February Finished...under the wire!

Once again, loving the whole Lovely Year of Finishes challenge. And possibly cursing the fact that February only has 28 days. But it's still February as I write this, and my snowman quilt is D.O.N.E.!

And the only part I had to do today was hand stitch the binding to the back side. The pattern is called "Jingles" from The Cotton Shop. I bought it at least five years ago, and then purchased fabric four years ago while pregnant with my oldest son. Finally started sewing it this year!

It's been a while since I've made a flannel quilt. It's a glorious thing to have in winter; I'm currently snuggled up under it while I type. Oh, and one of my kids already spilled milk on it, so it's feeling quite loved at the moment.

Here's a close-up of the center panel. I created the faces using varying widths of zigzag stitches. The center panel is quilted in a wavy, meandering all-over type of pattern, around the snowmen and trees. The rest is straight line quilted. I can't wait to wash it to help hide my imperfect quilting stitches get that wonderful crinkled look.

Second only to the outer border fabric (a Woolies flannel from Maywood that looks like a blue tweed sweater), I love this backing stripe! It reminds me of a pair of pajamas my dad had when I was a kid.

 If it looks like there's not much quilting on the back, there isn't. I used a quilt-as-you-go method just through the batting. Then I layered the quilt top/batting with the backing and did minimal stitching.

I think this little bird is so cute too!

I've got my March project in mind--a wedding gift 6 months overdue! Watch for a post on it (and hopefully progress as well) shortly, because I recently found out that they'll be needing a baby quilt at the end of summer. I'd better get the wedding gift done before then! What's the latest you've ever given a handmade quilt?

Projects in Print

Have you seen a new(er) magazine called Sew-It...today? 

I'm excited to say that I have two projects in the April/May issue. The first you may have seen already; it's the design I nicknamed my nautical flag quilt that I pieced last summer. The magazine photographed it as a baby quilt, which I hadn't though of but love!

The second is a kitchen trio of small sewing projects: a drying mat, a dish towel, and a plastic bag holder. I love the lime green with the black and cream!

There's nothing like the thrill of opening a magazine and seeing your work in it. :)
Tonight I'm busy finishing up my February goal for the Lovely Year of Finishes. It would have been nice if this were a leap year; I could use the extra day!

Winner and Catching Up

First, let's start with a winner from my Kiss, Kiss Love post! (Thanks to everyone who stopped by and left a comment!) Random number generator chose:

 which is MoeWest, who said:

My sewing focus has been a bit all over the place since I finished the triple zip pouch over the weekend! 

Here's what I've been working on: 

1. Working on the straight line quilting and adding the borders on my snowman quilt (before the 28th...this is my February Lovely Year of Finishes project!) And yes, there's still snow on the ground here (or instead of "still," I should say "again," so the quilt continues to be relevant this year).

 (evening picture taking = dark pic! but I do love how the snowman scarves all look like they're flying away in this photo)

2. I finished the 15 blocks for my guild's Home of the Brave project, and handed them in. Done. The actual quilt will have the blocks set on point with sashing.

3. My almost 4-year-old son asked if we could make another quilt. (see the first here) Can't say no to that! He lifts and lowers the presser foot, presses the needle up/down button, and chooses the fabric. I chose the wonky log cabin--no measuring, no perfect piecing needed. He also currently has a whole list of people he wants to make quilts for. 

4. I'd mentioned a while back that I was going to be helping a friend make quilts for her two young children. The situation has changed a bit, and my mom and I are making the quilts, and making them quickly. Here are 12 blocks I finished today for the boy's quilt; 18 more to go! They do sew up quickly, and I love the fabrics.

5. Victoria over at 15 Minutes Play is hosting a tea towel challenge. She first mentioned it about a month ago, and I dragged my feet on it. The first two tea towels I'd admired on Etsy disappeared, but then I found this one. My husband has some Irish blood, so it seemed like a perfect choice. After I finish #1 and #4 on this list, I'm planning to play a little with my tea towel and some made fabric. 

p.s. It was a great mail week--I received the Irish Blessing tea towel that I'd ordered, and I also received my selection from the gift certificate I won to the Quilting Lodge (through Lovely Year of Finishes). It's a jelly roll of Cuzco! Two things I think are especially neat about this: 1) I've actually been to Cuzco. 2) Before this arrived, I was a jelly roll virgin. I'd never used one. I can't wait to decide what to do with this! Pre-cut strips...heaven! Thanks, Quilting Lodge!

Triple Zip!

I've been admiring the Triple Zipper pouches from A Quilter's Table tutorial that have popped up on various blogs in the last few weeks and really wanting to join in. I just wasn't sure it was going to happen, time-wise. The contest portion of the Zipalong ended at midnight Friday. Not that I really *need* any of the prizes, but if you're going to join a sew-along, you might as well throw your name in the hat, right?!

I bought zippers on Monday. At 9:30 Friday night, I pulled out my zippers and fabric and got started. Less than two hours later, I'm happy to say I was done!

I was having serious fabric envy looking at everyone else's, and just couldn't decide on what to use. I ultimately decided to make the pouch for my older son, who turns 4 next weekend. He loves tools (hence the fabric choices) and he really loves stashing "treasures." Well, now he'll have another treasure pouch. I think he'll be thrilled! The other benefit of making one for him first is that I got to practice on it. I will likely make another (or another few!) and I think each one will only improve. Plus, I'd like to make it larger, and have more of the top two fabrics showing.

Here you can sort of see my three different lining fabrics.

Blue for the largest pocket

Lime for the middle pocket

Red for the smallest pocket

I love having 3 different color zippers! 

Does anyone else do "too good" of a job sewing their zippers on? I ran into that a bit on this project and have a slightly difficult job closing the zippers because the lining fabric is stitched too close.

Even though the contest is over, if you haven't tried this tutorial yet, you should! There's also an alternate finishing technique here, which is helpful.
And make sure to check out all the beautiful versions over on Flickr.

Kiss, Kiss, Love

I'm posting this from the midst of a slight chocolate hangover...February 15 should probably be an all-salad-all-the-time kind of day! Especially if in addition to too much chocolate, you also had homemade cannellonis filled with sausage, butternut squash, spinach and ricotta, and topped with a sage cream sauce. Yum! 

So on to the Hugs and Kisses Blog Hop, with thanks to Madame Samm of Sew We Quilt and Jane from Jane's Fabric and Quilts, our cheerleader. 

I designed my project with Valentine's Day in mind, but even with bright pink rick rack and prints like I chose, you can use it well beyond cupid's holiday.

It's a Tic Tac Toe (or if you like, Kiss, Kiss, Love) board.

I originally made the board with Xs and Os, but then decided to try out heart shapes instead of the Os, just for fun.

Do you want to be hearts or Xs? First one to get three in a row wins! :)

I included a double pocket on the back to store the game pieces.

If you'd like to make your own tic tac toe board, you can find the tutorial here on my blog.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! 

Be sure to check out the creative projects from the rest of today's bloggers! It's one last day of Valentine-y goodness!

Why Knot Kwilt NitaDances Sew Darn Quilt Quilt-N-Queen Fiddlesticks and Humility Stitchin Therapy  Moose Stash Quilting  Gypsy Dreamer Quilts  Color My World --you're here! Sew We Quilt

p.s. I have to throw another two hugs-and-kisses themed photos in here of older projects.
First, my version of Tula Pink's LOVE quilt. Read more about it here.

Second, a small "lovey" made for my guild's charity project, which uses X and O blocks.  Read more about it here.

WIP Wednesday: Just playing around

The last couple days I've been sewing some blocks for one of my guild's charity projects. 

It's called Home of the Brave, and it's a movement dedicated to honoring fallen heroes of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by making and presenting Civil War era inspired homemade quilts to their families. Our guild's focus is Michigan, since that's where we are located. I took home the pre-cut package to make 15 blocks back in mid September, and here it is February. Oops! I'm determined to hand back the stitched blocks at our meeting next week.

I've got 7 X blocks completely done and the other 8 at various stages of completion. Ultimately, the blocks will be pieced together with sashing rows and a border. 

While I am all for the cause, I'll be honest that neither the fabrics or the pattern are really my style. So while I was sewing, I was brainstorming ways to try a more modern spin on the design later for myself.

Though I have to say that I do love the contemporary spin of this block on the January-February 2013 Love of Quilting cover!

Last Friday night, I was home alone (Thank you, concert that my husband wanted to go to and I didn't!) So I started experimenting.

First I went down a complicated route. I wanted the triangles to be pieces, so I cut solid gray squares and adding snowball corners in two different sizes/colors. 

This created an interesting sort of repeating pinwheel that I kind of liked.

With two problems.

 First, because of the nature of the cutting, half the pinwheels are mirror images. Short of making two quilts spinning in opposite directions, I couldn't think of a good way to use all the pieces. 

Second, I didn't consider how small the pieces would start getting as I cut and pieced. The assembled pinwheel block below measures about 8". Those center gold "blades" are t.i.n.y. Too tiny. (And not consistent in size, but that's just a quality issue on my part.)

There is ALOT going on in this block, but I do kind of like it, so I'm thinking of redoing it slightly larger and making a pillow. Not sure if some straight line quilting would minimize the distracting seams in the solid gray sections or not...

Talk about over thinking some "play" time! 
I went back to the proverbial drawing board, simplified things, and came up with these blocks. I like 'em.

I'm still working on a final layout idea and surveying my stash to choose actual colors, but as I cut triangles, this is the type of look I'm going for. Each "solid square" you see below will actually be comprised of two different print triangles, for a scrappy look. Definitely a project I'll be laying on the design wall before sewing! 

What about you? Have you ever sat down just to play? 

And then done a complete about-face? 

Linking up with W.I.P. Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced and hoping to get my charity blocks finished before next Tuesday! 

Look what came in the mail!

I had so much fun opening my mailbox to see this! 

My mom followed my tutorial, available here and also as a handy pdf on Pellon's site here, and sent me a valentine. Isn't that sweet?!

My boys also received a box from Grammy, filled with (lots of) bubble wrap and these:

I'd say all in all it's a happy house here today!