free fabric

Happy Monday! I feel like giving away some free fabric today-just because. :) If you would like to win these 4 fat quarters, all you need to do is leave me a comment letting me know where you are from and what you are doing today. I'll give you an example. (This idea is totally stolen/inspired by the adorable Camille. I so want her chair, by the way. Swoon!!!)

My name is AmandaJean and I live in Wisconsin. Today I am doing laundry and I am working on my Swell quilt. I am making chicken wild rice for dinner in my crock pot so I have more time to sew!

In your comment, please make sure there is a way for me to contact you in the event that I draw your name. Thanks!

edit: the contest is now closed.

summer sewing

My daughter's little friend turned 2 a few weeks ago and tomorrow is the birthday party.
I'm sewing matching outfits for my daughter and her friend.

My daughter is getting very used to modeling for me. :)
I've found that props help a ton.

See the little shorts peeking out beneath?
I opted for those rather than bloomers.
The shorts pattern is Butterick B4966, in size one.
The dress pattern is my own, enlarged just a little bit.

So even though summer is still a long way off, we'll be ready (and waiting) for it to arrive.

socks!

At long last, I own a pair of hand knit socks.

They are even better than I had imagined.

They feel sooooooooooo good on my feet!

I swapped these with Mama Urchin in exchange for quilting.

I LOVE them!!!!

will work for fabric

About a week and a half ago, I was contacted by someone who wanted to buy some doll quilts and pillows. I have toyed with the idea of opening an on-line shop more than I care to admit. But in the end, I always freak out. I don't want to run a business, I want to spend that time quilting. All the details of the business side of things would drive me crazy. (Not to mention the CPSIA fiasco.) So, we ended up setting up a swap instead. I think bartering is way underrated. I now have a pretty pile of fabric (my first jelly roll and layer cake!!!) and some of the doll quilts and pillows I made have a new home and have made one mama and her girl very happy.

The fabric can be found here.

This has to be the very best kind of cake.

Ever.

whirlygiggle

The whirlygiggle quilt is complete! It was a joint project between Heather and I. It is going to be donated to our sons' school silent auction, which is this Saturday.

Planning a donation quilt is tricky. It's hard to guess what color scheme that will appeal to many people. In this case, we didn't want it to be gender specific or too kiddish either. And we wanted to work completely from our stashes. I really like the outcome of this quilt. It is a twin size, so if someone buys it, (do you like my confidence?) it can be used on their child's bed. Or as a lap quilt.

We each pieced blocks for the top.

Heather pieced the back, basted it and stippled it.

I made and attached the binding...

...which is pieced from scraps.

And here it is, on my son's bed.

I just need to attach the label.

I might be bidding on it come Saturday. :)

that's better

Now this doll quilt, I love.

Made from pink scraps.
It measures 14.5" x 18.5".

Quilting inspired by My Aunt June.

I love being able to start and finish a quilt all in one day.

And using up scraps-even better.

a doll quilt

I started this doll quilt back in October. I was at my sister's house, without my fabric stash and I was desperate to sew. I had a few pieces of fabric with me that I was going to pawn off on my sister if she wanted them. (She didn't.) So here's the fabric, in doll quilt form.

For the quilting, I branched out. I was going after this look. It didn't go well. At all. I was tempted to throw the whole thing away and forget I ever made it. But, I persevered because I am a die hard finisher. I washed and dried it, and much to my delight, it looks a little better now. My daughter uses it for her baby. So success, after all.

Working on a doll quilt scale is a challenge for me. I much prefer lap quilts. But I do like the challenge of working out of my comfort zone. It's also a great size to try out new techniques. Even if they do bomb completely. ;)

stash

For the life of me, I couldn't decide what to blog about today. I'm working on a quilt and writing a pattern (!!!), so I can't reveal it yet. I'm finding out that pattern writing is hard! But even worse is trying to figure out yardage requirements-that's almost more than I can handle.

In my post on Monday, I had a question about what my stash looks like right now.
This is just for you, Debbie in Wa.

I've been working on stash busting, and I think I've been doing pretty well.

These are 1 yard pieces or less.
I'm excited, because I'm down to only two drawers of fabric.

I use the happy zombie's folding method for these pieces. I love it!

Then I have this large stack...my "flat folds", as I call them.

These are yard and a half pieces or larger.

I don't want to know how many yards are in this stack.

Many many yards.

These are set aside because they will eventually become a king size quilt for my bed.
This is going to be one girly quilt.

My husband will be so pleased. ha!

This stack alone is about 10-11 yards.

Then I have my charm pack stash-they are from various lines.

I LOVE charm packs!

I feel like my stash is pretty well under control.

Or am I in complete denial?

And then there are my scraps.

Now they are out. of. control.

a beanie for my baby

my silly baby, that is.
tutorial here.
thank you, leslie!!!

i am weak

Last January I tried to not buy fabric for the entire month.
I was successful.
So I thought I would try it again this year.
I only made it 20 days.

First off, I bought some simplicity charm packs. I had a moment of panic thinking, "What if they are all sold out and I miss out buying some of this beautiful fabric forever???" Oh, I shudder to think of that happening! My plan is to make another quilt much like my Christmas charm quilt with these. They came from the fabric shack.

I went to Joann's last night and I walked out with about 24 yards of fabric.

(I'm finding that it's better to NOT caluclate these things...)

The reds and blue will go into this quilt. I think.

I bought the rest of the bolts of both the orange and the grey.

I'm planning new bed quilts for my boys.

They are very excited.

They love orange as much as I do. :)

These fabrics I first saw on Anna's blog.

They are from the Darla line by Tanya Whelan. They are delicious!!!! I purchased these with a gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop that I received from one of my blog readers. Isn't that the sweetest thing ever? Thank you so so much, Edith!!!

Now please excuse me. I have a LOT of sewing to do...

knitting

thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the nice comments on my snippets quilt! i appreciate each and every one. my son saw it on the wall when he came home from school and he said, "i like the other one better." i had to laugh. he likes change about as much as his mama does. :)
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i've been knitting. a lot. it's been crazy cold here, so i have a good reason to finish up all these projects. the sooner the better!

mistake stitch scarf

i love the texture...it's an easy knit...and the name...could you ask for anything better? i mean, it's got mistake in the title! that's my kind of knitting project. :) i'm nearly done with this one...(this photo was taken a few weeks ago). oh, and the fact that it's pink AND orange makes me giddy.

chunky knit beanie

i had this yarn on hand and it was intended for a scarf, but that didn't work out.
so it's going to be a hat for my daughter instead.
this is my second try. i knit it in the round the first time and it had obvious problems. (i'm a rookie.) this time i am knitting it flat, then i will sew it up. it's looking much better. (yay)

my so called scarf

this is for my neighbor mary. she picked out the yarn + color. isn't it fabulous? i knit this pattern once before in orange and i gave it to heather. (she finally started a blog!) next time i knit this scarf pattern, i'm keeping it. :)

toasty mitts

i am beyond excited about these....i LOVE fingerless gloves. i can't believe that i'm actually knitting on DPN's!

if these mitts work out, i can see having a collection of them in every color imaginable.

thank you leslie for sharing such great patterns!

this is my first attempt at a sock. it's supposed to be a spiral knit sock (therefore no heel) but it's not working out quite right. i'm going to keep trying.

after i'm finished with all of these, i have several requests from my boys for scarves and hand warmers. too bad their favorite color of yarn is camo. we might have to negotiate that one.

snippets

normally, i'm not one to hang quilts on the walls.
but i am slowly changing my mind.
this quilt really helps to persuade me to do so!
it's too white for a baby quilt. or a throw.
but perfect for my front entry wall.

this is the back-i LOVE the one little strip of patchwork.

this quilt is all scraps, except for the binding-i even pieced the batting.

all the little colored bits were pieces that were minuscule, but i still couldn't bear to throw them away. i'm so glad that i didn't! that being said, this was a very intense quilt to piece. it took me a long time.

i stitched a sleeve to the top, then inserted a dowel for hanging.

most of the colored scraps are only about 1" wide.

i quilted it on the diagonal using a walking foot and 2" wide tape for marking the lines. i chose a grid pattern for a few reasons: there are so many seams both in the front and the back-i was afraid that it would get bunchy if i stippled it. plus, stippling is hard on my arms. the straight line quilting (especially on this scale) was much easier. actually, i think jacquie is rubbing off on me. ;) she does gorgeous grid quilting.

the final piece measures 32" x 47".

again, the tutorial is here.

I LOVE this quilt!!!!!!!!!