A Weekend of Progress

 Friday night, the garbage pail on my quilt table looked like this.

 From cutting all these charm squares. These will become baby blankets for the etsy shop. I'm going to try to focus on baby boy blankets this month, after I finish some more girl ones.

 I also had these squares and strips cut for my son's quilt.

 And these pieces for a tablerunner for my sister-in-law. The one for my sister is peaking out at the bottom. It just needs its borders added and then it will be ready to be quilted as well.

 Saturday I started to get to work. Sewing together the strips and blocks for my sons quilt first. Followed by squares for baby blankets.

 By Sunday night, my son's quilt top was complete.

 Close-up of some of the car fabrics.

 Table runner ready to be quilted. Not sure if I will mail this for her birthday later this month, or wait until Christmas, and make her some more tablerunners for different seasons.

 4 girl baby quilts ready to be quilted. The first one is vintage cheater fabric. I just added a border, using vintage fabric in my stash. I will be using some more vintage fabric for the back.

 I've had these table runners ready for awhile, I finally added borders this weekend and ironed backing fabrics. These are either for etsy or for gifts this Christmas.

My stack of squares is a little lower this morning. Think I need to cut some more boy fabrics.

Handmade Christmas

Is it really time to start thinking about Christmas already? For those who want to make, instead of buy presents it is. Go check out this blog and learn about Simply Christmas. It will have links to different homemade crafts and baked goods for the next 3 months.  The first thing is a Christmas Planner with worksheets to help you organize your budget, timeline and what you want to make for who. I've printed my copy off.

Happy Feet!

Happy feet in the hallway.

Happy feet in the dining room.

Happy feet in the kitchen doing dishes.

Happy feet outside feeding the birds.

Happy feet at the sewing machine.

Happy feet resting.

I am officially done my first pair of knitted socks and I love them. I can't help but smile in them. They feel wonderful. I keep humming "Happy Feet" by Kermit the Frog in my head. I tried to link a video of him singing it but didn't work. It's funny, because you don't see his feet at all during the song.

What's this? I am almost done my first sock of my second pair. Not specifically sock yarn (but super soft) so they are knitting up quicker. Different pattern too. I already love them.

Another challenge?

 Now that I finished my big quilt (see previous post), I spent the past two days going through my stash wondering what to tackle next. I pulled lots of fabrics and projects out covering my quilt table. I finally decided on a few projects for family members (Christmas gifts) and some more baby blankets for etsy. Above is my stack of ironed fabrics, waiting to be cut.

 3 of my projects for family members come from these magazines. They all require some applique (you can see the fusible cut and ready to be ironed onto the fabrics sticking out.

 One of the projects involves this piece of fabric. My sister gave it to me. She has a piece herself (I wonder if she's forgotten about it?) and challenged each of us to make something with it. I am making her Christmas gift with this, adding only one other fabric for a border. I'm really excited to see it finished. She'll have to wait a few months.

And to reward myself for finishing the Twiggy quilt, I bought some fabric from Cottonthreads on etsy. She was having a sale on yardage and I couldn't resist.
Now it's time to colour with my son, before heading back to the quilt table and cutting some fabrics.

It's Finished!

I finished the quilt this morning. Here is the front (photo taken my my 4 year old son).

My son also took this picture of the back.

I used some of my favourite fabrics on the back and the front. It is the "Twiggy" pattern. It used to be available on the Fat Quarter Shop free pattern page but not anymore. I got it from the Sewn website (it's at the bottom).

In its new home. it fits perfectly. 

I designed and added these borders so we had enough to cuddle up in.

I also added the birds. 

The quilt top was ready over a year ago and has been waiting to be finished. I had planned on finishing it for my birthday last September, but that didn't happen. After we moved to Idaho last month I refound it and decided to finish it for my birthday this year. Again it didn't happen but I did get the borders created, and pinned the leaves and birds in place. When Amy put up her one thing one week challenge I decided to finish it. It seemed rather daunting but I did it. One thing I did differently with this quilt, was when it came time to applique the leaves and birds on, I did so with the batting and quilt top together. When I had to make the final quilt sandwich to quilt the whole quilt, it made it easier to put 2 layers together, instead of making sure all 3 layers were flat. I don't plan on making another big bed quilt anytime soon and it was nice to make something to keep. Tonight will be the first time I will sleep under one of my own quilts. I can hardly wait.

Go check out Amy's blog and take a look at all the other completed challenges.

Another quilt delivered

The quilt I made my niece arrived. She seems happy with it. Enjoy!

Friday Finish

I was able to finish the other baby quilt this week. Should be in the etsy shop by the end of the day.

Ended up doing loopy free motion in the solid squares. I was going to leave them but they needed a little something.

I used one of my favourite fabrics for the back. I only have a bit of it left now and will have to think carefully before I use it.

I had hoped to have my socks done for today but with about 2 inches left I have lost one of my needles. For those who don't know, stitches are on 3 needles and I use the fourth needle to knit. I usually keep the needles in the ball of yarn but since it is almost done, the fourth needle fell out and is now lost. We have looked everywhere and can't find it. Think I will have to go buy myself a second set of needles this weekend so I can finish my sock. I'll probably find the missing needle on Monday.