October journal

- RG's Gryffindor robe. My only Halloween sewing this year, and she was Hermione of course.

- Letter Z for zig-zag stitching - my rope purse! It's actually kind of heavy because of the amount of rope, and I'm terrified the handles are going to rip right off if I put anything more in it besides my wallet and phone. They're only glued - it's too thick to sew.

It only took me an entire four years to do the Sew All 26 Challenge, but I have persevered and completed it!

- one 10-inch block for the Night Sky quilt, for the first time in months. I have the second section of the quilt top almost together - just a hole of 10 or 11 inches. I'm debating about another 10-inch block (there are already four in that section), or a group of 4-inch blocks.

Z is for zig-zag

Four years and six days later ... I have FINALLY finished the Sew All 26 Challenge!! With lots and lots and lots and lots of zig-zag stitches. I ended up with this: a purse made of rope.

I got the idea for a rope tote bag from this post by SouleMama - second picture down. LOVE that. I didn't have enough rope to get quite that large, but still ended up here and I'm excited to use this! The bottom is 11 inches long, and the widest point of the curves is 14 inches. The height is 10 inches.

The curves are totally accidental but I like them a lot!

The handles were glued on with a whole lot of hot glue. My sewing machine will barely fit one layer of rope under the foot. No way I was even going to try with two layers.

The general idea when sewing with rope is to set a zig-zag stitch, and put two sections of rope right up against each other. You just keep turning and turning the piece until you get what you want - lots of people do bowls because they don't take much rope. I made some small rope bowls in 2015 - they hold random little things, and one is currently on JE's dresser to hold a bunch of hairbands.

For the Sew All 26 Challenge, I'm excited this is my grand finale!

Happy Hogwarts Birthday

I'm no Pinterest junkie, so I kind of shocked Adam when I started working on a Harry Potter themed birthday party for RG ... who turned ELEVEN this month, so hello! Hogwarts party it is!! (When SM turned 11, that was sadly the year I decreed no parties at all. What was I thinking!?!? We'll have to make it up to her at her next birthday.)

There are many, many more elaborate ways to have a Harry Potter party. This would barely register for "party stylist" type people, but it was a pretty big deal for me. We spiced up our living room with a bit of Hogwarts Great Hall flair.

Crepe paper and disposable tablecloths on my friend Kelly's long tables did the trick. (The dollar store is my new favorite place for things that are just going to be thrown away. What took me so long?) I also printed out small House banners on cardstock, which were on either side of the fireplace.

The birthday girl greeted her guests in her brand new Gryffindor robes.

I used this tutorial, but made things more complicated for myself by putting right sides together in a couple of places. Meh. Just follow the directions as is, and fold in your raw edges to secure with a top-stitch. It would have gone a lot faster. If using 44-inch fabric for the wrist-to-wrist side so you can do the fold on a length of yardage, this is sized for kids. I don't think you could use this tutorial with the way the fabric is folded for adults. Two and a half yards is a good amount of fabric for a child somewhere around 4-foot-6. RG is 4'8". 

As the witches and wizards arrived, they each selected their own sorting hat.

There was a single color of M&Ms in each one to identify the House (red = Gryffindor, etc), and there was no way even for me to know who was choosing what after they were glued shut. It was fully a surprise for everyone in the room.

We had 12 guests, so there were three per house for our Harry Potter Trivia Challenge. RG wasn't allowed to be sorted/compete anyway because she would have answered every question ... so to stop that before it even started, I told her she could help moderate the competition. One of the Slytherin girls - by herself - beat all three other teams. I would have liked to have seen how she and RG stacked up against each other, but RG already knew the questions.

After Slytherin kicked butt in the trivia test, it was time to eat. Butterbeer cookies, double chocolate cauldrons, and Polyjuice potion. Recipes for the cookies and cake are at the links. The potion was Sprite, blue Hawaiian punch, and pineapple juice.

The chocolate cauldrons were AWESOME. This was definitely my favorite on how it turned out. I used the recipe for the cake, which had the thick and heavy consistency of brownies, and for the center cream filling. There's also a recipe for the outer chocolate frosting included, but I just bought that. The handles were made from Wilton's Candy Melt chocolate shaped with a plain round icing tip and "drawn" on parchment paper until it set.

After our sugared-up "feast," we sent them all downstairs to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. As our guests left, their favor was a chocolate frog. I bought the mold on Amazon (watch the little spots for the eyes - I had to use my finger to press the melted chocolate all the way in), so there is a strong possibility of more Harry Potter celebrations in the future!

The Narwhal Quilts

I haven't posted much all summer.  It was certainly busy, but I was sewing lots too.  I made progress on all four of the quilts I've been working on - all the blocks are done for the Christmas Cake Quilt, I've caught up on all but the very last of the Squared Away blocks, and I finally finished the two narwhal quilts. 

Both of my husband's siblings were expecting baby girls.  Taera was due October 11th and Nathan's was slated for September 29th.  Well Jade was born on the 29th, but she belongs to Taera.  Nathan's little girl Kinsley arrived on October 5th, which just happens to be Taera's oldest's birthday.  Miraculously I was able to finish the quilts AND get them to them within a week of each being born!  

I picked up this adorable fabric (Snowfall by Paula McGloin for Camelot Fabrics) when I won a giftcard to The Fabric Snob, an online Canadian fabric store.  It specializes in amazing knits, but I'm still scared of them, so I went for the fat quarter bundles I knew I'd use.  I narrowed it down to a few choices and let the parents make the final decision - and they both picked the same fabric.  Matching quilts for the twin cousins!

I originally saw this simple squared pattern here.  I played around with some math and made my own cutting diagram to get two squares out of each fat quarter, to use every inch of fabric I could.  The quilt top was fun and quick to put together.  The quilting took more time than everything else though!  But worth it.

This woven pattern though, was one hundred percent my own.  There was lots of sketching and math to figure out how to use as much of the fat quarters as I could.  I ended up with very few scraps.  It came together very easily, and I'm proud to say that all the corners match perfectly!

I need to work on my sandwich skills - the backs of both quilts are not nearly as pretty as the fronts.  It isn't bad for the number of different directions I had to sew in, but there are a lot of little puckers and tucks.  I don't have a large amount of space in my apartment, so I'm wanting to look into the board basting technique for the future.  I was just surprised by how well my binding turned out, since it is just the backing folded to the front.

It feels so good to have projects finished, freeing some room to start something new!  I've got four little girl dresses and a couple of ties to make for my sister's wedding, plus all the Christmas sewing.  Not sure I'll get that Christmas quilt finished this year, plus I've started collecting fabric for a second one!