Growing up, we always made them ourselves, the best we could.  I guess I just feel like homemade is more authentic.  Maybe I'll change my mind next year...

Anyway, I set about trying to find yellow hats and yellow shirts - I tell you, it is IMPOSSIBLE!  Sure, I found yellow shirts, and maybe even a few hats - for adults.  My kids are still in size 18 months.  Sigh.

SO.  I did some more digging and found THIS tutorial from Chucksforchancho.  It was AWESOME!  So detailed - Monica was so generous to share this tutorial with us.  The only problem was this - I didn't know how to crochet!!  I think I've done it before - 12 of 13 years ago my Mom taught me a few basics, but it never stuck.  SO.  I borrowed a crochet hook from Mom and proceeded to do lots of reading and youtube watching.  And I learned how to crochet.  THIS website (Maybe Matilda) was a LIFESAVER.  Excellent tutorials and lots of extra links for videos and stuff.

And look, it worked!  I spent about one evening learning how to crochet, then two more evenings (I won't tell you how many hours...) making these hats and I still can't believe how well they turned out!  They are far from perfect, but way better than I expected them to be!

I ended up making them different sizes - the first one seemed a tad small, so I made the second one one size up.  They both still fit pretty well, luckily.  And I tried adding a mouth, but just couldn't get it to look right, so I left it off.

I'm not much of an overall person, but I found these two online, barely worn for only $3.  SCORE!

And, to top it all off - I even ended up dying a couple of onesies because of the atrocious lack of yellow clothing available for 18 month olds.  Go me!

Group hug!

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Baby Chevrons

Welcome new friends and old followers!

This is my entry for the "Baby Quilts" category in Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival.
Check out the other baby quilts HERE.
Check out the whole festival (it's awesome, set aside a huge chunk of time) here:

Would you believe it, this is the ONLY quilt I have completed since the last festival!  (Well, if you don't count my BYU quilted growth chart...)  First we moved (so much cleaning and packing...) and then I decided to open an Etsy shop and I've been busy making smaller things for that.  Oh, and a few birthday gifts, like my totally awesome Harry Potter and Dr. Who Pillows. 

Luckily, a friend of mine is having a baby girl soon!  Yay!  An excuse to make a quilt!  I LOVE it when that happens.  Unfortunately, I learned to quilt after most of my friends started having babies, so I haven't had nearly as many opportunities as I would like to make baby quilts.  So this one was special.  Baby quilts are so satisfying to make because they come together so quickly and they are such a wonderful, personal gift to give.  Now I just need my sisters to start having babies...  Someday.

Anyway.  For those of you who are visiting for the first time, here it is!

If you squint a little, you can sort of see the ombre pattern running left to right.

The quilting on this one was originally inspired by Christa's Charming Chevrons quilt.

I tried something new (for me) with this quilt.  I don't know about you - but I REALLY love the clean crisp look of a quilt that has not been washed yet.  I know there are lots of people who like the soft crinkliness of a freshly washed quilt, but I feel like my quilts lose a little bit when they get like that.  Maybe it's the "old fashioned" look?  I don't know.  I like things crisp and clean.  So with this quilt, I prewashed my batting and my flannel backing (but not my fabric - I used a charm pack, that would have been a disaster - maybe part of the problem?), in hopes that the flannel and batting would shrink BEFORE I washed the whole quilt together.  But when I pulled the freshly washed quilt out of the dryer, it was still pretty crinkly to me.  Maybe it was just my quilting choices.

 Not horrible, this quilt is still super adorable, but it just looks a little different.  What about you?  Do you like the clean, crisp look?  Or do you like the soft, crinkly look?  What can I do to avoid the crinkly?  Ah well.  I still love this quilt.

Quilt stats:

Started: August 5, 2013

Finished: August 18, 2013

Fabrics:  Amelia and Favorites by Me and My Sisters; Kona Steel and Bison

Finished size: 31 x 25 (post washing)

Recipient:  MM baby girl due in November

NOW.  Go and check out all the other fabulous quilts in the festival!
Thanks for stopping by!  You're awesome.

P.S.  Wanna win a new sewing machine?  Check out the giveaway Amy is hosting.  Why do I need a new machine?  Well, mine is getting old and I don't think it's going to last forever.  I bought it used and it has seen a lot of use since then.  It might be time to upgrade.  :)

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Why, Hello!

Welcome new people!  Welcome back old friends!

Last year I felt bad that I never thought to share these little minis as part of Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival.  So I'm sharing them now, even though I made them almost a year ago.  Because they are still one of my most favorite projects EVER.

This is my entry in the "Wall Hanging Quilts" category in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Check out the other wall hanging quilts HERE.
Check out the whole festival (it's amazing, people) here:

Actually, this is a set of 13 wall hangings.  Those of you who have been here before have probably seen them already.  They were SO much fun to make.  I made these for my sister who lives on her own and is always looking for new, cute things to decorate her house with.  She has always been a sunny person to me.  She's always happy, she loves yellow, and her favorite thing to say is "Why, hello!"  (in various accents, of course).  So when I discovered April Mae's "Hello Sun" block of the month quilt along I just HAD to play along (she has now made these into patterns - you can buy them HERE).  Instead of making one big quilt, I made 12 minis - so that my sister could switch them out each month.  Then I designed the extra wall hanging for her to keep up all year long and tie everything together.  Here they are!

First, the big one that I designed:


All of the minis together:


And some close-ups of each wall hanging:

January:


February:


March:


April:


May:


June:


July:


August:


September:


October:


November:


December:


I love these because each month is different, yet they all follow the same theme.  I even made another set for myself.  :)


Beginning Nov. 1st, you can vote for your favorite quilts in each category!

Thanks for visiting!  Now go check out all the other entries. 

Shapes Quiet Book

I made another quiet book!  Hurray!  Now I kind of need one more to keep the number even (you know, because I have twins and everything must come in even numbers).

I want to make a series of books that focus on one concept, so I started with shapes.

I wanted to have some sort of shape matching element, but I also wanted the pages to be a little more interactive.  This is what I came up with:

Circle - turn the wheels on the car;  Rectangle - open the door to see the kid.

At first I attached ribbons to all of my loose shapes so they would NEVER be lost from the book (like THIS book I found on Etsy).  But after trying to use the book for one day the tangled ribbons drove me insane so I cut them all off and attached sticky velcro dots instead.  I'm a huge fan of sticky velcro dots now.

Heart - weaving practice;  Star - slide the "shooting star" along the string.

Can you see the error on my "Square" page?

 I didn't.  After all the time I spent sewing, photographing, and playing with it I finally had to have the error pointed out to my by a potential customer in my Etsy shop.  GAH!  So embarrassing!  I had that listing up for days before someone noticed it and pointed it out to me!  Normally I am quite proud of my spelling and proofreading skills.  But the good news is, this customer decided to buy a book anyway!  Wahoo!  You can bet everything will be spelled right this time around.  :)

Square - turn the pages in the book;  Triangle - open the tent flaps to see the bear.

EDIT:  I made a new Square page, but I have to leave the old pictures up here to remind myself to proofread a little better next time.  :)

Some of the pages in our other quiet books are starting to get a little fuzzy where the velcro sticks to the felt, so I tried something new this time.  I sewed a Ziplock baggie (name brand, not the cheap stuff - I didn't want it to rip) to the back for storing the extra shapes.  This way the sticky side of the velcro won't catch on the felt.  So far it's holding up pretty well.

The boys love it.  Especially once I taught them how to match the shapes.  They are both surprisingly good at it!  I LOVE it when my projects pass the toddler test.  :)

Next up:  Colors, letters, and numbers.  :)

This book is for sale in my shop HERE.  (With the correct spelling, of course!)

BYU Growth Chart

I made a new growth chart!  (See my original growth charts HERE).  I love this one even more than the originals.  The Hubby is a little jealous that we don't get to keep it.  I made it for our nephew - his mom requested something a little more grown up, so that he will still love it when he's older.  It was Connor's Daddy who suggested the BYU theme and I think it turned out awesome.  I'm going to start selling these college themed growth charts in my SHOP.  Thanks to my brother and sister-in-law for the inspiration!

It's a little hard to photograph, since it's so long and skinny.  And my yellow walls don't really help much...

So I got a little creative with the photography.  :)

Here's a shot of the back.  I used some of the leftover BYU fabric from the front strip.   I stitched the applique down AFTER quilting, so that it would pop a little more.  That's why you can see the backwards stitching on the back. 

Some close-ups of the Applique:

It's really hard to tell, but I used a light gray ("silver," actually) thread for the quilting lines in hopes that it would stand out a bit from the white.  I think it maybe worked... sort of.

I considered binding this by machine, since machine binding is a tad bit sturdier and MUCH MUCH faster.  But in the end, I've kind of turned into one of those people I always mentally referred to as "binding snobs."  :)  Hand binding is just so fun to do!  And it really does look WAY nicer.  It doesn't feel like work to me when I get to do it in front of the TV.  I think I'll be binding most everything (probably with the exception of baby quilts - since they spend so much time in the washer) by hand from now on.  Coincidentally, I bound this one during the last BYU football game (GO COUGARS), which we WON!!!
I even remembered to include the hanging tabs this time.  Go me!

p.s.  Still loving that walking foot, Mom!  Best investment EVER.

One Block Wonder Quilt Top

I finished my One Block Wonder quilt!

I'm joining in the One Block Wonder Quilt-Along hosted by Jen at Quilter in the Closet.  Check out her blog for more information on how to make a quilt like this:

Basically, this quilt is made from a single fabric, strategically cut and sewn back together.  I cheated a little bit, because I didn't have any cuts of fabric on hand that were big enough.  So I used two similar fabrics from the same line.

First I made 14 hexagons from this African Mask fabric:

Before

After

Isn't amazing how much it changes?

Then I made 12 more hexagons using this African Patchwork cheater print:

Before

After

I did bend the "rules" a little bit on this one.  The book recommends staying away from fabrics with straight lines and angles, but I think some of the blocks turned out pretty cool.  Initially, there were a lot of blocks like the one in the middle that looks like it has a border, but I ended up changing the orientation of the triangles in a few blocks to get more variety.  There were SO many possibilities with this fabric - I wish I had taken more pictures for you...

When I had all my blocks ready, I mixed them all up and sewed them together!

I was going for a sort of gradual "black to white" look

Since I ended up using less than a yard of fabric total (as opposed to the 3 or 4 yards recommended for a full size quilt), and the fact that I cut my triangles smaller than the size given in the book (in order to get as many repeats as possible) my quilt top is pretty small.  About 20 x 24 with 24 total Hexies. 

 

Just a little glamour shot in our gorgeous fall back yard...

I'm really not sure what to do with it at this point.  I could add a border to it (I'm thinking a solid black border, then another border using leftovers from the same prints) and make it a throw quilt.  Or I could turn it into a big pillow.  I think I'm going to do something I rarely do - put this one aside for awhile and let it simmer while I think about what to do with it.  What do you think?

The black and gold gives it kind of a Halloween look, doesn't it?  Especially when you notice the block towards the bottom with the creepy eyes...   Happy October!

This was a really fun quilt to make and I would love to make another, larger one someday.  Thanks for the inspiration Jen!

Check out the link-up HERE.  It will be open until October 30th, and then VOTING BEGINS!  I can't wait to see what everyone else has come up with!