I just called to say, "I love you."

I was planning to schedule this post while I'm recovering from surgery in the next couple weeks, but the mister's aunt passed away unexpectedly this week - she was only 51 - so I think it's important to take time to say the important things in life. We miss you, Nancy.

Earlier this month was my dad's birthday. My dad is pretty much the greatest guy ever. He's calm and level-headed and always tries to keep things peaceful. With five sisters and only one brother in the house that made for a lot of estrogen and all-around hormone overload growing up.

Now that all of us are grown and most of us are away from home with our own families, my dad has tried to make a point to keep in contact on a regular basis. He calls to check in on each of us, which I really love and appreciate.

I don't remember when it started, but every time he calls and I answer the phone, he starts to sing Lionel Richie's song, "I just called to say, 'I love you.'"

A few months after my youngest was born my dad got really sick and spent a week in the hospital. Things weren't the same after that. He's bed-ridden now and we've had a few scares that he was drifting away. For his birthday this year, I wanted to make him something to represent what his phone calls mean to me.

I fussy cut this telephone from Melody Miller's Ruby Star Sparkle and appliqued it onto some of Joel Dewberry's Herringbone in Grass from his Modern Meadow line.

Then I fused interfacing to some of Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee Cross Square in Green and cut out the letters for the lyrics. Then I appliqued them to the background fabric as well.

I initially planned to make a pillow cover, but figured it would be better as a wall-hanging instead.

I plan to make myself a pillow cover like it eventually too. It'll serve as a good reminder of love and family and making sure you take the time to tell those you love how you feel.

Practice Bee Block Turned Pillow

Remember this practice dresden plate block I made back in January?



I didn't know what to do with it because the colors don't really match any decor in my house. My mom-in-law made a comment that it reminded her of a quilt from her childhood made out of old clothes. I asked her if she wanted me to make a pillow or wall quilt for her. She chose a pillow.



I had a 20" pillow form and the dresden plate fit pretty well on a 19.5" square of Kona white (I like my pillow covers fitting snugly on the pillow form so I make them 1-2 inches smaller).



For the back, I used a single print from the front to make an envelope closure, which is my go-to pillow closure. I'm not sure I'll branch out of that anytime soon.



Linking up to:

I'm really starting to hate this winter light for taking photos.

The mister has complained year after year about how much he hates the winter months for photography. I didn't really understand what he meant until this year. In the early summer, he showed me how to use his Nikon and I think I got the hang of taking decent pictures outside so I could photograph my quilts and other projects. But now that the weather has changed and the light has gotten darker (the snow doesn't help either), I'm finding myself resorting to taking pictures inside with the flash. Plus, I've had a killer cold the last few days so my laziness has won out in the photography department. Anyway, that's why the following photos aren't that great.

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

I'm in my first virtual quilting bee this year, the Sew Beautiful Bee. January is Cherie's month and she requested Dresden Plates. I hadn't made them before and opted to make a practice block to make sure I got everything right. I haven't decided what I'll be doing with this block. Kati had a great idea of keeping all the practice blocks for each month and then putting them together in a sampler quilt. I really like that idea, but I used leftovers from the baby quilt I finished yesterday so I'm not sure how well it will blend, color-wise, with the other practice blocks I make. I've toyed with the idea of turning this into a mini quilt for My Favorite Little Quilt Swap, which is currently in its second round. (The deadline is January 31.) Or, I can always turn it into a pillow or something to go along with the baby quilt. I dunno. We'll see.



Here's Cherie's finished block, using Soul Blossoms. I ended up using a blanket stitch to attach the flower to the background fabric and wish that I would have just used a straight stitch. I used a straight stitch on the circle and like how that looks better than the blanket stitch.



I've been anxious to finish my Far Far Away 2 Kitchen Windows quilt. I got all the pieces cut and the blocks laid out.



I decided to use Kona white for the window panes because I think it adds enough contrast to the muted color palate of the FFA2 fabrics. I really like how Ashley at Film in the Fridge used white to frame her FFA2 quilt and opted for the same contrast in mine. I also saw Lee's Lattice quilt today and I'm really thinking of scrapping the Kona ivory I was planning on using as the sashing and getting some Kona stone instead.





Two blocks down, 23 to go.

Finished Rocket Me to the Moon

During my time off work last week, I finished the quilt for my son's bed, Rocket Me to the Moon.

I knew I wanted to quilt this one with something other than all-over loops, but it took a little while to decide exactly what I wanted to do. I started by outlining each square with a stitch about 1/4" inside the square on all sides. Then I was going to quilt the blue sashing only. But, then I thought it would be more fun to free-hand stars, planets, moon rocks, and an alien robot within each square instead.

Here are some moon rocks (free-motion pebbles).


Here are some stars.


The planet Saturn on the front.


And how it looks on the back.


And finally, a little alien robot on the front.


And back.


When I finished quilting all the squares, I almost left it at that, but then felt like the sashing was missing something. So, I quilted some wiggly lines vertically and horizontally along every sashing line. I like how it gives each square its own frame.


I bound the quilt in the same rocket wave fabric as the large squares on the quilt top and the waves make nice wavy stripes on the binding.


While the quilt was washing and drying, I made a matching pillowcase with the last of the rocket waves fabric. It was lacking a little something on the end so I appliquéd the same rockets that are on the back of the quilt and on the curtains in my son's room.


I wanted to get a picture of the entire quilt, but the grass was wet this morning and I don't have any helpers today to help me hold the quilt up. Oh well. You get the idea.


Be sure to check out Fabric Tuesdays today.

Lunch Sack and Reusable Snack Bags

I haven't shared much personal information on this blog, but this week my son started at a new preschool. He has an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and started at a school that is specifically for kids on the autism spectrum. Technically, my son has PDD-NOS, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. This basically means that he has some challenges typical of autistic children, but he doesn't have all of the classical traits. He can talk and communicate, which is one of the reasons this school wanted him to attend there, but he often struggles with certain behaviors and has a few sensory problems (like getting his hair cut and brushing his teeth).



Anyway, instead of going to preschool a couple days a week for a few hours a day, the bus picks him up at 8 in the morning and drops him off at 3:30 in the afternoon. That means he eats lunch away from home. He's a pretty picky eater (aren't most kids?), so I figured it would be worth it to make lunches for him.

I try to be environmentally conscious so I knew I wanted to make a lunch sack with reusable sandwich bags. I was looking for tutorials and came across this one at A Lemon Squeezy Home. Totally adorable! My son loves anything to do with cars and trucks so he picked a bus for the design on the front. I've been wanting an excuse to buy some Wheels fabric by Riley Blake and this was the perfect project for it.

Here's my not-anywhere-near-perfect version. In my head, the bus was going to turn out so cute, but instead the front tire looks a little flat and I should have probably picked a more symmetrical object for the front flap. But, oh well. Mistakes to learn from.


I appliquéd the windows and wheels onto the front, used PUL for the lining (the same thing in the cloth diapers I have), and added my son's name on the back. It took a while to make it, a few hours I think. But, at the end of the day, my son was happy with it. He made up a little song that he sang about loving his bus lunch bag. Can't ask for a better response. And even though it's not perfect, if he likes it, that's all that matters, right? (Although you can be sure that I'll be making a couple more to try to improve my skills.)


I also made several sandwich/snack bags. I used the same two prints for these as I did in the lunch sack, but in different colorways. Two have velcro and I used this tutorial for those. The other two are just the plain old fold-over kind, but I had to figure that one out as I went along. All the bags use the PUL. If I make more, I'll modify the tutorial I followed so there are no raw edges on the insides of the bags. I can see those catching crumbs easier.


The velcro version was easier and quicker to sew than the fold-over version. Although, I bought self-sticking velcro and couldn't sew through it without mucking up my needle. Luckily, it's VERY sticky and adheres nicely to the PUL. I don't think I'll have to worry about it coming off for now.


I whipped 12 of these up in about an hour and a half on Sunday. Super fast and super easy.

Oh, and one more thing. Angela over at Cut to Pieces (the mastermind behind the INCREDIBLE Where Blue Birds Fly doll quilt) is giving away a copy of Cherri House's City Quilts book. Head on over and check it out.

Finished Scrapbuster Pillow

After making the front of the pillow, I had to trim the edges to determine the size of the final pillow.


I took some scrap strips of fabric to make the back. I decided to do this one all of the same fabric, but I think it would look cute using different sized strips of a variety of fabrics for the envelope back.


After making the pillow cover, I started making the pillow form. (This was probably the backwards way to do it, but it worked fine for me.)


Before making the rainy day pillow last month, I probably never would have attempted to make my own pillow form. It just wouldn't have occurred to me. But then Kati showed some pillows she made at our Modern Quilt Guild meeting a couple months back and she totally opened my eyes to the possibilities of pillow forms.


I took a pillow from my son's room that I didn't care for, ripped off the fabric cover, and used the stuffing for my new pillow. Closing the pillow form after it's been stuffed is always a challenge for me because of the puffiness of the pillow, so I think next time I'll just close it by hand with a needle and thread.


I thought it would be fun to use piping around the pillow edge (I've never done that before and it would be fun to try), but I wanted the pillow to be a bit simpler to appeal to more of the sisters in my ward for a project they would want to attempt if they have little or no sewing experience.

I plan to make more covers too. It'll be fun to make one for each month of the year, or at least for different seasons or holidays.

Now, head on over to AmyLouWho's for more show and tells.



And make sure to check out Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday.

Scrapbuster Pillow (my version)

Before I got into quilting last December, I saw this pillow by Allison of Cluck Cluck Sew and knew I had to make one. (By the way, I'm pretty sure that her blog was the catalyst that started me wanting to learn how to quilt. She's uber talented!) Alas, other projects got in the way and I never got around to making the pillow.

Fast forward several months to last week. I'm on a committee for my church group that plans activities for the adult women in our congregation (ward) and we've started talking about hosting a crafting Saturday in November (we call it Super Saturday). Of course, my wheels started spinning and I woke up several times during the night throughout the week to jot down ideas of things we can make in the four-hour timeframe for our Super Saturday. One of those ideas was Allison's appliquéd tree pillow.

On Tuesday, we're having another meeting to finalize the projects/crafts to make, so I finally started on the pillow last night.


I pulled out some scraps from Freebird Picnic (the brown was perfect for the tree trunk), and set to work. I didn't put as many leaves on my tree because I used all the heat'n bond that I had on hand.


I followed Allison's tutorial and found her way of laying the fabric on the fusible material so much better (and easier) than the way I usually do it. I'm pretty much a waste-hater so I usually try not to waste, even if it makes my process harder. But, I think Allison's way is much much easier.


After placing all the leaves where I wanted them, I pressed them onto the fabric to be used as the pillow front (I used a Kona cotton that I had on hand, but you can certainly use a heavier weight fabric like Allison did).

Before stitching the leaves and trunk, I played around with some of my machine's decorative stitches. I initially planned on doing a blanket stitch, but then tried out this leaf design and really liked how it looked on each scrap of fabric. On a couple of leaves that didn't have a lot of contrast, I added a seam down the center of the leaf to look like its main vein.


I plan on finishing the pillow tonight so it will be good to go tomorrow for our meeting. It will be rectangular since I wanted the tree trunk to be a tad longer.

I think this is such a great way to use up scraps and to personalize your space. I'm thinking about more and more pillows/pillow covers I can make to go with the different holidays and special occasions that we celebrate at our house.