Baby Quilt

My best friend is due with her 2nd baby girl in November. I set aside the quilts I was making for my girls to work on a baby quilt for her. I chose the Sweetheart charm pack from Fat Quarter Shop for the quilt squares. I used one pack of squares, made the disappearing 9-patch square with the fabric, and instead of putting the 9-patch squares together, I kept them seperate. Then I added a pink border around each square with a mitered corner. I bought some polka dot fabric as my sashing between the squares. I love how this little baby quilt top turned out!

Here are some of the squares with the pink mitered corners. Not my favorite to make, but the end result looks so nicely finished!

The polka dot sashing between the squares.

And the final quilt top complete. The finished top measures 44"x44" with just one charm pack, some left over pink fabric, and a yard of polka dot fabric cut into strips.

Im still unsure what color to use for the binding, but I did order 1 1/2 yards of the pink flower fabric for the backing.

I finally got my darning foot in the mail from Sears. I practiced free motion top quilting with it. The top quilting was fine, but on the back of my quilt the stitches looked pulled to the side in some areas where I did a curve. Frustrating but I know it takes practice and I cant be perfect on the first try. I want to finish up this adorable baby quilt for my friend and get it mailed off to her, but I wont send a sloppy top quilted stitch just because Im anxious to get it mailed out.

In the meantime, I've been looking at a few other things to sew. I made this little handy scrap or thread caddy to hang next to me for my scraps and thread pieces.

Next up is a little purse with a zipper for my 8 year old. She's been wanting a little purse for a while now, so I thought I would sew one for her. She picked out her fabric (a green flower fabric for the outside, and a purple flower fabric for the inside), so this should be interesting lol.

New Quilting Area

Im here in CO, living with a roommate for now until I find a job out here. I have a bedroom and part of the downstairs area for my quilting setup. I forgot to take pictures of the swap mug rug and poochie bag I made for my swap partners before boxing them up and mailing them out >.< I thought they turned out really cute and I loved them =D

Here is my new quilting area, small but it works ~

I started some squares for my friends baby quilt Im making her. She's due in November with her 2nd baby girl. I decided to do the disappearing 9-patch quilt pattern, but instead of joining the 4 squares together, Im just using each square seperate and then adding borders around each square, and then putting in strips between those. Hoping it turns out well, just need to figure out what kind of fabric to use for the borders and strips!

Also the crochet hook holder I did with the purple fabric. I have yet to sew on the button. Its the little details that take me longest to do!

For now Im working on getting my sewing area set up how I want it so I can begin sewing again. I need to either borrow my landlords (roommate) ironing board and iron or I'll have to go buy one myself before I do any more sewing.

Moving to CO!

I'll be moving out to CO next week, I'm so excited! My girls live there with my ex-husband, so I'll be moving out there and looking for a job. My husband will stay behind for now and pay for my roommate rent while Im out there, and then he'll move out there once I get a job and we can get a place. I can't wait to be able to see my girls more often than just twice a year.

So my sewing will have to be put on hold for just a little bit. I did, however, finish up the mug rug and poochie bag pieces for my swap at swap-bot.com. I'll post pics as soon as I get a package together for my swap partners to mail out. Then it's packing and driving to CO. I'm so excited!!

Disappearing 9 patch

I love the disappearing 9 patch square pattern! Im using this pattern to make my 13 year olds quilt with mostly blue fabric, with some pink and brown fabric to go with it. I will also be using this pattern to make my best friend a quilt for her baby that's due soon. I purchased a charm pack with 42 5" squares for the baby quilt, which will be so much easier than all the square cutting I did for my daughters quilt.

Here's the fabric Im using for my daughter's quilt, and one of the squares I put together.

Very easy pattern to put together!

I rescued a basket from being thrown away today! My mother-in-law was going to throw out this basket and I whisked it away and said this will be a perfect scrap basket for my fabric scraps! I've been looking for something other than a plastic bag to put my scraps in!

So I was browsing through some quilting blogs last night and my cat Fritz apparently decided I wasnt paying him enough attention so he jumped up onto my desk and made himself right at home!

Thanks! Just the view I wanted to see. Silly cat.

Poochie Bags and a drink!

Worked on a couple of sewing projects today. I started out with making a poochie bag for my mother-in-law. She has so many bags for everything you can think of, so I thought "why not? Let's give her yet another bag!". She loved the black squares fabric so I put these fabrics together to make her bag:

I used the blue fabric for the handles, the black and white flower fabric for the bag lining and pockets, and the black squares fabric with the flowers and butterflies for the main fabric.

When attaching your handle straps together to make a longer strap, do NOT do what I did: CAUTION this is the WRONG way to sew your handle pieces together!

Yeah, I knew better than to start sewing before I had my caffeine this morning! Good thing I had extra fabric.

Because Joanns sells their fabric quarters in 18"x21", I had to cut my fabric 10 1/2" x 9" instead of 10 3/4" x 9" - I dont think it made a huge difference, but why does Joanns fabric only give us 21" off the center cut? So strange.

After a few seam rips, I finally got it right and am excited to make more! I top stitched the pocket 1/4" as well as the top of the bag 1/4" all the way around. I think it gives the bag a more finished look.

Finished bag measures approx. 9 1/2" x 9 1/2" and 4" deep. My mother-in-law wanted a large depth on the inside for whatever she decides to use this bag for. I think I prefer the 2" deep bag size.

I also made a crochet hook holder in the purple flower fabric that I used for my zipper pouch. I made a fabric button in the same fabric as the lining, and will post pictures of it tomorrow after I get the button sewn on.

I ended up with a huge headache today which only got worse when bending over my sewing table. Im not sure where it came from, but it hit hard and fast. So I end the day with a nice fruity drink and some relaxation time.

Until next time!

New fabric and a zipper pouch

Today was a fabric shopping day! First I headed over to Sears to see if they carried any darning feet in-store, my store does not, so Im going to have to order it online. Just pushes my top stitching practice out a few more days, and in the meantime I have plenty of projects I want to work on.

Then I headed over to Joanns and Sew Much Fun quilt shop for some fat quarter fabric. Bought a nice selection of fabrics to make some potholders (to practice top stitching), zipper pouches, mug rugs, and poochie bags. I joined a couple of swaps over at swap-bot, the first is a mug rug swap (which will be my first mug rug but I hear they are addicting!!), and the other is a poochie bag swap. I am excited to make my first mug rug and poochie bag!

Here is today's fabric purchase. My favorite <3 is the purple flower fabric which I used to make myself a zipper cosmetic pouch with.

Im going to use the brown rooster fabric with the brown circle fabric to make my first mug rug. And I've already picked out a few fabrics to make my first poochie bag with!

Here is my zippered cosmetic bag I made for myself this evening. It was a very fast project to work up, and is my first ever sewn zipper project! I will certainly be making more of these! I used the warm and natural batting I already had on hand instead of buying the fusible fleece, and it worked just as nicely since the fabric clung to it very well. Not buying the extra fleece left more money for more fabric ^_^

The inside lining of this pouch is the same fabric I used for my daughter's edging in her fun and funky quilt =) The two fabrics go very well together with a purple zipper to match.

Im having so much fun getting back into sewing! Next on the list is the poochie bag with some of the black patterned fabric I purchased. Stay tuned!

If you read or have read my posts from 2008 you will see that I had started my daughters Fun and Funky quilt (aka Spring Fever pattern from Fourth & Sixth Desings) and had completed 5 squares and cut all of her fabric into strips before things were packed up for the move out of Cali. Those squares stayed packed up for the next 3 years... until last week!

Im amazed at myself at how quickly I finished her quilt top, complete with borders! Here's a picture preview of the progress of the quilt starting 3 years ago..

Finished today, folded and set aside until Im ready (and practiced!) at finishing it with batting, backing, and binding it together.

And I will leave you with one more picture. You can see throughout my blog that my cat Fritz very much enjoys being in the middle of my crafting and sewing space. So I leave you with this most recent photo of Fritz doing what he enjoys most, sleeping on my fabric.