Finish It Up Friday

I'm on a baby quilt roll! This one actually does have a home to go to. :) It's for a childhood friend that I grew up next to until we were 18. She and her husband welcomed a baby girl at the end of December, and my mom and I decided she obviously needed some more cute things! haha.

I had a random fat quarter bundle of "Guess How Much I Love You" fabric, and I told my mom to buy the book to go with it. The pattern is from Fat Quarter Baby. I love that book! I want to make one of all of the patterns!

Pretty proud of applique skills on the seeds!

More pieced backing. Gotta love finally using those scraps. 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Olivia has been sick for about 5 days, and it's been intense around our house. I never knew such a little nose could house so much snot. I wish I was kidding when I say it was like a river of snot for the majority of the last few days.

With that, she's also been sleeping a lot less so sewing has been scarce and frantic. I did manage to get this cute little clover mini quilt done for St. Patrick's day. :) It's not quilted or anything, but cute just the same. I found the pattern on craftsy here.

On the good side, she is getting better and the routine is returning. YAY!

I just used whatever green scraps I had instead of cutting in my 2.5" strip stash. I really want to scrap bust since my room is overflowing for sure. :O

WIP Wednesday

My mother-in-law and I are doing the APQ UFO challenge again this year. Last year we had a blast sewing along together, and we both felt pretty accomplished after the year was up. I'd say that I finished the majority of projects to completion, with only 2 or 3 left on the slate which is pretty good for me!

So that's what I'm currently working on - March's UFO #3 which is my dresden plate quilt I started last year. I had intended to give this as a wedding present to my second cousin in July, but I had Olivia in June and quilting fell to the wayside for at least 2 months after that. We got into a grove (aka she NAPPED YAY!) and I got back on it but I ended up working on other projects instead, whoops.

When I pulled it out last week, I was surprised by how much I actually had done. It was a pattern out of my head using the EZ dresden ruler, and only supposed to be a lap size. So I went with 4 blocks per row, 5 rows, and sashing at 2.5 inches. Don't know if I'll do setting stones or not but leaning towards not doing them just because I just want to finished it up. Anywho, I had enough blocks done for 3 rows to be sewn together! And all the plates finished! So I just to applique the rest and stitch up the rows, ugh. I do still want to put a border around it but I need to buy some fabric for that. 

I used a straight stitch to applique the petals, and a thick blanket stitch for the centers. 

Only 2 more rows to go! It will just be a lap size but I do still want to add a small border around it... just so very torn about what to get. Grey? Teal? Patterned? Solid? Ugh. 

Splendid Update

So much for posting on Mondays! Block #7 by Amy Sinibaldi was totally worth the slow down though. I didn't realize how much I missed embroidery, so this was a lot of fun to do and hard to put down since Sunday. :)

My something new for this block was to try out a proper satin stitch to fill in the quilt. I had done it in the past, but I didn't know that you have to wrap it around the fabric basically so I was coming up on the opposite side each time... making a super unstable back! Anywho, I am super proud of it now and it has become my favourite block! <3 p="">

I made the child look like my baby Olivia, my old stuffed bunny and a teddy my dad used to have. <3 p="">

Here's my update of all 7! This is really coming together. :D I think I need to work in some more of the dark brown and red, but I do also need to get more FQs. That is for my splurge in Kamloops at Katja's Quilt Shop! Soooo excited for that, and she's a Splendid designer to boot! :D 

March BOM

It's March 1st! I love the start of each new month, hurray!

The latest block of the month has been released from Pat Sloan's mystery 2016 quilt, and I sewed like a crazy person during Olivia's brief nap. Made this in a record 45 minutes, phew!! Though I did cut it out when her dad was still home before work, haha.

Fussy cut deer! Still able to use stash in teals, turquoises, and yellows, and loving it!

All together in their matched-but-not-matched glory. :) April is too far away now!

Splendid Mondays

With the Splendid Sampler releasing two blocks a week, I figure a good way to update is just once so I can have the time to complete the weeks' blocks. :)

We are currently at #5 blocks done, and I've kept up so far! Hurray!

Block #4: Happy happy by Jen Kingswell

I tried a new method of applique for this... well new to me. The small circles were basically done like yo-yos then hand stitched on. I haven't trimmed the block down yet to the 6.5" square because I'm holding out until I get a 6.5" ruler. 

I used to embroider like crazy so the stems weren't a big thing for me. It was smaller width that I usually do (2 strand instead of 6) but it looks nice. Small and delicate. :) I fussy cut the vase to have the glamping phrase on the piece.

Block #5: Simple Simon by Celine Perkins 

I really liked this block. It was fast and still something different for me. I used starch for the first time, and it was great! The fabric gets stiffer and easier to work with, I may just have to do this every time I cut pieces! Time to invest in some Best Press. 

I fussy cut the ladies so they were included in the squares as much as possible. 

Fishskin Mini Swap

A local quilt shop (well local-ish, they're out of the next town over) has recently hosted mini quilt swap online!

The deadline to mail out it is March 15, but I'm pretty well done except I need to handstitch the binding on. Actually, I finished a first one at the beginning of the month but that partner withdrew so I took on her partner instead. :) It's basically like secret Santa, so we have someone to make it for but that person has someone else. It's pretty fun! I may just do more of these, circumstances permitting!

Here's what I made my first partner:

Her likes were Cotton  + Steel fabrics, so I literally pulled all that I had in my stash - which was not as much as I would like (need to remedy that!) - and what with a Lori Holt pattern. I am actually a little glad that she withdrew because I decided to keep this beauty! :) 

And my progress for the new partner:

She said that she likes country fabrics and is starting to like civil war fabrics... It was a bit of challenge, but from snooping it seemed like she was okay with 30s prints, which was the closest I had in my stash. So I opened up a charm pack, and made this! More Lori Holt patterns from her Farm Girl Vintage book, and I freemotioned some parts of it. :) I like this one too, but I'm a little uncertain if she will... we will see. She's from Alberta and said "country" so I kept that in mind when picking the patterns!