Sewing for Orphans donation project

I decided to contribute to the "Sewing for Orphans" project. Teresa Coates, who was running the drive, was asking for messenger bags, pencil bags, shorts, dresses, and cloth diapers for the kids at the Tam Ky orphanage in Vietnam. She originally blogged about it back in August, but I came to it a little late. I wish I could have done more, but she needs all donations by September 30th. I was still able to whip up 12 zippered pencil bags.

This was the first batch, using this tutorial. They came together pretty quickly, and I liked that it used a 9-inch zipper, which is a standard size that was easy to find. I also got to use up a few scraps of bias tape.

The second batch was made from this tutorial. 

The tutorial involved some applique, but I didn't do any of that. It also called for batting to give the applique some structure, but I didn't end up using any.

The pouch made from cow fabric was my favorite. I almost kept it. But now that I've got the skills, maybe I'll make another one for myself.

Making 12 zippered pouches was great practice with using zippers. Every one of them is lined with a coordinated fabric, so it used up some small cuts of fabric. And since they're meant for kids, I was able to finish off some novelty fabrics that I had no other plans for.

And of course, my favorite part was packing everything up and saying goodbye to it! Glad to have finished another project from stash.

August quilt: gnome pinwheel quilt top

I finished a quilt top, almost on schedule! 

 

I have binding and backing fabrics in mind already, so the quilting should go quickly. Once I get around to it.

 

I made a similar quilt for Christmas last year and thought I'd try it again. The Christmas quilt was made from 100 squares. Cutting out pinwheels shrinks the quilt a lot, and I was hoping for a larger quilt this time.
 

 The quilt started out like this, a 68"X68" quilt top, made up of 196 brightly colored 5"X5" squares with a 3" border around the edges. The color scheme is pretty obvious, but I also tried to pick any matching prints I had with gnomes, mushrooms, and woodland creatures.

I used the "Lil' Twister" tool, which is a Lucite square with an angled cross printed on it that helps to cut out the pinwheel squares.

The finished top shrunk down to 46"X58", even with the addition of the Michael Miller gnome panel. It's a nice size for a baby quilt.

I'm going to try to sell this quilt on eBay, along with listing the diaper bag that I blogged about last time. If they sell, great. College money for the new baby. And if they don't, I can use them for the baby.

Finishing off the quilt might have to take a back burner for about a week - we bought tickets to "Trick or Treat in the Heat", which is a charity fundraising Halloween event that takes place in early September. I have a cow costume to sew for my younger daughter, who has wanted to be a cow since last Halloween. Plus, I thought up the perfect costume for a pregnant lady. It's the only costume on Earth where the fatter, puffier, sweatier, and more out of breath I get, the better it looks. If I can manage to pull it together in the next week, it'll be genius.

A few quick projects

In my last post, I mentioned that I would be trying my hand at clothing repair/restyle for the first time. That project went off without a hitch.

I took a girl's Old Navy sundress that had developed a couple of holes (one hole was along a seam, and the other looked suspiciously like it had been cut with safety scissors). It's pretty rare for us to buy a new piece of clothing from a brand-name place, so I couldn't conceive of this dress serving this three-girl family for less than a couple of months.

I repaired the seam hole. Then I cut the dress down, made a casing, added some elastic, and it was done in no time. Now, it's a skirt. 

I also did a little project to use up some quilting cotton. I let the girls pick out their own fabric, then made a few crayon-and-coloring-book totes, using this tutorial. The project came together quickly and was very satisfactory. I even made a third tote for a friend, using some cute pirate fabric that I had. I added an initial to the front of each.

 If I do this project again, I'll have to do some alterations to the tutorial - as written, the width doesn't leave enough space for a full 24-pack of crayons. The tutorial also suggests adding interfacing, otherwise the bag ends up floppy. I added the interfacing to the red-and-yellow one, but found that it was too stiff, and it was too difficult to put in the crayons. So for the black-and-red and blue-and-red ones, I left them floppy, and thought they were fine.

I purposely gave the kids some of the fabric that I wanted to get rid of, and, god bless 'em, those kids picked out some real uggos to clear out of the stash. Seriously, the black-and-red fabric had a selvage with the year "2006" printed on it. Can I really have fabric dating back almost seven years? Yikes.

I just wish I knew more kids so I could make more of these!

Adventures in bag-making

During my July break from quilting, I made a bag. I don't like making bags, normally. Maybe I just haven't had the best luck with it, but the results are almost always disastrous.

But as with most things that I'm not very good at, I forget all about it until I'm elbow-deep.

So I decided to make a diaper bag. I used this great tutorial, with ideas for the ruffles and adjustable strap from this bag tutorial. It's lined with oil cloth and has lots of handy little pockets.

And the results were...not bad. I'll have to give it some practical use for a while before I really decide if I like it. The tutorial called for heavy-duty interfacing. I used fusible interfacing, and I've never liked the way the layers start pulling apart after even a little bit of use. And heavy-duty might have been too much for this job - I'm not fond of the way it creases after use. If I ever decide to try this project again, I'll just use medium-weight sew-on interfacing.

I thought the ruffles would make it feminine enough for my new little girl, but the overall color scheme looks more or less unisex. But you know what Roseanne says when someone accuses her of not being feminine.

My August quilt is well under way. I started it before I knew whether I was having a boy or a girl, so it's also gender-neutral. But before I get too deep into a new quilt, my machine needs a good cleaning and oiling. I'll also be trying something new to me - my first clothing repair/repurposing project. Hopefully, that'll be my next post, in the next couple of days.

Another finished baby quilt, and a quick project.

I've been working on creating a reading nook in my daughter's closet. It's getting there - pictures to follow. To decorate it, I put some fabric in embroidery hoops. It was a quick project, and didn't really use up much fabric, but the result is colorful and cute.

  

I also managed to finish another baby quilt. I'm not even sure where I'm at with my quilting schedule. What is this, June's quilt? Most of the work was already done because I had lots of leftover flying geese blocks. I added the little girl's initials as well as a border made from my favorite rosy fabric.

The backing for this quilt is a soft, fuzzy green fabric that has a leaf pattern. Just like the last quilt, I sewed the two sides together instead of adding a binding. But I've found that a binding-less quilt doesn't have quite the right effect when made with a minky backing. With a cotton backing, I'm able to get the quilt to lay more flat. But now I know for next time.

And now for my favorite part - putting it in a mailing box and never seeing it again! I'll be mailing this out tomorrow.

 

That's nine projects from stash.

May's quilt is done

The baby quilt I previewed a few weeks ago is finally done. Lots and lots of little flying geese units came together and ended up really cute. I took out six flying geese at the bottom and put in a small panel with the baby girl's initials. I put the initials on first, then sewed it into the quilt, and the letters ended up off-center. The addition of a little heart was all it took to fix that.

 

I picked up this wooden rack from a thrift store yesterday. I thought it would be great for draping and photographing quilts, but I wish I knew what it was really meant to do. I thought I saw something like it in Betty and Don's bedroom in a season two episode of Mad Men. I suppose it's for hanging up a suit. Then you can set your hat on top. And I can only assume that the little dish sticking out in the front is for ashing cigarettes, which will come in super handy for me. (Not really.)

The backing was made from the rose fabric that I mentioned a few posts ago.

 

The quilting lines are all horizontal, going above and below the seam lines.

I had plenty of backing fabric left, so I used that and some pink and green terrycloth to make some matching burp cloths. At least...I hope they're burp cloths. I've never made them before, and there's no consensus online whether people actually prefer the contoured, peanut-shaped cloths. These were just straight rectangles. Bundled with the quilt, I've got a nice present for my friend, the expecting mom. Plus, I have enough backing fabric and flying geese units leftover to whip up another baby quilt for another friend who is expecting a girl. Hopefully, I'll have that done in a few days to show here.

After these little baby quilts are done, I might need to take a break from quilts for a little while. Flying geese make me want to run screaming into the night, almost as much as cathedral windows. And then I see how neat the overall effect is, and I start dreaming of making a twin-size quilt with black "sky" and rainbow "geese". So instead of quilting, I plan to spend most of July working on pillowcases for the pillowcase drive at my local quilt shop. That should be easy and mindless, and also use up a lot of stash.

I was also able to pull together a small project last night. I've had a few yards of Michael Miller's "Gnomeville" for a long time now, always meaning to use it in my gnome-themed nursery. Now that the baby is a reality and the nursery is starting to come together, I thought it was time to use it! So I made a valance.

 

The nursery has a lot of greens and browns, and red is just the accent color I needed. I love this cute fabric showing all the gnomes working in their mushroom houses.

That's seven projects from stash. (More or less.)

Getting some trim

I'm starting to think I need to redefine "month" to be more like a company's fiscal year, reflecting how much time has passed rather than a date on the calendar. Because once again, a new month has arrived, and I don't have a quilt done.

Currently, my May quilt looks like this:

 

Four hundred cute and happy little flying geese units that I have been busting my hump nightly to produce...

...and all the trimmings.

For my last completed quilt, I finished it on the 11th of the month. The baby shower for this little girl is on the 10th, so maybe I can finish it by then.