Surfing Penguin

So I am crossing more presents of my Gift list!  I have another pillow finished for someone for Christmas.  It was made to compliment the VW van pillow from last week (which was featured on Sew Cute Tuesday at BlossomHeart Quilts this week, yay!!).  This little penguin is all ready for the beach with his surfboard! I just wish I had some thicker white fabric as you can see through it a bit.

The pillow has an envelope back with surfboards.  I tried to make the surfboard on the front tie in the the backing fabric.  I think it turned out well, and it looks nice hanging out with my Christmas Monkey quilt!

Here are the pillows together – I love how well they go together!  They are now all wrapped up and ready to be shipped off to their new home for Christmas!  One more crossed off my Finish a long list!

Link ups this week: Sew cute Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, Lets Bee Social,

Coastal Cruiser

I am busy working on some Christmas presents for this year, because as we all know handmade presents are the best! First on my finishes for this year’s Christmas is a pillow for my brother in law.

My bother in law loves VW vans (well so does my Husband for that matter) and has been restoring one for the last few years. I knew when I saw the Coastal cruiser by Tula Pink pattern last year that it would be perfect for him, but at the time he was living with a bunch of guys and I had a feeling that a throw pillow would not be highly appreciated. He has since moved and I was told that his living room needed some color, so I am hoping this pillow will do trick.

The van is done in raw edge applique and I hand embroidered the logo before putting it on the pillow.  I love the way the colours turned out – like a van driving down the beach.  The only thing I think it is missing – a surfboard on the roof!

Well, that is one more thing to cross of my Finish a long list for this year! Now onto the second pillow!

Link ups: Lets Bee Social, Sew Cute Tuesday, Needle and Thread Thursday

Finish-a-long 2014 Q4

Well I didn’t finish all my projects last quarter (I actually did better than I thought I would, which is great).  This quarter is all about getting ready for the holidays – for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to make a lot of gifts this year (smart right).  Most of these projects are presents for people, so I am not posting too much detail (I doubt most the recipients read this blog, but just to be careful).

1. A Coastal Cruiser pillow. (Finished –  Nov. 20th)

2. A Pillow (this one will go with the Coastal Cruiser house, so it has the same background, but will have a different subject) (Finished – Nov 24th)

3. Stockings – With the new addition to our household this year we need another stocking.  As my husband and I don’t have any at our house (Christmas was usually spent with one set of parents or the others) I need to make us some as well – at least they will all match! (Finished – Dec 19th)

4. Baby quilt – This quilt is for a special little baby that decided to arrive early – guess she couldn’t wait to meet her parents!  That being said now her quilt really needs to done and it is still in pieces (all the pieces have not yet been cut either!). (Finished – Oct 27th)

5. This quilt from my Guild’s Mystery Quilt series needs to be quilted and bound so it can go to its new home this Christmas.

6. A custom quilt for a friend!  I have made several baby quilts for her (she loves to give them as shower presents) and I finally get to make on for her to keep!

7. Why not through this on (would be nice to have it for Halloween) as it just needs to be quilted and bound!  I would love to be able to snuggle with my Ghastlies soon!

8. I also have a Ghastlies mug rug that needs to be finished for a present (no pic sorry as I am sure this person looks at the blog!).

 

Oh dear, 8 projects in less than three months – I better get to work!   Hopefully I don’t get distracted with too many side projects over the coming months, although I am sure there will be a few of those as well.

 

 

Pillow Talk

Another finish!  I love how finishing off a project that has sat around the sewing room (mostly finished) give you a sense of accomplishment and the energy to keep going on other projects.  This pillow was that project for me.  It is an orphan block from a quilt (that is sitting waiting to be quilted) that I decided would make a good pillow – then it sat.  I have been working on several new projects for various people recently and feeling like I am not getting anything done (especially with a new baby in the house), so I needed something that I would be able to finish in a couple of naps.

I decided to practice my paisley quilting on this pillow, as I love the look but am still not confident enough to do it on a quilt.  I think it turned out fairly well, and while it was time consuming it didn’t take as long as I had initially thought.

Now that I feel like I have accomplished something I feel ready to tackle the rest of the quilts that are waiting with deadlines that are coming up soon!

This is my third finish for this quarter’s Finish a-long 2014 (original list here)!  Woo hoo!

Linking up to Needle and thread Thursday, Lets Be Social, Sew Cute Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, I quilt Thursday,

Finish Along 2014 Q3

Well, I am trying to make 2014 the year for getting some projects finished – my sewing room has become smaller, so I just won’t have the room for all my unfinished projects, nor the time I used to have to dedicate to them!  In an effort to keep working on projects and holding myself accountable for finishing them, I am joining in the Finish Along again!  I only completed about 1/2 my list last year, but that was better than finishing nothing and starting a bunch of new ones!

So for this quarter I have a couple of leftover projects and some new ones.

1. Hexagon pillow – I started this pillow over the summer and only have 8 more hexagons that have to be attached, then quilted to make the pillow cover.  As I am supposed to being doing a small demo on English Paper Piecing at my Quilt Guild Meeting in February I am hoping to have this  mostly done to show as part of the demo (adding borders, removing paper, ect).

2. Star Pillow – I need to get a pillow cover finished for this so it can go down on the reading bench to lean against!  My husband was nice enough to custom build the bench, so now I just need to finish up the pillows!

3. The baby Textures quilt – this still needs to be quilted and finished.  It has no real recipient, but it would be nice to be able to put it in the finished pile (and to have on hand for a last minute present, the number of people I know having kids seems to grow each week!).

4. Mom’s Pillow – After some renos last year, she is need of a pillow for some new furniture.  I am thinking a nice dresdren plate pillow would look great with the other grey and yellow flowers she has going on in the room.

5. Mystery Quilt – I made this quilt with the local guild this year and need to get it basted, quilted and bound.  I am hoping to use it as a Christmas present.

6. Star quilt – this is all nicely bound, it just needsto be quilted, in which case I need to pick a pattern to quilt it with.

7. Star of Bears – This quilt needs to be done in the next couple of weeks as the baby this is a present for is due Aug 5th!

8. Christmas Monkeys – this poor quilt keeps getting pushed behind other projects at every stage.  All that is left at this point is to bind it and remove all the basting pins!

 

That seems like a good list with a new baby in the house!

Finally – a Finish!

It has been a while since I have been able to sit down at my sewing machine, let alone my computer to get anything quilt related done.  I took on a few new classes at work which kept me busy along with doing some renovations around the house.  Suddenly I looked at the calender and realized it was April – how did that happen?

I will be giving some updates on the two rooms of the house we have been working on soon (they are both finally close to being finished), and I finished marking finals yesterday, yay!  Now I can finally get back into the sewing room and get working on some projects that have been long neglected.

The above pillow has actually been finished for a while and was done for an improv quilting challenge with my local Modern Quilt Guild.  It was done with some 2″strips that were leftover from the HST quilt from a while ago.  I also tried some quilt as you go with this as I was putting the strips down.

I love the quilted pillow and it lives in one of the rooms we have been working on – I will post pics of it in its home soon!  Now I just have to get the other pillow I have been working on finished:

New Pillow Finish

Finally a finish.  I don’t know why, but it feels like I have been working away and finishing nothing this summer.  This could be due to my tendency to skip around between five or six different projects, but whatever the case it feels great to finally some something finished even if it is small!  There is nothing like getting something off the WIP pile to make you feel like you are accomplishing something.

I had a few squares left over from making my Squares of Eden quilt, and they have been laying around in my sewing room, collecting lint.  I decided to pull them out and make a quick pillow for the guest bed to go with the quilt.  I had a pillow form that was 16″ by 24″ that I had recently picked up when I was making pillows with my cousin (getting her started on the quilting bug early).

As it was a small project I decided to have a little fun with the quilting and try out a few new designs.  I have been wanting to try the swirls for a while after taking the craftsy class by Angela Walters.  I then used the flower boarders from Natalia Bonner’s book A Beginners Guide to Free Motion Quilting.

I am happy with the way the quilting turned out and almost decided to bind it for a mini quilt instead of making a pillow so I could see all the detail on the back.  I did make the pillow and have been enjoying the extra pop of colour.  I am now making plans for more pillows – they are so much fun and come together so quickly.  They are great for a little pick me up project, and a fun place to try out new free motion quilting patterns without it being too overwhelming.

I am linking up to Finish it up Friday on Crazy Mom Quilts.  If you are visiting from there, welcome and thank you for checking out my post!  If you haven’t looked at some of the projects, I highly suggest taking a look.  There is always something great being finished.

Circle of Geese Pillow

Over the holidays when I had a little bit of down time (meaning I wasn’t marking all evening anymore) I decided to give a Craftsy class a try.  I kept seeing ads for them, and they looked interesting.  I have  never taken a quilting class before, as most of the classes offered here are during the day – while I am at work.  With the Craftsy class I was able to watch the videos whenever I wanted, which was great.  I signed up for the two free classes to get a feel of what they would be like, and decided to try making the paper pieced block from the 2012 Craftsy Block of the Month.

I had some brightly leftover scraps from another project I am working on that (I will hopefully post a WIP about that soon) I thought would work great with the white.  I love the bright colours.

I quilted the block with straight lines just under a ¼ inch apart, and I love the way it turned out.  I don’t think I would do that on a whole quilt but it is great on the pillow I made this block into.

I had a great time making this block and following the videos that I have decided to make the whole quilt.  Of course I had to order new fabric for it (any excuse), so I will be getting started on that soon!