Happy 6th Birthday Ada (Plus Quilt)

I've had two big finishes recently.  Mackenzie's D-Love Quilt, and Ada's Plus Quilt. Ada's birthday was on the 11th, and let me tell you, I cut it close.  Truthfully, Willa is still waiting on her birthday quilt.  The top is done and is being quilted by Angela ( <3 ). In order to get this one done on time, I carried the quilt with me and stitched on the binding whenever I had a free minute.   I decided to bind it in RK's Quilter's Linen.  I love it!  I got warnings that the red, and perhaps the pink would bleed, so I doubled up on the color catchers.  As promised, when I took the quilt out of the washer, the color catcher was bled upon.  I pulled it out of the dryer on the eve of her birthday.    

In addition to the SJ fabrics there are some Moda Crossweaves and Pezzy prints.  I'm still heart broken that the crossweaves are being phased out of production.  They are great solids!  I love texture and rich vibrant colors, and the crossweaves have both.  I used some of the Jewel prints from Lizzy House.  They make great "almost solids" and are perfect for a color quilt like this.  There is a LouLou Thi in there.  The hugs and kisses are very much like the Jewel prints.  All the dots are Michael Miller.  

I have no idea how big it is, but here is the front. I cut the charms into 4 inch squares instead of 4.5 inch squares most plus quilts utilize.  So mine is a bit smaller than most. I used smaller cuts in order to have some left over from the FQs I used to be used for the pieced strip down the back.  And as someone who has OCD (and not just the kind that people claim to have when they are picky clean about their house) using whole numbered cuts makes me feel better. 

On second thought, using the balloon print on the back was a little busy, but I love that little red-headed girl. Ada sends balloons to her twin in heaven pretty often, so I had to use it!  I love this print so much I've often thought about getting a tat of it.

I also scoured etsy to find a seller who had the fabric in order to make Ada her birthday shirt.  Each of my children have gotten a customized shirt for each of his or her birthday.  One day I'll make a t-shirt quilt out of all of them.  This is the 1st time I've customized the shirt to their birthday quilt.  Of course, this is only the 2nd year they've gotten birthday quilts. Willa has a love affair with poodles at the moment, so I could only have gotten her a poodle shirt.

 I have no idea how big the quilt is.  But some other details are as follows:  I quilted it with Auriful white 2024 I think.  You can't really tell from the finished picture, but the quilting is 1/4 inch from each vertical and horizontal seam.  I do have an Instagram of the in progress quilting.

Ada is my last quilt in Sarah Jane's Children at play quilt.  Her new fabric collection is just as cute.  I can already see that I'll have to force myself to work on my sewing skills to make some dresses from the new fabrics, but as someone who isn't a huge nautical fan, I don't see any quilts coming from it.

Willa's Doll Quilt

I finally finished the back to Willa's doll quilt. I pulled the hopscotch board in one of the fabrics out of the fabric and put it into a strip down the back.  I used the cream doll print that is featured in the blocks.

I've never posted a picture of the completed top, and I hesitate to post this one.  See that little hand in the above picture.  With his "help" I managed to not get a decent un-blurred picture.  That'll teach me to get out the real camera.  I coulda got a better pic with my Ipad.  But this'll give you an idea.  

It's already packed away in its box, ready to be shipped to Angela tomorrow, and I'm not going to wake it up to get a new picture.  When it comes back, I'll have plenty of pics to post!

Ada's quilt top is done.  Her birthday is May 11th, and last birthday of my year.  I'm hoping to have at least 1 done on time.  Especially since her appliqued birthday shirt coordinates!  The back is going to be Aqua Balloons.  I'm going to quilt this myself.  Not quite sure yet.  I'd like to quilt 1/4 inch along the seams, but I might try some diagonal lines.  WWYD?

I also finished my blocks for the 4x5 modern quilt bee!

Semi-Completed Project:

1. Sarah Jane Cross Quilt top
2. Willa's Doll Quilt top 

New Projects:

• Wacky Bentos (yet to be started)

Projects in the Workbox:

1. Houndstooth Tubes 
2. Love You to the Moon Word Quilt (worked on this one since I last posted.  I need some advice on that one- later)
3. Shot Cottons Wonky Log Cabin 
4. Spiderweb
5. Rainbow Diamond (I completed 4 blocks)
6. (and 7) Sarah Jane Family Panels (Waiting on the embroidery fairy)

Bees:

-Sew Bee Wonky- finished March and April blocks

-heal.do.good stitches- Ribbon star

Another Sarah Jane Quilt

My last Children at Play quilt is a plus/cross quilt.  In addition to the CAP prints, I also used some Jewel prints from Andover.  I really really like them.  I'm using Pezzy Prints, the last of my cross weaves.  I'm bummed that Moda isn't going to be making these anymore.  I love them.  Right now I only have the rows paired.  I sure do wish I could figure out chain piecing.  I'm doing it square by square, row by row.  When I even try to do the rows 2 squares at a time, I forget which way is up.  I have to do a lot of unsewing, so for now, I'll just do it the long way.  I hadn't planned on posting it, but Ada insisted on inspecting the progress, so I decided to snap a quick pick on the iPad.  I have the Parade Panel from this line to be used in the back, and I've seen some great scalloped quilts like this one.  I want to try it!  I'm not sure my sewing level is high enough. I wonder if I could talk my LQS into doing a class.

Not very interesting, but here are the other rows- on my handy TV table. And there's my new pinnie from Bee a [modern] swapper- in use!

So- that's it. I still have lots of WIPs I haven't thought of in months! This quilt will be Ada's birthday quilt. It's coming up in May. So it's pretty high on my list, as is finishing the back of Willa's quilt and getting it sent to Angela.

This week I need to work on some liberated churn dash blocks for a wonky bee. I don't know why, but I'm terrified of doing this block.  I'm also getting set this weekend to swap partners for the Pot Holder Swap.  It'll be a busy day of cutting and pasting from the google doc.  I sure do love google docs though!

About an hour ago, I got my swapped blocks back from Kari's Scrap Busting Group. We did wacky bentos. I made- a lot- of blocks. When I counted them out, it was about a dozen more than I thought I'd made. I'm dense like that. These are quartered blocks, so for each of my own blocks, I have 3 more to complete 1 16 in block. I decided to put 1 of my blocks in each of the completed blocks, and distribute the rest randomly. This one will go together quickly, but I guess technically, I've added another project. It will be the biggest quilt I've made to date.  We're doing Herringbone blocks this time.  Go sign up!

Preview:

Completed Project:
none

New Projects:

(2) Sarah Jane Cross Quilt, Wacky Bentos

Projects in the Workbox:
1. Houndstooth Tubes 

2. Love You to the Moon Word Quilt

3. Shot Cottons Wonky Log Cabin 

4. Spiderweb

5. Rainbow Diamond

6 & 7. Sarah Jane Family Panels (Waiting on the embroidery fairy)

Bees:

-Sew Bee Wonky- liberated churn dash to be completed

-heal.do.good stitches- pinwheels complete

- Bee a {modern} swapper- It's my month, and I'm getting some great blocks!

Tooth Fairy Pocketed Patch Pillow

Something big happened at our house today.

Yep, my baby girl lost her first baby tooth.  It happened in a flash.  Recently friends have posted to FB pictures of their children and their gaps, and I thought- wow, Ada doesn't even have a loose tooth.  Last night that changed, and today, the tooth was out.  I thought I'd have a little bit of time to whip up a pillow, but  no such luck.  She lost her tooth at about 3pm.  I decided to make her a pillow out of my favorite fabric-  Sarah Jane. 

I'm always excusing my pictures, but I have a camera that's nicer than my picture taking abilities.  Something is funky about the flash.  Couple that with poor lighting in our home and the late hour, and well, I'm sure by now you're buying the excuses for my poor pictures.  There is no such excuse I can offer for the following tutorial.  It is as clear as mud, but I hope the inferior pictures make it understandable enough to do on your own- should you too need to make a tooth fairy pillow quick like.

Materials:

-2 pieces of fabric about 9x7 (1 for background, another for backING)

-3 scrap pieces of fabric for front panel

1. Sew two strips of scrap fabric together and hem a seam of the top strip.  This is going to be your pocket.

2. Put these pieces on top of your background fabric.

3. This is where it gets a little tricky.  You need to take your third piece of scrap fabric and position it right sides together over the strips, and the background fabric.  (You're working without a pattern here, and basically what you are doing is freepiecing a patchwork square, or in this case, a rectangle- of sorts.) With a 1/4 inch seam allowance, sew from top to bottom across the background fabric and the strips

4.  Press your seam, flip it over, press the panel.  Easy peasy.

5. Square it up and you're done (with the top), but the hard part is over.

6.  Now, get your backING fabric and cut it to fit the panel you've just created. 

7. Put the backing and your panel right sides together and pin.

8.  Sew all the way around. Leave a gap for stuffing.  Note that my gap is at the bottom.  A better place would've been one of the sides.  

9. Trim your corners.

10.  Go to your kitchen drawer and get those chopsticks that you don't know why you have.  If you don't have said chopsticks, snag a pair next opportunity, stick them in your purse and remember to put them in your kitchen drawer.  Forget that you have them until you need to pull the outside out of the inside of something. 

11.  Ta da.  

12.  Stuff (chopsticks handy here also ) and close your hole.  (In my case- have your Mama do it because your own whipstitch is sad- very sad).

I'll get a better picture of the finished project in the day time. 

Of course you could make this pillow as simple, or complicated- or wonky as it suits you.  I thought about adding an extra piece to the left, leaving a tiny pocket in the middle, but settled on quick and dirty.  Good luck, and let me know how it goes!

Also, how much does the Tooth Fairy leave these days?  My husband says a quarter. I convinced him that that wasn't nearly enough.  He went up to $1- but that's what I got 30 some-odd years ago.  Has inflation hit the TF?  Ada hasn't decided if she wants the TF to take her tooth, so it may be a moot point.