Saturday, September 25, 2010

My grandma and my gift to her..

Last Christmas I was working on finishing all my half-finished projects. You saw pictures of most of my projects during my mini-quilt post. However, I didn't take pictures of the table runners that I finished. One of the table runners I finished for my grandma. It was a rough time with my grandma...I was half-way through my pregnancy with my daughter and I was visiting my grandparents. I was taking by my finished sewing projects and when I got there I found out that she wasn't feeling really well and when my grandpa helped her to the bathroom he started yelling for help. She had passed out while she was on the toilet. It was all that I could do to keep her up as I told my grandpa to call 911. It was a very rough afternoon. Her colon was twisted twice and they found her cancer at that point. She has slowly been feeling worse and worse. It is really hard for me since they are the only grandparents I have know through my life. My moms parents died in a tragic accident when I was only 3. I lived with them off and on through the years I was in college. It was wonderful. I got to know them so well.

Well, I know that that was not a completely necessary story, but what I felt that I wanted to share. I made this table runner and gave it to her when she got home on Christmas Day from a two week stay in the hospital. It is sitting on her kitchen table that they don't use anymore and she has put all her willow tree figurines on it. I love the colors and how this turned out.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Halloween mania

Halloween has to be one of my favorite holidays. The fabrics and projects are amazing. I wish that I had money to spend right now to make many fun and wonderful projects. But, alas I must window shop all the cute ideas, put them in my bookmarks and hope for a later date. I saw some of the most fun fabrics at the Quilting Cottage yesterday. The oranges and purples had spiders and webs in the print. I liked that the print was not too big. I have been looking all over the internet for the company who makes the line, but apparently I should have written it down while I was in the store. I can't find it anywhere.

I was looking through the posts from blogs I follow and Crazy Old Ladies has started selling the following pattern on their etsy shop. I think that it would be super easy to make. The applique of the numbers would take a while, but it is really fun. I have been working on a countdown myself for the last year and when I finish one more block and give my mom her present I will post what I did. It is exciting after a year and a half to be finishing the one project that I meant to give her last christmas and didn't finish because of our moving and my morning sickness with my daughter.
I found this ladies blog...ps i quilt. She has all sorts of different things on there and this free tutorial.
And you can go through and look at several free tutorials on Free Quilt Patterns.info. It has a list of free tutorials and links to them. It is a great site.

Well, I would post more of the pictures, however, my house is calling and I have a sleeping baby. I better get cleaning before she wakes up.

Amalie

Saturday, September 18, 2010

cool quilt blog

I just got a new computer. I love love love it. It is all mine and I don't have to worry about what I put on it. I decided to go through and change Mozilla Firefox and my settings. I downloaded a tool bar called Stumble! Wow......this was a very bad thing for me. You put in the subjects that you would like to search on the web and you click stumble. It takes you to various websites that pertain to your interests. Of course I put in sewing and quilting and Red Pepper Quilts was one of the sites that I stumbled on tonight. I love the various pictures of the quilts that she has. Are they not beautiful? Like this one...I love it!!!!!!!!!!
or this great strip quilt. I love the colors, the fabric and the scallop look on the edge.
Or this oneOh, I just think that they are fun pictures. Hopefully I can finish my million projects and then be able to sew some quilts like these.

Amalie

Friday, September 10, 2010

Mini Wall Quilts

I love cutting and piecing fabric together. I know that most people don't...but there is something really exciting about it to me. I love the different fabrics coming together and how they all turn out in the end. However, making large quilts is expensive...and where do you put a lot of quilts? I decided that I would make a mini-quilt for each one of the months of the year. That way I could make a quilt for each of the seasons and holidays. I could learn how to machine quilt on my own machine with small quilts and I could have something that I can change out on the wall that isn't too large. Well, I have finished the following mini-quilts. I am really excited about it.

This is a mini-quilt from Crazy Old Ladies patterns. It is one of their seasonal skinnies. Very easy and quick to make. Requires a lot less material than the pattern calls for.
The following is my wall hanging for spring. I got this as a kit from Connecting Threads. I like a lot of their fabrics and their kits. I bought tons of their thread to work on each of my projects and I really like it. Their thread is wonderful.
This is also a kit from Connecting Threads. I have been looking for a 4th of July wall hanging. I really like this one, but I eventually want to make one with bright reds and blues.
This is a pattern from a couple years ago. Sandy Gervais who creates fabric lines for moda fabrics created this line. I love almost all of her fabrics. They just speak to me. I love this Halloween wall hanging. I found the following link to the pattern...it was made from a line called Pumpkins Gone Wild...and I think that the pattern was called Crazy Jack.
This is my Christmas wall hanging...it will match the Christmas quilt and I am going to get quilted for this Christmas. I am really excited that I am finally going to finish it. I still need to take pictures and post the Christmas quilt I made for my mom last year.
Many posts ago, I took pictures of the progress of this welcome sign. It is now finished. It took a very long time to stitch around all the applique on the entire thing. I used threads that would match the edges and make them all blend in. I used a blanket stitch around each part and I think that it turned out well.
This is not the best picture of the stitching. However, it does show the work that I put into it. I really like how it turned out.
I am working on the following projects that I started at the cabin last week. This first one my mom really liked when we went to the Quilting Store at Gardner Village. I don't particularly care for bow-tie patterns, but I really like how this one turned out. I really think that the top turned out really well. Now I just need to put the back on, the final stitching on the top and the backing and binding.
This is the new quilt that I am making to put in our living room for using while watching TV and movies. I still want to applique a few white stars onto it. I am going to tie this quilt. I think that it is going to turn out nice.
Russ made me the following quilt ladder last summer to put my quilts on as I made them. In the next couple weeks I am going to have my first quilt on there, my fall quilt. I am really excited. I just finished the backing and am going to take it to a long-arm quilter this week.
This is the decorative edge that he put on it. I love it
Well, there is the progress that I made before I made my daughter's quilt for her crib. I am very proud to say that I finished all of these and that they are no longer just tops. Check back soon as I am going to finish my next project in the next couple days.

check out this blog.

One of my facebook friends sent me a link to this website. It looks very fun and interesting. You should all check it out. So you think you're crafty

Sunday, September 5, 2010

My new toy!!!

So, while the baby took an incredibly long nap the other day I did some surfing on the internet. I know that that is not the greatest use of time. I really thought that i she was going to wake up so that I could run some errands. Two and a half hours later, she finally woke up and I had discovered a new toy that I went and bought for myself for my birthday this week. I love making bindings that match the project that I am working on. Since I first learned how, I have always made my own and not used a store bought one. (well, with the exception of the binding I used on the car seat because I wanted a bright solid color and buying a pre-made one was a lot cheaper) Well, as anyone who knows me can tell you...i am a super accident prone person. So would it surprise anyone that when i use an iron I am constantly getting burned? Probably not.

When I use an iron to make my bindings I either get my fingers too close to the tip of the iron while I am holding over the side it am ironing in half, or the steam gets going and my hand just gets to close to it. I have decided since I make a living using my hands to play the piano that I need to find a different way of making bindings. Well, I saw Simplicity's Bias Take Maker Machine in Nancy's Notions catalog that i get in the mail. I went online to find out more about it. It is the most awesome machine. I watched several videos on YouTube about how to use it and how wonderful it is. However, after doing a search on the cost of the machine I decided that I might want to wait and see what else I could find. I simply am not going to spend $50-100 just for a machine.

Well, nancy of nancy's notions did a demonstration of a small Bias Tape Maker. After I saw this video I went staight to JoAnns's website and found a 1" Bias Tape Maker. The link will show you what I was looking at and it is on sale right now for 40% online. However, i decided to go look at it in the store. Dritz had one that was 1", cheaper and I bought it. It was on sale for 50% off for labor day weekend. Bonus!!!! This is going to be perfect. No more burning my fingers!!!! So I was reading some reviews online and found a blog called Craft Critique.com. Awesome!!! I will be checking this site more often for all the things that I want to know more about. I can't wait to show you all the things that I am going to make with this new gadget. I am going to be using to finish the bindings for my latest project that I really hope to finish this week.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Madalynn's Room- the almost complete version

Ah...during Christmas break I determined that I could not work on the babies room until I had finished working on all my unfinished projects. So, I made a list of projects and went down that list one by one. They were mostly wall hangings that I needed to put backs on, sew and bind. Most everything required stitching around the applique and so I borrowed my friends sewing machine that had a blanket stitch and sewed for a straight 5 days and finished my list. It was wonderful.

During that time, I was looking for a pattern to make the babies quilt out of. I walked into the Quilting Cottage in American Fork, Ut and I saw a quilt. I drew the design on a paper and asked if I could have a ruler to measure the blocks. It was a finished quilt on the wall and there was no pattern, thank heaven, or I don't think that they would have let me measure the quilt and made me buy the pattern. It was easy to figure out, and i am proud to say that I sewed my first quilt without a pattern!!!! I knew that I could do that. So many quilt blocks are made in similar ways and i am learning more and more the more small quilts that I sew. So....here is her quilt!!

Sorry. I know that that is not the best picture, but it is going to have to do for now. I went into the babies room while she was sleeping and turned on the lights for this post. She is really out because she did not even wake up as I made quite a lot of noise. I decided that for each of my children I was going to make a crib quilt as theirs to keep when they are older. I had it machine quilted by a worker at the Quilting Cottage. Because her middle name is Azalea, I had her put huge flowers in and this is what they look like.
Oh I love them!!! They turned out so perfect. I have not finished the bumper but it is going to have the fabric from the light border on the outside and the same blocks, just a bit bigger turned on the inside. I am going to use a bumper that my husband's sister-in-law gave me and recover it. I will post pictures when I ever get to it. Hopefully soon, since she has started rolling and now sleeps in her crib.

My second project was this basket cover. I used the same fabric that I used to re-cover the car seat (which I need to post pictures of. I think that it turned out quite good.) I had bought a lot of this fabric. I have found many uses for it already. A year ago I saw this fabric on a sight on-line. It is a Michael Miller fabric. At the time I thought, "I should buy some of this fabric because I would love to use it to make a diaper bag when I have a baby." Little did I know that we would be pregnant 4 months later and a year later they are still printing the same fabric. It is awesome. I made up the dimensions for sewing and the idea from a few different covers that I saw in the stores the week that I made it. I am really excited out how it turned out.
After working on the basket, I looked at the dresser that we were going to use for her. It was originally my dresser from before we were married. When i bought it it was a light pink color. Russ painted it with wall paint from our first place because he didn't like the color. However, he didn't use primer and the paint is chipping off. I was looking at all my scrap fabric that I keep moving from house to house and decided that I needed to make something with my fabric. The following table runner to cover the dresser emerged. I really should take the whole thing off and take a good picture. I love it!!! Just look through many of the other pictures and you can see parts.
In this picture you will also see other objects that I used in her room. I wanted objects in her room that with will remind her of the things that are the most important to her in her life. I think that it is important to have a picture of Christ in her room so that she can look on him often and learn that she is loved by him. There are also three other willow tree figurines (that will eventually be on the shelf that you will see in a little bit and not on the dresser.) One is of an angel praying, so that she can remember to always pray for help and guidance. The other is of a man holding his child. I bought this for Russ and gave it to him as a present on the day that the baby was due and didn't come. The first time that I ever saw my husband hold a child, he held his first nephew like this and held him for hours and just stared at his every feature. I wanted my daughter to know that this is how I saw her father the first time holding an infant and how I knew that he would hold and care for his own daughter. The other figurine is a mother and a father holding their child. Russ gave this to me a few days after Madalynn was born for my first mother's day. Here it portrays us a family and how we want to always be--close and loving.

Russ made the following items for her bedroom. An ABC block for storage. It is really nice and has a nice divider for me to put small items on the side. It is not finished quite yet. I didn't get him a font to put the letters on before Madalynn was born, because I wanted to make sure it really was a girl first. I know, silly silly. I had only seen her being a girl 4 times before I had her, but I was still uncertain.This toy box is already full of toys thanks to Madalynn's grandparents and other gifts. I made the cushion for the seat out of some fabric that Russ' grandma gave me last April that I found in a box. I love the pattern and I am glad that I have been going through my fabric boxes to get rid of what I will never use, so that I found it. My mom provided the pillow forms when she gave me some of her old fabric last summer and I found them in a box too and used some more of the Michael Miller fabric to cover them. Sorry about the bag on the box. I didn't want to move it in fear of waking the baby up tonight. We are still working on making it child safe and finding some hydrological hinges or something to make sure that the lid does not slam down and hurt a child.

I just couldn't resist putting this picture in the post. Russ took a picture with the baby on the box right before we moved out of our last place. I hadn't finished anything yet obviously. Ah, my husbands little doll. The best story of putting together the babies room is the story of the ottoman that Russ made for me. I knew that I would need one to use the glider that I bought at a garage sale 5 years ago. The chair has the straightest back and it not very deep. So to sit in it and hold a baby would be hard. So I told him that it would be nice to make an ottoman or buy one. Well, one day while Russ was delivering mail he saw an old Glider in an irrigation ditch that had been partially burned when the farmer had burned the weeds. He went back that afternoon and got it out, took off the top of the chair, sanded down the burnt wood and painted it to cover up the other flaws. I had some upholstery fabric and part of the cushion left from making the toy seat cover and we put it on the top. I think that we did a decent job and here it is--a great big, wide ottoman finished for just the cost of the paint.

Just as I am thinking that I have been typing for 30 minutes and posting pictures----you must also be thinking is this post ever going to end...... Well, there is so much more in sight. Now that I am taking pictures and realizing just how much I have done for her room and the small details that I have made I am really in awe. I just had to run back upstairs for a couple other pictures that I missed on the first trip.

I realized that I really wanted some wall decor and a lamp for going into her room at night and not turning on the room light. Since her middle name is Azalea, I thought that it would be nice to have pictures of an Azalea in bloom to represent the birth of new life and a picture of the flower open, vivid, and beautiful to show the growth of a child and their beautiful potential in life. The buds are a photo that I bought off etsy from Nadine and Kathleen. We cut it down to put in the frame. The larger photo we actually got from Wikipedia.The lamp was a journey. I was looking for a fun and different lamp bottom. I would stop at yard sales and look in every store from DI to consignment stores to Walmart and Smith's Marketplace. I finally found it in this totally run down and dingy store that I swear has been buying everyones junk at yard sales forever. The lamp shade that came with it was horribly hideous. I should have taken a picture, but I just threw it out. We spray painted the base a pink color...then I decided that that might be a bit too bright so we rubbed it with white paint.

I bought a lamp shade eventually for super cheap and decided after seeing lots of cute lamp shades in many consignment stores around American Fork that I could add some fabric to the shade to tie it into the fabrics and theme of the room. So, I cut out the fabric, used some spray adhesive and put it on.
Here is what it looked like before we rubbed on the white paint.And here it is after the paint. Of course now that it is finished I realize my one big huge flaw.....the fabric is an off-white and the base is a white. Eventually I will have to do something about that. It looked better just plain pink to me and maybe I will just spray it again later on. Many people have given us hair bows and headbands for the baby. I have seen some letter holders for clipping on the bows and so I bought this wood letter and covered it with scrapbook paper, chalked the edges with pink chalk, had Russ drill a hole for the peg to hold the headbands and had him staple on ribbons. It will eventually be hung on the wall over a round drawer knob and I will take pictures when we finally get it up.
I wanted some cute fabric boxes to hold her diapers, wipes and soaps. I decided that I would look online and see if I could find some cheap ones to buy and found a tutorial on Sew4Home that I decided to use instead. This project required some cardboard and fabric. Since we just moved, I had plenty of cardboard boxes I could cut up. The thing that I like the most about these boxes is that they completely collapse. The bottoms come out and the side fold in. That way I can store them a lot easier than i could if they were baskets. Bonus!! I made a mistake in measuring the middle one and so it was one inch smaller than I wanted, but that happens.
The following picture is a picture of a shelf that I bought at a garage sale that has a dowel that will have a wall hanging on it that I am finishing right now and the picture of Christ on the top and the willow tree figurines. This was my first project ever spray painting. I didn't know that I could be so terrible at something. However, there were tons of runs in the paint and Russ eventually sanded it down and re-painted it. It is going to be great. The letters Russ made. I cut out letters from a font on my circut machine and we traced them onto a board. Russ bought a jigsaw and we cut them out and sanded them. We are priming them right now and eventually they are going to be spray painted the same colors as the ABC block. They will be hung with ribbons stapled on them. The ribbons will be painted as well. Russ is going to make a second, much longer shelf for the wall that the letters will hang from. On that shelf the two photos of the flowers will sit. I am really excited for this project to be finished. It is the last that I am planning for the babies room besides finishing a bumper for the crib.

Here is Russ working on the letters :)Here I am after using a power tool to create something for the first time in my life. It was a practice letter and it turned out ok. We learned tools are made for right handed people. When i leaned over to look at what I was doing, the fan blew saw dust in my eyes and it was blinding. It took Russ a while to try to figure out why I kept getting saw dust in my eyes, even with glasses on. I thought it was funny afterward.
For her car seat, we bought a used car seat cover off ebay, washed it and I took it apart. I sewed fabric onto the top of the pieces and put it back together. Here is the finally product.
I also made a car seat canopy. Here it is.
Her room:

The ABC box is between the dresser and her crib. And here is my little on in her crib asleep for the night :)
And here is a picture of my little one at 3 1/2 months old..and just as happy as can be. She is the reason for all this work and it has been fun. Keep tuned in...the rest of the room should be ready and up in a couple week.