a new scrap project

this is my latest scrap reducer project. (hopefully it's the first of many.) using such saturated colors is really pushing me out of my comfort zone. this is my first time using batiks and i like them! (i'm very surprised about it, too.) i'm not sure where i'm going with the quilt from here, but that's all part of the fun. :) many thanks to lera, carolyn and cheryl for the scraps.

the blocks are 14" square.

a note about the quilt along...

when you are making your 9 patch blocks each day, it might be a good idea to cut a few extra 2.5" blocks and set them aside for the border of the quilt. if you cut 2 extra a day, you will have nearly enough for the scrappy border, which would sure beat cutting out 144 squares at the end.

three and a few answers

my little girl turns 3 today. (or "flee" as she says.) i wish i could bottle her up. she is such a delightful little girl. i love her so much. my dear friend Linda sent this adorable dress for her birthday. how cute is that?!?!? thank you so much, Linda.

now, for a few answers about the quilt along.

the start date was technically Monday, but if you haven't started yet, you can start today. (a few days difference is no big deal.) also, if you would rather make 7 in a week, that's perfectly fine. AND, there is no penalty for falling behind. :) a few people mentioned making a smaller version, which sounds perfect, too. just have fun with it!

a few thoughts on the color selection...and this is just my 2 cents....since there is white sashing in the quilt, you can throw almost any fabric into the mix and it should work. (white sashing does wonders!) the only thing i would recommend is to make sure that the two colors in each block have plenty of contrast. you want to be able to read each fabric easily. now i'm off to make my 9 patch for the day...have a good one!

one a day-a quilt along

I'm thinking about doing a quilt along (of sorts), based on this fabulous quilt.

inspiration quilt and photos courtesy of swim notes. (who is my quilting hero, by the way.) thank you, Melanie!

I started making a scrappy quilt based on this one back in January. I was making two blocks a day, but somewhere about day 6 I fizzled out. (Impressive, huh?) I'm ready to get back at it, and I was wondering if you would like to join me? Make one 9 patch a day. By the middle of the summer, we would all have enough blocks to make this quilt top. Anyone care to join me? If so, leave a comment and I will add your name to my sidebar. We can upload our photos on flickr to the quilt-a-long pool (maybe a week of blocks at a time) and we can all make a dent in our scraps, stash, or both!

To make the 9 patch block, you will need 9 2.5" squares (cut). Sew together using a quarter inch seam allowance. The block will measure 6.5" unfinished and 6" finished.

The final quilt size is about 66" x 90".

Yardage requirements:

For the blocks you will need a total of 3.25 yards of various prints. (That includes 70 nine patch blocks and the scrappy border.)

For the sashing you will need about 3.5 yards of white fabric. (Because I know someone will ask, I will be using bleached muslin for sashing.)

carrot top

My wee play quilt is done! I started with 3 charm packs from the wee play line and then I added fat quarters from my stash from that line and various other moda fabrics. I love how well the different lines work together.

It was hard to quilt. (Lots of seams.)

I used the disappearing 9 patch pattern, which is pretty fun.

I love the back. A lot. It features more of my favorite red polka dot. (I still have almost a yard left. I'll be so sad when it's gone.)

Since the back was a bit smaller than the front (oops!), quilting was a bit tricky, but I squeaked by. Barely. I had to add a little patch of cream to fill in one spot, but it's barely noticeable. I did end up trimming down the quilt top just a bit (maybe an eighth of an inch on each end). The sides were just fine. I think I learned my lesson. I hope I learned my lesson.

It's a twin size. (My third twin quilt in a row.) For my next project, I'm ready to move on to something smaller.

wee play

thanks so much for the kind words on my boys' quilts. i have to laugh at all of you who think that their bedroom is always that clean. that is CERTAINLY not the case. i had to do a bit (ha!) of cleaning before snapping the photos. ahem.

i finished my wee play quilt top last night and i made the backing. you know how "they" recommend cutting your backing and your batting at least 4" larger than your quilt top? my thoughts are: why waste that much batting/backing? well, it certainly works better than my method of (inadvertently) making the backing smaller that the quilt top. um, yeah, don't do that. that's what happened on this quilt. i still don't know how it happened, but i basted it anyway and i'm going to try to squeak by. i'll let you know how it goes. i have my seam ripper standing by.


one more thing...i haven't bought ANY fabric for 58 days. i don't know how much longer i can make it. (i mean, have you seen this fabric? it comes in brown, too! and these dots in any color are so very fantastic!)

pete + repeat

The quilts for my boys are finally done!
I love everything about them!

the fronts

the backs (pieced from my stash! woo-hoo!)

I think my favorite part is the binding. (Also from my stash! Another woo-hoo!) It's an Amy Butler dot in the most perfect shade of orange ever. It's like the icing on the cake.

I stippled them both in white thread. It felt like a stippling test, because the thread contrasted with so much of the fabric on the fronts and the backs. Even though it was a little stressful, I think I passed the test. :)

I thought of hiding a quilted heart into each quilt. I asked my boys if that was ok, because they ARE boys after all. They were very receptive to the idea, which made my sappy mom heart so very happy. Since I thought of the idea after I completed one quilt, I have to go back to hide a heart in the first quilt. It's so funny how much they love that little touch. (insert sappy grin here.)

And here they are on their beds.

I couldn't be happier with the results.

and the winner is....

becki, from South Dakota!

Thanks to all of you for playing along.

500

This is my 500th post, so I'm going to give away this set of 5 fat quarters of Katie Jump Rope fabric. Leave me a comment and I will draw a name to determine a winner. Like last time, leave me your name, where you are from, what your favorite work in progress project is. (Because I am assuming you all have a plethora of WIP's, like me.) :)

Here's an example: My name is AmandaJean and I live in Wisconsin. My favorite WIP is my son's orange and grey quilt. I love it not only because it is coming together nicely, but because he is eagerly awaiting it's finish. He asks me EVERY day if it is done yet. Love that.

Also, I picked a name from all the comments from Small Projects Week, and Katie K, you are my winner. You will receive a half yard of my favorite red polka dot fabric. Thanks to all of you who commented.

Have a great Monday!

edit: the contest is now closed.

small projects week-day 5

I'm calling these "hold everything" boxes. They sit on my front entry table. Originally I was thinking of using them for mittens and stocking hats, but since spring is finally here, I think we will use them for sunglasses and sunscreen first. :)

The boxes are much like my storage cubes, but I made them larger and I quilted the outside panels. I added an initial for each box to personalize them. (Well, there isn't one for my husband. He'll have to stash his stuff elsewhere.)

I've had these boxes in my head for months, and it's so good to finally get them done! For the most part, I would say they turned out better than expected. I LOVE it when that happens. They took me ALL day to make. But thanks to the motivation of small projects week, they are done. Yipee!!!

I'd like to thank everyone who left a sweet comment about my projects this week. I'm planning on doing another small projects week in about a month. And maybe you would like to join in? It's good motivation, I tell ya. :) I had to push myself to get this stuff done, and by Wednesday I was about to cave and start a new quilt project. But I kept going, and I'm so glad I did. Now, it's back to quilts! Hurray!!!

small projects week-day 4

selvage purse (with iron on vinyl covering)

this was a bugger to make, but totally worth it.
inspiration purse here.

small projects week-day 3

habitual kimono-size 3T
tutorial here

small projects week, day 2

I bought this little side table when we first moved to town...nearly 2 years ago. I only paid $2.00 for it at a garage sale. It's not the cutest thing, but when you add some primer and a little green paint, it looks much, much better. I always love seeing how paint can transform things. I added a little dresser scarf thingy that came from my grandma's house to protect the painted top. I really like it. Now I just need to finish my bento box quilt to go along with it. :)

Also, I finally got around to making some more checkbook covers. I intended to make them for Christmas presents, but April is pretty close, right? The red and the green ones are for two of my friends. When I was making these last night my husband asked me to make one for him in some masculine looking fabric. He picked out the fabric from my stash, but he wanted it without interfacing, which was just fine by me, because it came together even more quickly. He put his entire checkbook-plastic cover and all-inside the fabric one and it fit perfectly! (Yes, I was a little surprised.) I had to look back at my own tutorial on how to make these because I had forgotten how, which just cracked me up. Keeping a blog is useful! For this set of covers, I added a quarter inch to each measurement, so I cut the pieces 7.25 x 13.25 and they fit even better than the first ones I made.

This week may have to be renamed "five ways to use fabulous red polka dot fabric". It might show up a few more times yet....you've been warned. ;)

small projects week

Thanks so much for your kind comments about my square dance quilt. I appreciate you all cheering me on as I quilt away. You guys are the best!

I'm declaring it small projects week here at crazy mom quilts. I find that my list of things to make "someday" has gotten extremely long. Some things have been waiting for a year or more. I also find that I would usually work on a quilt rather than a smaller project. Anyone else like that? This week I hope to make some progress on my list.



Today's project is a door stop from Lotta's book Simple Sewing. I checked out this book from my library last summer, made the pattern and that's as far as I got with it. Until this morning. It only took about an hour, and that included interfacing everything. Of course now I'm wondering what took me so long to make it. :) I used popcorn kernels and fiberfill (so it wouldn't get too heavy) to fill it. The fabric is Moda Cherries Jubilee. I love this fabric! As much as I am tempted to make a few more of these, I'm going to move on to the next thing on my list.

square dance quilt top

The square dance quilt top is done. My original plan didn't involve the white sashing, but I felt that the white would help break up the colors a bit. After sewing it together, I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. So I slept on it. (Not literally.) This morning I determined the white strips had to go.

So I ripped out 10 long seams and I sewed all the rows back together. Seems to be a lot of re-work going on in my sewing room these days. I think I like it a little more now. This is the only quilt I've been working on for a week straight and I need a break from it. Here's hoping that whenever I get around to stippling it, I like it more. I have a feeling I will.

It measures about 66" x 85"...so it's a twin size. When I was contemplating whether I liked it or not, my sweet son said, "I'd use it on my bed." What a honey.

double click on the photos to see more detail. they look better up close. :)

katie jumps rope

I finished this quilt last fall sometime. Amy Jo and I had ordered a fat quarter stack of the entire line of katie jump rope fabric back in April of '07 and then we split them, leaving us each with a fat eighth. It took me a year and a half to settle on a design. Isn't that shameful? My quilt was inspired by this one. Simple and pretty. As much as I love a lot of white in a quilt, I love the absence of white in this quilt. It gives it richness and warmth, yet it isn't too busy.

I cut the blocks 5" x 6" and got 6 blocks from each fat eighth with very little waste. I added one additional fat quarter to get the amount of blocks that I needed. I loved using rectangles rather than squares....a little bit of a twist on a "just plain squares" pattern.

The back was pieced from my stash. Mostly solid blues, with a brown strip. It is stippled with white thread. I washed it in my new washer and dryer this weekend (hurray!) and it crinkled up nicely. I LOVE IT!

I made it a twin size, even though it probably won't be used on a bed most of the time. It sure looks good on there, doesn't it?

I've been dragging this quilt around the house like my daughter carries around her blankey, wrapping up in it every opportunity I get. :)

square dance

yesterday a friend came over to learn how to quilt. it was our first session, so we picked fabrics and a design for her quilt. i loved the fabrics and the idea (which has been in my head for months) so much that i decided to make one, too. i hope that BOTH quilts turn out well, because that is a whole lot of pretty fabric that i just cut up. :) even after all the quilts i've made, i go through moments of doubt when making each one. that being said, i have high hopes for this one.

this brings my work in progress number to 13! somebody help me.