Christmas Potholders

I realized this weekend that this coming week is Riley's last week of school before the holiday break. She has 2 teachers for grade 1 -- Madame Erin, who teaches her Monday through Thursday and Monsieur Burrus, who teaches her on Friday. Now Mr. "B" (as the kids call him) is hipster/music/science/cool guy, so he's going to get an iTunes gift card. Mme Erin, however, strikes me more as a Commercial Drive/hippie/organic food/composter type, so I figured she might actually appreciate something home made.

I had lots of Insulbright left over from the VMQG/FVMQG Potholder Pass, so I sorted through my scraps this morning, found a bunch of red, green and white, and whipped up a couple scrap-busting potholders.


Christmas Potholders, a photo by HeatherEndearing on Flickr.


I used this quick and easy Tutorial from My Girl Thursday. These were SO FAST to make, mostly because they're not bound like a traditional quilt.  I did bind the ones I made for the potholder pass, but these still look really cute and took about 1/8th the amount of time.  I still have a ton of Insulbright left, so perhaps a few more of these will be made for miscellaneous Christmas gifts.


Now watch this cute video of She and Him singing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and you'll be in the holiday spirit!



xo
Heather

Doggie Stocking!

Doggie Stocking!, a photo by HeatherEndearing on Flickr.

Since I last put any effort into maintaining this blog, we have adopted a lovely beagle-basset cross named Waylen. He was part of Riley's 6th birthday present last May, but I have to say that he's become my dog, following me everywhere. He's 5 years old and a very gentle doggie; the entire family loves him and enjoys his company. Plus he's cute as anything.

(OMG. So cute, right? Totally deserving of a stocking.)

With Christmas fast approaching, I took 30 minutes yesterday and quickly sewed him up his very own stocking to leave for Santa. Hopefully Mr. Claus will leave him some squeaky tennis balls (his favourite) and maybe some peanut butter dog treats.

xo
Heather

An early New Year's resolution

So. I've totally ignored this blog for the past 18 months. Bad me. Life has been busy, Riley is in Grade 1 now and I'm on the executive for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. I've decided to make sure I spend a little time each week here writing and posting some of my projects. I get so much enjoyment out of reading other people's blogs... not necessarily saying that mine will be super thrilling but even if a few friends/guildies read it once in a while, then I'll be happy.

I've resurrected my long-dormant Flickr account, which I'm hoping will make things easier in terms of uploading photos. 

Yesterday's project? Well, Riley had a one-day stomach bug which normally would have put the kibosh on my entire day, but SHE TOOK A NAP. Miracle! I ran down to my sewing room and whipped up this quick laptop sleeve for my new laptop.

Laptop Sleeve, a set on Flickr.

I followed a tutorial done by Elizabeth Hartman for SewMamaSew! and it worked out perfectly, although I did add in an extra layer of cotton quilt batting for additional protection.

xoxo and extra promises of regular updatyness,
Heather

I'm wonky-block addicted.

After completing the wonky sock-monkey block for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild challenge block, I decided to do one more from my scrap pile.


Well, one turned into two, and so on, and I finished up 4 wonky blocks last night. 


For these first 2, I used some teeny tiny left-over scraps from R's Hedgehog dress to provide a focus block for the centre.

These other two have a more flowery centre.

I'm pretty pleased with these. This "winging it" thing is pretty fun! Each block measures out at 12.5" square. They don't look perfectly square in the photos; I guess my camera was at a bit of an angle.

I've barely made a dent in my stash of scraps. I've been saving them up for the past 2-3 years, not really knowing why but now I'm so pleased that I did. I love these scrappy things! I'm trying to use a bit of black in each one to maybe provide a small amount of cohesion between them.

I feel so guilty.

Oh dear, I can't believe it has been over one month since my last post. We were away for 10 days and then all manner of life things intervened (read: rampant illness and summer activities). I don't know if anyone is actually reading this thing (aside from my mom - hi, Mom!) anyhow so perhaps it's a non-issue.

Since we returned from Toronto a few weeks back, I have actually done a fair bit of sewing.

First, I thought I had better get started on a quilt project for my Niece. I am planning on giving her a twin-sized quilt and pillow sham for Christmas this year. She will be almost 2 and close to moving into a "big girl" bed. Since my last quilt took me eleventy-million years to complete (ok, well a year), I figured I better get going or it wouldn't be done in time.

Well, I started cutting and sewing, and by some magic process, the whole entire quilt top was cut and sewn in a matter of about 5 evenings!

I'm totally amazed. And happy. And now wondering how I'm going to quilt it. Isn't it a cute pattern? The snowball blocks in the centre are 10", which probably explains how fast it went together. It will be perfect for my Niece; her parents' house is very old - apparently Sir John A. Macdonald used to live there! It is a nice mix of traditional and modern.

A close up of the cute fabric. The fabric line is called "Flutter". The pattern I used is called "Spice Cake". 

Riley continues to be a dress-only girl this summer and so I have sewn yet another one of those dresses that she loves. This time, we used a meter of this amazingly cute Michael Miller fabric with adorable Hedgehogs on it. We popped in at Spool of Thread and she went nuts for it.  They have some outstanding fabric at that store.

I attended my first Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild meeting last week. So many nice people with fantastic quilts. I am so excited to be a member!

One of the members, Paul, issued a Challenge Block. We picked up a small square of fabric that had an image of a sock monkey on it, plus a 1" wide strip of white. We were challenged to make a "freeform" quilt block - the only restrictions being that the white strip had to go around the monkey and that it had to finish to 12.5".

I was totally terrified to make a block with no instructions, being a total newbie at quilting, but once I looked up a few tutorials (thanks, Quilt Dad), I just dove right in. It was completely liberating! To make a block without worrying about having the pieces exactly the same size! To not stress about sewing exactly 1/4"! To just grab scraps from the left-overs of other projects without too much thought!

I can see this being something I do on a regular basis. I have a mountain of quilting cotton scraps left over from sewing quilts AND clothing. Scrap-busting, here I come! (Turned out really cute, right?)

Oh, and remember that blouse I was going to sew way back at the beginning of this blog? I did actually make one up but despite my paranoid over-measuring and fitting, it ended up about 1" too small at the waistband. So I gotta either drop 10 lbs (which I could totally stand to do) or make another (which I will probably also do). 

xo

Heather

Last minute, pre-vacation sewing panic!

Lately, R has been incredibly picky about clothing. Specifically, it seems like she has to have the minimum amount of material actually touching her body. This usually results in huge getting-dressed battles every morning.

We are about to leave on vacation to visit relatives in Central Ontario, which is very hot and humid at this time of the year. I have absolutely no desire to duke it out with her every morning about clothes, so I decided to whip her up a dress or two from a pattern that is basically a sack with shoulder straps.

I've sewn this pattern for her twice before and it used to be a winner, except for some reason the elastic around the arm was now bothering her (although it is not too tight, but what can you do). So I swapped out the sleeve for a ruffle and now it's her favourite thing.

I started cutting out dress #2 from this pattern, and then realized I had heaps of this particular fabric grabbed from my stash, and how CUTE it would be for R and her baby cousin E to have matching summer dresses. Of course, I decided this yesterday; we are leaving early Wed morning and I haven't even started packing yet. Panic!

So I dig through my stash of patterns and come across a baby sun dress pattern from 1991. I think this must have been inherited from my mom as I don't recall it at all. 

Ok, so not the most modern thing every but the sun dress is pretty cute and it was literally the only pattern I had that would work for a 1 year old. Plus, a ruffly sun dress on a cute baby in the summer? ADORABLE!

The end result: 2 sun dresses that aren't really matchy-matchy but will hopefully result in some cute photos of R and E together. The fabric isn't wouldn't be my first choice, but R chose it out of my stash and all little girls love pink butterflies and flowers.

I also finished up my first ever vintage sewing project for myself - Butterick 3375 circa about 1964, judging from the hair and the price on the pattern. (Photo taken with my iPhone Hipstamatic camera for true vintage-ness!)

I'd like to point out that I really wish I had a dress form, as this looks much better on me then hanging all droopy on a hanger. But I just don't have time to model this right now!  This was a trial run with some left-over fabric I had in my stash - a black and white graphic print. 

The pattern turned out very similar looking to the pattern envelope, although I eliminated the elastic band at the bottom hem as I figured I have enough fluff there without it. One other thing that is interesting is that the armholes seem to be much smaller than modern patterns. It fits, but it is definitely a different fit than a modern sleeveless blouse. 

I will definitely wear this top this summer and it will probably make it into my suitcase tonight. I don't know if I would make it again but it was definitely a nice, simple way to get over my phobia about cutting into my vintage patterns.

Bye folks! My next post will likely be in about 2 weeks.

Heather

Zipper Quilt done!

I have actually been sewing like a mad person the past few days. I haven't had time to update the blog - lots of happenings including R finding out that she needs glasses. She is not a very happy 5 year old little girl at the moment. I think she looks adorable in them, but there's no convincing her.


About a year ago I started sewing a quilt from a book called "The Modern Quilt Workshop". The pattern is called the Zipper Quilt and it has about 3000 pieces. I'm not sure what I was thinking as I had only done 2 very simple quilts prior to taking on this project. One year later, I had finally finished piecing the top.


My Mom very graciously agreed to quilt the top of this queen size quilt for me on her Juki that is mounted into a quilting frame. It's done and it looks amazing! Here is is on our bed:

And a close up of the cool meander pattern Mom did on it. It's quilted with a medium brown thread, which I think looks wonderful.

I also have to throw a big thank you out to my Mom for doing the binding as well. She is an expert hand sewer, and I am ... not.

I have also sewn a dress for R, a bathing suit for R and have tackled my first vintage pattern in the past few days:

I'll try to get photos of everything up in the next few days. I also would like to sew another Amy Butler Barcelona Skirt before we leave on vacation next week.