I Made a $4 Dress

Yesterday I went to the store and picked up the ribbon to finish the fat quarter pillowcase dress found at Moda Bake Shop.  As expected, it took me just a few minutes to finish off, once I had all of the supplies.  I can't believe that I made an adorable dress for Genavieve for about $4.  This dress might be appearing in several patterns throughout the summer, since it was so economical to make. 

I couldn't have a happier model!

Once I remember to buy a zipper and get my machine back from the shop, the next project will begin.

Life is sew wonderful.

Heathr

All in an Evening's Work

Spring Vacation begins Friday afternoon and I am taking the girls to visit my brother and his family.  We are all so excited to see all of them.  Most people would be concerned about packing and cleaning.  I am trying to get these things done, but these are not the first things on my list.  My list of things to do is more like this:

1.  Make appointment to get machine cleaned and serviced (so I don't have to live without it).
2.  Check for local quilt shops, just in case I have time to stop.
3.  Pack, clean and all other things necessary for traveling.

The first two things on the list are taken care of and we are working on #3.  I can't wait to see them all, meet my new nephew and deliver his quilt!

The quilt I worked on this evening is a block of the month from 2002.  I have put off the borders for 8 years because I didn't know how to cut lengthwise borders.  How silly is this?  Since putting the quilt in a plastic container that collects dust, I have cut this type of border at least two times.  Tonight was the night I finally decided to take the plunge and finish the top so I could get this quilt off of my to do list.  The colors are not what I would have chosen to put together, but like so many other projects, I love it because I lovingly put it together.  I'm thinking about trying my hand quilting stitch on my sewing machine to quilt it.  I'm hoping to work on this more soon, maybe after we get back from our visit.

Happy Quilting!
Heather

Am I Losing It?

Is it just me or do others forget to get everything on a project list?  I swear everytime I try to work on and finish a project, something is missing.  Today's goal was to make the fat quarter pillowcase dress for Genavieve that I found at Moda Bake Shop.  Everything was going great until I was nearly finished and discovered I forgot to buy ribbon for the ties.  This left me digging through all of my craft stuff to find 5/8" ribbon.  There is none in this house.  So the dress will remain unfinished until I can get to the store for matching ribbon. 

This is not anything out of the ordinary for me.  I get the fabric for the top of a quilt but not the backing until the top is finished, at which point there is nothing out there to match it.  The other thing that I always forget is to buy thread to quilt a quilt.  I will go to the store, buy the backing, sandwich the quilt and be all ready to get started and discover, oops, I forgot the thread.  Maybe it is just everything I have to keep track of, or maybe it's just how I am.  Let's hope next time I start a project, I can remember everything needed to Finish it.

This is what is finished of the dress.  One more trip to the store and it should be finished in 5 minutes.

Heather

Road Trip

I wanted to go to my LQS, The Quilt Patch, because they were having a sale.  When my husband got home he proposed we go together and run some other errands.  For some of us, this could be a scary thing, but for me it is wonderful.  There is a custom motorcycle shop downstairs he loves to visit.  I bought some wonderful fabric, some with a planned purpose and some without.

These are the delightful fabrics that I picked up ON SALE!

These are going to be a cute dress for Genavieve.  There is a pattern on Moda Bake Shop.

After putting everything away, I started work on my block of the month square.

I tried a new technique mentioned at my last block of the month meeting.  I sewed the units into a four patch and then sewed the four patches together.  I was pretty pleased with the final result.  The points matched in the center pinwheel and everything else aligned pretty well.

Since I only bought one of the things on my list at the quilt store, wonder what I will be sewing tomorrow?

Heather



Finished Funny Farm quilt

I finished the Funny Farm Quilt ahead of my personal goal.  The binding was added tonight.  It was really exciting because I tried two new binding tricks.  I usually sew my binding onto the front of the quilt and then hand sew the back side of the binding.  This looks great, but takes lots of time that I don't normally have.  This quilt is for a baby and will be used, washed and loved.  I read about this technique and decided that this was the quilt to try it on.  I began by sewing the binding onto the back of the quilt.  Then, I turned it over and machine sewed the binding onto the top of the quilt using a topstitch.  This was a great way to sew on the binding and saved oodles of time. 



When I was most of the way around sewing the binding on the first time, I decided that as long as I was experimenting, let's try a new way to connect the beginning and ending.  Placing both parts of the binding together, I trimmed them with an extra 1/4 inch on each side, sewed them together.  This worked far better than I had hoped and the binding fit perfectly!

This is the finished quilt.  My total of finished quilts for the year is two.  Pretty impressive considering all of the other things I must do!

Just had to add a picture of my little helper.  I found stray pins on every side of the quilt, but who cares?  We were having fun together and another generation of quilters is being created.

Heather

Quilt Therapy

In times of stress I find that I take great comfort in quilting.  I can remember waiting for the call to learn if I had my first teaching job.  At the time I was working on hand quilting a queen size log cabin quilt.  Taking each stitch while waiting for the phone to ring.  This project gave me something to focus on instead of worrying about the outcome of my three interviews.

Quilting has become my own version of therapy.  While I am quilting, I am allowed to escape the problems at hand, at least for a little while.  This therapy has the added bonus of a finished product, which I can share with my friends and family.  I can hold it up and say "Look what I did!"

While I am not the fastest or the best quilter I know, I sure couldn't live a sane life without a little time with the fabric and thread. 

All of the straight line quilting is finished and the free motion is calling my name. So I am going out now to do a little therapy with my Funny Farm quilt.

Happy Sewing!
Heather

My First Post

This evening I worked on a baby quilt for my nephew-to-be.  It is Funny Farm by Clothworks.  I have been working on this quilt for three weeks now and am looking forward to finishing the quilting and put the binding on.  There is very little time to work on it, due to my job and children, but I keep pecking away at it every night and hope to have it finished this weekend.  I will share pictures this weekend.

I thought that it was silly to set up this blog and not have any information in it, so this is what I accomplished tonight: quilted the broken vertical lines on the quilt.  Tomorrow's goal is to get the horizontal lines.