Family Photos

We had our family photos taken this month.  We try to get them taken once a year around Christmas.

 Allyson will be 4 in March. She will finally be in primary in a few weeks, which she is excited for. 

 Little Naomi is nearly 2. She has fabulous Thompson hair that just keeps getting longer and fuller. As she gets older she shows more of her personality and spirit.  She has a tender heart, cares about others, and is very affectionate. 

These two little sisters love each other and are becoming great friends. I am so grateful to be their mother and have the blessing and responsibility of raising and teaching them.

Busy October

This has been a busy past October.  The girls went to the pumpkin patch early October where they: ran around a corn maze, looked at farm animals, played on the playground and picked out pumpkins to carve. 

 With all the leaves still on the ground, and no snow yet.  The girls have had a lot of fun jumping in piles of leaves. 

Of course we cannot forget trick or treating.  Daddy skipped his class so he could be with them.  It was Naomi's first time. She liked getting candy, but really didn't understand why all these people she didn't know were giving it to her.  And honestly, Halloween is an odd holiday.  Allyson was a clown and Naomi wan owl.

Here are all of Mommy's projects that she finished in October.

 This is a practice quilt I made to cover up our breaker box. I bought the pattern and wanted to make a small one to see if I really wanted to make a twin size one for Naomi. So maybe in a few months I'll have the quilt top done of a Twin size one for Naomi. The pattern is called Painted Ladies by Fig Tree & Co.

 This is a pillow I made for a Christmas present for someone. They don't know it  yet though.  It is the first time I have used hexagons.  Not as hard as I thought, but I didn't get all my points to meet either. I'll probably make another one, since I still have enough hexagons from the same fabrics to make another.

 This is the front of a baby quilt I made. I saw the pattern on Pinterest, but it was for a twin size quilt, and it had the same amount of blocks, so they were pretty big.  So I just did the math and made my own pattern. I made it with scraps from my Etsy shop. After I finished the quilt top, a nephew was born. So I put his name on the back.

Strip Quilt Finished

Topside of the Finished Quilt! 

Backside of the Quilt

Well here it is. After not too much hard work, I have a new quilt for my bed. 

I saw the patterns for the Jellyroll Race quilts and liked the concept, but not the lack of control over the finished product. I also didn't want the strips to be so narrow.  I made my strips 4" instead of the 2.5" jellyroll size. 

Too make it was pretty simple. I cut 26 - 4" x wof strips of my patterned fabrics. 13 - 4" x wof strips of each solid. I used Kona Snow and Aqua. Then I took one of each solid, stacked them on top of each other evenly, and then cut both of them in 2 strips. Then you pair up the opposite colors so their lengths combined equal wof. I did this with all the solid strips, but varied where I cut them into 2. I made one so there was no white strip, just a whole aqua strip. Then I sewed the patterned strip between the two solids.

Before I sewed all the strips together  I laid them out my floor to decide on the order of the strips.  There were 3 of each of the fabric patterns , except for about 2 of the patterns there were 4. I put them all in a repeating order except the 2 extra one I had to fit somewhere. Then I just sewed the strips together in that order.

The white side has a 15" border added to it after all the strips were sewn together.  I wanted the pattern to be off set.  I measured it so that the seam to that boarder would hit my mattress on the corner, so the entire boarder is the part of the quilt hanging on the side of the bed.  That area I free motion quilted on. The rest of the quilt I quilted 1/4" on either side of the seams horizontally. 

June Stuff

This is what happens when you put a quilt top on the floor. It becomes a dance floor.
I finally finished this quick quilt top.  I changed my mind on the solids and how I wanted to use them, which meant I had to get the aqua solid.

 I added another 15" of the off white to the left side to make it square.  I wanted the stripes to hang out on the right side of the top, instead of the center.
The back is still in the works.  After finishing the top, I am not exactly sure what I'm going to do.  I ordered some grey quilt backing to go with some star blocks made from the above prints.

Here are the girls on our way to the water park.  It is so hard to get a good shot of running kids.

Lots Of Little Projects

Allyson is demonstrating what kids do when their mom wants to take a picture. This is the best shot I could get. I was experimenting with the lattice look on a table runner. It came out ok. I was trying to copy one I saw. I couldn't tell how big it was so I guessed.  Well after I made all my pieced blocks I decided that the pattern I copied, was probably made with 10" squares, not 5". So, i'll probably try it again.

 I was browsing images of quilts on google to find some inspiration for a quilt back.  I have designed the front already. I want it to have a back that could be showing on the bed. Well, I found the Swoon block and really liked it. With a little bit of searching I found that it is very similar to the Carpenters Star. So I found a pattern tutorial online for the Carpenter's Star block. I changed it  so that I wasn't using so many quarter square triangles, and instead did flying geese. As I get it finished and figured out how to do it best, I should post the directions. I should be able to finish the block tomorrow.  I wanted to finish it last night, but last night became this morning too soon.

II'm not sure if i'm going to use this block for my quilt back, or not. I figured that I could just start making them here and there and eventually I'll have enough to do something with.

And here is another version of the One Star wall hanging.  This one I made slightly larger and traded out some of the red stripes for blue.  I just have to sew on a boarder.
It is a pretty easy pattern.  I was more careful this time with my ironing so that my middle star was more accurate. I also learned how to sew Y seams.  I improvised a little since there are 5 seams, not 3. The pattern just assumes you know how to sew 5 pointed blocks together properly and have it look great.

So there are my 3 of my unfinished projects. I have a few more to start and a few more to work on. Like, my Christmas Quilt. I have to finish machine quilting it. I just haven't had the desire to FMQ (free motion quilt) lately.  I have 7 months to get it done though...

Old Glory

I really like the look of paper pieced blocks.  I just finished this small (16") wall hanging. The pattern can be purchased on Etsy or Craftsy.  I will be making a few more of these as gifts.This one is for my mom.

Now that I know how to do it, I should be able to get the center star points perfect the next time. I didn't realize I hadn't ironed them back all the way until after I had stitched all 5 blocks together.

My husband said he liked it, which is huge for him. So I will have to make one for us. 

Now that this one is done, I have to start to work on other small projects that I want to make for gifts for Christmas.  I have to get started early this year. I am not waiting until the middle of December to come up with grand ideas again.

Allyson's Disappearing 9 Patch

IT is finished. I finished the quilt just a few days after Allyson's birthday. I got a little pooped out and had to take a little time off. I am pretty happy with how it turned out.
I changed it quite a bit from my play originally. I added sashing and used all patterned prints in the blocks. I wanted the random look since I was using so many different prints.

I wanted to practice as many free motion quilting designs that would look good on the quilt. I ended up doing 6 different designs. On the top boarder you can see feathers.

There are two different arrangements of the blocks. I quilted each different.

This one I quilted echo shells in each of the squares. The half and quarter squares I quilted wandering clover.

This block has strait line stitching in the "pinwheel" shape in the center. The other parts have stippling. 

The back side has some of the extra charm squares and some stripes. I used up the extra sashing and binding fabric on the back. 

I learned a lot making this quilt. It was a great way to get some serious practice of free motion quilting in.  Now that it is done I have already started a few other small projects. I'll post those soon.