July Dinner Party

Have you seen Kate's blog Needle & Spatula?

I'm playing along with her again this month . . . 

so welcome to my kitchen!

 For this month's dinner party, I decided to highlight a few projects that I've made for our kitchen eating nook.  I made napkins and simple pillow covers several months ago, and just finished up this lattice quilted pillow cover this week.

 I'm so in love with this fabric -- it's Michael Miller's pod posey from a few years ago.
We painted the walls in the eating nook yellow, and blue in the main part of the kitchen.  It's really bright against the white cabinets!

 I made double sided napkins -- stitched wrong sides together, then turned inside out, and finished the edge with a zig zag stitch.  Simple!

Tallulah loves this warm, sunny spot.  

This yellow basket usually holds school projects and homework,

but in the summer months there is plenty of room for a cat!

Gone Camping

Daddy, Momma & little bunny
packed their sleeping bags and went camping.

I spent much of last week pattern testing for Florence of Flossie Teacakes.

I have been following her blog for at least the past year,

really enjoying so many of her projects.

Then this spring, I absolutely fell in love with the sleeping bags
that she made for her children's teddy bears.

The pattern comes with 3 sizes,

but is really customizable to whatever stuffed animal or doll you'd like.

  This is an extremely well written, easy to follow pattern, with lots of great photos.

  I was never frustrated with it, and I really enjoyed the process!

The back sides

Each sleeping bag is like a mini quilt -- top and bottom layers, quilted however you'd like.  On these DS Quilts bags, I did wavy line quilting.

On the sheep sleeping bags (below), I did free motion quilting.

Her pattern includes a very nice tutorial on single fold bias binding --

 I had never done this before, and was surprised at how easy it was to learn!

Each sleeping bag has a soft pillow for the bunny's head, and I finished the inside of the bag (after stuffing the pillow) with a decorative wavy stitch.

These little sleeping bags were such fun to put together.

You should have seen the smiles on my children's faces!

I will definitely be making more, for Christmas, birthday gifts, etc.

Pattern available here!

WIP Wed 7/20/2011

Happy Wednesday!

I had pieced and quilted this pillow top months ago, and finally decided it was time to finish it.  I sewed up the back this weekend (forgot to take a photo of the back, darn it!), and hand stitched the binding this week while the girls were watching a puppet show.

I love how the white ties in with our white cabinets, and it really brightens up the space.  The fabric is Michael Miller's pod posy line from a few years ago.  We decorated our entire kitchen based on this fabric -- browns, blues, & yellows.

Still working on the Kaleidoscope Quilt.

I had planned to finish it today, but these crazy cats invaded my sewing space and I decided it would be more fun to play with them instead. :-)

Miraculously, I've been keeping up with the Summer Sampler Quilt Along.

I really am having fun with this one.

Much more fun than with the Farmer's Wife (NO progress on this at all this week!).

  I'm using my stash of DS Quilts fabrics, with some coordinating Kona solids. 

Summer Sampler, Block 4

I had the most fun with these this week:

These bunnies are going camping with us next week . . . 

thanks to this new Sleeping Bag pattern written by Florence at flossieteacakes.blogspot.com!

I plan to have a complete post dedicated to this, coming soon (maybe tomorrow)!

Linking up to:

Sticks and Stones

I hardly ever name my quilts, but for some reason,
this quilt had a name before it was started.

One day, when the girls were doing this:

Color Me fabric from www.studioefabrics.com
& Crayola Fabric Markers (at Target)

I started drawing this:

I wanted to do something with solids, and lots of different types of quilting--

especially pebble quilting.

 (I'm still totally in love with pebble quilting--like I did here.)

Here is the quilt in process . . .

on my design wall . . .

or lack of design wall!

Painters tape worked pretty well.

Finished Quilt

the back

Close ups of the quilting

Sticks and Stones

Linking up to:

WIP Wed 7.12.2011

I finished up my warm/cool mini quilt this week,

part of Jeni's quilt along at In Color Order.

I love how vibrant the colors are, and they look just lovely in our garden!

So since I finished one quilt along, I figured, why not start another?

Plus, this first block looked so easy, I couldn't resist.

It's part of the Summer Sampler Quilt Along.

I looked at the instructions while eating breakfast monday morning,

and had it finished by the time the kids woke up!

It was a really fun way to start my week.

And I'm glad I'm finally using these DS quilts fabrics . . . I've been looking at them, wondering what to do with them, for too long!

Summer Sampler, Virginia Star

I'm still working on my Kaleidoscope blocks . . . slowly.

The one block that is completely pieced looks a bit lumpy in the middle.

I'm hoping that Elizabeth has some good tips on

joining the halves of the Kaleidoscope later this week!

AMH Loulouthi, with Kona solids

I spent way too much time this week thinking about blocks

for the 4 X 5 Modern Quilt Bee.

The first one I tried was a design I created--

it looked pretty good on paper, but was a disaster.

The next 2 are here -- any thoughts?

Linking up to:

Works in Progress, July 6, 2011

It's been a crazy week here.  Hot and crazy!

My husband was gone hiking for a week,

and right before he came home, our internet and phone went down.

So now I have a large black cable running through my backyard,

waiting to be buried (someday soon, I hope!).

But at least I have a working internet again!

I did get quite a bit of sewing done this way, though --

when you can't read blogs or create new posts, there is definitely more time to sew!

I'm so happy with this little quilt!

I followed Jeni's Warm/Cool Quilt Along and made the smallest size.

Not sure yet what I'm going to do with it, as it only measures about 20 x 20,

but it's so beautiful and really makes me happy!

Both of my girls have told me repeatedly how much they love it.

"It's the most beautiful quilt you've ever made, Mommy!  Can I have it?"

July blocks for do. Good Stitches
(tutorial by Film in the Fridge)

This week I did some catching up on the Farmer's Wife Quilt along.

It turns out that I am not good at keeping up a steady pace of 2 blocks per week.

I did 4 blocks right away, took a break, and just finished 4 more.

Oh, well, I'm not too far behind (yet)!

Starflower Block

I had been thinking about making one of these blocks ever since I started following Jennifer's blog, Ellison Lane Quilts.  She has a great tutorial for this block on her blog.  It's a great way to use up scraps, so I see more of these in my future.  I skipped trimming the HSTs, though - I wasn't in the mood for this tedious step!  So I just added a bit to the seam allowance (a generous 1/4 inch instead of a scant 1/4 inch), and it worked out just fine.  Whew!

Linking up to:

Kindergarten Art

My girl's kindergarten teacher had the kids work on the most interesting, creative, and beautiful projects this past school year.  When they were studying Eric Carle, they did this art project based on his book Papa Please Get the Moon for Me.

I was there volunteering the day they started this, so I got to help the kids paint the blue/white/blue stripes -- it was fun!

This was such a neat art project (definitely my favorite!), so I decided to make a wall hanging for their teacher's room.  Here's how it turned out:

I pieced the blue solid strips fairly randomly, and used a wavy line setting for the quilting.   Then I used machine applique to attach the ladder, girl, stars and moon.

Here are Lexi & Holly, holding up the finished quilt,

trying to look fancy with their pinkies held high in the air.  :-)