February's list

Quilting
1 - Squared Away: the last 4 blocks are DONE!! Hooray! I did the final two sets - dark green and purple, and got everything boxed up and into the mail for Mindy. I was apparently so excited to get them done and out the door, I didn't even take pictures of the last block. Ha! I just got her last two blocks a couple of days ago, so as soon as I get the doll quilts done and on their way, I can lay out this quilt and start putting the full top together. Hooray!

2 - Night Sky: 5 more blocks made, and section 2 of the quilt put together. So the entire top section is now done, and it's 60 inches across. The plan is to make it 80 inches long - right now, it's at 33. I was running out of the gray in the top center spinner, so in the bottom left Hunter Star, I used the gray scraps from SM's apron from last year's theater costume. It will be fun for her to have that memory incorporated into her quilt.

3 - Letter blocks: one so far, for a new mini quilt project. I got this quilting book called Spelling Bee by Lori Holt and it literally is the instructions to make every letter of the alphabet, both upper and lower case, plus a bunch of punctuation marks and some fun extra bonus blocks. The globe was the one that got me to buy the book. I have so. many. ideas. of what to do with the letters.

4 - 15 doll quilts to be sent to A Doll Like Me: the two TA and I made a year ago, the star one that JE started in January, AND 12 more made this month by our church activity group. My part of the 13 made in the past 60 days:

• organized all the adults for the evening activity, plus some other adults helped with the fabric 
• cut 230 squares, other people brought more and we had probably around 1000
• made the "Made by kids for kids" labels
• after the activity, I finished 4 of the quilts at home
• made 7 quilt sandwiches, 6 to go but I ran out of pins

Another woman from church, who donated some of the fabric, has agreed to do the bindings. Bless her forever!


Other sewing
1 -  two more scripture tote bags ... I made the ten in January for the church activity girls and had a little fabric left over. So I made two more for my girls who didn't have bags for church items. For our family, the "quiet" materials are sketchbooks and writing utensils (pens, pencils, markers, etc).

2 - more service sewing, this time for Days For Girls. My church's women's organization is part of an interfaith group that makes fabric reusable menstruation products to be taken to developing countries, where the women and girls don't have hygiene items during their cycles. The original intention was to give girls these products so they don't have to miss school during their period, but I'm sure it's spread further than that. Our local group is getting a shipment ready to send to Senegal this spring and I went to a Saturday sewing day this month. I have a schedule conflict for the Saturday in March, so I brought home 25 shields to finish here, and a friend will take them back. They're done and ready to go.

SM goes with me - she and her friend JM put snaps on one of the pieces, and they're knocking out quite a few service hours!


Mending: 8

A Doll Like Me take 2

Last February - a year ago - there was a sewing challenge from the blog Needle and Foot to make doll quilts for A Doll Like Me, a single-woman shop that custom-makes dolls to match children's limb differences. I set a target for our family to have everyone make one - six or seven (depending on Adam) ... which we did not meet. TA and I were the only ones who made any, and those two lonely little quilts have just been sitting here ever since.

But those two little quilts - staring at my kids for almost a year - have certainly raised awareness in our house. Recently, JE needed to do a service activity for her church award program, so her star blocks last month were the start of a new doll quilt to donate. I need to block in the background fabrics for her, since that's even a bit out of my own range, but she was excited about making the star blocks.

Status: in progress.

Then it was JE's turn to choose the church activity for a Wednesday evening - she wanted to sew doll quilts to donate. So proud of my girl for choosing service instead of just playing games!

We had five adults to manage the ten girls, plus a 5-year-old little sister who was tagging along with Mom, at our evening activity - two per sewing machine. All the girls chose their fabrics and how they were laid out, and got to take turns sewing on the machines.

We labeled them "Made by kids for kids" and they really were. My own daughter, TA, was working with me at my machine, and she and her partner KA charged right in there. If I even looked away, one of them would be right there at the machine. They did not need help, thankyouverymuch! At one point, I walked away entirely to check on some other kids and my work buddies had two rows done by the time I got back.

Status: 9 flimsies done, 3 more with the squares in rows but the rows need to be attached because we ran out of time. So a total of 12 from the church activity, because when our 5-year-old little sister heard that her friend got to make one, she wanted to do one too. So we did. The three from home (2 done last year, JE's stars) make a total of 15 to be shipped when we're done.

Next: I brought everything home to square them. Some got a bit wonky, and one had to have the last row taken completely off and redone. I need to figure out batting - I thought I had some fleece I could use, but it's not going to work out. Then I'll pin them into their 3-layer sandwiches and do just basic straight-line quilting. Another woman from church said that she'll do all the bindings for me - hooray!

so much for mom sewing

I went downstairs to work on some quilt blocks. I did not. I untangled yarn and threaded needles over, and over, and over. For the entire two hours Dad and the big girls were at church. Seriously. As soon as I had one taken care of, the next needed a refill on her needle. It was a constant rotation. Plastic canvas and yarn, and these girls are ready to get their craft on!

Future Crafters of America

Monkey Wrench tutorial

Trina and I have been working on the Squared Away block of the month for the past year.  We got to the end and I didn't like the bonus square (and one other).  So I broke the rules and picked one I liked!  I found this Monkey Wrench block here but it used a paper piecing method, which wouldn't have matched the rest of the quilt.  So I had to figure it out on my own.  It was pretty straight forward, but to help Trina out when she was ready to make her own I made up this little tutorial.

Cut your fabric.

Purple: 

one 6" square (for magic 8 HSTs)

four 4.5"x2.5" rectangles

one 10.5"x2.5" strip 

White:

one 6" square (for magic 8 HSTs)

five 2.5" squares

one 10.5"x2.5" strip 

Make your pieces.

-Use your 6" squares to make eight HSTs. - VIDEO on how to make magic 8 HSTs.

-Mark four of the white squares with a diagonal line.  Put it RST on the purple rectangle.  Sew on the line (shown in red in the picture below).  Trim a 1/4" seam allowance (green line).  Press open.  Note: Make sure your diagonals are either going ALL one direction or HALF the other direction.  Either way works, just be aware of them.  I made them all going one direction, so that's what the pictures with show.

-Sew the two long strips together.  Trim into 2.5" sections. (Just like we've done throughout this whole project).

Note: I have no idea the best way to press the seams.  Most of them were open because I wasn't sure.

You should end up with this...

eight HSTs, four diagonal rectangles, four white/purple rectangles and one single white square.

Sewing!
Start with the HSTs.  Sew them in pairs.  To keep it quick I just made them all the same direction and rotated it in my final placement.

Sew the HSTs to the diagonal-rectangles.  Again, all four will look exactly the same. 

Add a purple/white rectangle to TWO sections.  (You can't do all four at once! Ask me how I know.)  While you are at it you can add the lone white square to another one of the p/w rectangles.

These seams will give you three long pieces.  Be aware of the direction you place things.

Finally, sew the two larger pieces to the center strip.  Press and admire!

January in Connecticut

I'm finally sewing a lot again! Hooray! I missed it. Now I need to get back into blogging too, so things get their own posts throughout the month instead of a big photo dump at intervals.

Clothing
1 - circle skirt for SM - I watched the video from Made Everyday and used her instructions. It was pretty intimidating at first because of the curve, and sewing directly to the elastic. And ... yeah, don't look too closely at that part. Good thing her shirt covers the top! But it's sufficiently twirly for her, so she's happy.

2 - peasant top for RG - tutorial from Things of Cloth. It's the same pattern that SM is wearing in the above picture, that I made last spring (yep, these are two different shirts in the pictures!). Now RG has one as well, but she's worn it only the one time. ???? Maybe because she has deemed it a spring shirt? Or maybe it will end up in SM's drawer. The peasant top I made for SM last year has been worn SO much that it's becoming very, very thin.

Quilts
8 blocks for 3 different quilts ... 4 for Squared Away - I'm FINALLY getting back to it! Just two more colors left - dark green and dark purple.

JE and TA wanted to try their hand at machine sewing, and they worked with me on 2 blocks each. I did all the cutting (I don't trust kids yet with the rotary cutter - I gashed my own finger with it a few months ago), and I helped them with the machine. JE learned chain-stitching, which she thought was nifty.

JE made two of these star blocks with her own selection of fabric, to be put into a doll quilt. She did the chain piecing for all the half-square-triangles (HST), and was excited to put them all together into one star.

TA has plans for her own twin-sized quilt for her bed, which obviously I've not made yet ... happy to have her assistance! She did two blocks as well. We're using the house block pattern from Intrepid Thread.


Crafting
1 - Ten canvas tote bags for a church activity. The 10 girls in my group decorated them with fabric markers, and hot-gluing ribbon and fabric flowers and "jewel" sparkle thingies to them. Yes, I could have bought them. But buying 10 would have cost $45, and the fabric cost only $15. I had the time to make them, and I have other ideas for blowing my budget money this year.

2 - While I had the craft supplies out, JK found some leftover fabric circle flower things kicking around, and decided one needed to be a hair clip. Sure, why not!

3. Edge stitching on a large piece of fleece to make into a throw blanket for the TV couch.

Mending: 5