Friday, September 30, 2016

September OMG: Dresses!

My September One Monthly Goal (thanks Heidi @Red Letter Quilts!) was to sew two doll dresses for my niece's baby doll. They are not examples of high-quality workmanship--apparel sewing is still not my thing!--but I think they turned out cute.

It was fun to pick the fabrics to use. I use a tutorial for a doll peasant dress from Ruth Plus Two, and it worked really well. I skipped putting elastic in the sleeves--too difficult! I'll be mailing these to my niece on Monday and I hope she likes them! 



Monday, September 26, 2016

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Applique entry

I never thought I'd have an applique quilt to enter in the Blogger's Quilt Festival (or any quilt show!). Applique is not usually my thing. However, this spring, I designed the "Home Is Where You Make It" quilt using Paintbrush Studio's Leather collection as inspiration for the Row by Row Experience. Now I'm entering it in the Applique category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival.
This quilt measures approximately 48" x 65".
I designed this quilt, Linda Smoker created the full-size templates for me, and Diane Oakes quilted it (with 9 different colors of thread!). 

The theme for this year's Row by Row Experience was "Home Sweet Home" and I took this theme a little outside the box--after all, home is wherever you are. While I am not a snowbird, and likely won't ever be--I like winter too much!--this quilt is a nod to the snowbirds of our country. 
Row 1: At home in the neighborhood (complete with camper)
Row 2: Snow begins to fall--time to leave town!
Row 3: On the road. And on, and on, and on. 
Row 4: Setting up "home" near the beach
Row 5: Relaxing on the beach. 

Beyond the fabric colors, I tied the different rows together with small details--the birdhouse and bird, the quilt on the clothesline, the flowers...
See more photos of this quilt here.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Scrappy Quilt entry

My Blogger's Quilt Festival entries this fall were easy to choose.

This is my current favorite quilt! 
It began with 12-1/2" squares of made fabric that I stitched as part of the Rainbow Scrap challenge. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do with these scrappy, colorful blocks until I saw this quilt by Rachel from In Color Order. I knew I could use that design idea idea for a huge, scrappy, rainbow star quilt. So I did! 
This scrappy star quilt measures approximately 48" square.

I used four different quilting motifs in the star (one for each set of two-color diamonds) and then quilted straight lines in the black background. Of course the binding had to be scrappy! 

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

OMG: Venturing into 3D sewing?!

I don't do 3-D sewing. Or at least I don't usually like to--especially clothing. About 6 years ago, I made a tinkerbell costume for my niece. It turned out all right, but I swore off sewing clothes at that point.

I have three boys of my own, and a total of seven nephews and only three nieces. So there aren't many dolls or much girly-ness in my house. My youngest niece got her first doll for Christmas, and this summer my sister-in-law asked me if I could fix the dress the doll came with, as it was falling apart. The dress, shown below, wasn't really fixable. The fabric was pretty much shredding. 

So I've decided to pull out some of my "girly" fabric and sew two dresses for my niece's doll. Very simple dresses. Not like the fairy costume! :) 
Sewing two dresses is my September One Monthly Goal