Snail trail quilt for JOY circle...

I have always wanted to make a Snail Trail quilt - I love the block design, but making a whole quilt of those blocks intimidated me. But as a quilter for the JOY circle for Do Good Stitches, I get to decide on a quilt twice a year and have nine other ladies sew up a couple blocks of my choosing for it. The quilt is then donated to a local hospital or cancer center.

The quilt block tutorial we used can be found here. It is more simplified than some Snail Trail blocks out there. Everyone was asked to use two main colors per block in choices of purple, dark pink, turquoise, and white. I wanted a finished quilt that would be suitable for a girl or woman of any age. I'm loving the blocks that came back from everyone and am looking forward to quilting this one up.

If you are interested in joining one of the circles from Do Good Stitches, it's a small monthly commitment, and you can sign up here.

Princess dress sewing...

While in Disney, we did a dress-up Princess day. We split up from the boys, and used all our fast passes to meet some royalty and get signatures. It was a lot of fun, and even the older girls got right into it.

My oldest wanted to be Pocahontas, so we used a light cotton for the dress, added some white fringe, and a belt. We also darkened her hair and face a bit. The dress was just a pull-over the head style, so super simple to make. And since it was a hot day, she loved how cool it was.

My middle daughter has waist-length curly hair, so Merida was an easy choice for her. The dress was made from a light cotton, with some lace detail, and we added a belt and a pouch for her bow. We also dyed her blonde locks to orange (which was a hard color to find!).

For my youngest, I cheaped out and bought an Anna dress off of Ebay. Tonnes can be found there for about $10/each and she loved matching her cousin that dressed us as Elsa. Sometimes, convenience and price win over sewing.

still here . . .

So yes, I am alive and somewhat well. Life has been going on not quite like I'd planned over the past few months. We did go on a fantastic family vacation to the most wonderful place on earth. The kids were fantastic, weather was beautiful, and Disney was magical.

During the visit, I ended up in a Florida hospital in pain. And no answers. I have been struggling with this pain for the past couple months, but this was the hardest it had hit me yet. Then this past weekend, it came again, even worse. Thankfully I was home this time, and was able to follow up with a specialist and get some proper answers. Surgery has been scheduled, and I am looking forward to being off of pain meds and back to a normal life.

I have a couple crafty-items to share, a tutorial should be up shortly on the Bear Creek Quilting blog, using the gorgeous new Moda Mistletoe Lane line. Think ice skates, dots, plaids and other sweet small prints.

And I have another set of beautiful fabrics here from the Who's Who line by Fabri-Quilt. One of the prints is in a quilted fabric, which I will be turning into a tutorial for their Inspired by Fabric blog soon.

Riley Blake Designs

Riley Blake Designs has been a favorite of mine for years. In my opinion, they are one of the fabric industries leaders in designs for childrens quilts and apparel, and over the years they have added designers and lines that impress my taste as well. They have also grown their products to include flannels, knits, organic cotton, home dec, laminates, and minky.

Over the past seven years, I have been part of a local group of quilters that host an annual quilt retreat. Riley Blake Designs generously sent us a box of goodies for our participants this year. Every goodie bag will include a fat quarter from them, plus there will be lots of door prizes.

I've also decided to add a little Riley Blake decor to the room - this was a quick project using some of their ribbon, a fat quarter, mason jars, and some burlap.

THANK-YOU again Riley Blake! Looking forward to sharing all your goodies with the ladies at the retreat!

fabric magnet board...

Another DIY project was done around here lately, a magnetic board for our youth group. My hubby helped me with this one. We had to purchase a piece of sheet metal, plywood, trim, and fabric. Piecing it together involved cutting the plywood a bit larger than the sheet metal, painting the trim, grooving the back of the trim so that it all laid flush when finished, lots of gluing, and a lot of screws.

The board is now mounted in our meeting room, and we've already been hot gluing magnets and filling it up.

doll beds and quilts finished . . .

For this past Christmas, my husband and I put in a combined effort for the girls' gifts. He made doll beds for the three of them, and I made the mattresses and mini twister quilts. The girls love them, and they each got to paint them in their choice of color.

The fabric for the mattresses is a heavier weight cotton from my local quilt shop. I used a layer of batting and a thick cardboard, used a spray adhesive to put all the layers together, and wrapped the fabric around the back and used a pretty duct tape to conceal all the edges.

The quilts were made from some charm packs from Fabric Editions, and the backing is scraps of minky from my stash. The pattern uses the Lil' Twister ruler, you can read more about it in this post here.

a new year . . .

Well the new year has begun, and with it a return to this space. Over the past month, we've enjoyed the kids off of school for a few weeks, made lots of memories, fought some illnesses, and fallen back into the work and school routine. I hope to continue to visit here this year to share some sewing and quilting, and continue to connect with other bloggers, shops, and fabric designers.

The pics here are some sewing done for my girls. The Bible/Psalter cases are my own design and made from my stash. The yoga pants are from Sewing Modkid Style and fabrics are from Girl Charlee (their boxing day sale was a-MAZ-ing!). Happy to say that these have all been getting lots of use. It's so fun to have three girls with such unique taste to sew for.

 

SMS Giveaway Day

Today is the Sew Mama Sew giveaway day! I have a charm pack of Moda's Bartholo-meow's Reef and four coordinating fat quarters to give away. 

This giveaway is open internationally, and all you have to do is leave a comment below (please leave an email address if it's not linked to your profile). If you need a topic to comment on, I'd love some new craft links or ideas for my GEMS girls club, but any comment will do. I'll randomly select a winner at the end of the week. 

Good luck!

Congratulations Nita - enjoy your prize!

doll twister quilts...

My three girls each have an 18" doll that they love. My youngest does a lot of pretend play with hers, and the older two like posing them, dressing them up, and doing their hair. For Christmas this year, my hubby has been busy making doll beds for the three of them, and I've been working on doll quilts.

Now I know that I'm a little late getting on the Twister Quilt train, but I thought that these minis would be a perfect project for it. I had a bunch of charm packs laying around, so I just split them up into three color sets, pieced them, and then used the Twister ruler to cut and re-piece them.

And all those little scraps - I cut them up into squares and used them as side borders to widen the quilt a bit.

Now one is done, just two more to go!

Black Friday sales...

Here are a few Black Friday sales worth checking out from some of my sponsors...

matching girl and doll outfits...

My middle daughter and a friend from school wanted to be dressed up from the Little House on the Prairie era for book character day this week. I had a copy of Miss Madeline in my sewing patterns, as well as enough fabric on hand to make two girls dresses, matching doll dresses, and bonnets.

For the doll dresses, I used the bodice piece from another pattern I had, lengthened it, and added the apron. The bonnets were from a free online tutorial and I decreased the measurements for the doll version. My daughter is pretty pleased with them, and I hope to make some more matching modern sets for my girls in the new year.

quick knight costume with Tombow Xtreme...

Book character day is coming up at my kids' school, and this is the first of the four costumes for it. My little man already had a hat and pants for a knight, so I just had to make the top for him. I used a piece of grey fleece from my stash, and a couple solid charm squares for the crest on the front.

For the crest, I copied a picture of a dragon, cut it out, and then using Tombow's new Xtreme adhesive, I glued the dragon to the crest, and then glued the crest to the top.

This was a great and quick way to finish up the top, and I'm happy to say that after a week of wearing it almost every day, it has been holding up just fine.

I'll be back next week with my girls' outfits which spent a fair bit of time on my sewing machine.