Doll Quilt Swap

I got my doll quilt completed and mailed and received mine in return already!
I posted pictures of the quilt back and front already but here they are again, all quilted and binding done. Yes I managed to bind a quilt without my mom to help me! I changed the stitch I was doing, used a very very thin and short needle and my hand stitching went much, MUCH quicker. Maybe someday I'll even grow to enjoy it!




And here is the GORGEOUS quilt I received in the swap! I love it and I think it will get hung in our bedroom. Ben likes it too as you can see. :)


Speaking of my mom helping me with my quilts, I need to get going on my next quilt before she arrives for her next visit. I've pieced 28 out of 40 squares for the top. Plus I plan to make the back pieced so a bit of work there too. I'm using a layer cake of Moda Soiree plus some extra fabric. Hope it works out well!
Here is a peak of what I've got so far:

Arrrrr! Pirate Baby doesn't like his pumpkin hat!

Babies. So silly.
A few weeks ago Ben's older brother was playing with his dress up clothes. I decided to put a pirate hat and eye patch on the baby so he wouldn't feel left out and also because it would look ridiculous. Oh and it did. But he crawled around wearing them for a while! Wearing an eye patch and he didn't mind it at all! So you'd think he'd wear just about anything.
Anything except his pumpkin hat as it turns out. :(



I finished two more knitting projects - hats! As soon as I saw a pattern for a pumpkin hat I was set on making one for Ben. I thought it would be so cute!
It was an easy, quick project and I learned a lot of new skills making it (magic loop instead of DPNs, colorwork, i-cord). Raveled here. But the pirate baby won't let me take a picture of him wearing it. Crazy enough, my 3.5-year old has the same size head just about and he was happy to model:


I love how the decreases look as parts of the leaf pattern!


The other hat I made for myself. Raveled here. I do still need to find an interesting, big button for it. You can't see it well in the picture but there is actually a flap on the seed stitch section.


I started on it way back in the spring. It got warm and I just didn't want to work on a wool hat at the time so I started my feather and fan shawl instead. I also needed to switch to DPNs (double-pointed needles) to join it in a round and I didn't own those yet! I have since learned the magic loop technique and I am HOOKED. Basically you just use a long (40" or so) circular and then you don't need DPNs, or shorter length circulars either. I particularly love this since I use the interchangeable Options needles from Knit Picks. Instead of buying circulars in every size I just needed one longer cable (which I already had and liked using for the shawl) and now I can magic loop for all my needle sizes!



I love all the colors in this yarn (Sheep Shop Sheep 1) and the way each nub of the seed stitch is a different color. I ended up buying 2 more hanks of this yarn/color to make mittens and neck warmer.


Oh and one more fun thing - Craig over at Loop put my feather and fan shawl on their blog! It was actually an old post on that blog which led me to that pattern in the first place. The lovely Lorna's Laces yarn I used was purchased at Loop.

Quilted Pillows

This is one of those projects that you put off and when you're done you wonder why you didn't get to it earlier? Our couch pillows were looking SAD. Lumpy, boring and needing to be replaced. Quilted pillow covers are such an easy project (well, once you know your quilting basics!) as it's just like doing one really large quilt square. No big commitment of having to repeat a ton of times to make a full quilt plus you'll get to see your handiwork every day.



I chose to do a log cabin pattern. I pulled out all my rust/brown/mustard/olive prints (basically everything that was in my Brick Path quilt plus more). I knew I wanted to make two pillows and I didn't want them to look the same so I decided to make one with the green/yellow prints and the other with the orange/browns. I think they are quite fun! It's so nice to see a great assortment of your favorite prints on display and in use. For the actual quilting I just did a simple shadowing of the seams. I didn't want to distract from the prints or the pattern at all.



The backs are a simple overlap. Since I used regular quilting-weight cotton here, I fused woven interfacing to the fabric to hopefully give it more of a chance of lasting. In a house of two small boys pillows don't just get to sit up on the couch in peace!

Oh and a nice bonus here? This is a quilting project with no binding and hand-stitching to do!

My first finished knitting project - Feather & Fan Shawl

Woohoo! I'm so happy that I finished my shawl! I'm totally hooked on lacy shawls now too. I have few winter things to make and then I'm definitely making another (and another and another...) There are so many amazing lace patterns out there and tons of them are free on Ravelry.com! I think Ravelry is my new home away from home. I'd love to have such a place for sewing too.


This shawl is the Feather and Fan comfort shawl. Yarn is 2 skeins of Lorna's Laces sock yarn. I just went until I almost about ran out of yarn and bound off. Afterwards I found out about a stretchy bind-off which is essential for making those amazing pointy lace edges, but mine looks decent. :)
Raveled here



MMmmmm I love variegated yarn. This picture was during blocking.

More Quilting WIPs

I got around to the second pillow cover so they are both now ready to be quilted. Here is the orange/brown one:


I had a lot of fun making these log cabins. I could definitely see myself making a quilt with them one day. But I have so many other quilt designs on my to do list first though!

Both pillows together.
I like the orange one, but I LOVE the green. I'm sure they will look pretty different quilted and turned into pillows so there's still hope I will love it all finished.


Speaking of quilting, I got a darning foot for my sewing machine too. Now I can learn stippling! For log cabins though I will stick with straight line quilting following the pattern.
I did get a brief chance to try out the new foot. Not horrible for my first 10 minutes of practice ;)

Quilting WIPs - log cabin and doll quilt swap

I have two quilting woks in progress to share.

The first will be a pillow cover for our living room couch. I wanted a scrappy log cabin though when I pulled out my scraps I had a ton! I decided to do one pillow in green/yellow and the other in orange/brown. I'm so so pleased how it came out!



Some of the prints for the other. I have so many orange-ish prints (I found more than in this pic) I could probably make an army of pillows!


The next WIP is for a doll quilt swap I joined. I wanted to take the opportunity to do a new quilting pattern/technique without having to commit to a large quilt. I first decided to do a zigzag and found this alternate method to piecing (no triangles!) It's super simple, but once I started putting my squares together I realized it was identical to putting together a rail fence (you just cut it on a diagonal after it's pieced). Rail fence is one of the two quilts I've already done, so not a new technique after all. But I definitely do like how it looks and I think it will be the doll quilt back. The fabrics are Sandi Henderson's Farmers Market.


For my second attempt I tried something very different. I think it's definitely a very fun look! The center and outside print is Alexander Henry 2D zoo. I seem to have it in every colorway.


I wonder if I'm the only one who likes the look of a neatly pressed back? Yep, I'm in the press-seams-open camp now.

Crayon Totes

I made these crayon tote bags for gifts for two 3-year old boys. They are actually similar sizes but the denim/Thomas one I put gussets at the bottom and I didn't do that step for the red dot/Curious George one. I'm not sure which way is better honestly. When I don't follow a pattern and make it up as I go it should be no surprise that two of the same item come out quite differently!
There are 24 crayon pockets going around the bag and then I'll include some coloring books and construction paper to put inside. I hope they both like them!



I did a little decorative stitching on the Thomas bag to break up the solid denim. My machine has a grand total of about 12 designs on these 2 big odd disks. So old-school. ;)
I quite like how it came out - simple but just a bit extra detail. Since it's for my nephew no big deal that I can't do any fancy scrolling roses anyway!