February Finishes

Monthly finishes:

1.        Every month I plan on following along with  

The "Classic meets Modern QAL"  this month is the Amethyst block.

2.       Every month I plan on making a block for the

 Aurifil Designer of the Month   Amy Gibson's block.

                 Loving my Kona box and all of it's deliciousness! 
3.       Every month I plan on making something from a

 Craft book Sew Along.  Started on this in January but I still need a certain embroidery thread color.
I made a hoop wall art based kind of off of a pattern that is in the book "Hoop-La", this will be a Christmas present for my niece and I will also be linking it to this linky party over at Sew Cal Gal. and also

More photos available on Flickr

The cool thing is I entered this in the Sew Mama Sew Little Gifts of Love Challenge and I WON 2 books, so excited about having some more books to look at and create things for the Craft Book Sew Along.

4.       Every month I plan on meeting the challenge over 

at Le Challenge. Finished that you can see it below, March's challenge is "Order"

Specific February Goals:

I need to finish 2 swaps this month, one is a wall quilt Finished! and the other a tote (working on it).
Here's my mini quilt that was what I also entered in the  Challenge at Le Challenge "Rising Sun"

You can find more pictures here.

My most important goal for this month was a new body for this little baby doll

This is TukTuk, 1 of 4 dolls with that name, her arm fell off and she has a whole in the butt and her head is about ready to fall out too.  So I thought she should get a new body, I have already sewn her neck and crotch together a few times.  It should be fun, I am thinking of making the body look like it already has clothes on, because my daughter has the tendency to take the clothes off of all of her dolls.

This was so hard, you would think that such small pieces would be easy, but I did my first curve seam.

Then I had to figure out how to keep the arms, legs and head on, originally they were on with zip ties (I think that is what they are called) but I had to cut them off, so instead I had to tighten it with embroidery thread, I hope it will stay and that it works.

The leg ties are hidden inside but the arm ties are outside and the head one looks like the back of a bathing suit tied at the neck.

Skip to the bottom if you want to leave a message, the rest is heavy picture uploading :)

A headless doll kinda scary, wink.

Little hands helping stuff her baby, ps, "babies don't have boobies, mommy"

Very happy little girl!

TukTuk was feeling so good she decided to go out shopping and came back with a package all the way from New Zealand!

 A New Zealand pin, 6 FQ's (will share on Sunday Stash) a notecard and

some special ONLY FROM New Zealand candies!
I would say that was a great first day out on the town for little dolly.
Thanks to Jenny over at Jen's Crafts and Quilts in New Zealand and her 100th blogpost giveaway!

Linking to A Lovely Year of Finishes, 
and also to New to Me February Linky Party - for my curved seam and for making a doll's body (harder than you think, I need to win a book on how to do it, phew) and the first time doing Y-seams, the Amethyst block above, if you would like to make this block, Erin has great directions
And Linking to A Stitch in Time for the baby doll
 

Star Light Star Bright QAL

I love, LOVE Melissa of Happy Quilting Quilt Alongs, she makes the best directions and for a multiple of sizes, I have only done the small sizes but it is perfect, I am now making my second pillow.
But what I am really bad about is getting my pictures posted in time, I might have the part sewn but then I don't get my photo into the pool to win the weeks giveaway.  SO I thought I would just finish it up and have it all pictured and done.

I had my flying geese and my HST's done on time and in thier proper week but forgot to put the photos up on both weeks.
Well not this week, here is my Center Star.

My sides

And corners

All of that sewn together

And add the sashing

I will quilt and put a pillow back and zipper in it by next week!  It should be my first finish for March.  It is all finished now and you can find more pictures here.
Just wanted to get these pictures up and out of the way, so I can easily link them when needed.
P.S. the hubby picked the colors, I gave him my textures bundle and this is what he chose.

TGIFF, phew!

 I think this is my second time linking up to Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday.  Now this wasn't a big project, but it was a lot of little pieces, 2" squares to be exact AND I did some FMQ, which of course scares the crap bee-geezers out of me, and that's what takes the longest getting up enough nerve to "play" with the finished product.

This is for a swap through a group on flickr called Super Swaps, they do about 4 swaps a year and it is always fun seeing what everyone makes.
My girl said she liked yellows, pinks and light greens, I added the blue because it fit :)  She also wanted it to be a size 20x24, which I think is huge, so this started out as 20"x24" but with the sewing it ended up as 15"x18 1/2".

I added some 3 dimensional butterflies, with this cute butterfly fabric from Momo "Just Wing It" on the bottom, I got this as a piece of scrap fabric, love it.

I wanted to put buttons in my "flowers" (pinwheels) but I hid the button jar because the kids were playing with it, and now I have no idea where I hid it,

quilted with some Variegated Aurifil Thread.

I'm really good at hiding things, I couldn't find my precious Aurifil Threads for 2 months, finally found them in a drawer underneath some books, good hiding place from both me and the kids :).

I quilted some swirls, trying to be like Angela Walters in the book "In the Studio" pg. 26, lol, I need to work a little more on my swirls, but I love them, check out the back.

with the 2 fabric triangles on the back to hold a rod.

Linking to TGIFF,  really glad it is Friday and this was mailed out, 1 swap item down, 1 to go.

Sunday Stash

Three weeks ago I was the lucky winner of a Fat Quarter Bundle of Just for Fun from Sisters and Quilters an Etsy shop.  I won this little bundle by entering in the After Christmas Sew Along with Karen at Sew Much 2 Luv, each week for 4 weeks you could link up what you made, I had a lot of sewing to do, you can see what I made here and here(these guys won a GC from Fat Quarter Shop, too, on Blossom Heart Quilts) for that week.
And this is what I won.

From the top, 2 orange prints, a orange stripe, and orange print with flower bouquets, the next 2 prints are a cream color but they call it peach, okay, one has presents the other a little bunny holding balloons and driving a vespa (LOVE), then 2 white prints, one with random colored dots, the other with balloons, then 2 light blue prints, one with balloons the other with little characters holding onto a balloon floating away., then a 1 dark blue print with windmills, then 2 green prints again the windmills and a green stripe, like the orange one (they read almost solid in the pictures)

My favorites.

The cream presents and baby blue balloon holders.

And this one is just plain AWESOME, it's a creamy peachy background with an orange vespa.

I know someone that would really love these prints, she joins in on Sunday Stash and always shows the cutest fussy cut fabrics, you know who you are :)
So So lucky, and so so cute can't wait to see what I make with them, maybe a pillow to go along with my wall art that I made for my niece.

Thank you so much to Sisters and Quilters and Karen! 
Linking to Sunday Stash. (I'm early not open yet)

Mosaic Tiles Quilt Along Quilt Bag Tutorial

With a pocket for a picture

I am in a charity bee called European Siblings Together and we make quilts for children who have been separated by the care system, foster care, or even divorce.  You can read more about it here.
February is my month to have my fellow bee members help me make my quilt, I asked them to do the Mosaic Tiles block from the book "Modern Bee" from Lindsay Conner. We are doing them in a rainbow of color, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, and I did my block as pink.

I wanted to make a Quilt bag to go with the quilt since I know that sometimes these kids are on the move and they may need a safe place to store this special gift.  When I was little I had a sleeping bag for when I had to stay at places that didn't have a bed, I hope other children do not have to go through this but if they do I hope they can wrap themselves in this quilt and they can also use the quilt bag as a cover for a pillow.

 With a picture pocket and the words stitched "You Are Loved" just above it.  This is a picture of my half brother, me and his wife.  Wish we had a Siblings Together program when we were growing up.

How to Make A Quilt Bag:
First Measure your finished Quilt:
I folded my quilt in half, then half again, then folded that into Thirds.  
Then measure the Height, Length and Weight, mine was 15"x15" and 2" high.

My little helper

 Add
H+W+H+1 = Width of your panel, so for me that was 2+15+2+1 = 20"
H+L+H+5 =Height of your panel, so for me that was 2+15+2+5= 24"
I gave it a bigger height so this bag could also hold a pillow form inside, you may wish to decrease the 5" if your quilt is larger after being folded up.

Sew up your quilt blocks:

back of bag

  If you would like to add a picture pocket before sewing up all of your blocks together find where you would like to place the pocket and get your pocket together.  I did not have vinyl but I do get our underwear and socks in these hard plastic bags from the super market.

perfect size for a picture

 Cut the "vinyl" on the large size, on one side sew down a piece of binding, I sewed it to the back first then flipped it over and sewed it down to the front of the vinyl.  Then I adjusted my piece of vinyl to make sure it was straight, there is a little wiggling going on when sewing with vinyl, if you have never sewn with it before then check out these cute projects and helpful instructions (all links will take you to a new page). 
Make It Love It Clear Vinyl Pouches
Negligent Style Scrappy Vinyl Pouches 
The main tip seems to be to add scotch tape to the bottom of your walking foot, for me I used my zipper foot and I also added some wax paper to my machine because it seemed to get stuck to my sewing machine.

 I also used Clover Clips to hold the vinyl to fabric

 Fold the bottom binding up and around to the front but do not sew it just yet, hold it in place with the clover clips.
 Find the seam that you are going to put one side of the pocket in.

 Sew it in, then sew it into the other seam. then trim any extra vinyl off.

 Now sew the bottom of the picture pocket to your quilt panel, I sewed it along the binding edge and also at the bottom, a picture will say it better than words.

Sew Front and Back of panels together at the bottom, I ironed a piece of Pellon SF101 to the Mosaic Tiles Quilt Panels to give it some structure, then sew your interior to the top on each side to make one large loop.

Like a big tube.

 
 Fold your piece so the seams match along the side right sides facing each other, sew this at 1/2" seam, sew one side, then on the other side leave a 3" gap to turn the bag inside out.

 I always leave a tail of thread to stitch close the bag after turning it out.
Turn out and add handles if you desire.  I also stitched the bottom of the bag to catch the interior fabric so that it wouldn't pull out when the quilt was pulled out of the bag.

For Handles, cut 2 - 4"x13" pieces of fabric.

Iron Pellon SF101 to the handle strips, then fold in half wrong sides together and press, then fold the raw edges into the center of the fold you just made and again press.  I put a piece of batting into the center and then stitched along the 2 edges, folded the bottom and made a box X stitch to connect it to the bag.
And your done, put your quilt in and add a picture.  This quilt and bag will make a wonderful memory for one child.

Quilt Inside, Interior Heart Candy fabric is from Timeless Treasure 2007

Linking to Mosaic Tiles Quilt Along
If you make a quilt bag, let me know I would love to see it.