Taking Care of Business ...

Mostly this blog is (and always will be) about sharing the making of my projects, the fun I'm having, and most of all 'meeting' so many new friends and learning from and being inspired by them. 

But now and again I'll have to take a moment to do a little self-promoting and hopefully recoup a little of my investment so I can keep having fun.  

So, today I'm posting a link to my Etsy Shop and highlighting a couple of items I have there.  

Fabric Basket / Organizer #1

Fabric Basket / Organizer #2

Baby Booties Girl  / Boy

I also have bibs, burp cloths, and purses

and my biggest item is my most recent one .... a quilt! 

This was made from a pattern by Polly (Pieces By Polly) and is available in her Etsy Shop (and it's 40% off through Labor Day!) 

Hexies By Halves

I enjoyed making this quilt and will definitely make another by this pattern.  Polly's instructions and photos made this soooo easy, even for a beginner like me!  You can see my blog post on this quilt here, and my facebook photo album for this quilt is here.

(You can also follow my facebook page here.)

I want to say a big thanks to everyone who has read my blog, left me comments, and sent me emails.  You all inspire me and encourage me every day.  

Baskets ...

Tried out something new this week.  I've seen several versions of them here and there so I put a couple of them together to see what would happen.

The first one I actually cut a little too tall (I didn't use a pattern or specific tutorial, just started cutting!) so I left off the handles and turned down the top.  I like it, but I really wanted one with handles for a gift for a co-worker's daughter, so I whipped up another one, slightly smaller overall, definitely shorter, and added handles.  I really liked the way it turned out. 

The exterior is flannel, the lining is lightweight cotton, and the 'batting' is felt.

This is the one I gifted:

 

And I added a couple of little 'accessories':

 

 

This is the first one I made:

 

It is available in my Etsy shop.

 

I plan to make a couple more of these (got a great deal on the fabric so I bought extra) with a pale green lining so it can be used for boys or for gifts when the gender is not known ahead of time.

Now it's time to get back to working on the Gabster's birthday quilt!

Linking up with Lee @ Freshly Pieced and getting my Whoop on with Sarah, and Finishing it up with Richard and Tanya!

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FINISHED! Hexies By Halves Quilt-Along

A few weeks ago I started the Hexies By Halves Quilt Along with Polly.  

Today I finished my quilt!!

It finished at 44" x 59" after washing.  

(I forgot to measure before washing but it was around 46" wide because 45" backing was not quite wide enough!)

I used a half-yard bundle of Red White and Currant by Henry Glass purchased from Sisters and Quilters.  (I did not use all the fabrics, and did not use the full half-yard of any of the fabrics).

Backing was purchased at Hancock Fabrics (I don't know what it is, but I labored long and hard over the decision).  I took swatches of the hexies with me and pulled and put back bolt after bolt.  I knew I wanted a gray color ... and I knew 45"would not be wide enough so it would need to be pieced.  So I got a mottled gray print that wouldn't really show the seam where I had to piece it.  

I finally finished the binding this morning.  On all (uhm, both) of my previous quilts I've machine bound both the front and back and loved the results.  I tried that with this one but was not hating the way it looked, so I ended up machine sewing to the front and hand sewing the back.  

Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  I did have one little spot on the back where there was a pucker that I didn't see until after it was quilted over.  It's really minor and close to one edge and I decided I could live with it.  

This is a great pattern and Polly's tutorials were very easy to follow.  Cutting the first couple of fabrics was slow (for me) because I was trying to be very careful and make sure everything lined up perfectly.  After I got a rhythm going it went very fast.  

Polly will soon be offering this pattern in her Etsy shop.  If I can do this as my third quilt, anybody can do it!  

You can see progress pics on my facebook page but here are the final pics.

These were taken the moment I finished the binding.  Indoors with very poor lighting.

Kid tested and approved!! 

We then moved outside, where she wanted the gray side.  (She seems to prefer the back of all my quilts over the front!)

 But she likes the front too!

All the following pictures were made after the wash.  I was sooooooo thankful those reds did not run! (I used two Shout color catchers and they were only slightly pink after the first wash, so I ran the wash again and used one color catcher that came out completely white.  Yay!)

 

(I've edited this post to add these pics made later with a different camera that I haven't used in years! What a difference a good camera makes!)

 

 

 I will be using the pattern again in the future.  I think these large hexies would really look great on a queen or king sized bed.

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Please remember to check the linky parties listed in my right-hand sidebar to see hundreds more great finishes and works in progress!  Thanks so much to everyone who hosts a linky party, and to everyone who shares.  You all inspire me every day!!

WIP Wednesday

New WIP for GabbieGirl's birthday (October). 

 

She loves all things 'Roll Tide' so she's getting a quilt/blanket with Roll Tide fabrics.

 

I have six rows put together, and two more rows of bricks that just need to be 'mortared' to the 'wall'.  I think I am going to need 12 rows altogether.  I'm just kind of winging it based on the size of the backing I bought (58x72 piece of Roll Tide fleece).

 

 

 

And my other WIP is almost done.  I got my Hexies by Halves quilted and now I just have to trim it and do the binding.  I opted for quilting on the diagonal in only one direction because I really like the parallelogram effect on the back.

 

You can't really see the quilting on the front very well.

 

Hopefully I will get it bound this weekend!  

 

Linking up with Lee @ Freshly Pieced and Kelly @ My Quilt Infatuation.

Sewing Space

Ellison Lane is have a "show us your sewing space" linky to go along with their spotlight series.

I recently cleaned out a (teeny tiny) spare bedroom in hopes of making that my sewing room.  And someday it will be.  I just haven't been able to find an affordable sturdy table for cutting and sewing yet.

I do have most of my stash stashed (haphazardly) in there so at least that is a little bit of progress.  Though I really need to sort through it and organize it now that I actually do have a little bit of stash.

In the meantime, my cutting / sewing area is my kitchen table.  It is really a great table (maybe I should move it into my sewing room and use a card table in the kitchen since we seldom eat at the table anyway!)

My basting area is my living room floor.  That's not really ideal since I have carpet, but I do have one of those foldout cardboard cutting board things that helps a little bit.  I don't have much floor space (I live in a pretty small home) so I don't know what I'll do if I ever want to do anything larger than twin size.

So ... here is my "sewing space" .....

My sewing / cutting / kitchen table

My basting area / living room floor 

(and this only a 46 x 62 -- not even a real twin size!)

My cutting / sewing table (when I get one) will go in the area where the baby mat is

These boxes will go to BoyChild's house as soon as I can get him to come and take them

Some stash - some thrift store pillows waiting for new covers

More stash 

And, there you have it!  :-)

WIP Wednesday

I'm still working on my hexies by halves with Polly.  I found backing material last weekend.  Hopefully I can get that done this weekend. 

 

I had a charm pack of Holiday In The Pines that I'd ordered quite some time ago (because I just had to have some Christmas fabric right then) and I finally found an (easy) idea I liked for using the charm pack (aside from just sewing them all together).  I only have one charm pack so I guess this might turn out to be just a table runner or some placemats or something.  But for now it's something small to work on when I have a few minutes to sew.

 

 

Had a couple of odd fat quarters lying around, so I decided to try one of the bowl buddies I've been seeing lately.  I used this tutorial.

 

 

 

And I finished this little gem up Monday night, gave it a wash last night, and it is ready to go to Sadie. 

 

 

 

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Please remember to visit the links in my right sidebar to see all the great projects by my fellow bloggers!  Thanks to so many of them who host weekly linky parties for us!!

 

"Sassy"

So, I decided to name Sadie's quilt "Sassy", partly because of the fabric line, Sasparilla, and partly because I think Sadie is gonna have a sassy personality.  We could see evidence of that even before she was born (seriously, you could see the attitude on the sonogram!)

 

The lighting wasn't optimal this morning, it's pretty dreary outside, but still better than the crappy indoor lighting in my house.

 

It's made from Sasparilla (Riley Blake) charm packs, with yardage from the same line for the binding and back.

 

 

Oddly, only the horizontal quilting shows up in this pic, but I promise there are vertical lines as well.

 

See, I told ya! 

 

 

(And look how much straighter this straight-line quilting is than it was on my previous quilt!)

 

I'm not extremely happy with this label, but at least it has the pertinent info on it.

 

The pen I used was too fine, I had to trace over the writing several times.  I'll have to order a new pen. 

 

Now I just have to give her a good washing (I used basting spray so I want to get all that out) and she will be ready for Miss Sadie to snuggle with.

 

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Please remember to visit the links in my right sidebar to see all the great projects by my fellow bloggers!  Thanks to so many of them who host weekly linky parties for us!!