White board case and bee blocks

This post is gonna be quick and dirty. Since I have to return to work next week, I'm trying to spend my time sewing rather than blogging about what I've sewn.

Here are a couple bee blocks for Amber in our local quilt guild bee, La Beeda Loca. Amber asked for blocks to mimic Denyse Schmidt's cheater print. She gave us a variety of prints from Denyse's Joann's lines.





I found these dual-sided white boards with crayons at Target. Since I'll be gifting one for Christmas, I thought it could use a fun case. I adapted Faith's iPad case tutorial to fit the white board. It was such a great tutorial; I'm planning on making another white board case for my daughter as well as a case for my iPad.









I made a little crayon roll to hold the white board crayons too.





Well folks, that's it. For those of you in the states, I hope you have a very safe and happy Thanksgiving tomorrow.

WIP Wednesday - 1st Anniversary

I haven't done a WIP Wednesday post for a while, but boy have I been busy this week! Documenting my progress will help me see where I'm at and how much I want to accomplish before going back to work in three weeks.

Quilting
I made a goal to finish the quilt tops that I had lying around before starting any new quilts. While I didn't totally stick to that goal (you gotta be flexible, right?), I am this close to meeting that goal. This week I spent time quilting four of the five quilts that I basted a couple weeks ago. I tried to be more conscientious with the quilting. While I did an all-over loopy pattern on one, the others have straight lines, loops, flowers, swirls, snails, and a decorative stitch.



Baby Sewing
One of the downsides to not finding out the gender of our baby when I was pregnant was that I didn't want to do any sewing projects and make something gender neutral. I saw this tutorial for a sleep sack on Make It and Love It and decided to run to Joann's to get some fleece that was on sale.

This one is the prototype. I didn't need to add a seam allowances for the neck and arm holes, so it sits too high and the arm holes are not as loose as I wanted them to be.



This one turned out much better, although there are still some improvements to be made. This picture makes it look funny too, but it actually fits my daughter really well. Sewing with fleece isn't my forte, but it keeps my baby warm at night. I'm debating whether I want to try making another one or not.



I'm not sure if all Joann's have the same merchandise, but I noticed something new since the last time I was there. They have an aisle dedicated to making your own cloth diapers. I was SO HAPPY to see this aisle. I cloth diapered my two older kids and am bummed that I won't be able to cloth diaper my baby. This is kind of a lame excuse, but with working outside the home now, I have absolutely no time for diaper laundry. While I was perusing the aisle at Joann's, looking through the diaper-making books, I decided to grab some PUL (polyurethane laminate, which prevents leaks) to make some changing pads. I used PUL on one side and soft fleece on the other. One down, four more to go.



Rotary Cutting
I spent time last night cutting the charms for round 2 of the Color Wheel Charm Swap. I also cut 10" squares for a swap for the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild meeting this month. My local quilt shop moved locations and had a grand opening this past weekend. Their sale fabric was 75% off and I was able to get a couple yards of this Neptune print by Tula Pink for about $3.50! Talk about a screamin' deal.


To-Do Before Going Back to Work

• Finish quilting Swirling Stars quilt
  
• Make bindings for the quilts in progress
  
• Finish the three changing pads I've cut out
  
• Make five pairs of PJ pants for my family for Christmas Eve
  
• Make gifts for the cousins whose names my kids drew for Christmas

I'm sure I have more to do since I have a tendency to start new projects all the time. But I have to admit that it feels so good getting all these quilt tops quilted and turned into finished quilts. It's this huge weight off my shoulders.

Bee Blocks and Other Stuff

November is Lee's month in the Sew Beautiful Bee. I got her fabric on Halloween and since I hadn't yet mailed back Katie's block, I thought I should hurry and make Lee's so I only had to go to the post office once.

Lee asked for trees of any kind. I really like making these ones. I made my first tree when Cara asked for house blocks, so I thought a little forest for Lee would be good. She sent an assortment of green, yellow, orange, and brown fabric with Essex linen, which she wanted us to use for the background (LOVE it!). Can you tell that the brown fabric on the left side is a closeup of a tree trunk? That's what I was going for there, but I'm not sure I pulled it off.



A few of us in the SLC Modern Quilt Guild are in a little bee for our guild. Kati asked for string blocks for this month. This is my first time making these string blocks (gasp!), and I totally loved it. I was so tempted to forget my goal of not starting any new projects and cut up some fabric for new throw pillows for my couch.



Kati sent blue, green, yellow, orange, and gray fabric and asked that we not trim the tails or square up the blocks. These are 12.5 inches so Kati will have some nice sized finished blocks when she puts her quilt together.



I'm also participating in the second round of Kati's Color Wheel Charm Swap. This round is focusing on lights and darks of our assigned color. My color is orange.

Click the photos below (images courtesy Hawthorne Threads) for the make and model of these fabrics.





Looks like I've got a bunch of fabric to cut. I better get to it.

Also, see the post below for my Blogger's Quilt Festival entry.

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Goldfish Quilt

For this year's Fall Blogger's Quilt Festival, I wanted to share my newly-finished Goldfish Quilt.

Front:


Back:


While this quilt's design is nothing to shout about, what makes this quilt special is that it came together with other people's help.

My friend, Leigh, learned of my love for Heather Ross' Goldfish in Bags fabric at the end of last year. Since I came onto the quilting scene well after the fabric was out of print, I didn't have any. Leigh was amazing and swapped some of her other Heather Ross fabric to get me a fat quarter of these little fishies! Totally blew me away!



I wanted to make the most of the fabric so I fussy cut the fish and framed them in white and blue and orange fabric.



For the border, I used a stripe fabric from the same Lightning Bugs and Other Mysteries line that I won in a giveaway from Rae earlier in the year.

It's nice to have this quilt finally done.