Another Birthday Gift: Matching Cards

Elena has one of those Memory games — you know the kind  –  matching pictures on cardboard cards.  She is enjoying learning how to play the game (although my goodness, it can be frustrating getting her to fully understand the rules!), and likes the pictures.

And Julia also loves the cards and the pictures.  Yay, right??!?  Problem is, Julia is still in the stage of putting everything in her mouth.  Well, everything that’s not food that is — silly girl just barely eats food but give her a non-food item and WHOOSH, into the mouth it goes!  EVERYTHING!  SO, Julia chews up the cardboard cards and there are several half-eaten ones strewn through-out the house.

So fabric to the rescue!

I had seen this tutorial back in December and I’ve been vaguely looking for a fabric to do it with since then.  And I decided on two — the Baby Geniuses panel and the Brown Bear panel!

The Baby Geniuses panel one is *almost* done, but my gosh, to get doubles it is 52 cards for the alphabet and 24 more for the numbers.  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll show it off when finished.

But I did rapidly finish the Brown Bear cards for a birthday gift this past weekend:

Unlike the tutorial, I did sew around all the edges.  I didn’t think it would last through the girls’  hard use (um, chewing) otherwise.  I did a tight satin stitch.  And My Goodness does it ever suck up the thread.  I went through 4 bobbins just for this project!

Luckily, I only needed one panel of the Brown Bear fabric and had enough for doubles of all the animals.  Unfortunately I neglected to take a picture of all the animals, but I do have 2 more panels just waiting for me to make more sets.  I didn’t use the wording on the panel because the blocks would have been 5.5″ that way.  Cutting inside the words gave me 4″ squares.  Perfect size!

I also made a drawstring bag, but did a simpler one than the one in the tutorial.  And I used a scrap from the edge of the panel for the drawstring!

I did this all in one day (took some time to do all the satin stitching so I won’t say ‘a couple hours’ because that would be a lie) and had a great gift for a 1-year-old little girl!  It was at least a winner in our house — Elena didn’t want to give it away!

And it’s chewable!

My 1st Signature Quilt

Sheesh!  I knew I’d be stopping posting every day but that was all of a sudden!  I was spending way too much time on the computer putting up new posts to get this blog started and going through the Online Quilt Show, so I had to take a little break to show my husband that I could live away from my computer screen.

And now that I’m back, I thought I’d show you the 1st signature quilt I made.  It seems I’ve gotten myself hooked on the concept!

This is Elena’s signature quilt, hanging where it lives above her bed.

I told my Mom when I was pregnant with Elena that I’d love a signature quilt for my little baby.  My mom graciously cut into her own stash, cutting out about 100 3.5″ squares.  She then ironed them all onto freezer paper to provide a good writing surface.  AND she ironed on little “frames” 0.25″ wide of freezer paper on the good side around each square so people would not write in the seam allowances.  (I don’t even want to think about how long that must have taken!)

And then we took the squares to my baby showers for everyone to join the signing fun!

I *knew* these were going to be at the baby shower, but I still freaked when it came my turn to write because I had NO idea what to write!  I mean the message would be there for her to see for (hopefully) ever!

This block is evidence of the 1st time I wrote “Mommy” on something from me to my children.  It felt SO strange to sign something, anything, with Mommy!  And you can totally tell that I didn’t feel comfortable with it because I had to write “your Mommy” instead of just “Mommy”!

I love that Elena always looks for my block.  I’d like to say it’s because it’s from me, but in truth it’s because she loves looking for the heart I drew on my block.

Also funny is that my parents signed as Grandma and Grandpa at the baby showers, however they are now called Grammy & Papa.

Here’s a picture where you can see the quilting better:

The quilting was exactly what I wanted, done by That Quilter.

The quilt wasn’t completed until Elena was well over a year old.  We had to wait for some of the blocks through the mail, and since there was no hard deadline, they were slow in coming.  And then of course was the debate on how to put the 3.5″ blocks together!

We finally decided to go simple & modern and just sashed them with 1.5″ finished strips, and thus had 6″ finished blocks and put it together for a 48″ x 54″ quilt.

3 generations helped piece this together: my Mom, me and Elena herself!:

Eek!  Look at those great chubby cheeks!  I forgot how much I miss them!  And skinnier me!  I know how much I miss that!

I just scanned in these photos — I guess Elena was around 4 or 5 months old in these pictures.

I also put this quilt in the Austin Area Quilt Guild show in September 2008 in a two-person category, but no prizes this time.  (I was robbed! hee!)  Elena was *very* upset at me taking the quilt off her wall and dropping it off at the show, but was thrilled to see it hanging with all the other “woogies” at the show:

I obviously didn’t enforce the no-touching rule for her own quilt!

After doing this, I totally wished I had thought of a signature quilt for when I got married.  That would have been so much cooler than the never-looked-at guest book!

Bluebonnets and my girls

A few weeks ago I took the girls out to a bluebonnet field for some pictures.  The sun was HARSH that day, but here are a few pictures for your enjoyment!  I’ll soon show some more pictures of them in non-sunny bluebonnets taken on another day, but even with shadows, some of these are adorable!  How could they not be with my girls?!

I love Julia’s attitude in this picture – I almost wish Elena wasn’t in this picture mucking up Julia’s look:

My husband was out helping me on this adventure, and decided to help me get the girls to smile in the bluebonnets.  So he became a monster…  And the girls DID smile as hoped, but they also became monsters!  Watch out, they’re going to get you!

Laughing (crying?) at Daddy:

Yay flowers!

What can I say, Julia was the star of this particular photoshoot:

Inspecting flowers:

(let me tell you, this posting every day thing is HARD!  Don’t expect it to last long!)

Sneak Peak

A friend’s husband is battling colon cancer right now.  Several others have offered meals or lawn service or whatnot.  Um, I’m a bad cook, and I don’t even like doing my own lawn!  After just finishing my sister’s quilt, and knowing how much it meant to her and to everybody who signed a hand, I knew exactly what to offer the friend: their very own hand quilt!

I only just received all the hands this week and they are sewn onto their squares, but I’m not much further.  My due date for finishing the quilt is his surgery date at the end of May, so in the meantime I thought the family & friends who signed hands needed a sneak preview of all the hands!  The friend can’t put the sneak preview on her own blog because it is still a secret to her husband, but she said she could definitely point everyone in this direction.

So, WELCOME to Jon & MC’s family & friends!  This quilt is blue and brown, and the exact same size as my sister’s down below if you want to get an idea of the finished product.

OH, and before the showing of the hands, I thought you all should know that dear MC, who bugged you all about getting them to me ASAP, was the last to hand in her hand!

Without further adieu, here’s your hands in no particular order (minus MC’s).  Click on each hand to get it to show large enough for you to hopefully read (and apologies if I messed up any names):

Online Quilt Festival

WooHoo!  I am participating in the Online Quilt Festival hosted by Park City Girl.

To my new visitors from the Quilt Festival, Welcome!  As you can see, I am a very new blog but am busy trying to start off with lots of posts, so I hope you come back to see more!  My entry for the Quilt Festival is the post right below!

To my other visitors, feel free to click through to the Online Quilt Festival — I am sure there are going to be tons of great quilts!

The Quilt I Put My Heart Into

On Christmas Eve Eve 2007, while I was at home taking care of my 9-day-old Julia, my little sister had a stroke.  Since my sister was only 30-years-old, it took a L O N G time to diagnose her.  Of course, I assume any time you are waiting for a diagnosis on a relative in distress, it seems like a long time.  It was Christmas Day they gave a final diagnosis and really started treating her.

To make a long story semi-short, 2 weeks in ICU and  2 more weeks in the hospital later, my sister was relatively back to normal.  She had 6 more months of meds and then was given a clean bill of health.  She doesn’t seem to have any outstanding  issues, except for some fear any time she has a headache.

I’d say the whole thing shook up my whole family – and definitely me.  The youngest of 7 is the one you’d least expect to end up in ICU.  And I felt quite helpless in another town with a newborn and being greatly discouraged from my daughter’s pediatrician and others from visiting my sister in the hospital.

It took a while for me to figure it out, but I finally decided what I needed to do for my sister, even though by then she was well into her recovery.  I needed to make her a quilt celebrating her life and to be given on the 1st anniversary of her stroke!

Soon I sent out pieces of fabric to several family members and asked them to make an outline of their hand on the fabric and write messages to my sister.   I enjoyed seeing them come in and reading the messages:

We decided not to give the quilt to her on her anniversary for logistical reasons, but instead on Christmas Day.  I couldn’t be there, but I understand that the minute she heard the whole family had a gift for her, she started crying.  (Would you believe nobody had a camera?!!!?  On Christmas?!?!  That was the only thing I expected — to see pictures of her opening it!)

When I did see her a couple days ago, she reenacted opening it, but since the tears weren’t flowing, one of my brothers started flicking water on her to create tears, so instead we have laughter:

I love my sister, and I hope she cuddles in her quilt often and feels the warmth of all of our love.

A few notes on the making:

*I originally saw some hands quilts like this in Quilter’s Newsletter, if my memory serves, but I can’t find the actual issue.  So definitely inspired by that but I figured out the measurements and the sashings on my own.

*The hands are all batiks.  I find that the tight weave serves well for writing.  And, of course, I love batiks!  I also had ironed the fabric squares to freezer paper before mailing to make it easier for the contributers to draw and sign.

*The fabric pen I love most is the Pentel Gel Roller for Fabric .  It creates a nice thick dark line and held up well in the wash when I tested it.  I found it at Hobby Lobby.

*Yes, those are dog prints in the bottom right corner!  I had my sister send me her dog’s prints without any explanation.  She bravely put some paint on her dog’s paws and stamped them on some paper and mailed them to me.  Her dog’s quote?  “Woof! Woof!”

*And here’s the back, made from scraps, including some I bought for possible use on the front but didn’t work:

The Quilt of Which I’m Most Proud: Cosmic Spiral

I think it’s about time I show off a quilt on this blog of mine, especially considering my quilting is what got me really interested in writing a blog!

This is the quilt that makes me beam with pride:

I started this 27″ square quilt in a workshop with Barbara Olson at my local quilt guild so many years ago. I really don’t even know how many years ago. I keep meaning to e-mail the guild historian so she can give me an idea.

I didn’t get very far in the workshop because I was determined I didn’t have the exact right fabric I wanted for a spot in the yellow section — um, right where you start sewing!

My Mom also took the workshop, and she and I would periodically meet and spend F O R E V E R choosing each individual fabric, raiding each other’s stashes. And we would often find ourselves going backwards, “reverse sewing,” to take something out because we had found a new little snippet. Piecing was definitely the difficult part, but it was also the most fun! I loved the collaboration with my Mom.

Here’s a couple zingers I particularly like and enjoyed planning — the different color beams radiating from the center:

And even after the spiral was pieced, it sat F O R E V E R again for me to put on the borders – I “fussy cut” those batik star triangles out of a huge piece of fabric (the holes are quite terrifying!) – and then it sat F O R E V E R for me to get brave enough to quilt it.

The only thing that made me get off my butt and finish it was that I wanted to enter it into the Austin Area Quilt Guild Quilt Show in September 2008. With some encouragement and quilting design advice from my Mom, I finally set quilting needle to fabric and quilted a bunch of spirals in it (view from the back):

She actually calls this design more of her ‘knotty wood’ pattern, and it really is that but it also looks quite cosmic!  I put invisible thread on top and a beautiful variegated thread on bottom.

I finished the binding the night before entries were due, and then anxiously awaited the outcome of judging.

And LOOK! Honorable Mention!

SO proud! My only negative comment by the judge was that she thought I should quilt the black & white areas some more. They do stick out as not-quilted (I stitched in the ditch of the seams), but I can’t really imagine filling it up, so I’m satisfied with the comment.

I even like my label a LOT, printed for me by That Quilter (my name deleted).:

 OH, and you can see how I got around the not-knowing-when-I-started by just putting a ‘finished in’ date!

Anyway, this quilt has so much work in it as well as so many memories of quilting with my Mom. It also has batiks! I LOVE batiks and have 3 shelves FULL of them, but generally I am too scared to use them up and so they sit on the shelves. This quilt is a reminder to me to actually USE the fabric I love because I will no doubt love the results even more than a cluttered sewing room!

Traveling Car PlayMat

I’d been eyeing this Michael Miller playmat with a tutorial by jcaroline for some time, and then had also happened across this tutorial of a felt traveling race track book in some of my blog-searching, and decided to combine the two!  The original playmat was way too big for my purposes, but the fabric was too cute not to use.

I had bought 1.25 yds of the fabric a little while ago from my local quilt shop, but push came to shove when I knew I would be attending the birthday party of a car-loving 4-year-old boy.

And so I created my own!

You might not notice at first, but it has velcro on the corners so it can be folded up, and of course handles to carry.  And look, pockets to carry 3 cars!

The pockets also have velcro so the cars won’t fall out when little kids are toting it about.  And even more velcro on the top of this so it can be folded again, and then Look!  A nice personalized totable car playmat:

Here’s just a couple notes on the making of it:

*This is not the full 1.25 yds!  I cut the piece into quarters so I have enough to make 3 more – one for my daughters to share (don’t really know what I’ll personalize it with since it will be shared), one for another boy celebrating a birthday in October, and one to keep for a future present.    I thought this was a good size to get a good roadway for each playmat. But, um, I don’t remember the exact measurements. (I’ll look it up if you want to know.)

*I personalized it before creating the quilt sandwich so I could stitch the letters down without it showing through to the front.  My letters weren’t nearly as neat as on the prior post’s pillow because I simply freehanded them.

*The pockets however were added after I quilted the playmat because otherwise the quilting would have closed the pockets.  That stitching does show through to the front, but I don’t think it’s too distracting.

*I made it with the “birthing” method so I wouldn’t have to bind it.

If you want further directions, let me know and I’ll detail it out some more.

I understand the recipient loves his very own roadway.  Can’t you just see some kids zooming their cars along?

ZZZZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!

Robot Baby Shower Gifts!

I went to a baby shower recently and decided that it is definitely a lot of fun when the parents have chosen a theme for the nursery!

The theme for this particular nursery was Robots, and luckily I think David Walker’s Robots line that recently came out is just adorable.

First, I made this pillow:

I had bought a pillow form and just made up the front to fit.  For the nice neat letters, I printed out the name in a really large font on the computer – in outline so I wouldn’t waste ALL my ink – and used those as my templates.  I used Lite Steam a Seam to put them on and then satin-stitched around the letters.  I quilted the top of the pillow but not the back.  Look at the cute back!:

I had never made a pillow with a pocket back before and Oh My Gosh what was I ever scared of???  It was actually a ton easier than handsewing a regular pillow closed at the end, and of course there’s the bonus that it’s easily washable.  I did have to do some seamripping though as I had trouble thinking through what order to sew the back pieces on in order to get the top piece, well, on top.

I also made a crib sheet for the first time:

Now, if I had realized how easy this was too I would have made some for my girls before.  But, now that Julia won’t be in the crib for too much longer it doesn’t seem worth it.  I used this tutorial for the sewing dimensions.  The only thing that really annoyed me was that it called for 45″ width fabric and you cut out 8″ squares from the corners.  Since fabric is RARELY a full 45″, I wasn’t sure whether to cut out the full 8″ or to make that cut smaller to account for the smaller width.  I went ahead and cut out the full 8″ squares and it seemed to work fine.

Finally, I made this onesie for the baby and this shirt for the baby’s big sister:

The big sister is my daughter’s best friend in the whole world so I couldn’t leave her out, and what’s better than something to match her baby brother?  Elena was totally jealous of the shirt and wants one of her own!  I think I have maybe one more robot I can fussy-cut out to make her a t-shirt as well.  (I actually have about a fat quarter left, but it is full of holes since I fussy-cut the letters on the pillow and the robots for the shirt and there is amazingly only like 1 full robot left – kind of annoying!)

All in all, I was very proud of my gifts and probably bragged too much about them at the party!

Happy Easter!

There were all sorts of warnings about awful weather for Easter Sunday, but luckily the severity of the storms were greatly exagerrated. By the time we got out of Church, the sun was shining and it was just a beautiful Easter Sunday.

So Happy Easter from my girls with their Easter hats and everything!

 

Elena has a new way of smiling for the camera, *if* she smiles for the camera that is.  Tucks her chin in and looks up at you with a little grin.  Quite flirtatious.

 Meanwhile, Julia doesn’t have quite the belly button obsession that Elena has, BUT she will hold her finger on any buttons she does find.  I usually pick her up from her crib in the morning and her finger is Firmly planted on one of her pajama snaps and will remain there for over an hour.  Here, the bunny’s eye is enjoying some similar attention.

 

Elena would like you to take special note of her new Ariel brush.  The Easter bunny brought it to her “because he knew I loved Ariel!  Do you want an Ariel brush???”  She ate with her brush, took a bath with her brush, of course brushed her hair with it, and slept with it.  She has asked to bring it along for our errands today as well.  She thinks she is the luckiest girl in the world, and assumes everyone is jealous of her and her beautiful Ariel brush. 

I’m sure you noticed that they are carrying bunnies around in their arms!  I made them!

The material came from an old pink chenille robe that I used back in college, especially for the communal dorm bathroom.  It is – never was – that comfy, so I was happy to retire it many years ago.  But it didn’t seem right to throw away perfectly good fabric, so it sat waiting for inspiration.

 And finally it hit that it would make some adorable bunnies!  I used McCall’s 6907 and added some trim to make hearts and to put  each girl’s initial on a bunny ear.  The girls seem to love their bunnies, at least for today!

I have just some small bits and pieces of the robe left.  I need to decide now whether to finally toss it or make up some other small things.  (I should just toss, but that is so hard to do!)