We’re so excited to announce that Baby Boy is due in April!
Only two months away now and my sewing room is full of ideas and fabrics ready to make into something great for him. People also have been generous with handmade gifts!
My Aunt sent me this quilt that was in my Grandma’s linen collection. We’re not sure of it’s age, maker, or recipient, but it’s a great reminder of the heritage of quilts and will be displayed in our nursery.
(pictures coming soon)
One of the fun projects was at my baby shower. I prepared fabric, pens, and onesies so guests could decorate an outfit for Baby Boy. They were so creative and the final products are super cute!
(pictures coming soon)
I also have been making some items for friends with babies. Swaddle blankets, pacifier holders, and burp cloths are fun to personalize and quick easy projects to sew.
We’re going to participate in the Oregon Trail 5K in Oregon City next weekend, so I’m making bonnets for the girls to wear and bandannas for the boys. Found some fabric in my stash purchased in Amish country and also picked out some free fabric tonight at the quilt guild meeting that will work perfectly.
Pinterest offers a bunch of ideas of patterns. I’ve decided to use this one from the Waag Blaag that uses less fabric than some of the other patterns and offers helpful photos of the process.
I’ve agreed to make a quilt for the Aloha Community Library for them to raffle in September. It’s great to have a small nearby library and I hope that things continue to go well for them so they can join the cooperative library system.
I’m going to use dog print fabrics from my stash to make a quilt called “Read to the Dogs”. I even found fabric with dogs reading books, haha! Here’s the pattern I found that I’ll use and some of the fabrics:
pattern
center of “Read to the Dogs”
various fabrics from my stash
binding and back fabric
I adapted the pattern a little bit to adjust for the fabrics looking really busy and to highlight the “read to the dogs” in the center and use scraps for the back:
front pieced
back pieced
Lucy approves!
Sharon at Sharon’s Quilt Attic quilted it with a dog bone swirling pattern and I added the binding of rainbow paw print fabric. It was delivered the the Aloha Community Library’s board meeting for them to decide how to run the raffle to raise money for their library!
Summer is a fun time to do the Sunshine and Stitches Shop Hop as well as collect patterns and license plates from shops participating in the Row By Row Experience. The SS is an Oregon two week long event and the RR lasts all summer and includes shops across the United States.
The Sunshine promoters asked us to take selfie pictures in front of their shop signs to promote the event. It was a fun way to see who else was participating and log which shops we visit. I’m looking forward to a road trip with my friend Ruth and visiting some shops with my mom this week!
Sharon’s Quilt Attic in Beaverton
(Deb’s) Quilter’s Corner Store in Beaverton
Sandra’s Stitches in Hillsboro
The road trip turned out to be just me, but I still really enjoyed touring 8 shops in one day! I listened to an autobiography of Oliver Sachs thanks to a free audiobook at the library. The scenery, especially on the way there, was so beautiful! Per tradition, I stopped for “fuel” along the way!
On the Road
farmland and vineyard
fuel in mocha form
The first four shops were Boersma’s in McMinnville, Grandma’s Attic in Dallas (my favorite shop of the tour), Greenbaums in Salem, and The Cotton Patch in Keizer. Second four shops were Bernina Stretch and Sew in Keizer, Sewn Loverly in Wilsonville, A Common Thread in Tigard, and Tea Time Calicos in Tigard. The shop hop asked people to take selfies to post on their facebook page, so I tried to find something unique to do at each shop.
first four shops
second four shops
reflection picture
Each shop really does have their own collection of fabrics, personality in decorations, level of hospitality, and sample quilts that make it unique. Since there were not many people in the shops, I tried to make conversation with the employees and enjoy each shop even if I didn’t buy anything beyond collecting the free patterns.
sewing machine and samples
happy hour block pattern
shop dog at Greenbaums
complicated cute block showing H2O cycle
paper piecing trees and PDX bridge
idea for detail on a bag
At the end of the day, I had collected some cool patterns, new projects, and lots of creative ideas!
I just found out that I won a gift certificate from Bernina Stretch and Sew in Keizer! Looking forward to going there to find some treasures for new projects.
This year, I made two quilts for high school graduates. Lauren, a long time family friend, is going from Glencoe HS to Oregon State. Katie, our oldest niece, is going from North Medford HS to Southern Oregon. Both girls have played soccer in high school and are really great people. They do have different personalities though, which I wanted to reflect in the different quilts.
For Lauren, I chose to use a package of coordinating fat quarter pieces that I bought on Craftsy. The modern, fresh colors reminded me of her, even though they’re not her favorite color (purple).
After seeing the patterns from Sam Hunter at a quilt guild, I bought the “faster fourteen” one and put together the 14 fat quarters that I thought would look best. Here’s Sam’s version that she uses on the pattern’s cover.
Sam Hunter explaining her quilt
sample of Faster Fourteen
Sharon at Sharon’s Quilt Attic quilted it for me. She used a new long arm machine that is connected to a computer and we chose a design that reminded me of waves. It was mesmerizing to watch the quilting happen automatically, evenly paced and quickly completed. She recommended a bright color thread so it’s “less boring” and I do love how the orange pops and draws out the Oregon State colors for Lauren.
I finished sewing on the binding and mom finished the hand sewing to close the binding and finish the quilt. This top went together in just one day and I love the look of the final product, even though the fabric turned out to be a little busy. It’s definitely a pattern I’ll use again!
in progress
binding on
done!
For Katie, I chose batik fabrics. For her 16th birthday party, Katie had used squares of blue and purple batik fabric from Joann’s for bandannas for the dueling teams of friends and family participating in her birthday “Olympics”. I asked people to give me their bandannas with the hope of making something for Katie someday. Then last summer, I won some free yardage at the Quilter’s Corner Store as part of the Row by Row Experience. Deb helped me pick out coordinating fabrics. I think it suits Katie’s mature, calm, friendly nature to have a colorful quilt that doesn’t look like the normal bright kid friendly colors I usually use, but rather something more for a young adult.
The pattern is Vice Versa from Karla Alexander. She is a talented quilt designer and teacher based in Salem, Oregon. I decided that I want to use this pattern to make a graduation quilt for each of Aaron’s nieces & nephews, but change the fabric to fit their interests or favorite colors. It’ll be fun to figure out what to do for the others next in line!
AnnMarie from our guild quilted it for me. I’ve always admired her work which is also often modern with unique color palettes and straight line quilting. For this project, I asked for some leaf designs to mimic the leaves in the pattern and to remind Katie of her Oregon roots.
Here’s how both quilts looked the day the girls received them, and pics of the girls too! So proud of their accomplishments and life path so far, and looking forward to seeing what next adventures are coming up for both of them.
Each month, the guild hosts a Sewing Saturday where we come together to work on projects. Once a year, the projects are all to make charity quilts. This year, we teamed up in pairs to complete a Scrabble Patch pattern with the help of designer Karla Alexander. She gave each of us help with our Scrabble Patch and also a copy of any pattern we wanted for later. I picked the tumbling blocks (seen below).
sample of finished quilt
another easy pattern
our workspace
My teammate, Ruth, met up with me at Sharon’s Attic Quilt Shop to cut up our pieces (mostly from Ruth’s stash) ahead of time, so when we arrived that morning, we started right away designing our quilt.
our fabric
starting points
blocks to try
one version
rearranged a little
ready for borders
Other people used sports fabric, Hawaiian, floral, and many other color palettes. I took some pictures in black and white to see the contrast and how it helped with designing.
ours in BW
darker fabrics
florals
Hawaiian print
Karla’s tumbling blocks
ready for quilting
At the end of the day, we had finished our top except for adding the borders, which Ruth did at home and then together we sandwiched the quilt (using spray adhesive) while enjoying the company of others in my Piece and Quiet group. I used a straight line quilting pattern on it and Ruth completed the binding. It looks great and is ready to donate to a community organization!
I’m working on a quilt to celebrate our marriage this spring. Usually when I work on quilts, I pretty much document them when they’re finished, but this time, I decided to write along the way about the process and progress. Just like a relationship, there’s lots of learning done along the way, and it comes together slowly piece by piece until you see the big picture.
I found the pattern in a magazine awhile ago and picked out fabric in blues/greens/purples. I was thinking it would be a quilt for us, but now that we’re engaged (and the colors of the wedding will be white/cobalt blue/silver-gray) then it fits perfectly. I like how the block is seven strips together, like counting the days of a week.
(end of Jan 2015) One night was spent cutting apart all the colorful strips. The next night I worked on it, the white squares and the first block came together.
(1/26/15) Tonight I put together a second blue themed block and created one using the green and purple fabrics. To keep track of things, I decided to take a picture and refer to it when piecing everything together. Can you tell that it didn’t get sewn together quite like the picture? At least it still follows the pattern of long/short pieces and looks just great. I guess it adds to the randomness of the design process.
in progress
finished block
I’m sure that at some point in this project, I’m going to sew something off from the pattern and also stitch in a white block upside down. Both are relatively minor in the big scheme, but it’ll be noticeable to me. Part of what makes quilts personal are the mistakes though, the human touch.
(April 2015)
The wedding took place with the finished quilt top on the unity table, and it was beautiful! Aaron was surprised that was what I had in mind, and it added again to the personal touch of our wedding. Here’s some more in process pictures and how it looked on the remembrance table at the wedding.
new mini iron
top rows completed
Top finished in time for the wedding!
Jami and Mary from my quilt guild serged the edges of pieces of white/gray/silver fabric that I used for centerpieces and will end up being the back of the quilt.
This Christmas season, I had a fun time creating a few gifts and special orders.
Lana requested a few infinity scarves, and I made an extra one to give as a gift at the quilt guild meeting. At the guild meeting, I received a handmade gift of a zipper pouch filled with notions and a few fat quarters!
Scarves for Lana
Xmas party scarf
xmas party goodies
Ellen requested that I copy a pattern for a kids apron she made for her son years ago, using fabric especially for her grandson and granddaughter. They turned out cute and I practiced using bias tape.
Apron
Apron
I made a tree skirt (free pattern here) for Asami and Matt. This turned out to be an easy and fun project, and using the big space for ironing and laying out pattern pieces at Sewing Saturday was helpful.
pieces ready to stitch
in process
label on muslin back
finished
under their tree!
I also made a table runner for my friend Jill at work. She just bought a new house and I wanted to give her something sunny and positive for her new space!
At school, we came up with the idea of a “Season of Caring” where each advisory class came up with a project. Ms. Lowe’s group decided to make no-sew fleece blankets for charity. Great job, kids!
I’ve been working on this baby blanket since after Ryan was born this fall. It’s finally done as his belated Christmas gift!
In the quilting community, UFO’s are “unfinished objects” or projects that are in varying degrees of needing to be completed. The guild issues a challenge each fall to members to complete their UFO’s. At the November 2014 meeting, we can pay $3 into the challenge to submit our list of projects, and at the August 2015 meeting, we’ll reveal the results.
Here’s my list with pictures:
Heart Quilt Pinned, ready for quilting
Finished “Cross my Heart”
done in time for Valentine’s Day 2015
collection of blocks I won at a BOM
Modern BOM needs quilting
Karla Alexander charity quilt
this modern one needs quilting
I bought these baskets at a garage sale, maybe table runners or a charity quilt?
Mountain View Middle School in Beaverton is hosting a Holiday Bazaar again this fall. I’ll have a booth there for both my So Sew Gifts and Demarle at Home products. Hope to see you there!
I’m getting ready to make more taggies and potholders to sell at the bazaar:
Taggies
Update: It turned out that I didn’t attend the bazaar this year. Instead, I spent the day with Aaron and his family. His lovely older sister Kira passed away Saturday night from the effects of cancer. On Friday night, I made this blanket to take to her…it was much more meaningful than anything I made to sell at the bazaar. Her sister Ambika had suggested making a blanket for her or others who were staying at the hospital, and I had fabric that was intended to make her headscarves plus matching blue fleece. So I thoughtfully created a simple blanket and took it to her that morning, covering her up with love in my own way.
