A few Quilt of Valor blocks

Hello All!

This week I spent some time on Quilts of Valor blocks. The Sioux Falls Quilt Guilt provides a main color for the block and members provide the rest for as many blocks as they would like to make. Here is the first block. I think it looks boring all by itself....

 but when you put 4 of them together...you get this awesome pinwheel!!

I made 2 of the 'party hat' blocks and I really like how they both turned out. These blocks are 12 inches where the pinwheel blocks are 8.5 inches.

If you would like more information on Quilts of Valor you can visit them here. I love working on these blocks because if each member does just a few blocks we can have a quilt top pieced in no time!!

The guild meeting this month should be interesting since the April meeting was cancelled due to weather. I am expecting that we will have lots of giveaways and news to attend to due to the missed meeting. 

In other news this week, I was able to pin down the dates for the Quilt Minnesota Shop Hop. I had thought about going to a different section this year but I don't want to have to drive just to get on a bus :) It looks like I will be doing the Southwest section again which is just fine with me. I visited the shop in Sherburn a few weeks ago and they already had their quilt ready for their 'cookbook'!! It was so exciting to see it since it had JUST come back from the quilter. 

That's all for now - have a great rest of the week and enjoy the weather!

Angela S.

May Day Snow

My May Day began with looking out the window and seeing snow! 

I could not believe it...but it is South Dakota so anything goes :)

This week I have been working on a new 'Have It All' Wallet. The fasteners and I were not agreeing so I made a trip to JoAnn's and got a different type to make it work. While in JoAnn's I got distracted by all of the cool licensed fabrics. I ended up getting some Disney Cars fabric to make up some pillowcases. 

Once I got home I started doing some spring cleaning in the sewing room which was scary....and probably more than a Wednesday night project given the huge mess in there right now. Oh well, there is always tomorrow. 

My goals for the weekend are to make my quilt guild blocks, bind my curvy table runner, bind my small quilt and finish up 3-4 pillowcases. 

Happy May!

Angela S. 

No News is Good News

Hi Friends!

I am working on a few gifts this week so nothing to share as of yet :) I am also working on finishing up the blue, batiks table runner that I was working on last week. All that is left is the binding - hurrah!!

More to come next week - enjoy the nice weather!

Angela S.

Snow Day Sewing

I spent the past few weeks finishing up a few of my 'Three Times the Charm' quilts that needed attention. I finished the top for Dora back in December but I wasn't sure what I wanted to use for backing. I finally decided on a lilac minky dot fabric. It is amazing - the cat and I are both really liking this one :) I did add an extra border in order to make it large enough to be a lap quilt for me.

Dora

 I also finished up the Emma quilt that I had started during the same time as Dora. The quilt is flannel, front and back, with no batting. I bought the sashing and borders at a shop when I didn't have the original fabric along...this isn't my favorite quilt ever but I do really like the pattern. I sewed this quilt right-sides together and then flipped it right-side out in order to get myself out of binding it :)

Emma

I also made a quick self-binding baby blanket for a friend this week as well. I had bought a bag of scraps with no plan so this was perfect!

Here is the next project that I am working on...

We'll see how this table runner actually turns out. Right now its pretty questionable! I figure since it's still snowing here in SD I can work with snowflake fabric

Happy sewing!

Angela S.

Ice Day

Hi all - Sioux Falls had a major ice storm roll through this week. It was then followed by snowfall of 6-8 inches depending on where you are in town. We were only without power a few hours of Wednesday and another couple of hours on Thursday but we were thankful to have overnight power to keep us warm. I am so thankful that we do not have large trees on our property like many people in Sioux Falls. The clean-up efforts going on here are just massive.

I will have a regular post out again on Wednesday but until then here are some of the photos that I took from our ice storm. 

Angela S.

2013 Goal Update

Here are the updates from my New Year's goal list :) I have a pretty good start on some things but I really need to kick it in gear with my wheelchair/walker bags. It is so easy to get distracted by shining new fabric and new patterns!

• 13 charity pillowcases for the One Million Pillowcase Challenge - I have finished 5 pillowcases so far
• 13 toiletries bags for Heirloom Creations - zero completed to date
• 13 random sewing projects from Pinterest -three done
• 26 wheelchair/walker bags for the Good Samaritan Society -three done

• 2012 Craftsy Block of the Month quilt - top done
• Beginner's Quilt-Along quilt - top done
• 'Hometown' fabric shower curtain - completely done and hanging up!
  
• Scaredy Cats wall hanging - top done
• Paper pieced Christmas cat wall hanging - these pieces were put into my round robin group for the quilt guild.
• Continue working through the book 'Three Times the Charm' - I have finished up a few tops and I am working on getting backing fabric now.

Happy sewing!

Angela S.

oliver + s: have it all wallet

This weekend I finally got to work on my 'Have It All Wallet' pattern. I had ordered the pattern off of a company through Amazon....and they were lame and didn't even ship the pattern by the time that I was supposed to have it. So I ordered this from the company directly instead :) much better move.

I started working on the wallet on Friday night by cutting out all of the pieces and making copies of the pattern pieces that I needed. Once I started sewing on Saturday afternoon it took about 2 hours to complete. 

This pattern is very different than most patterns that I use because it includes pattern pieces and does not give you the measurements for the cuts of fabric. If you are familiar with garment construction this will be old hat for you. Personally I have now measured out all pieces and written them down so that I don't need to use the pattern pieces anymore. 

Finished product!

 This wallet can organize a lot of items for you. There is a spot for a smartphone, a zippered change pocked, a place for dollar bills/checkbook register, 6 card slots and another open slot of coupons/receipts.

I love the finished product and can't wait to make a few more!

Angela S.

Half Moon Bay: 6-Pack Bag

I figured it was high time to make another bag :) I have only seen this bag made in batiks so I was a little concerned about making it in solids but I think it turned out really nicely. 

The pattern is available here. The really great thing about the bag is that it only take 6 fat quarters and some fusible fleece. The quilting on the bag is very minimal so don't let that scare you away either! I think that the quilting could be done in any fashion - I just tried going around each block the best I could. When I make this bag again I think I may just do a large free motion stipple design instead.

I would say that the hardest part of making this bag was all of the cutting!! Some of the pieces get fairly small and you have to be very certain that you are cutting the right pieces to the right length -- there is very little room for error. If you choose to make this pattern, also keep in mind that in order to have the 'background' fabric stay the same on each side of the bag you will need to have 2 fat quarters of the same fabric. The remaining 4 can be different and will end up being the pockets and blocks on the bag. 

Happy first day of spring!!

Angela S.

A Hometown Shower Curtain

BATHROOM PICTURES AHEAD

....consider yourself warned :)

I finally finished up the shower curtain that i have been working on. I couldn't quite figure out how I wanted to attach the fabric to the shower curtain so that stopped me for a while. The shower curtain is a waffle weave fabric and I bought it from Target for about $15. 

This fabric was originally supposed to be made into a quilt and it did start out that way BUT I decided to tear it apart. I took out a few strategic seams and put in a few others to make it into a long strip instead of a square. This provided me a length of fabric/blocks that could go either vertically or horizontally on the curtain. I then just added a few inches of a border to the top and bottom so that I didn't have to worry about piecing those hexagons onto the curtain. 

The original pattern for this came from the book "Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts" by Pam and Nicky Lintott. This pattern is called Hexagon Hip Hop.

The fabric that I used it the Hometown line by Sweetwater for Moda. My mom and I are both in love with this line and wish that we would have bought more when it was available :( I did have some luck this weekend in the fact that a shop fairly close by still had 2 layer cakes available...and of course my nice husband drove me there in bad weather just so that I could buy both of them. He is a keeper!

Have a great rest of the week!

Angela S.

Poochie Bag - Pinterest Find

This weekend while messing around in my sewing room I got distracted by Pinterest - go figure. I saw these cute little bags that only took 3 fat quarters to finish and the pattern was from Monica of The Happy Zombie so I knew that I had to check it out. Her patterns can be found in Quilts and More Magazine on a pretty regular basis and on All People Quilt(just search for her name).

I had some 1/2 yard cuts that didn't have a home so now they have been put to use!

You can find the pattern for the bag here. If you attempt the bag my advice is to be very careful with the cutting. The bags have cute pockets on both sides, lining and you can finish the bottoms in 3 different ways. I went with the 2" MCC(Milk Carton Corners). The bags finish fairly small but the finished size will depend on how you do the corners.

When my husband saw the bag he just started laughing....its a good thing I found him otherwise I would probably be even more of a crazy cat lady! But seriously....how funny are those cats :)

This brings me to Pinterest Project #3 for the year. I think I'll run out of time before I ever run out of pins!

Have a happy Wednesday!

Angela S.