Time for Some Catching Up: Smallish Projects of Late

Hi friends!

I've got a few things to share with you, so be prepared for an onslaught of posts from me.  :)

My Etsy shop had a record breaking number of orders in March, which meant that I was pretty busy for the months of March AND April (I even had to close my shop to catch up.  Even now only half of the listings are up).  But I am officially all caught up now and it's time to share a few non-Etsy projects I've finished since... well, December.  ;P

First up are these Vinyl Project Bags. I made these as part of a swap for our Guild back in November.  Check out the tutorial for these HERE:  Thimbleanna Vinyl Project Bag.
I couldn't stop at just one, so I made four.

Funny story - I knew I wasn't going to be able to make it to our November guild meeting, so I dropped these off with a friend to swap for me.  When I went to pick up my new bags from her, I was a little surprised to see one of my own bags (since we were swapping) in my little pile.  I didn't think much of it, though.  I just figured it was because I made so many bags and there weren't a lot to swap around. I was actually pretty happy I didn't have to part with all of mine in the end.  Several months later, I went to use said bag and discovered I had somehow sewn the zipper in wrong, so that the pocket part was completely closed off!  Ha!  I think my friends must have had a good laugh over that one when it came time to swap.  :)  Luckily, this was a pretty easy fix with a pair of scissors.  ;)

Next up is another swap from December.  This time we were swapping Red and Green Mini Mini quilts.  Here is the one I made (if I'm remembering right, it measures about 6.5" square).  I've been dying to try these cathedral windows style hexies for awhile.
I got a cute little wreath shaped Mini Mini in return and I love it. 

My mom has been hinting that she wants a non-Christmasy winter table runner for awhile.  So I whipped this up for her and it was so much fun.   I was inspired by THIS photo on Pinterest, but other than that I just sort of went for it.  This one was a little hard for me to give away...

And finally, I made this football pillow for our family Superbowl Party.  Looking back, I probably should have made the laces much shorter, but there you have it.  My Grandma used to make one like this every year for her Superbowl parties (which were a big deal - Grandma had 7 sons, 1 son-in-law, and a whole lot of grandkids).  Then we would all bet on the final score and the winner got to take home the football pillow.  As luck would have it, I was the winner this year.  ;p

And since I feel the need to document, but not so much the need to take pictures - I want to mention that I also made a few pillowcases (Batman for Jaxson, Superman for Bronx, and Frozen for Adele - the little girl I babysit once a week), a dinosaur crayon roll for Noah, and a car mat (from a panel) for Noah.

The End.  For now.  I'll be back soon with a few bigger finishes.  :)

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!

2015 Swaps

I participated in my first swaps in 2015!  The first was for the Nebo Modern Quilt Guild (see more of that one HERE).  It was so much fun I promptly signed up for two more.  The #schnitzelandboominiquiltswap, and the #pillowtalkswapIGstyle, both on instagram.

I blogged about my SchnitzelandBoo swap HERE.


Here is what I made for the Pillow Talk Swap on IG:

I'm stealing Patti's photos because they are WAY better than mine.  She asked for a Christmas pillow and I was more than happy to oblige.  :)  I pulled out my long hoarded Kate Spain "12 Days of Christmas" charm pack and went to town.  The trees and pinwheels are 3D!  I used Moda's free "Jovial" quilt pattern (find it HERE) and made my blocks half size.  Try as I might to come up with a different idea for quilting, I just had to go with pebbles.  I like how the quilting looks like snow.  :)

For the other side, I cut the rest of my charms into 2.5" squares and pieced them together randomly, with the exception of the white section.  I tried to copy some of the many cute fonts from the fabric for the "Fa la la la la."  Then I quilted the two back panels with petals.  I love how the back turned out!

This pillow was pretty hard to give up, but I scored an AWESOME pillow in return!

This picture does NOT do it justice, but my partner totally made me a Christmas Cathedral Windows pillow.  And she sent me some awesome extras - my favorite being the ornament stuffed with the trimmings from this pillow.  It's darling.  :)


For my last swap of the year, I made this little Wide Open Pouch for our guild Christmas pouch swap.  Since I'm pretty much obsessed with Dresdens still, that's what I went with. 

Wahoo!  These were finishes #8 (pillowtalk swap) and #9 (pouch), from my Quarter 4 Finish-Along list!  Linking up:

Pillows: April and May

This is just a quick post to share with you the pillows I have made in the past few months.  My goal is to have a new seasonal pillow for each month.  Here's what I came up with for April:

I knew I wanted to make something with clamshells (I'm hoping to practice a new technique each month), but I also wanted something somewhat Easter-y.  So I threw that little chick in there with all the Easter Eggs.  I'm not totally in love with it (I wish I had placed the chick a little better - he looks like he's floating), but it is what it is.  And I got to try Amber's Applique technique again, which I like. 

And May:

This poor pillow form is getting pretty smashed.  I use this pillow EVERY DAY.  I should invest in a really awesome pillow form.  Any recommendations?

 I've been feeling Dresdens lately, which is a bit of a surprise, since I used to think they were WAY too traditional for my tastes.  But it turns out they look awesome in modern fabrics.  :)  I even had just the right number of charm squares left over from a pack of Joel Dewberry's True Colors.  I like to work with fabrics all from the same line because the coordination is already done for me.  :)

I tried some cool modern quilting in the circle, but it's really hard to see the patterns.  I was going for feathers along the outside, a ring of pebbles, and more feathers mixed with swirls.  Maybe I'll get another chance to try this again someday.  I didn't use any backing fabric on this piece, and I wonder if that's part of why the quilting doesn't pop very much?

I like the back of this pillow kind of a lot.  I've been holding onto this print for a long time - I don't know what it is - does anybody else?  It's so busy I can't really use it with anything else, but it's pretty on it's own.  I just didn't have QUITE enough of it and had to supplement with the gray.  I also love the look of the edges on this pillow (it's bound like a quilt).  I'll be using this technique again.

NOW.  It's officially July and I still haven't made a pillow for June.  I suppose I could blame that on the new baby, but really it's because I waited all month for inspiration to strike and nothing did.  I guess it's time to hit Pinterest again!

The April pillow was Finish #8 from my Q2 Finish Along List.  Wahoo!  Linking Up:

March

I made another pillow!  I'm liking this trend and I already have a pillow design in mind for April.  :)

I've been seeing lots and lots of plus quilts around lately, have you?  I decided to try my hand at one in pillow form.  And of course, in honor of St. Patties day in March, I made it all green.  Lots of scraps went into this one.  Wahoo! 
For the quilting, I considered doing some matchstick quilting (have you heard?  Matchstick quilting is THE thing lately).  But in the end, I went with simple straight line quilting because I know that's what hubby likes best.  He's so spoiled.  :)

For the backing, I really wanted to use up the rest of those clover-like leaves, but it turns out I didn't have much left.  Not quite enough to properly overlap in the back.  So I added this little button to my envelope closure to keep everything from falling out.  Also, I've been following Amy's Pillow Collective blog hop over at Amy's Creative Side.  Many of her guest bloggers added binding to their pillows for a nice finished look, so I decided to give it a try and I LOVE it!  It's so easy too.  Win win!

Next up - Clamshells! 

p.s. I need to link up my March goal with Shanna and Melissa over at ALYOF.  I have a lot of projects to finish before the baby comes (T-minus 8 weeks!), but I'm choosing to finish my latest Do.Good Stitches quilt for my March goal.  It's all basted and ditch quilted.  I'm going to practice lots and lots of fun FMQ designs on this one.  Wish me luck!

A New Pillow for Valentines Day

Every year in February I get the itch to make a pillow or two.  I don't really have any Valentines decor, so this year I finally sat down and made something!  I've also been wanting to try hexies for awhile too.  They are actually surprisingly fast and easy (and stitching from the couch is a nice change)!  And since there are no hearts on this pillow, maybe I can use it for more than just Valentines Day?


I was inspired by THIS mini from Modern Handcraft for my pillow top.  I used a mix of low volume prints for the background and I love how it turned out!

The texture on this pillow is pretty awesome.   I love this quilting design. 

Once the quilting was done, I decided I wasn't quite finished so I added a few ghost hexies in the "negative space".  Can you spot them?

Since I originally planned four columns of hexies for the top and ended up liking the look of three better, I had a few hexies left over.  I decided to try my hand at actually hand piecing them together the traditional way.  Then I appliqued them to this gray solid, which I was happy to find in my stash.  Now the pillow is double sided!  And of course an envelope enclosure for me!

I didn't take the time to look up a tutorial or anything, just tried to stitch these together from memory based on that one time we had an EPP class at Quilt Guild...  I hope I did it right!

And I couldn't help but share the rest of my Valentines decor with the new pillow.  Mostly because I love these monthly themed blocks so much!  The sun pattern is from April May Designs HERE (I made the whole set for my sister and another set for myself - check out my post HERE).  The Subway art printable is from Just Another Hangup HERE.

Now... what to make for March??

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: