Denise and Charles's last adoption fundraiser

I showed some items back in June 2013 of thing I had made and donated for my brother and sister-in-law's adoption fundraiser.  A few weeks ago she had what she planned to be their last fundraiser - a big carnival type thing with games for the kids, chili to eat and stuff to buy to raise the needed travel funds as they head down to Columbia to adopt their deaf son.  For a couple weeks, I did a lot of sewing of lots of little things that she'd be able to sell.

This I-Spy quilt is one that Denise pieced and asked me to machine quilt for her to sell.

Here's a close up of the quilting.  Below you see the back.

I forgot to take a picture of the 23 pillow cases before I sent them home with her, but here are the rest.

Above are the piles of rice bags in a couple different sizes.  More than 50 pounds of rice was used!  Time to go buy some more.

To the right are a bunch of chapstick holders to put on a key chain.

Karina's Quilt is Finally Finished

After a year of working on and off on the hand quilting of Karina's quilt, it was finally finished November 12, 2014.  It's never taken me that long to quilt one of my kid's quilts before, so I guess that's an indication of either how lazy I am or how busy I am. ;-)  Now add to that, that it's taken another 3 months to post the pictures.

 A close up on the quilting, front and back.

Quilted Table Cloth for Linda

In November 2014, I received a call from Linda asking if I could make her a table cloth from some gorgeous quilted fabric she found and bought.  Because the fabric is not wide enough to cover the table, she wanted a strip sewn down the middle with the reverse side of the fabric showing.  The table cloth would be reversible.  It was done in time for Thanksgiving.  The sides are finished with black binding that really sets it off.

Random Patchwork Skirt for Nikki

Nikki (the same lovely lady that had me do the Bird - Now - Skirt for her posted 19 Sept. 2013) asked me to make this skirt for her sister's birthday last October.  It was based off another skirt she had.  She designed this all, down to the positioning and size of the fabrics used.  And I was happy to hear that both she and her sister loved the skirt.

Towels, Patchwork Shirt, Shorts, and Skirt for Trenna - Sea Buddies

These articles of clothing were all made from the Michael Miller Sea Buddies Collection.  These were from the same photo shoot where we had to put together several outfits with fabric pieces smaller than fat eighths in most cases.  There was no patterns to work from.  I used my child's pj bottom pattern as a guide for the shorts.

 For the little skirt, I had an little knit skirt as my size guide.  The little skirt was slightly A-line, and as you know, knit forms to the body differently than cotton, so to make this skirt slightly A-lined, each square was cut about 1/8" smaller at the top ( 1/16" on each side), and of course that would make each row slightly narrower than the next to make all the corners line up.

 These towels have a strip of fabric with little pom pom ball trim near the edge.  Of course with so little fabric, those strips of fabric were pieced, but those seams are not very visible.

 Appliqued to the t-shirt were letters fussy cut from the Sea Buddies fabric.  I used iron-on fusing to adhere the letters, then sewed around the letters with a blanket stitch on the sewing machine.

Fitted top for Trenna - Fiesta

Made with Michael Miller Fiesta fabric collection from the fabric entitled "Estella" in the color Chocolate, with the Simplicity pattern #1664 - view B.  Not only did we only have a small section of fabric to work with,  this top also gave me a different challenge. The first time I made this top, the model was the smallest size on the pattern.  So I went to several different stores to find another pattern so I wouldn't have to make alterations up to another size.  It's a challenge I could do, but don't enjoy, nor did I feel I had to time to do that since all these things are made with a deadline. I didn't even feel like I had the time to go shopping for a pattern.
Anyway, when I still couldn't find the pattern and knowing it must be out of print, I determined that I would have to try and make it based on the smallest size on the printed pattern.  I went home, pulled out the pattern pieces I had used in the past and then pulled out the rest to get an idea of how much bigger to make things.  Lo and behold, this pattern didn't have all the sizes on one pattern piece, but had something like, 4, 8 and 12 together and 6 and 10 together.  There was only one piece that I had to try to figure out how much to add to make it right.  All the others were on different pattern pieces.  Yay!!!!

Fringed top for Trenna - Fiesta

My computer's been in the shop for the last week plus, so that's why I've been lax in posting, but I think we're back in business now.

Here is a selection of photos that Trenna sent to me after the photo shoot. It shows the "after" of the things I've been telling you about - the things we had to make with small pieces of fabric.

Today I was going to show you this Fringed top that my sister, Emerald put together.  It is pieced in several places and she did her best to hid the piecing, but with so little fabric, there wasn't enough of the turquoise (fabric name is Eduardo, color: Mermaid) to match it right - there was literally a 1" x 4" piece left over.  The seam down the center is pretty obvious.  Now look at the photo shoot picture and see how well Trenna hid that with the necklace.  Isn't that AWESOME!

The fabrics and colors are:
Esme in Chocolate
Eduardo in Mermaid
Emilia in Grape
Estella in Grape

Napkins for Trenna - Fiesta

From the same photo shoot where we had scrap sized pieces of fabric to work from, here are some tiny napkins made from Michael Miller's Fiesta collection. The fabrics used (as shown above from left to right) are: Elena, Esme, and Ernesta, all in the color grape. Opened up (as shown below), the finished size is around 9" square.