Amy Butler's Reversible Shopper

Joining in on Bree's Style Stitches Sew Along:

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Here is project 2,
the Reversible Shopper:

Front with pocket

Close up view of lining

I used Kokka Vesper Scooters and Micheal Miller circles for the outside fabric, and Tres Chic by Indygo Junction for the lining.  What a fun project!  This bag is HUGE -- if anyone is planning on making one you may want to look at the finished dimensions first, and think about downsizing a bit!

Works in Progress

 Linking up to:

Project #1: Rainbow Pennants Blocks
After I organized all of my scraps for Stitched in Color's Bottled Rainbows Quilt-Along, I had this idea for making pennant blocks out of the different colors.  I love how the red block looks, but am not so sure about the others.  But I think it will be a happy, colorful quilt (someday) for Lexi's room.  She LOVES rainbows -- the other day she said "Mommy, I just love rainbows.  I draw at least one every day."

Project #2:  Continued indecision about how to quilt my Double Hourglass Quilt.  So I made up this littler version, and am trying out hand quilting in circles.  Not sure that I would actually want to hand quilt the larger one, but at least the circles help me visualize how it might look.

Project #3:  Get Tallulah cat off this quilt long enough to complete the layout and piece the rows.  I'm following this tutorial at Moda Bake Shop, using charm packs of Wee Woodlands by Moda.  This has been a fun and easy project!

Holly's Pillows: one done, one to go!  I'll probably do a separate post on this when both pillows are done.  On the first one, I did a string quilt for one side and a purple tree on the other, and closed it up with an invisible zipper.  This way, she can decide which side she likes better or change it every day!

Projects on shelf and in closet, waiting to be finished (or started): too many to count!

Workshop in Progress

Linking up to Naptime Quilters Workshop in Progress,

as I'm in need of some advice!

First, an update . . .  

Still thinking about how to quilt this one:

I really love it, and don't want to screw it up! 

Most of the double hourglass quilts that I've seen on other blogs or flickr are

free motion quilted in an all over stippling pattern or straight line quilted.

Maybe I'm just procrastinating . . . 

I've been staring at this pile of scraps for awhile,

wishing that it would transform itself into backing for the quilt.

THEN I could start quilting it!

In the meantime, I made this little quilt, and am hand quilting it

(my stitches are probably way too small, but I'm pretty new at this!),

so I can see if I like the look of circles on top of the squares.

What do you think?  

 

And I've finally cut into my Heather Ross goldfish in bags, but can't decide which combo to go with -- all Amy Butler dots, or a more scrappy look.

Any thoughts?

Option #1

Option #2

Weekend Projects

Here is our art clothesline, after a fun weekend at home.  While the girls painted rainbows and decorated our chalk door for Easter (they're a little early for this, I know), I worked on quilt blocks.  I was so excited about the Bottled Rainbows Quilt-Along (at Stitched in Color), that I couldn't wait to get started.

I dug these out today - my grandma's old canning jars - aren't they beautiful?!
This is such a great way to store scraps of fabric - an amazing idea from Rachel at Stitched in Color!

I've never made a ticker tape style quilt, but have seen lots on other blogs.  I'm not sure I love it - but I have SO many green scraps that maybe I'll make another one.  I changed the dimensions from the quilt-along a bit - I thought I might like squares better than rectangles.

I love how the pennant/bunting block turned out.  I have made pennant quilts and zippered pouches in the past, but this time I wanted to make a pieced version, so that it would hold up better in the wash (no free edges).  It was an experiment, based on this block I made for Quilt Story's Block Party last month.

 It needed some tweaking, as I wanted the pennant tops to look more curved, not all lined up in a row.  I think I made it work!

Close up view of the pennants

I'm planning to follow Stitched in Color's quilt along for the ticker tape version,
AND do the pennant blocks, too.

Linking up to:

Evolution of a Bird

My little artists and I had a couple of great days together this week. They were out of school for President's Day and then teacher conferences, so we got to stay home and play -- just like we used to, before Kindergarten!

So today I decided that we should try to make birds.  Holly and Lexi's artwork has been all about Spring and Easter recently -- eggs, bunnies, flowers, trees, birds, etc.  We're all ready for spring.  I've been reading the "Spring" section of Scandinavian Stitches, and decided to try out the bird and nest pattern.  I love all of the creative ideas in this book!  The nest is cute and was relatively easy, but the birds were tricky.

I let the girls pick out material from my fabric stash this morning, and we went to work. The first bird looked terrible. There was no way to save him. So we started over. The second two birds weren't too bad, and the girls had fun picking out buttons for their eyes. Lexi pulled the legs off of hers accidentally, after it had been stuffed and finished.  We decided that her bird would be best suited for sitting on eggs, and Holly's bird would be in charge of bringing back worms.

I made a 4th bird after bedtime. And I realized that next time, things will go more smoothly if I try out the project first, without the company of little artists!

4th (& last) bird
I'll stick to quilting from now on!

Linking up to:

Sliced Coins Quilt Along Quilt

I finished up the sliced coins quilt yesterday -- a snowy day (hopefully the last blizzard of the season) was perfect for quilting!  I free motion quilted this on my new machine, and it was surprisingly easy.  I used a cotton sheet for the back, which makes it super soft and cuddly.  This quilt measures 62 X 78.

Linking up to:


Quilt along found here:

Works in Progress

This week I've managed to start LOTS of new things but have yet to finish any of them.  I blame it on my new sewing machine, a JUKI TL-98Q, "the Juki" as my husband calls it.  It is an absolute dream to sew on.  I've been using an Elna 3007 for about 12 years, and while it's perfectly fine for basic sewing, for quilting it just wasn't working!  Over the weekend I set up the new sewing machine and did lots of free motion quilting.  It is so much easier than I thought it was -- I'm amazed at the difference with a different machine.

I made these pillows for Holly's bed last year, but always felt that they were missing something.  So I took them apart, free motion quilted the background, and now I love them!  I'm thinking about doing a string quilt for the back of this pillow (then finishing with an invisible zipper) -- and started this yesterday:

Batting squares instead of paper piecing, for a quilt as you go method.

I can hardly wait to get started quilting my Sliced Coins Quilt Along quilt on the new machine, but I haven't decided yet if I want to try wavy line quilting or just do an all over meander.

I also made up a couple of "practice quilts," to try out different methods of quilting for my larger Easy Double Hourglass Quilt.  I'm not sure that I LOVE either type of quilting, so I'm still thinking.

And finally, if Tallulah would find a different place to nap, I could start working on this project!

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