Summer Project Update

This pillow project was SO much fun! It's one of those projects you can start and finish in just an hour or two.


Here's a closer shot so you can see it better. It's made with about 10 strips of 2.5" wide fabric. You make the ruffles just by folding the strips as you push them under your presser foot. Then you sew them in a circular shape onto a square of fabric, sew the back on & stuff it! And now you have a nice, eye-catching and touchable pillow. Because you just can't resist running your fingers over those ruffles!

Okay. So this summer, I made a goal to finish at least half of my unfinished sewing projects that were just sitting in my sewing room. With Aspen at age groups every day during the week (and Madi there half the time), and Tysen taking 3 hour naps every day, I had a bit of time on my hands and wanted to make it productive.

Yessssss!!! I FINALLY finished the Butterfly Quilt! This one has been in the making for at least 5 years I think, I don't even remember. It is all hand-appliqued and hand-quilted. I might just enter it into a quilt show next summer.

Here's the finished project. I absolutely love the scrappy look of the butterflies, and how there are so many different fabrics used in them, don't you? It was SO fun to pick them out & match them up.

And here we have the ever-present-on-the-to-finish-list, the Double-Wedding Ring quilt. I got a step closer on this one, and finished hand-quilting around all the circles & arcs on my quilting frames (did that part during the school year down at the Orem house actually), then I finished off the binding this summer. That binding was really tricky, let me tell you! Especially when I ran out of it when I was sewing it on & had to add in a piece. Not fun. And, I do still have some quilting to do in that inner border, and in the middle of the rings. So, look for it again on the next update, hopefully I'll have a finished image by then.

Ooh, this one was super-fun! It was from a kit I got for my Birthday. I altered it a bit, and made flowers instead of just circles on the whole top... and I added in that pieced border on the outside. I have a "thing" for trying to make the best use of my fabric and leave very little waste. The flowers were made mostly from the inside of the circles. Now I just need to quilt it.

And I couldn't refuse this fun project. Just a simple, tied denim quilt, made from a box of old jeans my Mom gave me this spring. As I was cutting the squares out, I had fond memories of the pants my Dad used to wear, and even of some pant legs my Mom had saved from pants I had cut off years ago. It is now the picnic blanket that goes in my new car!

This was also made from a kit that I bought up in Idaho. I LOVE the 1930's reproduction fabrics! This quilt gave me my first experience sewing with them, and I fell in love with it. I machine-quilted it myself, on my bernina. I kinda wish I would have taken it to someone to do professionally, but it turned out ok in the end. Still in love with it.

Another tied quilt. This one was made up of a bunch of scraps from my ever-growing stash. Most of them are older fabrics that I bought from an elderly lady here in Provo. I'm finding that I really love to make quilts that combine a whole bunch of different fabrics. Scrap quilts. Honestly, they are so much fun, and very addicting! I had to tie this one because it was just too big to try to quilt. And I think it turned out great. And to be honest, this one was mostly finished during the school year too... I just had to do the binding.

Ok, here's another one that was sitting there just begging me to finish it. I LOOOOVE the bold red/white/blue print fabrics in this one! It was a block-of-the-month that I did last year, using a jelly roll that I bought at a quilting retreat. I loved making this one, becaue each block is different and although the fabric is different in each block, it is all from the same line so it all matches. The lady who organized this BOM is doing another one starting in Sept, and I'm going to join in again. I also quilted this one on my own machine. The quilting on all the blocks was just straight line, in-the-ditch quilting so no big deal. I got creative on the border and did a swirly/star free-motion pattern. It took a long time, but was actually really fun.

So, now I am off to finish the other half of my UFO's (Un-Finished Objects)... and start some new ones, of course! I also have started my first Christmas Quilt, it is a stars & squares pattern. I'll have to post pics of that one next time. I'm also VERY intrugued by a new quilting technique I read about called Crumb Quilts. It is where you use all the little extra pieces of fabric that you end up cutting off your other quilts while making them. Those pieces that are really just too small to do much with, but you can't bear to part with. At least, I can't. I'm sort of OCD in that way. I also made a bunch of Barbie clothes for Aspen at the beginning of summer, and end of spring. That should be a fun post too!