Christmas Show & Tell

It felt like I made more. In reality, the Christmas gifts I worked on for weeks only amounted to one quilt & five Keyka Lou wallets, one of which was for myself! I am happy with my finishes though, I am such a procrastinator - it really is something that there are finishes to speak of.

Here are a couple shots of all the pouches together. I added a strap to the one for my 3 year old niece as I think that will make it easier for her to carry around. The polka dot wallet is for my almost 10 yr old niece, there's a D-ring in case she would like a little wrist strap added. I don't have any clips on hand but need to order some more.





The original two I had planned to make are for a couple of my sisters. I thought it might come in handy to have a basic sewing kit for things like loose buttons or a seam that has pulled apart. I am always here to help with that sort of thing, but I have ulterior motives! It would be so nice for someone else in the family to catch the sewing bug! You never know, right?!


The quilt I managed to finish up on Christmas Eve day is for my 4 month old nephew. The very first nephew on my side of the family! Not his first quilt though, < this quilt > was made by big sister Miranda before he made his appearance.
 I used the line "Alphabet Soup" because I love the cute little zoo animal prints & the fact that the rest of the line wasn't too busy. It is colourful though, which I knew my sister would like.



I think Baby Miles likes it too! I forgot to measure it after all was said & done, but I believe it is around 50x50"

Productive...cough.

I have had a cold for the last week. My to-do list has never been longer & I was out for pretty much the whole week! Grr. I managed to finish one more Keyka Lou wallet for my niece. She is too young to read, but I am going to keep it a secret until after Christmas anyway. So I have 4 more of those left to make (if you are paying close attention, you will notice that I added one more to the list!)

The Aviary 2 quilt on my design wall has not moved. Which is okay, it doesn't *have* to be done in time for Christmas, and I am really enjoying having it displayed up there for now. Does anyone else go across the hall before bed, open the door to the studio, block the kitty from sneaking in with your foot & just take one last look at their design wall before bed? And then when your husband asks what you are doing, you say, "Just making sure I unplugged the iron..."? No? Me neither.

I have had a very happy mail week! My Heather Ross Studio Sale items arrived on Tuesday...and my order from www.sewfreshfabrics.etsy.com was in today! Happy Happy! Included was this Little Apples stack! (I went a little nuts with a flat rate shipping of $5 to Canada, couldn't resist!)






So, I am feeling almost better & ready to get going on what is left to finish. I should be okay as long as I don't get distracted. [That would never happen to me.]

The bootlegs from my September Pearl Jam concerts are in my cd player right now too. If I can't relive the shows via time machine, these are the next best thing! And they will totally lure me to my studio. Win-win!

I leave you with one of my favourite photos from the front row. Love these guys!

Mike, Ed, Jeff, Matt & Stone

WIP Wednesday

I have a few things on the go right now that I can't post about without ruining surprises.

There's a quilt waiting to be quilted that I really should finish up. This is the first time that I have basted & abanded, I usually like to start quilting right away. Maybe with a to do list so long, I am trying to spread out a little bit. It will be straight line quilted so I'm not worried about being able to finish it in time anyway. Photos to come after Christmas!

Then we have this one from my last post, still waiting on my design wall...


I can show you this pillow! It will be a before Christmas gift for someone. I used the Kona charcoal, eggplant & olive that was added into the Aviary 2 quilt above. I love them together & it should suit it's new owner just fine (hopefully!) This was my first time hiding a zipper this way (in behind that strip down the middle) You can't feel it with your face, but I think I still prefer an invisible zip in the bottom. I wasn't sure how to do that with the binding around the pillow though (first time doing that too!) Okay, I also didn't have an invisible zip & wanted to use what I had on hand.





Lastly, a work in progress that will be played with later today. I picked up a cute Keyka Lou pattern on sale last week with a plan, to make two 'wallets' for two specific people, for a very specific purpose. Well, after trying it out...the list has now grown. So far I plan to make FOUR more. I can't say that number won't increase at a later date though. They are *really* cute!





Linking up to

In Love

…with this quilt-to-be!
Aviary 2 with some Kona solids mixed in…yum.



You also get a peek at my sewing room. The sign I use for craft shows (until I make something nicer)…a little mini & a couple pouches hanging behind my closet door…Chuck Norris. You know, the usual. 

Mini...now finished!

I really, really wanted to have a completed mini to share for the party today, but it was not in the cards. Starting on Wednesday evening could have a lot to do with that! I am happy with how quickly it came together to this point though & hope to have it quilted up soon. I used the starflower block tutorial from Jennifer @ Ellison Lane. The Summer Sampler Series had me literally cursing half square triangles (HST's) and then I decided to make them for fun? Weird - but I totally liked them better this time! It's so satisfying to trim up my sloppy looking squares into perfect little HST's. I enjoy the teeny tiny scraps they make too. They are so little, I don't feel the need to hoard them. haha.

'Son of a Bee Sting!' pencil in anticipation of swears!

I am so happy that all my points lined up so well! Good results really fuel the HST love!




Go check out all the other [finished] minis that joined the party today!

Edited: Finished this little one today & here she is! 14 x 21" and not washed up yet.
Not sure why I had a little bit of puckering, haven't had that problem since getting my walking foot. It was my first time using a fusible batting & maybe that is the culprit. (?!)

Natural light is not available at the moment, unfortunately - this is the best I could get!

This little mini is destined to be a doll quilt for the owner of the Pretty Bird Quilt.

The latest quilt...

This quilt was made for a little guy who is very lucky to have my friend Leanne for an Auntie. He will find out soon enough :)   

It was made with "All Star" from Riley Blake & measures in around 40x50"



My next four (?) quilts will be something other than strip quilts, I promise. I do love them for many reasons, but I am trying to expand on my skills. Up next, two more baby sized quilts & two lap sized, hopefully all to be finished before Christmas! One is just for me (summer sampler) but it is getting mighty chilly on the couch these days!

Linking up to Rachel's "Celebrate Color" for October!

Aviary Love

My cousin & his wife welcomed their first baby into the world this month! They found out ahead of time that she was a girl, and I made her quilt as soon as I found out! My aunt flew out [to Halifax] to visit them on the weekend, so by now, I hope that baby Dylan is already using her new quilt!
I used Dewberry's Aviary 2 line to make it. I have since bought more of these fabrics so I can make up something else with them - I HEART them! I have never loved the colour purple as much as I do when I look at this collection. In my mind, it was perfect for a little girl's first quilt, but without knowing the Mommy's tastes very well, you just never know. So, I did some recon & found out her favourite colours are purple & green - perfect!



I hope they love it & Dylan uses it for many years to come. :)

Happy Birthday Amber

Dear Amber,
Today I donated a quilt (this one) to the Owen Sound Hospital. It will go to a little girl who is born on your birthday and finds herself in the NICU. A little fighter.

Miss you,
Love you,

The Little Sister Quilt

Rachel is my 9 year old neighbour. She already has an interest in sewing & even has her own little sewing machine! When her mom was expecting, we decided to make a quilt for her new little sister.
Rachel picked out the fabrics and waited impatiently with me for them to arrive! (It's sooo hard!) She pieced the quilt top, I did the back. She helped me to spray baste (she's an old pro at this as she has helped me before) & she tried out some straight line quilting. I finished up the quilting & bound it for her.
Her little sister Kendall arrived in August & Rachel was excited to give her the gift she had put so much effort into :)

Summer Sampler: Blocks 5-10

blocks 5 thru 10 a photo by twelfthzodiac on Flickr.

There is still a little bit of summer left for me to finish these, 2 to go!
If you are keeping track, you will notice there is no photo of block #4. My 'garden path' looks more like 'underwater vomit'. It is an explosion of blue, in a bad way that I didn't notice until it was all finished. Then it became glaringly obvious! I *think* I will keep it anyway, so it will make an appearance in a later post, all quilted up & looking less vomit-y. (Here's hoping!)
Of these last blocks, the top left 'Evening Star' & bottom middle 'Lucky Pieces' are my favourites.
I have a plan for piecing everything together into a quilt top, but unfortunately, I will have to wait for fabric in the mail in order to finish. Fabric that isn't even ordered yet...! But, I have a plan, yay! That's something! lol Considering the different sizes of some of my blocks, I am happy for a plan that I think will even everything out perfectly.

Pretty Bird Quilt

My latest finish is a quilt & pillow set commissioned by a relative for her little girl. She chose the fabric collection 'Pretty Bird' by Pillow & Maxfield & I added in some Kona Ocean, Grass & Robin's Egg Blue to round things out.
It is approx 45x60" and I quilted it with straight lines.

Pretty Bird Quilt a photo by twelfthzodiac on Flickr.

Side B


I am proud of this project! The pillows all have invisible zippers - it was my first time using these & they turned out so good, it's hard to find the zips even when you're looking for them... lol...that could be just me though :P

Mira

Mira a photo by twelfthzodiac on Flickr.

This kitten just loves to fur up quilts that aren't hers!
This was right before it went into the laundry though, so it was okay.
The little stinker.

Summer Sampler Series - The First Three

Has anyone else been following this quilt along? I first read about it on Faith's blog,  fresh lemons (although there are three blog hosts contributing) & I think the striking solid colour mock-ups are what convinced me to give it a try! I mean, just look at that awesome badge over there -->  I can't wait to see Faith's quilt all finished up in those colours.

Having finished the first 3 blocks & spending some time looking through the flickr group, I have to say that the solid fabric blocks are my favourite! If I had them on me, I'd use them too. Which is actually shocking to me as I am using one of my all time favourite collections, Modern Meadow. It just looks so good in solids!

This will be a quilt for myself  :)
Here are my first 3 blocks.

North Star, Greek Cross & Mosaic

These blocks are growing on me... I think my issue is that I am not used to this type of piecing so I'm not able to visualize what the block will end up looking like, which makes fabric selection more like guesswork. If I were making more than one block with the same design, I could play around with the fabrics a little more, mix & match to see what I like best.

 I'm not even sure you could call what I have done in my quilting career up to this point 'piecing'. My strip quilts & 'make it up as I go' patterns are so much easier than this! These are the first triangles I've ever done. I was laughing through the first 2 blocks, but 'mosiac', with all those HST (half square triangles)?! omg. That was so not fun! I am finding my 1/4" seam is not very accurate & that threw off everything. I only let myself rip out one line of stitching that desperately needed it. For everything else I am reminding myself that this quilt is for me & it doesn't have to be perfect.

I hope to tackle the next two tonight. After all the HST's of block #4, I will be so grateful to try paper piecing! So many firsts here for me. It may not feel comfortable yet, but I'm happy to be learning a few things & challenging myself to the point where I *feel* the challenge, but I don't want to throw my sewing machine out the window. Yet.

Summertime

In the last couple weeks, I have started & finished a baby quilt for *someone*. Since it is a surprise gift, I'm not sure I should share it on here...but I'm fairly sure I can't wait until the end of the summer to show it off - I am in LOVE with the fabrics*!
*which, of course, means they are Dewberry

While I have a little inner debate about it ...I give you this nice photo of my nieces with their toes in the water, just because I love it  :)

Toes in the pond = equals = fish nibbles!



Getting back into the s[e]wing of things

I can't say if it has been the warm weather finally arriving or what, but I have not been able to sew much lately. Sewing is always on my mind & I frequently go look at my fabrics/ideas, jot down notes & to do lists, organize bits of my 'studio'...but I haven't been all that productive. And there are things that need to be done around here!
This top is waiting for a back....



Pretty Bird quilt

It must wait for coordinating pillows to be finished up first, but things are moving along now.  :)

On the to do list:

• Baby boy quilt
• Baby girl quilt
• Helping my young neighbour make a baby girl quilt
• Mom's quilt

Here's hoping for a few productive days coming up!
Happy Saturday!