A New Year For...

Quilting is such a wonderful hobby because there is no limit as to what you can do. Every year you could make new quilt patterns and never run out of new styles and patterns and color combinations. Even though I tend to wear preppy drab colors (my faves are navy anything, all shades of brown, black, ivory, etc and I usually buy three of everything I like, so not much diversity there) I have an inner color-loving child who is slowly emerging and painting the world brighter. Quilting gives me one outlet for color and creativity.

Here's a New Year's Resolution of sorts for my crafty to do list.

This year I want to make:

• a quilt with a house block in it
• a summer picnic quilt to bring to the park
  
• a Christmas quilt
• a quilt for the library to auction
  
• a charity quilt (most likely for Hospice)
  
• a boy quilt
  
• more skirts for my daughter with a few matching shirts with appliques
• a matching pair of pants and shirt for the baby
  
• a comforter cover for my son (he has his sister's crib-sized down comforter in petal pink)
• an art quilt to hang up
• a pair of pillows for my daughter's bed
• a scrappy quilt that uses up lots of little bits
• something that uses my dust-collecting serger
  

And I want to do all of this without purchasing new fabric (whites and muslin excepted) because I have enough in my stash to be able to make all of these and more. Waste not, want not, the wisdom goes.

I also want to teach my daughter how to make her own quilt, she's almost 6 and that's old enough, right???

Happy New Year! Let's look forward to a creative New Year together.

Kilo handbag

I followed my handbag tutorial to make this purse for Savannah.
With accessories this cute, who needs pants!?

It matches her Kilo skirt in Alexander Henry's 2005 line. (Ha! Modeling for her Mom before she's even brushed her hair or teeth. What a sport!)

 I was out of black fabric for the lining, so I used white cotton fabric. My fabric diet is still in effect but I'm glad to have designer fabrics on hand.

I can't wait to see her toting sunscreen and shells in her Kilo handbag while wading barefoot along the beach!

Now I wonder would it be too much to applique the red flower on a white shirt to make a whole ensemble? Too matchy matchy or super duper cute? I tend to think she's at the age where anything looks super duper cute.

Texture blanket for William

William, like most babies, loves textures and tags. He likes to sit beneath my sewing table, we call it his fort, while I'm sewing and touch all the bits of thread and fabric that fall under the table. For Christmas this year one of his homemade gifts was a texture blanket with ribbons. It's a quilted nine patch with a log cabin style center patch. The front face of it has ribbons as well as the edges and the back is a soft fleece in navy.

When I finished quilting the top of it I dropped it beneath my sewing table where the little guy was sitting holding onto some bits of the fleece I had trimmed away. He was more than happy to give up the scraps for his new blankie.

I think he likes it.

Kilo skirt

I haven't made anything special for Savannah in a long time and wanted to make her an early Christmas gift that she could try on now but save until our winter trip to Florida to enjoy wearing on the beach with a T-shirt or tank top.

She picked out some Alexander Henry fabric in my stash called Kilo. It's from his 2005 collection.  She said she liked the print because it made her think of Hawaii. I paired it with some basic black cotton and lined it with the black cotton as well. I much prefer lined skirts, over the single layer cotton ones.

The waistband is a 1 1/4" non-roll elastic, thicker than I usually use. I wanted to add a ribbon that would hang down on the side but she said she liked it plain (maybe because she just wanted me to finish asap). I think it looks snazzy! I can imagine getting away with wearing it as an evening skirt with cute black top and a pair of black Mary Jane's.

Look out runway models, here comes Miss Savannah with attitude to spare! Here's the matching handbag.

Quilts of 2009

Quilts of 2009
Originally uploaded by alwayscreatingsomething

Here's a review of my quilts this year. Three quilt swaps, two charity quilts, four gift quilts and three keepers.

My favorites are the Afternoon on Oahu quilt, Baby Isla's quilt and the Aloha quilt. I think I only have two WIPs at the moment which is great for me and one is a finished quilt top.

Sew many fabric combinations, sew little time!

Fall Mini-Quilt Swap

I completed my Fall Inspired Mini-Quilt for my swap partner. I didn't get a good idea of the kinds of quilts she likes from her blog, so I had to wing it. I hope she likes it.

I selected fabrics for this quilt a long time ago but haven't had the chance to start work on it until a few days ago when I had an unexpected "opening." I'm so glad to have completed it while it's still Fall, although as I write this, snow is falling (and sticking!) outside my window. I used a simple natural muslin fabric and made a small strip of fall colors across the top (or side or bottom, depending how you look at it). Then appliqued a maple leaf in the corner. It's simple and I hope more classic than boring. I wanted to create something that could be used practically as a placemat or small table topper as well as hung, if desired. It measures approximately 15" by 18".

I quilted it in intersecting lines - something completely new for me but I used my walking foot and took my time with it. I like the clean, modern lines of it. If I quilt in straight lines again, I think I'll use my water soluble pen or chalk to mark the lines before sewing. 

The maple leaf I cut out by hand instead of following a template. I wish I could have used a real maple leaf as a template but I waited too long and now they're all brown and crispy or decomposing in my compost pile.

Here's the back before I added the hanging sleeve where I signed the quilt to my swap partner. I like the binding fabric but didn't measure it out correctly this time. I cut 3 1/2" strips for the binding but 3" would have been plenty. Usually I like thinner bindings than what I added to this quilt.