December Sewing Projects

Two more days & 2010 will be done & over with... it's incredible how time flies!

I didn't do too much sewing this month as we were busy with work and Christmas. C'est la vie.

This is the December star for the monthly Sawtooth Star Sampler (Two Toonies Thursday) sold at Freckles Quilt Shop here in Calgary. I am loving these stars so far!

The 4 sawtooth stars:

Block #4 for the Layer Cake Quilt Along using Lollipops fabric.

The 4 blocks of the LCQA.

I also bought some flannel & knotted flannel panels together for baby gifts.

Happy New Year Everyone!

More Quilt Blocks... & Need Help!

First of all, here is this week's Layer Cake Quilt Along (Week #3) quilt block. This block is a basket, but I call it "Fish & Bubbles in a Basket" because of the fabric I chose. This line of fabric is "Lollipops" by Sandy Gervais. Oh, this is going to be such a fun child's quilt when done.

From left to right: LCQA Weeks 1, 2, 3:

Back in July I had started some quilt blocks which were free patterns on Moose Quilts but I had only completed 9 of the 12 quilt blocks. I finished off the last 3 quilt blocks this week:

Block 10: Bears Paws

Week 11: Duck & Ducklings

Week 12: Corn & Beans

Here are all 12 blocks laid out in chronological order from 1-12, left to right, top/middle/bottom rows.

I have a dilemma: WHAT COLOUR OR PATTERNS OF FABRIC SHOULD I USE FOR SASHING & BORDERS???? I want to insert sashing between & around the blocks, then add the borders. The fabric store where I bought the fabrics doesn't have these fabrics in stock anymore... sigh!! What's a gal to do????? Please help me decide!!

Last Week's Quilt Blocks

Last week I finally caught up on some quilt blocks...

Layer Cake Quilt Along Week 2 quilt block. Fabrics are from "Lollipops" by Sandy Gervais.

Week 1 & 2 blocks for the LCQA

Local quiltshop Freckles' Two Toonies Quilt Blocks...

The September blocks: (I had purchased 2 blocks accidently, so who know what I'll do with the 2nd September block. Perhaps a pot warmer??)

The October block:

The November block:

All 3 blocks so far... ooooooh, I just looooove them so far!! 9 more to go until I can piece them all together!!

This week I'm not sewing or quilting. I've decided to take time to sort out videos on the computer that we took of our son these past 14 months & put them onto a DVD. Argh!

Latest Sewing & Quilting Projects

I have finished my Summer Star Sampler Quilt! I decided to save some money on quilting and I "stitched the ditch" for this quilt before adding another stash find for the binding. Of course, I managed to do more meandering than actually stitching the ditch, but I'm ok with that. This is our sit-on-the-couch-&-snuggle-under-a-blanket quilt. Yup, the colder evenings are a'comin'!

SSSQA: Front (measures 64" x 64")

SSSQA (Back) with label (date, place, designer, name of quilt)

In my last post, I wrote that I was doing 3 quilt blocks from the Two Toonies Thursdays quilt blocks. I have finished piecing them together, adding quilting, backing & binding. Oh, I just loooove this one. It measures 12.5" x 33" - lovely little table runner.

A peek at the backing... looove the fabric!!

Today, I whipped together the book panel that I had purchased at Jo-Ann's in October. It was easy to do, but the print seemed a bit "wharped" on the fabric so it was a bit fussy to piece together. It's for my son who's 14 months old, so perhaps he'll enjoy it yet.

It's Been a Crafty Week

Oh, it has been such a fun crafty week. I had put all quilting aside for a few weeks to catch up on other things that needed tending to, but I had a few days off this week, so it was time to get back into quilting. Such relaxation!!

November 2 was Week 1 of the Layer Cake Quilt Along. I had purchased Sandy Gervais's "Lollipop" layer cake, and I just love it! My plan was to make a quilt for my son, but some of the fabrics have flowers on them, so I might have to use some other matching fabrics or just use up the flowery fabrics to make a neutral quilt. We'll see.

I finally sewed the quilt block for August 2010 that I had purchased at "Two Toonies Thursday" at Freckles (local quilt shop). Freckles puts out a quilt block on the 2nd Thursday of each month for $4 and all the proceeds go to a children's lunch program. At the end of the year (September to August) they sell a quilt kit to place all the quilt blocks together. Novel idea! However, since I started these purchases in June, I only had 3 blocks. I have sewn these 3 blocks together into a table runner, so I'll post pix when I'm done. (I just have the binding to hand-sew.)

Recently, I came across a quilting blog in which the author wrote about this product. She raved about it, so I bought it & tried it out. Let me tell you, it is THE CAT's MEOW!!!! I LOVE this stuff!! No more basting quilting pieces together before sewing all the layers together!!! Spray-stick-spray-stick-done-then-sew!!!

I tried the 505 Fabric Adhesive on a large quilt (my Summer Star Sampler Quilt Along). I needed some help tacking the fabric smoothly onto the batting, but once done, it was a piece of cake to sew it all together. I'll be posting the finished quilt on here soon, too.) Using this product on the table runner this week was even easier!

This was yesterday/today's project: a tote bag with 6 outside pockets. This was my October splurge at Jo-Ann's in Washington state. The colours are a bit bright for me, but I love the bag. Now to fill it up, use it & show it off!

Dreams & Projects...

I have lots of fabric to dream about... I travelled to the Vancouver area to see my family for Canadian Thanksgiving (Oct 11 this year), and my mother, sister, nieces and I drove across the border into Washington state... to buy fabric! Oooooh... there are so many more fabrics than the major fabric store in western Canada, and the prices are amazing!! Why does fabric cost so much in Canada?????

I bought the pattern for this cute tote bag:

These 3 fabrics will be used to make that tote bag.

Here's a stash of fabrics that I purchased that one day at Jo-Ann's. Some of the fabrics will be used for tote bags, others for quilting, others are undecided. I was "into" paisleys that day, can you tell??!!

I also bought some Fat Eights. I pay more than double that listed price of $5.99 at my local quilt shop!! Perhaps I'll make a small table runner?!

This was an interesting find at Jo-Ann's... a fabric panel with Baby Einstein book pages. Now I just need to cut out the pages, quilt them, & bind them all together. Brilliant! I should have stocked up on these panels.

I had ordered these 3 kinds of Charm Packs (2 sets of each) from Green Fairy Quilts. I'm not sure entirely what I'll do with them, but I'm thinking of doing at least 1 stacked coins quilt.

Pictured below: Origins, Bliss & Fandango Charm Packs.

The main reason for me going to Jo-Ann's was that I wanted to buy some fabric to sew my 13-month-old son a new sleepsack. At 75 cm (almost 30") he was outgrowing the one I had purchased at Sears for him.

I love this fabric... it's cotton on both sides with a sew flannel in between. Wonderful... that meant I didn't have to cut fabrics for the outside & the inside! I bought a 24" zipper... my mother helped me with designing the shape & cutting out the fabric, but I had to sew it all together once I got home.

Front of Sleepsack. The fabric on the inside has the same vehicles printed on the fabric but smaller versions & printed on a light blue checked fabric.

Back of sleepsack:

Close-up of the fabric on the outside.

In May 2010, I had been to Jo-Ann's for the first time. Then I had purchased these adorable, soft puppy panels. I finally quilted them together this past week. (It was something to do when my son was tired of playing with the toys upstairs while I edited photos for my photo clients.) The quilt measures 33" x 42". (This quilt cost me about USD$54.)

The quilt back:

Now... what craft project to do next?????

My Latest Crafts

There has been so much to do in the past week and a half, but I still managed to get some quilting/sewing done...

This is the backing to my Summer Star Sampler Quilt Along 2010. I used 5"x5" blocks to insert into the fabric for the backing... thus using up some of my extra pieces of fabric from the quilt top.

I also finished up the backing for my Jelly Roll Quilt Along 2010. I used extra jelly roll strips, and extra blue backing. I only had to purchase the red-brick coloured fabric (which actually has little dots on it to match the jelly roll fabric).

Close-up of the JRQA backing:

This past weekend the shower curtain rod fell down while my husband was in the shower! Thankfully, the rod did not hit him. We realized that the home builder had simply "stuck" the curtain rod onto the tile, instead of screwing it into the tile or the wall. We drove to Rona & purchased a new curtain rod which my husband then screwed into the wall. It is now solid & won't fall down! However, the new curtain rod is now 5" higher than the previous rod... and the shower curtain was too short.

Problem solved... I bought some outdoor canvas material at Fabricland for about $3.50 and inserted it into the cloth shower curtain that I had purchased at Ikea just a few weeks ago. Voila... it looks great... and best of all, it fits perfectly in the shower tub again!

While at Fabricland, I also purchased some lovely paisley cotton fabric & some beige fleece, and I have sewn 2 baby blankets with this fabric.