And one more...

...because honestly, seeing one of my quilts getting so much use makes me so happy.

I also have a baby shower coming up, so I'll probably be back sometime soon with a new project!

Quilts and Sewing Projects in Action

Life has been so full lately between trying to finish my PhD, get a job and figure out where we're going to move. I haven't been posting or commenting much, but I'm still reading, just a bit more quietly. My husband is also in the midst of a career change where he'll be going back to school this summer. In an effort to save money, we've been enjoying cooking new recipes and that's been eating up (pardon the pun!) most of my free time and brain-space.

BUT! Some of my projects have been getting some great use lately, which makes me really happy! My good friend, Whitney, had a baby around Thanksgiving and it gave me a great excuse to make some small projects. I made a quilt and some burp cloths, all of which are getting regular use which means I have to post some gratuitous adorable baby shots.

(Pictures are all from Whitney)







And here's one of the burp cloths I made using MAde by Rae's great tutorial


I get to take care of her sweet Maddy twice a week at my office, which also makes me ridiculously happy. Here's me with her and her having a great time with one of my co-workers.

Evolution of a Quilt

As I keep saying at the beginning of my posts, I really can't believe how busy life has gotten. This is the last year of my graduate program, so I'm working hard on my dissertation and applying for jobs since the academic market takes a whole year to go through the process.

But in more fun and exciting news, I'm still part of the Once Round the Country Round Robin and the quilts are evolving in really cool ways. This round, I got Zonnah's quilt. She made an incredible starting block and the additions have been really impressive. I debated about adding a calm mostly solid border, but decided that with only one more round to go, it would put Robin in a tough spot to finish it. Instead, I made a whole bunch of flying geese and echoed the inner borders. I used the speedy method on Quilter's Cache to make 4 flying geese at a time and it really was speedy. I think I made them all in just a couple hours. (www.quilterscache.com/H/Howtomakegeese.html)



Here's where it's journey:


And because all the quilts are so great, here's a recap of their evolutions so far...

My Quilt:


Anne's Quilt:


Robin's Quilt (I've got this one for the final round now):


Adrienne's Quilt (aka Organized Chaos):

Elephant on Parade

A while ago Kati (From the Blue Chair) posted some adorable elephant softies and I immediately bought the Heather Bailey pattern on etsy.

I have to say that the sewing was a bit fussy, but I'm in love with the finished product and it's the perfect little extra to go with the baby quilts I've been working on. I will definitely make some more. The only modification I made was to use ric-rac instead of fabric for the tail.

I mean seriously, how cute is this little guy?








As for size, he's a little bit smaller than a soda can...


or a little bit bigger than a Koosh, however you wanna think about it.

Draw String Maternity Skirts

A friend of mine, Whitney (who is a seriously talented knitter), is expecting this fall. In an effort to save money and have cute, professionally appropriate maternity clothes, we made some skirts this weekend and I have to say they turned out pretty darn cute. In total, we spent $20 on material for 3 skirts! She tells me they're super comfortable, too! The key seems to be the uneven waist (we cut room for the growing belly) and elastic in the drawstring so it has some give when she sits down.





Since we're planning to make some more, I thought I'd write out our tutorial here so we have it for later and maybe it'll help someone else (if the instructions don't make sense, let me know). First, we bought 1 yard of fabric which was enough for us since Whitney is fairly petite pre-pregnancy and not particularly tall. The orange skirt above was typical cotton 44" wide fabric and the other black and white one we made with a linen type fabric from Joann that was a little bit wider, so the skirt turned out longer. We also bought another yard of a muslin-type white fabric for lining. If you want to make a bigger, fuller or longer skirt, you will probably need 2 yards of each fabric.

To figure out how big to make the skirt, we measured Whitney right below her belly figuring this was the widest part we were going to go around. She measured 38" so we used these measurements to create a 38" waist at the top and a little more fullness towards the bottom (keeping in mind 1/2" seam allowances):


Then we cut out a matching piece of the lining fabric using the outer skirt piece as a pattern since the lining fabric may be shorter or longer.

After cutting, we sewed the sides of the lining and outer skirt pieces with 1/2" seams and then zig-zag to reduce the chance of fraying.

Next we put the lining and outer skirt together right sides together (one inside of the other) and folded it in half so the seams were touching. This is when we created space for the belly. We measured the height difference between the bottom of her belly in the front and where she wanted her skirt to sit in the back (about 3.5-4"), then cut that much fabric out of the FRONT half of the skirt only.



Once we cut the belly piece out, we sewed the lining to the outer skirt at the waist using a 1/4" seam. Then we flipped the skirt right side out and top stitched at the top of the skirt:



Then we put in two button holes (only through the outer skirt fabric!) for the draw string


Then we did a line of stitching to complete the draw string casing


And finished by hemming the bottom.

To make the draw string, we cut two pieces of fabric 2" wide and about 25" long. We folded each piece in half (the long way) right sides together and sewed along two of the open edges. We turned them right side out and pressed flat. Then sewed a 6-8" piece of elastic between the two drawstrings:


Thread the draw string through the skirt and you're done!



From start to finish, the first one took about 2 hours and the second one only an hour and a half. Not bad for a $6 skirt! :)

Double Rainbow

So that little block grew and grew this week...


And then came the complementary one using the strips in the opposite order





The tops are about 34.5" square which is a size I really like for baby quilts/play mats.

This is all that's left of the jelly roll... about 5 strips and some small scraps.



So now I just need to order some fabric for the backing and binding. What do you guys think of this fabric for the back? (Pictures from Hawthorne Threads)



And these for the binding? I would use the red on the one with the red in the middle and the blue for the other. I think it could be a nice way to pull it all together. Do you have any other ideas??

The start of something new...

There have been a few babies born recently who I meant to make a quilt for, but couldn't get around to it since I've been so busy. This weekend I pulled out the Nest jelly roll that I was lucky enough to win last year. It was begging to become a bright rainbow baby quilt...









Hopefully there will be more to share next weekend!