Craft-A-Little

Oh my goodness!!  I have been making so many things!  Sadly, I can’t show a few of them yet. (I am making some gifts and I am not sure if the recipients are readers or not!)  I have only a couple of things left to make for these gifts, and then hopefully I will get them in the mail next weekend.  In which case, I will be able to show you all of the goodies soon! 

In the mean time…I have some other things to show you.  And to be honest- they are much less interesting!  But I am thrilled- because I am totally caught up on my Bee blocks!!  I have NONE sitting here and waiting for me to sew them!  Yay!!

Log cabin for Sorrel- In Laker’s colors!

Christmas blocks for Frieda…

These Christmas blocks were a process!  I didn’t start them with the intention of them looking like this.  I started with one block that was supposed to be all 4 of the 9 patch sections.  But it felt too busy.  So I made trees.  I really like how they turned out!

And some ticker tape blocks for a Bee Friend. 

I have really been enjoying these small projects.  They come together quickly and I feel like I accomplished a lot this weekend.  However, I am really missing the larger project satisfaction finish that I get with the making of a quilt. 

So…I am making plans for my next quilt.  Little Helper is soon going to be a big sister.  The new baby will get her crib and she will get a new “Big Girl Bed”.  When she gets a new bed, she will (of course!!) need a new quilt for her bed.  My husband and I have been undecided about hat kind of bed she was going to move into, so I couldn’t make a quilt for her.  Well, we finally decided this weekend!  We bought a new KING sized bed for us parents to sleep on!  That means our old full size bed will be Little Helper’s.  (as a side note- I am SO EXCITED to get our new bed- it will be delivered on Thursday!!)

Ok- so I have these Mendocino fabrics that I purchased a while ago and I was thinking that I would use those for her quilt.  Others that I was considering was Far Far Away by Heather Ross, but I don’t have as many of those.  Plus, Little Helper likes pink.  And I have some pink Mendocino, so that will make her happy.  She likes Mermaids too- all good things!  Anyway- I am deciding on a pattern and I have 2 that I am considering.  Anyone want to weigh in with a vote???

Mixtape Quilt

OR

New Wave Quilt?

I am also knitting a blanket for this next baby.  I am really enjoying that! 

And since I am rambling about all sorts of nonsense today…I came across this blog post today-  http://r0ssie.blogspot.com/2010/05/process-pledge.html and the one that she links to on mutant quilting.  I have some other thoughts on this that I will share in a later post.  It is something that I have been thinking about for a while now. 

Have a great week!

I have been busy!!!

Today, during Little Helper’s nap, I thought it was time to try to catch up on Quilt Bee Blocks.  I am officially caught up now!  Well, I have my May ones left to do, but since May is not over yet, I am not behind yet.  Here are my blocks for Becca in A Piece of Work B.  She sent all of us different fabrics and told us to do whatever we wanted- just do not follow a pattern.  One of our fabrics was the focus fabric.  My focus fabric was the hippos. 

I have been sewing colored pencil rolls.  It all started as a going away gift for a friend’s daughter because they were moving to Texas.   The first one I made (no photo) had a plain linen exterior.  My seam allowances on the inside color strip must be a little larger than 1/4 in. because my color strip ended up being too long.  With the first one I made, I (foolishly) trimmed the ends so that it would be the right length.  This made it really difficult to fit the end colored pencils in.  So when it came time to make my other 2, the linen pieces that I had cut were too short.  So I had to dip into my fabric stash to find something else that would work.  And I found frogs! 

Little Helper likes hers.  She chose the one with the pink and orange frogs.  The one with green frogs will be going into the mail to another little girl right around Little Helper’s age. 

The pattern for this is from the book Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts.  I did a couple of things differently than they said.  It said to hand sew in a part and I chose to edge stitch with my machine instead.  I don’t really like hand sewing that much and I am not very good at it.  I think that the edge stitching looks just fine too!

I also finished the 2+2 Blouses that I showed you fabric for a while ago.  I LOVE how they turned out!  I finished them (except for buttons and button holes) last Sunday.  Then, Wednesday night, I finished sewing the buttons on one of them- and Little Helper wore it on Thursday.  I washed it and she found it in the laundry basket this morning and decided that she wanted to wear it again.  I love that she is choosing to wear the things that I make for her. 

Here is the other one that I made:

I gave Little Helper a choice on which one she wanted.  She picked the one that was just faces.  Although, I think that I would have picked the other!  She tells me the other is for someone else.  So…looks like this goes into the gift pile!

I expect to be working on a few more gifts in the coming weeks.  So, lots of little projects.  But that should also mean that I will have lots of pictures to share!

As a side note, I am currently between good cameras.  We decided to upgrade our DSLR camera and we sold our old one yesterday.  We expect our new one to come in the mail tomorrow.  In the mean time, I am stuck with my point and shoot and the quality of photo is really not very good, particularly after looking at my DSLR camera pictures for the last year and a half!

I completed another quilt square!  And then I tried to do another one so that I was caught up- and I screwed it up.  I barely got any cutting done and I realized that I had messed up.  I do think that the instructions are not clearly written.  And I am not the only person who had trouble with that.  Anyway…I am currently waiting to hear what she wants me to do with my screwed up fabric.  I am so irritated with myself!!

So here is what I finished…

And what is coming soon…

We are going to a wedding in April.  I wanted to make a dress for Little Helper to wear.  But since it is a wedding, I wanted it to be a little fancier than quilting cotton.  So, I am excited to say, that I went to a different fabric store today and picked up some silk dupioni!  It was not cheap, but the woman who was working there assured me that it would not be that hard to work with. 

The colors aren’t coming out quite right in the photo- my photo quality is pretty terrible for this post.  Sorry about that.  My real camera’s battery is dead. 

I also picked up some fabric for some summer shirts for Little Helper-

I know- those 2 are very similar.  Well…that is ok. 

I am really excited to start on some of these projects, but unfortunately, I will be away from my sewing machine for a few days.   Even worse- away from my Little Helper. 

The weekend is upon me.  And I am behind on things!  So it is time to catch up.  And I have a strategy!  I am doing start with a little list of the things that I need to do this weekend here on my blog.  Just as Krisitina did on a post a while ago, I will check things off with photos as I complete them.  The other part of my strategy is renegotiating my contracts.  My work offers Getting Things Done training by the David Allen company and I did that a couple of years ago.  One of the things that they teach is to renegotiate contracts.  So I am using that in some cases.  So here is my list…

• A Piece of Work B October block   Look at me go!  I already have 2 blocks done! Ok- I actually only made the first one today.  The other one has been done for a little while.   But now they are ready to mail!  I used up every last scrap that Jennie sent for these! 

• A Piece of Work B November block
• Bee Addicted October block (picture coming soon)
• Block #1 for Lorrin (and me!) (picture coming soon)
• Block #2 for Lorrin (and me!) (picture coming soon!)
• Order fabric for my mom’s Christmas Quilt (I renegotiated again and have some updates on this one)
• Choose polka dot fabric for Little Helper’s birthday dress (any suggestions??).
• MAIL ALL BLOCKS!!

Now I think that should be enough for now!  I am renegotiating a couple of contracts with myself.  The first- and biggest- is the advent calendar I wanted to do.  I really wanted to have it done for this year and I haven’t completely figured out what I want.  So, I think that I will wait until after Christmas (all the holiday fabric will be on sale then) and pick some up.  And then I will make if for next year.  Little Helper won’t know the difference.  And since I want it to be something that we keep for years, this is probably the better way to  do it.   I know that I renegotiated another, but I forget what it was.  And it isn’t in my to do list anymore,  so I guess I did a good job of renegotiating it! 

I just looked at my list- that is a lot of blocks!  And I don’t even know what I am going to do for most of them…

I have completed my September quilting bee blocks!  I showed you my wonky houses in my last post and her is a Christmas pinwheel block.  It is a little bit small, as I didn’t have enough fabric to do one more border.  I am waiting to see what the recipient wants me to do with it.

I have been tired and distracted this week, so I didn’t really do much sewing.  I just got fabric in the mail for my October bee blocks.  I should do them this weekend so that I don’t find myself being late again!

In other news, I have now taken Little Helper out of the house 2 times without diapers.  Both times we mostly unsuccessful, but the 2nd time did have a couple of small up sides- she told me when she was peeing and she did pee a tiny little bit on the potty at Target today.  Small victories, people!