Sewing with Kids - part 1

Santa gave my 7 y-o a sewing machine. While Grandma (my mother-in-law) was here during the holidays, we made some time to sew with her! They made a girly cover for my daughter's boring computer chair. She did an awesome job and actually did a lot of it herself. She learned how to make a casing for elastic. The fabric we used was just from a pink sheet we bought at Ikea for $2.

BEFORE

AFTER

Valentine's Day Cards 2010

I found this idea on this site. We had fun making them and giving them out to friends and family this year for Valentine's Day. (We actually have some packages ready to go out to long distance family. They've been sitting in the packages for a week, on my counter. Why is it so hard for me to get to the post office???)

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And we finished our Valentine's heart garland last week. My daughter actually did most of the sewing herself. I didn't even know she was doing so well. I left her doing it all by herself. When I came back to check on her, she was almost done. This picture doesn't show the colors very well, but you get the idea. It was fun to have it up for the lovely little holiday.

Friday Fun

Here's what I did today:

Sick kids, home from school. Watched many movies...

Sick baby, in my arms all day (my back hurts now).

I cut out felt hearts to make a valentine garland like this, only with pinks, reds, and whites (and lots more than the picture shows). I hope my 7 year-old and I will find time to sew it soon (like before Valentine's day). It shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

I also spent time catching up on blogs in my Google reader. Carrie at This Mama Makes Stuff had a great post about what gear she uses while running, most specifically while training for her upcoming marathon (and of course I'm interested in that). I use the same water bottle belt as her (I LOVE it) and I just recently got a garmin forerunner (which I also LOVE)!

I should have been reading this today, while I was holding my sick baby... Book Club is Tuesday and I have quite a bit left.

I was also hoping to get a chance to paint my toenails today so I could wear those cute shoes. But that didn't happen. :-( Maybe tomorrow.

Christmas Hot Pad

With scraps from the zig-zag quilt. I wanted to try out the swirl quilting style. (There's definitely room for improvement, but it sure was fun!)

Christmas Zig-Zag Quilt, Done and Gone

I wish I had more time to write about this. But I'm just too busy today!

Just pictures for now. Maybe I'll get around to writing about it soon...

Almost done!

I'm working on the last step - binding! I hope to be able to show you "finished" pictures tomorrow.

Peace

I got bored (for a bit) with piecing the zig zag quilt. (I'm sooo slow at quilting. Ugh!) So, I needed a new small project. Over Thanksgiving weekend I decided to use a few scraps from the zig zag quilt to make a Christmas banner. I had some cream felt leftover from making the birthday crown awhile ago. I wanted the felt to be thick so I double it. I then decided it should be reversible. I was going to put another Christmas word on the other side, but thought maybe I should go with a word from a neighboring season/holiday. So, the other side says "Fall" with a fabric leaf on the extra square. I hung it on the mirror in my living room. The only thing I don't really like about that is that you see the fall colors and letters. Oh well.

I free handed the letters on parchment paper and traced them on the fabric. My artistic husband helped me. :)


I used dark green thread to zig zag around the letters (before I attached the Fall letters felt squares to the back).


Easy peasy! But, I thought it would be a two-hour-or-under project. Nope. Not for me. I'm slow! I also broke a needle and stuff like that. When I was done, I was happy with it, but wished I had spent the time quilting instead.

Giveaways!!

Sorry if I fooled you with that title. I'm not hosting a giveaway. But, V and Co. is!! Go check it out and leave a comment for a chance to win! These things are gorgeous! If you don't have a camera with a strap like that, you could probably think of someone who would like it for Christmas.

Go check out *Shey*[B]'s etsy shop for all of her choices. Honestly, they are gorgeous! (I made one awhile back, for my camera, and it's okay, but nothing compared to hers!)


Okay, here's another one. The Burnt Daisy is having a giveaway. She has an adorable blog and makes beautiful decorative letters. Check out her "Believe" giveaway.

Good luck!!

Quilt Finally Finished

Friday night I finally finished this baby quilt that I have been working on for two months! I don't have as much time to quilt as I'd like. This is what the package looked like, folded together with the bow, when I delivered it to my friends. Sorry for so many pictures. My husband and I took quite the photo shoot of this quilt. It was actually quite hard to want to give away. I fell in love with it as I was finishing it up. Once I got to their house, it was so fun and easy to give to them... and their baby is SOO cute!!

So much blood, sweat and tears went into this thing. I LOVE this quilt. {Probably because I spent so much time with it!}

Front of the quilt.

Back of the quilt.

Doll quilt on top of baby quilt.

Doll quilt label with baby quilt label. (Some names were smudged in photoshop). Thanks, Amy, for printing these out. Thanks, Grant, for designing the labels (with my initial ideas, of course). You guys are the best!

Baby quilt label.

This is the first time I've made a quilt label. It was harder than I thought. If I had originally bought and used the right kind of printable fabric, then it would've saved me a lot of time and effort (and Amy's ink). If you ever want to use them, make sure you get the "colorfast" printable fabric sheets, instead of the kind that you have to "dry clean only". What good is that on a baby quilt??

Doll quilt label (back of quilt) on top of the front of the baby quilt. I posted this one only because I really liked the detail and the colors.

This is the two of the quilts folded together, again, just turned around. I really like the look of all that quilted-ness, binding, crinklieness together. That's all.

Now I have to make a couple more, similar to this... but twin size, for MY girls. I have quite a bit of the fabric left over (did that on purpose). My 6-y-o daughter kept adoring the quilt as I was making it. She kept asking me to make one for her, like it. My 1-y-o daughter would take it, lay it out on the floor and lay down on it, whenever she saw it. We grew quite attached to it. Glad a beautiful little girl can enjoy this quilt and the doll quilt, when she's old enough to carry her own babies around.

Now it's on to the next quilting project...

King for a Day

Happy 4th Birthday, Buddy! We love you!
(Poor guy, was sick on his birthday. He had to celebrate it many days later.)

This little man really makes life fun around our house. He's always making us laugh... he's always laughing himself. He loves to run around and jump off the couch (and anything else). He loves to climb and seems to have no fear. He LOVES babies. Especially ones that are the same age as his baby sister (so, I guess it's always changing). He runs right up to babies, where ever we are, and gets down at their level and right in their face and says, "Hehe. Hi, Baby!" and then hugs them. He loves trains! He has Geotrax and he plays with them almost every day. He likes to build "the biggest track in the world"! We are so blessed to have this guy in our family. :-)


On a side note: I made this felt crown, worn by the birthday boy, for a Sharing time skit for Primary a few months ago. When I was making it, I remembered seeing a crown at Cakies and I thought of what a fun "birthday crown" it would be. (Though mine is not nearly as cute as hers. Mine looks like a Pope hat in the pictures. But I assure you, it has more of a crown look in person.) So, I put velcro on it and made it small enough to fit our baby's head, and big enough to fit my husband's head. So we'll all get a chance to wear it on our birthday!

A quilt and a skirt

I love Amy Butler fabric. I had some leftover Amy Butler fabric from a bag I made last April (I never posted a picture of it). I knew I wanted to piece a quilt with the leftover fabric, but I really wanted a few more fabrics to make the quilt more interesting. I went to the store closest to me, that carries some Amy Butler fabric and found out they were on clearance for 40% off! I got much more than I needed for just that quilt. Who wouldn't?

{The back of the baby quilt}

{A closeup of the front}

I made a stacked coin quilt and a matching doll quilt for a friend who is adopting a baby girl any day now. (Hopefully she won't read this before I finish it and give it to her!) I still need to quilt it and bind it. But I am excited about how the piecing turned out!

{Front of the doll quilt}

{Back of the doll quilt}

I have so much extra fabric leftover that I want to make skirts for my girls and they have also requested a quilt each. Well, technically my 1-year-old didn't, but her 6-year-old sister requested one for her. She loves it when they have matching stuff. Since they share a room and bunk beds that will be shared in the future, I thought I could accomplish that request. It will probably take me till she's in a twin bed, to get the quilts done anyway.


I had originally thought of making a simple skirt with the Oliver +S lazy days skirt pattern . My daughters already have a few of these. But, I was ready to give them something different. Just yesterday I found such an adorable skirt made by the ladies at Roots and Wings Co (you have to scroll down a bit on that post - it starts with a Halloween craft). They used Heather Bailey fabrics that are sooo adorable! I'd love to find some of her stuff at 40% off! Anyway, they got the pattern and tutorial from this lovely blog. Shelly Detton of the 7 Layer Studio.

I will be busy making those matching skirts for my girls.

... and finishing the quilt, of course! (quilting it is my favorite part!)

I hope to show you the finished product, soon!