Baby Blanket!

Pin It Now!

So I finally fixed the tension issues I was having on my Janome. After a whole heck of a lot of this:

And then some of this:

I then switched needle sizes because I had switched thread weight and low and behold it worked!

So then I could finally finish the baby quilt for my nephews 1st birthday party on saturday! 

Remember the sneak peak I showed earlier?

Well here it is completed!

I love the backing fabric!! I only did a simple stitch in the ditch for quilting as I do not have much practice with that aspect of making quilts. Although I do plan to start practising! I used a 100% cotton batting and Wonderfil 50wt thread I think in konfetti. I did not add much of a label as it is a baby quilt that is going to get alot of abuse, so all I added is a simple "Made for you with Love" label. 

My best friend loved it when she opened it with/for my nephew so that makes me super happy :)

I have also finished the needle book that Janet won and will be posting it likely on Wednesday! So I will show pictures after Janet has recieved it. Don't want to spoil the suprise!

Working on Omigosh slowly but surely, I hope to have all the little pieced 4 patched together tonight. Only about 300 to go :S But then I can start making them into the actual block and that is the easy part!! 

Here is the centre row for my blocks. I have 40 of these done like this! Which is 80 of those teeny weeny blocks!

Here is the next 80 to square up in 2" squares these will be for the top and bottom rows of the above 40 blocks to be. 

The pile so far after squaring up the first 80 blocks. 

I also dived into my UFO bin and pulled out two Double Wedding Ring Blocks. I had started making this quilt for my in-laws back in September using fabric from my stash which when I bought was told was a fabric they ALWAYS got in. As in for years. So of course when calculating it out I knew I needed to get more as I am only using 3 different fabrics. I did up a few blocks and cut out some parts for more and when I went in to buy more fabric, I find out they no longer get it. None of their stores get it. It was discontinued. Of course!  So I now needed to figure out something to do with it, and a pillow 2 of the blocks became.
I might stitch something into the centre part as it is so plain looking. Yes its a bit wrinkly at the edges but thats ok to me. This is definitely not a 5 star sewing award but I like the colours and it makes use of a block that could have otherwise been thrown out. :)

I am going to head back to working on Omigosh now and hope to get all those little blocks done today!! Hope you all are having a wonderful day,

Happy Stitching!
Kallie

And the winner is....!!!

Pin It Now!

Courtesy of Random Generator the winner is:

Janet From A Hug Delights!! 

http://ahugdelights.blogspot.com/

She said: I love purple! I would love to win your little hexie. I pinned the tutorial already. I'm so slow making things for myself.

Congratulations Janet!! I will hopefully have an email out to you today! I am just looking for your comment in my inbox so I can message you. 

In other news I won a contest ages ago from Judith Tetley from Creative Studio @ http://creativestudio10.blogspot.com/

I was so excited to find it in the mail box yesterday!! It can take forever to get things through customs here, as it can take a week + to get mail from here in Calgary to my parents in Ontario. SO to come from overseas it has been just under 3 weeks. 

Here are the pictures!

What a super sweet tag!!

My cat Kalesh was super interested and had to investigate the package as well!

Can you guess what it is yet??

Its a gorgeous little journal!

Its alot pinkier than this. My camera just did not want to pick up  colours but I was waaay too eager to wait until morning!

Inside cover- you can see the pinkiness better now

Inside back cover

Back of Journal

I took this picture just now and you can see how antique pink it is. I just love it!!

Thank you so much Judith!!! I just love it and am madly debating to write in it or have it out on display as it is such a gorgeous piece of work!



On a random note:

 This is what I saw as I was on the bus from my LQS to work on Tuesday. I was highly entertained as this is in a very busy city. Now I am normally a country girl from a small town so this was just hilarious to see!


More sewing updates later. I am fighting with my machine at the moment regarding tension and I still need to quilt that baby blanket! Hopefully I will post again tonight or tomorrow :)

Have a fabulous day!!

First Block of OmiGosh!

Pin It Now!  Omigosh!
Well as I am sure you got by the title, my first block for Omigosh is done!!

However, now that I see it in the picture I just noticed I need to take it apart and switch the corners. The pink half squares should be where the brown/blue ones are and visa versa. Crap. Oh well! This is why you always do one block up first before you start chaining everything, haha! 

I am trying to have all the pinks on one angle and alternating blue/brown on the other angle. I don't think I need to say how much of a pain in the neck that is going to be!!! But it should be worth it in the end. I will fix it and repost how it should be tomorrow. 

Dear Jane

I also got my 3rd triangle done for Dear Jane!!! Super excited, so far they were not as bad as I was expecting, which is quite nice. I know they are going to get worse though, haha. Isn't this one fun though? I love the crazy orange print. Technically this is now a catch up week for the quilt-a-long but I think I might try to work ahead if I get the chance. We shall see. I still need to get that baby quilt basted and quilted before Saturday, I have Thursday and Friday off so I should be good :)

Friends With Benefits Swap!

Have you heard about the Friends with Benefits Swap being hosted by Kathy at Sew-Happy House? 

http://sew-happyhouse.blogspot.com/p/must-know-dates-confirm-your.html?showComment=1330327928539

The link above is to the instructions on how to join in. There is still a couple days to join. You need to let Kathy know by Thursday March 1st. 

On March 3rd Kathy will email out our partners 

We have to have the swap item in the mail by Friday April 27. 

So there is a nice chunk of time to do it in, you can also choose if you wish to have an international partner as well. 

This will be my first swap and I am sew (hehe pun intended!) excited. 

So please stop by Kathy's site and check it out!!

Contest Closes Feb 29th!

Remember to enter the Hexagon Needle Book Givaway, All you need to do is leave a comment with your favorite colour on the Giveaway post

Click Here:http://aquiltingwewillgo.blogspot.com/2012/02/snow-much-love-giveaway.html

Or if you don't want to do that you can post here if need be.  Contest Closes Wednesday Feb 29th Midnight Mountain Standard Time. 

Triangles!

Pin It Now! Happy Sunday!

Hopefully most of you are able to have a wonderful day of rest and get lots of sewing done. Here in Calgary we are seeing some Old Man Winter. Its -20 celcius with the windchill and it has been snowing off and on yesterday and all day today. Unfortunately that means I get to walk to the bus stop in this in order to get to the NICU for work. Yuck. But its a co-workers birthday and I really do love taking care of the wee babies so I guess I will brave it and bring some hand sewing to work on at break as a reward for doing so!! Haha.

Here is the lovely view outside our apartment. (Can you feel the cold!?)

Dear Jane

Yes, I started my triangles. I was a little bit afraid of them to be honest. How often do we really do patterns with large pieced triangles? But I jumped in this morning and got two done. TS1 and BS1

Now TS1 was not too bad. I kind of measured the lines and just did them all as long skinny strips. I did have to go back and sew over the lines taking just a bit more fabric into the seam allowance as the triangle was too big but it worked out. I have 3/8" on the outside for seam allowance and will trim to 1/4 once I actually start sewing these puppies together. Hence why there are little notches in each row. Those will disappear once properly trimmed. 

Now as for BS1. We did not start off as friends. I thought we had but when I went to trim it so I could put the white border part on it was so far off it wasn't even funny. I had somehow thought (by looking at the block) that I could match the seams on one edge and just angle the block. 

Makes sense right?....

Ummm totally didn't work. 

So I un-sewed them, after some cursing and confusion, and paper pieced them, but since I had cut them a little differently I couldn't follow the diagonal line. Confusing right? 

Any-who I used the template to ensure I had enough for seam allowance on one side and then just followed my old seam lines on the fabrics as they still matched up nicely, I just needed to off set the ends a bit for angling. It worked out OK in the end though!! It definitely does not follow the pattern exactly and I even had to fudge an extra white row at the bottom as when I trimmed it I had no seam allowance left in the bottom left corner. 

But you know what? I like it. And better finished then perfect as most Dear Jane'rs say. 

Contest!

Remember to enter the Hexagon Needle Book Givaway, All you need to do is leave a comment with your favorite colour on the Giveaway post

Click Here:http://aquiltingwewillgo.blogspot.com/2012/02/snow-much-love-giveaway.html

Or if you don't want to do that you can post here if need be.  Contest Closes Wednesday Feb 29th Midnight Mountain Standard Time. 

Happy Stitching

Kallie

Randomness & Giveaway Reminder

Pin It Now! Good Evening!
I have been holed up in my house today sewing as it was pretty gross out today! Lots of snow this afternoon as well, plus more in the forcast for this week. Unfortunately I start my stretch of 6 evening shifts in a row tomorrow, Just hoping I can get some sewing done!

Comrie
So I have been able to find out very little about my gorgeous new sewing machine. From what I can tell it is a Singer 15 Clone. I am doing more research to try and see if I can maybe figure out what year span it could have been made in. I think pre or during the WWII is when it was made as post WWII pretty much all the clones were made in Japan. If I can find out anything more I will definitely let you all know!

Dear Jane
Not much progress here, but I got my templates for my 3 triangles I need to complete printed out and I have B10 mostly complete. I did mine a bit differently and used reverse appliqué and  did my piecing differently from the original. I plan on appliquéing white triangle into the corners of the center square the cross is in.

Omigosh
Huzzah! Getting some progress here. I have everything cut and all my half square triangles sewn back together for my Shoo-Fly blocks. This means I can finally start piecing the half triangle to my four patches!!
You can see my pile of half square triangles that have been pieced back together below.

Randomness!!
Below is what I am entering into the Sliced contest hosted by Moda! They are open for audition pieces until the 29th and then they pick 4 people to compete against each other out of all the entries. They have some amazing prizes for those 4 people too!! In the likely event I am not picked by Moda, I will post a tutorial here about how to make it!

This is a keyboard/sewing machine mug rug! You can have your keyboard on either end of it and the mouse works just fine on it as well. The thing in front of the keyboard is one of those things to help keep your wrists at the right angle when typing. It also doubles as a heating/ice pack!! I used beans for the filling so if your wrists, back or shoulders start to hurt, go pop it in the microwave and instant relief.

Antique Sampler
Have any of you seen Sue Daley's new book New English Paper Piecing? There are some lovely projects in there! There is also a quilt outside of the book that I am going to dabble with when I have time called Antique Sampler. This is all done using English Paper Piecing and appliqué. Crazy. I know. But I am loving my choice to go with browns and creams. I might add a bit of green. We will see.

Organization!
I got this lovely bookcase today from Walmart as everything was previously just dumped in a laundry basket and I had no idea what I did have! So now I am starting to get organized. Its kind of exciting to me but thats ok if its not for you :)

Spray Starch!
So as I was doing those little English paper piecing blocks I decided I did not want to baste them with thread or glue. I had heard somewhere that I could starch it and just press over the seam allowance. OMG I LOVE IT! It is so ridiculously easy! Make sure not to use too much  though otherwise your paper curls up and distorts alot. I learned the hard way!

I was using Best Press to do this while at my LQS (they let me sew there too in the classroom when I come down) But they had just sold out a couple days before I was there. I liked the spray start so much I decided to make my own.

How you ask? (I love how I can make you ask just the right questions when I type them out!)

Vodka.

Yes Vodka. No seriously. I added about 1/3 cup vodka to 2 cups water, shake and spray. Use the crappiest vodka you can find as the starchier the better, but you can always add more vodka to your mixture if its not starchy enough for you.

Mine did not scorch or brown at all on my test fabric and after 2 spray, iron, cool cycles was pretty ridgid/ had that new fabric feel.

I have heard to be careful of it in really humid climates as sometimes bugs are attracted to the potato starch but it is completely dry here in Calgary and should work amazingly!

Anyway, it is 1 AM here in Calgary and I should probably sleep!


Contest!


Remember to enter the Hexagon Needle Book Givaway! All you need to do is leave a comment with your favorite colour on the Giveaway post 


http://aquiltingwewillgo.blogspot.com/2012/02/snow-much-love-giveaway.html


Or if you don't want to do that you can post here if need be.  Contest Closes Feb 29th Midnight Mountain Standard Time. 


Good Luck and Happy Stitching!!!


Kallie

EDITED: for putting in Link and adding title.

Snow Much Love & A Giveaway!

Pin It Now! Hello Everyone!
Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Here in Canada it is a long weekend for Family Day tomorrow (Monday).

Random Project!
Well I was looking at the calendar and realized in shock that it was almost my "nephew's" 1st birthday -March 3. I say nephew but he is actually my best friends little boy, we are not related but I was there when he was born so therefore we go with nephew :) Any-who... Here is a little sneak peak of what I am making him. I was fortunate enough to find a jelly roll at Walmart of all places, and it was on clearance so it was a super sweet deal! It is paired here with Kona Snow. I am hoping to baste and quilt it by next Wednesday which gives me a couple days to do the binding!

 I also wanted to show you were I was piecing this all yesterday:

That's right. Cross legged on the floor. My lovely husband needed our kitchen table for a project he was working on. So it was either the floor or not sewing at all. Unfortunately we do not yet have another table I could use. Needless to say my back was kind of sore this morning, and I had to take frequent breaks!!

Hopefully I get my kitchen table back soon!

Aurifil BOM
Super Excited that I finished stitching the February BOM from Aurifil! It was soooo much fun to do as it is such a cute piece. This piece was designed by Sherri Falls and the link to the block is below
http://auribuzz.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/february-aurifil-designer-of-the-month-sherri-falls/

She also has posted the cutest finishing instructions if you want it as just a wall hanging here on her blog for Valentines day:
http://thisandthatpatterns.typepad.com/

Omigosh:
I have officially finished piecing and ironing all my teeny weeny four- patches! I am currently piecing all my half square triangles back into squares (print/white). I also cut up all my 2" squares into triangles which will soon be framing my four patches! Just keep plodding along and it will all get done....

All 575 of my teeny weeny four-patches!

My 2 3/8" half square triangles awaiting to be pieced. I have finished about half of one bag so far. 

Dear Jane:
 Slowly working away at Dear Jane. Not much progress done in the last 2 weeks but I only have 1 more block and my first 3 triangles to do before March 4. So not too bad! Most of my last few blocks worked out to be reds which was entertaining for Valentines day.

Giveaway!
Now I absolutely love, love, love my little hexagon note book. And Honestly I think you might enjoy one too! Heck yesterday I was using it as a pin cushion as I sewed on the floor.

Now who would like to win one???

To enter leave a comment with your favorite colour. 

This way I can go through my stash and make the winner's notebook in their favorite colour. 

Winner will be drawn on February 29 at midnight here in Calgary (this is Mountain standard time) by the random generator.

So get your comments in before that, tell whomever you wish as well. 


**Remember to leave your email so that I can get a hold of you if you are the lucky winner**

Here is a picture of what it could look like!

Good luck and have a wonderful day!! 

Hexagon Needle Book Semi-Tutorial

Pin It Now!
Now last Monday I made the cutest little needle books ever. I loosly followed the tutorial from My Three Sons Knit . The link for her tutorial is at the bottom of the page. Just because I want you to see mine before you blog hop :)

I had been browsing walmart and found the neatest little clasps for about $2.50 for a 2 pack. 

After looking at the tutorial and getting some felted wool from my LQS I browsed through my fabric and got to work. I used my 1 1/2" hexagon template that I use for the Japanese flower garden quilt, fussy cut my fabric and used the same technique that is in my hexagon tutorial to make 2 hexagons for each needle book.

(you can find the Hexagon Tutorial here: http://aquiltingwewillgo.blogspot.com/search/label/Hexagon%20Tutorial ) 

The clasps I got from wally mart

I hand stitched this with a coordinating DMC floss to sew the  fabric hexies to the wool individual hexies. I then just went over my stiches to sew the whole book together. For my connecting hexies (you will understand once you go to the actual tutorial) I didn`t really measure them exactly. It`s just too fiddly so I kind of whinged it and it worked out well. 

Now I took a strip of left over wool, cut a slot in the end and put it on my clasp. This way I can have my thread attached and I just tied a knot in the end of this one. 

With this thread the hole in the spool was very large so I just cut slits in both end of my `thread holder`wool and attached them both on the clasp.  You can see here I also machine stitched this first one. I don`t like the look of it and when I have time I am going to take it out and hand stitch it. 

Here you can see the inside with a couple pins!

The nice thing about the clasp is that I can attach my scissors and thimble to it as well then onto a handle in my  travel sewing kit.

So definitely go check out My Three Sons Knit for her full tutorial!

http://mythreesonsknit.blogspot.com/2010/05/hexagon-needle-book-tutorial_1452.html