I bought my first fabric of the year

I bought some fabric this week, but it was a planned purchase for a quilt that I can't make with what's already in my stash.  I've made a red quilt that used up yards and yards of red scraps, including the pieced back.  I've made a bunch of red and white baby quilts. 

There's not enough red left in my stash to make a quilt like Blueberry Moon's Keep Calm quilt. Mine will be different -- it'll say Keep Calm and Carry On. And the background will be pieced from 2 1/2" squares, because that's what I do....

I really can't tell you how badly I want to make that quilt!

Mom let me ransack her stash for  red fabric. She's going to cut 5" off of each of these for me, enough for 32 squares of each fabric. I think I'm going to need 900 total.

 

 

I've been to the fabric store and found nothing that would work, so when I saw the new Connecting Threads catalog with Rhapsody of Reds, I ordered half yard cuts of everything that looks like it'll fit. It looks like they've already sold out of my favorite print from the collection, but I'll happily take what I can get.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 5.75 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 9.25 yards
Added this Week: 10 yards
Added Year to Date: 10 yards
Net Added for 2012: .75 yards


Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 0 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Added for 2013: 0 yards

To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

I think this is Emily

As in Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul...  I'm having an awful lot of fun naming these baby quilts!

 

This one got its start with a couple of yards of a blue print that came from who-knows-where. Usually I can remember where I the big hunks came from, but this one is a mystery to me.  The answer is always that it came from one of the scrap bags, but I'd swear this one just materialized on top of my treadle.

My mind kept going back to the Nancy Drew baby quilt and the applique and how much I liked the look of it. I wanted to try it again, with something a lot easier to cut out. These are the same birds from the Birds in the Air quilt I made a few years back. 

The plan is to fuse them into place, then machine applique and quilt them with swirls like the ones I did for Quinn's green quilt.  By Friday, if all goes well!

Let's Make Baby Quilts {week 2}

I got my own quilt for this week done -- here's Sara.  You can read more details about her in this post.

And I've got the tutorial for Benny written up for you. It calls for  192  two and a half inch squares, but I rarely if ever count my squares for the scrap quilts. I just cut a bunch and keep them in a box, then add more when it's getting low.

Thanks to everyone who linked up last week! Laura linked to her adorable sailboat quilt with prairie points and rick rack waves and Jo shared her crumb star baby quilt.

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules:

I don't want to overwhelm everyone with a huge list of rules, but I do want this linky party to stay on the topic of baby quilts. They can be for donation, or for your own baby, or just because you think they're cute and want them in your sewing room, but they've got to be baby quilts. Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned, but it's got to be about baby quilts. While we're still gathering steam, you're welcome to link to baby quilt related posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post more than once. I'd love it if you linked my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button

Benny {a baby quilt tutorial}

Benny is one of the easiest of the scrappy baby quilts I make.

For a 32" square quilt, you'll need:

16 --  4 1/2" background squares

192 -- 2 1/2" squares

Piece the 2 1/2" squares into strips of two and four squares, two for each block. Press.

Sew a two square strip to each end of a background square. Press.

Sew four square strips to the other two edges of the background square. Press.

 Assemble the finished blocks into four rows of four blocks each. Quilt and bind.



This is a great quilt for using up small amounts of background fabric. You can add a bit of simple applique to the center square, or make it larger -- I like 8 1/2", which leaves room for a bigger applique.

If you do make this quilt, I'd love it if you linked up to my weekly Let's Make Baby Quilts! Linky Party. There's a list of my free baby quilt tutorials over in the sidebar and you  can find out when new ones are added by either following my blog or liking the Let's Make Baby Quilts Facebook page.

Scrappy Trips Around the World in Green

All of these Scrappy Trips Around the World that I'm seeing lately have inspired me to finish the one I started for Quinn a while back.  The top has been done for almost a year now and I've had the fabric and binding all picked out, but I've dragged my feet when it came to finishing it....possibly because Quinn has decided that green is no longer his favorite color. Now he likes black.

Yesterday, I took it up to Mom's and quilted it on her longarm.

I wanted to use the same swirls I did for 38, but I keep forgetting that just because I can do something easily on my Janome doesn't mean I can reproduce the same pattern on Mom's machine.  These swirls are totally different. Not bad, I keep reminding myself, just different. I want these same swirls for the next baby quilt I've got planned, but I'll be quilting that one on the Janome...

 

Even if Quinn doesn't love it, the rest of us do. And having it done will keep from from feeling guilty about starting a new one.

Meet Sara

Doesn't that sound so much nicer than "Meet baby quilt number three?"  This week's quilt is Sara.

I've made a lot of these barn raising quilts and the layout always confuses me a bit. This time, I put the top together in sections. Each quarter of the quilt is made up of nine blocks.

Doing it that way let me play with other layouts.  I knew that I wanted Sara to have the light center, but I also wanted to show you what else you can do with this same number of blocks.

This post is linked to to Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Link a Finish Friday, and Freedom Fridays.

It was a dark and stormy night....

Today's the day! It's my turn to show you my project with words on it.

I love words and can't get enough of them. Written words, that is. After being home all day with four kids the constant stream of spoken words can sometimes start to get overwhelming. (You know all of those jokes about how many questions a preschooler can ask in one day? That's nothing compared to a teenage girl finding exciting things to show you on Pinterest!)

But back to the -written- words! Reading and writing is what I do. It's what I've always done. I met my husband in the used bookstore I worked at as a teenager, the same one that my mom started shopping at while she was pregnant with me. Everyone thought I was the worst bookworm ever until my kids came along and proved they could outread me....

It's no wonder that quilts with words on them make my heart go pitty pat. Someday, I'm going to make one of my very own!  

Ever since I finished my book sleeve, Teenage Daughter has been after it for her Kindle Fire. I would've probably given it to her, but I really wanted it for myself and the rest of that blue fabric is for my Nancy Drew blog hop project and she doesn't even like Nancy Drew (which doesn't explain the fabric she chose for the background, does it?) If I was going to make another one, I should make one that suited her.

One like this --

It was originally going to read "It was a dark and stormy night and Alexandria was reading long past her bedtime," but there's only so much you can type on a 2 1/4" wide strip of fabric. And I'm not going to admit how many tries that it took to get the short version the way I wanted it!

I cut the typewriter with a Sizzix die and appliqued it onto the background fabric. If you want all of the details so you can make your own Kindle sleeve, the tutorial is in the post immediately before this one.

Don't forget to visit today's other blog hop participants!

Kathy's Quilts, Sunshine Quilting, Sew Incredibly Crazy, Quilt Doodle Doodles, Doodling in My Mind, I like to QuiltBlog, Grammie Q's, Dancing Moon, The Fuzzy Hat Quilter.

"It was a Dark and Stormy Night..." Kindle Sleeve Tutorial

Teenage Daughter has been after my Nancy Drew book sleeve ever since I finished it. I might have given it to her and made another for myself, but she doesn't even like Nancy Drew. So it's staying mine and I made a new one for her, one that was a little more "her" style.

The Sizzix Vintage Typewriter die makes my heart go pitty-pat. I don't know how many excuses I'll find to applique typewriters onto things, but the dies aren't that expensive and I really wanted this one.  And isn't it just perfect for a Kindle sleeve?

The sleeve itself is super-easy to make.

Apply fusible web to the back of your black fabric and run it through the cutter (I'm assuming that if you have the cutter, you already know how it works -- if you need help, just let me know!)  The keys and other details are cut out, so to keep your background fabric from showing through, you'll need to cut a piece of fabric to layer behind it.

Apply fusible web to the back of your "typewriter keys" fabric and lay it under the cut typewriter piece with both wrong sides facing up. trace around the edges of the typewriter, starting just below the roller bar. Cut along those lines, then trim until your cut piece fits behind the typewriter with no edges showing.

Cut the fabric for your "paper" (also backed with fusible web)  2 1/4" wide and it will feed through the slot in the die. I left mine a bit wider until the lettering was done, then trimmed it down.
I typed the words with my old electric typewriter, the one that wasn't neat enough to be included when I wrote about my vintage typewriter collection. To get the letters dark enough, I typed over each one from seven to ten times, backspacing after each and retyping it until it was dark enough.

For the sleeve, cut two 8" x 19" pieces of blue fabric and one matching piece of batting. Layer the pieces with the batting on bottom, then two blue pieces with the right sides facing. Sew around outer edge with 1/4" seam allowance, leaving a 4" opening along one long side. Turn right side out.

Fold in half to determine where you want to place the typewriter. Layer the fabric for the keys under the typewriter with the paper threaded through the slot. The bottom edge of the paper will be tucked behind the keys.  Fuse all three layers into place and then free motion quilt around the outer edges with black thread.

Fold the sleeve in half with right sides together and sew a 1/4" seam down both long sides. Turn ride side out.

This post is linked to Elm Street Quilts.

{yarn along} Fingers!

I can cross fingers off of the list of things I've never knit before -- along with the Lateral Braids and Linen Ridge Stitch I've already learned as part of this project.  That's all of the scary stuff I was fussing about a couple of weeks ago. Now I've just got to do them all over again for the second one...

 

But I can do that. These are the most successful knitting project I've had in ages that wasn't a NICU hat!

 

I'm slogging my way though The Wedding Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini. At this point, I've completely lost track of what order the Elm Creek books go in and which ones I've read and I'm not sure I want to put in the time and effort to figure it out. Not if the past two books I've read are an example of the direction the series is headed.

 

I'm biding my time until tomorrow, when I should be able to pick up the first book in Joanna Campbell Slan's Southern Beauty Shop series, which I didn't know about because they're written as Lila Dare. (If you're a fan of her series, you should check out the free short stories that she's offering on her website until January 15.)

 

For more fun projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times and Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami's Amis. 

Scrappy Trips with narrower strips

 

My constantly evolving plan for this year includes making the fifty baby quilts and, because I know I'd get completely bored by all baby quilts all the time, making some big scrap quilts for myself. The cheddar bowties are top of the list, followed by my barely-started lego quilt and Scrap Vomit.

 

And this one, which is brand-spanking new and just got started last night: 

 

I've been seeing Scrappy Trips Around the World all over this week. I love that pattern, and a super-scrappy one has always been in the plan, but the fabric selection scared me. I don't know that I could get that many 16" strips out of my stash -- not in the variety of colors I'd want... And what if they fell in wonky places like my Blue Bargello? (I've finally made peace with that one and decided that it's one of my favorite snuggling up quilts. But I still don't love the placement of those dark blue strips.)

Then I saw what Karin over at Cascade Quilts had done with her Scrappy Trips -- 1 1/2" strips! Hers are from a honey bun and all nicely coordinated. Mine were raided from the pile of strips for my Lego quilt.

1 1/2" x 10" strips? I can cut those from almost anything!  I've already been going through my bags of strings and running the ones that are wide enough through my Go!  for the Lego quilt. If they're long enough, I'll take a strip for this project.

Everyone's pretty pictures make me want to hurry up and get Quinn's green Trip Around the World quilted, but I think I want to do that one on the longarm. Which is going to require scheduling.

To see more design walls, head over to Patchwork Times.

Nancy had a bath

I've heard some people express concern that the colors in the Get a Clue With Nancy Drew fabrics might run. I don't wash many of my fabrics before using them, and I definitely don't was precuts.  I almost never have a problem, but that doesn't keep me from holding my breath until a quilt comes out of the wash.

The Nancy Drew baby quilt is going to a friend of mine. I thought about sending it without a trip through the washer first, since all of the fabric was brand new and nothing had had a chance to get dirty. Then I decided, maybe a little bit selfishly, to give her a bath and see what happened. Because I've still got the big quilt to worry about....

There wasn't even the slightest tinge of color on my Shout Color Catchers. I don't think I've ever had one come out of the dryer like that!  Some of the ink I used to camouflage the stitches on the applique faded, and the edges are a tiny bit frayed. I expected the fraying.

I love the way this quilt softened and crinkled up! I can't wait to wash my own big quilt so it's just as snuggly. And I can definitely tell those who were worried that my Nancy Drew fabric didn't bleed the slightest bit.

Do you wash quilts before giving them? I always wash the baby quilts that I donate, but with the others it's more hit or miss.

Weekly Stash Report

Last year, I only managed to use 75 yards of fabric. This year, the goal is to at least double that.

Fabric Used this Week: 3.5 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 3.5 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2012: 3.5 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 0 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Added for 2013: 0 yards

To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

And don't forget that In your WORDS starts on Monday! My post and tutorial will be up Wednesday. Want a hint? Take a look at my vintage typewriters post from last week.


I'm starting to notice more spam comments. For the longest time, Blogger's spam filters caught every last one.  I guess the spammers have found the cracks in the system because suddenly several a day are making it through to my blog. I delete them as I see them, but  the problem seems to be getting steadily worse.

Turning word verification back on will be my absolute last resort. We can all ignore an occasional pitch for brand name painkillers, right? In an effort to cut down on them, I've shut down comments on a handful of old posts and enabled moderation on posts that are more than two weeks old. I've also adjusted my settings so that anonymous comments are no longer allowed. My whole goal is to make it as easy as possible for my readers to get messages to me without letting the spammers make a mess of things. And I'm open to suggestions if someone knows of a better way to do it.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! 1/4/13

My goal is to make at least fifty baby quilts this year and I seem to be getting off to a good start.

Meet Benny:

And Lucas:

I thought about pacing myself and saving some blocks for next week's quilt, but I decided that I might as well finish them while I've got the chance. There are going to be weeks that I can't finish a quilt, especially since one of my biggest goals is not to let this crazy goal of mine inconvenience the rest of my family too much.

 Want to join me? You don't have to set such a ridiculous goal -- you could do one a month, or one a season, or just one.

The quilts can be for donation, or for your own baby, or for a relative or friend's baby....I'm just trying to encourage you to have fun making little quilts. I'll be posting tutorials for the baby quilts I've created myself, and links to the patterns I've discovered online. And we'll have a linky party every Friday.

Someone asked if I'd be creating a Flickr pool. I don't use Flickr much myself, but I created a group for us, Let's Make Baby Quilts! Got some pictures you can add so I won't be all alone there? Please? 

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules:

I don't want to overwhelm everyone with a huge list of rules, but I do want this linky party to stay on the topic of baby quilts. They can be for donation, or for your own baby, or just because you think they're cute and want them in your sewing room, but they've got to be baby quilts. Link link directly to your post or specific Flickr photos.  Your post can be about a quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned, but it's got to be about baby quilts. While we're still gathering steam, you're welcome to link to baby quilt related posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post more than once. I'd love it if you linked my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button

Meet Benny and Lucas

I've got two finishes to show off this week!

Here's Benny...

And here's Lucas...

I decided to start naming my baby quilts because it gets hard to keep track of them. There's "the red one" and "the blue one" and "the other red one" and more scrappy ones than I can count. Last year, I made two different quilts that both got written down as "pink hearts" and wound up so confused that, until I saw them side by side, I thought I'd counted the same one twice.

A nice side-effect of naming them is that it's boosted my creativity a bit and has me trying to make each quilt fit its name.

This post is linked to to Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Link a Finish Friday, and Freedom Fridays.

{vintage} typewriters

Sewing machines have a tendency to follow me home... and apparently so do typewriters...

 

This one has been moving around with us for the past fifteen years or so. In our last move, it wound up in the barn where it's been safe from my children, but not from dirt. It originally came from an estate sale, so it wasn't clean when it found its way to me.

 

We found this cute aqua one at a rumage sale three summers ago. The price tag, which I still haven't removed, reads three dollars. The old ladies manning the sale felt that was "far too much," so I think we wound up paying two. At the same sale, I bought Teenage Daughter a fabulous vintage black leather jacket for fifty cents.

 

 

And, because she won't share her cut aqua machine with her brother and he decided that he needed one too, I wound up with this one from yet another estate sale...

 

This post is linked to Time Travel Thursday, Treasure Hunt Thursday, Vintage Thingie Thursday, and Ivy and Elephants.

{yarn along} the scary stuff

This week, I've been reading the scary stuff.... In the Tall Grass by Stephen King and Joe Hill and The Ghost on Saturday Night by Sid Fleischman.

In the Tall Grass, the story of a brother and sister on a cross-country trip who hear a small boy calling for help from a roadside field and pull over to try to help, gave me some serious creeps -- and it didn't help one bit when my Kindle battery gave out just at one of the most dramatic parts. I had to plug it into the charger and wait a while before I could find out what happened next.  I still can't decide whether I think the read was worth $3.79.  Mile 81 was better, and didn't cost quite as much.  

The Ghost on Saturday Night absolutely terrorized me as a young child.  I checked it out from the library over and over, even though I couldn't bear to sleep with it in my bedroom. So of course I had to order a used copy with that same scary cover art from Amazon and read it to my sons. They weren't scared at all...even though Leif did start to look a bit nervous as we read about the old and rotting pine coffin that looked as if it had been freshly dug up. And I might've slipped my hand over the edge of the recliner to rap dramatically on the drawers of the treadle sewing machine beside us at just the right point in the story....

I've got the first thumb gusset of Treads done, and the third lateral braid (speaking of things that really aren't as scary as they seemed at first!)  Now it's time for some more linen ridge stitch and the fingers... I'm hoping to have the first of the pair done to show you by next week.

For more fun projects to drool over, check out On the Needles at Patchwork Times and Work in Progress Wednesdays at Tami's Amis. 

WMFM - my planner

I think one of my biggest accomplishments of 2012 was not permanently losing my new planner.

When Denise posted last year about her pretty new planner, it convinced me that I needed one. Mine isn't nearly as cute as hers, probably because mine came from Walmart, but it's been a lifesaver this past year.

I've got all of the doctor's offices listed in the front, so there's no more digging around for a phone book or trying to find a business card for the one that isn't listed in any of the five different yellow pages for our area.  I write down appointments on the page that shows the whole month.

When I was getting estimates for the roof, I kept track of all of the different phone numbers and times.

I keep a running list of which dinners I've bought the ingredients for. And I try to keep a list of what we're out of, but I still haven't gotten very consistent at that and I forget to check it when I do go to the store.

I keep the measurements and calculations for quilts I'm planning. The planner doesn't look like the notebooks the kids use for their own projects, so my measurements don't disappear and I don't have to redo my math nearly as often.

I keep lists of UFOs and projects I want to start next and all sorts reminders to myself.

I also keep the magic code number that starts the van's built in GPS again when it goes out for no reason. (Losing your GPS when you're 100 miles from home and not sure how to get back to the Interstate is not a whole lot of fun. I know....I can ask for directions like we all used to do in the good old days.)  And I can easily find it for Hubby when he's done something with the battery and needs to put the number in again.

I've got a brand new planner for 2013 -- now I've just got to transfer over my lists and phone numbers...

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT family.

Let's make some baby quilts!

 

I love making baby quilts. They're instant gratification. They're great for using scraps and playing with new blocks or color schemes.

My plan for 2013 is to make at least fifty baby quilts.  Want to join me?  You don't have to set such a ridiculous goal -- you could do one a month, or one a season, or just one.

The quilts can be for donation, or for your own baby, or for a relative or friend's baby....I'm just trying to encourage you to have fun making little quilts.


I'll be posting tutorials for the baby quilts I've created myself, and links to the patterns I've discovered online. On Fridays we'll have a linky party and you can link to what you've finished, or what you're working on, or what you've got planned.

.

Care to join me?

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