May Blooms

**The giveaway is still on, till midnight tonight, May 31st. Scroll down two posts and leave a comment. I will announce the winner on Monday! Anyone who guessed a May birthday for my baby is wrong...fortunately it does not mean that you can't still win the purse! For fun, I will see who made the best guess once the baby is actually born. **

Here are my favorite blooms from this last week in May. These were taken in my garden over the past week.

My father gave me this tree peony about two years ago and it has its first bloom! I am so excited. My aunt says that it will likely have 4-5 next year and then a dozen the following year.

Welcome to all my new followers! It's so much more fun to blog when you know someone is actually reading what you write :)

Nine Patch Quilt Along Week 5

***If you are here for the giveaway, it is still open. Just scroll down one post and leave your comment there. Good luck!***

Here are my blocks for week 5 of the One A Day Quilt Along. They look like more of the same since I am using coordinating materials that I set aside for the project, rather than scraps. However, they are each unique which was my goal. Click on the button in the right hand side bar if you want to see pictures of other quilters' blocks.

May Giveaway Day!

I joined the Sew, Mama, Sew! May Giveaway Day. I am offering this pink floral summer time bag made from the pleated purse tutorial by Bolsa Chica, along with a matching key fob which you can see pinned to the bag in the last picture.
The giveaway will remain open until May 31st and I will ship internationally. Because I am expecting a baby any day now, I cannot promise to mail the giveaway on June 3rd as the Sew, Mama, Sew rules state. I will simply promise to do my best to get it out as quickly as possible!
To enter, please leave a comment on this post and the winner will be chosen by a random number generator. For fun, why don't you leave a guess as to the baby's birth weight, date of birth (she is due within the week), etc. You can still enter without guessing but the guesses will give me something fun to read! Good luck and thanks for visiting my blog! Come again.

NOTICE: It is now Thursday evening and someone emailed having trouble entering because only half of the comment area was showing up in blogspot. I was able to enter for her by using a different browser. If you have the same trouble, don't use Explorer and try Firefox. It worked fine. I am hoping that the problem resolves itself because I am not sure how to fix it. Any suggestions? You can email me directly if you are having trouble.

Rant of a Very Pregnant Sewer

My son has a kindergarten Hawaiian Luau party in mid-June. I just found out about it and he is supposed to wear his Hawaiian clothes. Well, he had a supply of shirts that would have been perfect but he just outgrew them so we passed them on to his cousins. Yesterday, I dragged myself to JoAnns and bought a shirt pattern and the material in the picture above to make his shirt. The pattern called for 1 1/8 yards of material. Because JoAnns tends to skimp while cutting or the material is folded unevenly and therefore the piece gets cut unevenly, I ordered 1 1/4 yards to allow room for error. I came home and prewashed the fabric on cold and dried on low. It couldn't have possibly shrunk. I just cut out the pattern and laid it out and realized quickly that there was no way to cut the shirt from the amount of material in front of me. I measured it and it is 34 inches! I checked my receipt and I paid for 1 1/4 yards. I have little doubt that JoAnns will make right on this, however, I now have to either drag my two kids over there in the morning or wait until my husband is home in the evening to go alone. I am nine months pregnant and things like this just put me over the edge. I just had a good cry out of frustration! It's not like I have a big window of opportunity to get this shirt sewn either!

UPDATE: I just returned from JoAnns. The woman apologized for her coworker's mistake and recut the fabric. She kept the 34" prewashed piece. What are they going to do with that now? Oh well, now I had best get started on this silly shirt!

Quilt Along Week 4

Here are my blocks for week four of the nine patch quilt along. The two close ups are my favorites for this week. I bought the material for the sashing and arranged the blocks on it for this week's picture. It is a Kona solid called Bone. I went with Bone rather than a pure white because all of my fabrics had off white.

May Giveaway Day

I have decided to participate in the Sew Mama Sew! May Giveaway Day. I wasn't sure that I should with the baby's pending arrival but it appears that this one is as stubborn as the last and will likely be overdue. So, why not! Is there anything in particular that you would like to see as a giveaway? I have a backup idea (something that is already made in case I run out of steam) but am welcome to suggestions. Click on the button in my sidebar for more information.

Baby Bonnet

So far, our babies have been winter babies and had knit hats that just wouldn't do for the summer. I decided that our baby girl would need a bonnet. Of course a sunhat is a little more practical and I do have a couple of handmedown sunhats that will probably be used more. However, I have always loved bonnets and this is my perfect excuse. I made this bonnet with white pucker fabric scattered with rosebuds, quintessential baby girl material. I used a scrap of lace and then two widths of white satin ribbon; one for the bow in the front and one for the bow in the back. Now I will just have to wait and see if it fits our baby! It should at some point in the summer at least.

Baby Booties Part Two

The madness continued yesterday and I made three more pairs of booties from the Stardust Cloth Shoes Tutorial. The top pair here is made with ecru eyelet and a piece of pretty trim. These will be used for the baby's Baptism. We have a family gown to use that comes from my husband's side of the family and it is silk and a bit yellowed with age so the ecru works well.

I wanted to use some of the embroidery stitches that my machine can make but that I never use. I thought that the toe of these shoes would be a perfect way to use them. Here I just made three rows of flowers in off white to coordinate with the heel fabric which is a scrap of Aunt Grace Scrapbag Fabrics 2006, by Judie Rothermel for Marcus Brothers Textiles.

Then I decided to spread the baby booties love and made these for my friend's six month old daughter. They just fit her perfectly so they probably won't last her for long but at the moment, they look very cute!

Now I am forcing myself to stop making booties for the moment though I might make some for the PTO holiday raffle in the fall.

Baby Booties

This is what happens when a sewing mommy gets anxious for her little one to arrive. Over the weekend, I made two pairs of baby booties. I have two more planned. Clearly, the baby will not need four pairs but since she hasn't arrived yet, I will keep sewing to keep busy! Plus, they are fun and cute and only use the smallest of scraps! I used the Stardust tutorial:

http://stardustshoes.blogspot.com/2006/10/cloth-shoe-pattern.html

The top pair is made of white eyelet with a white on white stripe on the bottom. The bottom pair is made of scraps from my three year old daughter's quilt and dresser scarf. The quilt is pictured below. The ticking stripe was used for many of the diamonds in the center of the quilt. I have been meaning to show a picture of this quilt anyway. It was one of my first quilts. I made the pattern myself and the quilting is a combination of hand quilting and tying.

I can't find a good picture of the dresser scarf but it used the material on the toe of the shoe which is from The Hannah Collection, Anna Griffin for Windham Fabrics.

Now, back to booties!

Quilt Along Week Three

Here are my blocks for week three of the One A Day Nine Patch Quilt Along. I just found the small floral that I used in all of the blocks this week and bought a quarter of a yard. It's so soft and sweet and I really like it. Although I am using many fabrics for a number of blocks each, my goal is still to have 70 unique blocks at the end. The close up is my favorite for this week.

Selvage Stash

A couple of months ago, I discovered the Selvage Blog, http://selvageblog.blogspot.com/. I decided that I had to start saving my selvages too when I saw some of the amazing creations. I was particularly inspired by some of the quilt blocks made with selvages and decided to make a similar design on a cushion for my sewing chair once I collect enough. My brand new selvage stash is pretty minimal since I only started collecting them about two months ago. When I think of all the selvages that I have cut off and thrown away in the past it makes me so sad! Anyway, people have been sharing pictures of their selvage stashes. This is how I am collecting mine, in a cute basket on the knob of the dresser that sits beside my sewing machine and holds my fabric.

Fabric Finds

Yesterday, my daughter and I took a quick pre "quiet time" trip to the quilting store. I realized that I didn't have enough scraps to get to 70 nine patch blocks for the Crazy Mom Quilts One A Day Quilt Along. I found the top fabrics to supplement what I had. They work in pretty well color wise. The check is a fat quarter that I paid full price for but the other three were in the scrap basket at 10 cents an inch!

Then I also added to my collection of fabrics for the quilt that I intend to make and hang in our upstairs hall. I had the print on the far right, the floral from Hoffman's Papillon collection. So far I have a yard and then two fat quarters of that floral. I added two scraps of the Natural Pearl Stripe with Flowers and Butterflies on the far left, the brown Floral Vine Sprigs scrap and a scrap of the large butterfly fabric, plus a fat quarter. Before you know it, I will have enough for this quilt, nearly all from the quilt store's discount/scrap section! I would like to find a few things now that are not from this collection, to add a bit of variety, though I really do like these fabrics. I am still undecided about the quilt design too.

Tic Tac Toe Teacher's Gift

My kindergartner has expressed interest in tic tac toe lately and has started to really understand how to play the game. I quickly realized how much paper you waste when playing tic tac toe and thought of making a fabric version for his teacher to use in her classroom, as her end of the year teacher's gift. I found this loud, rather garish, polka dot fabric and brought it home. When I showed it to my son he said "Oh please make something for me out of that material!" I figured that I had honed right in on kindergarten taste. I made the top board for his classroom. It is basically a large nine patch. The squares are 4". My husband used some nice thin wood scraps to cut 2" tiles for the X's and O's. I painted on the letters and sealed them with a clear acrylic. Then, of course, I had to make one for my jealous kiddos so that we could actually gift the first one. I had just enough of the dotted material left. However, my husband was out of appropriately thin wood scraps so I cut craft foam into 2" squares and used a Sharpie for their tiles. When we have more thin scraps, they will get upgraded so long as the kids are still into playing tic tac toe.

Mother's Day Runner

Yes, I made yet another runner. This was my Mother's Day gift to my mom. Her dining room has a maple colored table, light golden colored walls, and an Oriental style rug that is mainly navy. The colors all work together really well. I came up with my own idea for the design, though I am guessing that it is not original and probably has a name already! If it does, tell me what I recreated. I cut my fabric into 2 inch wide by 6 1/2" or so strips and sewed them end to end in the same order. Then I cut them to the width of the table runner and kept them in order, which created this pattern. I really like the look of it. For quilting, I just stitched in the ditch. I think that the fabrics are Hoffman batiks. I actually made this a few months ago and put it away so I can't remember for sure.

Mother's Day Weekend

It's been a weekend of gardening for me. I was able to plant all the seedlings that I have been growing inside, out in the garden yesterday. There are few new blooms in the garden too, including one of my all time favorites, lilacs. I now have four vases of lilacs in the house scenting it so beautifully. My kids gave me a beautiful white bleeding heart plant for Mother's Day and I have to decide where to plant it this afternoon.

Tomorrow I will post the Mother's Day gift that I sewed for my mom!

Quilt Along Week Two

Here are the blocks that I made for week two of the one a day nine patch quilt along. See the Flickr group for more: http://www.flickr.com/groups/559664@N20/

Strippy Runner

Yesterday I came across a tutorial that was just posted for a strippy runner, on the Twiddletails blog: http://twiddletails.blogspot.com/2009/05/strippy-runner-tutorial.html. I thought it was really appealing and I have been wanting to make another runner but was unsure of the pattern/design that I wanted to use. This tutorial was all I needed to drop the laundry and cleaning and other more important stuff and start another project! I had two floral remnants from the quilt shop and a bit of a quilting solid in a soft green left over from my daughter's pansy dress, as well as some pink polka dot material that I really love simply because it makes me happy. The pink material was used for my daughter's Easter dress two years ago. Here is a picture of the dress just for fun. Don't you love peter pan collars? I can't believe that she fit into this just two short years ago.

The pink material is a Quilt Pink fabric by Max and Noble for Moda. I am not sure of the florals since their selvages were cut off when I bought them.
The strippy runner tutorial was great. It was fun to make something purposely a little off-kilter. That doesn't come naturally to me so this was a good experience. I decided to try something new when I quilted it too. This is why I love runners. They are the perfect thing to experiment on. I credit Nicolette from Dutch Comfort with the idea to use zig zag stitches for the quilting. She used them on her spring runner, http://dutchcomfort.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/spring-to-finish-tablerunner/. Instead of using the zig zag all over, I spaced them a presser foot's edge width apart from each seam. I think it accentuates the fact that the strips are not cut straight and style wise it just seems to go to me. I think I will use the zig zag again. Oh, my runner is the same width as the one in the tutorial but it is a bit shorter in order to fit on the sidetable where I plan to use it. It measures more like 30" long. Now, back to the laundry.

Sewing Space Improvements

About a month ago, my thread rack which had been standing on the end of my sewing table, fell off the table for the hundredth time spilling the thread all over the floor. I told my husband that I had had enough. He had bought me a second thread rack for Christmas and he was nice enough to immediately go get it and hang both of them together by my machine. Last night he made these ribbon holders for the ribbons that I use to make hairbows. I think he really just wanted an excuse to try out his new table saw but I am not complaining! I love to have everything arranged now by color and less messy!

Quilt Along Week One

Here are my first seven blocks for the nine patch one a day quiltalong hosted by Crazy Mom Quilts.

One A Day Quilt Along Fabrics/Weekend Gardening

I decided to add these fabrics into the mix that I am using for the Crazy Mom Quilts one a day quilt along. I wanted it to be a little more scrappy but still somewhat the same colors. I'm now including some more of the lighter pinks and green. I am pretty sure that I don't have anything else in the house that works but I will keep my eyes open for more scraps on sale at the quilt shop. I will post my first week's worth of blocks tomorrow!

Today I am spending most of my time in the yard, trying my best to weed. Things are continuing to pop this week after the heat of last weekend. We could use some more rain though. Everything feels very dry. Here are some of my recent bloomers:

Bleeding hearts

Medium height phlox that my aunt gave me last year

Dwarf iris

Flowering Quince shrub

Basket of gold with some ground phlox behind it

Butterfly Mobile

I found the tutorial for this butterfly mobile on the Sew, Mama, Sew! web site. It's from a blog called The Long Thread. http://thelongthread.com/?p=464 I thought it would be a cute idea for the baby's room and there wasn't anything hanging in there yet. I followed the instructions exactly but also added some little beads in between the butterflies for added interest. I just made it this afternoon and my husband was nice enough to hang it up this evening so I could see how it looks. The pictures show the two sides of each butterfly (it's all one mobile). It's hung above the changing table.