Sewing

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In an effort to show more of my process on the blog, I'll be doing WIP check-in posts. One of my goals for 2015 was to work down my WIP list to a more manageable number. While I'll never be a "one project at a time" kind of girl, I was feeling weighed down by the number of (and the age of some of the) WIPs on my list. Of course I didn't spend my year not starting anything new and as of the beginning of October I had 36 projects on my WIP list. It's December which means it is crunch time. I decided to dive in and try to knock out a bunch of finishes in December. I recently knocked some into the done column by working on some low hanging fruit with projects that were nearly done. I'll be showing you those soon. Today I'm showing you what I've been sewing this week.

Monday evening I realized that I had ten WIPs on my ironing board that I had been working on that day/evening. Last night I worked on an eleventh.

 

Hanukkah starts on Sunday evening, so I realized that if I wanted to give the kids any of the clothing I had fabric to make, I needed to... um... make it. These are all fabrics that they picked out in June. I'm making my son two bowling shirts (frogs on yellow and baseball). The last one I made him was almost a year and a half ago and is getting too small.

My daughter is getting two dresses. Ironically, she chose frogs as well. And she was the one who chose the baseball fabric in the first place. I chose the red to coordinate (and bought extra for my quilting stash!). I'll use the Jewel's Stripwork Dress pattern for her baseball dress, but the skirt will all be one fabric. I have the bodice partially pieced together. It should finish up pretty quickly. I made this style dress long ago for her and she can barely get into it now, so I know she'll be glad to have a new one. Also, she's so excited to be playing t-ball this spring. She's been obsessed with when it will be her turn since watching her brother play last spring.

For her frog dress I'll be making my first Nelle dress. It will be simple with no trim or buttons. I'm a little worried that this one will be a little big on her, but I went with the 4-5 size. Since it's not exactly winter wear (though I'm in California, so really, throw on some leggings and a sweater and it's good) it will be nice that she will certainly be able to wear it through spring and summer.

I'm so amused by the environmental frog fabric she chose! Reduce! Re-use! Recycle!

 

I'm helping my son to finish his third quilt. It's a one block mini quilt and he just needs to bind it. I make his binding and we'll work together to attach it with the machine. He chose this fabric from his mini and I cut the largest square I could from it to make the binding strips. Bit of a fail because when I cut strips last night I realized that it won't be long enough to bind the whole thing. Hopefully he'll like something in my leftover binding strips box for the rest of his binding. We'll be consulting on that today. ;-)

 

I bought these four orphan blocks at a guild fundraiser an eternity ago. They've been in a box forever and I decided it was high time to make them into something someone would enjoy.

I'll be adding those wider poinsettia strips as an outer border, with those white flowers as corners (since the poinsettia fabric wasn't long enough to be a full border) to make a little table topper mini quilt.

 

I'm currently working on four(!) Very Hungry Caterpillar quilts. My son's room is decorated in The Very Hungry Caterpillar and he has a cuddle quilt, but he's been in a twin bed for quite some time now. I decided on the Fat Quarter Fizz pattern from Fat Quarter Shop (tutorial and link to the free pattern here) and it has been really quick and easy to put together. I decided to "go big" and use all my remaining VHC fabric when making the Fat Quarter Fizz units, knowing that would give me many more blocks than needed for his quilt. In addition to the twin quilt (still piecing that one), there will be a small lap quilt (almost pieced), and a crib quilt (shown here, upper right) in the Fat Quarter Fizz pattern. I had just a couple more units left over and chopped them up to make the squares for the mini quilt (shown here, lower left). It measures about 24" square right now so I may add some borders on that one. No idea where the three smaller quilts will end up. Step 1, finish them. ;-)

 

It dawned on me last night that it was December and my November do. Good Stitches bee blocks had totally slipped my mind. Oddly, since they were improv style, they were making me think a little more, so I had set the fabric aside early in the month. Since I finished and shipped my other bee blocks the first week of November, these just weren't on my radar. Ailish asked us to make improv symbol blocks and had some examples with arrows, hashtags, asterisks, etc. Here's my first one, which went together very quickly. I mostly just freehand cut with my rotary trimmer, then trimmed my block down to size (12.5" unfinished).

For my second block, I decided to try something a little more tricky. I started with some 1 1/4" wide strips and this is as far as I've gotten. Any guesses on what I'm going for? Don't worry, I have a plan B if this doesn't come together as intended. Oh see, I'm already using that leftover red fabric from the baseball shirt and dress!

That makes eleven projects on my cutting/sewing table right now.

 

I'm also starting to think about what I'll be making for my partner in round two of the Rainbow Mini Swap on Instagram. I'm so excited to get started (though let's be real, I will probably wait until January to start any actual sewing).

 

And, one more thing on my radar right now... I'm trying to get myself ready for my first broadcast on Periscope. It'll just be a little "All About Me" scope, and I hope to get to that in the next week. You can find me on Twitter and Periscope @sarahgoer. Follow me now to not miss my first Broadcast. For those of you new to Periscope it is a live video broadcasting app that you can download to your phone. As a live viewer you can interact with the scoper (person broadcasting) and other viewers through text messages, and you can "show the love" by giving hearts (similar to a "like" elsewhere in social media). If you miss a live broadcast you can catch it on replay through the Periscope app for 24 hours. Check it out!

Thanks for visiting. What are you working on this week?

 

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday, Let's Be Social, Fabric Tuesday, and Sew Cute Tuesday.

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This quarter's motto is: Don't start any new projects.

The WIP list just keeps growing. With the kids home for summer and a variety of other "life" getting in the way of sewing time as well as sewing mojo I finished a mere 4 projects from the list last quarter. Such as life. As I like to say: I can only do one human's amount of work.

So... most of this will look very familiar to you (updated with some new pics!). Now I'm really on a break signing up for swaps (though if the IG Mini Swap round 2 comes up, I don't think I'll be able to resist... AND I've got an idea for one that I want to host -- that one will just have to wait for now).

My year end goal from the beginning of the year is to have no more than 12 WIPs on the list. (Are you laughing yet?) I sure have my work cut out for me this quarter, don't I? A number of these are clothing items for the kids. Perhaps I can whip out some of these for Hanukkah gifts.

The WIPs: In no particular order...

  1. Schnitzel and Boo Mini Swap (round 4). This one is due in early November. It's the last swap I'm signed up for. Here's my initial fabric pull. I have a great idea... that has Y-seams. ;-) We'll see how that goes.
  2. Sew My Stash Mini Quilt Swap. Most urgent based on the deadline. I've decided to go with HSTs and I'm using the trimmings from another project... if that isn't using my stash, I don't know what is! Here's a peak of my palette.
  3. EZ Quilting QuiltCon 2016 Triangle Quilt Challenge. Due November 30.
  4. The Purple Ninja Quilt. I'm getting this one done for real this quarter. It's been quilted by Patti Joki, a local long-arm quilter (my first time sending a quilt out for quilting). The binding fabric is prewashed. Now to make and attach over 400 inches of binding!
  5. Help my son finish his third quilt.
  6. 2004 (ugh) Baseball Quilt... This one continues to be my oldest WIP. I've finished constructing all the blocks and I've even pieced a couple of them together.
  7. Little Letters in Blues/Greens Quilt.
  8. Text Me Mini for myself. I made two for this swap, one for my partner and one for me. Somehow, mine didn't get done by the deadline. ;-)
  9. Another Retro Camper Mini. I made one for my Home Sweet Home partner and one for myself that's currently unfinished.
  10. My other Zig Zap Placemat. Ya know, so I have a pair! Just needs to be quilted and bound. Check out my tutorial.
  11. Very Hungry Caterpillar twin quilt. Fabric all cut for Fat Quarter Fizz quilt and piecing has begun.
  12. Very Hungry Caterpillar baby quilt. I cut all the fabric I had and had way too many sets for the twin quilt for my son's bed, so I should be able to get 1 or 2 baby quilts out of the remaining pieces. See above.
  13. Hawaiian lap quilt. Again, I'm using the Fat Quarter Fizz pattern. Fabric is all cut. :-)
  14. My safari animal baby quilt. Ready to baste and quilt. I'm considering going with graffiti quilting on this one.
  15. Ocean quilt for my daughter (top pieced, but needs applique done)
  16. Little Letters in Brights Quilt.
  17. Cotton & Steel (and low volume) Quilt (I have a HST plan... with these 5" squares)
  18. * Batik SCVQA philanthropy quilt. Basted and ready to quilt.
  19. * Roman Stripez with butterfly backing. Some blocks done. (see #18)
  20. * Roman Stripez with turtle backing.
  21. * Memory House Vol. 1 Quilt (2 houses complete)
  22. * Leah Day's Building Blocks Quilt Along (first 3 sets of blocks done)
  23. Envelope quilt. A couple blocks pieced. I'll probably make a mini for myself.
  24. * Monster Quilt (first applique block in progress)
  25. Christmas Mini Quilt (using 4 orphan blocks I somehow acquired)
  26. * Swoon Quilt (finished my first block, next two are in progress)
  27. Primary mini quilt. Same pattern as my Cotton & Steel mini swap. Hoping to get better at adding those bias edge triangles to finish it.
  28. Frog dress for my daughter. She picked out this fabric while on the Shop Hop with me. I intend to make my first Nelle Dress (by Brownie Goose).
  29. Frog shirt for my son. His pick on the shop hop. Not sure what was with the frogs. He'd like a new Bowling Shirt (pattern by Scientific Seamstress).
  30. Baseball dress for my daughter. Ever since my son started playing t-ball, she's had a thing for baseball. She picked out these two fabrics. I'm planning to make the Jewel's Stripwork Peasant Dress (by Create Kids Couture) without using strips for the skirt. She's been wearing the last one I made her for a year.
  31. Baseball print Bowling Shirt for my son. Same fabrics as above.
  32. Winnie the Pooh Skirt/Shorts for my daughter. Fabric currently MIA. Hm. Found it!
  33. * Rainbow Simply Woven lap quilt with bee blocks from Stash Bee. I need to decide how big I want this to be and how many additional blocks I'll be making for myself. I didn't have a good place to lay out my whole set of blocks for a photo, so here are the first few blocks I received.
  34. 4th of July shop hop table runner.
  35. * Patchwork City Metro Area Quilt. It's becoming a bit of a fabric collection... I do love the blocks I've finished.
  36. * Midnight Mystery Quilt. In progress, expected finish early 2016. 

* Indicates that these projects will almost certainly roll over to Q1 2016.

Stats: Since I like data, here's some further info comparing project status of my Q3 list to this one. While I only had four Q4 finishes, I made progress on many of the projects, particularly in moving them from Fabric Pulled to Fabric Cut and from Fabric Cut to Piecing in Progress.

  • Planning Stages (pre-fabric pull): 2 (Q3), 1 (Q4)
  • Fabric Pulled: 10 (Q3), 7 (Q4)
  • Fabric Cut: 6 (Q3), 3 (Q4)
  • Piecing in Progress: 14 (Q3), 19 (Q4)
  • Quilt Top Completed: 3 (Q3), 5 (Q4)
  • Quilted: 0 (Q3), 1 (Q4)

Bucket List: I haven't pulled fabric for these (except #9), but I can't stop thinking about them. Remember the motto: Don't start any new projects.

  1. Wizard of Oz baby quilt, gift for a baby due in March.
  2. Triangle Squared quilt.
  3. Equilateral triangle quilt, perhaps Chopsticks pattern.
  4. Raspberry Kiss lap quilt.
  5. Floating Squares improv score from The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters by Sherri Lynn Wood.
  6. Technicolor Galaxy. I didn't have the bandwidth to do it real time, but every time I see everyone else's I kick myself just a little bit for not diving in.
  7. Polaroid quilt.
  8. Chopsticks quilt.
  9. Pirate Quilt. (I have fabric, but no firm plan on design yet.)
  10. Leah Day's Dancing Butterflies to develop my free motion quilting. (I joined at the start of the year, but never... um... started.)
  11. Mini Mini Quilt Swap on IG.

I'm linking up to the Q4 Finish Along Goal Party.

2015 FAL at On the Windy Side

Things I Make

 

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I participated in the Dumpling Pouch Swap hosted by Teri. True to form, I'll be mailing my package today, on the shipping deadline. (I really admire those of you who get things done early!) I made two of the "The Easier One" pouches, which I found easy to make. ;-) The directions were clear and they went together on the first attempt. (Always a good thing for us procrastinators.) One of these pouches is headed for Teri along with some other goodies, the other will go to a local friend.

Teri made this amazing swap package for me. The colors are very "me" and I'm loving using these beautiful handmade pieces.

I'm linking up to the Finish Along Q3 Finishes Party. See my whole Q3 goal list here.