Sew Hungry

Friday, January 4, 2013

Mystery gift

Hey peeps,

I just got some quilting fabric sent to me from NC with no note or return address that I recognize. If any of you are the culprit, thanks! If not, why didn't you send me fabrics!! But seriously I would like to know who sent it so I can thank them.

EDIT: mystery solved and gifter thanked. I am almost as good as Sherlock Holmes.

Thanks,
Marla

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Starting to commit to things already...

This is my first New Year in the blogging world (having joined in August) so I am more than a bit overwhelmed at all of the year in review posts and 2013 planning posts. Despite my overwhelmitude, I know I will kick myself later if I don't jump into the Lovely year of Finishes hosted by Melissa of Sew BitterSweet Designs and Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts.

My goal for the month of January is to finish my mustard and eggplant lap quilt. The blocks were made by my hivemates in the Nubees swap which I participated in from August to October. This is a monthly block swap where you make 4 blocks and receive 4 in return in the colors of your choice. Incidentally, they are open for January until the 5th. If you have never joined a bee before, it is a great way to start.

Most of the blocks and that darn cat

Sashing with the feather print. Cornerstones with various mustardy yellow and eggplanty purple scraps

Since the front is so busy I chose to go with a simple large scale print for the back. Normally I make pieced backs using the leftover fabric from the front but seeing as this is a bee quilt I don't have that option.

To finish this up I will need to...

1. Make three more blocks

2. assemble top with sashing and cornerstones

3. quilt and bind (not sure on the binding yet. Probably something golden)

Linking up for the January goal setting. Won't you join me?

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Goals for 2013

(nice button redesign, Lee)

Hello 2013! And hello WIP Wednesday! One of my goals for the new year is to participate in all the WIP Wednesdays. This is sometimes hard for me since I like to work on on project to completion and not leave a lot of WIPs about (I bet some of you wished you had that problem). This growing list should assure that I always have unfinished business...

First some things leftover from last year
1. Test pattern for Sew Crafty Jess
2. Tree skirt
3. Finish purple and gold bee quilt

4. Quilt for Allie

5. Finish placemats for Mom

6. Finish EPP pillow

And some new projects
1. baby blanket for Lauren (my first commissioned quilt, I am both thrilled and frozen with fear on this one)
2. Wedding quilt for Sarah and Riley
3. Wedding quilt for Heather and Nick

4. make more Elizabeth Hartman quilts

5. make a full across the square quilt

6. solids only quilt

7. quilt for the master bedroom
8. modpop quilt for the living room

Other
1. Update blog design so it doesn't look crappy
2. Go to stash bash in April and meet some sewists in person!
3. Join a year long bee?
4. Write more tutorials
5. Get a booth at a craft fair

I've been out of town for about a week and am just itching to get back into sewing. I wish I could join in on the scrappy tripalong fun. Happy New Year and thanks for reading! I'm linking up with Lee.

Monday, December 31, 2012

Hundred Day Hustle Wrap Up

Time to see how the last 100 days of the year went for me. I didn't finish all my list but it got a lot longer (as predicted). Here are the links to my original post and halfway point update.

Finished Projects - click on the links to see the full post about each project. I made 6 quilts!

1. Tales from Earth and Sea

2. Sakura quilt for my Bubby. She absolutely adores it and assures me she uses it every day. I don't want my quilts to go unused in a closet somewhere or just displayed for fear of getting them dirty. I make sure to stress they are machine washable and meant to be used.

3. t-shirt quilt. I didn't even add this to the list originally because it was in an embarrassing heap of t-shirts at the beginning of the hustle but I got a spurt of energy to make it and it only took one day!

4. Spinning stars. My sister LOVES it by the way. So does my Dad and Stepmom. They were all blown away. It makes me happy to think of it on their couch.

5. Scootin' Squares. A quilt donated to the Salvation Army. I hope this made a little 4 year old boy happy.

6. Geaux Baby quilt for friends. I finished this one just under the wire because I wanted to take it to New Orleans and gift it in person. Full post is pending but here is a peak...

I also did lots of other small projects:

7. October NuBees

8. Lunch bags for the frog festival

9. Last couch pillow.

10. Commissioned messenger bags for a coworker (see the picture below after numbers 11 and 12), two cousins and my aunt

11. Wine totes for lab Christmas gift exchange

12. Christmas pillowcovers

13. 16 figure 8 scarves. Much loved by all the ladies. A great mass production idea for Christmas prezzies.

14. Harry Potter bookshelf miniquilt. A Christmas gift for Kim. Read the full post.

15. Two scrappy placemats for a wedding gift for a coworker. I used my favorite method for them. One day I will have to blog about the dimensions.

16. 4 placemats for BIL for Christmas. Same pattern but with blue and green scraps. I made the back a little special here with two fabrics for the plate and the silverware.

Not my cat! But he is a cute little marmie.

17. Stockings for inlaws

Ongoing - hopefully these will be done in January. Except the EPP I will just take my sweet time with that.

1. Scrap buster placemats - need 4 for my mom. These just need binding but since she now reads my blog (Hi Mom!) I can't post any pics just yet.

2. Recover 2nd pillow for guest bedroom- EPP project. I've been making slow headway with this one while traveling.

3. Quilt for my sister Allison - she wants a honeycomb pattern with bees - using this pattern and these fabrics. I am finished cutting the fabric.

No progress-

1. Nubees block quilt - I realized I need to make three more blocks but I have the backing and sashing fabric ready to go. This is slated for January.

Not started

2. Advent calendar- A little birdie told me that I may be getting one verrry soon.

3.Tree skirt- fodder for Christmas in July 2013

I got pretty much everything I wanted done. I am already brewing ideas for 2013. I wish you all a wonderful New Year's Eve and a Happy New Year! Head on over to Kelsey's to see how everyone else fared with their lists. I am also linking up with the end of the hallway for December at from the blue chair.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Mr. Cat is Evil Cat

Mr. Fat Cat, aka Ron, aka Ron con Pasas (which means rum raisins in Spanish**) likes to cause trouble. He is sleeping on my design...bed? I guess I need a design wall because he couldn't sleep on that.

Me - aw look at that cute sleeping kitty

Ron- I am not sleeping (evil laugh)

Ron - I will kill you in your sleep one day if you attempt to move me.

**And why is he named Ron con pasas? Because my hubs thought he was a girl at first. But after taking him to the vet we found out he was not a girl he had little "raisins" down there ergo Ron con pasas. Of course eventually we had those raisins removed (Bob Barker would be proud) so now he is simply Ron.

A quick Christmas sewing project

The last time my in laws came to my house for Christmas I bought some stockings and embroidered their initials on the cuff. Well I found out on December 23rd that they took them home and did not bring them back. The stockings at Target were crummy and expensive so of course I just whipped up new ones in a few hours.

To make the stockings I roughly traced one of my stockings onto batting and cut them out. I sewed varying widths of Christmas fabrics strips directly to the batting for the front of each stocking.

For my MIL I chose bright fabrics and for my FIL I chose darker fabrics (have yourself a manly little Chistmas!)

I thought it would look nice to embroider a cursive L for Luisa in the diamond shaped square up top. And I wrote out Juan's name in big capital letters.

For the back I chose to use a single piece of fabric. Luisa really liked this print from the Wrenly collection by Valorie Wells. Juan's was the same blue fabric that is on the front (the stripe with the name on it).

For the inside I found some coordinating prints. Luisa's is a sweet little print from connecting threads. Juan's is some old Christmas fabric from 1994 (wow almost 20 years old) we can pretend that means vintage.

I sewed the outside fabrics right sides together and then turned it right side out. Then I sewed the lining right sides together and stuffed the outside stocking into the lining (right sides should be together). I carefully sewed around the top leaving about 3 inches in the back (where you put the hanging tab) open for turning. I turned the stocking right side out and stuff the lining inside and then pressed the opening closed. Then I quickly made some tabs to hang the stockings. I folded them in half and pinned them into the opening. I would say they are about 5 inches long but I honestly didn't measure. The last step is to topstitch which closes the hole, sews in the hanging tab and makes the top look nice. Ta da!

The whole thing only took about 3 hours so if you still need stockings you still have time! I have put away my sewing machine and donned my oven mitts for now. Lots of baking and cooking going on over here. Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy New Year etc. to you all!

Friday, December 21, 2012

Fabric Haul

My MIL is visiting and wanted to learn to quilt. She started out with some placemats in a simple square pattern. One for her and one for her husband. Their bedroom has the big TV in the house so they like to eat dinner in their room sometimes and watch a movie. These placemats will be a great addition to their TV trays. She has the most unconventional way of doing things but it gets the job done.

Placemats WIP

Bitten by the quilting bug she wants to make 10 more placemats for her dining room using earth tones. We took advantage of the fat quarter shop daily deals. On Tuesday they were having 50% off lots of Free Spirit fabrics. This was the result...