Swimsuit Cover Skirt

Last night I whipped these babies out.  Fiona already had a cover skirt to wear to the pool, but Karina didn't.  I pulled out some swimsuit fabric that I had been given - free is good - and as soon as I did, Fiona said she wanted a new one as well.  The fabric was 60 inches wide, so it made it very easy to cut out two-30 inch squares, cut a circle out of the center, hem with a zigzag while stretching the fabric to give it that wave at the end, sew a casing around the center hole, thread the elastic through and voila - 2 skirts that worked wonderfully well on the trip to and from the pool today.

I asked Karina afterwards what she was doing with her hand.  She indignantly said, "It's a K!" (sign language)

Rainbow Shadow 9-Patch

So, what have I been doing?!  What's taking me so long to post some more?!  Umm, well, I must tell you that with it being at the end of the school year, things are really crazy, though not as crazy as they will be when the "lazy days of summer" start. Whoever coined that phrase didn't have 7 kids!  Last Saturday, with all the other things that had to be done, my oldest daughter, a junior in HS, asked me if she needed to bring a present to a graduation party she'd been invited to that afternoon.  We quickly whipped out a "movie blanket" as we call them - a fleece, lap blanket and embroidered it.  The embroidery took a bit longer than we figured, but she made it, only an hour later than she planned. ;-)

Well, I am working on a quilt, but it's taking a while and I will show it to you when I've finished.  I am also trying to figure out the best way to do a tutorial on the process, so please bear with me.  But until it's done, I want to show you probably the quilt that I'm the most proud of.  This is one that took me years to design, and I've spent a bajillion hours making a pdf file on it for the center section, but have not finished the instructions for the border.  I'm afraid I'll never get back around to it now. SIGH!  But here it is:

I always wanted to do a shadow quilt, and I saw a single Irish Chain done in red, orange and yellow that inspired the flow from one color to another, but I love rainbow colors and figured a flow going through the spectrum would be what I wanted to do.  I, of course, had to make it more complicated than simply having the color flow in a 45 degree angle, so each 9-patch could all have the same color in it. All in all, there's a 9-patch within a 9-patch within a 9-patch within a 9-patch.  Each little square is 1" finished.  The center portion is 81" square.  The border is a pieced chain.  The corners were tricky to make them fit together and if you look closely you can see it's not perfect. Total dimension is 108" square. 

Laura Gunn's "Grandma's Afghan"

It's DONE!!!!  Two months and a day later and probably some 70 hours of work with the cutting piecing, hand quilting and binding.  Whew!  Now I get to get it shipped, probably harder for me than making the quilt.  Luckily my husband is happy to run to the post office for me.

Bird's Eye View

Close up of the back so you can see the stitching

Close up on an area of the front

Close up of one square with view of the corner/binding

The label on the back.  When I was almost done sewing it on, I realized that I left off that I made this for Laura Gunn with 2 of her fabric lines.  I could have kicked myself.  My most abject apologies, Laura.

Table Cloth, Skirt, Cathedral Window and Pouf

I ran across a couple more photos that I can post.  The table cloth is one I just finished for probably one of the friendliest ladies I've met.  It is of course not on the size of table she is going to put it on - I just put a cake platter on a bar stool to take a picture of it.  Someday I'll need to post my trick for lining up fabric pieces so that the pattern matches up - I always end up having to re-figure it out every time.

 

 The next is a skirt I made as a demo for Fabric Nosherie more than a year ago.  The pattern is called Fina Skirt by Girlfriends Patterns.

  

 

A year or more ago someone asked me a question about Cathedral Quilts.  I began doing some research into it and wanted to make a sample of it.  However, I didn't want to used up too much fabric on a little sample, and to tell you the truth, I don't like hand sewing, so I decided to make it in miniature.  DUMB MOVE!  True it used less fabric, each tiny diamond is made out of 1" fabric scraps, and the number of hand stitches are much fewer, but it's in such a tiny area that it was ridiculously hard.  Next time I make a cathedral quilt, I will make it with much larger squares.  Live and learn.

This is the Honey Bun Pouf, pattern by Amy Butler.  I did not make this pouf, but I taught the class multiple times and can make it without a problem.  Shannon told me I should take a picture of it.

So, now we are soon going to be in the realms of digging deep into photos from my other camera and me figuring out how to post them.  *SIGH*  I wish I were more techie.

Baby Shower

I was invited to a baby shower today, and though I can't go, I'm going to send along a gift for the mother to be. (Don't tell Crystal she's getting this in 2 hours).

In my humble, but correct opinion, these Fabulous Foam Blocks are THE BEST present in the WORLD!!!  We're giving her the Black, White and Red set because those colors are so good for newborns.  But we can and have made them in purely random colors, rainbow and color themes (earth tones, pastels, brights, etc).  They are made with foam instead of stuffing them with polyfil which means they stack.  For those environmentalists, the foam is "green."  Babies love the soft, tactile, easy to hold and visually stimulating cubes.  Toddlers can stack, built, THROW without hurting anyone, learn colors, and so much more.  Even adults have fun building with them, but more importantly, they love how safe they are!  They are even great for decorating in a child's room.  My kids have built towers out of them.  When Gideon was one, he got about 20 for Christmas from Emerald and my kids (she had them help sew them up).  Sterling figured out how to build an Eiffel Tower from them.  It's pretty impressive.  If you are interested in some, e-mail me.