WIP Wednesday 11.30.11

This has been a busy week! With the Thanksgiving holiday, I was able to get a lot of sewing time and found I didn't finish anything, but I did work on a lot of different projects.
I won this 6" charm pack of Wrenly from Quilt Taffy and it arrived this week. I'm so excited to use it for a project for a special friend.


I also won a prize in the Fall Bloggers Quilt Festival and the fat quarter pack arrived this week from Canton Village Quilt Works.


I'm loving all the colorful dots.


We had a quick family picture on Thanksgiving Day. Mikaela was full of smiles.

On to the sewing I got done. I was able to make this back on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It turned out bit, but oh so sturdy because I used decor bond. It's my new school bag as it matches my binder with all my research in it. Three weeks of class left and a 15 page paper hanging over my head, so I hope to get to sew a bit, but will be doing a lot of writing.


The inside of the bag was a bit lighter.

Thanksgiving Day plans changed when hubby decided he wanted to go Black Friday shopping, so we stayed home in the evening instead of going to my dad's. I got several hours to sew, so I sewed all the rows together for the t-shirt quilt. I have the sashing strips cut and they are ready to be sewn together. I'm hoping to get the top done this weekend and then work on the quilting next weekend. It has to be done before Christmas.


The quilt is King size, so the rows look huge on our bed.


I also worked on this English Paper pieced cup liner. It didn't turn out how I expected, but I think it looks okay. The next one I'll make with just random colors and not try to do flowers.


At dad's this weekend I did the embroidery on gifts for my friends for Christmas. Since they all read the blog I won't share those until after they are gifted. I also made a fleece blanket for my MIL and a friend. I think the embroidery turned out pretty good on it. I still have to trim it up and wash it, but for now I'm proud of what I got accomplished with the embroidery machine.

I was gifted at work with flowers by one of our campuses and they just make me smile. I really enjoy the work I do and it's nice to be appreciated. Do you know how hard it is to write normal instead of "academic" in nature? I keep wanting to go back and take out passive voice and contractions, even though it's totally normal to write like this. Oh the joys of writing papers for my masters class!


Tonight I wanted to work on a tablerunner for our daycare gals mom. Her mom helps with the kids for the middle part of the day, so I feel like I should make her something quilty, since the daycare gal is getting a quilt. I took mom's scraps and made up 5 tablerunners. There are two just like the last one. I still have enough fabric to use for backing and to make binding. I may make a few more of these as well. I'm thinking of a few friends I need gifts for as well. I did 5, including cutting the scraps in 1 hour tonight!




Started New this Week:
Poinsetta tabletoppers

Finished this week:
Winding Ways Schlep Bag
Chez Moi Cup Liner
Embroidered 4 blocks, a label, and 2 fleece blankets

Ongoing projects:  (and progress this week on them)
Pink/Brown Schlep Bag - Started cutting out
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Wall Hanging - 2 - Finished 4 of the 4 Blocks - Embroidery done, need to get backing and quilt
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Extra Blocks - No progress
Ed's Crown Royal Quilt - 2/3 of the way done on the last set of blocks - No progress
Mocha Meringue Wonder Blocks - still sitting
Jim Shore Quilt - Quilted and binding machine sewn on -  1 1/2 sides of binding hand sewn down.
Linda's T-shirt Quilt - all the rows are sewn and the sashing is cut and ready to put on.
Paul's Wolf - 2nd eye, nose and face done - No progress this week.
Farm Friends Baby Quilt - Cut out

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Blush Quilt
4 Embroiderd Pink Brown blocks
5 Poinsetta Tablerunners

No progress:
Pokey Little Puppy Book
3 Mug Rugs

This week's stats:
Completed projects -2
New projects -5
Currently in progress - 13
Finished this year - 122 projects + 12 Receiving Blankets & 20 Burp Clothes


I'm linking up for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

Mikaela is 45 Weeks Old!

Mikaela turned 45 Weeks old on November 30th. We spent the weekend hunting with daddy, so Mikaela played in the pickup.


She'd just had a nap, so was full of energy.

And lots of smiles!

She looked out the window to see daddy.

We tried to get a few outdoor pictures with my new lens, but it was cool.

She loves her little SDSU sweatshirt

She loves playing with the toys at grandpa's too.

She still tries to swing, but is getting a little bit too big for it.

Mikaela is 44 Weeks Old

Mikaela turned 44 Weeks Old on November 23rd. She's moving and shaking a whole lot now. She's constantly full of energy and is able to move around by walking on her own. She loves yogurt melts and stars. She even has her own snack cup.

She loves to try petting Missy, but Missy's not so sure about her.

She still loves to bounce in the Jenny Jump Up.

She's all full of smiles!

This is a family photo taken on Thanksgiving.

WIP Wednesday

This was a very productive week! Thanks to our first snowfall of the season, we had a stay at home snow day on Sat. With Daddy and Grandma here to watch Mikaela I got a ton of sewing done. I feel like it was a dream to get so much done. Wednesday night I taught a Grab N Go Diaper Clutch class Wed. night. I had a very full class and almost everyone got done with the bag. I had mine in steps to show, so I came home and finished it that night. It's a gift for our friends new baby.

I also finished the changing mat that goes with it.

Thurs. night I started cutting out t-shirts for a king size commission quilt I'm doing. It needs to be done before Christmas, so I needed to get a lot accomplished on it.

Friday night I packed for a sewing night with friends on Sat. night. I cut out a Snapshots quilt from the Happy Hour book and a new schlep bag.  We ended up cancelling our sewing night because of the snow.
Sat. it snowed 7" or so and we stayed home. I finished all the cutting and ironing of 51 t-shirts and prepped them to go in the t-shirt quilt.

Here's the fabric I bought to go with them.

The pillow is the inspiration and I think the red dots in it will go nicely since there are several red t-shirts.

I've also been working on an English paper pieced covering for a Starbucks cup using the leftover Chez Moi fabric, but I think I'll end up doing something different with the rest of the little squares. I've lost interest after doing about 3 flowers, so I'll finish the project I'm working on and then make these into something else.

Sat. night I felt like sewing after spending the entire day working on the t-shirts, so I sewed up this Schlep Bag. I was inspired by Heather's bag that she made in class. I made mine a bit different, but with the same fat quarters. It's super big and so strong.

The inside is a variety of different fat quarters from the same line of fabric.


I loved the schlep bag I made so much, that I decided I needed one for work to match my key fob and lanyard that Jen made for me. I cut it out and interfaced it tonight. I got the first 4 arms made tonight.

This is the inside. I still have enough Winding Ways fabric to make something else. I love this fabric and have stretched it out and made so many things with it.

This is my new cell phone case. Jen designed it for me and I just love it. Some day I'll actually make the quilt or something similar, but for now I just love looking at it. I had it made at Zazzle.com.


Started New this Week:
Winding Ways Schlep Bag - Cut out and partially sewn.
Farm Friends Snapshot Quilt - Cut out
Pink/Brown Schlep Bag
Finished this week:
Grab N Go Diaper Clutch
Schlep Bag
Ongoing projects:  (and progress this week on them)
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Wall Hanging - 2 - Finished 4 of the 4 Blocks - Waiting to embroider at dad's this weekend.
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Extra Blocks - No progress
Ed's Crown Royal Quilt - 2/3 of the way done on the last set of blocks - No progress
Mocha Meringue Wonder Blocks - still sitting
Jim Shore Quilt - Quilted and binding machine sewn on -  working on hand sewing.
Linda's T-shirt Quilt - all 51 t-shirts cut/interfaced/squared up for King size quilt, ready to sew into rows.
Paul's Wolf - 2nd eye, nose and face done - No progress this week.
Farm Friends Baby Quilt - Cut out
Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Blush Quilt
No progress:
Pokey Little Puppy Book
Mom's Pink Ribbon Quilt
3 Mug Rugs
This week's stats:
Completed projects -2
New projects -3
Currently in progress - 13
Finished this year - 120 projects + 12 Receiving Blankets & 20 Burp Clothes


I'm linking up for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

Mikaela is 43 Weeks Old!

Mikaela turned 43 Weeks Old on November 16th. She's been busy in my sewing room "helping" me with fabric selection. I was sewing and turned around to find she had opened my stash closet and started pulling out fabric. Daddy grabbed the camera and took a picture. She was happy as a lark.

She was even sorting them for me.

Grab n Go Diaper Clutch

Tonight was awesome! I had one of my best teaching nights and the class for the most part went really well. There are always those to get far ahead and go back or skip around, which doesn't always work, but for the most part all the ladies finished their Grab n Go Diaper Clutches. Some will be used for that, while others were made as simple clutches/purses. Diane made this bright one.


Olenka made this bears one. It was such a cute baby boy blue.

Jessica made this super cute owl. It was similar to the one I made for Molly, but had different lining. She used a decorative stitch on her front.

Iva used this floral print, intended for a girl. I'm impressed with how well the flap lines up, because I'm thinking she didn't plan it that way.


Olenka and Heather after class with their clutches. Heather's is for her daughter, so she added some applique patches.

Heather took my Schlep class last week and I love how her bag turned out. I need to rework the pattern a bit, so I picked these up to make another one. I just love her fabric choices. She said it's too big for her scouting bag, but great for quilting.


She made a smaller one for a special girl. These are from her stash. She just started quilting/sewing in the last few weeks! She does an awesome job. Her mom and her both took the class last week and tonight.


I came home and finished up my partially done sample. I had this one made in steps to show the process. It's a race cars fat quarter we picked up on our honeymoon paired with some other miscellaneous fabric. It's for a friends new baby.


The lining and the changing pad don't quite go together, but I think they'll work okay.

I'm so glad I finished this one up. It only took me a half hour to finish tonight when I got home. It's probably a 2 hour or less project, including cutting. It takes 3 fat quarters, fusible fleece, a bit of interfacing, a snap, d ri ngand swivel clasp. Such a cheap and easy gift, but will get lots of use.
I've had a busy night and it's time to catch some sleep.