Aliens for Sarin

Here's an older one.  This is a quilt I made for my friend Bethany and her baby boy Sarin.  What I love about Bethany is how non traditional she is, and so she let me have free reign on his baby quilt. Naturally, I had some alien fabric that I was itching for a reason to use, so I used it here.

I just drew up the appliques based off the aliens on the fabric.

I needed something fairly quick because I didn't manage to start it until the week before Christmas because of course, so this is what I came up with.  Very simple, but pretty cute.

I didn't have the time or cash to have it quilted professionally, so I just did a simple all over with stars and loops.

And by all reports, he loved it.

Audrey Hepburn Quilt

I never get to pull the wool over my little brother's eyes.  The kid is untrickable, usually.  But for the first time in (at the time) 24 years I managed to pull one over on him.

I got him to pick his own fabric for his Christmas quilt under the ruse that it was for a shop sample.  Shabam!  I know, I know...that tactic will never work on him again, especially now that I've posted it on my blog to live forever on the internet!

Myke is a HUGE movie buff, and he really loves movies from the 30s-60s, most of which I honestly haven't heard of.  But he is an Audrey Hepburn fan, and so am I, and he had picked this panel of Audrey Hepburn's movie posters to be carried in the shop.  He picked the accompanying prints and off I went sewing.

Despite the sleepy Christmas morning look on his face, he liked the quilt!

Woodpecker Quilt

So...there's a story here.  When my folks lived in their first house here in town, it was a two story house with wood siding.  On the side of the house where their bedroom was, there were a bunch of trees really close by - several feet, tops.  So there were a bunch of woodpeckers that would go into those trees, and a few of them decided to become the bane of Dad's existence and start pecking on the wood siding.  While I still lived at home, I lived downstairs and I remember hearing Dad wheeling out from his office, walking into the bedroom and then he'd run downstairs with this Red Ryder BB gun.  His goal was to scare them off and he's pop off a few BBs and that would be that.  He'd go back upstairs, but not too much longer later they'd be tapping on the siding again.

The woodpeckers were Dad's Bumpus hounds.

So we got this Woodpecker fabric in and of course I had to make a quilt for him.  My folks recently moved to a different house, so the woodpeckers are a thing of the past, but they live on in quilted form.

I quilted it up on my Janome with a large scale, loose wood grain pattern.  I wish it showed up better here, but it looked pretty cool with the wool batting.
  

Cowgirl Quilt

So as most of you know I came into very sudden ownership of a lot of castoff pieces from Mom's stash...pieces she didn't think she'd ever use, or things she didn't like anymore or things that she had no idea she bought it to begin with.

Some of the pieces she gave me were cowgirl/cowboy themed.  For a while there she was all about the country western fabrics! But she said she'd never get to it, so away it went.

So I thought for Christmas it might be kind of neat to give her something made from her stash using one of her books and in a pattern she probably would have done.  So that's what I did.  Everything except the silver came from pieces of her stash that she'd given me.

This is the pattern I chose...I forgot which book it is from, but it's from an older one.

I thought Delectable Mountains would make a great western themed quilt.  It's a great quilt anyway!

It became quickly obvious that I needed to do a little tweaking of the pattern, because there were unnecessary Y Seams galore...why...why...WHY.  I mean sure, I did trrrrrryyyyy the Y Seams.

Eff this.

EFF OFF.

So I tweaked it to be put togethr on point not all Y seamy.  It went together MUCH smoother and a lot less glossed over swearing out of me. 

I quilted it all up on my trusty little Janome...

And, she loved it :-) 

WIP Wednesday: Seasonal Projects

Well...I'm kind of back at it.

The past couple week have been wild and just plain crazy, but things are starting to regulate some.  But there's no rest for the wicked and seriously, the holidays are creeping up on us before we know it. Yes...Christmas in July.  It's an odd little world we quilters live in that we think about Christmas projects in July, but then again, these things take time, so we have to think about it.

So I just finished a smaller than expected Christmas table runner, and I have a Halloween lap quilt in progress, and I'm cutting for a fall table runner too (though, this one is a little more intensive piecing wise than the Christmas one).

Nothing totally exciting, but it's just a little something.

Workie Work, Busy Bee

So...now that we've all had our fill of Halloween goodies...we're back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I've been busy at work on new samples, a few wedding quilts (no pictures because those folks read this blog), and an experiment in quilting weirdness.  But it was time to get in gear for Christmas, and let me tell ya, it felt really bizarre working on Christmas things while I was trying to enjoy my favorite spooky season.

Stonehenge Christmas table runner panel.  I wasn't really wild about the panel itself, but I was asked to do it as a sample.  The quilting made it a little more interesting, I think.

Little circles on the border.  They're not perfect, but half decent for a second attempt. 

I Love the Holidays...but Thank God it's Over.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know...captain diligent blogger is at it again.

Anyway...Christmas.  I know I say this every year, but man...never again!  This year, with the exception of my boyfriend (for whom I bought a Playstation 3, and who has several quilts already) and my aunt who requested an ornament exchange, everyone got made something sewn.  I made more wall hangings, table runners and tablet cases than you can shake a stick at, and yes, I even quilted (and bound) them myself.  I have a wicked callus on my right middle finger...from binding, not from road rage, I swear.

And the thing is...I have next to no pictures to prove it!  Damn the bad luck, I had to do a factory reset on my phone and because I am techostupid, I managed to lose a good chunk of my pictures between the phone and Picasa...who the heck knows where they are in cyberspace now.  I guess it's a good thing I don't have naughty pictures on my phone, huh?

Here's the few that I DO have...

 <-- A wall hanging for my grandmother, who loves elephants.  She also has a fondness for the colors of 30s prints.  The pattern is from a Modern Quilt Block book, but without the embroidery.  I drew out an elephant and hand embroidered it in the center for her.  I hate hand work, but love my grandma, so I
did it.

 My cousin Sam is a big Doctor Who fan...and since I didn't have the cash to get him some Doctor Who thing, I made him one.  For this I printed out a picture of the Tardis, used spray adhesive to affix it to the fabric, and stitched over it in varigated thread. Yep, I'm a tracer! But it turned out really well and he loved it.  I echo quilted around it in black. Yeah...and my toes are there for size comparison

 My uncle Tom (Sam's dad) is also a huge Doctor Who fan, which is a large part of why Sam is a fan.  There's an episode where there are these weeping angel aliens who are going around and killing people (I'm simplifying it a LOT, go watch the episode if you want the real scoop), and they are super creepy.  He'd mentioned getting a weeping angel christmas tree topper, and so I decided to make him a weeping angel wallhanging.  I took an open domain paper piece pattern for the Doctor Who weeping angel, and had it blown up by 250%.  Even at that size, some of the pieces were stupidly small.  But I am really proud of how it turned out, no matter how teeny those pieces were...I'd hate to have done this as a 12" block like the pattern was designed for.  Yeesh.

 Dad of course is a lifelong gearhead, so of course he had to have his cars and bikes.  He loved it, and asked why I chose to fussy cut the car I did.  I had fussy cut the yellow car because I needed to pull out some more yellow...I really had no reason for it.  As awesome coincidence would have it, that is his favorite year model of that car, and has had his eye on one.  Whelp...let's just say I totally knew that and picked it for that reason...not because it was a yellow car.  Yep.

 And for my friend Isabelle, I stitched her up this while I was watching the movie Insidious (you know, a classic Christmas movie...ha).  She has a lot of stress with work and school, and when I saw this is my "Subversive Cross Stitch" book, I knew it was perfect for her.  Besides, everyone needs this reminder once in a while...whether you enjoy the language or not.  I tossed it in a neat frame I found at Goodwill and voila...foul mouth cross stitch for a foul mouthed girl (she's not too bad...I'm worse, lol)











I made several more things but yeah...the evidence is lost.  I need to try and get more pictures of them to repost someday but you know...we'll see :-)

Lovely Frankenstein's 24 Days of Christmas: Scrappy Stocking

Photo Courtesy of Stellar Mother

Scarps are the name of the game when it comes to this cute little stocking, so it's guilt free! Use up your stash and make a cute and useful gift for yourself, family or friends in no time. Too bad my roommate already bought a stocking, otherwise I'd have made her one. CLICK HERE to get to the tutorial. Thank you to the lady who writes for Stellar mother! I'd post a name, but there isn't one available. So just check out her blog and enjoy!

Lovely Frankenstein's 24 Days of Christmas: Folded Star Ornaments

Photo Courtesy of All Things Crafty

Here is another great (and elegant) way to use up your smaller scraps, and there is very little sewing involved. These would make beautiful gifts, and they're perfect if you want to give something nice but you're strapped for cash. Lovely! CLICK HERE for the tutorial...thank you to Trish at All Things Crafty!