Pouch and a Pillow Cover

After being so disappointed with the last pouch, I decided to use another pattern. I started cutting the pieces for this little gem last night. I used the pattern from one of my books called Sewing To Sell by Virginia Lindsay. This pattern was much better! And the lining is finished in the inside. My mental stability has returned!

I thought I had taken some pictures of progress but I guess I was so excited that I forgot. So here's the finished product.

Love this cute little pouch. I think I'll make a few more. Love the butterflies!

So I started another project after this one. Here's the layout, minus one square....

This is another pattern from my Pillow Pop book called "A Bunch of Crosses". Definitely having some fun with these pillow covers :)

Weekend Projects :)

My staycation started on Friday at 4:00 pm! I couldn't be more excited! Sure I would have liked to be on a beach somewhere with 25+ temperatures but staying home and sewing all week is good too! Plus I don't think I could handle the shock of being on a beach for a week and then coming back to winter. My mind and body do not adapt that well. So between some cleaning and surprisingly some baking, I managed to sew two projects. The first project, I'm not that excited on. I made a pouch from a pattern that I purchased called Whatcha Got? I bought the pattern because I thought the bags looked neat. The instructions were confusing and I didn't feel like the bag was finished well. The seams inside the bag are not finished. You can see all the raw edges which almost puts me over the deep edge. Anyway I struggled through this project and I'll keep this bag to put my ribbon in.

My next project was making a pillow from my Pillow Pop book. This is the first pillow I make and the first time I used this book. I've heard lots of great things about this book from other quilty friends and I can understand how they feel. So far from the first pattern, I'm very impressed! I'm already planning on making another one this week.

So the pattern I used was Life Aquatic.I started off by sorting through my stash of 2.5" squares. I picked a different colour palette from what was on the pattern. I decided to go with black and purple. I played around with the squares until I found a layout I liked.

Sewed all those squares together and then auditioned some fabrics for the border and backing.

Love those jumbled letters! So there was no competition for the backing once I spotted that fabric in my stash. I slept on the border decision and actually came to realize during the middle of the night that a solid black border would work best.

I did simple stitch in the ditch for this pillow and outlined the purple cross. I'm pretty pleased at how well this pillow turned out.

And the envelope backing.

And of course, I could not find the 18" x 18" pillow form so I had to use a smaller one for demo purposes :)

I really like the small pop of colour with this pattern. I'll definitely be making another pillow like this one.

Did anyone see the pictures from QuiltCon this weekend? So many pretty quilts and gorgeous vendor booths! I loved the Riley Blake booth! Any favourite booths from QuiltCon for you?

Stormy Days = Finished Projects

So I cleaned up my sewing room a bit during the last stormy days. And with all the scraps of batting and scraps of fabrics that aren't useable, I finally made something for one of my biggest fans :)

I think it's safe to say he likes it :)

And I just finished Teal The Elephant quilt! So excited! I would have finished last evening but I ran out of thread for the binding. So I had a chance to pick some up today to finish this baby :)

I'm trying to get the best lighting I can. I can't wait until spring is here!

And a picture of the backing.

Here's a few more pictures :)

I will try to get the tutorial done on this one in the next couple of weeks if anyone is interested in the pattern ;)

Another Snow Day....hopefully spent quilting :)

I am getting very tired of this winter. However, I am getting a lot of quilting done by not leaving the house :) I finished quilting Teal the Elephant Quilt. I used my quilting foot to make wavy lines using a straight stitch that Adrienne @ Chezzetcook Modern Quilts shared. Thank you, Adrienne :)

So without further ado, here are some pictures to show the quilt. Hopefully I'll get some better pictures after I'm finished with the binding.

Close-up of the Appliqué pieces.

I just love the quilting on this one.

And of course the cute little blue Elephants on the backing are just adorable! Now to figure out what to do for the binding....




Hope wherever you are, that you are warm and safe. And having a quilting snow day :)

Sunday Stash :) And Frixion Shock

About mid-week, I was happy to see my Sew Sisters order had arrived. A few weekends back, they had a 20% off all bolt fabrics. I decided to take advantage of the sale. I was thrilled to open the package and touch these beauties.

From left to right, Minimized Foxes, Urban Zoologie -Foxes Sky by Ann Kelle and Minimized Hedgehogs.

I absolutely love these hedgehogs! They look even better in person than a photo.

And mini foxes are just too cute!

I also picked up these.

From left to right, Hyperreal Garden - Radiant Bouquet Ruby, Crossword by Timeless Fabrics and Just My Type by Patty Young.

And finally this pile of fabrics.

From left to right, Beach -Whales Ocean, Bliss - Fleur-De-Leaf, Garden View - Stamp Toile Ivory,  Ooh-La-La - Damask Brown/Blue and down in front is Ooh-La-La - Carte Postale Blue.

I love getting new fabrics in! Just have to reorganize my sewing space since I added another shelf up here....maybe after Teal the Elephant Quilt is finished.

I also took some outdoor pictures of the Star Quilt.

Not the greatest outdoor pictures. The sun was still hiding but the snow does make for a nice landscape. After I took the quilt back in, I had a few things to do around the house and met up with a friend at a local coffee shop. When I laid out the quilt to attempt to remove some of the loose threads and dog hair, I discovered my tracing lines from the Frixion Pen had reappeared!

I was praying to the quilting Gods that please let me just be able to iron these back out. This has never happened to me before and of course it had to be a green Frixion Pen on a Bone solid. Anyway after ironing the whole quilt again, the lines seem to be gone. I've also washed and dried it and I have not seen any more evidence of the lines thankfully.





Has this happened to you before? I'm just wondering if they will come back if the quilt is out in the cold. Something to consider when using the Frixion pens.

Hope your weekend was less heart wrenching than mine!

Julia

Snow, Snow and Quilting

Well after having a not so fun drive this morning and shoveling the driveway AGAIN, I decided a quilting day is in order. Currently I am working on Teal the Elephant Quilt. I was asked a couple of weeks ago to add the baby's name to the quilt. The expecting couple shared the baby's name to the grandma. So I changed my layout a bit to add this little guy's name. I sent two options to the grandma so she could decide which she liked best.

Option #1

Option #2

She went with Option #1 :)

Look at these cute Elephants!

I'm pretty happy with the design of this quilt. So much fun :)

Well I'm going to see if I can stitch those Elephants and letters today. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Julia

Star Quilt Finish and Exciting News!

Well I didn't sew much last week since I hurt my back so I stayed out of my sewing room for a whole 4 days! That's pretty difficult for me. Sunday was the day that I returned to my sewing room. I finished quilting the Star Quilt. Around the border, I did some FMQ by using a stencil for this pattern. I really enjoyed it and I love how it turned out.

And the quilting on the back looks even better!

Then I picked out some fabric for the binding and sewed it on to the quilt the following day.

And my label (2 used out of 100)

Sorry for all the indoor pictures but we experienced so much stormy, windy weather that outdoor pictures haven't been possible lately. I'm hoping to get some nice ones with all this fresh snow that we have down. In the mean time, here's some indoor pictures :)

So this quilt is being donated to the Relay for Life in Richmond county, my hometown. They will be selling tickets on this so I hope they can fundraise a lot of money for the Relay for Life.



Speaking of fundraisers. Remember this Winnie The Pooh quilt I made for Nadia.

Well the auction was held this weekend, and it sold for $180! I couldn't believe it! There was a bidding war between two bidders. I am so happy that this little quilt took in so much money for Nadia. The whole fundraiser was a success! Just wanted to share some happy news :)



Julia

Linking up with Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday!