Christmas wrap-up

Now that Christmas is over, I can finally share some of what I've been working on!

 

 

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Since getting my embroidery machine, EVERYONE has asked me for embroidered stuff. The first picture is a saddle pad for my sister-in-law--I thought that was absolutely adorable when I found it, and then I embroidered her horse's name on it. The towels and sweatshirts I did as a favor to my mom, for my cousins and their kids. The Bride tank was for my other sister-in-law, the coasters were for cousins, and the monogram wreath was for decor at my house. (Not pictured are the two sets of placemats that I embroidered--one for my parents, one for my grandparents--and the 4 pairs of boxer shorts that I embroidered with the words Thursday for my brother because he is strange.)

Then we get to the big ones--quilts!

My Skill-Builder Sampler quilt has always been intended for my mother-in-law. I knew she wanted a Christmas throw so since I was beginning that quilt-along, I started it in Christmas fabrics. I've posted six of the blocks already, here are the remaining six--

Virginia Star

Breaking Out--LOVE this block, will do more with it in the future

Ohio Star

Then I decided that the Skill Builder blocks were either not to my taste, or didn't go, or involved paper piecing (my printer just wouldn't cooperate, making paper-piecing a challenge!) So I ventured outside the Skill-Builder blocks and did the following:

Quatrefoil block, from Modify Tradition (LOTS of great blocks here, I'll have to remember that as a resource)

Christmas Star block, from Happy Quilting via the Celebrate Christmas Quilt-Along

Starflower block from Ellison Lane Quilts

And here they are all laid out.

At this point I decided to use 3.5 inch white strips for sashing. I wanted wide sashing because I used embroidery applique in the corners. I did 6 appliques total. This was on December 23, while my husband ran our last-minute errands prior to leaving to drive 5 hours to his parents' house for Christmas. Then I realized that the only batting I had on hand was about 5 inches short of what I needed... and I realized that I was not going to get the quilt finished before Christmas. Oh well. I wrapped up the top, backing, and binding and his mom was thrilled!

Here you can see some of the appliques--the Christmas tree and ornaments were laid on there for test purposes, but I did go ahead and do those directly on the quilt top as well.

Finished quilt top--opened on Christmas Eve! The green and red flannel there is going to be the backing fabric. More pictures will be forthcoming once I actually finish the quilt.

The secret project that I couldn't say anything about? Well, I haven't mentioned anything about my Supernova quilt in quite some time... with good reason.

It was a birthday present for my mom! Her birthday is two days after Christmas, and I really wanted my mom to have a quilt of her own. She is also a quilter, and has made beautiful quilts for various family members. Her big thing is photo quilts, so she and I have different tastes, but I'm confident I wouldn't have started quilting if I hadn't been exposed to it my whole life. And she has NEVER made herself a quilt!! So the Supernova quilt was for her.

I backed the quilt using a navy fabric with tiny yellow and green flowers (which actually, Mom picked out from my fabric stash!) and bound it using a yellow fabric from Connecting Threads. I used straight-line quilting through each of the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines--three lines of stitching for each. (You can't see in this picture, but the center line is variegated orange and yellow, then the outside lines are variegated purple and variegated green--to match the colors of the quilt.)

Unfortunately, because I had so much going on leading up to Christmas, I was stitching on the binding the morning of Mom's birthday. She had a hair appointment before we went out to lunch, so I got as much as I could done, which turned out to be not quite all of it (hence the lack of pictures and the clips still on the binding). Rather than give it to her and then immediately take it back, she held on to it to show to my family members, and I'm going to finish it after the next time I see her, in January when I travel down south to take my kiddos to a math competition. I'll take more pictures then, too.

So that was my handmade Christmas. I took on a little bit too much, probably, and stressed myself out. I also managed to break the embroidery unit of my sewing machine--lesson learned, don't travel with embroidery unit! But everyone LOVED their gifts, even the ones that weren't quite finished. So everything ended well after all.

And what did we receive for Christmas? The highlights--

• A Keurig coffeemaker from my in-laws (SO looking forward to hot chocolate in the mornings before work!)
• Tickets to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure from my parents (YAY, Harry Potter World! I've only wanted to go there since it was announced!!)
• Tickets to see Cirque du Soleil--La Nouba from my in-laws (we saw it the day after Christmas, and it was wonderful!)
• Joann's gift cards (I'm saving up for a Cricut!)
• The best present of all (IMO... my husband would probably disagree)--a KITCHEN-AID STAND MIXER!!! I've regretted not putting one of these on our wedding registry for sooooo long. My mom paid attention and kept it totally secret from me--I had no idea! So now, thanks to my mom and dad, I have a gorgeous blue stand mixer sitting in my kitchen, just waiting for me to bake something. I didn't get to bake Christmas cookies this year (no time--whose idea was it to work up until the 21st, anyway?) so I'm going to have to make something soon to get it out of my system.

I hope all of you had similarly wonderful Christmases, and best wishes for 2012!

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We Can Do It! Skillbuilder Sampler blocks

I realized this weekend that it had been a month since the We Can Do It! Skillbuilder Sampler quiltalong had started... and not only had I not made any of the blocks, I hadn't even picked out fabric! Oops.
Not wanting to buy new fabric specifically for this quiltalong (and knowing just how much fabric I've bought this summer already...) I looked at my stash. Then it jumped out at me.

I bought this fabric a couple of weeks ago from Connecting Threads--they've been having a huge sale on a variety of their fabrics, including clearance on last year's Christmas fabrics. I bought a half-yard each of 14 different Christmassy prints, anticipating that some sort of inspiration would strike. And what do you know, it did!
I LOVE Connecting Threads. I've been ordering from their sister company Knitpicks since I started knitting about 6 years ago and loved the great prices and customer service. I'm similarly thrilled with Connecting Threads. They may not be as trendy as some of the other fabric companies out there, but I can pretty much always find something I like there. That said, I wasn't knocked out with all of this fabric--the blue fabrics, in particular, appeared a little faded, or maybe my monitor was just misleading and I expected more saturated colors. But when I take into account that I got 7 yards of fabric for about 20 bucks, I'm satisfied. I also noticed that a half yard of one fabric was NOT the same length as a half yard of another--there was never less than half a yard, but in some cases there were up to 4 inches more. I'm not going to complain about getting extra fabric, but it was something that caught my eye (pressing fabrics and thinking "wow, why is this fabric so much longer than the last one??").
I was able to knock out all three of these blocks in just a couple of hours yesterday and today, and now I'm all caught up!
Block 1: Log Cabin

I love the way log cabin quilts look, and I have no idea why I haven't done anything with them yet. The only thing I dislike about this block (and I disliked it when the tutorial was posted, but I see that there's no way around it) is that the block is asymmetrical. In knitting when I do log cabin blankets, I do the same number of stripes on every side, around a central square. Here the central square is not actually in the center of the block. If I were making a log cabin quilt and not just a block, what I probably would do is take the center block and the first set of strips (bottom and right-hand side) and make that all one square, and that would make it symmetrical. It bothers me the way it is. But not enough to go back and redo it. I also am glad I didn't do all green on one side and all red on the other, but that central square really blends in with the green above and to the left of it, and I'm not thrilled with that either.
Block 2: Value Nine-Patch

I had my doubts about this one, but as it turns out, I REALLY like it! The blues were the only fabrics in which I really had lights and darks (so my complaint about the fabrics not being saturated enough for my liking actually worked out to benefit me!) so that's what I chose. I'll have to figure out how to make the different colors come together in the final quilt layout, but of course I have a while till I have to figure that out (this quiltalong lasts a whole year!) I also am happy that I got to use the Christmas trees, which are going to be a challenge throughout due to the directional nature of that print.
The main challenge I had with this block is keeping a constant 1/4" seam allowance. You can see in both the pictures below that there are places where it gets bigger or smaller than 1/4" and as a result, my seams don't match up perfectly in the nine-patches.

Block 3: Churn Dash
I LOVE this block. Unfortunately it doesn't love me. :(

I made so many mistakes in this one! First, I've never made half-square triangles before. So I used the option of cutting squares a little bigger than called for, then sewing and trimming them down to the correct size. My squares were 5 inches, and my half-square triangles needed to be trimmed to 4.5 inches.

The first one was fine...

The second one was... not. About 1/8" too small. What the heck happened? I have no idea. It probably has something to do with me being incapable of sewing with a 1/4" seam allowance. The same thing happened on both sets I sewed.
Then, once all the HSTs were made, I started putting the block together, and this happened...

Yeah. That was wrong. Rip it out, try it again. And then I finally got a completed block, which I actually really love the look of, and you can ALMOST barely notice the fact that the edges are not straight.
I haven't done the bonus block yet but it's going to have more HSTs in it (just because I'm a glutton for punishment). I'm thinking a broken dishes block, like this one,only obviously just one block, not a whole quilt! The block would probably be 4 broken dish pieces.
Other Fabric News
I got my fabric for the Spoonflower Swap in the mail--it was delivered while we were on vacation, and it's now cut into charms and on its way!

The non-math one is the one for the swap. The print was bigger than I was expecting, but still totally doable for 5-inch charms. The math one I just thought was awesome! No idea what I will possibly do with it, but I had to have it.
I was also a winner of a giveaway I entered--for the first time EVER!! Lee from Freshly Pieced gave away several pieces of her Spoonflower Swap fabric--she actually designed this one herself! I was randomly selected to win a fat quarter of it.

Thanks, Lee! It will be put to good use... eventually!
Linking up this week with Sew Modern Monday and Fabric Tuesday.
Giveaways I'm entering this week: Everyone in blogland is giving away an Accuquilt Go! Baby cutter!
Here's one at All Things Vintage Sheets...
And another one at Bugglebee Handmade...
And still another one at Threadgather! Who knows, maybe I'll win one! That would be awesome. :)
It's Melissa's blogiversary, and she's giving away a fat quarter pack in honor of the occasion!

Have a great week!