TGIFF - Picture Roll

 

Happy sewing!

Leaving on a ... Sailboat?

Nah, but I whipped up these yesterday evening for the two boys who won't get a baby quilt since they're not babies anymore and received theirs a while back, respectively this one and this one. Can't have them feeling jealous or left out, especially as one's the big brother of a recipient.

Needless to say, but lovely to brag anyway, I finished my baby quilts yesterday and they're looking really good after their wash. I'll be posting a bunch of pictures soon. Here's another teaser.

That being said, I'm having a fabulous week. On Sunday my sister and I went to see Dallas Buyers Club (go and see it if you haven't already) and tonight we're off to a concert. Then it's only one more workday for me and on Thursday morning I'm off to visit a bunch of lovely friends and their babies and toddlers in the UK. Which means I'm already pretty much in a holiday mood - and it feels so good.

Happy sewing!

Making my Deadline

Just one more side to be fixed during my break today and a wash tonight. Yep, I'll be taking these pretties with me on my holiday come Thursday. Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? I most certainly do.

More pics soon. Promised.

Happy sewing!

Quilting Those Babies

Those delicious baby quilts I've been making, I mean.

I've been quilting away both Saturday and Sunday afternoon, taking my time and burying a lot of threads. Basically I'm sticking to easy straight line quilting next to the seams to accentuate the prints whilst keeping it simple.

Initially I was scared that the flannel back of the first quilt might pose some trouble but, thankfully, quilting has been a dream.

The second quilt follows mostly the same pattern but the centre piece is dealt with slightly differently.

To keep thread changes to a minimum I quilted the blue bits of both quilts before changing to grey. Both quilts lack only a few more lines. I badly want to get started on the binding because that is certainly something I could occupy myself with during the evenings after work. Most times I'm too tired to do anything creative much. However, I'm more confident than ever to make my deadline and deliver these quilts on time.

I hope you're all having a fantastic week and happy sewing!

WIP - How I Spent the Last Weekend

I enjoyed my sewing weekend oh so much! I'd assembled my squares into this top on Saturday but wasn't quite convinced yet. It was small-ish, clocking in at 78,5 cm² / 31'' inch², and I didn't want to distort the square blocks too much with the 1 cm wide binding I plan on making.

So I had to add a border and bring up the size to healthy 88 cm² / 34 ⅔ inch². I put my tag in the bottom right corner. The red dots really pop out this pic.

I chose this flannel for the backing. So soft and perfect for this quilt. T is a tiny baby boy and I want this quilt to be extra cuddly.

Since I didn't feel like jumping right into quilting once I'd spray basted the quilt, since I still had a lot of squares left and since there's another little baby boy, little D, that hasn't received a birthday gift yet because I've been way too busy last year (he's a November babe), not to mention that his elder brother got a me-made quilt a little over two years ago (I feel like I've come such a long way since then!), and since this pattern is way too much fun and so quick to sew (whew, that's a lot of "sinces"), well, since there were a ton of reasons and no objections I simply made another quilt top.

I love it! I love how different both of them look despite the similar colour scheme of the squares. I love them so much more than the original quilt I intended to make eight months ago which proves that breaks are sometimes just the right thing for our creativity.

I hope little T and D will love their quilts and I hope I can gift both of them in person during my trip to the UK in a couple of weeks. I booked my flights yesterday and am soo excited to see so many of my friends and their boys. It'll be just wonderful.

Happy sewing!


Linking up here and there.

This Weekend Is Sew...

...dedicated to my sewing machine and having fun with gorgeous fabric.

After spending the first three weekends of 2014 with friends and family and awesome activities such as going home for my grandmother's birthday or dancing the night away at my favourite club I'm finally picking up the squares for that baby boy quilt again. Huh, three months since I last did so? Geesh, well, I guess the little one's birth and a potential visit of the family in 5 weeks is a rather good reason to get it done.

Right, back to my love affair a.k.a. stash and machine. I need to pick some backing and sew on.

Happy sewing!

Layout Fun

Serious progress has been made on the layout front this weekend. First of all I put a lot of squares aside, all the wood and sky themed ones, and focused on the plants and sea creatures.

I sewed up two nine patches, cut them up and got working around the resulting blocks. The gaps will be filled with either a print or a solid but first I need to figure out whether I'd like the centre piece to be really fishy, har har, or surrounded by plants. I'd hoped the pics would help me to figure it out but I'm still not entirely sure. What's your take?

Either way, I'm pleased with the route this is taking and confident to be able to send it off in time for the expected January arrival of my UK-based friends.

With that I'm off to a Sunday dinner with friends. Last time I made two large lasagnas but this time around I'm responsible for dessert and have made a walnut cranberry cake tweaking this recipe by making double the dough and replacing the pecans with walnuts since I couldn't find any pecans on my shopping trip.

Hopefully it'll taste as nice as it looks and smells!


Happy sewing, knitting and a few more wonderful Sunday hours!

You Guessed It - More Knitting

So, after my last post, you've come here expecting to see my shiny new skirt? Maybe even a picture of me actually twirling around in it? Meh, I thought so. Alas, I have to let you down, sewing wasn't on the cards this weekend.

Instead I took up knitting my sister's scarf. The yarn is doing its best to drive me crazy. Well, technically that's not true but I'd rather blame the yarn than my attention span for requiring five attempts to start this thing. I kept on twisting my work when joining it in the round and only realised this after at least two rounds each. Boo. Such a waste of perfectly good time! Anyway, now that my brain the yarn's decided to behave I'm making good progress and am a little stunned how different it looks in these colours.

It's been a while since I played with the grey and blue squares. Originally I'd meant to make a second quilt for my nephew (still cute a s a button, I can assure you) but then life happened - as it does - and I struggled finishing quilt number one so I put the squares aside. However, good friends of mine are expecting their firstborn in January and this imminent arrival of another wee little boy is a great opportunity to finally turn them into something special. So I'm back to playing with the layout.

In not totally unrelated news, my laptop's graphics board is playing up and keeping me offline a lot but I hope that the husband can fix it soon-ish and I'll probably catch up with you during a lunch break or two this week.

Happy sewing and knitting!