twin fibers

Brrr! baby quilt

2012-01-27T14:59:00.000-05:00

Well, things are starting to look up here at the end of this week. I finished up stitching the binding this morning, my little one is feeling better and the sun finally came out of hiding this afternoon!

This stripe quilt is super simple in its design and I think the addition of the rick rack just makes it a little more special. It sure shows off the Brrr! fabrics and those cute little polar bears!
I've seen some other fun quilts around here, here & here, if you need some more stripe quilt inspiration.

The backing is mostly a red flannel that's been hanging around for awhile. I had to add a stripe of fabric in there to make it wide enough for basting and quilting.

I'm happy to have this one finished up as my first quilt of 2012!
Thanks for visiting with me!
~Jessica

quilt stats:
size: 42" x 46"
pattern: fabric dimensions and amounts are in this post, I'm sure at one time I saw this quilt and that's probably why I thought of adding in the white stripe between the prints.
fabrics: Brrr! by Laurie Wisbrun
Warm and White batting
pieced, quilted and bound by Jessica

Happenings this week...

2012-01-27T06:37:00.000-05:00

I quilted and am working on the binding on this one. I hope to be able to finish it up today. I backed it with a super soft flannel. That just seemed appropriate with the polar bears on the front.

And I start a new knitting project. It's called a "heartwarmer"... sort of like a buttoned on shawl for a baby or toddler. I really enjoyed making it. There were some new terms I had to figure out and it gave me something to do while taking care of a little one with the flu. That sure does seem to be going around our area the past few weeks.
I'll be back soon with my first quilt finish of 2012!
~Jessica

Simply Charmed Blog Hop!

2012-01-26T13:51:00.000-05:00

Are you ready for some Valentine projects? This week I've made up a super cute project and tutorial to share with you during my stop on the hop!
I've seen some pictures of the projects and they are amazing... you'll want to check this blog hop out!

Here's some more information about the great prizes and stops along the way...

The Simply Charmed title came about because each of us created our project using 1 Charm Pack and added yardage if necessary but only for backing, lining etc. The bulk of each project is made using just the 1 Charm Pack of Always and Forever by Deb Strain. And trust me, you are going to be amazed with what you can create using a single charm pack!!!

And what fun would a Blog Hop be without Giveaways???

Thanks to the generosity of our amazing sponsors, there will be a giveaway along with each of the 10 tutorials. So when the time comes, make sure to enter at each of the contributors tutorial post for your chance to win some major fabric cash.

Fat Quarter Shop has graciously sponsored the fabric used in making the tutorials.

They will also be sponsoring the Grand Prize of a $200.00 Gift Certificate to 1 lucky reader.

Burgundy Buttons has graciously sponsored three $25.00 Gift Certificates for 3 lucky readers.

The Intrepid Thread has graciously sponsored three $25.00 Gift Certificates for 3 lucky readers.

The Green Fairy has graciously sponsored three $25.00 Gift Certificates for 3 lucky readers.

A huge thank you goes out to each of our sponsors!!! They are a huge part of making this Blog Hop. So pop on over to their shops (their icon's are links) and find the special Charm Pack or 2 for you. (And whatever else might tickle your fancy :)

And last but not least, we would love it if you joined the Simply Charmed Blog Hop Flickr Group. This will be a place to show us your amazing projects made using the Simply Charmed tutorials!!! We can't wait to see your own personal take on these special gifts :)

So are you ready to hop along with us??? Are you excited for February 1st?????

Let's see how far we can spread the homemade love this Valentines Day!!!! .

Here's all the wonderful people involved in the hop:

February 1 - Melissa from Happy Quilting

February 2 - Heather from Quilt Story

February 3 - Melissa from Lilac Lane

February 6 - Angela from Cut to Pieces

February 7 - Amy from Diary of a Quilter

February 8 - Natalia from Piece N Quilt

February 9 - Jessica from Twin Fibers

February 10 - Katie from Swim, Bike, Quilt

February 11 - Jane from Want It, Need It, Quilt

February 13 - Corey from Little Miss Shabby

February 14 - Happy Valentines Day and the Grand Prize Winner Announcement!!!!

I hope you enjoy the hop... there sure are some great prizes to be won!

~Jessica

Sew Red for Women

2012-01-23T13:32:00.000-05:00

I'm really exited to be a part of this blog hop hosted by Leah at Burgundy Buttons!

I have a fun quilt block planned to share with you during my stop on the tour. I hope you'll join me in raising awareness about heart disease!

Here's more information about the Sew Red Blog Hop...

What is the hop about?

Well it's about hopping! And raising awareness about heart disease!

Each month, Sew Red for Women will feature an original quilt block designed especially for you by some of today's most inspiring designers & bloggers. We will provide a special link to hop on over to the blogger &/or designers for details and instructions for completing the featured block. And you just might learn a thing or two about heart disease while you're there!

The hopping begins on February 3rd, which happens to be Wear Red Day!

Who's Participating? And When?

February 3 - Leah at Burgundy Buttons

March 3 - Fat Quarterly's Tascha of Hanies Quilts

April 3 - Kate of Swim, Bike, Quilt

May 3 - Melissa Corry of Happy Quilting

June 3 - Charlie of Qubee Quilts

July 3 - Here!

August 3 - Melissa of The Polkadot Chair

September 3 - Amber of A Little Bit Biased

October 3 - Amy of Diary of a Quilter

November 3 - Amy of Amy's Creative Side

December 3 - Sherri of A Quilting Life

January 3 - Lynne of Lily's Quilts

What fabric are we using?

While we do not have a final fabric supply list as the designer's are still creating their block, we will be using fabrics from Chemistry by Cosmo Cricket and coordinating Bella solids. Naturally, you may use any fabric you like!

As the blocks are released, Burgundy Buttons will offer a block specific fabric pack for purchase while supplies last.

Will there be a flickr group?

What fun is it if you can't show off? Share pictures of your blocks or finished projects with the group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/sewredforwomen

We are so excited to bring you this heart friendly hop and raise awareness about heart disease at the same time! Please help us save lives by sharing information about this event on your blog site, twitter and Facebook. Grab a button from the Sew Red for Women Blog and add it to your sidebar!

Together we can make a difference!

Brrr! Quilt

2012-01-17T13:57:00.001-05:00

Brrr! fabrics by Laurie Wisbrun... available later this year!

My little guy and I had a quiet morning at home today so while he was playing with tractors, I started thinking about what to do with these fabrics. When I first received these fabrics from Laurie, I immediately thought that they would be great as a stripe quilt! Something really simple to show off the different designs in the collection.

I found some red rick rack and thought that might be a way to make the design a little more interesting and fun. Here I've laid everything out on the ironing board to get and idea of what it might look like.

This one is turning out so quick, cute and simple! The quilt top could easily be made in a couple of hours (and if I had enough rick rack, I'd be able to finish mine!).

If you'd like to make a quilt top like this (approx. 42" x 47" baby sized) you'll need:
8 printed fabrics cut into 5.5" strips x WOF (Width Of Fabric... usually 40 to 44" wide)
1/3 yard white fabric cut into 7 - 1.5" wide strips x WOF
4 packages of 1/2" Medium size Rick Rack

To insert the Rick Rack into the seam, first stitch it on with a coordinating thread to one side of the 1.5" white fabric strip. I use the 1/4" piecing foot to keep the edge of the Rick Rack lined up with the edge of the white. Now, sew your seam, joining the white and printed fabrics as you would when piecing any other quilt.

Press your seam and you have the Rick Rack perfectly inserted in your seam! It's super easy and looks really cute, too!

I have to get to the store to pick up another pack of Rick Rack and hopefully I can show you a finished quilt top soon!

~Jessica

halfway through the trip

2012-01-16T13:51:00.000-05:00

I'm glad to be sewing on this one again. The colors are so bright and happy.

I made it to the halfway row yesterday. It'll be fun to watch as the rounds develop with each additional row.
Happy Sewing!
~Jessica

Snow Days

2012-01-14T21:08:00.000-05:00

Well, we finally have some snow and enough of it to make everyone happy!
The kids woke up happily on Friday to a day off of school because of it all. We may have even turned on a little Christmas music because now it really looks and feels like winter!

It really has been beautiful the past two days. The snow has hung on every branch and big, puffy snowflakes have fallen all day.

K could quite possibly be the world's best sister and cousin. She pulled the little ones in the sleds to wherever they wanted to go.

I've had a chance to add a few more rows to the trip around the world quilt. And those are the bookshelves my husband and I finished up over the Christmas break... all thanks to a pin on Pinterest. I don't know about you, but I find so many things I'd love to do around the around the house all because of Pinterest.

fabrics are Brr! by Laurie Wisbrun

And I've been thinking a lot about what to do with these beauties! I'm thinking of something Scandinavian inspired... but I have to sketch out some more ideas before I settle on one.
I hope you're having a wonderful weekend as well!
~Jessica

pulling out the trip around the world

2012-01-11T08:47:00.000-05:00

I pulled this quilt out again and started sewing a few more rows together. It's always fun to see what color shows up in the next round since I've forgotten how I placed them all.

When I picked this quilt up to put it away for a while, I organized all the rows into this plastic shoebox tote. They're all separated by a piece of tissue paper. Looks like I have quite a bit of piecing ahead of me!

Some people asked about how I have kept the rows sewn straight and I thought I'd share a tip that I've found helpful in doing that. Maybe this will help you in piecing small pieces, too.

When sewing the individual squares together, I stagger where I start and stop my stitching line. On one row, I start at the top and on the next I'll start stitching from the bottom. That seems to account for any "pull" or slight curve I may have in stitching... which really can distort the whole line once you get farther to the end.
I've added arrows pointing to the thread tails in these two pictures to show where I ended my stitching.

I hope this makes sense and helps you in your piecing!
~Jessica

looking back at 2011

2012-01-09T10:16:00.001-05:00

It sure was a year filled with lots of sewing and quilting!
Thank you so much for joining me and for all the wonderful and supportive comments. It really is nice to share what I make and inspire others.
I'm looking forward to a great 2012!
~Jessica

lately.

2011-12-21T16:45:00.002-05:00

I haven't done much for sewing... a few Christmas gifts were made and are ready to give. I've done a lot of painting, cleaning and decorating though. Things that need to get done and taken care of before more time gets away from me. My boys each have their own space now and that called for new paint and organization in each of their rooms. I hope I'm almost finished with that now because I'm itching to sit down at the sewing machine.

I've been enjoying browsing Pinterest for fun ideas of things to make with the kids. We decided to make these snowman ornaments yesterday. They're simple and quick and once they're dry, the kids had fun decorating them with markers.

We made these Jolly Elves a couple weeks ago. Ours aren't as cute as the original idea, but no one wanted to wait for paint to dry and we just went with the really colorful elf look (and I didn't want to go out and buy other beads).

I'm also enjoying seeing these two projects around the house again. They're both in a new book by John Q. Adams (Quilt Dad) called Pretty in Patchwork: Holidays! The book is available as e-book right now and will be printed next spring or summer. I'm so excited about it... there are so many projects that I would actually make in this book.

I hope you are all doing well with your Christmas preparations. I just have some wrapping to do and kids to entertain. Hopefully I can make some time to sit down at my machine and sew. Somehow, that's quite a relaxing thing for me to do.
~Jessica

Pretty in Paisley all finished up!

2011-12-09T06:24:00.000-05:00

I'm really loving the quilt with the outer border being added on! I was so glad to be able to cut the border with same pattern placement going all around the quilt. See that row of blue flowers?

I chose a soft flannel for the backing too. This is going to be one warm quilt; perfect for the snowy days that are headed our way!

I quilted this one with mostly stippling and some loops in the pink paisley border. I also did some more decorative quilting in the flower panel. Now that it's all washed up, the stitching really sinks into the quilt and adds a subtle texture.
I hope you have a great weekend!
~Jessica

quilt stats:
size: approx. 47" x 56"
fabrics: Pretty Paisley flannel by Lesley Grainger for Robert Kaufman
pattern: adapted from a pattern in "Simplify" by Camille Roskelley
Warm and White batting
pieced, quilted and bound by Jessica

Pretty Paisley Quilt top

2011-12-06T13:32:00.000-05:00

So, here's where I left off with my previous post. I had this stack of Pretty Paisley flannel fat quarters and a panel print and I had to decide what I was going to do with it all. It's a little intimidating to not have a plan for them before they arrived, but I wanted to see exactly what the scale and design of the fabrics looked like. I decided to look through some quilting books for inspiration. There's a quilt that I came across in Camille Roskelley's book called "Simplify" and I knew I could use that layout and it would look great with these fabrics and I'd be able to utilize the panel print. Sometimes it just takes a little looking around to find the perfect pattern fit for your fabrics. I started out by making a drawing for my quilt because I knew I'd have to accommodate for the amount of fabrics that I had. My block sizes and layout are a little different than Camille's but it's basically the same quilt design... just a little smaller (please see Camille's book if you'd like to make a quilt like this).

I started out by choosing one of the panel prints that I had cut into squares. It needed to be a little larger, so I added some of the great striped print that is printed near the selvages of the panel print.

The white bits showing on the striped print would disappear with the seam allowance once everything was sewn together. It was great just to be able to use that part of the fabric.

I then cut all the rest of my fabrics into squares and the pink paisley was cut into strips for a border.

I started by laying everything out on the floor and here you can see I've started to sew the quilt top together. I fussy cut the rest of the panel print centers to add some more interest to the top.

Here you can see I've sewn the center portion together. At this time, I decided to make the pink paisley border a little different and extend the edges to the outer sides of the quilt. I think I had just about 1/2" of fabric left over from the fat quarter. It couldn't have turned out any better!

And here you can see the finished quilt top. It's so warm and cheerful already!

The size of it ended up being more of a baby sized quilt and Lesley generously sent me some more fabric for a border and binding so that it could be larger. I really wanted to snuggle up on the couch with this quilt all winter and it needed to be a little bigger. I'll be back with how it all turned out shortly!
~Jessica

a Pretty Paisley quilt

2011-12-02T06:45:00.001-05:00

Early in November I received these gorgeous fabrics from Lesley Grainger. She's a wonderful surface designer and these are fabrics from her newest fabric collection called Pretty Paisley with Robert Kaufman. They are the most thick and soft flannel and I was so excited to get working with them!

There are two color stories in the collection and I'm using the Retro colorway. I thought it was warm and fall like and I just really liked these colors. There's a panel print and 8 coordinating prints. I threw these all in the wash (I find it helpful to pre-wash and dry flannel fabrics) and set out looking in some books for an idea for the quilt top.

I knew I wanted to include the panel prints somehow and I had to cut carefully as I was limited by fq cuts of the other fabrics. That was part of the fun for me... trying to figure out what kind of design to make with a limited amount of fabric.
I'll be back on Monday to share what I came up with!

I hope you have a great weekend. I'll be busy making Christmas cookies and doing some shopping for gifts. December has surely snuck up on me fast and I'm a little (ok... a lot) behind in getting all my gifts together!
~Jessica
**and a special thanks to all of you who voted for my Three Pears Pillow in the Celebrate Color Needlepoint category! I'm so surprised and excited to have won. Thank you!

catching up!

2011-11-29T08:16:00.000-05:00

Well, I certainly didn't mean to be gone so long but there's been a lot going on at home the past few weeks. We have a daughter who turned 12 last week and wanted a sleepover party with her friends to celebrate! I hosted a Mystery Party for part of the time... and it was a lot of fun and it seemed like the girls really enjoyed doing that. I had been trying to think of something different they could do as a group and when I came across the Mystery Party I knew they would all really like it. They each got to play a character and it was really cute to see them dress up and play the part.
Since then, we've celebrated Thanksgiving and have spent the rest of the weekend switching our boys bedrooms around. They used to share a room, but the younger one keeps the older one up at night and that's not so good when you have to get up and go to school in the morning. So, I've been painting and updating our spare bedroom so that our oldest son can move in there. It's fun to see how a room transforms with just a little paint!

Anyway, last week I was over at A Little Bit Biased with a post about my sewing area in her Tuesday Tips feature. Amber has a great quilting blog and lots of pretty patterns! I've really enjoyed reading her blog and seeing her creations and I think you will, too.

These pictures are of a quilt pieces that I cut out a few weeks ago. I was so inspired by Jane Brocket's book called the Gentle Art of Quiltmaking that I got out of the library a few weeks ago. There's a trip around the world quilt pattern in the book and I knew I'd love to make one of my own.

Of course I decided to start this at about 9:30 at night. All the fabrics are from what I had on hand and so many of them ended up being *just* the right amount to make a round. It's a cheerful color combination and features so many of my favorite fabrics. I finished up laying out the rounds on the floor in the morning and took a few quick pictures. I knew if a little boy or a dog got near this it wouldn't stay neat for long!

I picked them up in piles and labeled all the rows and direction in which they're supposed to be sewn.

And here I started on the top left corner. So far I only have a couple of more rows to add. But that's ok, I think this will be a nice slow project to work on this winter.
I hope you have a great day!
~Jessica

** Please vote for me in the Celebrate Color competition! I'm a finalist in the Needlepoint category with my Three Pears Pillow. Thank you!**

this week...

2011-11-16T15:43:00.001-05:00

I'm taking it easy and reading lots of books to my little boy.

I'm making some more pretzel bread that my family and I have come to love way too much (all thanks to Jeni)!

I'm thinking about what to make with this pretty stack (it's Peacock Lane by Violet Craft).

And I'm liking this little turtle pin cushion I made with the pattern I bought while at the Sewing Summit (it's Henrietta Turtle by Heather Bailey).
Hope you're having a wonderful week as well!
~Jessica

Sew to Swap Blog Tour & Giveaway!

2011-11-11T06:16:00.003-05:00

ETA: the random number generator has chosen #58!

and the winner is:

Tamie said...: This would be a great book to add to my library. Thanks for sharing.
Congrats to Tamie! I'll be contacting you shortly.
Thanks everyone for all your kind comments and entries!
~Jessica

It seems like such a long time ago that Jennifer and I were asked by Chrissie to join her in creating a book focused on sewing projects for swapping! I was so happy to be a part of this adventure and it's even better to see it all come together and see the end results of all our work.

I'm lucky enough to have one of my own projects in the book! I designed the Argyle Zig pillow. It's a paper pieced project and I really enjoyed the process of trying to think up something new and original. Please let me know if you make one of these, I'd love to see it!

There are many pretty quilt patterns in the book and Chrissie does a great job of breaking them down into steps for making them and giving lots of details and hints about swapping.

images above are all courtesy of F + W Media

I also helped to quilt and bind the vintage sheet double hourglass quilt in The Vintage Meets Modern Swap. It's such a pretty quilt and I will definitely be making one of my own someday.

Here's all of the projects and blocks that I contributed to in the book! See that block up there in the top left hand corner? Yeah, the circle swirly one... I was so excited to figure that one out and have it look great! I love a good challenge and that one sure kept me occupied for many hours. :)

If you'd like to read more about the Sew to Swap book, please visit these other participants in the blog hop!
November 7 In His Grace
November 8 Stitches & Scissors
November 9 Cluck Cluck Sew
November 10 My Three Sons
November 11 you're here!
November 12 Stitchy Quilt Stuff
November 14 Texas Freckles
November 15 Quilt Dad
November 16 Artsy-Crafty Babe
November 17 Little Miss Shabby
November 18 A Cuppa and a Catch Up
November 19 A Quilt is Nice
November 21 House of A La Mode
November 22 I’m Just a Guy Who Quilts
November 23 Little Bit Funky

The publishers of Sew to Swap are also offering a special discount when you purchase the book... here's the details:

Get Sew to Swap now for just $14.99 ($10 off the retail price!). Visit the Martha Pullen Online Store and use promo code SEW2SWAP to get your exclusive discount.

{Offer expires Nov 30, 2011 at 11:59pm EST. Special Price in US Dollars, for items that are “in stock” only. Martha Pullen Company reserves the right to correct pricing errors.}

I hope you've enjoyed my stop on the tour! Thanks again to Chrissie for inviting me to be a part of this book. I'm so happy to have had this experience and it's really fun to see all the things that I've made in this book.

And now for the really exciting part...

I'm able to give away a Sew to Swap book to one of my lucky readers!

Please leave a comment on this post and I'll choose a winner by random number on November 18 in the evening.
The giveaway is open to those living within the United States and make sure that there is a way for me to contact you, if you should win.

Good Luck!

~Jessica

three pears mini quilt

2011-11-10T09:54:00.001-05:00

Who knew I'd really enjoy doing all that hand stitching?! It was fun to do on a small piece and I'm sure I'll visit that again soon.

I like the way the grid background has turned out. If you're wondering how I did that, I used a water soluble pencil and my quilting ruler that I use with the rotary cutter to mark out the lines. Mine are 1" apart and I marked about three lines at a time so that they wouldn't disappear before I got to stitch them (the "chalk" or whatever is in the pencil tends to rub off very easily).

The design was inspired by a set of note cards that I have with pears on them. I drew the pears out myself and they are raw edge appliqued using Steam-A-Seam.

I really like to have things that can do more than function, so I've made the back of this mini quilt into a pillow cover. It's nice to have something that I could hang on the wall or use as a table topper or pillow. But, I think I really like it as a pillow the best.

mini quilt details:
size: 18" x 21"
design: inspired by a set of note cards
fabrics: Kona cotton in Bone, Flea Market Fancy
handquilted with perle cotton #8
needle for hand stitching: Jeana Kimball Redwork Needle size 9

Tomorrow I'm going to link up to amylouwho's mini quilt challenge. I've got a special post tomorrow and a giveaway, so stop by again if you have the chance!

Are you ready with a mini quilt to share? It can be simple or complex, just make something you enjoy and have fun with it! There's even prizes to win!

I'm also linking up with Stitched in Color's Celebrate Color event!

~Jessica

stitching

2011-11-07T13:17:00.001-05:00

Today I'm working on some hand quilting. It's cool and cloudy out and I've got a little who's not feeling the best, so it seems like a perfect thing to do. :) I kept thinking that some diamond quilting in the background would be nice for this piece. I like what's happening so far.
Thanks for visiting with me here!
~Jessica

Bow Tie Block Tutorial

2011-11-05T10:12:00.000-04:00

Good Morning!
I've had a few questions about how I made the bow tie blocks for these two quilts, so here's a little tutorial going over how I made them.

above: Here's what I started out with for the quilts.
If you want to make yours the same size as mine (7 blocks by 8 blocks), you'll need printed fabrics for 56 blocks. Most of the time, I cut enough printed fabric for two blocks of the same print for each quilt. Using one 4" x 44" strip of printed fabric, you can cut 8 - 4" squares and 8 - 2" squares (enough for 4 blocks). Each quilt used 1 3/8 yd. of white fabric cut into 4" squares (you'll need 112 squares).

For each bow tie block, you're going to need 2 - 4" white squares, 2 - 4" printed squares and 2 - 2" printed squares.

Place the 2" printed squares in a corner of your white square, right sides together as shown.

Stitch on the diagonal as shown. I like to add a piece of tape on my machine to show me where to line up the point of the square. That way I don't have to draw a diagonal line on each of the 2" squares. That saves a lot of time, and I've found it to work great!

Press the 2" square out and trim off the seam allowance on the printed fabric. I leave the white fabric in place as it helps to keep that piece "square" and provides a little more support for that small piece of fabric.

Now, stitch the top 2 and bottom 2 pieces together. Press your seams toward the patterned fabric. Then stitch your bottom and top sections together. I pressed that seam open to help reduce the bulk of fabric.

And here you have your bow tie block all finished! Each block should measure 7.5" square.

Here's the quilts that I made with the bow tie (or bowtie... I've seen it spelled both ways) block. There's so many different ways you can layout this block and make different designs.
I hope this helps those out who were asking about these quilts! Please let me know if you have any more questions, I'll try to help you out.
~Jessica

mini quilt challenge

2011-11-04T07:55:00.001-04:00

Have you seen the mini quilt challenge that's going on over at amylouwho's blog? I had the pleasure of meeting Amy at the Sewing Summit and we were both in the Mini Quilt class led by Amanda. It sounds like Amy was as excited about mini quilts as I was after attending the class and she's challenging anyone who wants to join her to make a mini quilt to share in her Sew-and-Tell on November 11. (Please see this post if you'd like more information about it!)

I heard there may be some great prizes involved just to make it that much more fun!

So, here's some pictures of what I started working on for my mini quilt. I'm going to work on stitching these pears down and I'll see where it takes me. I'm not sure if this will end up as a pillow or a small quilt to hang on the wall, but I'm just having fun trying something out... and that's what it's all about!

I hope you'll join me in the Mini Quilt Challenge and make a little quilt just for fun!
~Jessica

knitting

2011-10-31T09:22:00.000-04:00

getting started on a cable cowl

One of the shops that I had a chance to visit in Salt Lake City was a really fun yarn shop called Blazing Needles. I'm not sure, but I think everyone in our group choose some yarn and needles and we all started knitting later on in the evening. I got a quick refresher course from Amanda and on my plane trip home finished up the cowl below.

I chose a beautiful gray yarn by Madelinetosh for this project. The (free) pattern is also by Madelinetosh and is called the honey cowl. It was a great way to get back into knitting and I should have read the pattern a little better before starting. I forgot to do the first few rows of knitting to make the edge curl.

So, that just meant that I needed to make another one. This time I found a cute little yarn shop locally and bought a couple skeins of blue Madelinetosh yarn.

I've worn both of these already and they're so nice and warm. The cabled cowl in the top picture is what I've been working on now. This one might take a while to finish as the cables are a little more involved, but I do like seeing them appear as you're knitting.
I think I'll wear one of these tonight as we're out trick-or-treating with the kids. Let's see... this year we have a little zebra, a swamp skeleton and a sassy princess who want as much candy as possible! Hopefully they'll share a piece or two with me. :)
~Jessica

Sewing Summit Swag Bag Re-do

2011-10-27T14:19:00.000-04:00

For the past few weeks, I've had my swag bag from the Sewing Summit sitting around on my sewing counter. I've been thinking about what to do with it since Erin and Amy are challenging us to make a new bag out of it. They left them blank on purpose so that we could do whatever we wanted to them. I didn't take a before picture, but they were a basic cream colored canvas bag.

Last night I decided to cut into mine and make it into another Jane Market Bag. The swag bag itself became the lining (you can *just* get enough fabric for the lining if you cut carefully and take out the top hem of the swag bag).

I decided to change up the outside design of the bag by adding the bottom border (the brown dot) and different attachment of the handles. I like the handles long... because yes, I am tall (I heard that a lot at the Sewing Summit!) and now I like how the pockets on the front don't go all the way under the bottom side of the bag. :)
My favorite part of the whole thing is the insert in the bottom! I covered a piece of very stiff Pellon with fabric on each side and then bound it just like you would a quilt. It worked great and helps to hold the shape of the bag a little more since the rest of it is a little floppy.

So, here's my new Market Tote. It's nothing extraordinary, but I'm happy to have made my swag bag into something I'll use often (and maybe I'll win a prize!).
~Jessica

pattern: Jane Market Bag by Alicia Paulson
fabrics: Early Bird by Cosmo Cricket for Andover and Farm Fresh by October Afternoon for Riley Blake (brown dot)

the zinnia quilt

2011-10-25T08:00:00.001-04:00

I've had so much fun making this quilt! And it was all inspired by one of those color palettes by design seeds.
The quilting went smoothly the other day with the use of my new quilting gloves. Those sure helped with moving the quilt under my machine and making it easier to grasp. I'll be using them all the time now!

The chenille ric rac trim just added a lot of fun and detail to the quilt. I decided not to quilt over top of it. That worked out well, since I used a white thread in quilting the center and could change to a pink thread for the outer border.

I bound it in this great stripe to help tie all the colors together and I love taking the time to hand stitch the binding to the back of the quilt.

I've decided to put this one up for sale in our etsy shop!

quilt stats:
pattern: double hourglass block is from Cluck Cluck Sew
size: 41" x 47"
fabrics: Kona white, printed fabrics are from various collections by Heather Bailey, Amy Butler, Urban Chicks and Sandi Henderson
Warm and White cotton batting
pieced, quilted and bound by Jessica

Thanks so much for all the kind comments about this quilt in my last post; I appreciate them all!

~Jessica

zinnia quilt top

2011-10-23T14:23:00.000-04:00

This has been one of those projects that I just can't put down. It's kind of like reading a good book and not being able to stop until you reach the end.

The bright colors, crisp white and chenille ric rac are all so perfect together. I can't wait to get quilting. Hopefully I have a suitable backing fabric in my stash.

I think you know what I'll be working on this afternoon! ;)
~Jessica

Sewing Summit - Color Inspiration

2011-10-22T22:46:00.001-04:00

image from { design seeds }

Another class that I really enjoyed attending at the Sewing Summit was given by Jeni who blogs at In Color Order. She gave a great presentation about the basics of color and showed how those ideas are represented by making all sorts of mini quilts and bags. Jeni has such a great eye for pulling together pretty combinations of fabrics and I thought it would be fun to give it a try myself this weekend.
I started with the color story above from Design Seeds and took a look at what I had that would fit into that color scheme. I omitted the gray because I don't have many fabrics that color and decided to not use any fabrics with a dark brown or black in them. I wanted to keep this quilt candy colored, happy and full of bright color.

So, here's the little stack of fabrics that I came up with. I think they're a pretty good match with the inspiration color story.

I'm making them into double hourglass blocks by following the tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew. It's been a fun small project to work on today after freezing at this mornings soccer games with the kids!
~Jessica

Fall Pillow

2011-10-20T10:29:00.001-04:00

I finished up the hand stitching on my pillow and made it into a pillow cover over the past few days. There were some questions about the type of needle I used for quilting and I got in contact with Amanda and she said it was a Jeana Kimball Redwork Needle size 9.
This is really one of my first attempts at hand quilting something and I usually just give something a try with what I have on hand and see if it works (I was using an embroidery needle for quilting). The arc shapes are all done free hand and I just like the look that some of them are larger or not as even as some of the others. The perle cotton that I used was found at a thrift shop and it's a variegated thread that changes from oranges to reds.

Here you can see the back side of the quilt top. I used a piece of muslin for the backing and left the knots of thread exposed. I knew they would be on the inside of the pillow cover anyway.

This pillow got a zippered back to it. It's just a little more work than a envelope closure and this way I could use up a zipper I had lying around.

My method for making the flap to cover the zipper is quite simple. I attached the black fabric and white fabrics to the zipper by top-stitching over a hemmed edge. The white apple fabric is cut extra long to accommodate for the folding. I folded the fabrics over the zipper to create a flap and pressed with an iron. I then top-stitched along the white fabric to hold the flap and zipper in place (I marked a line about a 1/2" away from the edge zipper). I really didn't use any specific dimensions. If you want to make yours like this... just cut several inches of extra fabric and you can trim it up to the final size when you're ready to sew your pillow cover together.
My idea for this zipper flap came from the tutorial at House on Hill Road found here. I've followed her tutorial before and it makes a beautiful inset zipper. This is my shortcut way of making the flap...because I just wanted to wing it and see how it turned out. I like the large flap and that you could really use any color or type of zipper you have around. It's not going to be seen anyway.

pillow cover is 20" square; individual squares finish at 2.5"

And now my owl pillow has a companion on the couch and it makes everything seem more fall like in the house!
Happy Sewing!
~Jessica

Inspiration at the Sewing Summit

2011-10-17T09:22:00.000-04:00

planning my block for the beebolt charity quilt

I guess I should start somewhere, right?! I'm sure you've seen elsewhere about the Sewing Summit and how much fun it was to hang out with and meet all the people behind the blogs that you read and admire. It was a wonderful experience and I just feel so appreciative that I could even attend an event like that. There were so many fun and talented people that I met and it really was great to connect and place a face and a name to a blog.

Today I thought I'd share a little about how I was inspired to make this little quilt block. One of the classes that I took was led by Amanda. She put together a wonderful presentation about mini quilts. Her enthusiasm and excitement for sewing left me wanting to immediately make a whole bunch of mini quilts and use them all over my house!

the center square finishes at 3"

The day after I got home, I put together this block for the ladies at beebolt. Everyone at the Summit received a little bag of 3" fabric squares from them and we were asked to make a block with them. They're going to put together a quilt for the next Sewing Summit that's going to be auctioned off with the proceeds going to Project Linus.
I drew out a tiny paper piecing pattern for the center square and started off by making that block. The points from the larger star were made from what was left of the 3" squares. I thought the star within a star block would kind of symbolize a parent and a baby.

the block measures 8.5" square

One of the things that I got out of Amanda's class was that it's important to make what you love. She loves mini quilts and uses them all throughout her home on bags, as wall hangings or pot holders and that having all these handmade items in her home makes her really happy. And, I guess that's a lot about what I love about sewing, too. I love to see my kids use their quilts and I love the potholders that I use every night at supper time.

I brought along this patchwork to the Sewing Summit to work on hand quilting it. Amanda showed me how she does her hand quilting. She advised me to use a different needle and it has helped so much to go through all the layers of fabric and batting. I finished up the quilting on it this past week and I've decided to make it into a pillow cover. Today seems like it will be a more relaxing day for me and the little guy, so I'm hoping to work on that this afternoon.

I think I'll continue to tell about the Sewing Summit in posts like these, I hope you won't mind. Breaking it up into smaller ideas and thoughts will help me process it all and hopefully be inspiring to you, too.
Thanks for visiting with me!
~Jessica

Pretty Paisley and Launch!

2011-10-14T07:24:00.000-04:00


photo by Speckled Stones Photography

I've got a preview of some new fabric by Lesley Grainger! She contacted me earlier this year and asked if I'd like to make a quilt out of her Pretty Paisley collection and of course I said "yes"! The collection looks so bright and cheery but what I really like about it is that it's printed on flannel.

photo by Speckled Stones Photography

I've made a quilt with a flannel backing before and now I'm really excited to use it for a quilt top. I think it will be a super soft and warm quilt when I'm done.

photos by Speckled Stones Photography

Lesley also has another collection coming out in November that's called Launch. This one is printed on a quilting cotton and looks to be perfect for anyone loving rockets and outer space! Too cute!
I hope you've liked the preview of some new fabrics today!

I'm working on a post about the Sewing Summit but I don't even know where to start. Hopefully I can figure something out over the weekend and put some thoughts down in a post. It was so much fun and I think I'm still recovering from very little sleep!
~Jessica

wordless wednesday

2011-10-12T07:16:00.000-04:00

When I should be packing...

2011-10-05T13:30:00.000-04:00

I should be packing and cleaning up the house before heading off to the Sewing Summit tomorrow! But here I am writing a blog post about these fabric pumpkins I made a while ago for a friend. :)

They turned out so cute and I'm planning on making a few for myself in the near future.

There's a free tutorial for these found here. I made these three during one nap time... a quick and satisfying project for the afternoon.

And this is a fall inspired patchwork that I put together this morning. I'm thinking it will be a pillow cover to go with the owl one but it may turn into a table topper.

I'm so excited to spend a weekend meeting lots of friends, learning and creating at the Sewing Summit! I have a lot to do before then, so I guess I better get off the computer and get to work! :) I look forward to sharing with you all about the Sewing Summit when I return.
Happy Sewing!
:) Jessica

Vanilla & Blooms Quilt

2011-10-01T17:26:00.001-04:00

I'm so happy to have finished up this quilt today. It seems like it's been a long and slow process.

Now, I'm already starting to think of what to make next! Maybe I'll finally start that Gypsy Kisses quilt that I adore so much. :)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!
~Jessica

quilt stats:
size: 70" x 85" after washing and drying
pattern: Vanilla & Blooms by Fig Tree & Co.
fabrics: Picnic and Fairgrounds collection by DS Quilts for Fabric Traditions, Kona cotton in Bone
pieced, quilted and bound by Jessica
started 6/22/2011 - finished 10/1/2011

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along - week 18

2011-09-27T07:14:00.000-04:00

It's week 18 already! I've missed a few weeks lately and it was time to pull these blocks out again and start working on them! I had forgotten how much fun they are to make.

#80 Single Wedding Star

#103 Whirlwind

#109 Windows

Here they are all together... 38 of them so far!
I know, so of them look like they are upside down, but I took the picture from a different way than I thought I would when I was laying them out. :) It was windy out and I had to get a picture fast before they went flying all over!

I'm using fabrics out of my scrap bins for this quilt and I'm paper piecing most of the blocks now. You can find more about paper piecing and where to find the templates in this post, if you're interested.
~Jessica

Crochet Edge Pillowcases and a Zippered Pouch

2011-09-26T14:43:00.000-04:00

I've worked on a couple of small projects this past week or so and thought I might share those with you today.

These are a couple of pillowcases with a crochet edging. I've seen them at the rose hip blog for quite a while and then came across a tutorial through Pinterest that showed one way how to do it. That's how I made these pillowcases and it's a really nice pattern because it shows you how to make your pillowcase in a way that it covers the pillow form itself. You know... when you look on the side of the opening where you insert your pillow, the form is covered by an extra piece of fabric.

Anyway, I made these pillowcases just like the directions, although I have always wondered what happens to the edging once it's been washed and dried. So, the picture above shows what they look like taken directly out of the dryer. I'm relieved... I thought the edging might shrink up and go all crazy, but it's just a bit wrinkled in the hem and the crocheting still looks good. :) I'll test them out tonight and see how they feel.

So, here's another one of those kinda quirky ideas I've had. :) I'm still trying to decide if it's neat or not, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

I've picked up these vintage towels at the thrift shops when I find a good clean one once in a while. I thought that the vintage sheets are so popular right now, why wouldn't the vintage towels be fun to make something out of too?!

So, I made a zippered pouch out of it to hold my current embroidery project and hoop. I'm traveling to the Sewing Summit in a couple of weeks and I think a bag with a zipper at the top would be great for traveling.

I grabbed a zipper and some fabric I had on hand and within an hour or so had a new bag to house this embroidery.

Here's where I'm at with the bird embroidery. It's getting there slowly, but that's ok. It is nice to have something to work on while I watch one of the kids at soccer practice.

The ArtPrize competition is going on in Grand Rapids and I'm hoping to check it out later on this week. I'll have to see if there are any quilt entries this year. The one I found last year was amazing!
Thanks for visiting!
~Jessica

"Joy" Mug Rug

2011-09-21T07:08:00.000-04:00

Good Morning!
Today, I'm so happy to be a part of Erin's Mug Rug Madness that's been going on for the past week or so. There are some super cute mug rug tutorials to check out and even a giveaway post that you enter to win one of the mug rugs that were made. So, go ahead and enter here and you may just end up winning the "Joy" mug rug that I made!

The Fat Quarter Shop kindly donated a couple of collections of fabric for us to use in our mug rugs and I received some of the Countdown to Christmas fabrics from Sweetwater! It's a gorgeous collection by Moda and is actually the first time I've used a fabric with words printed on it.

So, here's the little "Joy" mug rug that I came up with and little more about how it was made.

This is a picture of my planning stage. I really liked this black fabric with the words printed all over it and thought it might be a good starting point. The word "joy" was perfect for fussy cutting and the holly leaves in a wreath seemed perfect to accentuate that word. It was looking a bit dark and boring, so I thought the red tree print would make a good border or binding.

First, I cut the background fabric into an 8.5" square. I tried to center the word "joy" as best I could in the middle.

Then, I cut out and arranged the holly leaves. I use a double sided fusible webbing such as "Steam-a-Seam Lite" to help adhere the appliques. The holly leaf shape was from a template that I had in all my scrap-booking stuff, but it's really easy to draw your own shape and make your own template.

Then I ironed on all the shapes and layered my top fabric with a piece of batting and a backing fabric. I even used a little basting spray to hold everything in place.

Here you can see I've started to outline the word "joy" and stitch on each of the holly leaves. I free-motion quilted around each of the shapes twice.

I added some holly berries with one of the extra stitches on my machine. Placing three circles together made a little bunch of berries in between the sets of leaves.

To finish it off, I trimmed it up to 8.5" square and bound it like a quilt with 2 of the red prints I received. It's really just like making a super mini quilt!

Thanks again to The Fat Quarter Shop for donating the fabrics for us to use in our mug rugs. I love looking through their Coming Soon category to check out what fabrics I'm going to fall in love with next. And many thanks to Erin for asking me to be a part of Mug Rug Madness. It was a lot of fun to create a small little quilt like this and I hope you're all inspired to make one of your own!
~Jessica

Its a Swoon Quilt finish and a winner!

2011-09-20T12:48:00.000-04:00

I'm sure this quilt is going to be a family favorite at my house... well, at least to me it is a favorite. This past weekend I had some time to baste, quilt and bind my Swoon quilt. I did end up trying straight line quilting and it worked pretty good - I used my even feed foot (walking foot) this time and let the machine do the work and it turned out beautiful. Sorry the picture shows the quilt quite wrinkly, I had to steal it from the kids on the couch to take the pictures :)

Another first for me was totally machine sewing the binding. I usually hand sew the one side of the binding but since I was short on time, I machine sewed it instead. I'm pretty sure I'll do this again as I don't mind the results and it was much quicker for me to do it this way.

Quilt Stats:
size: approx 76" square after washing
pattern: Swoon by Camille Roskelley
fabric: Loulouthi by Anna Maria Horner and Kona Snow;
backing and binding is Peacock Feathers by Amy Butler
pieced, quilted and bound by Jennifer

Now onto the winner of the Basic Grey Sampler and goodies...
the winner is #53!

Lisa E said...
I would love to win this. Your canvas is beautiful!

Thank you everyone for playing along with us- Hope you have a wonderful day! - Jennifer

Bowties for the boys

2011-09-19T12:05:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I finished up a quilting project and this past week I decided to work on these two bowtie quilts. The fabrics are the same in each quilt but I changed up the design and quilting so that each quilt looks a little different.

The quilting is quite simple. I've been having some trouble with my back and neck so a simple and quick design needed to be done on these.

The little boys (they're brothers) that these quilts are going to both love the color orange and I wanted incorporate that into the binding fabric. I can't wait to give these to them and see how they like them. :) I hope they like the bright colors and all the orange fabrics in there.

Thank you so much to everyone who has entered to win the Canvas Sampler and extra goodies from BasicGrey! You still have until tomorrow to enter the giveaway on this post.

I hope you're having a great start to the week!
Happy Sewing!
~Jessica

quilt stats:
size: each approx. 47" x 54" after washing
fabrics: Katie Jump Rope and various others mixed in, Kona cotton in white
Warm and White batting
pieced, quilted and bound by Jessica

Jessica's BasicGrey Canvas Sampler and a GIVEAWAY!

2011-09-13T09:27:00.002-04:00

Here's the canvas Sampler from BasicGrey that I had to work with. It was such a fun (and easy!) project to work on for the afternoon! I added bits of my favorite fabrics adhered with Steam-a-Seam. Iron the fabrics on very lightly from the front just to hold the pieces in place. Flip the canvas over on your ironing board and then you can iron the whole thing from the back and really stick on your fabric pieces. It worked great!

I love the glazed buttons and vintage buttons from BasicGrey layered on top of the fabrics and rickrack flowers! It adds so much dimension and interest to the piece. I even dug out some vintage straw flowers and some other flowers I had stashed in my scrapbook stuff to add to the mix.
(I know I'm going to get asked about the rickrack flowers... they are from an article in the Martha Stewart 'baby' magazine from Spring 2003. I couldn't find a link to the article on her website. Here's a link to a similar way that I made mine.)

Wouldn't these be a great gift to give? You could make them up personalized for someone or they could have fun designing it themselves. Jennifer and I both thought that it's very easy to make these look good! You can see Jennifer's version of the Sampler here. They are super easy to do with the design that's already printed on!

Thank you so much to BasicGrey for allowing Jennifer and I to try out these samplers and buttons. We both love how they've turned out! Mine is already hanging in K's room above her nightstand. :)

So, maybe this is the best part!

BasicGrey has sent Jennifer and I an extra Sampler and TONS of goodies to go along with it! There's vintage buttons, glazed buttons, embroidered buttons, vintage patches and an 11" x 14" Saffron Sampler.

Please leave a comment if you'd like to win this great package!

I'll choose a winner by random number on September 20.
Make sure that you leave a way for me to contact you if you win.
Please note that this giveaway is open to those residing within the United States.

Good Luck!
~Jessica

This week...

2011-09-09T08:20:00.000-04:00

You can find me stitching away on another vintage crewel kit while the kids are at soccer practice,

up super early getting this girl off to Middle School while it's still dark,

then getting this boy off to school a few hours later. I get to spend my days with the silly one in the background and while he naps in the afternoon,

I work on some more bowtie blocks. It's been a good first week back at school. Let's hope it continues!
~Jessica

Daisychain ABCs Crewelwork Sampler

2011-09-07T09:56:00.000-04:00

A while back I saw a few bloggers working on this sampler and decided I really needed to have one myself :) The pattern for this ABC sampler is by Alicia Paulson at Posie Rosy Little Things and I thought it was really cute! Since the kits are sold out for this, I purchased just the pattern and ordered the same colors of crewel wool yarn and got started working.

For some reason I've been doing quite a bit of crewel work lately... I found a cute bird crewel kit at the thrift store the other day and started work on that too... its been nice to have something small enough to take outside while I watch the kiddos play.

Here are a couple of my favorite letters. Some of them are so intricate and detailed, which I really like. I've considered making another one on a different colored background, and maybe with some different crewel yarn colors.
Anyway, here is the link to purchase the pattern if you are interested and also a link to the Flickr group. Take care!- Jennifer

Jane Market Bag

2011-09-05T16:52:00.000-04:00

So, maybe you've seen the Jane Market Bag a million times already, but this is the first time I've made one myself! It's such a great bag... it's large and the pockets on the front and back are going to be really handy.

The Sewing Summit is coming up in a few weeks and I'm so excited to be attending that event! I think I'll pack this bag with some sewing projects to work on there in the evenings.

I made a couple of changes to the original pattern for this bag. I made the straps 7" longer and I used fusible fleece inside to give the bag a little more structure and weight. The fabrics are already a home decor weight, so the fusible fleece just gave it a little more body.

I really like the pin tucks that you make on the corners of the bag. I wasn't sure about them at first, but I think it will be great because the lining gets sewn into place and can't shift around anymore.
We're having a great extra long weekend here. My oldest two kids head back to school tomorrow and I'm not sure who's more excited... me or them?! ;)
~Jessica

something new... Canvas Samplers by BasicGrey

2011-09-02T14:30:00.001-04:00

Jessica and I have had a great opportunity to play with BasicGrey's brand new canvas display board samplers! I just think these canvases are such a neat product and I really like how quick it was to make it look cute because the design was already printed on it.

BasicGrey sent us each a sampler (in which we are so thankful and Jessica's to be shown soon!) along with some of their new embellishments and also a sampler to GIVE AWAY with lots of goodies (coming soon too!). These are such a fun way to take favorite scraps of fabric, embellish the canvas and display in your home. I chose to do some of my favorite fabrics and add some embroidery, felt pieces and buttons.

Jessica's canvas has a completely different pattern and the one we are going to give away is different too, but more about those when Jessica shows her take on this! (Click here to see all three styles on the BasicGrey website or to purchase one)

Hope everyone has a great weekend - for us, it is the last weekend before my little guy starts preschool! Oh how mama is so very excited for him (well, he is quite excited too!) Take care- Jennifer

Bowtie Quilts

2011-08-29T11:00:00.000-04:00

I cut some fabrics and started a couple of new quilts this past weekend! These stacks of squares will be turned into two bowtie quilts for the two little guys that I have babysat for during the school year for the past five years or so. I recently found out that I won't be seeing them this fall and I wanted to make something special for them. The oldest little boy is starting Kindergarten this fall. It has been such a joy for me to watch them grow up throughout the years. I hope that they will remember all the fun we have had together when they use their quilts. I will surely miss them!

I'm planning on making them the same quilt top and then choosing a binding fabric in their favorite color. I picked out all the non floral fabrics from the Katie Jump Rope collection and then added in whatever others I had that went along with those. I think it's turned out to be a pretty fun mix of fabrics.
I've got a bunch of the blocks made for one of the quilts and hope to finish up the rest of them this afternoon.
I hope your week is off to a good start!
~Jessica

Owl Pillow

2011-08-22T12:14:00.001-04:00

I was thinking about making some new pillow covers for fall and when I found the owl block print (from Christina at The Sometimes Crafter) I've had sitting around, I thought it might be a good start.

The patchwork design is adapted from the Birdbath pattern in the book called The Practical Guide to Patchwork. I just adjusted all of the sizes of the center square and rings to fit the proportions of my pillow.

I also wanted to use the pillow top as a way to try out some different free motion quilting stitches. The orange ring has small pebbles, the blue ring has loops and the red border has stippling. It's really nice to try out different free motion quilting on such a small piece. It's fast and really easy to maneuver under the sewing machine.

The binding on the pillow is done as you would bind a quilt. I tried the machine stitched binding to the front this time (you just have to stitch your binding on from the back and pull it around to the front to top stitch it). It worked pretty good this time, even though I usually prefer to hand stitch it down. With this little pillow, I just wanted it to finish it up in an afternoon and enjoy it. The backing is a super simple envelope style.
This week I hope to be back sometime to show you a finished Vanilla and Blooms quilt. I'm thinking about working on the quilting during my little boys nap time this afternoon. We'll, see if that works out!
Happy Sewing!
~Jessica

Chubby Stars Quilt - in the works

2011-08-21T14:24:00.000-04:00

I started this new quilt the other day with some of Joel Dewberry's new fabric line called Heirloom. I had bought just the Citrine colorway and added in some Kona cotton in Bone and Stone. I'm following Traceyjay's quilt along she posted a while back - here is the link to her site for it. I just loved her quilt she showed on Flickr a while back and had in mind to make one but didn't have any fabric that I thought would be good for it.

The Heirloom fabrics seemed to me to be perfect for this pattern (I thought), plus I really liked them and now I'm again going to attempt to make this king size for my bed! Right now I have a goal to make two of the "X" blocks a day along with two of the snowball blocks. It's been going pretty good and I figure in about a month or so I should have all the blocks done.

Here is the link to the Flickr group for the Chubby Stars Quilt Along if you would like to see other peoples versions on this quilt - I think they are all really pretty!

Thanks again for stopping by and hope you have a great start to the week! - Jennifer

Last week and this week...

2011-08-18T08:18:00.000-04:00

Last week and this week are just flying by! My kids are done with most of the planned summer activities and sports so I'm trying my best to keep them entertained and happy. But, that really doesn't leave me much time at all to sew. We're quite focused on getting ready for school and the kids are really excited to check the mailbox every day to see if their letters from school are there so that they can see who they'll have for a teacher. I thought they might explode yesterday if I didn't take them out to get school supplies (and school doesn't even start for another 2.5 weeks)! ;)

I've had time to make a couple of Farmer's Wife blocks for week 12.
(I paper piece mine and more info about that can be found in this post)

#13 Buckwheat

#97 Waste Not

And over the past week or so, I basted and started to quilt my Vanilla and Blooms quilt. I'm choosing to do a large stipple for the quilting and hopefully that will wash up nice and wrinkly. I only have this small part done. Maybe one of these evenings I should sit down and finish the rest.

I've also started to think about some Christmas gifts. I know... it seems like a long way away, but I know it will be here before I know it! I traced out these letters from Alicia's Daisychain Sampler pattern and started to embroider them. I'm not sure if I'll end up framing it or incorporating it into a sewing project. But, at least it's a little start at making some Christmas gifts and gets me thinking about what other things I'd like to make. :)

This will be my last update of these little guys (the baby robins). We went away a couple of weekends ago and came home to find their nest empty. I've really enjoyed checking on these little guys every morning and it's too bad I didn't get any last pictures of them before they left their nest. Maybe next year they will be back and I can do this all over again!

It has really amazed me that they have grown so much in such a short time span. They spent 2 weeks (or less) in the nest and they were ready to fly.

day 10 - 8/3/2011

day 11 - 8/4/2011

I hope you've enjoyed the seeing our Robins grow! I've found some information online that said they usually stay in the nest for about 13 days after they've all hatched. So, they were right on schedule.

*Previous posts about the Robins are here and here.

I hope you have a great day and are enjoying the summer!
:) Jessica

Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-long - week 11

2011-08-10T07:36:00.000-04:00

Now these were really fun to make this past week and I couldn't just stop at 2. Somehow I ended up with 6! ;)

#58 Mother's Dream

#70 Prairie Queen

#76 Sawtooth

#105 Wild Goose Chase
This one is my favorite block so far!

#77 Seasons

#64 Peace and Plenty

I've been getting a lot of questions about the paper piecing, so I thought I'd do a little rundown of where and how to find the templates...
The templates are located in the Farmer's Wife Sampler Group on Yahoo groups. You need to apply to join the group. Once you have been accepted into the group, click on the Files tab and then select the Foundation Patterns file. In there are all of the blocks, each with their own file and you can select and print the blocks that you desire to make. Make sure that you select your printer settings to "none" on the scaling, so that they print off at the correct size. All of my blocks have been turning out at 6.5" square. I really enjoy making my blocks that way, but I know some people like the templates and cutting those out individually. Using the foundation patterns is just another way to make these small blocks.
Here is a great tutorial on paper piecing by Christina at The Sometimes Crafter.
The Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-long group on Flickr is also a great place to get inspired to work on your own quilt! There's over 800 members in the group and many gorgeous blocks posted every day!
~Jessica

Kingdom Baby Quilt - finished

2011-08-09T14:34:00.000-04:00

This was a fun quilt to make! It's simple and small. Just the break I needed from some of the big quilts I've been making lately.

I just love how the loopy quilting has turned out! I'll definitely be trying that out on smaller quilts. To mark out some guide lines and to keep my rows straight, I used a Water Soluble Pencil from Clover.

The grey quilters linen for the background really helps to make the colors pop and it will surely hide any dirty spots! I'm really happy that all the fabrics that I added came from my stash. I had just enough of the backing and binding to make it work.

Thanks again to Windham Fabrics for sending out a couple of charm packs for me to play around with! Kingdom is a beautiful collection and I'm glad I could work with it!

~Jessica

quilt stats:
size: approx. 33.5" x 43.5"
fabrics: Kingdom by Jessica Levitt for Windham, Quilter's Linen in Grey, Kona in Charcoal for binding, a print from the Farmer's Market collection by Sandi Henderson for backing
pattern: the small block pattern is from a quilt pattern in the book called Simplify by Camille Roskelley, the rest is by me
Warm and White Batting
pieced, quilted and bound by Jessica

*previous post about this quilt can be found here

Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-long - week 10

2011-08-05T07:37:00.001-04:00

Week 10. OK, so I am a little surprised at myself that I have been making these almost every week for the past ten weeks! I really did expect to make a bunch at the beginning and then fall out of interest with this project. But, surprisingly I'm still working away at them and loving it! I think it's really helped that I switched to paper piecing.
This week I've made three blocks.

#5 Batwing

#1 Attic Windows
Ok, so I think this one turned out rather ugly. My fabric choices could have been better, but oh well... I'm not sure it will matter too much in the whole quilt. You need a little ugly to keep everything from looking too sweet, right?! :)

#60 Noon and Light

I'm so pleased with how they are all looking together... ugly blocks and all!
~Jessica

Kingdom baby quilt

2011-08-04T07:49:00.000-04:00

Jessica Levitt's newest fabric collection called Kingdom is due out any day now and Windham fabrics graciously sent me out a couple of charm packs to play with! There are 20 fabrics in this Art Nouveau inspired collection with some really pretty purple, teal and lime green colors. I also think the grays in there are great... they matched really well with a gray quilters linen that I had.

I spent a little time this past weekend seeing what I could do with them.

My block inspiration came from one of the quilt patterns in Simplify by Camille Roskelley. My daughter helped me line up all the squares and then we pulled out the gray quilters linen and thought about how to incorporate it into the quilt. She thought that separating the chunk of blocks into three parts would look better than one large chunk (and I think she's right). :)

So, here we have a simple and more modern looking quilt top than what I've recently been making.

What I'm really excited about is the quilting! I've been wanting to try out some loopy quilting in rows for a while and this was so fun to do.

As I got toward the bottom section, I marked out a line to follow for each row. I love the detail and interest it adds although I think it might be hard to do loopy rows on a larger quilt. Rolling it up and trying to maneuver it under the arm of my machine would be really difficult. Now I can see where a long arm machine would come in handy. Maybe I'll have to look into taking a class or seeing if I can rent some time on one, that would be fun!
~Jessica

Our Baby Birds - days 6 - 9

2011-08-03T06:41:00.000-04:00

They're growing so much every day. Even from morning to evening we can visibly see a difference.

Enjoy!

day 6 - 7/30/2011

day 7 - 7/31/2011
They were all so cute sleeping with their heads pointed up!

day 8 - 8/1/2011

day 9 - 8/2/2011
Here's the mama robin sitting on the edge of the nest.

day 9 - 8/2/2011

It amazes me at how quickly their feathers are growing in. They still don't make any noises, but I'm sure we'll begin to hear the chirping shortly!
~Jessica

Previous post about the baby birds can be found here.

Quilting Diva's VQBee Quilt and a winner

2011-08-01T09:55:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm so glad I pulled out these blocks and took another look at them a few weeks ago. These quilt blocks are so pretty and I couldn't let them sit in the unfinished pile any longer.

This year I've really been trying to work through my remaining unfinished projects and I'm really happy that there are only a couple of quilts left in the cupboard. This one was the perfect one to finish this summer. The blocks were already made (except that one in the top corner that got re-done) so I just had to cut out the sashing and borders and sew it all together.

Many of the blocks have some sort of applique or hand stitching. I just decided with the quilting to go right over top of it and see what happened. It's really washed up beautifully and I just love all the blocks given to me by the ladies in the quilting bee.

For the back, I choose 2 Freshcut prints that I had on hand and centered that with the front. Those are some of my favorite fabrics and I'm so glad to be using them in this quilt.

So, I think this quilt is going to hang out on the couch in the evenings with me this summer! I love the colors and the way it's turned out, and I can't thank my friends enough in the Quilting Diva's Bee group for their beautiful contributions to this quilt!

quilt stats:

size: 51" x 64" after washing

pattern: 5 of the blocks are from the ladies in the Quilting Diva's VQBee group, I added the additional blocks

fabrics: lots of Freshcut by Heather Bailey for Freespirit amongst many others

quilt top pieced, quilted and bound by Jessica

*****************************************************************

Now, here's the winner of the Summer House Charm pack and tin...

Congratulations, Indianna! I'll be contacting you shortly.

Thank you so much to everyone who entered the giveaway! I loved hearing about what you would make with the charm pack.

Thanks for visiting here with me!

~Jessica

Our Baby Birds

2011-07-29T16:12:00.001-04:00

We're blessed to live out in the country and probably a month or so ago we found a Robin making a nest in a pine tree we had planted earlier in the summer. I was really surprised at where she chose to make her nest as it's very close to a walkway that we use all the time. I thought she might be frightened away but soon we watched as eggs appeared in the nest. One day we found one egg, the next another and a few days later there were three. It's been fun to watch and experience this so up close and personal. I thought you might enjoy seeing the growth of these little birds, too. I'll post an update each week with new pictures... I'm aiming to take one each day.

3 beautiful eggs - I just love that color

day 1 - 7/25/2011

day 2 - 7/26/2011 All three babies have hatched. The egg shells are gone and nowhere to be found.
(day 3 - it rained all day so I didn't get a picture... the mama didn't leave the nest)

day 4 - 7/28/2011

day 5 - 7/29/2011
And here we are today. I've been checking on them in the morning and have found the mama to be off the nest so I quick snap a few pictures.
My kids and I have had a lot of fun seeing the growth of these babies so far and I hope you don't mind the non-quilty post once in a while! I do have a finished quilt and some other sewing posts to share with you next week.
~Jessica

You have until Monday to leave a comment on this post to win the Summer House charm pack! Thanks to all who have entered!

Giveaway: Summer House by Lily Ashbury

2011-07-28T15:44:00.001-04:00

Good Afternoon!
This past week I've been able to ask Stephanie Carter, the designer behind the Lily Ashbury brand a few questions! Her newest fabric collection for Moda is called Summer House.
I think these fabrics would make the best dresses for little girls and the most cheerful summer quilts. Please read on for your chance to win these fabrics so that you can make your own Summer House project!
Here's what I asked Stephanie:

How did you decide to become involved in designing fabric?

When I was little I was constantly drawing and creating and many of my creations had a very patterned feel about them. I have been an Illustrator for many years working on projects from magazine editorials to stamp design. Textile design was attractive because it seemed to take me back to my creative roots. Color and pattern are my true passions and it just feels like a natural career progression.

What inspired you to design the "Summer House" collection?

Summer House is my expression of a perfect summer. Growing up I spent my summers on Bowen Island (an adorable island just off of Vancouver) at my Grandmother's house. I imagined the porch swing amongst her lovely hanging baskets and lazy summer afternoons, Gorgeous vintage teacups and playing cards after a long day at the beach. My sister now owns my Grandmother's house and has long since renovated but it still holds amazing memories for us all.

How did you choose the color palette for "Summer House"?

I am very passionate about color and believe it can make a huge difference in a persons outlook on life. Bright cheerful colors just make me feel great and I love to surround myself with my favorites. For Summer House I chose colors that were bright and lively and reminiscent of summer flowers, but I was also sure to include some cooling blues which can feel so refreshing when its hot outside.

What's your favorite sewing book?

Well this is a tough question as there are so many great books out there especially now with such an amazing resurgence in the DIY culture. One particular book stands out for me in it's "The Complete Book of Soft Furnishings". Here is a link to it:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Soft-Furnishings-Upholstery/dp/0706366972

When I moved from home to my first apartment I created curtains, cushions etc. with this book as my guide. It's amazing what you can do on a limited budget with some fabric and a sewing machine.

How do you use quilting weight fabrics in your home?

There are so many ways to use quilting weight fabrics. Of course there is quilting but wonderful light cotton is great for curtains, pillows, duvet covers etc.. I am planning to create a set of place mats, table runner and apron in the very near future.

Thanks so much to Stephanie for allowing me to learn a little more about her and the Summer House collection!

The team at Lily Ashbury has sent me a charm pack that's packaged in this beautiful tin for one of you!

Please leave a comment on this post and tell me what you would make with this charm pack of fabrics.

I'll pick a winner by random number on Monday, August 1.

Good Luck!
~Jessica

Some flower loom creations... now available in our Etsy shop!

2011-07-27T15:22:00.000-04:00

Jessica and I have been busy creating some fun wall panels with the stash of vintage ribbon straw (Swistraw/Hi-Straw etc...) that we've collected over the past couple years. We decided to get creative and sell these panels in our shop and hope that you love them as much as we do!
Here are a few pictures of the ones we have currently for sale - check out our shop for more pictures and details. If you love them, but would like one in a different color, please email us or convo us through Etsy and we can check our stash and see if we have your colors available.

We are also listing a couple fabric sets too - one of some Tula Pink fabric from her very first collection called Full Moon Forest and a set of DS Quilts Picnic and Fairgrounds Fabric

Hope you enjoy our new creations - we're very excited about making them and hope to have a few different varitions out in the future. Let us know if you have questions about any of these - contact us at twinfibers at gmail.com - Jessica & Jennifer

Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-long - week 9

2011-07-27T10:11:00.000-04:00

I do hope you're not getting tired of seeing these blocks. I really am enjoying making them and pulling together my scrap fabrics and seeing what I can do with them.

I've switched over from using the templates to paper piecing the blocks and love it. Now my blocks are turning out square and all the points and corners are showing up.

#54 Kitchen Woodbox
This week, I thought it would be fun to see some of the other Kitchen Woodbox and Periwinkle blocks from the flickr group. I really enjoy seeing how fabric choices and placement change the look of a block and hope you will too.

#66 Periwinkle

And here are some Periwinkle block examples from the group.

Happy Sewing!
~Jessica

Bandana Bib Tutorial

2011-07-25T13:43:00.000-04:00

So, I'm sure this isn't a new idea but I've made a few of these over the past few months and found them to be really cute and functional with my 2 year old little boy. My mom has a bib like this made out of a bandana cut in half on the diagonal and I thought they would be fun made out of some quilting cottons (and a good way to use up some fabric in my stash).

I made some more bibs last week and took a few pictures along the way. They are super easy and really quick to make! I didn't get too fancy with making them... they're only going to get stained and washed a million times. Mine have held up really well through many washings. This type of bib is great because my 2 year old can't get it off during a meal time... all the other ones he can pull off or unsnap.

So if you'd like to make some, here's how I made them:

This tutorial will make 4 bibs at one time... you might as well make a few at a time!

Supplies:
5/8 yd. quilting cotton
4 washcloths
thread
sewing machine

Leave your fabric folded in half and cut it into a 21" square. Now, cut it in half on the diagonal. These are the 4 triangles you will use as the bandana. Serge or zigzag all the raw edges. Press the serged or zigzagged edges to the wrong side.

Place the right angle of the bandana on top of the washcloth 4" up from the bottom and centered from side to side. Pin in place. (You may have to adjust these measurements with the size of washcloth you use... mine measure about 12" square)

Start stitching the triangle to the washcloth as shown, going across the top of the washcloth.

Continue stitching all around the perimeter of the triangle.

Here you can see how I've top stitched the bib and I have these ends left on the triangle (the ties). Just snip off the extra thread and fabric.

And you're done! It really only takes a few minutes to make one and I'm sure you could have all 4 of them done in a half hour.

Tie one on your little one and they're ready for a meal!

Enjoy!
Please let me know if you have any questions. I'll try to answer them in the comments.
~Jessica

Farmers Wife Quilt-a-long - week 8

2011-07-22T15:38:00.000-04:00

Wow, I can't believe it's week 8 of this quilt-a-long already! It's been a rainy afternoon here. So while my little guy was napping I thought I'd pull out the scraps and make a couple of blocks.

I also decided that it was time to start paper piecing some of these blocks with smaller pieces. I made both these blocks that way and they turned out pretty good (only a few points chopped off). The block above is #8 in the book and is called Bouquet. (I joined the Farmer's Wife yahoo group in order to print off the paper piecing patterns.)

This one is #14 and is called Butterfly at the crossroads.
I found these blocks really easy to do with the paper piecing! You don't have to cut out any templates or figure out any of the math and they turn out the perfect size every time. I think I'm hooked on making the more difficult ones that way from now on!
~Jessica

Vintage Flower Loom Projects

2011-07-22T13:49:00.000-04:00

Over the past few months I've been working on a couple vintage craft kits - I personally just love these flower loom kits by Studio Twelve from the late 1960's to early 1970's. I found them on eBay quite a while ago and finally sat down to work on them (there are a couple of them on Ebay now too...). The flowers on these projects are made on a circular loom called a flower loom - you can wind the yarn different ways to achieve different effects. This site has a great amount of information on the different looms and ways to use them.

The first one I finished is called Flower Tree, which is pictured below - I have it hanging by my side of the bed and it quite nicely coordinates with the quilt I finished for our bed earlier this year.

It is quite large - 16" wide x 36" tall and I really like how some of the flowers have the petals separated and sewn to the background.

This next one is called Victorian Bouquet (15" x 18") and it really caught my eye because of the bright colors - they go perfectly in my kitchen/dining room in which I have some curtains I made with Heather Bailey fabric that coordinate nicely with this.

You can see that some of the centers on these flowers are gathered up to the middle making a pouf- it really adds to the three dimensional aspect of it all. Whoever thought of these kits was pretty creative!

The last one I just finished is called Country Garden and I don't have it mounted on stretcher bars yet, but it will be about 10"x10". I think this one might go above my baby's bed with a couple other things.

The flowers on this one are made using the Zinnia wrap technique- basically you wrap the yarn around two of the outer pegs as you go around the loom in layers. It was a little tricky for me to figure out at first but got the hang of it soon enough.

Hope you enjoyed these little projects - I know it is not quilting like we usually post, but I've not been doing too much of that lately- I have a couple I'd like to finish up, so I'll have to keep working on those. Hope you all have a wonderful day and thanks for taking the time to read our blog! - Jennifer

Quilting Diva's VQBee quilt top

2011-07-20T08:14:00.000-04:00

I decided to pull these blocks out on Monday and get them made into a quilt top. The blocks have been made for quite a while... some of them are from the Quilting Diva's Bee that I was a part of last year. At the time, I had made several additional blocks to go with the quilt but one of them didn't quite fit in. It was the one in the upper left corner. That block didn't have any white fabric in it and it just stood out too much amongst the rest. So, I took it out and started chopping it up into pieces for the Greek Cross block that's a part of the Summer Sampler Series Quilt Along that's going on right now. Now it fits in better and I can still keep the random piecing of that block.

I love how the striped sashing has worked with this quilt and I'm so glad I had just enough of the bubble paisley print fabric for the border.

My youngest son was around when I was making the backing for this quilt. He loves to cut paper and I usually set him up with a few pieces of paper to cut while I do a little sewing or something else. It keeps him busy for at least a half hour. Well, the other night when I was working on this, he grabbed my scissors off the counter and in a matter of seconds was snipping into the border of the quilt top! He's such a stinker. So I had to take a chunk out and replace it. I think I'll have to lock up all the scissors now, too. :)
Thanks for visiting!
~Jessica

Vanilla & Blooms Quilt Top

2011-07-19T07:17:00.002-04:00

For some reason, this quilt top has turned out a lot larger than I thought it would! I'd say it's at least twin size or larger. The size is right on for what the pattern says, I just didn't expect it to be so big. :)
It really is pretty though and the borders really tie it all together and make it look great. Even though they're kind of a pain to sew it really adds that extra detail this quilt top needed.

Now to decide on quilting. I think I'm going to go with stippling. I haven't done that in a while on a quilt and it seems like it would be good for this quilt. The backing is made and hopefully I'll have a chance to baste it in the next few days. With the extreme hot weather we've been having that might actually get done as we're hanging out inside a little more than what we have in the past month or so. But first, I have to take the kids blueberry picking! I think we better go right away in the morning before it gets too hot.

~Jessica

Oh, I forgot to add... my husband wants credit for his quilt modeling skills and he's renamed this quilt the "Throwing Stars" quilt! :) oh my!

(quilt pattern is called "Vanilla & Blooms" by Fig Tree & Co., fabric is Picnic and Fairgrounds by DS Quilts)

Crewel Bird Embroidery & Patchwork Rose Sewing Class Winner

2011-07-18T07:53:00.000-04:00

Here's my little bird crewel embroidery!

I finished up the stitching this past week and my husband even helped me make a stretcher frame for it. It was fun to make something together, even though it took only about 10 minutes to do the whole project. :)

This embroidery kit initially came with a cheap picture frame, but I liked the idea of being able to see the dimension and texture of the stitching with it stretched on a frame.

So, here it is all completed. It measures about 7" x 9" and here's a link to my first post about the embroidery. I'm hoping to come across another kit someday in a thrift shop!

And now, here's the lucky winner who gets to take the Patchwork Rose Zippered Bag Class....

Congrats, Nicke! I can't wait to see the bag that you make and hear about how you liked the online class.
Thanks again to Judith at Rick Rack for offering up such a great giveaway!

I also had some time for sewing this weekend. Yay! I finished up my Vanilla & Blooms quilt top and can't wait to take some pictures of it and share that with you next.
Hope you have a great day!
~Jessica

Giveaway: Patchwork Rose Zippered Bag Online Sewing Class!

2011-07-13T07:58:00.000-04:00

Isn't this bag really cute? It's called the Patchwork Rose Zippered Bag and can be found in Bari J Ackerman's new sewing pattern book, Inspired to Sew.

I've been contacted by Judith at Rick Rack and I'm able to giveaway a spot in an online class with Bari J Ackerman so that you can make a bag just like this one! How fun is that for one of you?!

It's an online class (that starts July 22), so if you're new to sewing or have questions along the way, you'll be able to get some guidance and have your questions answered. All the little details about the class can be found here.

Here's what you'll learn in the class:

create a zipper placket;
piece and sew patchwork;
create inside and outside pockets;
make ribbon rosettes;
make and attach bag handles;
line a bag;
construct a handbag

and you'll even get an autographed copy of Inspired to Sew!

Ok, so I'd really like to take this one for myself, but I won't! :)
It's just for one of you.

If you'd like to attend the online sewing class, please leave me a comment.
No hoops to jump through!
I'll choose a winner by random number on Sunday the 17th of July.

Good Luck!
~Jessica

(disclosure: I'm not receiving anything in return for this giveaway. The class and bag looks like something I'd love to do/make, so I thought one of you would really enjoy it too! And when you can win it for free... that's even better!)

last week

2011-07-11T15:28:00.001-04:00

Last week was one of those weeks that I'm really glad to have over.

I ended up getting strep throat early on in the week and spent the rest of it in bed. Ugh. It was awful and I sure am thankful for medicines that work and for family that is able to help out with the kids. My sweet sister Jennifer took my kids for a few days and did so many fun things with them. They had a great time at her house (she had 6 kids to care for). The only bad thing is, I ended up giving the strep to her. My husband and kids haven't gotten it... or anyone in her family. It would just be like twins to get/share the same illness, wouldn't it?!

I do hope she feels better soon, unfortunately I know how awful she feels. :(

I've got a bunch of pictures to share. A new project... (this one above) of a vintage kit that I'm starting to stitch and put together. It's a flower loom kit from Studio Twelve made in the 70's. This one is called "Spring Song" and is in the lime and yellow colorway. I've started embroidering some of the leaves. Once it's finished, it gets stretched and stapled onto stretcher bars. Then I can hang it on the wall... I'm thinking above my bed, since this one is really long and skinny (finishing at 12" x 48").

The kits can sometimes be found on ebay, if your interested in them. That's where I've purchased the ones that I have.

The Vanilla and Blooms quilt is going well. All 50 blocks are made and it's ready to be sewn into a quilt top. Should be a quick and good thing to get me back at the sewing machine.

This little bird crewel embroidery is finished up by now, but I thought you might like seeing a little more of the progress. I'm going to staple this one onto stretcher bars, too... once I do that I'll take some pictures of it all finished up.

And here's my Farmers Wife Sampler Quilt blocks so far.

Weeks 5 and 6 blocks included #30 End of Day, #4 Basket Weave, #6 Big Dipper, #39 Friendship. I think it's week 7 this week, so I'll have to open my book up and pick out a couple more to make some evening.

One of the big projects I was working on before the great sickness, was the repainting of K's room. Yes, she picked the color and I think I'm learning to like it. It's very bright and all that really matters is that she loves it, right?! (Secretly, I'm so glad it's only the upper half of the wall... I don't think I could handle the room being entirely that green color) We almost have it put back together and I'll share a few pictures later. She's using my Single Girl quilt on the bed and that seems to make it all so much better (in my mind)!

Ok, so hopefully you've enjoyed the recap and progress on recent projects. I'm looking forward to staying healthy and getting back to the sewing machine.

Hope your day is going well!

~Jessica

crewel embroidery

2011-06-29T16:35:00.001-04:00

Last week I was lucky enough to have some free time all to myself, so I decided to stop by some of my favorite thrift shops. I hadn't done that for quite a while and it was really nice just to stop at a few and find some cheap treasures! I always look through the craft sections, but rarely find anything that's good. This crewel kit caught my eye. It looked like something I would use and it was small... perfect for a summer project.

I'm so glad I picked it up. The colors of the wool yarn are so much prettier than what the picture on the front of the package shows. The yellow, orange, and coral colors for the bird are really nice. I've been stitching on it during some quiet time the past couple of days and it's coming together nicely.

I'm learning lots of new stitches. I especially like the spiderweb flowers! They really add a three dimensional aspect to the embroidery.
So, if you're at a thrift shop and find a vintage crewel kit it may be worth it to pick it up! It's nice to have some hand stitching or embroidery to do once in a while.
~Jessica

My boys and their quilts

2011-06-28T21:18:00.000-04:00

These quilts are one of those projects that I started out the year wanting to do. Even though I usually never want to make the same thing twice, it really was fun to make coordinating quilts for my boys. We are in the process of moving my younger son into the same bedroom with his older brother and I thought it would be nice for them to have an extra quilt to use at night since it's usually cold in their room.
I'm so happy to have both quilts finished and my boys love them! It's nice to know they really like something I've made for them.

This second Saltwater Taffy quilt is for my youngest son. Both the quilts have the same fabrics for the pinwheels but one has orange borders and the other has green.

Here are my silly boys. :) I usually only get smiles like the picture below!

I'm so glad I made the time to make them their quilts. My older son brings his out of bed to use every morning while waking up and watching tv. So cute!

And here's a bunch of pictures of the quilts together...

Thanks so much for following the progress of these quilts and for your kind comments and encouragement! Having a blog really helps me finish up all those projects I start. Thanks for being a part of it all.
I hope you have a great evening!
~Jessica

quilt stats:

size: each approx: 52" x 62"

pattern: Saltwater Taffy by Fig Tree & Co.

fabrics: Katie Jump Rope by Denyse Schmidt for Freespirit & Kona in white

pieced and bound by Jessica

professionally quilted

Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt - week 4

2011-06-23T09:53:00.000-04:00

The week 4 blocks that I chose to make have been more of a challenge this week! I'm not used to sewing with such small pieces of fabric, but this quilt will surely give me lots of practice with that. I really like how the quilt is looking so far with the mix of colors and patterns. Since I'm using all scraps, I'm just grabbing what I can find enough of for a block and going with it.
Here's the two blocks that I chose to make this week:

#18 Century of Progress

This one was a little difficult for me. The 4 squares that get sewn together to make the block didn't end up being totally "square", but it turned out OK in the end. The block is a little bit small, but it will still be useable. Next time, I think I'll try paper piecing blocks like these. Maybe I'll be able to make them more accurate then.

It sure is a pretty block and I like how it looks within the group of blocks I've made so far.

#15 Buzzard's Roost

And I sewed together a few more Vanilla & Blooms blocks last night. They sure do remind me of a block that could be found in The Farmer's Wife book!

~Jessica

Vanilla & Blooms

2011-06-22T09:59:00.001-04:00

I've started a new quilting project the past couple of days. This pattern is called Vanilla & Blooms by Fig Tree & Co. It has been hanging around my sewing area for quite a while so I just decided to give it a try. The Picnic and Fairgrounds fabrics by DS Quilts seemed like a good fit. The scale on many of the prints is small and I thought that would work well with the smaller size of these patchwork blocks.

I chose 25 of my favorite fabrics from the collection and cut enough pieces to make two blocks of each.

Here's my first three blocks... only 47 to go!
~Jessica

ETA: Thanks so much for all of you kind comments!! I've had a chance to sew some more blocks this afternoon. It's so nice to have a chance to sew and relax after a busy start to the week.

The blocks will eventually have a cream colored square separating them, but I really like the mix of colors going on here. This may be our new quilt to take to the beach this summer! Hope you're day is going well!

:) Jessica

Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Blocks - weeks 2 & 3

2011-06-17T21:28:00.000-04:00

Week 2 -I know I've been really excited to work on these little blocks and they sure do get addicting once you sit down to sew a few together! I've been enjoying digging through the scrap buckets and pulling out some old favorite fabrics. I even organized all my scraps by color one night after the kids were in bed. Yeah, a little much... I know. :)

Anyway, here's a rundown of each of the blocks and their name... maybe you'll find that interesting. I'm not sure if they are the traditional names associated with the particular block design or if this is what the author of the book has assigned them. The numbers are what order they are from in the book.

Windmill #108

Box #9

Snowball #81

Autumn Tints #2

Calico Puzzle #16

Streak of Lightning #92

Spool #84 - I'm not sure if this one has enough contrast in the fabrics, but I'm going to keep it as is and see how it looks later on with more blocks. Maybe it will be fine, maybe not... but I'll just go with it for now.

Week 3 - This week, I decided to slow down and just make 2 blocks. I think I'll probably continue at this pace as my kids are out of school and I'll be spending more time with them. The weather has really been nice here and we've had a great time this past week or so playing outside for the afternoon. Summer is my favorite season and nothing beats lots of sunshine, sprinklers, bikes and scooters!

Broken Sugar Bowl #12

Economy #29
Isn't it amazing at how many people have joined this quilt along? There's almost 400 members in the flickr group and it's really fun to browse through the photo pool. I love how this book has brought together so many people who like all sorts of different fabrics and who probably like all different styles of quilting. It's really interesting to see everyone's interpretation of the same block.

I'm also excited to have finished up this quilt today. I'll take some pictures and share that one next week.
Have a great weekend everyone!
~Jessica

Swoon quilt top complete!

2011-06-14T14:11:00.000-04:00

Thanks everyone for such nice comments on my individual blocks I posted the other day- You have inspired me to finish this one up to see what it would look like all together... well, here it is!

For those that have asked, I think it is quite easy of a pattern to make- I definitely think a confident beginner could make this. I especially love that the blocks are so big, it really makes a large size quilt fast.

Now onto picking a backing and quilting it- I think I'll try straight line quilting on this one. I tried that once before but it didn't work for me at all.... so I'm going to try again, this time with my walking foot on my machine. Last time the quilt ended up pulling in different directions and looked really bad once it was quilted. Anyway, we'll see how it goes this time, hopefully better because I really don't want to mess this one up! :)

Take care! - Jennifer

Loulouthi Tote with Laminated Fabric

2011-06-13T09:50:00.000-04:00

I've always wondered how it was to sew with the laminated fabric I've been seeing the past year or so. When this fabric showed up in the shop I was buying Jennifer's birthday present from, it just jumped in my shopping cart, too. :)

The bag pattern is called the Summer Madras Tote and it's by the talented Anna who blogs at Noodlehead. She wrote this freebie as part of a guest post at Grosgrain. It's a great size and easy to make. I just made a few adjustments to my bag. The handles are longer and I made them out of quilting cotton lined with fusible interfacing. The body of my bag is also lined with fusible fleece (adhered to the laminated fabric). That worked really well... it helped take out some of the wrinkles in the laminated fabric.

I didn't have any problems feeding the laminated fabric through my machine. I used the even-feed foot (similar to a walking foot) and it pulled the fabrics right through without them sticking to the bottom of the presser foot. I've also read where you can place a piece of tissue paper over the laminated fabric and sew over top of that and then tear it off when your seam is done. (There's also a Teflon foot available for most sewing machines made specifically for sewing with plastic, but I don't have one and just tried to make due with what I had)

I'm looking forward to sewing with more of the Loulouthi fabrics! Another tote bag is in the works for my daughter.
Happy sewing!
~Jessica

Mod Times Quilt Along - Wrap Up!

2011-06-10T21:08:00.000-04:00

I've really enjoyed leading you through the process of making this quilt! Let's take a look at some of the finished quilts that have been posted in the flickr group.

quilts by freshlypieced and linzsews

quilts by chickpea studios and Hello, my name is Quilt's

quilts by linzsews and craftycupboard

quilts by paris-stella, auburn2001grad and sayonion

Everyone has done such a beautiful job! Congratulations on completing the quilt and sewing along with me. I've really enjoyed seeing all of the different fabric combinations you've thought of. :)

If you've started a Mod Times quilt and haven't finished it or have been scared off by the thought of the inset seams, I'd encourage you just to give it a try and finish it up. When I first made this quilt, I had not done inset seams before and it's really not hard to do. As long as you are using an accurate 1/4" seam allowance when sewing your pieces together, you shouldn't have any problems with the inset seams. I think all the pictures in the tutorial will lead you through the process smoothly!

I finished up my Mod Times quilt this week, so here's some pictures of it...

quilt stats:
size: approx. 37" x 41"
fabrics: the tiled print is from Picnic and Fairgrounds collection by Denyse Schmidt, the blue/green border fabric is a shot cotton, kona bone (background) and sage (binding), Peacock by Allison Jane Smith for Windham Fabrics (backing)
pieced, quilted and bound by Jessica

Hope you have a good weekend and thanks for visiting!
~Jessica

Few more blocks done...

2011-06-09T14:08:00.000-04:00

These are quite addicting to make - I really enjoy seeing how the pattern turns out for each color combination. I could see this pattern done with so many different fabrics. Now onto more sewing... maybe I'll have the chance to get another block or two done today. Thanks for stopping by our blog! - Jennifer

(see this post if you are wondering about fabrics or quilt pattern)

First block done...

2011-06-08T08:15:00.001-04:00

Last night I couldn't wait to get started, so I had the chance to run out and buy some Kona Snow for the background and worked on this one late into the night. I'm excited to see the other fabrics sewn up... maybe the kids won't want to play outside too long today :) Its supposed to be in the 90 degrees here today and we're already outside and it is kind of muggy out... love summertime! - Jennifer

added to original post: Just got the second one done - these are fun to make!

I'm "Swooning" over this quilt...

2011-06-07T15:55:00.000-04:00

Today has been kind of strange... all the kids are sleeping at one time this afternoon- almost a miracle over here with 3 kids under 3- Yay for that happening, mama sooo needed that today! So while they are sleeping, I got cutting up my new fat quarters of Loulouthi fabric (by Anna Maria Horner for Free Spirit) that I bought with my birthday money.

Oh, these fabrics are really beautiful and picking out which fabrics should be paired together took me quite a while. Hoping I did okay so that they accentuate the quilt pattern. I am using Camille Roskelley's new pattern called Swoon- each block ends up being 24" so I'm excited to see how they turn out.

I'm almost tempted into adding an additional row on the side and bottom and then I think it would be about king size.... we'll see. I'll start with 9 blocks and see how they go. Anyway, for now I just need to decide on a fabric for the background and get cutting on that.

Oh, this is my favorite combination so far. I think I'll start sewing this one first.

Hope you are having a great day! - Jennifer

The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt

2011-06-06T12:10:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I think starting something new is just as fun as finishing a project. Last week I was able to check off a huge item on my to-do list. The chair cushions I started a long time ago got delivered this weekend and I'm so happy to have them done and in their new home. I didn't get any new pictures of them but they look just like the seat portion.
So, I rewarded myself with a little sewing and a start of a new quilt. Angela and Amanda have started up a quilt along of sorts. They've decided to start a support/inspiration group and work their way through the The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book and make it a goal to sew a couple of blocks each week. I got a little ahead of myself and made 5 in one night. Although I did start with the easy ones and just figured out the math so I didn't have to cut out templates.

Rainbow Flowers #73

Flock #34
The fabrics I'm using are all coming from my scrap baskets. I like how colorful everything is turning out so far.

Contrary Wife #21

Churn Dash #20

Bowtie #10

And here's the five of them all together. This should be a great project and really do-able. Two blocks a week will be nice and relaxing for me.

This week Thursday I would like to do a wrap up post about the Mod Times Quilt Along. If you have any pictures of what you've done please email them to me or add them in the flickr group! I'd love to be able to show off what you've made. I'm still working on quilting this one and hope to have it done for Thursday.

We also seem to be gaining lots of new "pets" at our house over the past couple of weeks. This ant farm joined us a few weeks ago and then a bunch of salamanders/lizards (I'm not sure what they are) were found in the woods this weekend and now we have them as pets, too. Ugh..... not my favorite type of pets, but the kids really like them. It's the goat that was mentioned (by my husband) in the car ride home yesterday that has me really worried!
:) Jessica

Saltwater Taffy Quilt Top #2

2011-06-03T12:31:00.000-04:00

I finished up the quilt top a couple of days ago and hung it up outside to take some pictures. The borders on this quilt really seem to make it special!

I'm going to send this one out to be quilted like I did the first one. Eventually my boys will be sharing a room later this summer and I think these will be really cute to have as an extra quilt on their beds.
(The pattern is called Saltwater Taffy by Fig Tree & Co.. The fabrics are from the Katie Jump Rope collection by Denyse Schmidt for Freespirit.)
Hope you have a great weekend! I'm off to finish up the cushion project I started in April. :)
~Jessica

Little pinwheel quilt for the new baby in our lives

2011-06-01T15:56:00.000-04:00

So, I have not been posting much lately but this is what I have been up to the past 10 weeks...

I've hardly have a chance to sew or get much else done besides taking care of my little sweeties in the past few weeks... Our newest little girl is 10 weeks old and it is amazing how much she is loved by her big sister and big brother. Thousands of kisses a day and "notifying" mommy when she is crying is pretty much all that goes on here- I'm sure some of you can relate :)

But I thought I'd write and tell you about the quilt I made for our little one before she was born. Since I "peeked" at the ultrasound and found out we were having another girl, I had to make this quilt in secret since my husband did not want to know the sex. So, I worked on it while he was at work or at night and got it finished a few weeks before she was born. I actually really like to use this quilt myself at night when I am up feeding her because I used a super soft fuzzy fabric for the backing and it keeps me so warm! I hope she will enjoy it as much as I do!

Hope everyone is having a great day- We're finally having some fabulous weather and we've been outside playing a lot. Thanks again for stopping by- Jennifer

quilt stats:
pattern: pinwheel (used 5" squares to start with)
size: 42" x 58" (including ruffle)
fabrics: Bliss by Bonnie and Camille, Kona Bone and some super soft fuzzy fabric for the backing

Saltwater Taffy Quilt #2 - more progress

2011-05-30T22:06:00.000-04:00

I've been able to sneak in a bit of sewing the past couple of days. Here's the progress in pictures...

One more border to add and then it will be complete!

And I have to say Happy Birthday to Jennifer! It's our birthday today and I hope that she has had a wonderful day. She's a great sister and I'm so glad that we can live near to each other and have our families spend time together. :)

I hope that everyone in the U.S. has had a great Memorial Day, too!
~Jessica

Saltwater Taffy Quilt - more progress

2011-05-27T20:26:00.001-04:00

(above) Here's what I started off with from my previous post.

And this is the progress I've made this afternoon and evening.

I found it nice to stitch the blocks in small batches.

So, here's where I'm at this evening.

I've worked on this way too much today! I love it though, and with all the pressing and trimming you really get precise blocks. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful evening.
~Jessica

Saltwater Taffy Quilt #2 - progress

2011-05-27T13:53:00.000-04:00

I'm making some good progress on little D's quilt. This quilt takes quite some time to make... lots of pressing and trimming in between sewing.

Here you can see where the green border is starting to appear. I'm hoping to have a quilt top by the end of the weekend!
I'll try and pop in with some more progress pictures. It's kinda fun to see it come together in pictures. :)
~Jessica

Some new beginnings

2011-05-25T15:56:00.001-04:00

I've had it on my mind to get started on this other Saltwater Taffy quilt this week. During nap time this afternoon, I've been making some good progress with it. The pinwheel blocks are getting sewn together and almost ready for trimming.
On Monday I started to work on that quilt, but lost interest and decided to cut the Cut Out & Keep fabrics into diamonds. I'm playing with some different layouts for it, but right now it's packed away for a while. I should focus and get the quilt pictured above and cushions that I need to make done.

But really, it's hard to focus on anything for too long at my house. Especially when you have this little helper around. :) I knew it was too quiet for too long.

TP, anyone?
~Jessica

Ruffle Baby Quilt - finished

2011-05-21T13:30:00.000-04:00

Here's the little baby quilt all washed up!
The washable marker comes out in the wash just fine and now you can really see the loopy quilting.

I'm almost done finishing up some of my old projects. (yay!) I have 2 quilts that I would like finish before I start another one. Those are the Salt Water Taffy pattern (this time with a green borders) for my youngest son and my Mod Times Quilt from the quilt along. I'm waiting to start a quilt like this one... I'm really trying to be good and finish up these other quilts first. That may or may not work, though! :)

I hope you're having a great weekend. I enjoyed watching my daughter run a 5K this morning with her Girls on the Run team! She did great and it was a wonderful accomplishment for all the girls.
My oldest son had a soccer game this morning, too and when he came to meet us at the run I noticed he had poison ivy all over his face and by his eyes. Ouch... that's not going to be fun.
~Jessica

quilt stats:
size: 31.5" x 40"
fabrics: Charm and Midwest Modern by Amy Butler, Freshcut by Heather Bailey, Kona cotton in white
sewn, quilted and bound by Jessica

Ruffle Baby Quilt

2011-05-20T09:34:00.001-04:00

So, here's another one of those projects that got started a long, long time ago and shoved into the cabinet with other UFO's! I don't know why I didn't finish it up a long time ago... it's really a cute little quilt and something a little different than a pieced quilt top.

I decided to make these kind of ruched ruffles on the quilt top after seeing this treatment done on a skirt. The skirt was pictured on an Amy Butler pattern for one of her bags and I thought it looked so neat with the controlled ruffles all along the bottom hem. So, why not give it a try on a quilt! :)

I drew three concentric rectangles on a piece of white Kona... with one of my kids washable markers, of course. Then I made a quilt sandwich (with the batting and backing) and pinned it all together.
The ruffles are made with strips of fabric and I mitered the corners and then did a rolled hem on all sides with my serger. (You could zig zag the edges, too).
To make the ruffles, I zigzag stitched over a heavy weight thread (upholstery thread). That way, when you pull it to make the ruffles it doesn't break.

Here the ruffles are getting pinned on the quilt sandwich.

You can see the corners where I wound the upholstery thread around a pin to secure the ruffle.

Now, all I have to do is stitch with a straight stitch over the zigzag stitching. That acts as the quilting, too.

So, the ruffles are done and now I got out the kids washable markers again and drew out some quilting ideas.

The loops are so fun to quilt! For me, it helps if I draw in the corner loops... that way they don't look so wonky.
Tomorrow, I'll share the finished quilt!
~Jessica

Mod Times Quilt Along - basting your quilt

2011-05-16T14:41:00.001-04:00

Here's some of the beautiful quilt tops that have been popping up in the Flickr group! I just love seeing what fabrics everyone has chosen and the different background and border colors. The are all wonderful!

This week, I thought I'd share some links and a few pictures of how I baste a quilt. I didn't have time to work on quilting my quilt this weekend. I needed to go out and buy some cream thread as I only had white in the house.
This morning, I chose to spray baste this quilt together. Most of the time, I pin the layers together, but I had a little bit of spray baste left and wanted to use that up.

Here's the steps that I took for that process:

First, you need to cut a piece of batting a little larger than your quilt top. I'm using up odd sizes of batting that I have left over, so mine is a little bit small for this quilt top, but it works for me. I think it's recommended to have a couple of inches overhang on all sides of your quilt top. You can see in my picture that I have joined 2 pieced of batting together (just zig zag the two edges together... it works really well).

Now, I pinned my quilt backing to the carpet. You can tape it or pin it to the carpet... I've done both and I started pinning it to the carpet one time when I ran out of tape. Start in the center and work your way out, smoothing the quilt backing fabric as you go. (I also iron and starch the backing before getting started) Remember to place your backing fabric with the right side down. :)

Here's the quilt backing all pinned to the carpet.

and a closer view of how it's pinned.

Then, I sprayed the backing with the basting spray and smoothed out the batting over top. I sprayed the batting and smoothed out the quilt over top of the batting layer. I just roll up the quilt top and unroll a section and smooth it out as you go across the batting. With this small quilt, it's quite easy to do quickly.

Here's a picture of the basting spray that I've used. I'm sure there are many brands out there. I usually only like to use this when I can open the windows and get fresh air into the house. It's pretty smelly when you spray it.

And, here's a section that I pinned to show you what that would look like.
So, now you can take your pins out that you used to pin the quilt backing to the carpet and start quilting your layers together.
Someone asked for a different way to quilt this quilt a while ago other than the stippling that I did on the original one. I'm thinking about outlining some of the shapes to start (the cream background). I'll start working on that and share some pictures along the way to give you another idea for quilting.

Here's some links to other tutorials and such for basting and binding a quilt:
crazy mom quilts basting tutorial
Check out her Quilt Making Basics in the side bar.
Heather Bailey's binding tutorial
Bind a quilt is in her sidebar (that's the tutorial I always use for binding)

I'm sure there are many out there, those were the 2 that came to mind when writing this post.

Ok, I think that's it for now!
I need to go make some salad and get ready for a Boy Scouts picnic tonight. :) There are lots of end of the year parties and trips going on in the next few weeks with the kids. Should be fun!
~Jessica