Quilty Fun Sew Along, Week 11

This week I'm making the snowball block in the Quilty Fun Sew Along.
If you want to find out more about this quilt along, click the button to the right of my blog.

I've never made this block before, it's been on my list for a while.

One of the best parts of making a quilt is choosing a color scheme.

I cut out a lot of white squares!

This is my little snowball block before the edges are turned out and pressed.

These two blocks look so different, but one is just trimmed and the other one isn't.

A pile of trimmings, too little to use for anything.

This is my pile of freshly pressed snowball blocks.

My finished snowball blocks, all waiting to be organized into the Quiltty Fun Sampler.

See you next week :)

Be Mine

I always update my chalkboard according to the season.

This is my Valentine's Day design.

I have a lot of fun with my chalkboard :)

Tee shirt quilt in the works...

My son Sean, is serving a 2 year church mission in Brazil.

Before he left, when he was packing up his things, he carefully chose some shirts for me to make him a quilt.

There are about 30 in this basket.

Sean will be home on April 17 (yippee!) so I am busily trying to get his quilt top made.

This isn't a shirt, it's a beanie!

Sean has wanted to go to BYU since he was 7 years old :)

I might just stitch these "badges" onto fabric.

I squared this tee shirt graphic into a 12 l/2" square.

A good way to get the most of a graphic is to cut just inside of the sleeve seam.

This is Sean's soccer shirt, it was a big part of his life for many years.

I'm going to cut out both of the emblems and maybe sew them onto a piece of fabric.

I was going to cut out the number, but realized that the under armor fabric wouldn't be very good in a quilt, even with a stabilizer.

I put the soccer jersey onto my light box,

put paper on top and traced the number.

The next step will be buying some Kona red and appliqueing the numbers onto Kona white.

This was Sean's high school uniform shirt.  I have 5 of these!

This shirt is a WIP, and I'll show you the progress as I go.

The blocks aren't all the same size, so there will be some quilting blocks to fill in the empty spaces.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bonus from the North State River Run quilt shop hop!

Last September, I went to the North State River Run Shop Hop.

I didn't know who would be interested in going with me, so I went alone.....Lol!

All my quilting friends live out of state :)

It was a two day experience, I blogged about the first day here,

and the second day here.
 The next month, I received a phone call from Debbie, telling me that I won a $100 gift certificate to her shop in Paradise!

How exciting!!!

She has an online shop which can be found here.

Out of all the 15?  quilt shops that I went to, I remembered Debbie.

She had loads of personality, and her store's theme was Hallowe'en.

My husband and I went to the Redwood Forest last weekend, and stayed in Eureka.

Paradise was an hour out of the way, but going that direction, was a great excuse to redeem the gift certificate I won.

Debbie has mostly Civil War reporduction and 30's fabrics at her shop.

I chose these goodies!

5 yards of Kona slate, and 5 yards of American Jane (abc's), and two other prints.

What a cute selvage :)

Did I ever tell you that I have a small collection of American Jane fabric?

This will make a great back to a future quilt.

I'll save the selvage for a project, and add the rest to my collection.

Thank you so much Debbie, fellow quilters are the best!!!

Quilty Fun Sew Along, Week 10

Lori has the coolest method of making 4 patches!

I never could have figured it out, but her book is so clear and easy to understand.

Here are my fabric choices for this block.

It didn't take me long, and here are my 16 four patches all sewn together :)

Have you joined the Quilty Fun Sew Along yet?

It's not too late!

Lined Drawstring Bags

I love these cute lined drawstrings bag, I posted about them here

a few weeks ago.

You can find the tutorial for the bag here.

Isn't this vintage cartoon sewing fabric darling?

I tried to lay it as flat as I could so you can read it the captions.

I've been saving this fabric for a special project.

I put a bright, sunshiny yellow inside for the lining.

I think this may be my favorite bag so far!

I chose this fabric combination for another bag.

I made a wall hanging out of this Japanese fabric for my grand daughter, you can see it here.

I made this bag for myself, it will remind me of Kylie :)

I love this style of Japanese art.

So adorable!

I think these polka dots match really well too :)

Do you see what the lining is?

Japanese symbols!

I bought a fat quarter of it but wish I had more.

Here is the little bag, with the drawstrings pulled.

These bags are fun to make, they're quick and they are addicting!

Whenever I see one of these little bags on someone's blog, I pin them.

 I have a whole board on Pinterest dedicated to lined drawstring bags.

Handmade Birthday Club 2014, January

I joined the Handmade Birthday Club 2014, sponsored by 

Susannah Kate Sews.

Everyone is assigned to groups of 12.

We make the birthday girl a small handmade item and goodies are optional.

The January birthday girls have received their gifts, so I can tell you what I made them.

These are two of the lined drawstring bags I showed you last week.

Gina said she loves dark chocolate and sweetarts.

Christen likes peeps, dark chocolate and pink and red starburst.

The birthday girl receives 11 gifts, that sounds like a real treat!!!

Quilty Fun Sew Along, Week Nine

I have two things that I really look forward to on Monday morning.

First, is the email from my son in Brazil, and second is Lori's "Quilty Fun Sew Along".

This week, the block is quarter square triangles.

I chose my fabrics carefully, making sure I have some of every color with the same values.

I'm now the proud owner of this 6" X l/2" ruler.

It's so much more efficient to use this 6" ruler, just place it on the center of the square diagonally and draw a line on both sides.

I love my new sewing machine, it sews like a dream!

I never have to touch the presser foot, and the thread cuts itself automatically.  

I lay all my quarter square triangles next to each other, making sure that the same prints aren't next to each other.

There are four separate sections on the quilt where these blocks will be sewn.

My blocks are all complete!  

Stay tuned for more of my quilty fun sampler next week :)