Old things new again...

I love when old things become new again.  It's such a fresh feeling, isn't it?  We have two reasons for feeling fresh in our house this week (oh come on, people...not like that).  Read on, my friends, and you too will be refreshed...

NUMERO UNO:
Does anyone remember the quilt that I made back in early 2009?  It looked something like this...actually it looked exactly like this because this is a picture of it:

 (you'll have to put the two halves together in your mind...)

Well, I didn't plan it very well and, when I cut the t-shirts up, I didn't allow for any seam allowances.  Oops!  The entire quilt was just pieces sewn together hither-nither.  The edges weren't straight and it was lumpy everywhere.  Really, it was just a terrible attempt at a quilt.  But, I was sick of the quilt being "in progress" - the top took me so long! - so I sewed on the back (which obviously didn't fit because it was all weirdly shaped) and put it away.  Done.  Or so I thought...

I got it out again a year and a half later.  Which was this summer.  When I seam-ripped the entire quilt apart.  Each.  Individual.  Square.  But today, I finally got it all put back together and done!  Again.

Round #2 looks much better:

(it still is a tad lumpy, but at least it mostly lays flat and you can actually see all of the t-shirt pieces because none of them folded over the side onto the back...)

NUMERO DOS:

And now, for the second old thing that became new at our house this week.  (Anyone who ever plans to visit us can thank us.)  Did I ever share our lovely toilet seat with you?  When we first moved in, this classy wooden toilet seat had a large crack separating the left side of the seat from the right side.  I fixed it with duct tape after a few splinter scares and yes, I took a picture:

We used the toilet like this for WAY too long - almost 4 months - and made WAY too many guests use it as well, all the while waiting for maintenance to come and fix it.  Along the way we had two helpful guests offer to fix it for us (because when we tried, the bolts were rusted on so badly that we couldn't even get the old one off) but we finally bought a new seat and fixed it ourselves!  (moral of the story...don't wait for maintenance)  And yes, I took another picture.  Because as disgusting as toilet pictures are, they will make it into my scrapbook so that my kids can look at it and be disgusted as well.

For all you out there who have been thinking of visiting, consider this your open invitation:

What I love...

Way back in spring, one of our friends asked me if I would be interested in making a quilt for a gift for his wife.  The gift was given yesterday, as far as I understand, so I am finally free to share what I was working on for much of July! 

When asked, I immediately said that I would love to make a quilt for our friends and then, once I considered that I may not be feeling up to such a large project later in pregnancy, I backed away a bit and gave an inconclusive answer.  Once we were back in Canada, though, I was feeling great and I jumped on board with the project.  And boy am I ever glad I did!

Remember these pictures?  For those of you who were wondering, no, the "J" was not a clue to McBaby's name.  It was for this secret project!  The green fabrics are the ones I used for the background.

You can't really see the belly here, but it did get in the way a little bit!  I was 29-31 weeks pregnant while I worked on this - the entire project took about 2-3 weeks.  (It was SO hard to not share!!)  I found that I couldn't sit as close to the table as I normally would have so either I was leaning my shoulders and neck forward toward the machine or else my belly was pressing into the edge of the table.  Neither was terribly comfortable, but I'm really glad that I completed this project in July as opposed to trying to finish it now! 

First I cut all the letters out of interfacing.  I then ironed the interfacing onto the back of the brown fabric.  Then I cut all the letters out again, this time from the brown fabric using the interfacing as a guide.  Once all the letters were cut out, I stitched around each one, attaching them to ivory squares of fabric.  Once all the letter squares were completed, I sewed them together, one strip at a time.

I added the green/blue fabrics to the ends of the letter strips to create strips the full length of the quilt.  Then I sewed the strips together, one on top of the other, to create what you see here (above).

(Nathan being my quilt stand)  Once I had the front done, I picked out fabric for the back (ivory flannel).  I layered the flannel, quilt batting, an Ikea sheet (for added weight), then the top.  Once I pinned it all, I tried quilting it with my sewing machine.  It became clear after the first 10 stitches that it wasn't going to work to quilt by machine.  I had a few days of being completely stumped as to how to finish the quilt.  I ended up tacking down corners in a grid pattern by hand, using small "x"'s.  This worked quite well.

I then cut and sewed binding from some of the leftover brown fabric.  I trimmed the raw edges of the quilt and then attached the binding.  There's nothing quite as nice as the clean, crisp edge of a freshly bound quilt... : )  It just makes me smile!

And the finished product!  I came up with the design when we were still in Fresno and re-worked it time and again until it was just right.  I did NOT want to start into a project this big and then realize once I tried to sew it together that it was calculated incorrectly!  Thankfully the entire quilt went off without a hitch...well, except for needing to improvise when it came to the actual quilting.  But for my first project of this size, and the first one using applique, I'd say it turned out just fine!  Will I attempt another one?  Not any time soon!  But perhaps one day, when our family is complete, I'll come up with something like this for us...

My first quilt

As many of you must know by now, if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, I really enjoy sewing.  I’ve never really done much of it beyond the occasional clothing alteration or pair of pj pants.  But this winter I started into the quilting world and have been enjoying my mom’s hand-me-down sewing machine more than ever. 

As a result of our recent move, I happened to be going through an old box of all my old dolls/stuffed animals/etc.  I hadn’t looked through my stack of doll blankets since high school but, with baby on my mind, I was looking through everything that night.  And low and behold (never have understood that saying…) I found my very first quilt!  I had completely forgotten about it, but once I saw it, I remembered my mom sewing a quilt top at home for the church ladies to quilt and how I was intrigued by all of the squares of fabric of different colors and sizes.  I’m not sure if it was my idea or my mom’s, but I ended up picking out a few squares of fabric and designing my own doll quilt.  I’m sure, at that point, that my mom was the one to sew it together, but I was excited to have created this masterpiece with the most beautiful fabrics that I could find.  The pink square in the middle, with its sparkly metallic threads, was my VERY favorite.

I look at it now and, though it brings back great memories, I can’t help but notice how my taste in fabric has changed over the years.  But, interestingly enough, when I crocheted my first afghan a few years after making that quilt (probably around 11-12 years old?) I chose those exact shades of navy blue and dark purple.  I guess I did like those colors for a good chunk of my growing up years.  But who could blame me?  I did grow up in the 90’s afterall…who DIDN’t like navy blue, forest green, and burgundy?  I just happened to put dark purple into the mix. : )

Another down...a few more to go

I finished a couple more projects in the last few days.  I'm sad that I can't post pictures of the project that is a gift, but I'll just say this: It turned out very well. : )

The one I can post a picture of is the seat belt cover: 

I haven't actually used it yet, but after a slight adjustment it fits the seat belt, and I'd say the fabric is pretty fun.  I cut up an old man Wrangler shirt and used the fabric from the shirt for the main part.  I put some cotton batting in it to add some padding and then quilted it so that it stays put.  Then I took the snap buttons (awesome!) off the shirt and sewed them onto the side of the cover as a means of fastening the sleeve around the seat belt.  Perfect!  The picture really doesn't do justice to how magnificent it is... :D

being crafty...

<--this is not me and this is not my sewing room...though a girl can dream, right?

I spent yesterday in my craft room (yup, I have pretty much taken over our spare bedroom with my projects).  I have so much on the go right now.  I guess I just need to face it that that's how I work.  I find myself with nothing to do so I start looking for projects.  I start 10 projects at the same time and spend the next couple weeks (or months) jumping from project to project until they're all done.  Then I do nothing for a while until I realize that I have nothing to do and the cycle starts all over again.

I've been meaning to post pictures of what I've been working on lately, but, of my many projects, none of them is actually finished, so there will be no pictures today.  Hopefully soon!  But I can tell you what I'm working on!  That's almost as good, right?  Ok, no it's not.  But we can pretend...

Let's see.  My biggest project is what I'm making for the twins that are coming into the family.  Of course, that is a gift, so I can't say what it is or post pictures until after I've given the gift.  But believe me, it's pretty cool and it is coming along quite well, if I do say so myself...

The next project is one of those sleeve-things for the car seat belt.  I have this terrible habit, when I ride in the car, to put the seat belt under my arm instead of across my chest, as it is supposed to be.  Well, I was in the car the other day and realized that I will need to stop doing that as the seat belt goes right across my expanding belly...and that just isn't safe.  Yet when the seat belt is across my chest, it cuts into my neck because, let's face it, I am a wee bit on the small side.  So I cut up an old-man, plaid, Wrangler shirt and made a quilted sleeve out of it.  It turned out pretty cool-looking.  I ran into a bit of a problem with this project last night, though.  I measured the seat belt width and added an inch to allow for padding and so that the sleeve would wrap all the way around the belt.  Well, when I took it to the car last night, it didn't even quite wrap all the way around.  Apparently an inch wasn't enough.  I'm not about to take it all apart and make a new one, so now I need to figure out how to make this thing fit.  That's why there are no pictures of this project yet.

I also have a purse on the go.  I crocheted the outside of it, but it is a pretty hole-y shell - granny squares, so I am planning on sewing a liner to fit inside it.  This seems like the project least with a "due date", so it is just sitting there, waiting to be completed.  I don't think it would take more than an hour or two, but you know how it is...other things take priority.  I think it'll make a fun summer bag...that or it'll be like every other crocheted purse I've ever made and I'll never use it...we'll see!

Also on my list of projects is the regular hemming/mending that I need to do.  Nathan and I bought another pair of maternity pants for me the other day and they desperately need to be hemmed before I wear them.  I don't especially love hemming.  It's not that it's much work, I'm just nervous to cut them too short...because of this I usually end up not hemming them short enough and still end up rolling up the bottoms!  As a result, it doesn't get done very often.  I also hope to cut a pair of my old jeans into shorts and try to add a stretchy belly panel to them so that I can wear them this summer.  Sounds like it's a disaster waiting to happen, right?  Well, yeah.  I'm nervous about trying this, so it is also just sitting there, intimidating me every time I think about it!  But I'd be so excited if it actually worked!

I'm trying to use up many of my scraps of yarn and fabric before we move...somehow it just seems more worth packing and moving if it is actually made into something.  But it would also be fun to arrive back with a few goodies so that I can play this summer! : )

Etsy...

So...I am not a business woman.  I've tried my hand at selling Creative Memories.  I couldn't manage to sell enough to even pay for the minimum requirement.  I've now tried Etsy and I am not a "go-getter" enough to advertise and be competitive and keep active.  Therefore, I've decided to go inactive as far as Etsy goes.  Especially with our coming year being so crazy with moving and moving and...moving again, not to mention our growing family, I just don't see myself creating things so that I can try to sell them to other people.  I have a feeling I'll be plenty busy and will be thankful if I have time to create stuff for myself!

That said, I do LOVE to make things for other people.  So if anyone would like anything (if they've seen something they like or have an idea of something), you can totally feel free to get in touch with me and ask me about it.  I will let you know if I think it's do-able or if I have time for it or whatever.  And I'm not looking to bring in a huge profit (with Etsy, they took a certain percentage so the costs were higher, plus I was potentially making things for random people as opposed to just for friends).  The costs should be reasonable as I'll just try to cover my costs and, depending on how busy I am, maybe some of my time. 

So the offer is officially open.  I'm game for some creative challenges, people!

Random thoughts...

-  Nathan and I spent a couple hours in Starbucks today doing homework.  It's nice to get off campus together sometimes, even if the activities of campus follow us...

-  I just realized this weekend that the fabric I bought HERE and made into THIS QUILT, actually stretches far enough to make another two quilts!  I sewed another quilt top on Friday evening and have the fabric cut for yet another quilt top.  I didn't think I bought that much...only 1 yard of four different fabrics.  I guess that is quite a bit when each quilt is only 40x60 ish.  Makes for tons of fun for me, though!

-  Today is a long weekend down in the States too.  President's Day.  Whoop-de-doo.  Nathan is enjoying a day without any classes (when he would normally have had both an afternoon class and an evening one) but I'm sticking to routine.  Monday is house cleaning day.  I usually try to wash the floors, vacuum and do laundry.  This week the bathroom may need to be cleaned on Monday as well, and perhaps the kitchen.  Oh, and the spare bedroom.  Ever since we re-arranged our living room and added the bookshelf from the spare bedroom, that room has been a disaster.  And my parents will be here in two weeks!  It needs to be cleaned before too long anyway! 

-  Nathan is reading outside today.  It was a foggy, chilly morning (8 degrees when we got up) and the heat wasn't on in the house, so it felt pretty cool inside too.  But it has warmed up quite a bit and it is now 14 degrees.  The high for today is 19 and it usually makes it at least to the forecasted high, if not higher.  I certainly don't mean to brag, but it really does feel beautiful outside.  All of our doors/windows are open and the fresh air is amazing.  We've had an exceptionally rainy winter in California this year (which we needed), but it is nice to have the sun back.  Don't worry, all you Canadians.  I am not taking it for granted.  I am still a Canadian from the prairies and am enjoying the weather to all it's sunny, warm fullness!

-  Well, not sure what else is happening.  Anyone out there have any burning questions for me? 

What am I doing these days?

I run from one activity to another like a 3 year old with a high on sugar life.  Among my latest are:
-  reading "The Gospel According to Lost" by Chris Seay
-  reading " Paul's Idea of Community" by Banks (and writing a paper on it for class - I finished this one yesterday!)
-  making my first actual "quilted" baby quilt - this I also finished yesterday
-  cleaning all the loose threads off my first rag quilt - this one gives me blisters, so I haven't picked it up for a few days
-  crocheting a scarf for my Etsy shop - would only take an hour or less to finish, but it's kinda nice knowing that there is a project sitting there in case I get bored with something else
-  thinking about a pattern for my next baby quilt - any ideas?

I guess while I'm making a random list of mostly projects, I'll share a few pictures of the latest.  Yesterday was a warm, sunny day, so I took advantage of the natural light and got pictures of everything.

A toque that I have listed over at my Etsy shop:

Scarf that's going to my Etsy shop just as soon as I finish it:

Baby quilt from the fabric I showed you here.  It's not perfect or professional, but I'd say it's pretty good.  Hand-stitching the binding was BY FAR the most time-consuming part of the entire project.  But I enjoyed it all. : )

And last but not least, a flanel, double-layer receiving blanket.  I found this fabric at Walmart in their sale basket (end of the roll) and loved it.  So I picked it up and later found that I actually had some navy blue flannel on hand from another project that would work perfectly for the back.  It took a bit of piecing (added white flannel strips to two sides of the back) to make it all fit together because it was made from all scraps, but I really love it.  I haven't been able to decide if I'll sell it or keep it in my stash for future gifts or (perhaps) personal use?

Mmm...

I picked out some fabrics today.  I'm going to start a quilt today.  It's going to be fun. 

(I just had to share the excitement!)

Finished!

I finished my quilt in time for Christmas!  Not that it'll be used over Christmas...or that it needed to be done for Christmas.  But it's nice to have it done.  The last time I posted about it, I had just started snipping all the seams so that it would fray.  Well, after I posted, it sat in our spare room until just the other day when Nathan brought it out to the living room so that I had to look at it unfinished until I decided to finish it.  So quite a few hours of snipping later (and one pair of scissors that was sharp and is now dull) I am FINISHED!!

I did a random pattern on it, instead of making a design.  I played with multiple designs before I even started cutting, but kept coming back to the random one.  I just like how cozy and homemade it looks with no pattern.  One thing I don't like is that I had to wash it to get the fraying started.  And I like things to look and feel new as long as possible.  Before washing, all the flannel was perfect and soft and new...and after washing it is all balled up and not nearly as soft and it already looks "old".  *sigh*  I guess that's just the nature of these quilts. : )  I might take my lint shaver to it and see if I can at least get all the white balled up lint off of the brown squares where it looks the worst.  It is still a nice, cozy, heavy blanket though.  And believe me, I do have some dreams for it!  Perhaps snuggle my little girl in it one day?  Here's hoping!

And the quilting continues...

I've finally been able to get up the guts to cut into the beautiful patterned fabric that my mother-in-law chose for me for my quilt. I was pretty scared to mess up this fabric because there is no easy way for me to get more, so I started with cutting the plain white flannel that I picked up at Wal-mart for $2.25/yard. It is just going on the inside as a lining, so it didn't really matter if I cut it wrong. I figured it would be a good place to start and get some practice...you know, perfect my square-cutting technique.

Now that I have cut 161 of 168 squares of white flannel (I ran out of fabric with seven squares to go and Walmart is out of white flannel!), and I pretty much consider myself a quilt-square-cutting pro, I have two pieces of advice for you - that is, if you ever decide to make a quilt. First piece of advice...measure twice, cut once. There's no going back if you make a mistake, so be extra careful. Second piece of advice, when cutting fabric, always start at the selvage edge, as it will be the straightest, most reliable edge of the fabric. This works great UNLESS you buy your fabric for $2.25/yard at Wal-mart. If this is the case, your "reliable" selvage edge will have a noticeable wave to it. To avoid crooked squares, parallelograms if you will, just use your eye and make sure you have a reliable 90* angle and ruler to use while measuring to be sure your corners and edges are straight!

Aside from wavy selvage edges and not enough fabric, though, I'd say the quilt project is coming along quite well. I have my pattern ready so when I have all my squares cut, I know exactly what I'm going to be doing with them. Can't wait!

Picture post...

Quilting! For my birthday, I received fabric for a quilt from Nathan's parents. They arranged for it to get down to me, along with my sewing machine, from Saskatchewan with one of the profs from our school who was up there teaching a course. I waited a couple days, thinking through exactly what I wanted to do so that I wouldn't mess it up by starting in the peak of my excitement.

So far I've cut 35 squares and am loving it. Only a couple hundred squares to go. Hopefully I love it just as much when I've cut 200 squares!


This is the fabric:

In the pictures it may look a bit green (depending on the computer screen) but it is actually ivory-ish. It's beautiful! I can't wait until it starts to look more like a quilt!

__________________________

And here is a picture of a flower that caught my eye the other day. It is in the "bushes" on the pathway leading into the court (our apartments). I love looking at it every time I walk by...you just don't see things like that in Saskatchewan/Manitoba in October...especially not this year, from the sounds of it!

Have a good weekend everyone!