kirstencan

Given

For my SIL's Christmas gift, a little tote:

I love this vintage fabric - I've used it once before and one of these days I'll make a bag for myself out of it.  It's kind of thicker, ribbed, and yummy.

For my brother and his wife - scrappy quilted pillows.

You can't go wrong with the Japanese tree fabric, in my opinion.
I'm not as happy with the Matroshka one - the color combo + lame free motion quilting.  And the backs are not ideal, by any means.  But oh well.

At least some of my gifts were handmade, right? :)

Grandma's Pillow

A Christmas present I can show you - as I'm fairly sure Aaron's 96 year old grandmother doesn't read my blog.  :)

A quick quilted pillow cover - made from pieces found in my scrap box. 

You'll notice a scrap from my skirt - and most of the rest is from Kris and Jenn's quilt.

Very quick, but I like the results - hopefully she will as well.

Halloween Quilt

We got out our Halloween Stuff this week - including the Halloween quilt I made.  The kids like it - wonkiness and all.  Trust me, there is some serious uneven-ness going on here - but that's okay, it's fitting for Halloween, right?

This was mostly-quilted with a walking-foot that I didn't realize was broken.  Not ideal.

The fabric is this witch stuff I picked up at Joann's a couple years ago.  I liked the witches and the little bits of purple.

Because purple is a magical color and completely appropriate for Halloween... and Christmas.

The back and binding are black with skeletons.  One thing I should have done was use a black bobbin for the quilting - but I didn't realize until it was too late.  Oh well.

I like how it kind of looks like witches flying outside of windows.  The pattern (I used one!) is from the Quiltmaker's Gift book.

I'm realizing now that the quilt looks much bigger than it is - it's quite small, actually.  Barely lap size.  But it's fun to have around the living room.

Nine-Patch Quilt #2

This may look a lot like the other nine-patch quilt, but it's actually quite a bit different (PLEASE don't look at the corners that I had to trim off). 

I pieced it last summer, realized I should have added another column, shrugged, and left it to hand quilt in the winter.  Yeah, that didn't happen. 

It's been folded on my quilt rack for a year, and I really like it, flaws and all.

I picked out the quilting from the 5 squares I actually did, and machine quilted it this week.  Really simple.

This quilt is for my mom.

My mom rocks. She helps us so much - this is a very small token of our thanks.

So I'll give my mom this quilt when she comes up today ... to help me paint Monkey's room...

Fastest Quilt Ever

So, part of Katie's package to me was a stack of 4" fabric squares.

Hmm, interesting.  I have a huge stack of 4" nine-patches from a nine-patch exchange club I did a few years ago at a quilt shop.  So... just playing, I laid out nine-patches with the squares in between.  Pretty much randomly. I set them on top of the basket I normally keep my nine-patches in.

And then (what the heck?) started sewing the rows together.  Couldn't have that pile topple over on me, now could I?

Quilt tops always go together surprisingly fast - especially when all the cutting is already done! Instead of 1-3 years to finish (like most of my others) this took 2 days!  Of only normal crafting time!  Seriously, SO quick.

I didn't add any borders - I think it's more 'vintage-y' this way.  I didn't even put in any batting!  I wanted something really light - I already have nice warm (gorgeous, perfect...) flannel quilts from my MIL, and I wanted something different. 

I LOVE scrappy quilts.  I love looking at the variety of fabrics - in this case about seventy-five.  I remember making some of the nine-patches(although most were made by others), and some of the squares are leftovers from projects (although most came from Katie).

The back is this Thimbleberries floral flannel that I already had from my MIL - just thick enough to hide the inside seams but still very light.

I love it.

Thanks, Katie, for helping me finish a project!

Finally Put Together

Way back when, I started working on the Summer Stitchettes. 

And look - I finally did something with them!

A cushion for Princess' room.

The center reproduction print is a scrap from her quilt (made by my MIL).  The yellow and the floral are gifts from my MIL's stash, too, actually. 

(I stuffed a 20" (?) IKEA pillow form into about a 15" cover.  I like it better than my other big cushion I just made - more dense.)

Now what to do with the spring Stitchettes I'm working on?  I was thinking a wall-hanging, but now I think I might frame them...

Wedding Quilt

Let me take you back in time.  It is February, 2006 (not far back, but still).  My brother is getting married, and I am helping to plan the wedding dinner. They have chosen dark brown, cream, and a rust-red color for their colors.

We decided to put brown squares of fabric over the tablecloths.  I decided to get the fabric (and some coordinating ones) from the quilt shop so it would be good quality fabric to make into a quilt after the wedding.  I liked the idea of reusing the fabric, plus I thought it would be cool for them to have something made from their wedding decorations (I didn't tell them this, so they weren't waiting for it.)

Nearly a year and a half later, it's done!  This quilt is completely random.  I started out planning to use all the same blocks (simple, brown squares with scrappy sashing), but added a couple of stack 'n' slash blocks for variety and really liked it.  After that I just made several kinds of blocks and put it together however I wanted.

Here's a (bad) shot of (almost) the whole thing - it is REALLY hard to get a (good) picture of an entire quilt!  Even if it's just lap-sized.

The back and binding are tan flannel, and the quilting is one continuous line starting in the middle to form concentric squares.

The border quilting is two sets of two interweaving lines.  Machine quilted, of course.  I used cotton variegated thread (brown, cream, rust - perfect!) for all the quilting, and I really liked how that turned out.

My first goal was to have it done for their first Christmas.  Then, by their first anniversary.  Finally, I said that it had to be done before their baby was born.

Well, I finished it May 28th, the day before my SIL went to the hospital, as little Samuel decided to come nearly a month early!

Whew! I just made it!  Mailed it off this week, so they should have it by now.  I hope they like it.

Better late than never.

pillow cover

I finished one of my pillowcovers!  i wanted to recover my couch pillows for 2 reasons: 
1  - and most important, so i could wash them when snotty noses get rubbed on them or milk spilled on them. 
2 - so that they matched my quilt that i made for my mantel.  so here is one of them.  i sewed stripes together of fabric left over from my quilt, then quilted in an on-going square kind of pattern. 
i'm really liking the free-form quilting that i've been doing.  no planning ahead, just going with what looks good and making it work.  it's been really fun! 

and here is a closeup of the floral fabric that i used liberally in both pillow and quilt:  it has to be seen close to appreciate.  gorgeous!  i was a little nervous cutting into it, but i'm glad that i found a good use for it!
i like the yellow-y color in it and the splashes of turquoise.  pretty!