eeep - I won something!

I never win anything.  Seriously.  Never.  So when I won this fat quarter bundle from Svetlana at s.o.t.a.k handmade, I was thrilled & shocked!

It's 'Don't be Crabby!' by Laurie Wisbrun for Robert Kaufman.  I seriously love the colors and the designs!
 

I have no idea what I am going to do with it.  I absolutely love what Svetlana did with hers.  She set the bar pretty high!  Hopefully I can come up with something worthy of the fun fabrics.  But that is (unfortunately) probably on hold until after the holiday season.

Don't be Crabby! will be available for purchase in December.

-V

custom pillowcase dress

Remember this fabric?  I promise it did not actually take me 12 days to finish this dress!  I just got side tracked sewing baby blankets for the upcoming craft show & worked on the dress here and there between other projects.

I finished the dress late last night.  I really wanted to put it on my daughter for pictures, but since it is a custom dress, I didn't want to risk Tensley getting something on it.  That would be just my luck! 

This dress is really easy to make and goes together pretty quickly.  I don't have a serger, but my Brother sewing machine has an optional side cutter foot, which I immediately purchased, and really love using.  It functions similarly to a serger, so I can finish my raw edges and don't have to fold them under to prevent them from fraying.  (I should have taken a picture of what the inside seams look like so you could get an idea of what the side cutter does - sorry about not doing that.)

I am loving these labels.  I think I am going to use them up quicker than I originally thought!

Lots of stuff going on around here right now.  I am still making baby blankets for the craft show, as well as painting furniture (using Annie Sloan chalk paint!), plus I am planning / designing a table runner, and a really awesome quilt is in the works.  I can't wait to share it all with you over the next week. 

See you soon!
-V

craft show baby blankets

(Sorry for the boring / bad pictures.  We had a cloudy & rainy day today, so outside pictures were out of the question.)

I finished two more baby blankets for the craft show coming up on November 10th.

I have about five more that I am planning on making.

Then I am going to start working on some furniture for the craft show.  And then, I am going back to quilting!!!

-V

just a few baby blankets

Practice making baby blankets (one side flannel, one side minky) and practice sewing labels into seams.  So far, so good.

-V

labels have arrived!

I recently ordered labels from two sellers on Etsy.  The first shop I ordered from was Inked Papers.  Michelle was very good to work with.  I explained what I had in mind and she quickly sent a proof for me to look over.  I requested a few changes and she immediately sent me a proof with the adjustments.  The labels arrived quickly.  These are twill labels, 1.5" tall & 1.5" wide that I can fold over and sew into the seams of my projects.  The word "re•engineered" will show on the top of the fold and the back of the fold will have the wash & dry instructions.  The color is called "natural". 

 I had already received samples from Michelle, so I thought I had an idea of what to expect.  However, the labels that came looked a little more worn than the samples I had received.  Also, some of the labels are better than others.  The label on the left looks pretty good, whereas the label on the right looks like it is already worn off.  I hope they wash & dry okay!  I have sent a message to Michelle about the worn-looking labels.  If she responds, I will update you.

** Edited 10/26:  I heard back from Michelle & she has offered to send me new labels.  She had complaints about the plastic coating on the previous transfer material, so she had switched to a new transfer material and had not perfected it yet.  She said she has fixed some of the issues she was having with the new transfer material.  When I receive the new batch of labels, I will update again (or maybe do a whole new post...) **

The second shop I ordered from was Mommie Made It.  Lisa was also great to work with.  She was very fast with the original proof and the adjustments that I needed.  The labels arrived quickly.  These labels are also 1.5" tall and 1.5" wide, again so I can fold them over and sew them into the seams of my projects.  However, these labels are not twill.  They are a woven cotton material.  It is a nice heavy weight and looks and feels like it will not fade with washing.  I have to cut these out myself, but that is not a big deal.  The color is not a true white, but more of a grey-ish white.  I actually like the color better than bright white.  It is very complementary to many of the fabrics in my stash. 

The one mistake I made with these labels was not putting a larger space between the wording for the front & back of the label.  When I fold the label in half, I have to be very careful to not get the bottom of the 'g' in the fold.

Now that I have my labels, I can start making baby blankets for the upcoming craft show!  Lots of projects in the works for that... so stay tuned!

-V

next up

The fabric for my next project....  Kaffe Fassett's Tomato Millefiore and a dark purple batik (not sure of the stats on that) - both from the Country Sampler in Omaha.

-V

finished quilt top: it's a hoot

(Disclaimer: Due to inclement weather you will just have to deal with indoor photos of this quilt top... also I had folded the quilt top to take to my LQS and I was too lazy to press it again, so please ignore the giant wrinkle in the middle....)

I finished the 'It's A Hoot' quilt top.  I am horrible at naming quilts.  I marvel at the names people come up with for their quilts.  I am completely unoriginal and just name the quilt after the fabric line, which in this case was It's A Hoot (by MoMo for Moda).  More about the fabrics used in this post.  

I had originally planned on using the fabric to make a chevron pattern like this one I saw on Pinterest.  However, after I pieced the HSTs and had them laid out on my bed, I just wasn't happy with it.  I had wanted to do some kind of a rainbow effect, but that just didn't work with the number of yellow prints that I had.  Then I tried a completely random layout in regards to color and that looked like a hot mess to me.  (It just now occurred to me that I could have copied the exact layout of the Pinterest quilt.  Wow.  Master of the obvious over here.)  Anyway, as I was mulling over my options, I decided to flip the HSTs so that all of the colored triangles were in the bottom right hand corner.  From there, I laid them out in a sort of rainbow effect, with the darkest colors at the top left and fading to the lighter colors to the bottom and right.  I liked the way that looked and so that is what I went with.  I'm pretty happy with it.  Not completely in love, but I like it well enough.

Also, in my original plan I had a border around the chevron pattern - using the small, green polka dot fabric that I used as my background fabric for the HSTs.  Basically just like the Pinterest quilt.  However, in this new layout, border fabric looks out of place against the HSTs (at least to me - I don't have a picture of this so you will just have to take my word for it).  It was too much of a visual break between the diagonal "lines" of the quilt and the horizontal / vertical lines of the border.  Which really is no big deal to me to not use borders - except that now this quilt top measures 48" x 56", which is a really random size.  Just barely large enough to be used as a lap quilt, but on the bigger side for a baby / toddler quilt.  I did not pre-wash the fabrics because they were charm squares, so there will be some shrinkage after washing.  Plus, the quilting usually shrinks the quilt up some.  So it will be interesting to see what the final measurements are after quilting and washing...

Which leads me to quilting it.  I think I know what I am going to do, but then again, this entire quilt has changed from the original plan I had, so who knows....  But that's just one thing I like about quilting - there is no right or wrong!  I think I know what fabric I want to use for the backing, but it hasn't come into my LQS yet.  So getting this quilted is on hold until that fabric comes into the shop and I make up my mind!  In the meantime, it is on to the next project!

I'm sorry this post got so long-winded.  Thanks for reading!

-V

i need advice...

I finally got all the HSTs trimmed to exactly 4.5".  If only I could sew more accurately, perhaps I wouldn't need to trim my blocks...

Then I laid them all out in groups so I could see the different fabrics.  Now comes the part where I need help.  I originally planned on laying the blocks out to make a chevron pattern, but now I am not so sure.  And I am also not sure how "scrappy" to make the layout.  Should I just place the blocks next to each other with no regard to color or should I try to stick with a "rainbow" effect....

Not sure if you can see the difference between the picture above and the picture below.  The above picture has matching fabrics on each half of the "chevron".  The picture below has matching fabrics on each "chevron".  Does that make sense?  Or I could go more "scrappy" looking and not place matching fabrics together at all.  I don't have a picture of this (yet)....

Lastly, I thought about laying out the blocks like this:

I am kind of liking the way this looks.  Maybe just because it is different than what I had in mind.  I wouldn't have to go with a rainbow layout.  It is just what I lean towards.  Although I do think the rainbow layout adds a lot to this design.

I have 2 more rows of HSTs to lay out, but I got lazy and wanted to take pictures.  I was originally planning on adding a 6" border around all sides of the quilt.  I'm not sure if the layout above would look weird with a 6" border all around.  Without a border, the quilt will be 48" x 56".  Just a little too small, in my opinion... but then again I am 5'10".  I should add that the border fabric is the same cream fabric with light green polka dot as I used to make the HST's.  I should also add that I still have a jelly roll of this same fabric (MoMo It's A Hoot).  I have seen a tutorial for making a chevron quilt from jelly roll strips, so I could always use the jelly roll to make the chevron quilt and make this one into the design above. 

And then of course there is the problem of how to quilt it if I don't go with the chevron layout.  If I go with the chevron layout, I will just quilt 1/4" from the edge of the chevron.  But if I go with the other layout, then I feel like I should quilt inside each triangle, and that would be A LOT of work!!!

So (if anyone reads this blog - haha), what does everyone think?  Which layout do you like?  What do you think about borders versus no border?  Quilting designs?  Please help!  I'm so indecisive!

-V