Pillow Party

This is the last month of the blogger's pillow party,

and I almost missed the deadline!

I finished up this string quilt pillow for Holly's bed this week.

The fabrics are from Amy Butler's Ginger Bliss fabric line, and coordinate with the quilt on her bed and also my Sliced Coins Quilt that I made earlier this year.

This pillow is reversible!

Made from leftover scraps (inspired by a similar tree pillow here),

I did FMQ in the purple background, then

finished it with an invisible zipper.  

I think I love both sides equally!

Cozy bedtime reading spot in Holly's room

This is Holly's explanation of the Pillow Party --

 she brought this home from kindergarten one day!

Translation: 

"My mom is working on a pillow contest.  Maybe you do not know what a pillow contest is, well a pillow contest is when moms get together and have a pillow party."

Sounds like fun, huh?

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Works in Progress Wednesday

Not too much in progress this week . . .

I still feel like I need a vacation after last week -- I worked more than usual, and spent way too much time sewing Easter dresses (times two).  By Saturday night I was feeling a little sick of sewing -- how very unusual for me.

Anyway, this week is all about getting ready to QUILT!

I'm close to finishing the backing for my Supernova quilt, it just needs Kona snow sashing around the outside, then it will be ready to baste.

I have Lexi's tree quilt all ready to quilt, too.  This morning as I was sewing the last pieces together, she said, "Mommy, do you think you could add some rocket ships to my quilt?"  Seriously?!  (sigh)
I plan to do free motion stippling in the red areas, pebble quilting for the green parts of the trees, wavy lines in the blue sky parts, etc . . . . 

I'm looking forward to the quilting.
I just wish someone would come over and baste it for me.  

More trees here, too.  This is an experiment for the Pretty Little Pouch swap.  I'm not sure if it's colorful enough -- my partner seems to like brighter colors.  I'll probably finish it up tomorrow, and then decide if I want to make something a littler brighter for the swap.

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Easter Dresses

I seem to have made a tradition of making Easter dresses for the girls . . .
including the part about finishing the dresses at around 10pm the night before Easter!

This year I tried the Music Box Jumper dress pattern by Oliver + S.  A little scary, since I had never tried button holes, and I didn't get the pieces cut until Thursday night.  But it was a great pattern, buttonholes weren't that hard, and the girls LOVED helping me make fabric covered buttons for their dresses.

I'm super proud of the backs,
my first attempt at button holes,
and fabric covered buttons!

Our Family
Easter Sunday, 2011

Last year, I made ruffled skirts with matching appliqued shirts.  I thought they were adorable, but the girls started in on a "we only wear dresses" phase of dressing, and they hardly wore these again.  I just made up my own pattern for the skirts, and loved the way they turned out!

2010, age 4

The year 2009 was my first year of attempted "sewing" - other than quilting.
I was pretty happy with how these dresses turned out, but then Holly threw up all over herself during our Easter brunch (very unusual - can you imagine how crushed I was?!).  So there are very few pictures of the girls in these matching dresses!

2009, age 3

Linking up here:

Happy Easter!



Tutorial for the bunny bunting can be found here



Easter eggs we made last year

Our Easter Tree
(we also made felt carrots this year,
but the bunnies have "eaten" them all,
and I can no longer find them!)

Happy Easter Wishes!

Happy Earth Day

(Translation:  Take Vitamins, Go to the Doctor,
Be Kind, Pick up Litter, Do Not Smoke)

Aren't 5 year olds cute?

Hope you have a great day!

Head to Caribou Coffee on Earth Day for a free coffee if you bring your own mug!

Works in Progress Wednesday

This was a good week for finishing projects.
I finished up birthday gifts for twins Ella and Zoe, which we delivered on Saturday.

Ruby Lou doll pattern is from Sew Much Ado

These rainbow doll quilts were my own creation,
but were inspired by this quilt on flickr.

Cute little pouch to hold the dolls' extra hair bows and skirts.

I also finished up my Supernova Quilt Along quilt top.  I ended up making 3 additional blocks, since I had quite a bit of fabric left over.  I love how it turned out!  Now I just have to decide how to quilt it.  Any ideas?

My Sis Boom Jamie sew along dress is done, too.  I don't have great pictures of me wearing it . . . and actually I think it looks better on the hanger.  My husband thought that the dress looked "very professional, like you bought it at a department store," but also said that it "isn't the most flattering style on you."  Hmmm.  The pattern was really easy and fun, though, so I will likely make a few changes in the sizing, shaping, and skirt fullness, and make another one sometime this summer.  No need for sleeveless dresses quite yet, with snow flying in parts of our state today!

Still working on trees, too.

I made 2 more blocks, and added some borders to the larger tree.

I'm not sure which direction this is headed . . .

but I plan to work on it more next week.

My little artists have been busy, too.

 A suggestion from Holly, "make a quilt like this, Mommy!"

I'm not quite sure how she made this picture on our computer,

but it looks like she's destined to be a modern quilter, doesn't it?!

 A new family picture from Lexi.

I love how she draws our family, especially the cats and Brian's hair!

 Linking up to:

How exciting!

More about these quilts on this post.

Twin gifts

Our friends Ella and Zoe are turning 5 next week, and their Rainbow Birthday Party is today!  We met in an Early Childhood/Family Education class when they were 2 and my girls were 3.  Their mom is just about the sweetest person in the world, and it has been such fun to compare notes on being a mom of twin girls.

So I knew I wanted to make something really special for their birthday.
Here is what I came up with!

"Ruby Lou" doll pattern can be found at Sew Much Ado

Twin Rainbow Quilts
My own creation, but was inspired by this quilt I found on flickr.

Close up of the pebble quilting.
Fun to do, and I LOVE how it turned out!

Soft minky dots for the backing.

One skirt just wouldn't be enough, would it?
A girl needs a change of clothing!

These little dolls were a really fun project, and I had lots of help along the way from my twins, complete with planning how they wanted their dolls to look -- I promised to make them each one after these gifts were finished!  It turns out that 5 year old fingers are perfect for stuffing those narrow arms and legs.  And it was really fun to see the amazed look on their faces after I sewed the heads together and then turned them inside out - it was like the dolls came alive!  The only thing that I would change about the pattern is to embroider the faces first -- this seemed much easier, rather than waiting until the end and having to bury the embroidery knots up in the hairline somewhere.  I also lined the face and the body with interfacing prior to doing the embroidery.  And the faces/arms/legs are just a neutral Kona cotton, not muslin as the pattern suggests.

Works in Progress Wednesday

Does anyone feel like there are not enough hours in the day?!  Especially between the kids' bedtime and my bedtime -- I wish I was one of those people who only needed 5 hours of sleep.  I could get some serious sewing done in those extra 3 hours.

But anyway, I have made some progress this week.  I have 6 of 9 blocks done for the Supernova Quilt Along at Freshly Pieced.  And I love, love, love these blocks so far.  I have lots of fabric left, too (I started with a fat eighth bundle), so it's tempting to make the quilt larger than just 9 blocks.  Am I crazy?  (my husband would say yes!)

I'm starting to think about the Pretty Little Pouch Swap -- I'd like to do something with linen, maybe with hand quilting or embroidery, too.  I made this little button tree, to try out an idea for the "final" pouch.  I saw something like this on a pouch on flickr, and loved it.  Holly helped me arrange all the buttons, which she loved.  Not sure if I'll actually do button trees on the pouch for the swap, though -- maybe embroider or quilt trees instead?!  We'll see!  I'm going to make a couple of pouches for gifts for the girls' Sunday School teachers, too, as an end of year thank-you.  This was a fun project to work on with a little helper.

I'm also working on the Sis Boom Dress Sew Along.  After seeing how cute Sara looked in this dress, I couldn't resist joining in on this sew along, too.  Not that I need a sleeveless dress, in April, in Minnesota!  Usually for Easter we end up wearing long sleeved sweaters! But so far the pattern has been very easy to follow, and Sara wrote that she finished her dress in a little over 3 hours.  So finishing it up is tomorrow night's project!

Progress so far (as my kids would say, "easy peasy lemon squeezy!")

If all goes well with the olive/pink dots, in terms of how the dress fits, I'll probably turn that one into a tunic (like Kim did, here), and then make the dress (again) out of the pink Amy Butler fabric, above.

Still working on hand quilting this one.
It's slow going, but I love it.

A new project I started this week,
an idea I had for a quilt for Lexi's bed.
She's still sleeping under her Christmas quilt!

And finally, I'm nearly finished with birthday gifts for twins Ella and Zoe, who are turning 5 on Saturday.  My little artists and I have had lots of fun working on these gifts together. I'll share pictures on Saturday, after their party!

Linking up to Freshly Pieced: