Catching up!

Oh man, November and December were CRAZY!  My Etsy shop exploded, which is a good thing of course, but it kept me super busy trying to keep on top of all the orders.  Not to mention the commissioned quilts I started in October and finished in December (more on those later).  Whew!
But for now, here are a few quick photos of some of the things I made in November and December 2015.  :)

Korbin's Growth Chart
One of my long time/favorite customers on Etsy (who happens to be my sister-in-law's mother) ordered another growth chart for her newest grandson.  The mom requested red/orange/gray to match his brother's blue/green/gray growth chart.  I had fun trying to get some artsy shots of this awkward shaped object with my weaksauce camera and yellow walls and toddler helpers.  :)  But the best part about making this growth chart was getting to deliver it personally.  Korbin's grandma is one of the sweetest ladies I know.  :)

Starburst/strings pillow
I thought I had some pictures of this, but apparently I don't.  I've been using it for three months on my rocking chair, so I pulled it out for a quick photo just to prove I actually finished it.  ;)  More photos of it HERE.  I made this pillow as part of my guild's challenge to make something from scraps.  I pulled out my TINIEST scraps to make the two sides of this pillow.  I really want to make something bigger with my strings someday - I have a TON of them.




Noah's Stocking
Whew!  Now everyone in the family has a stocking.  I should have taken a picture of them all lined up.  It's a little embarrassing - you can definitely see the progression of my sewing skills over the years!


Camera Strap Cover
My sister is an avid Harry Potter fan and a self-proclaimed Ravenclaw, so I whipped up this blue and silver camera strap cover for her fancy new camera.   Tutorial HERE.

 I also made a whole bunch of these little tissue holders to give as gifts at a party.  I made a few extras for myself, of course.  Tutorial HERE.

Crayon Rolls
I made these for my boys' 4th birthday.  They LOVE these little notebooks, so I had to make a spot for them.  They are also obsessed with all things super hero lately.  (Although if you were to ask them now, they would say Darth Vader is their favorite...)

Lastly, Rummy mats!  I made 12 of these babies in 2 1/2 months.  Yikes!  Next year I'm going to make them ahead of time so I'm not completely swamped during the Holiday season.
I took this picture one day to show the difference between my very first Rummy mat and my 30th Rummy mat.  I would like to think that my skills have improved.  ;) 



 Wahoo!  These are finishes #2 (pillow), #4 (stocking), #11 (growth chart), and #12 (crayon rolls) from my Quarter 4 Finish-Along list.  Linking up!

Time to Slow Down!

So.  November and December were CRAZY busy for me!  I had this big old to-do list to begin with, and then my Etsy shop sort of exploded.  Things in the shop had been pretty quiet for awhile, but once Christmas shopping season started, I had all sorts of things lined up to make for others.  Mostly stockings and Rummy mats (that's another post, I think) and one huge quiet book.  I barely managed to finish it all and now that things have slowed down I'm going to do a big old photo dump right here on the blog over the next few posts.  ;)

Oh yeah.  One more thing.  We're having a baby!  Yay!  It's another boy and he'll be here in early May.  Does anyone have any good ideas for boy names?  We are stumped, since we already used our first two ideas...
Of course, we are super excited for baby #3, but I must admit that I didn't feel too great for most of September and October, so there was a bit of a decrease in production/blogging around here for awhile.  Let me just say that the 2nd trimester has been awesome.  I LOVE not being sick all the time.  :)

Alright.  Lets get to it.  Here are all of the things I have finished since my last post in October:

First of all, my Mom had a birthday back at the end of October.  She just had back surgery and I found out that she's been taking my sister's pillow with her to church every week to sit on and decided she definitely needed her own!  She really liked the cathedral windows block I made for my Something New Sampler quilt, so I that's what I went with.
Here is the finished Cathedral Windows block:   I loved going through my scraps to choose fun warm/cool prints.

And here are a couple of crappy phone pictures taken right before I delivered the pillow:

I even used some of my hoarded Simply Color Ogee print for the envelope back.  I don't have a lot of purples, but I love this one.

(This pillow was #9 on my Finish Along list)

Next up, baby Braden!  My Sister-in-Law had a baby in November and Braden's Grandma ordered a growth chart for him to match his older brother's.  They wanted to stick to the BYU theme.  These are kind of fun to make.  :)

(This was finish #2 on my Finish Along List)

We are lucky that our new baby will have a cousin his age on BOTH sides.  My sister is due with her first baby any day now, and requested a puff quilt for her baby shower.  She's going to name the little girl Avonlea, isn't that cute?  I actually made two puff quilts with the intention to list the other in the shop.  As soon as the second one is bound, I'll get some better pictures.  :)  This puff quilt was a big hit at the baby shower - it even inspired one of my aunts to make one of her own! 

(This is finish #4 on my Finish Along List)

Of course, I snuck in a few bee blocks during all this madness.  Vickey asked for Churn Dash blocks for November.  The first few I made turned out pretty washed out because of the one really busy print I used, so I made her a few extras to make up for it.  I love the pinwheel one.  :)

Amazingly, someone ordered one of my ABC quiet books, which was awesome.  All 28 pages.  The whole thing took me 22 hours to make!  I actually went and bumped up the price for this book after making the second one because WHEW!  That was a lot of work!  I also updated some of the pages with bigger and better images, which I was happy to have a chance to do.

I even got to make a couple customized name books.  These short names were a breeze to work with and I updated the cover to add a few extra details.

I made a new M page, since Emily's book already came with a mailbox for M.  Luckily, my boys were able to tell it was a monkey and not a bear...

And lastly, I whipped up this tablecloth in those final days before Christmas.  This was a gift to my mother-in-law from all the siblings.  Our family is getting bigger and we no longer fit around a normal table, so she usually sets us up at the ping pong table.  :)  Unfortunately, she can never find a tablecloth big enough to fit the ping pong table so she always has to layer two or three tablecloths on top of each other.  Now she has one that is custom made to fit (which is totally DOES - I am SO relieved)!  AND it's double sided.  The first side is for when her friends (who don't spill) come over and is made with regular quilting cotton.

And the second side is for when we (the spillers) come over and is made from vinyl. 

(This is #8 on my Finish Along List)

And I lets not forget the quilts I made for my twins' birthday at the beginning of December.  They are waiting for a proper photo shoot so they can have their own post.  But in the meantime, here is proof that I finished them!

(These are finishes #6 and #7 on my Finish Along List)

Most of these projects were part of my Quarter 4 Finish Along list (YAY!), so I will be linking up here:

Kyler's Growth Chart

Remember Connor's BYU Growth Chart?

Well, Connor is going to have a new cousin soon, and his grandma was awesome enough to commission growth charts for both of them.  :)

I finished Kyler's growth chart the morning before I delivered it, and it was very hard to get good pictures of it, but here you go:

His mom asked for blue, green, and gray.  My stash is sorely lacking in those areas (especially gray), so I got to go shopping!  I think the color scheme Kyler's mom chose is awesome.  These are the fabrics I came home with (I supplemented this stack with some from my stash).  There's a little bit of Michael Miller in there, some Reunion, some Scoot, and a couple other line I can't remember at the moment.... See the little elephants?  I was so excited to find those - Kyler's nursery theme revolves around elephants.

This was a fun growth chart to make. 

But, like I said - so hard to photograph.

Kyler's mom wanted his full name on his growth chart, so I took all my pictures before adding the last two names (for privacy reasons).  You'll have to trust me when I tell you that it turned out even cuter than this.  But then I had to take a couple more right as I finished and I think they turned out a little better, so I have blurred his middle and last name out in these photos.  I wanted you to see how I attempted to make it so the binding marked every 12 inches on the chart (like a real ruler).  It's not perfect, but I think it works okay. 

What do you think?  This was fun to make, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  :)

P.S... These growth charts are available in my shop.

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.