Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there.  I am thankful to have my Dad.

Dad on his boat

As children, my sisters and I always said, "Dad can fix anything".  And we still say that today.  Today we spent time changing the windshield wipers on my car and earlier in the week he was fixing the license plate on the font of my car, too.  Even my nephews say, "Grandpa can fix it, just needs a screwdriver".  

Dad and my nephew talking tools as
they put together his cooler.

Today was a great Father's Day spent with my entire family.  I don't think we could have asked for anything better.  We are very lucky to have such a loving father (and Grandfather!) who is, according to the 6 year old, "as handsome as a cheetah".  

Little Girl Room

So a friend of mine sent me a picture of her girls in their Easter dresses and asked me if I could make her a duvet cover and curtains based on the dresses.  Of course I said yes and jumped at the challenge.  Ok, maybe not jumped because jumping and I are not friends at the moment, but I did say yes.  I headed to one of my favorite fabric stores and found the fabrics.  The dresses were green, pink, and brown gingham.  I found the exact colors and got started.

The first thing I made was the duvet cover.

The dress had strips of white with little bows, which I mimicked with white kona cotton.  Every single seam in this was done as a french seam so that there would not be any fraying when thrown in the washer.

As I didn't have a good bed to showcase this on I figured draping it over the couch worked.  I backed the duvet with a twin size sheet, putting snaps along the bottom edge to make it easy to open and take off of the comforter that she will be covering.  

Along with the duvet I made a valance and set of curtain panels.  

The panels had all three colors separated by the white and the valance was just the green with a white stripe.  I love how the curtains look.  I was back and forth about putting the white on the valance and I am so glad I did, I think it looks super cute.  These are also all lined, but this time I used the serger to save some time.  I wish I had a better picture of them, but I guess I will have to wait until I get some sent to me.  

I sent these off a couple weeks ago and the little girl, almost 2 years old, loves her new room decor.  I can't wait to see some pictures of it all set up :)

I am linking up to Ellison Lane's Summer Sewing Contest (this one is in the home decor section).  

Little zipper pouch.

One of my recent scrap bag fills from my LQS included a good pile of pretty pastel batik "strings" ranging from about .75" to 2" by 45".  I couldn't help it, the colors were so great together so I sat and sewed them on to some sew in interfacing, making them in to one piece of fabric. And there my fabric sheet sat until I heard it calling that it wanted to be a zipper pouch.

I used the little pieces I had left from trimming the front to make a strip on the back.  The back is a purple batik from my stash.  

I lined it with a neutral also from the scrap bag and made a little pocket on the inside with two sections.  

This little pouch is perfect for my hexies!  I carry it everywhere :)  The pockets hold my finished ones until I have a chance to put them in my super organized hexagon box.  

I am linking up to Ellison Lane's Summer Sewing Contest! 

Wohoo for summer sewing.  I will be doing more hand sewing over the next couple weeks so lets see how far I can get with my hexies.  

Puddle Quilt Finished!

Wohoo! I finished puddle quilt.  I stalled a little on this once I finished the top, but I quilted it up and here it is.

I started this quilt back in the beginning of May, just after I finished Cindy's Quilt.  I was nervous working with all solids, it was out of my comfort zone, but, I am very happy with how it turned out.  I did straight line quilting, echoing the triangle sections.  The solids are a variety of Kona cottons and Bela solids.  The back is Tweedy by P&B Textiles.  And I used Warm and Natural cotton batting.

Puddle Quilt measures about 66"x66".  The pattern is Curious Nature by David Butler, the same one I used for Cindy's Quilt.

This quilt will be the perfect snuggly quilt.  I have not decided what I will do with it yet, it may become a wedding gift for one of my kayaking friends.  It fits for our sport :)

And my little helper was here again.  She behaved and did not walk across my quilts as I was photographing them this morning.  

Ok... just one more in front of the hydrangea.  

I am linking up to Ellison Lane Quilts Summer Sewing Contest.  There are so many amazing projects linked up!  

I am also linking up to UFO Challenge June 2012 at Local Honey Crafts.

I am also linking up to Linky  Party Tuesday at Quilting by the river.  I love her link up every week!

Taking some time...

Hi All!  I know I have been quiet this week, but I really have been busy.  I have two finishes, well almost finishes, that I will have done hopefully by tonight.  Last week I can show you what I did one day...

I got to spend some time with my Dad on his boat out in the Barnegat Bay.  That is Barnegat Light, known as "old Barney".

Sunday this week was the "Sweet 16" party at my LQS, Quilting Possibilities.  They had an auction where they auctioned off 16 items.  Your "money" was the total you had spent in the months of April and May.  I had a nice total, haha, but there were people with much more that I had.  It was fun and I came home with 75 fat quarters.

Jim as the auctioneer.  

My haul!

Some are cottons and some are flannels.  Some I really like and some I am not so fond of, but all will be used eventually or shared with my friends.

It is always a good time at my LQS!

Fabrics fabrics everywhere...

As I am sitting at the dining room table trimming some half square triangles (which I feel like I have been doing for days!) I look up and just had to laugh and the fabricy mess that is here.  This is not my normal sewing space.  Everything is usually done upstairs in a bedroom where my machine is, but sometimes it is nice to be able to just spread out.

This is my view from where I am sitting.  I only have about 10 HST's left to trim, hooray!

A view from higher up.  I didn't mention in the photo that my hand stitching for the two pillows are under the baby quilt I am taking to my sister's house.  

The fabrics for Mom's pillow shams are Michael Miller's Going Coastal Sea Star in light blue (the navy is there too, but was only auditioned).  Also, By the Sea by Marcus Fabrics (the navy with the shells) and the white is a white on white nautical called Ramblings by P&B textiles.  Also auditioned is Starfish by Stella Design and a light version of By the Sea.  Starfish by Stella will be one of the hand-stitched pillows and the navy By The Sea will be the other.  

And just for fun here is a pic of most of what came out of my scrap bag...

By the time I took this picture I already cut up the pink and purple and pulled out the white for the baby quilt.  But there is still so much there!

And to give you an idea of how much is there for $5, that fun blue wavey (Surfin' Monkeys by Benartex) is just short of 2 yards in pieces ranging from 9"x11" to 9"x45".  Can't beat that!  

A Simple Baby Quilt

My oldest sister let me know about a month ago that she wanted me to make a baby quilt for her to give someone.  I of course said sure, not a problem.  She originally said she needed it for July, but she really meant June.  She asked me about it this weekend, oops.  Luckily I had already cut out pieces for it so I just had to sit down and do some sewing.

I did the quilt in a stacked coin style, cutting each piece 2.5" by 5" for the coins and the sashings are 3" wide.

The binding is a simple purple with little squiggles in it.   I think it frames the quilt nicely.  

The backing is a pink with a light pattern that reminds me of free motion quilting that I picked up at JoAnn's on Sunday (my LQS was closed already).  

The batting is Warm and White, it gives the little quilt a nice feel.  I did a free motion loopy squiggle on it.  Not too close together though, I wanted it to stay nice and soft for the baby.  

The finished quilt measures 33" x40".  It was super simple to make and to be honest, one of the best things is the fabric for the top came almost entirely out of a bag of "you pick" scraps I got at my LQS.  $5 gets you a gallon zip top bag to fill, it must close, and it is all yours.  My bag was seriously over 5 lbs :)  

 Oh and I had this little helper under my feet when I was trying to get photos between the rain.  She is my neighbor's cat Spooky who spends her days in my backyard.  The is the most friendly, person loving cat ever.  She was nipping at my ankles because I wasn't petting her.

I am linking up to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story and to Linky Party Tuesday at Quilting by the River.  There are great projects at both!