Olivia The Pig Purse

A few weeks back, I made a Star baby quilt for someone who is about to pop. That baby has a three year old sister, named, Olivia. My niece also has that name, so I have Olivia the Pig fabric in my stash. I decided to make a small purse for her and fill it with some fun girly items.

 This is a largish stuffed bear who is modeling my purse so well.

Pattern called for piping, I used faux piping instead.

 This was a new-to-me sewing pattern that went together fairly fast once I decided to sit down and just sew.


I want to eventually write sewing patterns so this was a great lesson on what to do and what not to do. I find some pattern makers choke at a difficult part - they can't find the words to describe what they are doing, they can't get clear photos.

I'm left trying to figure how to get from step K to P with nothing of use in-between. That lesson is to re-make the dang thing, take even more photos, and get help to figure out the words.

Her pattern was short without excess wordiness chatter - which I like.
Her site is slow and filled with ads, so it can be slow going to navigate the pattern.

Finished Star quilt

I added some Bubbles, a Tiara, Stickers and some cool Sunglasses for Big Sister.
The quilt is rolled up next to the purse.

 And here is Mr. Bear reclining on the lovely flannel quilt.

 This is my most awesome African Violet. Pink, edged in lime green ruffles.

Star Baby Quilt

This baby quilt is destined for my substitute carrier (on my mail route). She's got about 5 weeks before she pops and I wanted to make her a little quilt.

 I keep some baby ideas in my Pinterest folder and this Star quilt jumped into my head. Fortuitously, Joann's fabrics had 60% off their crappy flannel.

I was trying to pick six colored flannels with the same size motif at Joann's and that was difficult as most of the flannel was most definitely for girls (frozen princesses anyone?). They also had a zillion blues but hardly any greens or reds.
 
I went for an I-Spy type of fabrics. These squares are 9" when sewn (HST's half square trangles) as this pattern was written using a layer cake cut of fabrics.

I bought enough extra for super shrinkage. This is one of my nicer point intersections where the flannel did not stretch out of whack.


 

 

For quilting, I sewed straight lines along the star shape and then tried some free motion quilting on the middle and sides.

First up is my pretty good FMQ of random lines. I did pretty good once I figured out my machine hated the thread I already had on my machine and reducing the thread pressure helped too. There are some skipped stitches here and there but I'm pretty sure babies eyesight up close isn't good enough to spot it.


And then, I tried some circles. I even drew on the fabric good - round - circles. A little wonky. Oh well. I know certain readers will have a good laugh over my crazy circles.

 I am over halfway sewing my binding down and then it will be finished. This new boy has an older sister named Olivia which is also fortuitous because my niece is named Olivia. I still  have some cute Olivia the pig fabric leftover to make a small purse to carry.

I still need to quilt the four corner squares. No idea what yet unless I repeat the squiggly line thing again. I'm pretty sure I won't be trying circles again....

Oh and Thank you for all your kind comments on my last post. My flu ended up going into bronchitus as in cough, cough, cough. I am feeling better on the energy front and am able to do my normal too many things in one day better.

Star pattern is here.

The Pink Windmill

                May I present to you The Pink Windmill

Almost the entire baby-sized quilt is made from stash. Hooray for me.
I've had these Minky pieces in stash for several years (garage sale find .50 cents) and thought they would go well with the vintage Spring Industries gingham rabbit - reminiscient of Current, Inc stationery imagery.

I found more than four yards of the gingham rabbit this summer at a local garage sale for $2 - yes, two bucks. I promptly sold 3 yds  and kept the long yard for me.

Still, it was pink. I saw a post on Benta's site where she was doing a christmas quilt with prairie point edging and I was inspired to add some prairie point windmills to break up all the too cute gingham rabbits.

 

I feel so quilty - cutting up perfectly good fabric and sewing it back together again.

The gingham checks are 2"square and 3" prairie points looked too small so I went with 4" squares  to fold and I love how it turned out. 


I love how the day turned out too. It's been sunny all morning which was much easier getting a photo to look good and not twisty in the wind.

I still have to quilt it and am thinking of tying it with yarn. That minky is the very devil to sew with as it stretches in weird unexpected ways that you cannot control. I hand-basted the quilt top to the minky backing and then purposely put the minky in the middle of the quilt sandwich with the batting while I sewed the edges.
I thought I was never going to get a squared-off quilt backing out of it.

Any thoughts on quilting this pink beauty?

A.  Hand -tie with yarn
B.  Hand quilt around the squares
C. ???

Rocket Baby Quilt Finished

One quilt finished. Need to tackle my pink one still.

 A very windy and blustery Pooh day. 
Yesterday was stormier, today we get intermittent sunbreaks.

 The backing is a mini-check flannel. You can see the scraps in the binding.
Which makes my heart sing. That piece will not be added to stash.

I was able to hit FabricDepot yesterday for the backing fabrics after work and a doctor's appointment. There was an estate sale nearby that made driving out there worthwhile. I found some pinking shears that are the coolest ever.

I machine quilted using a wavy line found in my machines' hundred stitch library - very simple. 
Rows four inches apart. I'm not a fan of every inch needs to be quilted. I like the quilt to be more plush and soft.

Inside is Hobb's Heirloom Cotton Batting - another garage sale acquisition and mostly gone making these two baby quilts. Yay!

Rocket Baby Quilt

I sewed this up yesterday afternoon. It's a baby quilt  for a friend of mine.
I was thinking she was having a boy.
She's having a girl.

oh boy!

So this will probably go into my etsy shop.
This first photo is outside - see how the orange is orange?
Next photo inside my sewing room - see how the orange went red?

When taking photos, quilters not only have to worry about lighting more, they have to figure out how to show that the seams are straight. Mine all  look catty-whompus  in these photos. I assure you all my little quarter-inch seams match.


I wanted a blue, orange & gray theme to my fabrics. Since I don't quilt (almost never), most of my prints  --are prints, not solids. It was difficult to find enough 'solids' to offset the definite airplane and elephant theme going on.

Just goes to show you that you can never hope to have enough fabric.






Testing out a binding material. This light and dark airplane material is all over the quilt top in the above photos. I don't know whether to use this fabric.
I'm not real fond of light-colored anything for boys but it seems to work.

This is more of the quilting I like as it was not monotonous figuring out fabric placement in my no pattern sew-as-you-go way.






It's a busy quilt, but then, boys are quite busy.
Right - off to start that girl's quilt....

Check out Gina's Etsy store - she makes the most amazing wedding treasures.

Sophea's New Hat and Lunch Bag

 

 

 

Sophea wanted baby chicks on her bucket hat and lunch bag.

 Fabric Depot  had about 30 choices so it was difficult to decide what a 5 year old would want.
I went with the quiet blue with the words, "peep, peep, peep"

 I love these Stearman biplane patches. The hats are reversible.

I thought about adding a chin strap and decided not to. Someone in blogland added straps that attached via  a buttonhole just above the brim on the side of the hats. I thought about it for all of 20 minutes but decided not to. Those straps would get taken off and put somewhere special or flop around when not attached and......one more thing.

I did attach a cross body strap. Re-purposed from some belts with d-rings, I saved these striped beltings for this very day! haha.
Still - you never see striped beltings at the fabric store so being thrifty is useful.

Still coming up with stuffing.
I'll ship them to Battleground tomorrow.

Ella's hat is here:

Formula 1  bag is here:

First bucket hat - too small for Sophea was here:

My niece still wants a bucket hat for gardening. I like the oval tops and most of the free adult bucket hats have round tops. I'll have to get out my thinking cap and do some circular maths and come up with something that will fit my head, thus, fitting her head. We run to big heads in our family.