Projects Archives - Page 154 of 213

Jack-O-Lantern Mini Quilt

October 27, 2011 jennifer Halloween, Quilting and Sewing

Two years ago I pieced this mini-quilt, appliqued the stem and nose, basted it, and set it aside… unfinished. I completely forgot about it until this week, when I spent all of 30 minutes finishing it. {Question to self: why do I do things like that?}

I’m sorry to say I don’t remember the name of the pattern or the name of the fabric line I used to make it, but I do know that it only required a charm pack. After quilting, I added the rick rack smile and some huge black buttons for eyes. I must say it’s amused me how many of my children have told me I messed up on the eyes because they’re crooked. They all looked at me funny when I informed them I did it intentionally.

Tucked away with this quilt I also found a little 4 x 4 inch Halloween embroidery that I remember working on while I waited in the pick-up line for kindergarten two years ago. I bought it as a small kit in a local shop and it was intended to become a mini-pillow. My interest in little knick-knacks has largely disappeared so I no longer wanted to make a pillow or put it in a picture frame. So I finished it and appliqued it to the back of the Jack-O-Lantern quilt.

The backing on this mini quilt is a solid orange, so the embroidery is a little piece of interest back there.

And there you have it, two Halloween projects finished. The quilt now hangs in my dining room window, the only Halloween decoration up at our house (which I hope to fix later today if I can rescue my poor house from the Halloween costumes all over the place).

What project are you working on right now?

Hopeful Homemaker

Early Bird Quilt Top

October 24, 2011 jennifer Quilting and Sewing

Remember my stack of fabric from last week? It’s now a quilt top.

This is one of two quilts I promised myself I’d make in/for the fall. I intended to do it in September, but as you can see, I’m running behind.

The pattern I used is Merry-Go-Round by American Jane . I also bought their set of equilateral rulers because I didn’t have any. It made the cutting fast and easy. Rather than purchase three jelly rolls (yikes, expensive!) I used yardage I already had. I made the quilt a little bit smaller, taking off three rows, but it’s still a big quilt.

One of my favorite elements of this quilt is the addition of tape measure prints from the Tailor Made collection. They add a lot to the quilt and I’m glad I chose to include them.

The big question now is how to quilt it. If I knew how to do free motion quilting, I’d probably opt for that, but this quilt would be too big to learn on, and I’m sure I’d ruin it. So I’m going back to finish another quilt while I think about this one.

Hopeful Homemaker

4 comments quilting

Monday and a Stack of Fabric

October 17, 2011 jennifer Musings on Life and Beauty, Quilting and Sewing

This morning I woke up intending to work like crazy on cleaning the house so I can afford time for yard work later in the week. Usually I enjoy cleaning, or at least the results of cleaning. Today, however, I was all out-of-sorts emotionally and found myself feeling irritated with my children while I was cleaning. Instead of enjoying the process I felt frustrated with them for being sloppy.

That’s never a good thing to feel, especially when you know that four of them have major projects to work on after school today, and when you also know that it’s going to take patience and persistence to get them all going. {And even then there may be a battle.} It will never work if I’m frustrated with them before I even pick them up.

Please tell me you have days like that, days when everything that’s wrong feels really wrong and everything that’s right feels wrong anyway. Days when reminding yourself that everything is, in reality, great does nothing to squelch the tears pricking behind your eyes. No particular reason, just cloudy on the inside, I guess.

So I took a break.

I’ve had a large stack of 44 inch strips of fabric sewn together for weeks. It’s for a quilt I wanted to make in September. Today I ironed them and cut them into triangles. While I did it, I opened all the windows in my studio (the sunniest room in the house) and enjoyed a gentle breeze and bright light.

Somehow it worked. I don’t know if it’s the sunshine, or a stack of triangles that will never again be 44 inch strips (unlike the laundry, which will shortly be dirty again). Perhaps it was just the steady cutting of fabric at the same angle for an hour or so. Whatever it was, it cleared my mind and calmed my heart.

I picked the children up with a happy heart. Two are now working cheerfully, one is working resentfully, and the other has yet to start. At least their mother isn’t grouchy, although the family room still needs to be vacuumed. I think it was time well spent.

Just look at all those warm, yummy colors. I’m excited to sew them together.

Fabric is Early Bird, by Cosmo Cricket, with a little bit of their Tailor Made collection thrown in. It’s been out for a while, and I’m finally using it!

Hope your Monday has gone well.
Jennifer