The Begining

Here's the squares (all 180 8 1/2" squares!):

I cut them 8 at a time with my rotary cutter and the special square ruler you can see on the star cloth.  I highly recommend getting a rotary cutter if you are going to do any patchwork quilting.  I'd still be cutting away if I didn't have mine.

And I was able to get a little ahead and sewed one of the nine patches together!  I'll explain in more detail about these tomorrow.

NaBloPoMo Preparations

I've got a schedule worked up for the quilt making.
I need to sit down and sketch out the quilt backs I want to make.  The front of the quilts are going to be either similar or identical, so I want the backs to be special for each boy.

• Day 1: Cut Squares and shrink batting, go shopping
• Day 2: Sew Squares into nine patches, cut and organize
• Day 3: Sew Squares
• Day 4: Make and sew borders
• Days 5 and 6: Mark Quilt #1
• Days 7 and 8: Mark Quilt #2
• Days 9 and 10: Quilt Back #1
• Days 11 and 12: Quilt Back #2
• Day 13: Baste Quilts
• Day 14 through Day 20: machine quilt Quilt #1
• Day 21 through Day 27: machine quilt Quilt #2
• Day 27: Make binding and machine sew binding
• Days 28-30 Hand sew quilt binding
• Days 6, 13, 20 and 27 will hopefully be catch up days

The next few days are Halloween costumes, then the month of quilt making, followed by finishing up Lucy's quilt in time for Christmas.  I think that all of my "free time" is going to be spent sitting in front of my sewing machine.

I'm hoping that this works.  Daily life is going to go on as normal, I know I can do one or the other, but both?  I'm feeling a little intimidated.

NaBloPoMo

Two years ago, I unofficially took part in NaBloPoMo on my family blog.  This year, I'm going to do it on this blog.  I might even officially register.  I'm going to make two quilts during the month of November my posts are going to be quilting tutorials and updates about how the quilt making is going.

I've already picked the quilt pattern:

Disappearing 9 Patch

My favorite part about this quilt is the binding.  It is such a great idea.

And the cloth:

Riley Blake All Star Line

Yes to the Dress!

 

The Dress

In about a year my seven year old is going to need a fancy dress.  I think we found the one!  Luckily, I have enough time to hit sales to get the cloth, cause it isn't going to be cheap.  I'm really excited! 

Yummy Fabric

A friend of mine found this fabric for me the other day, I think I'm in love!

It's called Mod Kitchen by Helen Dardik.  I NEED get the princess's room done so I can start on the kitchen.  Did I mention how much I love this fabric?  'Cause I really like it, a lot.

Girly Girls

I need to write a bag tutorial, but I'm still fine tuning my technique, so I don't feel comfortable posting one yet.  I'm going to make trick or treat bags for the kids for this year.  I've had the cloth for two years, its about time I did it.  Last night I whipped up this darling little number for a girl that was described to me many times as a girly girl.  I approached the making the bag much differently than I have in the past and was very pleased with the results:

Finished Quilt

I finally finished Abby's quilt a couple of months ago.  A few weeks ago, I got her pillows done.  Here's a picture of the final product:

I think it turned out very well.  I wanted to do bugs and butterflies and all sorts of fun things that the girls like, but after I got the flowers done, I realized that all of that stuff was really just going to make the quilt overwhelming.  I love the stripes
The hardest part of this quilt really surprised me, and that was that the lovely pink cloth that I picked was quickly discontinued by JoAnn's.  I searched high and low for even something that was the same shade of pink, but never found anything that really worked.  Next time I do a design project, I'm buying twice as much of the main cloth than I estimate I will need.  I'm still frustrated about the whole thing.
Now that I've been through it once, I think Lucy's quilt will go much faster.  I almost have all of the flowers on the middle section.  I'm planning to use Lucy's to do a series of tutorials about quilting.  I am by no means an expert, but I like to share how I do things and what I have learned.