Gift For My Sister, from My Other Sister

 Yesterday was my oldest sister's birthday, and I made her a pillow sham from our late sister's clothes.

I saw this 3D pinwheel design on YouTube. I really liked the thought of our sister flying on the wind, brushing up against us when we feel a breeze. My oldest sister always thinks of our sister when she sees white butterflies. The original pillow project had fancy quilting in the middle, but I opted to applique a white butterfly which I knew would mean more. 

All the pinwheels and the butterfly are cut from our sister's shirts. The denim on top is from a pair of her jeans. The denim had such strong vertical line I had to pay close attention to orientation as a was cutting and sewing.

I used some lightweight denim I had in stash for the backing, but I added the back pockets from that pair of jeans onto it. 

That was my project from last week, but I couldn't show it until I gifted it. 

My sewing time this week is all about quillows. I have the tops done for three of the eight I'm making. I got one of those basted today. With Thanksgiving in a couple days it won't be a big quilting week. I am hoping to get the other two completed tops basted, but we'll see. I have managed to get all the others laid out, so now they are clipped together in rows all ready to assemble. 

I was asked for two green quillows, and I made multiple green quillows last year. That's a lot of green scrap strips. After making all the blocks for this one, I didn't have enough blocks for the second, but they had said green and/or orange. I don't have a lot of orange in my scraps, but enough to make the second green one work.

Now I'm completely out of green 1.5" and 2" strips. 

Do you ever get stuck on what to do with busy prints with white backgrounds? I'm talking way too busy to be good backgrounds. I opted to stick them all together. There are NO tonals in here, it's all color on white. 

I think it has a vintage look even though very few of the fabrics have a vintage type of print. 

I've really found making monochromatic quilts interesting. I'm sure if I planned a monocromatic quilt, one I purposely chose fabrics for, they'd probably have a completely different look (and I probably wouldn't make rail fence blocks either) I do find it a great way to bust scraps, and it's a pretty quick project for busting scraps. The quilts are much more interesting to look at than you'd think. The three quilts above all used 1.5" strips (1.5" cut, they finish at 1"). Last year most of the quillows I made used 2" strips but I've busted those now, and some of the colors I needed I didn't have in 1.5" strips either. I ended up going into my 2.5" strips for a couple.

I still made 6" finished blocks, so the 2.5" strips only needed three strips instead of the six strips needed for the 1.5" strips. It really changes the look of them, but they are still interesting.

Such simple blocks, a monochromatic color scheme, all random scraps, but still an interesting result. 

Since the quillows are only 48" wide, I decided to baste them on my new cutting station. What a difference basting at counter-height makes! No back pain or frequent breaks needed. I'll baste all my smaller quilts on the cutting station for sure!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and stay healthy!

Not Much in the Sewing Realm

 I did make one thing start to finish this week, but it's for my sister's birthday which is Monday, so I can't show it yet! Other than that, I've been plugging away on quillows. I did get tired of always putting the quilt for my bed on the back burner, so I'm using it as leaders/enders mostly, though I did take one whole day and only worked on it. I felt like I needed a day to work on whatever I wanted. 

Here is one of the quillows while it was on the design wall.

I've got three of the quillows sewn into rows, and another halfway laid out on the design wall. This week I was more about getting a handle on the holidays than I was about sewing. 

I am really excited that DH gave the go ahead to get the custom cutting mat for my new cutting station. They don't charge any extra to cut it down, and it got here in less than a week. 

I opted for just a plain mat, because I don't plan on cutting on it very often, I wanted it so I could pin baste smaller quilts on the cutting station without damaging the table top. You can see I put my regular cutting mat on top of it. This large of a mat was an investment, and I'd rather pay to replace smaller mats than a great big one. I am really thankful to have it!

I know its before Thanksgiving, but I already put up the Christmas decorations. It's been a rough year all around, and if early Christmas decorations makes my family smile, so be it. 

I've spent so much time and energy purging and rearranging this year, that a lot of the furniture I used to put Christmas decorations on is gone or moved. It took a big re-think to decide what to do. 

My old Christmas village ended up getting put outside where my fairy/gnome village usually is. I did use a few pieces from my fairy village integrated into the Christmas village. I used the farm building (barn) on the top shelf without all the farm animals and made it into a Christmas tree farm. I kept the wishing well, figuring 2020 can use all the well wishes it can get ;-) I've caught more than one delivery person taking pics of my fairy village, and I figure they'll get a kick out of it changed over to a Christmas village. It's outside, but it's covered and gets no direct sun since it's on the north side of our house. 

I have a newer Christmas village that my sister (with the birthday coming up) made me and it's on the mantle.

Between the nativity and the village I snuck in a new decoration I bought for DH. Santa is driving a scooter with a sidecar and there's a reindeer in the sidecar. DH has a scooter with a sidecar, and a scooter without one, and a motorcycle, so anything like that is right up his alley. He also publishes a scooter magazine, that's distributed to 38 states and three countries!

You know how I mentioned I keep sticking the quilt for our bed on the back burner? Well, guess who's made Christmas tree skirts for other people but hasn't made one for herself? I'm not a fan of the storebought one I have, but really can't find the time to make one this year either. I decided to change it up and I bought a rattan tree collar.

I'm kind of liking the clean look of it so if I don't get the tree skirt done next year either, I'm good. Looking at this pic is making me think a Christmas quilt or two would look better on that quilt rack this time of year...

Overall, I think DH was more productive this week than I was! He was working on his Christmas projects too, on his days off at least. 

I also did some planning for some quilts that need to be made in 2021, and I don't know about you, but sometimes getting a plan for a quilt can take quite a bit of time. Choosing a pattern, fabrics, figuring size, designing it or altering a pattern all take time, so although I didn't sew a whole lot this week, I did get some quilt-think in!

Next week I'll show pics of my sister's present, and hopefully, I'll get something else done too, but with Thanksgiving next week, we'll see...

Not So Little Helpers

 

Miss S was wanting to help me in the sewing room, so I had her start laying out the quillow for her baby cousin.

After a while, her brother came down and offered to do the higher parts she couldn't reach. No one believes they are twins anymore, Mr. L is so much taller. This photo has the perspective off, so here's a better one.

He's about six inches taller than she is, which seems a lot for nine year old (almost ten) twins. They remind me all the time they are almost ten, which to them means practically an adult ;-)

I did get the pillow sham I needed to make done.

It's made from the dress my late sister wore to her daughter's wedding. 

The dress was fitted and had a back slit plus a long zipper, so really only the bottom front of the dress was going to be easy to cut from. Thankfully, I had purchased a Kona color card, that has actual swatches of all the fabrics so I could match the dress fabric as closely as possible to a fabric for the back. It's not an exact match, but close enough. 

The treehouse baby quilt was delivered on Saturday, and the parents are quite happy with it. 

The quilts and pillow sham from my sister's clothes were delivered on Sunday, and it was an emotional, but good day. It was my late sister's birthday on Sunday, and I felt like giving her family quilts from her clothes was akin to giving her one last birthday present. She would have been 60 on Sunday, had cancer not taken her too soon. 

DH and I had one day with DD#2 and family this week. Mr LJ turns four on Saturday, and we needed to deliver his gift. DH works all weekend, so seeing them day of wasn't going to happen. 

I haven't had much time to sew this week, but I did finish laying out the quillow the twins started on. I also have another laid out and ready to assemble. I haven't sewn on the quillows this week, but I did press all the strip pairs I had sewn up, and I decided to sub-cut them before sewing the blocks together, and I finished that this morning. Two more seams per block, and I might be done all the blocks I need for this batch of quillows. I know I have enough for the 7th one, but I haven't counted the pieces for the 8th, so we'll see. 

I'm trying to get a handle on the holidays. We had planned a trip in December, but I'm not sure Covid isn't going to ruin that idea. I think the weather is going to cooperate and we'll be able to do Thanksgiving outside. We're going to have fewer people than normal for us, and by doing it outside, hopefully all will be fine. I was actually OK with not doing a get together this year, but my cooking seems to have other people not so willing to drop the idea...I'm planning games to keep the kids outside. I'm going to put DH in charge of making people stay outside, and I get the added bonus of no one bothering me in the kitchen. We have a small galley kitchen, and I HATE people trying to stand in there and talk to me while I'm cooking. There is NO spot in my tiny kitchen that you aren't directly in my way. 

I'm hoping to give each of my kids families their Christmas gifts quite early, so if Covid makes getting together for a family thing impractical, everyone will have their stuff. 

I was stuck on Christmas gifts this year. I like to gift experiences, zoo or museum memberships, movie tickets, restaurant gift cards, etc... but so many businesses have been closed or going out of business, I'm hesitant to do much in that department. For a couple of the families, I opted for a family game night theme. A couple good family games, a puzzle, and some fun snacks. I like giving consumables for gifts, because after it's eaten, it's not taking up space in anyone's house. That's why I like gifting experiences too. I read an article years ago on good gifts for grandparents to give, and experiences was on the top of the list. Sometimes your kids want to do stuff with your grandkids but they can't afford to. Most kids already have too much stuff, so giving an activity or a consumable eliminates adding to the pile of "stuff". 

I'm pretty mindful of what's in my house too, and I'm regularly clearing out stuff we don't need anymore. I've switched to ebooks only for fiction, but I still like cookbooks and quilt books in paper. Honestly, I'm willing to purge from all over the house to keep my quilting stuff. I've been whittling down the fabric stash by using it, and that's the way I want to purge it, as finished projects. As I've watched prices go up considerably this year, I'm thankful for the stash I have. I've been busting scraps since last year, and although I'm not out of scraps yet, I used probably 2/3 of what I started with, and I've made and am making some fun stuff from them.

Improvisational Piecing

Today I finished the baby quilt I need for a baby shower on Saturday. It's a drive-by shower, then the mom-to-be will open gifts during a Zoom meeting. Oh, Covid, how you've changed things!

Everyone's life has been pretty stressful this year, and mine is no exception. All the piecing I've been doing lately has been pretty easy, so I decided I needed to challenge my brain a bit, and do some improvisational piecing. It was a 180 on what I had planned to do for this baby quilt, but the mood struck, and I went with it!

This is the backing for the baby quilt I finished today. I cut up a fat quarter to make the backing wider than WOF, but besides that the forest print was my inspiration. In case you are wondering, the print is from the Paintbrush Studios Forest Fables line. That whole line of fabrics is adorable!

I had originally planned to piece forest animals from a  couple different Elizabeth Hartmann patterns, but I've moved so much in my studio I misplaced both patterns, and I think it was serendipity! Rather  than looking for the patterns, I got an urge to do some improv piecing, and just fake my way through the whole quilt. I went ahead and ordered the fat quarters that go with this line, as well as a bit of yardage from the line I had planned to use as a border then ultimately decided against. 

One of the fat quarters had some animals I could fussy cut, so I started there.  Once I cut the animals to whatever size they would work best, I started designing them houses. 

A squirrel in a triangular treehouse? OK

How about some hedgehogs in a toadstool house?

The forest was starting to take shape, aside from the giant tree I wanted in the center. 

When I made the rabbit family tree, I added a woodpile with a sleeping deer on a whim.  You can see that by this time I was also working on the big tree with a tree house.

I had originally though to make a ladder going up the tree, then I thought the deer couldn't climb the ladder, it should be stairs. Yeah, none of this was realistic in the least, but I decided in my stressed out brain that it should be stairs. Not only that, it should be a spiral staircase. 

And if I was going to build a spiral staircase, the tree house needs to be multiple levels, yeah, that seems like a good idea. 

I got to this point, and I wasn't happy that the quilt was wider than it was tall. I make a lot of square baby quilts since nowadays they are more often used for tummy time than to ever be in a crib. Time to audition the border fabric.

Don't get me wrong, the border fabric is adorable, but to me, it didn't add to the quilt, it took away from it. No worries, I'll use it on another quilt. I still need to add to the height. I only had a fat quarter of the fabric I used for the ground, so adding to that wasn't going to happen. I didn't have much of the green tree fabric left either (even though I had purchased a whole 25 yard bolt of it a few years ago). I did some poverty piecing of the green, and I managed to add a decent amount to the top of the quilt. 

I know nothing about perspective, but somehow, adding more green to the big tree brought it closer to the foreground, and I really prefer this version. So here is my improvisational quilt top. I didn't plan anything out, no graph paper, no EQ, nothing, just built the forest scene in chunks then had to figure out how to connect the chunks together. I won't lie, there was plenty of ripping during the making of this, I wasn't always lining things up right, and I changed my mind along the way a couple times. 

I finished the quilt top yesterday, quilted and bound it today, so here it is finished!

The quilting is some FMQ leaves in an allover design.

I started this quilt on Saturday, and finished it on Thursday! I'll get it wrapped tomorrow, and my gift for Saturday will be ready. Then maybe tomorrow I can make a pillow sham I need to gift on Sunday...

So, do you ever do improv piecing? I find it more creative, but it takes more brain power. I spent long days sewing to get this done in such a short period of time. I did, however, get quite a bit of exercise. I was pretty much cutting two pieces in the cutting room, walking to my sewing room and sewing one seam. Going to the ironing board to press the one seam, then back to the cutting room to cut the next piece. I cut a lot of pieces oversized, then trimmed them down when I decided what I actually wanted to do. It is a messy and inefficient way to work, but it was a nice change too.