geranium dress(es)

As promised, I got some pictures of my girls in their Geranium dresses.  

This is my youngest daughter.  I swear she was born yesterday, and I almost cannot believe she is as big as she is.  We still baby her though, and probably always will, but just yesterday she told me she wasn't a baby anymore...

This is the first dress I made.  I decided to start small, so if it looked terrible, I wouldn't waste too much fabric, but I actually liked it and thought I'd even let her wear it to church.

I made this one with the round neckline, gathered skirt, and ruffle sleeves (those are my favorite).

Her favorite color is orange, and I love the color of this print by Sarah Jane, Wee Wander.  It's just perfect for a dress.

As it goes with children, you can't give something to one without the others wanting it too.  My middle daughter asked for a dress too.  This is actually my favorite of the three, but she likes her sister's dresses better.  I think this print is perfect for a dress too, and I love the freshness of the white (also a print by Sarah Jane, Wee Wander)

She was also my least willing model.

I made this dress exactly like the orange one.  Rounded neck, gathered skirt and flutter sleeves.  I also added lining to the skirt (the bodice is lined in the pattern, but I was afraid the white would be see through).  I just used muslin and pretty much made the pattern exactly as written, but with two layers.  I'm sure there was a better way, but this seemed to work well, without any problems, and I am new to sewing clothes, so I just did what I thought would work.

Pink for my oldest.  (Yep, Sarah Jane, Wee Wander, again...clearly I'm a bit obsessed).

After she saw her sister's dresses she really wanted one for herself.  I was a bit reluctant at first because I was afraid it was a little young for her (she's 9)...I mulled it over for a bit and finally decided that if she wants me to make her a dress, I will, and if she is willing to still look young, then I should be cheering.  Kids grow up too fast nowadays anyway.  There is nothing wrong with keeping them young.

I made this one with pleats instead of gathered and cap sleeves instead of ruffles.  I also added the cutout in the neck.  Just these little changes make it look so much more mature. 

I considered lengthening the bodice, so it would hit at her natural waistline, and then shortening the skirt...but didn't have the time or experience to make those kind of adjustments.  I would like to try it sometime though, I think it would be perfect for this age.

dresses

I'm not a clothing maker.  I wish I was, but it's really intimidating...  Somehow, though, I talked myself into trying out the Geranium dress by Rae of Made by Rae.  You know what, I love this pattern.  It is easy.  If I can do it, and make it look good (not perfect), than anyone who can sew can do it!  

I started with the orange one for my 2 year old and liked it so much I made the white one for my 4 year old.  Then my 9 year old asked for one, and we decided these would be their easter dresses.  I'll try to get better pics of them on Sunday.

ziggity-zag

I've made several more zigzag quilts, I'm kind of a broken record with these, but they are the perfect baby size, fun, and come together really quickly.  Plus, I have had many, many requests for a boy version to list in my shop.  So this is my answer, blues and greens for boy--pinks and orange for girl.

 The boy version features Tasha Noel's newest line, Country Girls, for Riley Blake.  Ducks and blueberries, mice and masks...and I LOVE this color combo.  It's a new favorite.

I backed it in green masks, but this quilt could absolutely be girled up with something more feminine on the back.

The girl version features fabrics from Sarah Jane's new line, Wee Wander for Michael Miller.  This is such a fun line, Sarah Jane is a master at story telling with her fabrics.  This quilt features bird, flowers, horses!, trees, fireflies...reminds me of summer.

 I backed it in this pretty forest scene.  This is a beautiful piece of fabric.  I already made a skirt for my daughter out of it, and I feel like it needs to be used somewhere else.  I don't think I will ever tire of it.

 the boy version is already spoken for, but the girl version is listed in my shop, and I have kits for both listed as well, instructions can be found here.

granny square

My granny square quilt is finished.  I posted the quilt top a while ago, and actually finished the quilting a while ago, so we have been enjoying this quilt through this COLD winter (yes, I know, cold in Texas isn't really that cold).

I fell in love with Jolene's quilt first and couldn't resist.  I did start and then come back to this quilt, because it just wasn't coming together for me.  I talk about my modification here--once I got that figured out it went together fast, and these blocks are fun to make.

I made mine pretty big, 6 blocks by 7 blocks, and I used low volume fabrics for my background, which I think I like.  I used up a ton of scraps, and overall I like it, but I think I might be over the low volume business.  I'm kinda missing the vibrancy of color on white.  I do like how the low volume makes it a bit more subdued and muted.

I guess I didn't take a full picture of the backing... I pieced together some fabrics from my stash, but the majority of it is this pretty purple plaid I picked up at JoAnns.  I like it as backing, and it would also make a great binding fabric.

bound in this fun stripe, I love the color combo on this stripe and how each stripe is about an inch.  Adds some variety to my striped binding obsession.

I ended up hand stitching the binding because my machine was in the shop, and I have to confess...I am a long time machine binder, but I kinda really love the look of hand-sewn binding.  I'll probably be doing it more often, maybe.  It definitely takes longer.

for quilting, I did straight line quilting down the x's of each block.  It worked out well because those x's all line up.  I quilted a quarter inch from each side of the seam.  Tedious and a little boring to do, but I love the overall effect, plaid-like.

I'm keeping this quilt, I just don't want to part with it.  It's one of my favorites.

qtools

I recently received some fun new notions to help with sewing/quilting, and it's funny how you don't think you need notions until you actually use them, and then they become 'must-haves'.  The On the Dot Markers are used to align your ruler.  I have tried doing this many times with tape or sticky notes, and haven't made it work, but these work for me.  I think it's the hole in the middle.  

(I hate that my rotary cutter is not closed in this pic...)

I am perfectly pleased with them, and they are reusable too.  I had one small problem with one dot moving/sliding around, but I wiped off my ruler and cleaned the dot, and it has stuck perfectly ever since.

The 'Dots' are coming in really handy with trimming my economy blocks.  I don't have to think about where to place the ruler!

find them here.

economy block

I'm probably the last person join this quiltalong, but that's okay...better late than never.

I have loved seeing all the different economy block quilts showing up around the web and instagram.  I also love that I dug deep into my scraps for these blocks and plan to use mostly scraps.  Hopefully I will see a dent.

tutorial found here (or if you want to make a bigger block, search around, I know lots of folks are making them bigger)

apple core!

While I'm talking about curves and my GO! cutter, I have a finished quilt to share, that turned out really great.  I worked hard on this quilt for a while and then we moved (the move before this last move) and I lost my motivation to sew rounded seams, and it was put away for a long time.  When I finally decided to just finish it, it actually went together really fast and turned out really great.

I used fabric from Denyse Schmidt's line, Hope Valley, this line has really grown on me.  I vacillated between loving it and not loving it, but in the end, I really like it.  The colors are unique and work so well with each other and with so many other fabrics.

I started out pinning my apple cores, and then stopped...I've said it before, I don't like pinning.  Perfection is not worth the effort.  It all ended up coming together just fine, and I'm sure I owe that to the GO! cutter.

I backed it in the ubiquitous numbers print from IKEA, which I love,

 and bound it in a black and white stripe.  (for my birthday last year, my sister in law sent me a LONG roll of black and white bias binding, all sewn up and ready to use.  Isn't that the best gift?  I need to remember it).