Zola Moda Grunge Quilt

 I bought this quilt kit from myfabricaddiction last winter and finally made time to sew it. My brain is not great at pieces that look similar but need to face certain ways so I'm sure I took much longer than I should have to make sure each piece was exactly the way it should go. I typically batch my blocks (do all of the same part for all of them at the same time) but there was no way I could keep up with the organization of this in my head. 

Pumpkin Kinusaiga

 A few co-workers and I got together to try out kinusaiga, shoving bits of fabric in styrofoam to make a picture. Haha It's a little more elegant than that, but not much. 

First, I purchased a sheet of 4x8 insulation from Lowes (3/4" thick) and cut them into 8x8 blocks. I found this pattern set on Etsy so each person could choose from 4 designs. 

I made the pumpkin to show the crafters what it will look like finished, and then made the 4 pumpkins during craft night. Start to finish, including gluing the outside edges in lieu of a frame, took about 3 hours. 

Polar Bear Tula Pink Quilt

 I used tula pink fabric and a bear pattern bought from the quilt store by my mom's house to make this cutie. The backing is minky so it's super, super soft. I'd like to make the pattern again and play around with some brighter colors. 

There are SO MANY MORE pieces than I expected. How many can you count just in the face? There are more than 50! 

Plaid Blanket Quilt

 I made another plaid quilt from myfabricaddition. This one was special because I used my new sewing machine to try out stitching a Bible verse on the bottom binding. It was a little crooked, but definitely an idea worth exploring more of in the future. It has a super soft backing which makes it perfect for snuggling! And fun fact- I made THE EXACT SAME MISTAKE on this one that I made the last time and had to undo and restitch every single white block going vertically. As I was picking out the stitches I had deja vu! 

Cardinal Wall Hanging

 I have been wanting to try another fabric collage project and made this cardinal from a kit by Collage Quilter. I need more time in my days to explore the techniques I want to try and actually get really good at something. 

Mushroom Collage

 I got this great mushroom patter from Collage Quilter to try out thread painting and making another fabric collage. During this process my Brother sewing machine broke so I went ahead and got my Christmas present early so I wouldn't have to wait for it to be fixed before I could continue. I have no idea what I'll do with it but it's super cute! 

Also, by the way, I got a Brother Quilt Club BQ3100, which is 10/10 no notes. 

Creepy Dragon Quilt

I wanted to make a darker dragon using the same pattern from my fairytale quilt, so this time I found some great fabrics and added some border to make it a bit bigger. I tried out quilting on my long arm in sections, not using edge-to-edge patterns, so each area is unique. This was probably not the best quilt to try that on, as it got a little crooked along the way (poor mushrooms along the orange border) but it's still great and I love it! My husband was out of town when I finished so it didn't get the full photo experience of being complete. 

Christmas Tree Skirt

 I used the accuquilt die my mom gifted me for Christmas to make the tops of two 45"Christmas tree skirts months ago, and finally had some backing fabric (the other half of the watercolor dragon) to quilt one of them on the longarm. The other one is already quilted but needs binding (yuck) so I decided to finish this one today and learn from it so the nicer one will hopefully turn out better. The lesson I learned was that these are harder to make than quilts. And more time consuming! But somehow take just as much fabric. I don't understand! But, it did turn out nice! I don't remember the fabric line I used, but hopefully it'll come to me soon. 

Watercolor Dragon Quilt

I learned the burden of making backing mistakes this week. A separate, but no less grievous error than my Gingerbread Lane Swoon quilt left me with the same issue of a wrinkle in the backing of my quilt. I decided to build character and take out all of the stitches in the top three rows to fix my mistake. I knew that facing the consequences of my actions (not making sure the backing is being rolled evenly when the fabric is twice as large as the quilt) would prevent me from making this mistake again. It will. I spent more time taking out stitches than I did cutting out the fabric, sewing, stitching detail, and long arming (all version) of this quilt. LESSON LEARNED. The clamshell pantograph is absolutely unforgiving. 

Here is the final, completed version. It doesn't show up here but there is handstitching (sashiko) on all of the white borders, and around the binding, with ombre purple thread. 

 

Gingerbread Lane Swoon Quilt

While I had some free time this summer I wanted to go ahead and make a new Christmas quilt for myself. I used the Swoon pattern, which I made last Christmas, but this time chose only a few fabrics: gingerbread dance (the cranberry), sugar holly and candy (the cream), and then I added a pearl solid inner border, cranberry border, and then sugar blizzard for a large outer border. I used the cranberry for binding as well. I tried to keep time on this project and when all said and done, this took about 31 hours. I used a simple stipple on the longarm for the quilting, and made a HUGE mistake by not attaching the backing fabric to my longarm until about half-way through when I realized my error, and so the back has a lot of spots where the fabric (I used a 116" backing fabric called toasted marshmallow) folded over. I was so disappointed, but not enough to take it all apart. It's in the dryer now so we'll see how it turns out. Hopefully the crinkle will forgive a lot of mistakes. The quilt ended up being 103" square. 

Dragon Dreams Quilt

 I used a quilt kit from Riley Blake's Faraway Kingdom to make the basic dragon, and purchased additional coordinating fabric to increase the size by adding an inner and outer border. The quilt ended up being 50"x60", which is perfect to take to school and let the kids sit on while reading. I used a longarm pattern called Scrolling Filigree. It's a lot cuter in person. This one didn't photograph super well. I am working on another version now using darker fabrics. 

Mini Fairytales Quilt

 My mom's quilt shop sells half-packs, which are 5 1/2 yard fabrics that can be used to make a simple quilt. They have 12 patterns from Sassy Sunflower Quilts to choose from that come free with purchase. On my last visit I got several packs, including one using Small Things- Fairytales by Lewis & Irene and the pattern called "Spin Me Round". They are so cute! I wanted to make a small quilt for my classroom that kids can sit on during our independent reading stamina building time. The quilt size is 50"x57" which is perfect. I was home alone when I finished it so don't have my professional holder (haha) so here it what it looks like from the back of my couch. Easy to do in an afternoon. I used a basic stipple to quilt on my longarm, which might become my new favorite. 

You can see some of the characters. I added the solid pearl fabric so I could use the dark blue from the kit for the binding. The project takes about a half-yard of each. I used the pearl solid on the back as well. 

Patchouli Parlor Quilt

A quilt kit caught my eye while shopping at my mom's quilt store last year, and I finally had some time to put it together. It's called Patchouli and is 60"x 67". It included a layer cake and 2 1/2 yards of fabric, plus binding. I purchased the backing separately. The fabric line is called Parlor by Crystal Manning.  It was a quick and easy put together and would be easy to do with other fabrics as well. The only mistake I made was sewing the backing fabrics together wrong so the bottom flowers are facing the opposite directions. Live and learn! 

Another Flag Quilt- Queen Sized this time!

 My mom requested a Queen Size flag quilt and I was able to get it finished before the 4th of July. I used Ohio Stars (shout out to AccuQuilt for the block dies) to increase the size of the original flag quilt (Thimble Blossoms- large size) and the American Gatherings III fabric from Moda. I also made shams since I knew it was going on her bed. I longarmed the quilt but machine-quilted the shams since I wanted the stitches around the Ohio Star and bursting out. 

Here it is before getting all nice and crinkly from being washed. 

Here was my sham pattern. I made the Ohio Star to match the sides and used the white background fabric for the rest. 

It's too big to hold up! 

This is how it fits on a full-sized bed. On the queen the flags go right up to the edges and the stars hang over. 

I purchased the coordinating 108" backing fabric. You can see the star pantograph I used. 

Bloomcore Quilt Gift

One of my co-workers is leaving our job, so my other teammate and I decided her going away gift would be a super girly quilt. I used the Bloomcore fabric line from AGF and a kit from myfabricaddiction.com, although after the second row I realized I made a HUGE mistake and instead of taking apart 50% of the quilt and redoing it, I took apart only 15% and changed the pattern to fit my mistake. You can see from the picture at the bottom that every other X block was supposed to be turned. Oops. I started this quilt in November and put it aside, so this was my lesson learned that it is SO MUCH HARDER to try to figure out where you left off and pick it up than just to power through and finish projects when you start them. 

I love the crinkly-ness of it. I debated between a solid background that matched the binding and this floral print, and my teammate and I decided since our co-worker is in a house full of boys she deserved something feminine and girly and all hers. 

And here is what it should've looked like. At first glance it looks like an easy project but even though it's only made of two shapes (triangles and rectangles) it is one of the most mathematically difficult patterns I've ever tried. It's so cute though! 

 

Wooly Stars Quilt

I made this fun quilt for no particular reason. The pattern caught my eye at myfabricaddiction.com and I couldn't resist! The directions were pretty simple. Complete steps 1-29 and then repeat 8 times. Haha. I do best when batch-processing so it didn't take nearly as long as it could have. The hardest part was determining the pantograph to quilt it with on my longarm. I ended up going for a swirl repeat pattern. Next time I would probably choose something different (maybe smaller cloud puffs?) but this was cute and I like how it turned out. 

Also for the first time I used a bedsheet instead of store-bought fabric as the backing. I wasn't sure I would like it but it turned out great and I had plenty of the queen-size sheet fabric so I felt comfortable with it. 

 

Graduation Gift

Here is a simple graduation card I made for a neighbor who is graduating this year. I used my laser printer and gold foil for the tag. Pictures don't do the gold foil justice; it looks super nice in person. 

I forgot to get a good picture, but I also made a bag/luggage tag with his name that matches his new school's colors. You can kind of see it in the bottom of the gift. This was a great way to level-up the gift and did not take much time at all to do! 

 

Wedding Passport Invitations

 A co-worked asked if could make gold-foil wedding invitations that looked like a passport for her destination wedding this summer, and of course I said yes! I purchased a laser printer and hot foil machine, and found the template she wanted on Etsy. I wish I could show more images because everything was so cute, but I'll respect her privacy. Here are a few sneak peaks. 

I cut the champagne shimmer cardstock envelopes on my Cricut and gold-foiled the map on the white cardstock liner, which I hand cut. 

All of her RSVP info went through their wedding website, so instead of having cards to mail back each invite contained a gold-foiled white cardstock "boarding pass" with necessary links and scan codes.

The inside used gold foil on white cardstock for the names and information, and a color photo was included next to their wedding details. I also used clear shiny cold-laminate over the white to give it the sturdy feel of an actual passport. I was afraid this would be too cheesy but after making a mock-up I knew it was a must-have. 

The invites were done on the same cardstock as the envelopes, and the front was gold-foiled with their names. I added gold ribbon and an airplane charm cut from gold cardstock on my Cricut. 

Small Sublimated Gifts for Office Staff

 I personalized sublimated zipper pouches for some office staff that were filled with goodies for Office Administration Week. They turned out super cute. I love being able to make something that looks nice in a matter of minutes! 

CNU Door Sign

 A friend has a daughter going to play Lacrosse at CNU this fall and asked me to make a door sign for her. I struggled a lot with the color on this one, and my spacing is a little off, but she loved it.