Gifts!

Thanks to the lovely faces from Believe Magic, I made some fun little gifts.  The first was a housewarming gift for my friend Cristina who moved across the country.  The other is a thank you gift for Meredith for all the awesome quilt stuff she's taught me and given me.

 "home is where the heart is"

 

"thank you"

Throwback Thursday: The Chuppah Creation

A couple years back my oldest friend Bethami married her now husband Lenny and I made their chuppah, which I was both very honored and terrified to do.  I took a bunch of photos of the process and realized that I never showed them to anyone, so here goes...

Bethami and Lenny wanted a white chuppah because the temple is very colorful.  We did research and sent lots of emails and came up with the idea of a bed of silk chiffon leaves edged in gold.  The hope was that the entire top would be made of these leaves, but to be honest I bit off a little more than I could chew, so it ended of up being a boarder of leaves around white chiffon.

I started by drawing 5 different leaves and making templates of them.  Then I traced them lightly with a pencil onto the chiffon.  Because the chiffon would buckle in the sewing machine, I stitched the gold edging onto the chiffon with a piece of paper underneath it to keep it flat (if you're wondering, I used old Law & Order scripts).  The leaves were then cut out and the paper removed.  As the photo above shows, I needed lots of Diet Coke and Tootsie Roll pops (as well as help from a few friends who I begged to come over one afternoon) to get it done.

 

Once I hoped I had enough leaves (It wasn't till the night before I had to fly to the wedding that I realized that I could not do the whole thing in leaves - I held out hope this long...) I laid out the chiffon on my floor (which was just large enough) and lay out three rows of leaves, just overlapping slightly at the corners and stitched them together there.  Cash, of course, helped a lot.

 

Once the wedding day came, we only had a very short amount of time to get all set up before the ceremony. Thankfully, Lenny had some very awesome groomsmen, without their help there would have been no way it would have been up and actually looking good.  I owe them forever.  Rachel (Bethami's sister) and I basically stood there and directed them.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  Bethami and Lenny seemed to be as well, and let's be honest, theirs are the only opinions who really matter.

Even Exchange of Goods and Services

It's nice to have different types of artists as friends.  My friend Jackson is a hairdresser who is in need of a t-shirt quilt.  I am able to create a t-shirt quilt and have a head full of grey hair that needs attention.  Bam!  We have a deal.  I am making Jax his t-shirt quilt and he is helping me have confidence to go out in public again :)

I began the slightly ghetto way I began my own t-shirt quilt, by creating a sketchy patten by cutting and pasting and Sharpie and a little math...

To continue being super high tec, I did this to all of the shirts:

Jackson picked out a sashing fabric and I have placed and order for it and also more interfacing, since I don't have much in my stock.  I have started with some of the shirts with the little that I have.  I am also using the erasable pens for the first time.  If you haven't used them they seem pretty amazing so far- I'll post about specifics later if I think they are worth it.

 I finished up a lot of little projects last week- pot holders I've been working on forever, whipped out my screen again, and started making some little bags that I'll hopefully have posted soon.  Anyway, lots of new stuff up in my Etsy store, so take a look!

Ellisa's Finished Quilt

Today I finished Ellisa's House Quilt!  It was supposed to give me about 5 days to get it packed up and shipped to Kentucky before she entered the world.  Ellisa, however, surprised us and arrived yesterday (I healthy 10 pounds!).  Now it's all packed up and will be sent later today.  I am mostly happy with how it turned out.  The quilting was pretty detailed and looking back, I probably should have quilted the windows and doors a little more, but I think that it's very cute and I hope she (and her mom and dad) like it!

Ellisa's Houses Quilt Top

 I'm not sure why this photo is so blurry, but you get the idea.

Someone is very helpful during the quilting process.

More Houses

So, I've been on a roll this weekend (thanks to lots of football to watch while quilting).  I've finished all nine of the houses for baby Ellisa's quilt.  I did end up having to order fabric for the sashing and backing, so I'm at a stand still until that comes in on Wednesday.  I really hope this quilt ends up being cute!

Stay tuned for more- including a new, exciting, and different type of project on Sunday (I'm taking a class!)  Until then...

**I really need to stop using my phone as a camera...

Elissa's Houses

One of my childhood best friends, Hilary, is having her second baby, a girl, due in eight weeks.  When she was pregnant the first time around, I made a cute little baby blanket, but never finished it and felt like a terrible friend.  This time around, I'm changing that.  SO, since time, money, and space are all tight, I decided that I wanted to buy as little as possible and use some of the fabric that has just been lying around my apartment for months and months.  I love the cool little wonky houses on blogs like House of Krom so I thought that I'd try to make my own.  After a really disastrous attempt, I decided just to go with a pattern.  Now that I sort of understand how to do houses, one day I hope to be able to design my own, but until then, here are some of the houses I've made...

I'm Back!

Okay,  I know...  You've all forgotten about me.  I've been working and traveling and ignoring my quilting, but there are lots of projects coming up.  I somehow just found out one of my childhood friends is having a baby in EIGHT WEEKS!  So, I think I'll start working on that one today (although I haven't figured out what I'm doing yet..).  Also, my friend Jackson is coming over to discuss a commissioned t-shirt quilt I'm going to make for him.  AND, I finally finished Theo's 1st Birthday quilt top (never mind that he is almost 14 months.)

Back On Track

So, I have obviously fallen off the quilting wagon for a bit- but I think I'm back on track since a little trip to Fabric Shack and some new magazines have reignited my desire to spend the day sewing.  Today I made a Kindle case for my friend Jes.  She requested I make her one like my iPod case, but obviously larger.  She found this neat website called Spoon Flower which lets you print your own fabric or buy other people's custom creations.  Pretty cool in theory.  The only thing is that I would like the fabric to be a little higher quality- but it does the job: presses, moves, etc.  I haven't washed it yet though.

While on a lovely trip to Cincinnati I made a quick trip to Fabric Shack (my favorite shack!).  I spent most of my time in the scrap bin and the fat quarter section because I really had no ideas what I needed (maybe nothing?), but I did manage to leave with a full bag of fabric- some of it hilarious.

The big thing I've done is that I finally really starting piecing together the Kaleidoscope quilt that I started cutting (what feels like) a million years ago.  I'm off to a good start and I'm really excited to finish this quilt top.  If I stay excited about it, I think that I can get the top done by the weekend.  Here's some progress:

Wordless Wednesday

Productive Day

Well, I finally buckled down and got a lot of work on two project done today.  First, and most importantly, I made major headway on my mom's (belated) Birthday gift.  Since she knows all about it, I think it's safe for me to post at I'm making her an iPad case.  She's a horse lover and I found this really wonderful horse fabric at on the Fabric Shack website (I cannot say enough good things about this store, other than the fact that their website isn't super user friendly).  I probably would have finished the whole thing today, but I realized that I had forgotten to attach the elastic, so I have some stitching to take out and, more importantly, some elastic to find...

I also started an other project.  I know, I know, the last thing I need is a new project, but this is actually been in my head for awhile.  When I went to Fabric Shack over Christmas, I found this great fabric that would be perfect for a baby/kid quilt for Jess and Nate.  Of course, I had just finished a baby blanket for them a couple months before, but this was too good to pass up.  With no pattern, or even ideas, I got a couple yards of three different fabrics.  Yesterday I got a few books out of the library and found a great pattern for this fabric.  I bought a couple more pieces online, but I have started cutting what I have.  I think it's going to be super cute.  My plan is to have it done by Theo's 1st Birthday.  This gives me a little more than 6 months... I should be able to pull this off :)  Photos of the start of the blocks to be posted in the next couple of days (hopefully tomorrow, but let's be honest, I might get side tracked!).

Baby Joseph Quilt

I'm not sure there was anyone, including me, that thought I could actually pull this off.  I'm really excited about it.  And, while it's not perfect, this is the first time that I've been okay with a quilt I've make that isn't perfect.  In fact, I think that it makes it personal and a little fun.  On a side note- is there anything better than taking a quilt you just finished out of the dryer?  It's pretty much the best.

Some one saw that we had a quilt on the floor- little rascal :)

I need some better lighting.  I don't really have the possibility in my apartment due to the lack of sunlight I get.  If it was the spring time, I'd head down the street to Central Park, but in this weather it would just ruin it... bummer.

Your Sneak Peek

Thanks for the nice man at the hardware store, I was able to finish the Joseph Baby Quilt!  It needs some snips here and there and still needs to be washed, but here's you're sneak peek:

The Dirty Thirty Quilt

Today is Cristina's 30th Birthday.  She is one of my closest friend and she, unlike me, is not too excited to hit the big 3-0 and she, unlike me, is celebrating in a nice normal fashion- dinner with her boyfriend and then a party at a bar.  Since we aren't going crazy with the celebrating, I decided that I needed to do something special for her for her birthday (especially since she will be traveling for mine).  I had put a nice little gift bag together for her when on Tuesday she let it slip that she'd love to have a quilt to use while watching TV if I ever felt like making one for her.  I also had plans to maybe see her on Thursday- Make an entire quilt in less than 48 hours?  Challenge excepted.

Who would have thought that I'd actually be able to pull it off?!  30 hours after I began the quilt, it was finished.  (Sleep and human interaction is highly overrated anyway...)  I have been thinking recently that I wanted to do more work with hexagons, because apparently I love them.  I also love a quilt that is in Elizabeth Hartman's book that is a white quilt that looks like it has peddles tossed all over it.  I decided to try to combine the idea and attempt to make a quilt that looked like there were hexagons sprinkled over the quilt.  For the most part, I think that I succeeded (especially since I patterned it myself- a first for me!).  Here is my wonky inspiration drawing and my notes that I used during the process.  Not a lot to work from, I know.

Also, since I had such a short amount of time to complete it, that I needed to only use what I had.  Thankfully, I'm pretty familiar with Cristina's aesthetic, so I just went through my stash, picked out stuff I knew she'd like, and cut hexagons using the hexagon template from Fresh Quilts.  The rest of it, I totally winged.  I played with the hexagon template and took all kinds of measurements.  Over all, I'm happy with the pattern (which will, forever be referred to as the Dirty Thirty Quilt), I think there is a little too much white, I think that it suggests what I was going for.  I might actually write up a little tutorial of this later if I'm feeling ambitious.  The back of the quilt is a few different vintagey fabrics that go pretty well together and the binding is actually from a top sheet that I no longer have the mate for...

And now, a word (or a few) about free motion quilting.  This was my first attempt.  At first, I HATED  it.  It was really loud (I thought my neighbors might complain) and really hard to control, the stitch lengths were crazy different, and I broke 5 needles.  And then, like magic, the foot broke.  No, seriously, this medal bar thingie snapped right off, and it was like magic.  Suddenly, it was quiet and controllable and faster (and no more broken needles!).  Maybe they sold me the wrong foot.  Whatever it was, now it's good, so I'm okay with it.  I did sort of curly cues mixed with circles- I wanted it to basically look like I had doodled on it (I even threw in a "Hidden Mickey" for good measure).  For a first outing, I think it went pretty well.

Cash insists on immediately running up and lying on any quilt (or fabric) that I put on the ground- especially when I want to take photos.

Hell Yeah!

Excuse my language, but this is exciting!  I had made great stride in not only Rachel's baby quilt, but at being a quilter in general.

First, I finished cutting all 108 stash patterned pieces:

Instead of then cutting all of the off white fabric, I decided to cut about 15 or so and see if I was actually capable of putting one of these, uh, let's call them 'blocks' together.  It turns out, hell yes I am!  I mean, seriously, this is hard stuff and I actually managed to put it together without it looking terrible. 

Sure, this kid may have a doctorate by the time I finish this quilt, but I actually feel like I'm off to a very good start and am excited to continue.  The baby shower is in March...  I better get moving!!

Once Upon a Time...

I think I've let it slip a couple of times on blog that I'm a Disney fan, but that's not completely accurate.  I'm a Disney fanatic.  Okay okay, I guess "obsession" is a better word when describing how I feel about Disney.  In fact, for my 30th Birthday I will be traveling to Disney World with a handful of friends and my parents.  And, since I'm a Disney pro, I go all out- I've replaced a zipper of a Figment backpack from my childhood and then decided that I need a Disney themed wallet for the trip.  Why buy when you can make?  So, I grabbed the book Easy Japanese Quilt Style (a Christmas gift from my friends Shelagh and Doug) and loosely went off a pattern for wallets- I made two: Disney 'Once Upon a Time' themed, and one from the left over fabric from Courtney's Thank You quilt.

The idea for these wallets is really cute, but the directions are not the clearest ever, so I had to sort of loosely follow the instructions and sort of go with my gut on how to put it together.  Courtney's was easier than my Disney wallet, simply because all of the fabric already coordinated, while I had to decide which of my Disney fabric I was actually going to use.  I have a lot, but not a ton of options- no Mickey and Minnie (bummer), but two different Disney Princess themed, a little bit of left over Ariel from pot holders I made Courtney for her Birthday, a fair amount of Winnie-The-Pooh, and, of course, the Alexander Henry fabric that I'm convinced looks exactly like "It's a Small World."  I settled, however, on staying with the Disney Princesses.  Combining all of the fabric on such a small project looked a little messy and disjointed.

The thing that I really loved about this project is, now that I know the basic way to put a wallet together, I feel like I could make my own pattern and make it more functional and a better size.  If I do, I am going to attempt to write my own pattern.  Hopefully I will be more clear enough for people to understand me. This project also made me really appreciate Elizabeth Hartman.  Her instructions are so clear and easy to follow.  I hope she writes a million more books!

I can't wait to get to Disney World, so I can use this little guy!