WiP Wednesday #7

Another WiP finished!  I finished the quilt I made for the twins preschool fundraiser. 

It's ok, but I'm not in love with it. You can read all my complaints about it here.  You've been warned :)

The only other WiP I worked on was my first Swoon block. 

FI-NA-LLY!

It's so sad that it has taken me this long to get moving on it.  I had it cut out in January.  JANUARY.  Like, over 4 months ago, January.

But, you know how life goes.  Other stuff comes up and gets in the way, and regular life happens and the fun stuff gets put aside for awhile. 

But anyway, I pulled it out last night and started on it.  I will probably have it all sewn together tonight.  I am excited to finally see it put together!

Here are my stats for the week:

WiP's finished:

 WiP #1 - Fundraiser Quilt

 

New WiP's - 0

 

WiP's worked on:

WiP #2 - Swoon

 

Wip's NOT worked on:

WiP #3 -Denim Rag Quilt

WiP #4 - Star Baby Quilt

WiP #5 - Pillows

Total = 1 finished, 4 current WiP's

Linking, as usual, to Freshly Pieced :)

 

 

Eh.

I finished the quilt for my twins Preschool fundraiser over the weekend.
 

I'll be honest, I'm not loving it. 

(Although it does look cute rolled up.)

(And I actually love the backing and how the quilting looks from the back.)

But then I looked at this picture and everything that I had hoped would "come out in the wash" (literally and figuratively) didn't really. And not only that, but I noticed a huge, ugly mistake with my quilting that I didn't notice before seeing it in this photo.

Can you see it?  It's pretty obvious.

(Hint: look at the right side.)

My friend had just finished a quilt with this same quilting on it, and I thought this quilt was small enough to shamelessly copy do some similar quilting on it without a walking foot. 

Well, it isn't!

(I mentioned before that I had ordered a walking foot with my machine back in December.  For some reason, almost 5 months later, I still don't have it. It is supposedly on back order.) 

You can see how some of the rows shifted during the quilting. 

Bleh.

In general, I am a fan of more dense quilting, but I have been practicing my straight line skills lately, and this one seemed a good candidate to practice on since the fabrics had such a variety of patterns.  I thought free motion quilting would compete with all that. 

I actually like the quilting (I just sewed a straight 1/4 inch line on either side of all the horizontal seams), especially on the back.  I just hate that it shifted and kindof puckered.  And I probably would have picked it out and redone it if I weren't so limited on time to get it done.  Oh, well. 

I also did one of my best machine binding jobs I have ever done on this quilt.  I think I am finally really getting the hang of machine binding, even though I still prefer to hand bind when I have the time. 

So, see?  It didn't turn out all bad.  Let's just say this quilt won't ever land on my "Favorite Quilts" list.

I've also decided that I am kind of done with this pattern.  I chose it because it is extremely simple and easy to do for a fast quilt, but it's also pretty boring.  This is the second time I have used this "pattern" and I added the outer border this time.  I actually like the first version I did of the quilt better. I think because it was more tone on tone fabrics with only one bolder print.  That seems to work better for this pattern.  For me, anyway.

Here are the stats:

I followed this tutorial

Fabric: A variety of Denyse Schmidt Sugar Creek from JoAnns

Quilting: Straight line along the seams, done by me

Started: January 2012
Finished: May 2012

WIP Wednesday #6

I finally finished my Christmas Tree Skirt! Yay!  You can read all about it here!

I love the feeling of being able to check a project off my list. 

So... WiP #1 = Christmas Tree Skirt.  Check! 

In addition to finishing my tree skirt, I have also been working on the fundraiser quilt again.  It is due by this coming Sunday.  Nothing like putting it off till the last minute, right??

WiP #2 = Fundraiser Quilt

I actually have had the quilt top done for over a month.  I finished it right before I left on my trip.

Last night I sandwich it and basted it, and I thought I would get a good start on the quilting, but my machine was giving me issues.  I have not quilted on my new machine yet, so I am not sure what the problem was, but I wanted to do some straight line quilting and it kept skipping stitches. 

Part of the problem may be that I am using a regular presser foot.  I don't have a walking foot for this machine yet, because, even though I ordered one to come in with my machine, it has supposedly been on back order for the past 4 months.  I am almost to the point where I am going to go get a refund and get one from another Bernina store in a different town.

Another problem may be that I need to raise the height of the presser foot.  I will try raising it, however, I am not going to spend much time trying to figure the problem out.  If that doesn't fix it, I will just get out my old mechanical Bernina that has a walking foot.

I have also added a new project, or rather, remembered an old project and pulled it out. 

WiP #3 = Living Room Pillows

I have been wanting to recover my living room pillows for quite some time.  However, I wanted to do them in navy blue and for a long time, I couldn't find anything I liked in navy blue. 

Last year some time, I found a fabric I really loved and bought some. (That's it in the photo above.  Purty, ain't it??)  However, I wanted a different coordinating fabric to recover some of the other pillows, and couldn't find anything else that I liked.   So I stuck the fabric in my closet and I guess have just been waiting until I found something else I liked to go with it.

Well, I finally found something I like.  And I am excited to get my living room finally pulled together with stuff that I love, rather than just stuff I have settled for until something better comes along.

So, I am going to go get the new fabric today, and I pulled out the "old" fabric last night.  As soon as the Fundraiser quilt is done, the pillows will be next on the agenda!

Wip's NOT worked on:

WiP #4 -Denim Rag Quilt

WiP #5 - Star Baby Quilt

WiP #6 - Swoon Quilt (sad!)

WiP Stats

Current WiP's: 5

WiP's worked on this week: 2

New WiP's: 1

WiP's Finished: 1

Total WiP's: 5

Christmas Tree Skirt - Finally!

If I remember correctly, I started this Christmas Tree Skirt sometime around August 2011. 

That means that this tree skirt took me about the same amount of time to make as it takes for me to make a baby.  Only without the nausea, heartburn and stretch marks. 

Yay for that part anyway, right?

But seriously, I had it cut and pieced and ready to go, but then I decided I should probably get moving on the gifts I was making for other people, including another version of this same tree skirt.

So, as often happens, my own skirt got shoved to the back burner while I created for everyone else.  Sigh.

However, once I put my tree up and saw how ugly and barren it was under the tree, I was determined to get my tree skirt finished and under the tree.  So I pulled it out and got it all finished up to the binding sewn onto the top, but knew that it would take too long to hand sew the binding onto the bottom.  I wanted it hand bound, so I decided to just throw it under the tree with the binding half sewn on and told myself I would sew it on as soon as I took the tree down.  Yeah, right.

Four months after Christmas, it is finally totally complete!

I really love it.  I have three little boys, so I wanted something that was fun for them to look at.  This has darling snowmen, holly and vintage ornaments all over it.  I also love the vintage feel of the fabric, because when it comes to Christmas, I am all about memories and tradition!  And because of that, I picked all the red and green fabrics, and left out the non-traditional teal and more olive-y green.  I put those in the version I made for my brother, which was intentionally done a little more modern, but just as beautiful, if not more! 

I bought a jelly roll of the same fabric at the same time which I am going to make Christmas stockings with this year.  And now I have my embroidery module so I can embroider names on the cuffs!  I am so excited!

Christmas Tree Skirt Stats:

I followed this tutorial here

Fabric: Fruitcake by Basic Grey (out of print, but possibly still available on Etsy.)

Quilting: stitch in the ditch, done by me.
Started: August 2011
Finished: April 2012

Linking to these parties:

WIP Wednesday #5

Well, I am back from my 3 week trip and trying to get back into the swing of things at home.

I drove with the boys from Virginia to Tennessee to have Easter with my sister and her family before we all flew from Nashville to Provo, Utah (with 6 kids in tow!) for my brother's wedding the following weekend.  After flying back to Nashville, we stayed one more day before making the drive back to Virginia.  That's a lot of driving and flying.

The wedding was wonderful, and the entire trip was fun, stressful and crazy all at the same time!  All my siblings were together for the first time in literally years, so it was good to spend time with my whole family (minus my husband, of course...dumb Army.  Boo!) 

However, it is definitely hard traveling across two time zones for almost 3 weeks with 3 little boys all by myself.  Fortunately, my boys are very good car travelers.  Unfortunately, they are horrible airplane travelers.

So, like I said, I am back home and trying to get back into our normal routine.  And it's been slow going.

I did manage to hit one fabric store while I was in Utah.  The Fabric Mill is a darling little store tucked away on a side street in Orem, Utah, that has been there for as long as I can remember.  And I grew up there.  So that is a LONG TIME. 

The reason I went there in particular is because they have an enormous selection of flannel, since they are known for their hemstitched flannel receiving blanket and burp cloth kits.  And I was looking specifically for flannel for the back of my Denim Rag Quilt.

{As a side note, I should mention the lack of fabric resources I have where I currently live. 

Truly, it's pathetic. 

I have a Hancock Fabric (which I hate) about 25 minutes away, and a Joann's a half an hour away.

There is one so-called quilt shop in town (also about 25 minutes away), which is actually where we bought my new Bernina, but their fabric selection is pathetic.  Their focus seems to mainly be on machine embroidery.

So needless to say, it is a treat for me to go to Utah and be able to walk into an actual brick and mortar quilt shop and see and feel all the beautiful, wonderful fabric in person!}

So, knowing I was looking specifically for flannel, I knew the Fabric Mill was the place to go.  And I was not disappointed!  I bought a half yard each of (I believe) 9 different fabrics.  I would post a picture, but I left them with my mom to be sent later (along with a few other things) so that my checked bag wouldn't go over 50 lbs on the fight home.  (Dumb airlines!)

SO---I suppose I can count buying the flannel for my Rag Quilt as progress, right?  If not, I didn't make much progress at all on any of my WIP's :(

I did take my tree skirt and was able to work on it a bit here and a bit there.  I would say I am almost 3 quarters done with the binding.  I wanted to have it finished by the time I got home, but I just didn't have as much free time as I thought I might.  Sigh.

WIP Stats

Total WIP's: 5

WIP's worked on this week: 2 (I'm counting the fabric, darnit!)
New WIP's: 0

WIP's Finished: 0

WIP Wednesday #4

The past week has been fairly productive, sewing-wise.

After I finished my Spiderman totes earlier in the week (which, by the way, were just featured  over at Threading My Way, so go and take a look!) I somehow found a the time to work on three other projects.

I replaced the feet on a couple of my boys sleepers, I was able to finish the quilt top for my twins Fundraiser Quilt, and I cut a few more squares of denim for my Denim Picnic Rag Quilt.

And all this while having my three usual distractions underfoot, preparing to send my husband off on deployment, and getting ready for a major trip with just me and the boys.

But honestly, that is probably why I got so much done.  Sewing is my destressor.

But back to my projects, particularly the rag quilt.  I finally sat down and decided how big I wanted it to be.  When I first started saving jeans for it, I didn't really have a size in mind, because I knew I was a long way from having enough denim to worry about it. 

Last night I pulled out a couple of jean legs and cut about twenty 6-inch squares out of them.  As I laid them on my stack, I thought, "Hmmm...I should probably get an idea of how many of these I need!"  So I did a little research on the average size of a picnic quilt and decided on making it roughly 6.5 feet square. ( My husband is 6'4, so I figured if I am making something for us to all fit on, I might as well make it at least as long as he is tall.  You never know when a guy will want to lie down and take a nap, right?)

Well, that means I have to cut out 196 squares of denim.  And flannel.  And batting. 

That is 588 total squares. 

That's a lot.

And this stack only has about 75 so far.  I'm going to be working on this one for awhile.

I am going to Utah for my brother's wedding next week.  There is a fabric store there that has the most insane selection of flannel that I have ever seen in one store.  I am going to make a stop there and see if they have anything in my color palette for this quilt, which obviously from the photo above is navy, teal and lime green.  I'm crossing my fingers that I find something awesome.

As I mentioned last week, I am also taking my tree skirt to finish binding.  So I should have at least one more project finished by the time I get back from my trip.

WIP Stats

Total WIP's: 5

WIP's worked on this week: 2
New WIP's: 0

WIP's Finished: 0

Use It Up or Wear It Out

I have three boys.  Twin 3-year-olds and an 18-month-old.  They go through a lot of clothes.

Fortunately for me (maybe not so much for him) my youngest has a gajillion hand-me-downs from the twins.  It's nice because I don't have to spend a ton of money on dressing him, although, don't feel too sorry for him...he still gets plenty of new stuff bought just for him.  (One of the perks of being born in the opposite season as his brothers.  And being a huge chunky-monkey.)

However, sometimes, things get a little worn out before they get passed down to my baby, mainly sleepers.  You know what I mean.  You've got a perfectly good sleeper that still looks nice and warm and cozy until you see this:

And honestly, I just can't bring myself to throw away a perfectly good sleeper that still has miles of good use left in it when I can easily fix it for literally a few cents. 

A few cents?  Well, yes.  I get the non-skid fabric with a coupon at JoAnn's.  I think it is normally $6.99/yd, so with a 40% coupon it is around $4 a yard.  I get a quarter yard (grand total = $1) and can get quite a few sleeper feet out of it.  So depending on how many sleepers you need to fix, you are literally paying pennies for each pair of replacement feet.

And while I may not be that great at math, I know that a few cents per sleeper to fix is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying a whole winter's (and fall and spring) worth of new ones!

So, That is what I do.  And I will be the first to admit that I don't worry about perfection when it comes to  replacing the soles of these sleepers.  In fact, all I do is cut the old sole out, and closely zigzag the new sole on. 

This is the inside of the foot before it is turned right-side out.

 I don't even worry about unpicking the old thread or whether any part of the old soles shows through slightly, as you can see:

The point for me is to get the new soles on and fix these suckers so that my boys can use them up or wear them out.  Again.