New Whirlygiggles

A little late, but I worked on a 4th of July table runner this weekend.

I cut a bunch of whirlygiggles in large and small sizes. I wanted to test out my quilt math - I have two full size commission quilts to make.

(I may have gone on a bit of a fabric binge, getting just the right prints for those quilts. Fabric mail arrival to confess/document this week.)



I use this blank, bound book to record all my quilt plans and designs.

To get my quilt to end up as close to a traditional full size, without any borders or sashing, I had to adjust my whirlygiggle to about 13.75" square.

I thought a quick table runner for myself would be a good way to make sure my numbers were perfect.



Ooops - I was off by 1/4" across the joining of the four small whirlygiggles. Just an 1/8th on each end, so not a big deal for my table runner. But I'll adjust those for the large quilt. Glad I did a test run!



I was really happy with myself and thought I had an awesome plan to quickly back and bind this. Not so much! An anguished scream was heard when I cut the edge right along my quilting, as I always do, instead of 1" out for a quick turned binding.

I need to recover from it for a couple more days before I post the end result.



In the meantime, I'm finishing up the diamond quilt being made for my sister inlaw. I wanted to make sure she was good with how all the fabrics were playing together. So we took an overhead photo using two synced bounce flashes and my aqua painted ladder. It was fun!



This is what the floor next to my sewing table looks like. I swipe the trimmed bits right off the edge as I go through all 52 of my diamonds.



Finally, Becket bought me a new sewing machine this weekend.

It's even aqua with red gingham!



Kirby's Yarn is a super cute Wii game if you haven't seen it yet.

The little yarn guy has adventures in sewing notions and patchwork or knit worlds.

Holy Cow!

The summer is speeding to an end
(wish this crazy Amazon wet/hot weather would, too!)

We've been doing summer stuff - like the bucket ride across the Wisconsin state fair.

Eating Fair Food - yummmmm.

Which in Wisconsin includes Cream Puffs as big as your head!

And hey, look - I made something at my machine. A fun, summery table runner that was quilted as I went using Amy's tutorial that's on UCreate as their August project.

I'm on the parent board of Becket's co-op preschool and the meeting was at my house last night. I had to have a cute runner for the occasion! The mascot for our preschool is the owl - so had to include a few cute ones on the the left end there.

And I love the bird fabric on the back, too.

Becket also helped with some summer decorations - dyed rice and pinwheels! We colored the rice with a rubbing alcohol/food color mixture.

Card stock, straws, and some white rubber stamped designs for the pinwheels.

Ever notice that ice cream sundae dishes are hexagons?! With all the crazy it has been mostly handwork around here. Some hexagon fun is up next.

Use my stash year : week 29

Much fun was had this weekend with my Gram and cousins. But first an update on all the sewing I did last week as gifts for my sister in-law Laura's birthday and my Gram.

I bought this pattern before we went to Hawaii, intending to make a camera case for myself but never got around to it. Laura likes to take lots of pictures of the kids, so I pulled it out again last week. It's the camera case wristlet by Keyka Lou. A really well written pattern.

I cut the pieces and made one for myself at the same time. Since I hadn't made the pattern before, it was good to have my own to 'practice' on before doing each step on Laura's gift. It hangs perfectly on your wrist and my camera fit perfectly.

There's even a little pocket on the back. This would also be cute to carry around some change and your lip gloss if you didn't need a camera. But I'm glad I made them both at the same time - I may have never gotten to my own if I had waited. I forget how MANY fiddly steps and thick seams are involved with bags.

Laura also loves flannel pillow cases - she uses one year round. I loved the funky butterflies! And her 4yr old is always asking to use her favorite flannel pillow cases, so I made a second with some crazy cupcakes that they can share.

The cool thing about these is that they only have 3 seams - and that includes the french seam! (I hate strings, especially in pillow cases. So I always do french seams.) And even better, there's not a single: evenly turn under raw edge in a cylinder step. Besides adding long boarders and loose strings, my least favorite sewing thing is turning under an even edge on any size tube. I learned this pillowcase method from a friend and I'll be sure to share it this week!

I learned and tried all kinds of things last week. On my Gram's table topper I did straight line quilting that kind of looks like bead board. Appropriately summery I thought. And since I was running out of time, I gave a machine sewn binding a try. It wasn't too bad! I like the look of hand stitched much better, but this certainly was quick.

Overall a very good week!

Busted: 4.396

Purchased: 0.66 - Dream On charm pack win

Net YTD: (31.014)

No time to move the Toys!

I finished up the Bliss table topper for my Gram, along with some gifts for my sister in-law, late last night. Now we have to get going quick to start the drive. I'll be back in a few days for details and all the other fun stuff I made.

Blueberry picking with my Gram in Michigan - Summer Bliss!

Bliss is....Learning

New stuff - I love learning new stuff.

When I was knitting all the time, I kept moving through different techniques. Always eager to learn a new stitch or method.

When I started my Gram's table topper yesterday, I was excited to pull out my sewing machine's manual. I thought I would learn how to do a nice blanket stitch for some raw edge circles. I can't imagine my Gram enjoying the little strings that come off for a while with a soft raw edge.

After fiddling a bit and testing a bit I dove into my lovely Bliss layer cake and came away with some beautiful blocks. I really enjoyed the machines back and forth rhythm as I made my way around the circles.

Hope Valley Peek

Use My Stash Year : week 3

I saw an adorable table runner at Modify Tradition - guest blogger Andrea of Knitty Bitties shared a tutorial on Wednesday. My kitchen table was looking pretty empty, so I decided to use up some stash!

I LOVE this rabbit eating the snowman's nose. And here's the back....

Michele said we could keep the scraps from her Bee square fabric, so I put the cute bird into a pinwheel.

This little project was the only newly used fabric this week, but I didn't buy any!

Busted: 1.486 (told you I had weird decimals)
Purchased: (0)
Net YTD: (20.071)

Also this week I got my first award!

A lemonade stand award - isn't it cute. It is to be awarded to bloggers that show great attitude and gratitude. Thank you so much Leslie! I have to pass the award around, so I'll post about other bloggers later.

4 is Fun!

I had big plans for a new table Thanksgiving table runner. But it won't make it any further than strips.

We're too busy having fun being four today!

Happy Birthday little buddy