Please cross your fingers that I will be able to find this quilt tops and four (or five) other missing quilt tops.  A couple weeks ago, I put this top and the other tops (along with their backings and bindings) in a bag to bring home from the cabin so that I could baste them here at home where I have a tile floor.   In the two weeks since then, we've been sick, had a crazy dance recital week and been otherwise very busy, so I didn't get to basting the tops.  I've spend the last several days tearing both houses apart looking for the bag of these tops&backings, and I can't find them ANYWHERE.  I'm absolutely sick over it.   Included were this quilt (from one of Gayle Bongs books), a scrappy four patch quilt that is going to be a gift for a friend, a pinwheel top destined to be donated, and a twin bed size trip around the world quilt for my son.  There may have also been another donation top in the bag, I'm not sure.   I'm starting to worry than in my recent decluttering I might have thrown them out or something...or maybe I put them in a 'safe place that I won't forget' LOL.   I'm feeling sort of sick to my stomach over this right now.

Pillowcase dresses

My guild's latest community service project is making pillowcase dresses for an organization called Dress A Girl Around The World.  The dresses are simple to make using the pattern found on the organizations webpage, but there are also lots of other cute tutorials out there in blogland for those who like to make something slightly different.  I purchased a beautiful shower curtain (it came from Target, according to the care label) at Goodwill and upcycled that fabric into three pillowcase dresses.  Instead of using purchased bias tape, I chose a fabric from my stash and made my own bias tape.  

These went together very quickly and they were easy to do, even for the non-garment sewer that I am.  I will definitely be making more of these in the near future.

A baby quilt

We have a new baby in my family!  It's a big reason to celebrate, because there hasn't been a baby since my son was born 10 years ago.  Of course now it's time for a new generation to be having the children.  This time, it is my cousin Michael, who has a new baby boy born in February.  The baby's name is Michael Jr.   A couple of weeks ago, we had a "welcome baby" party instead of a shower.  

I made a set of burp cloths with some neat fabrics that I purchased at Joann.  You can find the tutorial here .  I did not add the ribbon as shown in the tutorial because I wanted these to be 'guy friendly' so that Dad would be happy using them.  Basically, you add a fabric rectangle to a prefolded purchased diaper.

 Of course I also had to make a quilt for the baby!  It had to be something hip and modern as well as guy friendly.  It also had to be simple and fast to make because I wanted it finished before the party, and only had a couple of weeks to get it done.  I saw a picture of this quilt on Pinterest, and followed the link to an Etsy shop.  The gal's blog indicated that she was planning to write a tutorial, but it hadn't been posted yet, so I just looked at her picture and guessed.  I have no idea how mine compares size wise with hers, but this ended up being about 54X60".  Kind of big for a baby quilt, but it will be useful for years (hopefully he'll wear it out before he outgrows it!).  Overall, I'm very pleased with how it came out, but I do wish that I took a little more time to add more quilting.  I get a chance to try again though, I've got a plan to make another almost identical quilt out of the leftover fabrics from this one.  I'll share that when I finish (within the next few weeks I plan to get it done).  I'm sorry for such a lousy picture...it was very overcast the morning I finished the quilt, and I couldn't wait to get a better picture because the party was that afternoon!

Next time, I'll share the pillowcase dresses that I recently made.   I might even have more finished by then to show!

Hot Pads and challenge quilts

Today I'm sharing the pictures of some hot pads that I recently made.   I'm tired of small pot holders and hot pads that don't protect my hands or the counter, so I fixed that problem by using two layers of insul-brite and I made them BIG (10" square).  They worked really well, and I used up some scrappy crumb blocks in the process.  I decided to use these as a practice for a new method: finishing the binding completely by machine.  I sewed the binding onto the back and turned it to the front and machine stitched it down instead of by hand.  It worked out okay, not great, but not too bad.  I definitely need to practice it some more.

At the same time I made these guys, I made a table mat for my kitchen counter peninsula.  It is sized for the counter and covers it completely, something like 24X60.  I'll have to get a picture of it for another post.  It works nicely because I can put the mat on the counter than put all the hot dishes/pans right on it without worrying about the counter getting damaged, thanks to the insul-brite inside.

In the meantime, I'm still working on the challenge quilt for my guild.  It's due on the 28th, so I have to really get myself in gear and work hard this weekend.  All I can say at this point is that the challenge fabric is UGLY, and I am cutting it pretty small so it won't look too bad, and using one of Bonnie Hunter's patterns.

Flat Stanley

Look who has come to visit me.....

Yes, that's right, Flat Stanley is here for a visit!  We took him to Vermont for the weekend so that he could see some snow (afterall, he came here from Georgia, and wanted to know what all the fuss was about).  However, there's no snow in CT, so we brought him to Vermont to see some.  He got a little chilly after being out in the snow, so I decided that I would teach him how to quilt. 

He had a lot of fun helping me play with fabric, and together we made this quilt for him to take back to Georgia with him.  I still need to finish the binding, but I think that Flat Stanley will be very happy to share his quilt with the first grade class in Georgia.

Since I did that, I didn't have much time to work on my guild challenge quilt (must be completed by our meeting on Feb. 28th!) but I did finally choose fabrics and a pattern.  At least I think so, I still keep changing my mind.  I'm sure I'll be sewing furiously this week and next to finish on time.  The ugly bamboo looking fabric is the challenge fabric.  You might notice if you look carefully that I used a lot of these fabrics in Flat Stanley's quilt.

Back...

e with me and won't let me post pictures. What fun is blogging without pictures?? Now I have a new computer, so hopefully (fingers crossed) things are going to work better for me. If not, I'm going to look to move my blog somewhere else, like TypePad or something. But I'd really rather not do that.

Anyway, I stitched a bunch in January, trying to get rid of some UFOs. I was somewhat successful. In fact, I finished a bunch of projects that had been lying around just waiting for binding. So here they are:

These are both flannel rag quilts for the local NICU. They measure approx:25X35. They are so cute, but while I am making them I keep saying "Never again". Then I finish them and say...well, maybe I'll make some more soon...