5 Turning Twenty Quilts

For the five graduating seniors in our church's YW youth group, we made them each a quilt. The pattern is the original turning twenty quilt pattern. We used the 16 block size, which is 4 blocks by 4 blocks. Earlier in the year, we asked for ladies to donate fabrics from their stashes that they no longer wanted to get us started. Then, we bought some fabrics to coordinate with and supplement the fabrics that were donated while trying to work the quilts into the colors the mothers told us their daughters liked. Five quilt groups were formed and each group worked on a quilt top. My friend E* and I worked on the purple & black quilt top. We spent a few hours cutting & sewing and got it done in one night after the kids were in bed. Then, I collected the quilt tops and bought the backing and binding fabrics. I spent two days doing a lot of sewing. K* was my little safety pin helper while making the quilt sandwiches. I machine bound them using a feather stitch. This was my second time machine binding & it worked out pretty good in general. I think I'm just a little bit too picky sometimes and this was good for me to do with a time constraint and realize that it was good enough and didn't have to be perfect. On Tuesday evening, we met as a group and finished the quilts up by tying them and then presented them to the graduating girls. It was a lot of fun, and I think the girls really liked their quilts. Thanks to those that helped out in any way!

This is the other quilt, she wasn't able to make it that night.

Easter Dress: McCall's 5793

This is the Easter dress I made for K* this year. It's the first time I've sewn her a pretty church or holiday dress. I used McCall's pattern 5793 view D. The fabric is Simply Baby #30377 by Windham fabrics. I bought it last year, it's so sweet and almost screams SPRING! I bought 12 inch tulle on ebay and used two layers of it, rather than cutting out several pieces of tulle and folding those in half like it calls for in the instructions. Made it easier in my opinion. I also changed the sleeves. I made them about an inch or so shorter (I would probably make them even a bit more shorter if I were to make this dress again) and put a band on the sleeve bottom instead of elastic. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Add a puffy half slip and a cute, little girl and it's even better.

Bunny Tee

This is a tee shirt I made around Easter for K* using freezer paper and a cute, bunny shape I cut out on my silhouette. After cutting the shape out of the freezer paper, you iron it onto the shirt and use fabric paint. It was my first time making one, and I either didn't iron it down enough or used too much paint because the paint bled under the freezer paper a little, but it turned out pretty good I think. Once you decide on a shape(s) and paint and have a tee shirt, it's a fairly simple project. Slowest part is waiting for the paint to dry. Maybe I'll let the kids make a "supervised" one over the summer.

I used freezer paper stencil posts from make it and love it to figure out what I was doing. Always lots of great stuff on her blog.

Silhouette shape: bunny rabbit_C00164_19547

Central Park Tablerunner

I used the pattern Simple Little Runner by Camille Roskelley (she's awesome and I love her new book, Simplify) from Moda Bakeshop. I made this for a friend as a birthday gift. It's always fun to have a reason to sew something.

This is the runner, taped to the wall, before machine quilting it. I used a Central Park by Kate Spain charm pack, so not a lot of cutting was involved (Yeah!) and white for the two strips and binding. The hardest part for me was arranging the squares, it seriously took me way longer than it should have. I ended up only doing 7 rows instead of the 8 in the pattern.

This is the first project I've machine quilted. I'm pretty happy in general with how it turned out. Sometimes I get a little crazy unpicking things unless it turns out just right, which makes any project take longer. I tried out some of the presser feet (a quilting foot and a walking foot) I bought for my machine years ago and never used until now. I tried out free motion quilting on a scrap and wow! do I need to practice that a lot before ever using it on something I want to look nice. So, I used my walking foot to sew straight lines. A sweet friend T*was very helpful answering some of my questions over the phone. I machine stitched the binding on rather than hand stitching it on the back; mainly to save time. I think it turned out looking nice with the other lines on the front, but the back was only so-so. The stitching line on the back wasn't exactly straight relative to the binding in some areas, but I hope it's good enough.

I really LOVE the blue floral (especially the purple) backing fabric. (the sun is shining on the middle making it lighter) I may need to figure out something else to make with this print.....

Chocolate Sheet Cake

Made this chocolate sheet cake recipe I came across on The Pioneer Woman's blog with S* on Monday. There's only 1/4 of it left today. It's the first sheet cake I've made, so I can't compare it to other recipes, but I think it is a really good recipe, and the frosting with the pecans I could eat alone (but shouldn't).

LUCK scrabble blocks

Made these LUCK scrabble blocks inspired by these ones here. I used a 1x1x4 to cut out blocks roughly 3 3/8" square (don't look too closely). Cut LUCK and the numbers out with the lyrical letters cricut cartridge. LUCK is 2 1/2 inches (I think) and the numbers are 1 inch in black vinyl. I haven't coated mine with spray or modpodge yet, still deciding. A quick, easy project; especially if you already have scrap wood and/or vinyl laying around needing to be used. Would be fun to make with scrapbook paper too. LOVE would be fun too.

Cowgirl Dress-up

For Rodeo Day at preschool, K* informed me that she needed cowgirl clothes. So I thought about it and remembered that I had a costume pattern, Simplicity 3680, that I bought a few years ago because of the cute cowgirl on it. A quick trip to the fabric store for the supplies we needed and I got started. Other than the first illustration being wrong, which then meant at step 7 or 8 I had to totally unpick the sleeves and start all over, it went together pretty easily. I cut it out on Monday and did all the sewing on Wednesday (ended up taking longer than it should have though due to the pattern error). I hadn't used bias tape for elastic casings yet and really like how easy that was, wouldn't mind doing that kind of a casing again. I used moleskin for the brown fabric and wasn't a fan of sewing with it. For future projects, I'll just use a regular brown cotton. I really like the little blue floral print fabric (cute small floral-aqua from Jo-Ann's), bought the last 2 yards, hope they get more in. They also didn't have enough of the loop fringe, so I only put it on the brown layer. Overall, I'm happy with how it turned out and looks, in the future I may just stick to a skirt with a simialr look to this dress' skirt and a white shirt if she wants to dress up for school again.

Valentine's Mailbags

Made these Valentine's mailbags for the kids this year. Got the fabric kit & pattern for K*'s from make life sweet. I just love their new fabric line "sunkissed". I bought fabric for S*'s at JoAnn's. For next year, I'll finish them up by adding their names or initials, haven't decided yet. Perfect for tucking little Valentine notes into each day.

PinkFig Girly Skirts

I made some skirts using PinkFig's girly skirt pattern.

The skirt on the left was for Valentine's Day. I made it with an under layer and sewed the pink hem band to the under layer to give it a layered look. The middle skirt was the first one I made; followed the pattern exactly for it. The skirt on the right is for St. Patrick's Day. It sort of looks like green flowers in the photo, but they are shamrocks. I made an under layer for it to add a bit more twirl, and I thought the white might be too thin. Happy with how they all turned out, will be making this pattern again. It was easy, basically sewing rectangles together with straight lines. I'm sure you can find a free tutorial online somewhere if you're interested, probably no need to buy a pattern like I did.

I also attempted my first applique tee to go with the Valentine's skirt. A shamrock tee is next.

Valentine's heart stripe fabric from JoAnn's. All other fabric from Hobby Lobby.