Work in Progress: Fandango Quilt

The boys have given me a few days of good naps lately, so I have been sewing again!   Yay!   They seem to each take at least one long nap every day and if I'm lucky they will be at the same time.  ;)  Here's to hoping they can keep it up!

I finished making the blocks for the Fandango quilt I am making for my in-laws. 

This is what I started with (I cut these out back in, what - July?):

It's been fun to watch the blocks grow.  They went through a couple of phases.  You know.  Like kids.  They go through phases.  And they grow.  Okay.  Moving on.

Phase 1:

Phase 2:

And phase 3.  These are the final blocks:

They are huge!  16 inches square.  The finished quilt will have 20 of these.  Now I just need to sew them together with sashing and figure out how to quilt it.  I pretty much have no idea how to quilt it.  Any suggestions?

 This is a first for me... I'm linking up!  I want to be better at recording my progress (it's usually pretty slow, so I may not be able to link up every week), rather than just all my finished projects.  So I'm jumping on the WIP Wednesday bandwagon!  Yay!  I'm the kind of person that likes to see a project all the way to completion before starting a new one (for the most part - mostly it's my husband who encourages this habit).  So I don't really have any other WIPs or stats to report.  I did work on a quickie project this week, though.  I don't have pictures loaded up yet, but I'll post about that soon.

Check out all of the other WIPs at Freshly Pieced. 

Improvising

A couple of weeks ago, we set up a second crib for the boys.  They were starting to bump into each other in the one crib they were sharing.  I really like the new crib, but I felt like it was missing something.  I decided it at least needed a bumper.  The bumper I made for the first crib was an old hand-me-down that I covered with cute Ann Kelle fabric.  Unfortunately, I didn't think it would be economical to buy a brand new bumper for the new crib, just to cover it up with more fabric.  But I wanted it to kind of match.
SO.  I improvised.  I had a little bit of fabric left over from the first bumper, but not enough.  So I cut about 6 inches off the crib skirt I made for the first crib (it was a little too long anyway), and paired it with a solid fabric that I bought once to bring my fabric total just high enough to get free shipping. :)  It turned out that I had JUST enough fabric for a new bumper - with almost no leftovers!

I just made the bumper the same way I would make a quilt - using some extra batting I had on hand.  I quilted it with a meandering stitch, hoping to keep it stiff enough to stand up, and I even outlined some of the cars and planes, but you can't really see it in any of the pictures.
The ties were leftover from the cute diaper bears my friend made for one of my baby showers.
All in all, the whole thing cost NOTHING to make!  Wahoo!

Then I decided to remake the crib skirt I had on the first crib.  See - I was originally too cheap (or perhaps, lazy) to make the crib skirt with a center panel the way most bed skirts are made.  I just sort of taped it down and hoped it would stay.  Well, it sort of worked, but it was pretty ghetto.
Unfortunately, I didn't want to go out and buy a big piece of fabric that no one would ever see, and I surely didn't want to waste any of my stash on it.  But then, as I was cleaning my bathroom one day, I had a revelation.  A standard bath towel is about the same size as a crib mattress!  And we have TONS of old towels just taking up space under our sink right now.  Perfect!  So I sewed the crib skirt pieces to an old, ugly towel.  I didn't even have to trim the towel or anything.  It's not perfect, but it definitely works. 

And here they are!  The cribs don't match, but at least the bedding does!  Kind of.  I don't think the babies will care.   In fact, I think they really like the helicopters.  They pretty much stared at them the whole time I wrote this post.  :)

Insert Clever Title Here

I'm a little embarrassed - everyone else finished posting their Christmas stuff months ago.  Maybe I should just consider myself 10 months early instead of 2 months late.
I have been able to get in little snippets of sewing time during those rare moments when both boys are sleeping at the same time and the dishes/laundry are all done.
Here are their finished stockings!

A couple notes for myself to remember next time:
-Quilting the pieces before cutting out the stocking shape is a good idea - just make sure to quilt far enough past the outside edges of the stocking shape.
-Make the cuffs a little wider so they have room to fold over.
-DON'T FORGET THE HOOK NEXT TIME!  Sheesh!  You'd think I'd figure that one out the third time.

December 2011

Hello blog!  Have you been feeling neglected lately?  Well, I have a pretty good excuse.  I didn't really make anything in December.  I was a little distracted by these two:

Jaxson and Bronx were born on December 5th and we are all doing very well.  As much as I hate to admit it, progress in the sewing end is going to be slow for awhile.  I am working on fitting in a little bit of "me" time every day, but I'm still figuring it all out.  Having twins is a lot of work.

I did, however, finish up a few things before they arrived.  Did you notice the little hats?  I made them myself.  Well, not the hats - those are from Target.  But I DID embroider the names on them.  We were afraid we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them.  Turns out they are NOT identical and we have been able to tell them apart easily from the very beginning.

My original plan was to sew the names on by machine, using a satin stitch.  However, my machine is very difficult when it comes to sewing stitches that are in any way close together so I eventually gave up and did the satin stitches by hand.  It was something for me to work on while I was "resting" on the couch during those last few weeks of pregnancy.

I also made these for their stockings.

Obviously, I still need to make the stockings, but these will be the front cuffs.  I made stockings for the Hubby and me way back when - they have crosstitched cuffs as well. 

I designed them myself!

 Aren't they cute?

Wish me luck as I figure out how to incorporate two newborns in with the rest of my life!

Finished Bento Box Quilt - Feels Good!

Isn't it just a great feeling to be all the way finished with a quilt?  This quilt has been such a huge undertaking that getting to the finish line has been a little strange.
I actually finished last night, and today I didn't know what to do with myself!  I may or may not have watched several episodes of Gilmore Girls (I won't tell you how many I watched in a row - but it was somewhere between 3 and 5).
Finally I trooped outside with this gigantic (and HEAVY) quilt.  It hasn't been very sunny today - but as soon as I realized the weather was getting WORSE, I decided it's now or never.

So here is my finished Bento Box Quilt.  For a minute there I thought it had gotten a lot smaller after quilting.  Then I put it on my bed for perspective.  Nope.  Still huge.  93" x 106".

I went with an overall meandering quilt pattern - because it's fast, it's easy, and very forgiving.

There are still tons of puckers.  Here is my worst one.  I figure it won't look so bad after we wash it... :)

I decided to just fold the back over to the front to create binding - once again, it's fast, easy, and somewhat forgiving.  I'm not sure I like it though.  I don't really like the white - it makes the whole thing look a little unfinished.  And because of the back, we get the scrappy look on the sides.  I hope my sister likes the scrappy binding look!

And here's the back (which almost looks like a second front to me...).  It started to get pretty windy at this point.  The red thread really stands out on the white fabric.  Next time I'm not going to worry about getting cute swirly white fabric, cuz you can't see the swirls anyway, now that it is quilted.

Overall, I think everything turned out pretty well.  It looks really good if you stand back and look at the whole picture.

I still think my next quilt will NOT be a king size, though.

Quilt Stats:

Started: Julyish 2011

Finished: November 2011

Fabrics:  All from Joanns, with the exception of the scrap fabrics used for the double wedding rings

Finished Size: 93" x 106"

Recipient:  Younger sister K - for her wedding to J - December 2011

Wedding Rings Quilt Back

I am making progress on my sister's wedding quilt!  My original plan was to have a plain white back with the wedding rings and initials in the middle.  Turns out I grossly underestimated how much fabric I had.
When I went to the store, they were all out of the white swirly fabric I wanted, so I was left with a dilemma.  I knew I needed a few more yards of fabric to cover the back.  I am not very good at making these kinds of decisions, so I just bought three fat eight bundles and sewed them together.  Then I supplemented the rest of the quilt back with everything I had left over from the quilt top.  If I had been thinking clearly, I would have saved some for the binding.  Oops.  I think I might end up doing the "fold over the back and sew it to the front" binding method.  We'll see.

I took this outside, since it is so HUGE and I could never get a good picture of it inside my house.  Turns out that taking outside doesn't make it any less huge.  This is about 2/3rds of the quilt.  But you get the gist:

I have been hard at work quilting this bad baby on my home machine.  Quilting the middle has been pretty difficult, but I am managing - it just takes a bit of wrestling.  And a willingness to accept that there WILL be puckers in this quilt.  I have already discovered some pretty nasty ones on the back.  But I'm kind of on a deadline right now - gotta get this done before the babies come!  Luckily, the quilt is for my sister and I don't think she will care about a few wrinkles.  I usually quilt with rubber gloves on, but with this one, I have to take one of the gloves off so I can feel whether or not I am quilting wrinkles into the back.  Makes it a little harder to move around, but I think it's helping.
Oh yeah - and I tried spray basting for the first time!  I just bought the stuff they had at JoAnns, and it seems to be working pretty well - other than maybe it is part of the whole "wrinkle" problem.  But I think it will be worth it in the end.  I wasn't about to crawl around on the floor to put a thousand pins in a king size quilt while almost 8 months pregnant!

My goal is to finish this by the end of the week!  And then the babies can come.  Wish me luck!

November Placemats

We got a new table!  Well, kinda.  We bought an old table at a yard sale for super cheap, spent weeks and weeks sanding it whenever we had free time, and gave it several coats of finish.  I am kicking myself for not taking any "before" pictures.  Oh well.  Now we have a really nice looking, sturdy oak table in our kitchen.  Much better than the last table we had - and the best part is that it came with six chairs that are NOT falling apart.  They will be our project next summer...
However, having a newer, bigger table means that our tablecloths don't really fit anymore.  The first time we sat down to eat at it, the hubby asked where the placemats were and we could only find one.  Oops.
So I decided to take a short break from the king quilt I am working on to make placemats.  I am totally okay with the fact that all our old ones have disappeared.  :)  These placemats took all of two evenings to put together!

 Since it was, like, November 1st when I started pulling fabrics for these, I tried to pick a lot of "November-ish" (but not necessarily "Thanksgiving") fabrics from my stash.  I was going for brown/green/orange.  Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of orange.  This is what I came up with.

I used this special batting I got from Madame Samm when I won this giveaway.  I threw away the paper, so I have no idea what kind of batting it is, or what it is supposed to be for.  It is definitely not like normal quilt batting.  It is thick and stiff.  I figured it would work pretty well for placemats.  It didn't give me any trouble.

I quilted with straight lines, because I have learned that they are less bumpy and less likely to cause spilling when I put my cup on top of them. :)
For the back, I had JUST enough of this "Pumpkins Gone Wild" fabric to fit one placemat.  The hubby hates this fabric, but I kinda like it for some reason.  To each his own.  When I figured out that the placemat was about the size of a fat quarter, I set out to find a peice of fabric that was - in MY opinion, the ugliest I had.  I came up with this brown print.  And now it is all used up!

I still need to get better at machine binding, though.  I REALLY want to be good at it because it is so much faster!  I guess I should practice some more.
And there you have it!  I have every intention to make a new set of placemats for each month now.  Someday, hopefully.  They are great stash busters!