One huge sewing adventure...

Make that Two huge sewing adventures.  Are now complete.  I bought a quilt pattern on installments starting about 3 years ago.  It took 8 months to buy all the installments.  (there were 8 of them)  But after buying the pattern and buying some of the lighthouse fabric, they sat.  I wasn't brave enough to tackle such a project.  And the task seemed daunting.  I was finally tired of seeing it on my sewing table and decided to bite the bullet and tackle one square a week.  Once I got into it, I found it was fun to see the lighthouses and other blocks come to life.  I was also making two, since our daughter and son in law's quilt from years ago was shreds of it's former glory.  Their bedroom is also in a beach theme and our daughter said she didn't mind lighthouses on her quilt.  So, one for them in browns and blues and one for us in teals, greys, and reds.

Minus the borders, the quilts are done being pieced.  I went to the extra work of interfacing the blocks, sewing the seams with a small stitch, and applique with a blanket stitch.  I decided to quilt the middle portion since I was going to quilt them myself on the sewing machine and a full queen size quilt would not be manageable.  Once the middle was quilted, I added the borders and batting to both the front and back and quilted them as I attached them.

Our daughter and son in law's quilt.  Below is the backing with the borders.  I went a bit more high quality on the backing but I didn't interface it.  And it was 30% off so it wasn't too expensive.

Our quilt with the backing.  I actually found lighthouse backing fabric!  I quilted this a bit different.  I quilted the clouds in the blocks in a sort of free hand quilting instead of around the lighthouses or boats. 

I must say, I did not enjoy the finishing at all and it took several agonizing days to finish.  I would have had it quilted by someone if I had not wanted to enter it in the fair.  That is definitely what I will do from now on.

I have a baby shower this week and a niece requested more bibs.  So I churned out 11 bibs in an hour.  The "pattern" for these was born when I was feeding 3 at once and it was cumbersome to tie 3 or 4 bibs for every meal and the velcro didn't hold up.  Hand towels with neck holes cut and ribbing added.  My go to shower gift now.

After spending so much time in the sewing room of late, my grandson asked if he could sew.  I sucked in my bravery breath and said, "yes".  So each one of them got to try their hand at sewing.  They made headbands out of the leftover ribbing.  I survived, my machine survived, and they had a really fun time.  I wonder if one of them will take over my love of sewing when I can't or won't?

And I present a clean sewing room!  Last year was the year of the fabric stash.  Very little fabric is left to be sewn and the only projects are a quilt for a granddaughter and a shirt for a grandson.  The applique and piecing for the quilt are finished so it's just a matter of putting it all together.  Later. 
2013 is the year of the yarn stash.  I'm trying to knit a lot.  And from stash.  Fingers crossed and staying off the internet and out of the LYS!

Please excuse the unscheduled pause in the posts.

But those lazy days of summer?  They don't exist in our lives.  We're smack dab in the middle of birthday season and a new wee one is expected to join the fray at any time so that birthday season will be 9 birthdays in 7 weeks.  From June 17 until August 4th. 

 The newest little guy deserved a quilt.  It is similar to his older brothers.  I showed the top a few posts back.  But now it is complete.  Backed and quilted.  And ready to enter in the fair.  Little C won't have need of it for a few weeks anyway so I'm borrowing it for a fair entry. 

 And Little Mr. C has a hat to go with the sweater his Mama made him.  No, I didn't knit this one.  But it is exactly what I was looking for to adorn his sweet little head.  It came all the way from Ireland.  A sweet friend from the Itty Bitty group sent this to me for him.  It is so perfect.  It coordinates with his sweater, it's knit from soft Spud and Chloe and the buttons just make it that much sweeter.  Ber has a sweet little boy of her own so she knew exactly what would be welcomed for Mr. C.  I am amazed by the generousity and kindness of my friends in that group of which Ber is one prime example.

 And I would be remiss if I did not brag a bit on our birthday grandmunchkins.  These 4 are all 5.  Three turned 5 this month, catching up to their cousin for a few weeks.  She will be turning 6 then.  But they have to be the cutest 5 year olds.  I see one of the 5 year olds needs the Nonny "talk" about ruining pictures.  Ahem....

 We went to Out of this World Pizza for play time and, you guessed it, pizza.   Then back to the house for 3 birthday cakes, a table full of gifts, and lots of smiles and laughs. 

 On the same day, this little guy turned to double digits, 10!  We had cake and candles and gifts in a small sort of way at lunch time.  He got to go out to dinner to the place of his choosing with his Mom later.
 After he blew out the candles he told me I had only put 9 candles on the cake.  Guess I forgot how to count to 10 ;)  Legos are a huge hit with this guy.  He loves legos and is content for hours. 

My Mom had a birthday too, the next day.  We celebrated at the park since her birthday fell on a Thursday and there are free concerts on Thursday.  Music and a picnic dinner is a perfect way to celebrate.  Apparently the great grandmunchkins are on cake overload?  Cake and ice cream two days in a row!

 I have to add this, just because it makes me smile, and cry a bit.  Our sweet little ballerina.  Walked out on stage and saw her Graypa and, before performing, waved and said, "Hi Graypa".  We both started crying.  What a special girl she is.

 I made this little top for her 2nd birthday during the days of sewing frenzy.  But forgot to take a picture.  She wore it to our house the other day so I snapped a quick photo.  Quite the fashionista isn't she, with those pink boots.  But she loves her pink books and she was only coming to play so take a picture to mortify her later.

Ok, back to the celebrations.....

It's A GIRL!!!

On Monday, January 25th, our son and his wife found out the "Lil Bean" (their name for the little one since they found out they were pregnant) is a GIRL!!! I thought it was a boy but, as usual, I was wrong and thrilled to be wrong. They have a name picked out and per my son's qualifications it must have the initials "J. V." after his brother. Had it been a boy, it would have had his brother's name but if a girl, his brother's initials. I hurt for my son and daughter without their brother almost as much as I hurt for myself. Lil Bean has been a good distraction for our son and family.
Once I found out, I couldn't put down the sewing itch for even a whole day. I leafed through quilt patterns and shopped the stash and here is the happy result. I've made a lot of quilts and I've liked almost all of them but there are a few that jump out and just grab me. This is one of them. I really, really, really, like how it turned out. Except for the white and yellow, it is stash fabric. Even the flannel backing I purchased on sale in a quilt shop some months ago for a mere $3 a yard. Quilt shop flannel for $3! I made a fleece blanket like this 3 years ago for our first baby granddaughter. It was so much work and I had to purchase so many different colors of fleece, I just went ahead and made two hoping our daughter would soon get pregnant. Well, she did get pregnant, with triplets! And there wasn't fabric for 3 of them, I didn't want to go back and do two more, and I had something else in mind for her little ones. So the unfinished blanket lanquished in the UFO pile...until this week. I had enough flannel left from the quilt to back the fleece and so Lil Bean now has two blankets for her crib.

I tried a new hobby this week. Beading.

My daughter and I have a bead stash that was mainly gifted to us. She's tried it and now I have. It is not destined to make it onto my hobby list. While I like the stitch markers I made, it was tedious (and knitting isn't???) and detailed (again, knitting/crocheting isn't?) and I just didn't care for it (unlike knitting/crocheting/sewing/cross stitch). So I made 22 stitch markers and gave the beads back to my daughter with some of the completed stitch markers. If I want pretty stitch markers, I'll check out etsy.

The weeks are flying by with so much to do and so much to keep me occupied that I'm surprised I'm still getting some things done. It's still hard to focus and work on projects so the excuse of having to get ready for Lil Bean has forced my hand a bit. I've learned much from the Grief Share group. One thing is not to rush myself or let anyone else so I'll just celebrate when I do finish something.

Couldn't have done it without Mom

It started out very simply. My Dad requested I make a quilt for his cousin's first grandchild, a boy. I leafed through some quilting magazines I had for a simple quilt pattern that made use of my stash. I did not say abundant stash because I don't have an abundant fabric stash. Yarn,yes, fabric, no. So I found a simple pattern, Phoebe, in Fons and Porter Easy Quilts, Fall 2009. (Just so you know, all of the quilting magazines I buy have "easy" in the title.) This particular pattern is for a crib quilt and stated it could be completed in an afternoon. Ok, catch up the scrapbooking with the pictures I have and get started on Monday morning with the plan to have it finished Monday night while my gang is at their archery league. Then I get word there's an upcoming baby shower in our church. Ok, so it's an easy quilt, I have the stash. So do two. Then I asked my daughter if her boys needed quilts for the winter surmising they'd outgrown their baby quilts. Open mouth, insert foot. I'm now on the hook for 4. And I actually enjoyed them, until pulling a couple nights with less than 6 hours sleep to get them done. Today I called in reinforcements..My Mom...to man the troops so I could pin and quilt them up. Not only did she entertain the troops, she brought me caffiene, a triple shot, so I could keep on going. And she said she had fun doing it! GO Mom!

And, drumroll please, here they are:

The quilt that started it all held by my trusty sidekick who is bound and determined to be given some of the credit. She did do some of my house cleaning this morning while I pinned and sewed so credit given in this close up shot. Although in fair disclosure, I was going for a close up of the blocks.Quilt number 2 for an upcoming church shower. It's a girl and I had some Strawberry Shortcake fabric to use up.Quilt 3, or 4. It's for a two year old grandson who's destined for a crib for only a bit longer. And Nonny is trying to warp, err, influence, their little minds to all things Disney, especially the Mouse.
The sidekick is getting a little more prounounced above the quilts.

Another Disney quilt for another grandson. Actually, he's also two and is the brother to the owner of quilt 3, or 4, above.

And now I'm off to fix dinner in my sparkling clean house with the clean sewing table and scrapbook table because there are no WIP's or projects on either...for now. The Ducks season opener is tonight and this girl is READY!!!! She was clapping and cheering when she saw the commerical for the game!
Football season is here. I knew it was going to be hard. It was my son's favorite sport to watch, to talk about, and be part of Fantasy Football. He would call me and fill me in on football or come over on a Sunday for some occasion and flip on the tv. He loved the Ducks. And I loved him. I miss him. How I miss him.

Plans for this weekend include a trip to my LYS for some yarn for a top for my little helper that I ordered several weeks ago. She picked the pattern and the yarn color. But before I can start that, it's going to be a WIP weekend. Finish 'em up, get 'er done. Nothing new on the needles. It's supposed to be rainy here and cool so perfect for knitting. Maybe some old movies. But nothing new on the needles, nothing new. There's two Duck Soups and two half finished pair of socks. Nothing new I tell you!