Definitely not a quilt!

Here I’ve got the fabric all lined up for my next project, and it’s definitely *not* a quilt. I have sparkly satin, lining, glitter organza and some super-fancy brocade.

And I have some gray suede (wish it was a bit lighter) and some pink glitter I-don’t-remember-what-kind-of-fabric.  It’s not satin — it is very stretchy.  It’s name had something to do with fairy sparkles.

Still need to buy some trim, but *whew*, this fabric alone will keep me busy for a while!

AND, you probably can figure out these bunches are for Halloween costumes. (you would be right). But what you probably don’t realize is that I have a *tight* deadline to finish this. Instead of October 31st, I need these done by October 10th. There is a fantastic photo party planned for that date, and I will not miss it!

I’ll show you last year’s photo party pictures once it actually hits October. *love*

Simona’s Flower Garden

Several years ago, I really thought I was going to make a watercolor quilt.  Really!  I have some great books and I truly admired them!  I was so convinced that I had cut up some flower fabrics into 2.5″ squares, and also bought a watercolor pack.  Lo and behold, I finally accepted reality and went about figuring out what to do with all those little squares.

As you can see, I decided nine-patches were the way to go.  And let me tell you, piecing nine-patches with individual squares instead of strip-piecing them is T-E-D-I-O-U-S.

I went into it without much of a plan.  Figured I’d make a quilt for my mother-in-law’s coming birthday, and that the random floral fabric would work for her.  I put them with black because I LOVE the way colors pop on black.  Unfortunately,  I didn’t know the dimensions since I just grabbed the stacks of floral squares and black fabric on hand.  Apparently, my black fabrics were from different sources and their differences can be seen up close.  Boo!

I had my mom quilt this one for me.  She smartly chose the purple thread, which provides an extra bit of life to the quilt — love it!

In addition, my mom graciously gave me a large piece of floral fabric for the back of the quilt.  To be honest, neither of us was crazy about the fabric, so it wasn’t much of a sacrifice BUT my mother-in-law would know nothing different!  eep!

The pillow is admittedly very sad.  It was the first pillow I’ve ever? made, and I didn’t quilt it and didn’t make a pocket back or anything.  It is actually just stuffed instead of using a pillow form.  This was only done a year ago, but I have come *way* far in my pillow-making skills!

I finished the quilt just in time for my mother-in-law’s birthday last October, and she did love it.  She did do that thing that bugs me to no end though:  she opened it to the back first and thought I just gave her a quilt made out of one piece of ugly floral fabric . . . and she *loved* it.  Hello!  All the work is on the other side!

She also loved the front when she finally found it. 

Finished in October 2008, sized 66″x72″.

Two Pansy/Primrose Tops

Ahhh, quilting at last!  Won’t bore you with details, but SO happy my sewing room is clean again and the machine is humming!

I *finally* decided what I was going to do with all my flower blocks, first blogged about here.  Thanks for all the advice – it really did help!  Anyway, I decided to make 2 quilts!

I actually had decided on just making one large diagonal quilt (Option C), but the longer I looked at it the less I liked it, and I actually started disliking the whole quilt.  And there it continued to hang on my design wall with me beginning to hate the darn thing and avoiding finishing it for some time.  I finally went back to the first post’s comments and realized that I, too, preferred just 3 blocks along the top.  (thanks Taffy!)

So off went 6 rejects, and together went the quilt!  The main quilt is the one just folded on the hanger and I’m again happy with it.  (By the way, that’s a great storage idea I got from my Mom.  I store quilt tops on hangers with their backs and bindings also on the same hanger – they stay nice and wrinkle free and of course easy-to-find for when I’m ready to quilt.  The piece of paper on the bottom corner has the quilt’s size written so I can then also easily grab a batting without remeasuring.)

I’m going to wait to reveal the big quilt in full though until it comes back from my favorite long-armer, my Mom.  Don’t expect it soon though!  She is hitting her busy Christmas season, so I’m not going to bother her with my I-have-no-plans-for-it little quilt and don’t plan on even giving it to her until after Christmas!   BUT, you can feel free to contact her for your long-arming needs, and Mom – you can start thinking about the quilting this quilt needs!  Hee! 

Then I’ll probably just meander the crib-sized quilt.  I don’t really know what else to do.  You’ll probably notice it has 8 blocks instead of the 6 rejects mentioned.  I added 2 to make the crib quilt more complete, but just used leftover triangles, etc., to finish it off. 

One of the best things about these quilts:  I only bought the little pinkish-purplish inner border and backing, and I got that from a quilt shop’s clearance section!  EVERYTHING else is from either my stash or given-to-me stash.  Woohoo! 

4

At 3:42 a.m. on August 24th, my dear Elena turned 4 years old:

 

(Yes, I take a picture of both girls each year at their birth moment.  This is the 1st year Elena slept through my picture-taking ordeal.)

Will her birthdays ever stop being so bittersweet?  Or so shocking?  How is my little baby 4 years old?  Yet at the same time, I feel like she’s been here all my life.

This year for Elena has been great.  Soon after her last birthday, she started Mother’s Day Out.  I was **so** nervous and warned the teachers of her shyness.  And that she’d never been without me.  I think the teachers thought I was crazy!  Elena loved “school” and suddenly broke out of her shell, and now will lead her friends around instead of just following them.  She still has moments of shyness, but will join in on the fun much faster these days.

Elena tells great stories.  Most of them of course involve princesses.

Elena still has a great affection for her bellybutton.  For those uninformed, where some kids have a special lovey or suck their thumb, Elena twiddles her bellybutton.  It is her comfort.  Her happy spot.  Just yesterday she pretended to go to work:

Me: Where do you work Elena?

Elena: I work to make bellybuttons happy!

Me:  Oh?

Elena: Yes!  See!  I do the bellybutton dance and then everyone feels better!  (as she lifted up her dress, put her finger in her bellybutton, and danced around.)

She is a lefty!  I am so befuddled at this development since NOBODY in our families is a lefty.  She tried to be a righty for quite some time I think in that she’d try to mimic us exactly, but her left hand seems to be winning out.  Anyone with tips?  How to make life as a lefty easy?  Do I need to tell her teachers so they don’t accidently give her crayons in her right hand and confuse her more? I’m all ears!

She is TALL!  Yet another surprise!  She is off-the-charts for height for the 2nd year in a row, so I guess it’s not a fluke?

She LOVES her sister.  LOVES.  Whenever we walk in the door she happily takes off Julia’s shoes.  It is hilarious — Julia now immediately lays down on the ground and puts her feet up in the air patiently waiting for Elena to help a girl out! 

And she happily is the 1st to greet Julia whenever Julia awakes.  I am pretty sure she has pretended to hear Julia on more than one occasion…

She gives the BEST hugs and kisses.

She is our special little girl, who in one instant talks about how big she is, and in the next asks for reassurances that she will always be our baby.  Yes Elena, you will always be our baby.

Coming Back!

Sheesh — unexpected blog break! I really don’t know how people post every day!

I hadn’t been sewing *at all* the last couple weeks because my sewing room was overtaken by clutter when I cleaned the rest of the house for Elena’s 4th birthday party — 2 weeks ago!

Things are back on track so I should have pictures of the now 4-year-old Elena up later today, and should have some quilty content tomorrow. See you soon!