Piecing Again this week

 

This week I have been piecing again. It just seemed to work for me. I pieced all the flying geese and blocks for the SDSU t-shirt quilt I am making and then laid it out. I haven't finished sewing it together yet.  

Last night I worked on the Hillside Charm Wildlife quilt 2 and then made these little 60* table toppers. I will quilt them, then trim them up. 

Mathew saw this fabric and wanted a mask, so I made one for him. 

I started piecing the yellow/blue strips for a scrappy bargello, but haven't gotten any further. 

I worked on embroidery pieces and started making labels. This one is on a border piece and I really like how it is turning out. 

My car turned over to 100000 miles. I put a lot of miles on it since it is the family vehicle. I bought it at 48000 almost 4 years ago.

Mikaela got a haircut and a 5 strand braid to go with it. 

 

March was a busy month, but I hope to finish up more quilts in April. 

National Quilting Day! - Quilting at Dad's House

Saturday was National Quilting Day and I was lucky enough to get to go to Dad's house to drop off the kids for an overnight stay and found some time to quilt too. I made this t-shirt quilt for his wife and quilted it with a primary King Tut verigated thread. 

The backing was an extra-wide gray swirls fabric and went with it really well. I'll bind it in a gray as well. 

I started and almost finished this Hillside Charm quilt with tan minkee on the back. I promised Paul I would leave by 2 and I needed to pick up thread at the Sewing Center before 3, so I left it with 3 rows left to quilt. Turns out the Sewing Center closed at 2pm, but Chad and Tammy were still there, so I was able to get the thread. 

The thread I needed was for Mathew's blanket. It's minkee on the top and luxe cuddle on the back. It's luscious to sleep under it. 

He chose his favorite orange/read Luxe Cuddle. 

The finished Hillside Charm quilt is going to a friend's friend to gift. 

The kids got to spend the night with Grandpa and Grandma so we could attend the Construction Industry Awards Banquet. Paul's company won for a residential pool house they completed when he started with the company in July. 

We do not get out often, but we clean up nicely. 

The kids built the best tree fort. They are itching to go back and work on it some more. 

 

November & December Sewing

 November and December were pretty much a blur for me. I was sick more than I was well and I only did the bare minimum sewing. I spent one Sunday and made teacher bags for Christmas gifts. Mikaela has 3 teachers. 

Mrs. Williams, the reading teacher, got a "book" bag. 

Mrs. West, the writing teacher, got a Huskers bag. 

Mathew's teacher, Ms. Wagner, is also a Huskers fan, so she got one as well. 

Mikaela's main teacher, Mrs. Johns, likes chickens, so she got a chicken bag. 

I had a custom order for a t-shirt quilt and this "extra" t-shirt to become a pillow. 

The backing for the t-shirt quilt. 

The finished t-shirt quilt. It was made for a dad to give his daughter, with her mom's shirts. It's queen size and I quilted it the day before I got sick. 

Earlier in November, I made this Rock Candy table topper and double potholder and kitchen boa for my Secret Santa Swap partner Linda for Christmas. 

I made this pillow and Christmas ornament for a friend from her grandma's jacket. The cousins and her mom were each getting one. It was a custom order. 

I made this Rock Candy table runner out of Tula Pink scraps. I have yet to finish it. 

After being sick for all of November and December, I found out my heart isn't pumping correctly, so I am taking heart meds and wearing a LifeVest to hopefully get my heart back on track. It was so frustrating not being able to sew or breathe. 

ALYOF May Goal Met

May has been a busy month, but boy do I feel like I accomplished a lot. I finished my May goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes.  I was able to quickly finish Mathew's Thomas the Train Sew Together bag. It was super easy and he loves it for all his little trains. I love how easy it is to put them all away and quickly take them with us, especially camping.

The zippers are great for his developmental aspect.

It was so easy that I quickly made Mikaela one as well.

The weekend before and Memorial day weekend were spent camping - with electricity!! I love Mikaela's sewing machine for sewing in the camper. I can quickly set up and sew. I've pieced a lot of HST's for a Jewel box quilt and sewn strip sets for a quilt for my MIL.

Mikaela and I also made taggy blankets for her daycare providers new twin grandsons. We made a couple extra too. Two fat quarters of minkee make 2 taggy blankets.

Mikaela picked out this unicorn fabric, so I made her a basket to put her baby in.

I pulled out the embroidery machine to make a label for the NACAA quilt I made. It should be back from the quilter in a few weeks and I can bind and add it before the end of the month.

I used the leftover blocks from that quilt to make a small one as well.

My biggest accomplishment is an SDSU Pride of the Dakotas Marching band quilt made from my t-shirts from my band days. I've been planning to make this for 13 years, since I graduated, but it just hadn't happened. It just took a little look at SDSU in a different light to inspire me to finish it. So excited that I made it and quilted it in under 2 weeks and should be ready to bind it this week! Go Jacks!


My little jackrabbits are super supportive! Love how big they are growing up to be. Preschool is over for the summer and now they have many adventures to go on. This week is Teddy Bear week, so they are super excited.

Linda's T-shirt Quilt

This fall I've been busy working on a commissioned quilt for a cousin's wife. It's t-shirts from all her travels and time in school. She gave me a brown/tan/black pillow as inspiration. I just loved the fabric from the Java line and used the remainder of the bolt. The quilt is King size, so it was big and heavy.

I planned it for the most part on EQ6, but it's not real user friendly with using different sized blocks randomly, so I just did measurements overall to get to the size I wanted and then did a lot of hand calculating. With the size of the t-shirts and the 52 I had to work with, I had to use no sashing between the blocks, just rows, which actually worked out pretty good.

I was pleased with how it turned out.

I made this custom label for it as well. I used a red backing as there are red dots in the sashing and I didn't want to piece the backing, so I used an extra wide back.


The biggest problem I had was skipped stitches and bad tension for a row before I figured out all my problems. I used a Hobbs 80/20 batting which really helped when I was rolling it as it wasn't so big under the harp of the machine. I'll definitely do that again.