sew & tell - I'm not Amy

Yay!!! Amy had her baby yesterday at 6:53 pm! It's a girl (they're still finalizing her name), and she weighs 7 lbs, 5 oz, and is 19 inches long. Big hugs and congrats to the Amylouwho family!

If you are new or need a refresher for Sew & Tell guidelines you can click on the tab above for details on linking up!

Alrighty then! For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I'm not Amy, and this is not my blog.

AND....

My skin is not green and my head is not out of proportion to my body size, just so you don't wonder about that, either.

I am, however, here to be your sew & tell leader this week.

My finished project? A wrap it up bag.

And the best part about the wrap it up bag? I'm giving it away to one lucky sew & tell linky-lou-who person. All you have to do is follow the sew & tell rules by linking up to a project you finished this week, and your name will be entered in the drawing. The winner will be chosen from the Mister Linky links, not the comments. I'll announce the winner at next Friday's sew & tell.

Can't wait to see what you've been doing this week!

Your turn!

Please refer to the sew & tell page if you have any questions or wonder why your link may have been deleted.

1. Link to your specific post about a sewing related finish you had THIS week.

2. Please mention sew & tell in your post and link back to this post (link or button) so everyone can join in.

3. Pat each other on the backs in the comments!

the baby quilt, what's next?

I should be in bed right now resting, not staying up too late. (Like I have been, reading this book - which you should read if you haven't.  Amazing true story.  It really deserves a post of it's own.)  But I wanted to show you a few more things I've done for the baby quilt.

As I mentioned last week, I found out that my backing fabric wasn't quite wide enough to give me an extra inch or two that you need in comparison to the quilt top.  (Does that make sense?)  I was getting ready to do my quilt sandwich with my new BFF spray baste when I found this out.  I was immensely discouraged.  I'd gained so much momentum and I just wanted to get it finished!

So like with any problem I have with sewing, I consulted my sewing tips hotline 1-800-CALL-MOM.  I had a plan but wanted to run it by her.  Make sure I added enough fabric to the back, etc, etc.  She approved.

So I took the leftover block sets, that weren't 5.5" - more like 4", and I set to making a row down one long side of the backing fabric.  After messing around with them I got something that looked a little like this:

It's now sewn in place and pressed.  I'm making a large sandwich tomorrow!  Part of me now wishes I'd just use these prints in the quilts and ditched the darker ones, but I know I'm going to love it once it's all said and done.

My little helper came to my rescue again and took the discarded scraps and started arranging them down the other side of the quilt.  I couldn't help but think I might have future Quilt Dad on my hands!

and my last part of this little WIP:

I'm trying to ignore how tired and old I look in this picture and instead remind myself that it's almost over and soon those two little sets of lips will be attacking their new baby sister!  And I'll be at least 8 pounds thinner purely by birthing this big "little" girl.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes on Friday's post. I'm sorry I haven't been able to visit all of you yet!  See you on the other side!

sew & tell - i get by with a little help from my friends

If you are new or need a refresher for Sew & Tell guidelines you can click on the tab above for details on linking up!

Hello everyone!  I am so thankful for all of you that come here each week to share what you have been doing!  It's so inspiring to see your beautiful work and motivating too.  I was able to finish the quilt top this week (see previous post) and I was really planning on having the quilting finished.  Then when I went to put my quilt sandwich together I saw that my backing fabric is about 2 inches shorter in width than my top.  Dang it!!  I didn't want to take any columns off (that would have been a LOT of seam ripping) so I made a new column of selected leftovers to add to the back.  Maybe when I show you the baby next week, I'll be able to show you the quilt too!  (yes, you heard me.  NEXT week!! woohoo!!)

So today, I wanted to show you what some of my friends have been up to.

I think most of you know Dana, from Old Red Barn Co.  I've said this before - she was my inspiration in turning my non-kid blog into a sewing blog.  It was the summer of 2008 when I was recovering from an appendectomy (and taking care of a 6 month old) when I came across her fabulous quilt giveaway.  She's a wonderful bloggy friend and invited me to be part of A Notion or Two quilt bee last year.  This is the quilt she made from all of our blocks last year.  (Mine is the purple one.)  You can read her post here.

(image courtesy Dana)

I just love how bright and happy it is!!
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Next up, Penny of Sewtakeahike!  We met, well, I don't really remember how - just emailing back and forth one night and I offered her some hot pepper jelly and she suggested we do a swap.  However she lives in Colorado and I don't.  So we've never met, met.  But she is a dear friend too.

Penny posted cute pictures of this quilt a while ago.

(image courtesy Penny)

It is so fun to see her style - it's always so original, fun and happy.  Imagine my surprise when this lovely showed up in MY mailbox!  I love it!  It's going to find a place of honor in our new house.  Maybe I'll let the baby use it.....  You can read her post here.

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And then yesterday, I got ANOTHER package in the mail.  This time from E. at Pink Suede Shoe.  (You'll have to ask her about the russian mafia and why she uses pseudonyms....)  We met through sew & tell - so a lot of you may be very familiar with her blog.  She is a regular participant and we bonded over our love of Sandi Henderson's Farmer's Market and VW bugs.  Kindred spirits, totally.  Her blog is full of beautiful creativity and lots of awesome vintage blue things she picks up at great thrift shops.  Me = Jealous.

So back to that package.  She saw this skirt I made for Alison.  And this was in the package for baby girl #2.

How adorable! but wait!

It's reversible!  (See her post here.)

I know.  Dying over here.  She told me it just uses 2 fat quarters and she's planning a tutorial on her blog.  Who knows, maybe you'll see it here while I'm on maternity leave.  Yep that's right, I'm calling it maternity leave, even though you probably won't be able to keep me away.  :)

Thank you dear bloggy friends.  All of you!

Your turn! Can't wait to see what you've been doing this week!

Please refer to the sew & tell page if you have any questions or wonder why your link may have been deleted.

1. Link to your specific post about a sewing related finish you had THIS week.

2. Please mention sew & tell in  your post and link back to this post (link or button) so everyone can join in.

3. Pat each other on the backs in the comments!

getting the quilt top put together - yay!

Wow!!! You guys are awesome!  That's the biggest group of sew & tellers that we've had since we started last fall!  Thanks to all of you who come each week and for those newbies among you, we are so glad to have you!  I love seeing what everyone is up to! (even though I can't always leave comments as my time is limited these days. boooo.)

I also wanted to clarify one thing about all the bags I make.  Only about half of them are gifts (mostly for family).  I do sell a lot of them (mostly to people I do know).  Some of the comments made me feel like maybe you all thought I was way more generous than I really am - and that made me feel funny.  As well as writing this last paragraph....anywhooooo....
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So I've been working away on the baby quilt! I finished sewing the top together on Saturday!

Here's what I did, once I decided on a layout I liked.  I know, I'm nutty.  I did end up changing a few things around to anchor those dark prints a bit better.  Thanks for all of your input!!

First, I stacked up each row and labeled them so I could just pick them up and start sewing.

Then, once I had the rows sewn up I pressed the seam allowances as I sewed each row together.  When doing a squares quilt, I like to press the seam allowances to the side, alternating the direction with each row.

That way, when you sew the rows together, the corners 'lock' into place.

And you end up with some pretty straight corners that match up!

 I can't take credit for this technique.  My mom taught me how to do this.  Thanks, Mom! (How's that New York Beauty coming along?)

I'm really going to try and get this quilted this week.  We'll see how that goes.  I'll show you the whole thing once it's finished.  Oooooooh!  The suspense!!
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In other news:
I took this picture in San Diego while we were there in January.  (I kind of feel like that big fat seal sea lion there on the right.)

It was picked up (from Flickr) for inclusion in an online tourist guide!  I'm totally flattered! It's not a huge picture - but it's up there in the right hand corner with my name on it!

sew & tell - guess what I did this week

If you are new or need a refresher for Sew & Tell guidelines you can click on the tab above for details on linking up!
A bag!! Shocker I know!  But it is finished, and that's what matters!

I've had this fabric for a couple of years.  I bought it on clearance (it's a Waverly drapery print) and just loved the colors.  I know, light blue and green - that's surprising too, isn't it?  In fact, I liked it so much I almost did my duvet cover in that.  Until I found that Amy Butler on clearance.... but I digress.

A friend of mine, who is also expecting, came by a few weeks ago and was interested in a bag and when she told me she loved toile and blue and green, I was so excited!  I knew this fabric was waiting for just the right person!

I love the way it turned out.  And I love that it is going to someone who will love it as much as I do. 

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I almost have the baby quilt top done.  I couldn't resist rearranging a few things - but I so appreciate everyone's encouragement and candor in giving it a look-see to check for major problems with the layout.  I'm really excited about being so close to having it finished.

Speaking of being close - 2 weeks from today there will be a new little person in our lives.  Weird to really think about the ramifications of that!  It's not like we're excited and planning a big trip or purchase or something else we might be looking forward to.  But another person, who we'll love forever? That's pretty amazing.

(I am dialiting and progressing already if you wanted to know details - and did I mention that's she's approx. 8 pounds already??  Just waiting to see if I make it to induction day!)

Can't wait to see what you've been doing this week!

Your turn!

Please refer to the sew & tell page if you have any questions or wonder why your link may have been deleted.

1. Link to your specific post about a sewing related finish you had THIS week.

2. Please mention sew & tell in  your post and link back to this post (link or button) so everyone can join in.

3. Pat each other on the backs in the comments!

i'm a control freak. it's true. and I need your help!

I really am!  It comes into play especially when I'm working with a quilt layout that is supposed to be scrappy and random.  It's part of the reason it's good for me to work with these 3 block sets.  I think if I had to lay out every single square and decide where they all go it would never get anything finished!

So the other morning I decided to let my kids walk all over and mess up help me lay out my quilt top.  Partly because I'm too tired at the end of the day to do it when they are sleeping - plus it's easier for them to move around on the floor than me.  (Did I mention we're just two weeks away from d-day?)

That being said... they did pretty well, my 2 year old got a little bored with it but girly-girl got into it.  She was a little too eager, but actually was quite helpful.

The only problem is that I feel like there might be some spots where the same fabrics/colors are a little too clustered together.

What do you think?

Don't mind the messed up corner - I think I'm leaving that one alone.  I think you can see who the little culprit is!

sew & tell - march and april bee blocks

If you are new or need a refresher for Sew & Tell guidelines you can click on the tab above for details on linking up!

Oh, I had such high expectations for this week.  SO many things I wanted to get finished - sewing projects, organizing projects, cleaning projects...  But well, I only really got a TON of laundry finished (still need to fold some) and basically just survived the week.  My kids were both sick and then I came down with a severe case of hay fever.  Which pretty much knocks me out.  Good thing my midwife told me today that I can take Claritin!  And is it really non-drowsy? Because I promptly took a two hour nap as soon as I got home.

So I'm hoping to get to work on the baby quilt some more this next week, and I have grand plans to buy more fabric for other bedding coordinated things.  I can't wait!

I needed to get Dana's block done for my virtual quilting bee for March.  She asked for traditional stars and sent out some gorgeous Anna Maria Horner prints.  I knew I wanted to do an Ohio star, but I was worried about cutting the pieces out wrong and then running out of fabric.  So after I got over my procrastination, I ended up with this:

And I really, really like it!  I'm excited to see all the blocks put together.  It's going to be gorgeous.  This is the tutorial I used, but I tweaked some of the fabric placements.

For April, Amber asked us to help her do scrappy dresden plate blocks.  She did all of the cutting for us - I know!  How nice!!!  I realized I procrastinate a lot of projects on the cutting alone.  If all I had to do was sew, I'd be SO productive!

I loved how easy this was to put together (even though it looks hard).  She also just let us topstitch everything down and not worry about raw edges on the circle.  I just love it.   The tutorial was REALLY easy to follow.

Oh yes, there's one more little project that I've been working on.  Someone showed me this post a LONG time ago, and I knew I wanted to use the same idea to get my ribbon under control.  The problem was I couldn't find these kind of wooden clothespins.  Until last week! yay!  Now I have all my unruly (and huge) spools of ribbon tucked away in one small box.

Maybe one day I'll have enough room to put them all in cute glass candy jars like she did.  Although, I don't think I'll ever really NEED that much ribbon!  (this is obviously a mid-project shot.)

Can't wait to see what you've been doing this week!

Your turn!

Please refer to the sew & tell page if you have any questions or wonder why your link may have been deleted.

1. Link to your specific post about a sewing related finish you had THIS week.

2. Please mention sew & tell in  your post and link back to this post (link or button) so everyone can join in.

3. Pat each other on the backs in the comments!

falling in LOVE

The more I work with this fabric the more I LOVE it. No pun intended, for real. It's really out of my comfort zone to just mish mash all of these colorways together. But I'm really liking it.

Here's some of what I did on the baby's quilt this last week.

I took my strip sets (5 1/2" strips sewn in groups of 3), and cut across the seam lines at 5 1/2",

Creating this:

3 sets of blocks (per 1 strip set) 3 blocks across.  And look at all the block sets together!

I haven't worked out an arrangement yet.  I need a large floor space and two sleeping toddlers.  But see how I have two options with each block set?

I can just flip one set upside down and have polka dots on the left OR the right.  Clever, right?  This is why I had to move half my strip sets to get a polka dot on the end instead of all of them being in the middle.  I just increased my design possibilities two-fold.

I'm just going to sew 3 block sets together to create rows of 9 blocks.  And I will have 12 rows.  The finished block size is 5" so the quilt will end up 45" x 60"  Which is perfect, since the crib size battings come in that size already!  And it's big enough that she (who has yet to be named?!?!  hello!  I only have 3 1/2 more weeks!!!!) will be able to use it for a long time!

I just love this technique, because I certainly don't have the patience to cut out 108 - 5" squares and sew them all together. One. By. One.

Basically, I'm a cheater.  Don't tell, okay?

These are some of the pieces of which I had more than just a fat quarter.  They've been draped over the back of my chair for over a week calling to me.  A bag? Crib dust ruffle?  Sheets?  Bumpers (what's the deal with bumpers anyway?  Are we not supposed to use them anymore?)?

Hello, comfort zone!  How are you doing?

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Baby update:  I started on my weekly appointments two weeks ago.  Because of my history, I have to start those about 6-7 weeks before my due date.  I get an ultrasound, a non-stress test and a visit with my doctor and/or his midwife (who I adore).  So far everything is looking really great.  She is already 6 pounds and we have an induction scheduled for the 29th of THIS MONTH. It's a Thursday.  Maybe I can swing some pictures for my guest sew and teller that Friday.  :)

So while I probably ought to be cleaning and getting my crap stuff torched thrown out organized, I'm getting a lot of sewing done.  What a fun way to procrastinate!  And it really helps that both of my kids have been sick the last few days.  And that my little guy woke me up a couple hours ago burning up with a horrible sounding cough.  So yes, when you see the post time as 3 am, that's right.  I'm going to be tired tomorrow.

sew & tell - a baby blanket

If you are here from V. & Co., Welcome!  If you are new or need a refresher for Sew & Tell guidelines you can click on the tab above for details on linking up!

I have been working on lots of things this week.  Like my baby's quilt and my bird quilt from the last post.  I don't have anything huge to sew & tell this week, but I did make this darling baby blanket for a friend.  One of the 20 that I know who are having babies in the next 6 months!

I thought these little doggies were so cute.  And real minky can't be beat.  I got out my serger the other  day and I love how it just zooms across anything and makes it so nice and neat and fuzz/ravel free!  It was especially nice since I had just battled with my other machine breaking a couple of needles trying to quilt that bird quilt.  Grrrrrr.  I'm still mad at miss Bernina over it.

The blanket is approximately 30" x 30".  I can get two backs out of one yard of minky this way.  I just serge it up, right sides together - leaving an opening to turn.  Once it's turned I top-stitch it closed.  I like to do a double top stitch, it lends some weight to the hem, and I like to think it looks better.

I've found that using a walking foot for the top-stitching is great.  But minky is a little stretchy so you have to pin a LOT to keep everything square.  This one may not be the best example of that, but don't tell anyone.

I got some more fabric yesterday (will post soon) and have a couple dresses, bags, and the two quilts to keep me busy this weekend.  Hopefully I'll have more progress reports on the quilt and some finished stuff for next Friday.

Can't wait to see what you've been doing this week!

Your turn!

Please refer to the sew & tell page if you have any questions or wonder why your link may have been deleted.

1. Link to your specific post about a sewing related finish you had THIS week.

2. Please mention sew & tell in  your post and link back to this post (link or button) so everyone can join in.

3. Pat each other on the backs in the comments!