Table Runner - D9P

I made this cute table runner a couple of weeks ago, and have finally taken pictures of it. I debated whether or not to put this up on my blog since it’s a birthday present for my sister and I don’t want her to see it before her birthday!.  As of now, I haven’t told her about this blog, so perhaps I’m safe in posting about it for now. : ) 

A while back she repainted a few walls in her house, and in her great room she painted one wall a gorgeous red. It looks so good! Since she lives in a different state I’m not sure if the red in this table runner matches, but I’m hopeful that it goes with her wall. : )

I had been wanting to learn how to do a disappearing 9-patch so I dove in. It went great!

That's funny.... I thought I centered it on my table before I took the picture... I guess I'm really tired! : )

A Very Special Quilt

My kids and I have discovered something that has really stolen our hearts! It's a humanitarian organization that gives children the opportunity to do service for children. The organization is called Serving With Smiles. They have monthly meetings and since we started attending in November of last year, my kids and I can't wait until the next month's meeting rolls around. We LOVE it!

Also, I run a little girl's club called Liberty Girls. We have ten young awesome girls in our club and this has been our first school year doing it. Each semester we read a series of historical books put out by American Girl, and then at our twice-monthly meetings, we do activities based on the books. I'm sure I will write more about our escapades in Liberty Girls, but for this post I want to focus on a specific activity we did which involved Serving With Smiles.

This semester we read the Felicity series, which is set in the Colonial America time period, and in the last book Felicity decides to do something nice for a man who had been very mean to her and others throughout the series. He ended up in jail with no one to help or care for him, so she and her friend decided to secretly take him a blanket, some food and medicine. So for our Liberty Girls activity we wanted to do a service and we decided to make a quilt. Not just any quilt, but a very special quilt.

I gave each girl a 9"x 9" square of muslin and some permanent markers, and told them what our project was going to be. I told them about Serving With Smiles and how the things the kids make get taken throughout the world and given to children in places like Kenya, Haiti and Havasupai. I invited them to draw a picture that they felt would make a child somewhere in the world feel very happy and very loved by children here in America. Boy did they rise to the challenge! Beautifully! Their pictures were filled with so much love and caring!


Then, during the next week I pieced the quilt together with fabric that had been donated to Serving With Smiles. (Not necessarily the prettiest fabric, in my opinion, but nice enough!)

Then at the April monthly meeting of Serving With Smiles, several of the girls from my Liberty Girls group all came and then got to tie the quilt! Oh, were they devoted and excited! It was so delightful to see several of them having their first time at tying a quilt. Wonderful!

Happy quilters in the making!!!

And here's the finished product! Although we have no idea where in the world this quilt will go, it's so nice to know it's going somewhere where it's needed! I love my Liberty Girls and I love Serving With Smiles!

And I'm linking this up with:

The Manly Man Quilt begins...

I got started on the quilt I'm making for my oldest son. He will return from his LDS mission to Honduras in 4 weeks and 5 days! (But who's counting?) I thought it would be fun to make a bedspread for him for his return. Does anyone else have a hard time choosing a pattern and fabric for a Manly Man's quilt? I sought advice from his next younger brother, but his input didn't give me the impression that he cared very much.

So, one day I was browsing one of my favorite quilting blogs, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and saw this quilt (the one that's blues with white.) I thought it looked pretty manly so I picked it. Luckily for me she linked that quilt with the pattern that was on the Moda Bake Shop site. And, luckily for me, the creator of the pattern, Amy Smart, gave conversions for making it a twin size quilt. Yes! All the busy work done for me!

Here's all 84 blue and brown bricks and 84 white squares cut and ready to assemble...

Assembled and ready to iron. By the way, I learned something about myself doing these. I found that I do not like chain sewing. I started out doing that, but after about 2 bricks I had to stop. I couldn't stand the thought of having this lonnnnnggg messy chain of fabric that would still need to have the threads clipped and then neatly organized again. I know that people like chain sewing as they feel it's a nice fast way to do things. But I found out I'd rather clip threads as I go and have each brick stacked neatly as I go. That way, when I'm done sewing them they are done and ready for ironing. I don't have to still do all that other stuff...

Ahhh... neatly ironed and ready to lay out my design... next week.

Today I also dove into making my first vinyl zippered pouch. I thought they were so cute and I had purchased and cut out enough fabric to make four of them. I thought they would be great to make a bunch of, to have handy for gifts and such. I also thought I'd line the fabric side of the pouch with a layer of vinyl so that the total insides would be vinyl in case someone wanted to use it for a make-up bag or something.

So, I began. Well, let's just say that not too far into it I quickly realized that I would only be making one of these puppies. Ya. I didn't love making it. It is cute and handy for sure, but I didn't care for the stress of making it. The vinyl kept sticking to my sewing machine for one thing. I slid some tissue paper under it and it helped, but there were other things that made me not love the process. Oh well. It's a one of a kind. : )

And... I'm linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Whoop! Whoop! Friday. - on Saturday. : )

And, I'm linking the pouch up with Such A Sew and Sew's April Finishes Linky Party.

And... I'm linking up with Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday!

Been shoppin'

I love American Quilting's double punch Tuesdays! I wait all month to go there so I can have my purchases count for twice as much, which when my card is full I get $20 worth of free fabric! I know that my quilt (the one I'm gonna make with my California Girl charm packs) is not on the front burner right now, but I just really wanted to get the backing and binding for it. I LOVE THIS FABRIC for the backing! I love looking at it...

My turn's coming!.......

"Holy Merit Badge Batman!"

Son #3 had a Scout Court of Honor this week, earned another merit badge and also advanced to the rank of Life. He's so excited about getting his Life because that means he can now do his Eagle Project. He wants to get his Eagle this year and beat his older brothers (in age anyway.) See, both of his older brothers were also awesome scouters, totally into it and all, loved it, got tons of merit badges, but just didn't get around to doing their Eagle Projects until they were almost 18! And I do mean they squeaked it in!

Son #3 also really likes it when I get his badges sewn on right away, so this is what was on my sewing table the next morning. (No, I haven't sewn it on yet... gonna...)

Look what came in the mail!

They've arrived! Woohoo! They are so beautiful! Four California Girl charm packs. Wow!

I'm excited to get into making my quilt with them, and yes, this quilt is going to be FOR ME! But it will be a while before I can start this quilt as there are a few others on the docket before it. I'm sure they will be calling to me and not letting me forget about them. : )

Fireworks!

Since I have been bitten by the quilting bug again, I am determined to sew!!! During Spring Break I told my kids that "I" am having Spring Break and I am going to sew! I made two baby quilts for other people that week and started a quilt that I’m actually going to keep! Fun!

I love patriotic quilts (some of them anyway) and I am crazy-in-love-with America and her history. I have one patriotic quilt at the long-arm quilter right now, (one I started 4 years ago and am finally finishing!) and another patriotic quilt that is on my UFO list and I will hopefully finish it soon. (There's some hand-stitching on it that is a bit intimidating to me...)

Since getting bitten by the quilting bug again, I've been dreaming about and waking up with visions of quilts in my head! Thereby came this quilt idea for Fireworks.

And this is one of things I love best about quilts…

This is my hubby reading a bedtime story to my daughter. : )

Ahhhhhh, there’s nothing like reading a good book with your kids while snuggling up under a nice quilt.

“Tickle Kingdom” by Robert D. Harris is one of our favorites!

Easter Dress, etc…

I had a blast sewing my daughter's Easter dress this year. She went to the fabric store with me and chose the fabric herself. I then secretly sewed a matching dress for her American Girl doll. She loved them both!

I also finally got around to sewing her a pink scripture tote. I had made up this tote pattern several years ago when her biggest brother was little and had made a navy blue one. Each of the boys used it in turn, and when she was old enough, she was using it too. But I thought, she needs a pink one! So, I made it for her in time for Easter and she loves it! She has always loved taking her scriptures to church, but now she gets to do it in style! ; )

I wish I had taken some better pictures of the scripture tote… and no, I can’t do it now… Um… see, it got dirty and we so we washed it, and well, I had neglected to pre-wash the inner canvas-y type fabric, and well, it shrunk. So, the whole tote is a little messed up. I will have to sew her a new one!

And, I'm linking this up with Such A Sew and Sew's April Finishes Linky Party.

Learning to Link up!

Hi there folks.  I'm trying to figure out how join in on the fun in quilting blogland so I'm going to make an attempt at linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Whoop Whoop Fridays. : )

I am in process of finishing a quilt and had hoped to get it quilted today, but alas, I was taken down by a sudden spell of vertigo that made me feel like I was going to lose my lunch and kept me in bed for several hours. I am now finally up and around, albeit carefully, but starting to feel much better. That's enough to Whoop! Whoop! about in itself!

So, here's my work in progress that I hopefully will get finished tomorrow:

And here's my attempt at linking up... Wish me luck!

Myra

What a Fun way to start my new blog!!!

I just found out that I won 4 (four!) fabulous charm packs from sweet Angela of Cut to Pieces! I just started searching and enjoying quilting blogs about a month ago and decided to go ahead and enter one of these give-aways. I am one of those people who don't ever win anything... Well, I am now! Thanks so much to Angela!

I have been dreaming of getting some of this fabric to make a quilt, but knew it was going to be a while before I could, so needless to say, when I saw my name as one of the winners I was STUNNED! And so grateful! What a wonderful thing!

I'm pretty sure what kind of quilt I'm going to make and it's this one from my friend Marion's blog. I love it! And, I will have lots of squares left over so I will have to come up with something else that's fun to make! Happy quilting!