Still here

I'm still here... I just found it was boring to blog more about quilting my quilt that I'm doing straight lines on yet again. I'm still working on getting it done. It's taking a long time but I'm still pleased with the texture and how it's going to look in the end. I'm also coming along on my 9 patch. I honestly haven't been sewing long enough to have a really good stash of fabric to choose from so I may have to buy some fat quarters while I'm at Joann's today to work in some more fabric.

I'm also going to the fabric store to look for some Christmas fabric as I've added yet another item on my to-do list and that's an advent calendar. It's so cute! I'm not really a fan of the pink in Christmas things so I think I'll stick with more traditional red and green but I love the idea with the pockets!

So as a review, right now I'm working on the 9 patch quilt, finishing quilting the coin quilt, I started on a red quilt (not sure where that's going or how big it will be... totally winging that one), and I've also got a pair of pajama pants for my daughter that I have yet to finish.

I will try to get some pics of my 9 patches posted here later today or tomorrow.

I've now actually started!

Just a quick shot of my 9 patches that I've started on for the quilt along!

I like it so far but can't decide if some of my patches will have the constant pink swirl fabric in the position of 5 squares or always just 4 squares... hmm... something to consider.

Also, I have worked on quilting my coin quilt... it's just a long slow process. I have about 13 inches out of 55 done.

I've "started" on my quilt along

I used quotes in this title because all I've really done is started cutting out the fabrics since I'm still waiting on my fabric to come via mail. But I'm glad to say I've gotten started! So far a lot of the pieces I've cut are also from my quilt that I'm working on. I'll just be sure to spread those out so they're not near each other.

Here's how the quilting is going on my quilt as of tonight... ugh! This is going to take a while! It's about 55 or 60 inches long.

What have I gotten myself into???

I couldn't bring myself to free hand a whole quilt just yet... I don't feel great about it yet and need to maybe do a small wall hanging or something and practice some more. I've seen the type of quilting I've chosen to do before on a couple other people's blogs and thought it would be great for this quilt.
I used a piece of painters tape as a guide since my coins don't line up exactly and since I'm going across the rows and not with the rows.

Holy cow! This is going to take a LONG time!
Here's the back. I've done a total of 10 or so rows and it's very time consuming. I'm going to have to do a few rows at a time.

As far as the quilt along goes, I'm still waiting for my fabric...

I'm nervous!

I picked out the back of my quilt and I got my quilt sandwich made which means I should be ready to quilt. Only problem is that I can't decide how to do it! I love the stippled look but it's free motion quilting and I have only practiced a little bit and while I'm getting better, it's still not great. If I don't do stipple, I don't know what else to do... Here's how much I pinned it together. I now know why people have bent safety pins.



Here's a shot that shows the back I picked out.

It's week 1 and I'm already behind

On my 9 patch quilt a long that is. At least last night I finally picked some fabric that will be in each 9 patch and around the edges. I wanted something to be the same for some consistency... we'll see how that turns out. Here's what I bought on etsy yesterday.


I think today I'll start cutting my 2 1/2" squares of my stash fabric for my 9 patches that I'll work on first when this fabric arrives at my doorstep! Today's the end of week 1 so I'm not too far behind but still! I'm sure it's easy to fall behind and I don't like starting behind already!

I had a friend over the other day that wanted to be inspired to use her sewing machine. She has a daughter just 4 weeks older than my youngest and so we made her a tag blanket. She loved it and it turned out nice.

I started on a 3rd quilt while on vacation at my brothers and I'll post some pics of that when I get a chance to work on it again... hopefully soon but I need to finish my 2nd quilt first! I finally found just the right background for this quilt top.
It's orange with a speckled pink dot on it. I looked for an image on line that I could share but couldn't find one. I'll post pics when I'm done. I think it's going to turn out nice!

I still haven't found the perfect backing...

I can't decide what to back my coin quilt with... I need to go back to where I found the original fabric and see if I can find something I like. I also haven't decided if I'm going to try to make it bigger somehow.... ugh! Decisions, decisions!

I did find the batting that I'd like to use. From what I've read from other bloggers, this is a good one so I figured I'd give it a try.

While at the fabric store, I also picked up fabric to make a pillowcase and pajama combo for a boy who has a birthday this fall. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

I've also been looking for a quilt-along to join. It's where someone puts together the directions for a quilt and has you do so much per day or week and gets you motivated to make progress. Crazymomquilts just finished one and made mention of doing another one soon... I'm hoping so!

What I'm working on and what I'd like to do

I added a section on the right of future things that I have in mind to work on. One of the things listed is a dress for Sarah. She currently owns this dress
and it's one of my favorites! I love it and as I was looking at it the other day on her it's getting a little short and as I looked closer, I think I may be able to duplicate it. We'll see. Again, it's on my "to do" list so we'll see when I get to it.

The other thing on my list is a quilt for Sarah. I do have 2 daughters so you may be thinking, what about Leah? Well, that's where I'm way ahead of you! (don't you love how I talk about you like you're really there even though I've shared this blog address with NO ONE so far!! haha! At least I'm amusing myself!). My current project is a quilt for Leah. Below I showed a sneak preview of it but here is the quilt top finished... I think. I say I think because now I'm wondering if I shouldn't have made it bigger to fit a twin size bed. She's not ready for a twin but I'm wondering if that would have been more practical... not sure yet but here it is.


The style is called "Stacked Coin". These are the 9 fabrics I've chosen and it's coming together nicely. I'll post another pic when there's a bit more to show. I didn't follow a pattern or anything. I knew that I liked the stacked coin look so I went to flickr and just typed in "coin quilt" just to see what all was out there and how folks made them. I just picked a style I liked. I will say I learned a lesson about seam allowances so far with it. I am doing 5 rows of "coins" each with 28 rectangles. I noticed that 2 of my rows, once they were done, hung slightly to the left. Meaning half way down the row they started vearing left instead of being a straight line. I realized that some of my seams weren't 1/4" from top to bottom. Some of my seams got bigger toward the end. Meaning when sewing 2 rectangles together, I started with 1/4" seam but then ended with a slightly bigger than 1/4" seam. This caused my row to not be straight. I fixed about 4 - 5 seams in each of the 2 rows and that fixed it just fine. I was also then more careful with the next 3 rows.

If I do chose to make it bigger, I'm thinking about adding some squares around the outside and then sashing again in white... not sure yet. Oh and it's about 40" x 60" right now so I think it needs to be 60" x 90" to be a twin.

My first projects

I did take a quick sewing class. I only had 3 classes and it was much more social than a learning experience but I did make a top for Sarah. It looks impressive but the instructor told me step by step what to do so it was pretty easy.
I even did a zipper!!!
I made a dress all on my own for Sarah but it was so easy! It's just a piece of fabric from Joann's with the smocking already done. I just measured it around her, sewed a seam up the back and hemmed around the bottom. I added straps so it wouldn't fall down and that was it!


Well, as easy as it was, I still managed to mess up the bottom... I learned how to do a hem at sewing class yet I failed to do it that way on this dress... I'm going to have to redo the hem...

Two other projects I've done are from patterns and tutorials I've found online. One was a little cubby box. I don't think I cut the inside cardboard big enough and I wasn't as precise with my seam allowances as I've learned to be so it's kind of flimsy but it's still cute.

The tutorial came from crazymomquilts.

Then I did this cute bag from a tutorial at Filminthefridge.


It's pretty easy as long as you don't screw up the handles like I did. Eventually I got it worked out and it's a nice bag.

The last thing I've been into making lately are pillowcases. I don't know why but they're so darn CUTE! Here's just one that I've done. It's for one of Sarah's friends for her birthday. My plan is to make her a pair of matching pajama bottoms to go with it.
The tutorial for the pillow cases is over here.

Finally... here's my new quilt that I've started on.
It's called a stacked coin quilt. I found some full and queen sized white sheets at the Salvation Army store by my house the other day for only $2 each and I'll use one of them for the sashing and backing of this quilt.