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.  :)

Spring/Summer Table Runner and Towels

Of course, I had to make something for my moms for Mother's Day this year.  For my mom, I had to make another table runner to go along with the fall/winter runner I gave her for Christmas.  This time it was a spring/summer runner.
Unfortunately, I don't have ANY photos from any of the steps along the way.  I must have been too busy sewing!  But I have lots and lots of finished photos...

For the Spring side, I didn't want to spend tons of time coming up with my own original idea.  Fortunately, I had the perfect pattern already available.  I won a copy of Quiltmaker magazine from Ribbon Candy Quilt Company - who is the designer of the super cute "Skinnies" pattern line.  The magazine included a pattern for this "Spring Skinnie."

I adapted the pattern a little bit to make it fit the longer table runner and I think it turned out gorgeous!  It was fun to pull out all my spring color scraps and do some matching.

The entire thing is appliqued, except for the borders, of course.

For the Summer side, I really had no clue what to do.  I searched Pinterest and eventually found this pin on one of my boards that kind of stuck:

Click on picture for link

In the end I decided to go Red, White and Blue - so this runner is perfect for the 4th of July.

Once I had decided to do the Circle of Geese blocks, I sat down with some colored pencils and several small copies of the pattern and experimented with color.  These are the three blocks I came up with, all from the same pattern!

 For quilting, I knew that I wanted something that would work for both sides of the table runner.  Last time I used fusible fleece, so I was able to do custom quilting for each side, then fuse it all together.  This time I wanted to use leftover batting that I already had on hand, plus I wanted a thinner runner.

 I wasn't able to get swirls out of my head so I ended up using Angela Walters Concentric Circles design from her book Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters.  I was a little nervous about it because I had spent tons of time practicing it on paper and wasn't too impressed with my results.  Happily, the design looks MUCH better once it is actually quilted.  I really love how the quilting turned out.  It is dense, which is good for a table runner.  It also adds a new level of texture without interfering with the quilt design, so it is perfect.

I decided to try my hand at curved corners and they turned out great!  Because of the curves, I used bias cut binding for the first time ever (sheepish grin) and it worked beautifully.  Plus I didn't have to worry about mitered corners!  Score!

I auditioned several different fabrics for the binding - some of which probably would have been amazing, but in the end I went with this blue because it seemed the safest.  I really wanted something that would work well for BOTH sides.

And there you have it.  Another table runner.  It's about 15" x 38"


For my sweet mother-in-law, I embellished a few dish towels.  One can never have too many dish towels (especially my MIL.  She loves dish towels).  These are perfect for summer:

 

I think the watermelons are my favorite.

Up next... Father's Day!