Henrik's Quiet Book

I made another quiet book!  Yay!  Here's the story.

Several weeks ago, a friend of mine came over with her son Henrik who is just a few months younger than my boys.  She wanted to see my quiet books, so I got them ALL out and proceeded to talk her ear off about each one and how it was made.  :)  I figured she was there for inspiration and wanted to make one of her own.  Then after a little while she whipped out her checkbook and said "I want one."  I was so surprised (as I always am) someone wanted to buy one of my quiet books that she had a check written out before I could even stop her!  ANYWAY.  For such an awesome friend, I couldn't decide which one to make her, so I took all the best parts and combined them into one book!  Now I'm thinking I'm going to have to add this one to my shop.  :)

Wanna see?  Here it is:

I decided it was time to take the plunge and try adding SNAPS!  After much research, and several returned products, I found a pair of snap pliers and snaps at kamsnaps.com and they are TOTALLY AWESOME and VERY reasonably priced.  I think I'll be adding these snaps to all my quiet books now!  It turns out they are a little tough to pull apart, but they are definitely strong and won't be coming off anytime!

I combined all the pages from my shapes book into one.  I like this WAY better because I omitted the extra words and it was nice not having to stitch ALL those itty bitty letters.  There's a little bear behind those tent flaps, by the way.  And I added googly eyes to the little baby behind the door.  SO CUTE.

Most people say that they house page is their favorite from my two original quiet books.   So I had to include one for Henrik.  And that barn page is pretty awesome.  I picked it up from Homemade by Jill.  Instead of stitching eyes and noses, I used more googly eyes and a couple buttons.  Way easier and totally awesome.  Because this is the only page that I didn't create an original design for, I don't feel comfortable selling pages made from it.  So I will have to think of a new page to sell in my shop.  Hmmm.

I could tell that my friend like the buttons version of my colors books the best, so I made a colors spread with buttons.  Again, it was nice omitting the extra letters and using some fun fabric scraps.  

And then I couldn't stop!  I wanted to make one more spread, so I made a counting page and an I-spy page.  Mostly because they were the simplest, but also because they added the most variety.  Plus, I wanted a chance to use those cute star beads.  :)

Of course, I added a baggie to the back for storing velcro shapes, or whatever else needs to be stored.

One more shot.  I finished the last page after the sun started going down, so I snapped this quick fuzzy photo in my (poorly lit) sewing room.

And the best part?  My friend LOVED it!  I brought it to church with me and handed it to her son right before church started.  She told me after church that everyone in their pew was playing with it and that I'm probably going to have to make another one for her husband because he was having so much fun with it.  :)  Pretty awesome praise.

I've got another quiet book in the works - ABCs.  It's going to be epic.  Probably a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm excited to try some new designs.

As always, thanks for visiting!  You guys are all so awesome.

Edited 6/13/14:  Linking up with Fort Worth Fabric Studio's "Oh Sew Baby" series.  Check it out!

After the Storm: My First Pattern and a Giveaway!

Hi everyone, and welcome to those visiting from Sew Mama Sew.

Well, I'm totally doing this backwards, but I can't really help myself.  See, today is SMS Giveaway day.  I wasn't planning on giving anything away this time around, but then I had this idea - maybe a good one, maybe not so much.  We'll see what you all think.   ;)

My regular readers probably know that I finished my gigantic and color explosive "After the Storm" quilt recently.

I've blogged about it a TON, but still haven't done an official reveal.  I wanted to save that for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, which begins on Friday, so come back then for more photos.

What most of my regulars probably don't know is that I decided to sit down and write a pattern for this quilt.  I've had many positive comments about my progress, and finally one of my readers messaged me begging for a pattern.  So I thought about it for awhile and decided that even though I've never done it before, "How hard could it be?"  Of course, then I decided I wanted to include alternate size options for the quilt, in case other people don't feel inspired to make theirs huge-o-mongous like mine. 

Four weeks and many hours later, I have a finished quilt pattern with SEVEN size options.  :)  I'm super excited to be finally releasing it!  The pattern is paper pieced, and although I have not included instructions on how to paper piece, I did include lots of awesome links to tutorials online.  The pattern is super detailed (at least, I think so), and even includes diagrams for cutting fabric efficiently (because we all know how much paper piecing tends to EAT fabric).

You can find it for sale in my Etsy shop here:  Always Sewin Somethin

To celebrate my first pattern release, I am going to giveaway two PDF copies!  The winners can choose either the large quilt sizes (King/Queen/Full),

or the smaller quilt sizes (Twin/Lap/Baby).  The pattern will be emailed to the winners, so obviously anyone is welcome to enter! 
(Of course, I'm still pretty nervous about putting my first pattern out there for everybody to see, so hopefully somebody is willing to try it out for me!)

To enter, leave me a comment telling me what fabrics you might use for your version of "After the Storm."  Prints?  Solids?  A particular fabric line or color scheme?  I'd love to know!

For a second entry, follow my blog and leave another comment.  I'd love to know how many out there are reading along!  ;)
This giveaway will remain open until Friday, May 16th at 5:00 PST.   I will choose a winner via Random.org and email the winner their choice of pattern.

Now go check out all the other amazing things up for grabs:

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED! 
Congratulations to Cynthia and Bonnie!  

Swooning, Stitching, Setting Goals

I'm just dropping in for a quick post today.  I've got a couple little finishes, and one goal to share for May.

First off, I got to make this Swoon block for our Humility.Do.Good Stitches bee.  Isn't it great?  Jaime asked for blocks with red, black, and white.  She wanted us to use bold black and white prints.  Since I had NOTHING like that in my stash at the time, I went shopping and this is what I picked.  :)  Her quilt is going to turn out SOOOO awesome!

I just had to include my toes in this shot to prove just how HUGE this block is!  24" x 24"

Second, I've been plugging away slowly on my Quilty Stitches Sampler.  I got a little busy with some other stuff, so I fell behind.  But I gotta be honest - I prefer it that way.  I would hate to be fully caught up and suddenly have nothing to work on when the urge strikes!  ;)  Here are blocks 1-5.  SO.  MUCH.  FUN.

And thirdly, now that I've finished some major projects, I decided it was time to reorganize the scrap bin again.  Luckily, I came across Lori Holt's post and I am going to copy her strategy.  This picture isn't pretty, and you can see that I've been working along side my boys.  :)  

This brings my to my goal for ALYOF May.  A dear friend/colleague/mentor from my teaching days is retiring this year!  Naturally, I'm making something for her to celebrate.  I'll be using some of the aforementioned scraps to make something simple, but cute and hopefully useful.  Stay tuned!

Linking up:

After the Storm: Quilting

It's finished!  Yay!  I tried to take tons of pictures of my "After the Storm" quilt and I've decided to save the final reveal for later.  I know you are all soooo bummed.  You see, I've noticed that I tend to blog about my quilts in stages as I work on them (probably like most bloggers you follow)- the beginnings, a progress post here and there, the finished quilt top, and then the finished quilt.  Usually the finished quilt post is taken over by talk about the quilting, which I think is a pretty major stage in the process and deserves it's own post.  So this is going to be the post where I talk about how I quilted "After the Storm" and show you some sneak peaks of the finished quilt.  :)

Sneak Peak...

First of all, after MUCH deliberation, I decided to go against the norm and use thick polyester batting, as opposed to thin cotton batting.  I was worried about it being slippery or bearding lots and lots.  However, the person for whom this quilt was intended happens to love the puffy look polyester batting creates.  And as you may know, I'm not a huge fan of my quilts turning super crinkly in the wash (I don't like to see all that hard quilting work get hidden in the crinkles) and polyester doesn't shrink as much.

But here's the thing - I wanted to use a method I picked up in Ann Peterson's Craftsy class ("Quilting Big Quilts on a Small Machine" - AWESOME CLASS BTW).  This method called for more batting than I would have normally needed because of its QAYG nature.  Suddenly my king size package of batting wasn't big enough.  So I ended up piecing a bunch of larger batting scraps from my closet.  Don't tell anyone, but these batting scraps weren't all the same brand/thickness/fiber.  But they were close enough and I'm pretty sure they were all polyester, so I made them work.

Following Ann's advice, I first stitched-in-the-ditch around all of my blocks using invisible thread.  For anyone considering using polyester batting on one of their quilts, I HIGHLY recommend it!  Tons of people warn against using polyester because it's so slippery, but I didn't really have any problems with it and I think it's because I ditched so much of my quilt before doing any FMQ.  Or maybe the wrinkles and puckers are just hidden in the puffiness...

I liked how the quilt looked after ditching and even though the quilt's recipient probably would have liked it better this way - simple, puffy, with the blocks highlighted - I got a little cocky and decided to add some fancy free motion quilting.

First I took my colored sketch and stuck it in a sheet protector to practice designs with a dry erase marker:

I went with the top design, for those of you who can interpret this photo.  :)

Choosing thread was SUPER hard!  I had originally bought a variegated thread that I thought would be fun, but I was worried it would be too dark on the lighter sections.  But I auditioned a couple neutral threads and they stood out even more, so I stuck with the variegated.   By the way - I went through TONS of thread quilting this thing!  I had to go back to the store two or three time for more.

Auditioning thread.  Look closely and you can see the light gray, variegated, and dark gray thread.

I knew I wanted a swirly design that looked like ocean currents for the middle Storm at Sea section.  I also wanted the design to be pretty large, because I'm not sure the recipient loves super tight quilting the way I do.  It was kind of hard to quilt such a large design because of how often I had to move my hands... And I have a confession to make.  I quilted the ENTIRE section and then decided I didn't like it and could do better.  So I picked it all out and started over using almost the same design, but with a little more marking and planning.  It turned out better, but it's NOT perfect.  There are still lots of wobbly lines, square curves, and the thread doesn't always blend in.  But it looks great from a distance.  ;)

 
The Snail Trail sections were more fun to quilt, because it was so much easier to blend thread with the neutral fabrics.  I went for more swirls, but closer together - as if the sea is churning in a storm.

And those big huge neutral borders were just too tempting.  So I broke my "try not to quilt too densely" rule and quilted lots and lots of pebbles.  Smaller pebbles on the inside blend into bigger pebbles on the outside, with random swirls thrown in here and there.    The very outer edge was the perfect width for feathers, so I did one giant feather around the whole quilt.  

 Of course, the back looks pretty cool.  I always try to match my bobbin thread to my top thread, so most of the thread on the back is white, but I used brown for the areas where I used variegated thread.

For the most part, the polyester batting worked out great.  This is the only major pucker I had in the entire quilt, and honestly I'm just happy there weren't more.  

Here's another confession.  I actually bound the quilt before I finished quilting most of the outer borders.  See, I had an opportunity to spend 8 hours watching LDS General Conference, and it seemed like the perfect chance to sit and hand bind the quilt.  So I did.   And then I finished quilting my already bound quilt.  The best part was that I didn't have to worry about having the edges of my backing fold over and get caught in the quilting.  :)

One more sneak peak.  Stay tuned for the final reveal!  I'm trying to decide if I want to wait until the Blogger's Quilt Festival or if I should just share it sooner...

P.S.  Finishing this quilt was my April goal for ALYOF and I'm happy to be linking up:

 My goal setting post can be found HERE.  My post was linky #36.

A Few Goals

I didn't quite meet my goal for last month's ALYOF link up, or the Finish Along Q1 link up.  I was SOOOO close, though!  My goal was to finish quilting my After the Storm quilt, and I had a few setbacks (Etsy orders, ripping out lots of quilting), but I won't go into that now.  Luckily, this should make my April goal easy because this quilt is still at the very top of my list.

For April, my plan is to FINISH "After the Storm."  Yay!

Also, it's time to share my goals for the Finish Along, Quarter 2.  I know I am not going to reach all of these goals, but I want to have all my current projects out there, even though most of them are just fabric stacks (with a plan) at the moment.  Here they are:

1.  Finish "After the Storm."  I don't want to give too much away before the big reveal (hopefully in a few weeks), but here are some sneak peaks at the quilting (obviously no cleaning fairies were disturbed in the taking of these pictures...):

2. Finish "Deck the Halls."  The top is finished, and the back has been started.

3.  Make my twin toddler bed quilts.  I'm using "Cruizer Blvd" and I'm planning to make one Jungle Path quilt and one Broken Herringbone quilt.

4.  Building Fun quilt.  I bought THIS pattern on sale from Geta Grama (check it out, it's SO cute!) a few weeks ago and after much debate, I finally settled on this stack of fabric from my stash (actually, I won this in a giveaway.  Thanks, LethargicLass!).  I've been wanting to make this quilt FOREVER, so I'm excited.  I think I'll probably list it in my shop when it's finished.

5.  Secret project for one of my family members.  I don't want to give anything away, but here's a hint:

6.  I'm not sure, but I think I want to make another Hello Sun set for my MIL.  We'll see what happens.

7.  I got these charm packs for Christmas and I intend to turn them into another Puff Quilt, probably for the shop if nobody around me has a baby girl anytime soon.  :)

8.  I think I might turn these charms into a raggy puff quilt too.  Or maybe I'll make one from the chevron flannels.

9.  My Etsy shop is in need of a few more bib sets and I plan to use some of these fabrics to make a few more.

10.  I'm also planning on making a Letters Quiet book.  I've got it all planned out, the patterns, printed, and a pile of supplies.  I don't have a picture of it, but here's one of my Shapes book in progress:

11.  I also got this Jelly Roll for Christmas and it needs to become a quilt.  I'm thinking something with stacked coins, maybe.  

Edited 4/9/14:
12.  I highly doubt that I will finish this one before the quarter is over, but I'm going to add it to the list so I don't forget about it.
I've been wanting to make a sampler quilt for a long time now.  We just scored a new King sized bed and I'm thinking we need a new quilt for it!  I'm thinking of using some of my stash of Oakshotts:

Or maybe mix in a few of these Simple Color cuts I picked up on sale the other day:

The hubby doesn't want any girly colors, and he also doesn't seem to like bright rainbow colors like I do.  I'm thinking lots of blue and green will keep him happy (with a pop of something else, just for fun).  I'm thinking I'll probably do Faith's Solstice Stars, or Lee's Summer Sampler.  I'll pair them with lots and lots of negative space, probably in Gray.



Whew!  That's all I can think of for now.  Here's to a productive quarter!