Another One

After the success of the first blanket I made, I decided to make another one. But this time I did things a little differently. All the sewing was the same, but this time I had the new baby's older sister come over to help with the project. She is 11, and has a little sewing experience. She did a great job. I mostly guided, she did all the hard work.

We had a very fun polka dot print this time for the back of the blanket, and Hailey chose a fun stitch for the top stitch.

Quick Wins

Sometimes, when you've been working on the same project for a while, it's nice to have some quick wins.

On Sunday, I put together a self-binding receiving blanket. I mostly used the Cuddle Baby Self-binding Receiving Blanket tutorial found at the Shannon Fabrics Blog.  I used flannel for both the front and the back and made it rectangular instead of square. The backing fabric I made 41"x45", and the front fabric I made 28"x32", so altogether it is 34.5"x38.5". It came together fairly easily and quickly and I am quite happy with it. Now I just need the baby to be born.

Last night, I also decided to throw something together for a co-worker's new nephew. I have been interested in trying my hand at a tag blanket, but had never gotten around to it. I decided that I could pull it together with materials I already had. I got out my ribbon supply (thanks to anyone who has given me a present with ribbon on it), and my fabric, and set to work. I pieced together a couple pieces of flannel for what I thought would be the front of the blanket, and grabbed an extra piece of denim I had lying around for the bag. I decided to put the baby's initial on the denim with a piece of flannel. Once everything came together, the denim piece looked nicer than the flannel piece, so I switched what I considered the front and what I considered the back. Big shout out to Becky for helping me with my last minute idea - she handled the ribbon aspect of the blanket.

Flannel side

Denim side

Blanket might be a bit of a misleading word. I cut my squares 11.5", so that the finished square is 11". We felt that 3" of ribbon made a good finished size for the loops, so we cut each piece of ribbon 3" long. We pinned the ribbon tags in place on the top of the flannel square and I stitched around the edge, about 1/8" in, so that the ribbon would stay in place for when I stitched the two sides together. Once I had stitched them together and turned them right-side out, I topped stitched the outside. It really added nicely to the look.

 Finishing things really does feel good.

Time With Friends

One of my university friends is home from England right now. I was lucky enough to get to spend some time with her, and another friend, for the last 24 hours.

We picked her up and headed to Stratford to see Crazy for You. We took advantage of the Play On program which allows people aged 18-29 get tickets for $25. I would strongly recommend it to anyone in that age category. The show was very good - full of energy, great dance numbers, awesome sets and set changes. We've had I Got Rhythm stuck in our heads ever since the show.

Today we tried to fit as much Canadian food into what we were doing as possible. We started with a delicious breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup (along with fresh Niagara peaches). We then went to the store and picked up ingredients before making Nanaimo bars. We used the recipe from the Nanaimo, BC website, and it was quite good. I might skip the nuts in the bottom layer next time, but overall they turned out well - especially considering it was a first time experience for all of us. We then had Kraft Dinner and caesar salad for lunch. Apparently Kraft Dinner is not something that is available in England - how sad is that? We finished everything off with some maple leaf creme cookies.

It was great to spend some time just chilling with my friends. Now I need to go help my kitchen recover from the invasion.

Happy Birthday to Me!

It was my birthday this past weekend. I had a wonderful weekend. The weather was gorgeous. I got to enjoy the New Hamburg Mennonite Relief Sale (which combines quilts and food - my two favourite things) with my family and friends. And then I got to go for a picnic with my husband (who I barely get to see these days).

Plus when I checked the mail today, this came:

I entered a number of giveaways as part of the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day. This was my first time entering (or even hearing of) it. It was a wonderful experiences. I got to connect with a number of new blogs/bloggers, and I now have a bunch of new blogs that I regularly visit. Not only did I get to make new connections, but I actually won something! Thanks to Stephanie over at Simple Sewendipity for the wonderful fat quarters.

Now I just need to get a few things off of my to do list, and get my creative juices flowing.

Finished

So, I finished the quilt top I was working on and set it off to my friend to get quilted. Apparently I forgot to take pictures of the finished product, so you will have to settle for pictures of the finished top.

It is going to be in a quilt show in a couple weeks, so I will make sure to get pictures of it then. I have never had a quilt on display before, so I am quite excited (even though there was no criteria to get your quilt into the show - it's still exciting to me).

I also got another quilt top pieced (going to Gramma's really helps with productivity), and finally put it in the frames this weekend. I was a little scared to piece the back because the fabric has a chevron pattern on it, but I finally bit the bullet on Monday (yay holidays), and it was not nearly as scary as I thought.

Here's a close up of my seam.

Progress

On Friday I cleaned up my craft room (which for the last month and a half or more I have just been shifting the mess around). I now have all my flat surfaces, including my floor back. With that out of the way, I was able to start back into a project I started in October or November.

I keep the squares on a flannel sheet for easy transport
since they don't move around much on there.

I am making another quilt for Project Linus. This time I picked out pinks and aquas. I've had them laid out for quite a while, but I finally got them squared up, and yesterday I cut the sashing. I also started piecing things yesterday, but realized when I stopped for dinner that I hadn't set my sewing machine to a quarter inch. Thankfully I hadn't gotten too far. So this morning I ripped things out, and this afternoon after I got the rest of my house cleaned I started piecing again.

Inspiration

I have been following the Canadian Blogathon this week, put on by SewSisters, and it has inspired me to get back to my blog. (That and the guilt of my gramma telling me I don't blog enough). I have a friend coming over this afternoon so that we can craft together, but I thought since I have a little time, I would go ahead and post my latest project.

It started as a shoe box full of "squares" that I inherited from a quilter who retired. (I still maintain that's the best way to grow your fabric stash). I decided that I should do something useful with them, so my friend and I set to work. We scoured pinterest, and other sites, looking for quilts that made good use of small squares. (by the way I put squares in quotations earlier because they were mostly rectangles with sides ranging in length from 3 1/4 to 4 inches...I'm not sure what project they were originally intended for, but apparently uniformity didn't matter). Once we picked out a few ideas that we liked, we got out my shoe box and began sorting. At first I thought it was going to be a lost cause. I had a hard time finding a quilt out of all of the incoherent squares. But we just starting playing, and we managed to come up with something that worked.

We did a basic nine patch with coloured squares around the outside and a white square in the middle. We made both blue and brown squares. We tried not to over think things, or worry if colours matched perfectly. Once we had our blocks laid out we had to square up all the "squares". We ended up working with a 3 1/4" square since that was the lowest common denominator among all the squares we chose. After that it was just a matter of stitching things together.

I puttered away at it whenever I had some spare time (side note: it is so nice to have a craft room and not have to set up and take down from the dinning room every time I want to craft). I used some other inherited fabric for the sashing, and since I'm not really one for square quilts, I made the sashing between the rows half the size of the sashing between the columns.

I didn't just want to alternate blue and brown squares, so I played around and came up with this layout (I have a hard time letting go of symmetry). Once it was all put together I gave it to a friend to machine quilt. She asked how I wanted it quilted, but I am still stuck in a hand-quilting mind set and had a hard time thinking outside those confines, so I left it up to her. Less than a week later she returned it looking like this:

She quilted nested squares inside the nine patches, and in the sashing she quilted bubbles. I love it. Thanks Marg for your hard work and creativity!

I attached the binding and it was done. I had decided when I started the project that since the fabric was all free to me, I would give back and donate it to Project Linus. I hope it helps someone when they need it, and that they enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.