WIP Wednesday, on Thursday.

Oops. I missed WIP Wednesday yesterday. Hubby was home sick, so we had an impromptu family day and made a quick trip to Quesnel. We will be moving there eventually, and since I hadn't been there since September, it seemed like a good day for a road trip.

And the good news, while searching for the dance studio (which has moved, of course) I even found a new to me Quilt Shop that had lots of Moda fabric (sorry they don't seem to have a website. At least not one that I could google). Let me tell you, when you live in the land void of decent quilt shops, I'll take one that stocks Ruby, Hometown, Cosmo Cricket and the new Kate Spain any day.

So, since I missed the big link up yesterday, I'll just show a few shots of another baby quilt I've got in the works. My babysitter's mom is having a boy in a week or two, so I decided to use what I had on hand to make a quick baby quilt.

Little Man Pattern by Camille Roskelly. I love that it only uses 4 fat quarters.

I chose the Little Man pattern from Camille's Simplify book. What a great pattern. It only uses 4 fat quarters and some background and border yardage and it goes together fast. As in, really fast. I had the quilt top made in no time. And I used up every last scrap to make a striped backing too.

Striped Backing

And I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised how well it turned out. I don't really love the fabric line. It is "Be a man" by David Day. I think I bought the fat quarters and some yardage when I found it on sale and I was feeling guilty that I never make anything for my son. I still feel a bit guilty that I never make him anything, but it feels great to use up this fabric.

Now I just have to the thing quilted. I'm thinking straight lines since my machine is being fussy about stippling these days. Might be time for a tune-up. I just can't bare to be without it while it is in the shop.

Happy Thursday!

Interlocking Stars

I'm jumping on the interlocking stars bandwagon. I'm typically behind the current trend, or I just ignore it completely. For example, I'm ignoring the Swoon band wagon right now, even though it is so, so tempting. Okay, I joined the flickr group, but I'm trying very, very hard to just watch from the sidelines.

Anyway, back to those cute interlocking stars. Amber made a sweet little pillow a while back, and Darci has a great tutorial too. And of course, Elizabeth from Oh, Fransson has a quilt along going right now.

So, just to warm up, I made my sister a little pouch for her birthday. I used 2" squares and pink and aqua scraps. I'm pretty new to zippers and pouches, but now that I've gotten over my fear of zippers, I have to say that they are a fun and easy present. (My sister loved it, by the way).

If you are new to pouches too, I really like Kelly's tutorial. She shows how to put those cute pieces on the end of the zipper. And even better, she shows the technique, so you can adapt it to any size of zipper or pouch. I like being taught how to fish....

On the design wall

I also started an interlocking star quilt for a friend who is expecting in February. I'm going with a pink and aqua colour scheme with a little grey thrown in to keep it from being too sweet. My friend is pretty sure she's having a girl, so hopefully she's right, or else I'm going to have to make a quick boy quilt too.

I'm basically following the quilt along from Oh Fransson, except I used 4.5" squares, and I am making it smaller (10 x 12 squares instead of 20 x 24).

Hope you had a fabulous Tuesday. I'm hoping to post about another baby quilt in progress tomorrow for WIP Wednesday.

Are you trying to avoid any popular quilting trends? Or have you jumped on the wagon?

Aidan's Quilt and a Test

No, don't worry, there isn't a test for you. I'm just testing out posting a photo from flickr. Thanks so much everyone for all of your help.

Aidan's Quilt

(Ha, I did it! Thanks so much Michelle! Of course now my formatting is all messed up, but I'm sure I can fix it. Why did it take me so long to figure this out? (Okay, maybe don't answer that)).

As for Aidan's Quilt, I finished this a long, long time ago, gave it away to my friend's little guy, but just forgot to blog/post about it. Today seemed like a good day.

I only basted it on March 6, 2011.

(Ha, I did it again. Yay!)

Thank you friends! You have no idea how much work/time you've saved the future me. 

WIP Wednesday 1

I guess since I made all of those New Year's goals, I should probably keep tabs on them. I've been watching lots of my favourite bloggers chart their progress with WIP Wednesdays, so I think I'm going to join the gang.

On the Go...

Here's my Maple Leaf Rag so far. (I know many of you have seen this on flickr already, but thank you for indulging me). I just moved this project from my 'design floor' to my 'design wall' (aka a piece of batting pinned to the wall), so I'm hoping to make a bit faster progress. When it was on the floor it got ran over by crawling babies and Thomas the Tank Engine on a fairly regular basis.

I love this quilt. I love using my favourite fabrics. I love that I only have to use a little bit of my favourite fabrics so I don't feel like I'm committing. This is my for fun project.

Maple Leaf Rag in progress

I also got a little quilt destined for our local NICU basted today. I was going to quilt it too but my machine was skipping stitches and generally being a big pain. So I gave up and went back to my fun project.

On hold...

• Wonky 1/4 Square {Bee Inspired} Quilt
• Colour Wheel Quilt
• And oh so many others that I'm not ready to admit to yet. Give me time. Please.

I'm hoping to link up to WIP Wednesdays as much as possible this year. I'll try for every week, and hope to get twice a month actually accomplished. 

******

I was wondering if any of you could help me out? How do I use photos from Flickr here on blogger? Right now I'm doing 2 uploads - one here on blogger, and then again on Flickr. Any suggestions?

(Edit: Thanks to all of your helpful advice, I finally figured out how to post a photo from flickr. Thank you!)

Handmade Christmas: Christmas Dresses

(Sorry that I'm still posting about Christmas. I'm pretty sure this is the last one. But don't hold me to it.)

I've never been much of a Christmas Dress kind of mom, but for some reason, this year I got the bug. I think it is because I now have two little girls, and the idea of matching dresses, made by mom, was more than I could pass up.

Miss Lily Christmas dress. Please ignore the bright green hanger.

My oldest daughter just started highland dancing, and is in love with all things plaid (Please note, I had nothing what-so-ever to do with this. I swear. Really!) When the new Fabricland 5 minutes from my house happened to have Christmas plaid 60% off before Christmas, I had it home before I could think to myself, "When are you going to have time to make these stinking dresses?" Somehow I found the time, and my oldest even wore hers for her school concert.

I purchased a PDF pattern here called the "Miss Lily" by The Homemade Dress. (Don't you just love downloadable patterns?) I picked it because it had sleeves, a cute bubble skirt, and it looked pretty easy.

Sisters!

Overall, I was pretty happy with the pattern. My oldest is pretty petite, so I got away with using the size 4 pattern (she's almost 5 and a half) and adding a few inches to the length. The sleeve and bodice pieces are extremely similar, and at one point I sewed a six-month sleeve to the 4-year bodice. Enter my friend the seem ripper.

Other than that, the pattern went together pretty well. The elastic neck and arms are very forgiving, so I didn't worry too much about being perfect. I also didn't match up the plaid, but I'm okay with that.

I finished off the dresses with black velvet ribbon because everything is fancier with velvet ribbon. I love having Fabricland 5 minutes from my house (it only opened this fall). I may not like most of their fabric, but they have a great selection of ribbon and notions.

I also made my son a tie with the same fabric. He wore it under duress to mass on Christmas Eve, but I didn't get a photo of the three kids together because sweet Miss S was already asleep and stayed home with Grandma. We still have our tree up (I'm waiting till Epiphany to take it down), so I'm still holding out for a group shot. The tie was quick and easy to make. I used this pattern/tutorial because it has a velcro closure. This is a necesity if you are putting the tie on by force. How is it that boys come hard-wired to hate dressing up? If you are looking for a good round-up of tie and bow tie tutorials, check out Erin's post.

A Christmas Tie.

I was pretty proud to have my kids wear Mama Made clothes for Christmas. Next year, I may go for more coordinated than matching, but we'll see.

What about you? Did you make holiday clothes for your kids?

Happy New Year!

I haven't quite finished showing off all of my homemade Christmas creations, but after reading Felicity's fabulous recap of 2011, I thought I'd better take stock of 2011 myself and make some new goals for 2012. I'll wrap up Christmas sometime this week, so that I can start the new year off fresh.

2011 in Pictures.

I didn't get quite as many quilty finishes done this year as I would have liked, but I do have a creative 5 year old, a mischievous 3.5 year old and a sweet little 8 month old to show for myself instead.

Kids!

This time last year, I declared 2011 the year of finishing UFO's. Well, I started strong, but I think the only UFO's I actually finished were in January. I also realize now that I didn't write very good goals last year. I went through enough years of university to know that goals should be specific, attainable and measurable. Oops. So this year, I'm going to try to write better goals!

My goals for 2012:

• Finish up my red/green wonky quarter log cabin from my Bee Inspired Quilting Bee. I think that bee ended in 2009. Enough said. 
• Make a Maple Leaf Rag Quilt by Sarah Fielke. I love this quilt! I started crazy piecing the kites this fall and I can't wait to start putting blocks on the design wall.

Crazy Pieced Kites for my Maple Leaf Rag Quilt

• Finish my daughter's Oliver + S Messenger Bag. Yup. Still waiting to get the perfect hardware for this one.
• Finish my Colour Wheel Quilt. This one is a project. I pieced together the top, made a backing, got ready to baste it, then realized that it does. not. lay. flat. Not even close. This one needs to be picked apart. And I'm afraid of what I need to do to put it together again.
• Make at least two quilts for charity. I've got one quilt top even made. Just need to finish it!
• Use up what I have instead of buying and hoarding fabric. Okay, this isn't measurable and it probably isn't very attainable, but I am going to work on it. Really.
• Write a tutorial for this blog. I'm by no means a designer, but I'd like to challenge myself to a simple tutorial.

What are your goals for 2012?

Homemade Christmas: An Apple a Day

Hello and Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a amazing celebration. Christmas was so much fun this year, as our kids are getting old enough now that they understand a bit more of what it is all about. We celebrated our very first Christmas in our own home - we've always travelled to grand-parents - but this year they came to us. It was wonderful. I don't think we'll ever go back to travelling during the holidays.

Anyway, I have another homemade Christmas present to show and tell before the year is out. My mom was a high-school teacher for 30+  years, so I decided to make her an apple mini quilt. I was inspired by Tamiko's Pillow, so I used her paper piecing pattern and fussy cut apple fabrics for the centre.

An Apple a Day Mini Quilt

It took me a bit to get the paper piecing down, I'm by no means an expert, but once I figured it out, I loved how precise I could get each block.

An Apple Close-Up

Unfortunately, I didn't get it finished before my mom arrived, so I had to work on it in front of her. I did manage to finish hand-sewing the binding on Christmas Eve so it could go under the tree.

I had so much fun swapping for the different apple fabrics on flickr. Sometimes I find the process of tracking down different fabrics and prints almost as much fun as making the quilt itself.

Our company left Boxing Day, and we're now enjoying family time. We've been x-country skiing, skating on the outdoor rink and 10-pin bowling. And of course watching cheesy Christmas movies. I hope you are enjoying your family time too!