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Daydreams

July 6, 2010 in Finished Objects | 17 comments

Daydreams - folded

This quilt is for a little girl named Willa, a girl not much younger than my own nearly-three-year-olds.  I don’t actually know her. She lives in Pennsylvania, and her mother is a friend of a friend.  This friend of mine pointed me to Willa’s mom’s blog.  I read it and I cried and cried and cried. Willa is dying.

Daydreams - front

In addition to being born with a rare and serious medical condition, they then discovered a tumor. Cancer. Inoperable. I’m not sure she was even two years old at the time.

Daydreams - front detail

My heart broke into a million tiny pieces. I wanted so badly to do something to help, but what can I do? Aside from not being a doctor or a creator of miracles, I don’t even live anywhere close to them.  I can’t make a batch of cookies or bring over a few nights’ worth of dinner.

Daydreams - back

But I can sew.  I could make Willa a quilt. Is it a particularly practical gift?  No, I suppose not. But I have a little girl. She likes to get surprises in the mail, she likes pretty things.  All I can hope to do is to send a little smile via Express Mail.

Daydreams - back detail

Oh, and the latest blog entry says that the tumor is growing. They’ve stopped treatment and met with hospice. Willa is at home. That’s why I rushed to finish it as fast as I could. I thought there might be more time, but I was so very sadly wrong.  So I finished it and sent it Express.  Tracking says it arrived last week. I haven’t heard from Willa’s mom, yet. I have no idea if it made it there in time.

Daydreams - label detail

As for the practical details of the quilt:

It is my second time doing the Stacked Coins tutorial, which I cannot recommend highly enough. If you have a couple of charm packs lying around and want to make something beautiful and super fast, this is the ticket. It’s the perfect size for a baby/toddler quilt, about 40×50. The charm packs in this case were Moda Daydreams, which is a few years old but I found them last fall in Colorado and was waiting for just the right use.

Backing is Amy Butler Full Moon Dots in Camel and a blue tone-on-tone butterfly print from my stash, which the selvedge said was by Anna Griffin.  Binding is Full Moon Dots in Lime.  I quilted it in my favorite (and fast, though my machine was acting up and breaking thread a lot) loopy stipple, and the white pretty much disappears into the quilt.

Like I said, I have no idea if it made it there in time for Willa to see it or snuggle with it. I can only hope that it gave her, and her mom, a smile.

UPDATE, JULY 8

I got a beautiful thank you card in the mail from Willa’s mom.  Not only did Willa get it and like it, “she hugs it and won’t let anyone take it away.”

You’ll excuse me, I’m going to try not to cry.

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Spring to Finish Progress

May 13, 2010 in Finished Objects, Piecing | 4 comments

So. Spring to Finish. It’s going…. well…. it’s going. Let’s check the white board shall we?

Spring to Finish - Progress

Yes, I have a white board in my sewing space to help me keep track, and it is vaguely color-coded in the status column. I’m a geek. Roll with it.  Black ink usually means I haven’t quite started.  Green means the fabric is at least cut, and I’m probably working on blocks. And red means FINISH THE DAMN THING ALREADY.  There’s a lot of red on there right now, and it’s freaking me out just a little.

I’ve got one complete finish, the quilt for my cousin’s daughter.  Admittedly, by the time I even put it on the list, the binding was nearly on. But still, it’s a finish. Check!

All of the mini pinwheels were totally worth it for my Pinwheel Sampler, the top for which is complete, and the backing is planned and fabric mostly cut.

Big-kid bed quilts for my kids have come together very quickly. Or, at least, the tops have.  Lots of wide sashing made it big enough without having to do a bajillion individual blocks.

Spring to Finish - Progress

So, that leaves me with three flimsies.  Three red statuses.  Two of which feel like they need to be done rather soon, since they’re for the big-kid beds, the transition to which is rapidly approaching. Excuse me while I go have a small heart attack.

Spring to Finish - Progress

Speaking of heart attacks – you’ll notice that the Cobblestone quilt has a green status on the board.  Not red. Not a completed top. You may also notice it has the most specific (and earliest) due date.  That’s a problem, since the current progress on it looks like this:

Spring to Finish - Progress

I’ve really been procrastinating on this one, for a number of reasons, and it’s getting to a rather critical point.  The extra crafting for Mother’s Day didn’t really help the situation, nor did having my in-laws staying in our guest room (aka my sewing room), meaning I did not have access to my machine for a solid two days.  Eeek!  Gotta get cracking.

And please, don’t even ask me about my Bee blocks. But it’s not the end of May yet, so they can’t be overdue, right?  Except, you know, that one left over from April. Sigh…

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Last-minute Mother’s Day gifts

May 7, 2010 in Crafts | 5 comments

I don’t have a great track record on Mother’s Day. I have a tendency to not think of a great gift, get some flowers at the last minute, and generally feel like an ass for under-celebrating my mom.

But hey, when you set the bar this low, it doesn’t take too much to exceed previous expectations.  And so, headed off in the mail today to my mom in Chicago is this:

Last-minute Mother's Day

It’s a rice heat therapy bag, pattern at Sew, Mama, Sew! I made one for my husband, and one as a grab-bag gift for my aunt for Christmas, and my mom thought it was great and said she’d love to have one, too.  If you’re still scrambling, I highly recommend making it.  It was done in under an hour, and I had all of the supplies already in the house (minus the essential oil, which I simply omitted).  In fact, I made this one first because I have to ship it. It’ll arrive Monday, but it’s OK because my mom is out of town for the weekend. And, in case you’re wondering, it fits in a flat-rate Priority Mail envelope just fine.

I’m making a second one later today for my mother-in-law, who actually happens to be coming to my house over the weekend, so I can deliver it in person.

Whew.

Edited to add the second one, completed just in the nick of time…

Last-minute Mother's Day Gift, 2

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In Full Bloom

April 29, 2010 in Finished Objects | 13 comments

How can you see all of this color and not jump up and down with happiness for Spring?

In Full Bloom - flying away!

This is a baby gift for my cousin’s new little girl, Mia.  Crazy story left me rushing a little with this one – my cousin actually didn’t find out she was pregnant until she was about 30 weeks. A few more weeks and she would have been on one of those TV shows! So, yeah, it was a bit of a surprise to everyone involved. But regardless, the whole extended family is plenty excited to have a new baby in the family.

In Full Bloom - front

The starting point for this quilt was the Alexander Henry Apples & Pears print.  I’ve had a yard of it in my stash forever, and the colors seemed like a good place to start.  I like the way the white in each block kind of reminds me of the white outline around each fruit in the inspiration fabric.  Though I think in my head I originally thought the white space would be more prominent, I like that it ended up so bright and colorful. Nearly all of the fabric in this quilt was already in my stash before I started.

In Full Bloom - back

The back is nearly all of the remaining Apples & Pears on one side, and a nice girly pink on the other with a few print blocks for fun. The pink is one exception to the from-the-stash statement: I was cutting fabric for the back when I realized I didn’t have quite enough of a single color of pink, so I had to make a run for some more. Whoops!

I did my favorite loopy quilting in white thread.

In Full Bloom - detail

Speaking of quilting – LOVING free-motion on my new machine.  The extension table makes such a huge difference, plus I got one of those teflon-y sliding mats and the spiffy gloves, so the quilt slid around quite nicely.  The stop/start button was an enormous bonus during free-motion, because I knew the needle speed would remain consistent without thinking about how heavy my foot was.  The fact that it takes a second to ramp up to full speed when you hit “start” was also really nice.  I did have a few periods of annoying thread breakage, not sure to what I should attribute that problem. But it’s one that has not completely disappeared and is always a pain.  That said, I was overall very happy with the experience, and remain quite enamored of my new (and still nameless) sewing machine.

At any rate, that counts as my first finish for Spring to Finish! Now I’m off to trim some pinwheel blocks…

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Charlie

February 2, 2010 in Finished Objects, Quilts | 15 comments

That’s right, it’s madness up in here! Two finishes in less than a week! Well, it makes sense, as these two babies were born less than a week apart.

My nephew, Charlie. My very first nephew. My brother’s son.  He was born last Wednesday, about 10 days ahead of schedule. I was already working on the quilt when I got the call, but obviously his arrival sped things up a bit.  I hope they like his quilt. Because if they don’t, I’m taking it back. Because I am in love with it.  It feels so “boy” without beating you over the head with BLUE and TRUCKS and STEREOTYPES!

Charlie

It all started with a fat quarter bundle of Robert Kaufmann’s Animal Party prints that I bought from an Etsy seller, ages ago. I bought it on a whim, thinking it would be great for a baby boy at some point. Lo and behold, the ultrasound revealed that my brother’s first child was, in fact, a boy. And my sister-in-law mentioned something about a jungle/animal/explorer theme.  Golden!

I was undecided on what to do with these prints for a long, long time. I toyed with a whole bunch of different ideas, and couldn’t settle on one that I liked. And then Ashley posted about the Spotted Squares quilt she’s working on, and I had my inspiration.

Charlie

I felt compelled to be somewhat organized about it, not totally improvisational. (Because, seriously, improvising takes time! I like to chain-piece, people!)  They are all 8″ (finished) blocks. There are two different sized center squares (2″ and 4″, finished). There are two different layouts (centered and off-center). And there are two styles (print/color borders and white borders).  I picked fabrics from my stash to coordinate with the prints I already had, sticking mostly with brown, green, blue, and orange.

Oh, and the back. I kind of love the back. As much, if not more, than the front. I have to remember to do an actual quilt like this. Maybe for my kids…

Charlie

I was also torn as to how to quilt it, as I seem to be on almost every quilt I make.  I didn’t want to quilt it too densely, that much I knew.  But I’m psyched with what I went with: straight horizontal and vertical lines at random intervals.  I love that it kind of works with the square-but-wonky style of the front. I marked the lines with a washable pen and my ruler to keep them as straight as I could.

Charlie

Binding is from Connecting Threads, their Riviera line, which is now discontinued and on major clearance (those circle/dots are still available in three different colors).

Charlie

Anyways, I’m thrilled that this one is done. And I can’t wait to deliver it in person on Saturday, when I fly to Chicago to meet my sweet new nephew. Hooray!

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Lucy Elizabeth

January 28, 2010 in Finished Objects | 17 comments

My first finish of 2010 is for a good friend and her brand new baby girl, Lucy.

It was no secret I would be making a quilt for her, and I just waved goodbye to it on the mail truck. I was going to wait a couple of days to post about it, but someone decided she wanted to see pictures…

Lucy Elizabeth

Once I found out this baby was to be a girl, I ordered a charm pack and a jelly roll of Hushabye.  I went through various thoughts on what I’d actually do with it, and eventually settled on this.  5″ (cut) centers, 2.5″ borders.  The solid is Kona Cotton in Bone, which wasn’t quite so stark as plain white.

Lucy Elizabeth

The back is the bunny damask print from the same line, with a strip of squares.

Lucy Elizabeth

Quilting is diagonal lines in pink thread. Binding is also from the same line. Yes, I said I was going to try to do fewer quilts using all fabrics from the same line, I know. But I bought this fabric last October, so I think I get a pass. And sometimes it just looks so nice, you can’t pass it up.

Anyways, it’s in the hands of the postal service, on its way to Manhattan.  I hope Lucy likes it! (And her mom, too, I suppose…)

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Scrappy gifts, Part 2

December 26, 2009 in Crafts, Finished Objects | 2 comments

Oh. Um. Hi there!

Holidays, travel, craziness. You know how it goes.

Anyways, I realized I never showed the other scrappy gift I made.  This one was a birthday gift for my husband, who tends to get tension headaches and loves heat packs on the back of his neck.

ricebag1

It’s a rice heat therapy bag with washable cover, and I found the tutorial at Sew, Mama, Sew.  Super easy, and I added an extra round of topstitching around the edges of the rice bag for a little more security.

ricebag2

Of course, when I made the second one, I realized that topstitching was a lot easier if I did the first three sides before I put the rice in the bag. Genius, here. And, speaking of being an idiot, I didn’t take a picture of the second one before I gave it to my aunt. But it was cream with green and purple scraps and really matched her decor. I swear.

Anyways, throw together a few today! It takes no time at all. Chuck that bag in the microwave for two minutes and you’ve got nice, toasty weight to put on that knot in your shoulder or tuck under the covers to keep your toes warm.

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Scrappy gifts, Part 1

December 13, 2009 in Finished Objects | 3 comments

I hadn’t really planned on doing a ton of homemade gifts this year. I didn’t think I would really have enough time. But, then, I couldn’t resist when I saw a few ideas that people would really like.  Plus, it gave me a chance to play with more scraps!  Ooh, Amanda Jean, I can see how this could become quite addicting!

So, the first thing I pulled together was a Kindle cover for my mom.  I used the tutorial from the Sometimes Crafter, and it came together super easily.  My needle complained a little when doing the final topstitching through a lot of layers of fabric, and I had to convince it to keep moving the bulkiness under the foot, but overall it was very fast.

Kindle Cover

Some of the fabrics I used were leftover scraps from the quilt I made for my mom, three years ago. The first lap quilt I ever made. I’ll have to try to take a picture of it when I go home next week.  I picked the rest to go with that group.  The inside is some leftover I have from a Neptune fat quarter bundle.

Kindle Cover

I’m hoping to have a reason to make another one of these for myself when the holidays are over! And I may make one more before I leave, as I think my stepmom recently got a Kindle, as well.

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Mod Rainbow

November 10, 2009 in Finished Objects | 12 comments

With no toddlers to entertain on my four-hour flight to Colorado, I was free to relax, listen to music, and stitch some binding.  By the time I went to bed on Friday, my sister-in-law’s quilt was finished.

Mod Rainbow - binding

She has been a great friend, awesome aunt, and is generally way overdue for a quilt of her own (not to mention graduating from medical school and having a birthday recently…).  When I asked her what colors she wanted in her quilt, she said, “rainbow!”  I assure you, she wasn’t kidding.

Mod Rainbow - Front

Obvious to the quilting folks, this is the Mod Sampler Quilt from Oh, Fransson, which I’ve been meaning to do.  The cutting instructions were insanely well-organized, so I was able to whip through the blocks in no time. (I also strongly recommend her writeups on color basics and choosing fabric, good food for thought even if you aren’t making this exact pattern.)  Sashing always seems to give me a headache, but is worth it in the end.  I put off the basting and quilting for a while, but once I got my foot fixed, it was a breeze.  I did my favorite loopy stipple, and it went super fast.

Mod Rainbow - detail

As a first-year medical intern, my sister-in-law has virtually no days off, so it may be another two weeks or so before I can get this into her hands.  But she said she wanted to see pictures, so here they are.  Rachel, I hope you like it!

Mod Rainbow - back

And, yes, I hung another quilt from the swingset just to get a good picture.  I haven’t the faintest idea what I’ll do once it snows!

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Appreciation

September 16, 2009 in Finished Objects | 8 comments

I’m sure that making quilts has different meanings for different people.  For me, especially when I’m making it for another person, I really try to make something that the person will like, something they want, something they will enjoy.  While there’s certainly a creative/artistic aspect to quiltmaking, I generally like to make them in the hopes that they are enjoyed and put to good use. So just imagine how tickled I was to get these pictures:

Could Marie’s kids possibly be any cuter? They’re adorable, and I’m so happy that they liked their new blankets.

Indeed, even my own little girl has gotten into the act, finally using one of the first doll quilts I made to “make baby all cozy.” Warms mama’s heart, to be sure.

Putting the doll quilt to use

Of course, there’s the flipside, when these things go off into nowhere and you have no idea if people are happy, disappointed, or indifferent.  Sadly, at the moment, that’s the status of my Doll Quilt Swap.  I sent the quilt, along with a charm pack I thought my partner would like and some treats for her dogs, early last week. Tracking info on the package was weirdly ambiguous, and no response to emails from our swap mama.  Obviously, I have no idea what’s going on with this person.  Part of me is really cranky about putting thought and effort into something and not getting so much as an acknowledgment of receipt.  But the mother in me worries. Is she OK? Is there something going on in her life?

Anyways, if she stumbles on this post at any point in time, I hope that she got it and likes it and that everything is alright.  And I did enjoy the process of coming up with something special for someone else, and hope to do another swap sometime soon.  But I won’t lie, it’s kind of rough to spend the time and energy making something essentially as a gift that you really hope they’ll like, and then… silence.

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