Taryn's Quilt

Our beautiful and smart niece Taryn graduated from high school this weekend. She was very active in sports all through school and is attending college with several scholarships, including one for volleyball. It was a given that she would want a quilt made from her school shirts.

To be completely honest, tshirt quilts are pretty far down on the list of things I enjoy making, but that's not something you say no to. Her school colors are black and red, but she requested that I use lime green for the accents. I had my doubts but it turned out really good. I choose to piece the back with a variety of fabrics, and I could not resist adding some hexies.  The gray swirly ones came from Lauren's quilt, for a little special connection.

I'm linking up with Trish's Inspiration Monday (Yes, I know it's Tuesday) so please go over and check out what everyone else is inspired to do.

Chevron baby quilt or Half Square Triange (HST) quilt

I finished up the Princess's baby quilt a full month ago. I made half square triangles and laid them out in a chevron pattern. I really love the fabric, it's got little red riding hood and some trees, and little foxes and birds and mushrooms and cherries. It's flat out adorable.

 I was very excited to show it to you all, but I kept running into problems. First, I store stuff under her crib, so I had to crop that out. And there's a curtain rod in the corner there. And since she doesn't have her own room, she doesn't have cute matching bedding.

So then I thought I'd just show you the pictures from when I gave it to her. She really loved it. But she wouldn't LOOK at me.

 She carefully spread it out flat.

 Then she wrapped herself up in it like a little burrito.

She wandered around the house for a while, at which point I gave up on having nice cute baby with the quilt photos.

This morning, I thought I'd try again. First I went with the lovingly draped over the couch shot. A quick preview showed me that that would require too much house cleaning. (Why yes, there IS a stick there on the floor. It's really a bow, don't you know?)

Then I considered doing it on my bed, which is reliably the only clear flat spot in our house. But my bedding turned the pretty white, gray and pink quilt yellow. And was too busy anyway.

At this point I was tired of being a fancy pants photo blogger and said to hell with it! They can see it just fine on the couch.

Maybe after we move and she has her own pretty pink and gray and white bedroom, I'll try again.

I am obsessed with paper pieced hexagons

It's true, I already have the other hexagon quilt started. But I couldn't stop thinking about making a much more simple gray and pink one. And then I had this little leftover bit from the Princess's chevron quilt and I couldn't resist making a little hex from it.  Next thing you know I'll be renaming the blog Hex. List. No Life.

Recent Sewing: Chevron Quilt, hexes, monsters

I've been doing quite a bit of sewing the last few days, and thought I'd share it with you. I got a bee in my bonnet to finish up (or start) The Princess's baby quilt. Both of the boys got a mama made quilt when they were born and somehow Miss Girl never got one. Shortly before her second birthday I decided that had to be rectified and started working in earnest on her quilt. Yesterday I started quilting it. There are only 24 rows of quilting, but I'm only on row 5 and since I sew in the middle of my house (open floor plan, machine in dining area), it's really hard to sew when everyone is around. I expect another week before the quilting is done, and then the binding and I can wash it and see how cuddly it gets.

I've also done a little work on my Hexagon quilt (remember that?) I finished up flower number 14, with this blue ring:


(Not one of my favorites so far.)

and last night I finished up flower number 15:



No outer ring yet on that one. They don't all have outer rings yet, it's a pretty haphazard pattern of sewing on this project.

One other thing I did this week was to take the doors off my sewing table. With my limited space it was getting really annoying to have to shift them out of the way every single time I got up to iron or check on a child. I took them off and it really opened up the space. Of course, now the Princess feels everything in the cabinet is fair game, but she can't open most of the boxes.



One day I'll take a picture of the entire space. I can't tell you how attractive those Rubbermaid boxes of fabric are in the my living room. Mike really loves them too. (Insert rant about tiny apartment and five people and two cats and a dog.)

Big shout out to Trish for finally going on and on and on about audiobooks long enough for me to download one. Sewing is much nicer with a book.

Lastly, I'm blogging this free pattern for an adorable Monster Pencil Case  so I don't forget about it! (that's a pdf, if you're clicking.)

Recent Sewing

Amazingly, I'd have a little time to sew lately. The Pirate still goes to daycare during the day and there are occasions when the Baby actually sleeps and I get to do my own thing. I'm SO gonna miss that when I go back to work.

This first picture is a little set of coasters I made as a gift. I wanted to try out this quilt as you go looking thing, without using a ton of fabric, and this seemed like a great idea. Four tiny little quilts later, I have coasters. I think I'll make a few more sets of coasters and then perhaps some placemats or a table runner for myself.



Next up is the quilt I made for my mom 8 years or so ago. This was one of the first quilts I ever attempted. I made the top, pinned the layers and then for whatever reason just stopped. A couple years ago I pulled it out and quilted most of it. Yesterday I decided to see just how much more work it needed. It appears my bobbin ran out of thread approximately 12 inches from the end of the next to last row of quilting. I finished it up, made some binding out of fabric I had on hand, and it's done! Mom, if you're reading this, SURPRISE! (I post about it because I'm pretty sure she does not read my blog on a regular basis. If you do... it's in the mail.) The back is a white on white floral.




I still need to post about the baby's room and I made a diaper bag that turned out really nice, so expect more crafty stuff soon!