2015 Quiltings

I am still behind in my blogging, so this post is a recap of 2015. I made the one below for a baby of my friend, Lindsay. I was inspired by a 19th century American quilt I saw on Pinterest. I really like how it turned out with the contrast of lights and darks. I need to make a bigger version sometime!

Below is my mock up in black and white. 

The following quilt is probably one of my favorites. My mother-in-law commissioned a queen-sized quilt for their bedroom. It was based on the Kaffe Fassett quilt below I found in a book. You can compare the two below (Sorry for the poor pictures ). I changed the color scheme a bit, but I did use a fair amount of Kaffe Fassett fabric. Can you tell he is one of my favorite designers? This quilt was trickier to make because of all the diamonds and hexagons and their non-90-degree seams. I think it is worth it though!

My version (quilt top before quilting)

The real thing. Or at least a photo of a photo of the real thing.

I always find it hard to design pillow shams to go with quilts, because I don't like when things are too matchy-matchy. Below is what I came up with. I did some hand embroidery in the middle. Also, my mother-in-law is very good at making her bed.

 

I think I actually made this quilt in 2014, but I forgot to take pictures until 2015....

Another queen-sized quilt! This one was a Christmas present for my mom to put on one of the beds in their new house in Utah. Turns out she put it on their own bed. I did a simple lone star on a white background. I love lone stars, because I like how the fabrics blend into each other. It worked out well because I used a bunch of fabrics (Kaffe Fassett again, "Roman Glass") that my mom gave me for my birthday.

Final product, with the shams and mini pillow I made:

I made a bunch of various pouches this year, but here is one of my favorites:

I made the quilt below for my sister-in-law's 4th kid. I chose a color combo I have never used before, and it kind of reminds me of girl scouts. 

I never was in Daisies.  

Anyway, I bought this amusing food fabric a little while ago. Is it kind of weird that it is all junk food except for the tomato?

I gave the quilt below to my mother-in-law for Christmas. This one took a bit longer than I thought it would. I had to draw a diagram of the entire thing with every square, and I would cross off each set of squares as I sewed them. Sorry for the bad picture :(

I am always watching TV when I sew, and this one I shall dub my "Jane the Virgin" quilt because I was binging on that during this quilt's production. I also have some "Breaking Bad" socks I knitted.

That's it for 2015! Hopefully I am more diligent about blogging in the future :)

2014 Recap

Well, I haven't posted anything in nearly two years. That is unfortunate. Mostly I will post pictures, because I have done a bunch of stuff since then.

Made this wall hanging for my mom. I did some fun hand embroidery in the middle.

My mom had me make this for a baby girl. Below you can see a black and white shot of it when I was arranging the fabrics. About half the fabrics are Heather Ross' Briar Rose, which I LOVE.

I thought it would be cool to show a progress shot. I often take B&W photos to see how the light and dark fabrics contrast. Also, I had to crop this photo because I noticed that I was not wearing any pants.

I made this queen size quilt for my sister's wedding. Before I sewed them together, each block was used as a centerpiece of each table at her wedding reception. After the wedding, I took them home and sewed it up. Apparently, some wedding guests were going to take some of these home until someone stopped them! 

The fabrics are mostly Joel Dewberry's Botanique.

My friend Chiquis had me make this for her friend. She wanted Disney theme and some embroidery. 

Donald and Daisy were some of my favorites. 

Maybe just because of the poses. I love how furious he looks.

My mom had me make a gift for my aunt and uncle. I knew they collected nativities, so here is my embroidered one.

  

My mom also had me make her a tree skirt. I like the design, but those were some SMALL pieces of fabric to work with. 

Now comes the part of the year where I was pregnant and knew a lot of pregnant people. So I went on a kick and made a quilt for just about every pregnant person I knew.

  

Made this quilt for Kali.

Quilt twin in case Taylor was having a girl. She was having a boy.

The quilt I made Taylor in case she was having a boy. She was having a boy. 

   

Same fabric line as the one above it - Creative Thursday, Zaza Zoo. Made this for my friend Becky.

I gave this one to my friend Emily, who had the same due date as me.

Made this one for Ben's college bff's wife, who also had the same due date! See - I was getting pretty crazy with the quilt making.

I think that is most of the stuff from 2014. I can't believe that was two years ago now. Thanks to the people who commissioned many of those quilts! 

Catch up Time

So I have some catching up to do. Apparently this is now a bi-annual blog. Let's start with one of my favorite things I have ever made:

Kindle Case of Accurate Historical Portrayals

This was the brainchild of me and Ben. I wanted to make him a case for his Kindle, but I always find it difficult to make manly sewing projects. I wanted to embroider something, so together we came up with the idea of Napoleon riding a T-rex with a light saber. Ben loves history and had been reading a lot of books on Napoleonic times, so obviously historical accuracy was paramount. T-rexes were pretty abundant in early 19th century France, and the light saber had been just developed in Prussia. I do really like my homage to David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps." Because I am classy like that. 

 The other side was tricky because Napoleon-T-rex-Lightsaber was such a genius idea. But Ben's favorite is Civil War, and so aside from Lincoln, no one is more iconic than Robert E. Lee. So what is more regal for this Southern gentleman than a woolly mammoth and Wolverine claws?

Scrappy Body Pillow Cover

I made these squares for another quilt originally, and didn't like them. I found the black pattern to be too small and get lost in the scraps. So I decided not to waster the blocks and turn them into a body pillow cover. I have a body pillow that I got freshman year of college, and let's just say it is a little worse for wear. It doesn't help that it was right next to the crack in the curtains and was totally bleached from the sun. I should have taken a picture, but....too lazy. Anyway, it definitely has grown on me. 

Let's pretend that the 3rd hourglass from the left is rotated that way intentially....

This was my favorite result from the image search for "gross body pillow."

Purple Stripey Tray

I made this tray thingy for my mom, from an idea I saw in my favorite quilting library book. It is full of Japanese projects, and I can't remember the name of it, but I have a hunch all Japanese quilting stuff is top notch, because the internet quilting universe is obsessed with them. I did some hand-stitching for the quilting. And the Sharpie demonstrates one of the many possible uses for this tray. Actually, I put it in there for skill, which is a habit I have now developed from my engineering inspection photo-taking.

 Pencil Case

I had two extra blocks I made for a quilt further down on this blog entry. You'll notice these are navy blue and the actual quilt is black. I made the two blocks back when I thought I could get away with having two navy blocks amidst a bunch of black ones. Silly me. It makes a nice colored pencil case. I did a spiral quilting pattern, which I think looks really great if you squint your eyes a lot.

Inside is a fun Amy Butler print I had been trying to figure out how to use. My wrist looks fat here.

 Chiquis Quilt

I made this quilt for my ole' roomie Chiquis. She told me she loved my blog, so...I made her a quilt. I got some bundles of fabric for Christmas from both my mom and my mother-in-law, and they happened to be nearly the same color scheme and went really well with each other. I wanted to do something simple on a white background to showcase the fun fabrics. For the quilting, I just did some large diagonals. Quilting is still my least favorite part. I love the result, and it was fun to surprise Chiquis with the quilt when I saw her next!

 The back is a hodge podge of some of the front fabrics and a few others.

 The Big Green

I was thinking of what to name this one, and then I remembered this movie. Yeah, I saw it. So this pillow does not at all remind me of, "Another Disney underdog sports team of misfit kids learns to play a new sport and become champions, while building self-esteem" (IMDB), I just thinking about that movie now when I see this pillow.

I made this pillow case after seeing the movie "Frozen." I loved all the Scandinavian motifs and design in that movie, and I wanted to recreate it, especially with some embroidery. I don't think that this pillow looks like anything from fantasy Scandinavia.

But it is kind of nice.

 B&W + India Quilt

This is one of my favorite quilts I have made. I always admire quilts utilizing only solids, but I find it hard to do myself because there are SO MANY COOL PRINTS. But I was able to restrain myself somehow. I first designed the block you see repeated in the middle. I think I made it up, but you never know, I might have seen it somewhere. Note that it is the same block as the ones down the right and left side, they are just arranged differently. I had been seeing some medallion style quilts on a bunch of blogs. Actually, I just kept seeing the same one on different blogs. I liked the concept, so this is my version. The middle is less medalliony, but I just REALLY liked that block!

I gave this quilt to my best friend from high school who is getting married in July. She is very on top of her thank you notes, and already sent me one, saying that her fiance liked it more than she would have expected him to like a quilt, and "stared at it for an uncomfortably long time." I think that is the highest compliment I could receive.

I just really like the strong contrast between the black and white.

 The backing is made from some extra blocks I made and the fabrics I got in India, which I was very happy to use! My favorite is the orange one (probably because it is the brightest). I think it goes well with the black and white.

 Quickest Baby Quilt

Quick doesn't mean poorly designed or made - at least I don't think so. I was going to a baby shower and delighted in the self-challenge of making a quilt for it in a few days from what I had on hand. I had this piece of yellow plaid flannel I thought would make a perfect, soft backing. However it was the weirdest shape and size. But I was like, "whatever, babies are the weirdest shape and size." The baby was a boy, which is always harder than a girl, because fabrics are always floral. At least it seems like it.

I used a few prints that I had ordered from Heather Ross's Briar Rose collection. I keep seeing them around and became a little obsessed. Somehow I found some other good coordinating fabrics in my stash. I almost used a mustardy yellow for the sashing, but I am VERY glad I didn't. I have a bunch of mustard and keep trying to figure out what to use it on - no luck yet. I have kept finding uses for that plaid shirting I bought a while back. I intended to make myself a shirt, and even cut out the shirt pattern in the fabric. But I got lazy, so now I have all these weird-shaped pieces of plaid lying around.

Post-Christmas Post

I made many a Christmas gift and had to wait to post about them until I actually gave the gifts.

Or: I am lazy, and you will see that some of these items are way old anyways....

Bag for Me

I made this bag a while ago. I had all these tiny triangles left from the quilt I made my mom that I wanted to use. Also, the other bag I made myself was way too big, and I didn't use interfacing in the handles...so basically it sucked (though I still like the design - I might turn it into a pillow or something). This one is a good size, though I screwed up the handles a bit and didn't cut the fabric big enough, so I kind of superglued it a bit....

The superglued edges on the handles digs into my hands, but has only drawn blood once.

Christmas Stockings from 2 years ago...

As the heading suggests, I made these two years ago when we first got married. I am really proud of my idea for Ben's, which if you can't tell, is a Sasquatch foot.

 

"Though I think my fur has a much silkier sheen to it"

Another Pouch

I made this one for my friend and former roommate, Chiquis. Has some of my favorite fabrics and is green, as that is her favorite color.

Wallet/Phone Case

This one was a fun project I made for my sister. I had seen on her Pinterest wish list that she had some Vera Bradley wallet/phone case thing listed. My instinctual thought came into my head: "Why would I buy that when I could make that?" I often think this, and sometimes my expectations are more reasonable than others. This time I think it worked out pretty well, and it was nice and challenging to figure out without a pattern.

What I ACTUALLY made

What I most likely couldn't make....

Definitely couldn't make this....

 Oven Mitts of Doom

There is hopefully no doom involved with these oven mitts; I just started typing "oven mitts," and then my brain said, "OF DOOM!" really loud, so I decided to type it. I gave these to my mother in law, and wouldn't you know it, she said she had actually needed new ones. This was another project where I wanted to use some scraps, and made the pot holder first. I liked it, so I thought it should have a coordinating oven mitt. I like pinwheel squares....

The picture below is the first including my new quilting model, Fabio. He's new to this, so be nice ;)

Pouch from the early 90's

My aforementioned former roommate gave my a bin of fabric from her mom, which included some really awesome 90'sy neon fabrics. (See paint-splatter-elementary-school-photo-background-style fabric below) I still haven't figured out something amazing to do with them, but I thought a small project would be the perfect time for a test run. I made this pouch for my pal Kali (shoutout!). Because who doesn't love the nineties? I know my husband is wishing he could go back. Every time he sees old 90's sitcoms, he laments that baggy jeans with white t-shirts under an unbuttoned collared shirt aren't fashionable anymore.

Also those necklaces made of clay. Mine was a yin yang.

Another pouch...sorry they are fun to make....

Another excellent modeling job. I gave this to my mom; I did a little hand quilting and machine quilting. 

Blue Flower Bag

I made this bag for my mom. I got a jelly roll of various shades of blue that I was eager to use. I love using multiple shades of one color, but sometimes it is hard for me to think of the best way to showcase that. I like the pop of orange in the middle. I wanted Ben to do a parody pose off the chicks who have crafty blogs and pose all serious-like out in some beautiful setting while looking off in another direction. However, as you might notice, Ben felt the need to instead make everything creepily sexual. 

Sorry ladies, see the ring? He is a married man.

 Aside from Ben's absurdity, I strangely like the composition of this photo.

Don't worry, Mom. He didn't actually lick the bag. 

 Interlocking Rings (of Doom) Quilt

I made this quilt for my sister-in-law. It's a simple repeated design, and I afterwards realized a simpler and less wasteful way of making the blocks. But oh well. I really like what I did with the back of the quilt, if I do say so myself. It's fun to figure out what to do when you just don't have quite enough backing fabric. I think I used literally all of that floral fabric.

Corduroy Postage Stamp Bag

The main fabric is corduroy and the center bit are 3/4" or 1/2" squares; hence the name. I gave this to my mother-in-law. I ended up really liking the corduroy texture on a bag. I will have to get some more...

Said in 50's fashion show narrator voice, "Perfect for a day of pampering yourself out on the town!"

 Another inspired shot. I don't know why, but I also really like this one for some reason...