Eleven Stitches

The After School Quilt

My school's annual auction was Saturday night.  And this is my fourth time to enter a quilt in the auction, created by the children in my After School classroom.  Here are the other ones: year 1, year 2, and year 3.

This is similar to years past, with a few changes.  As in years previously, I ironed fusible webbing on to the back of solid Kona cotton in rainbow colors and cut it into different shapes.  Each child was given a white square of fabric, and was allowed to decorate that square with the shapes.  I ironed the square to permanently adhere the pieces, pieced the squares together with 1 inch sashing, added a border, and quilted it up.

One different thing we did this year was invite the children to help piece the quilt.  I borrowed a sewing machine from the school, and invited the children one at a time to push down the pedal to make the sewing machine run.  I fed the fabric through the machine, but the children definitely were participating.  It was a challenge to make sure I was feeding it through correctly when someone else was running the machine!  The children LOVED it, and were eager day after day to help with the work.  It was great for me, because the majority of the sewing was done at school instead of at my house!

I did the quilting at home, and I added in some extra quilting this year.  In addition to the regular stabilizing quilting in a grid around the blocks, I also did free motion quilting in each square.  Even though the fusible webbing is supposed to be permanent, I still worry about the pieces coming loose.  So I made sure the free motion quilting caught each colorful shape, and tried to catch each one in a few places.  It added about 3 hours to my work time, but I'm happy to have that peace of mind that all is secure.

Each quilt block is signed by its creator, and it's fun to see how the child's personailty shines through.  Some are so busy and colorful!  And others are quite minimalist.  Alex's mother looked at his block (sporting a single shape), and said, "Oh, you're just like your father!" 

The school administration was very excited about the quilt, and even had me pose with it to e-mail to all of the parents on Friday.  I was happy that I was also wearing a handmade dress that day.

In the end, the quilt didn't sell for as much this year as it has in the past two years.  But it sold for $600, which is very good, and I'm so happy with the whole process. 

I wore a new handmade dress to the auction, and got loads of compliments on it.  I will have to get some photos of it so I can show it to you!

Twin Quilts

A month or two ago I got a baby shower invitation for a friend of mine that I hadn't seen in a while.  It was a little bit of a surprise, because I didn't know she was pregnant, although I knew that she was trying.  The catch was that it was a surprise baby shower, so I couldn't call her up and congratulate her!  Instead, I made arrangements to get together for dinner ASAP :)

In my head I was trying to think of what kind of baby quilt I wanted to make for her.  Dresden plates?  Stars?  I wasn't sure. 

We got together for dinner, and although I wasn't surprised she was pregnant, I was surprised to hear it was twins!  That means I needed to make TWO baby quilts.

In some slight way, this made it easier, because I could do one star quilt and one dresden plate quilt.  My friend showed me pictures of some gorgeous murals that she had painted on the nursery walls, in a red, orange, and yellow color scheme.  I love learning about color schemes, so then I can make something to match!

I decided to add a little pop of green to each quilt, and bind them with the same green fabric.  I like the little bit of contrast that it brings.  Both quilts use the same fabrics, and I cut out what I needed for both quilts at the same time.  This definitely made the job easier.

I'm very pleased with both of them, and I'm also glad they came together so quickly.  Congrats, K!

Co-Worker Gifts

I really love making things for my co-workers.  We're always busy at school, and conversations are either quick or interrupted.  But we do get to know each other, and it's fun for me to figure out what to make for a friend, and which colors to use. 

Here's some mittens, made out of a pattern that's in my head for "how to make basic mittens".  I used the leftover yarn for a sweater I haven't shown you yet (wince) and some pretty green Rowan Lima I bought when I was in San Francisco.  The stripe pattern on the first mitten was made up as I went, and then I copied it for the second mitten.  I really wanted to make mittens for this co-worker last year, but I had just had surgery and the thought of it was too much at the time. 

I work with two people I haven't made Dresden Bags for yet, and I was excited to make them again.  I just love making these.  This purple and grey one is difficult to give away-- I love the colors together.  There's one corduroy petal at the very top because I ran out of purples, and I love it.

I really love making these!  One of the girls who got these said she was excited to have one because she felt like she'd been left out of a "secret club" by not having one before :) 

This is the Wicker Cafe Cowl.  I completely used up my skein of Knit Picks Andean Treasure (100% alpaca), and as you can see I was still a little short.  Fortunately I have a few balls of this yarn, so I was able to add a contrasting color for the very end.  This was a great pattern and a enjoyable knit.

And finally, something I made for a co-worker, but not as a gift.  My friend asked for a custom order.  Her daughter is really good at gymnastics (Like, really good.  I'll let you know if she's in the Olympics when she's old enough to qualify!), and she asked me to make a leotard for her American Girl Doll to match her daughter's team leotard. I found Simplicity 4364 to give me a basic leotard pattern, and then modified the front to have diagonal stripes to mimic her leotard.  I added on a felt star and some pink elastic details.  My friend is really excited about the gift, and I'm looking forward to hearing about how her daughter reacts.

Now that co-worker gift making is over, I'm well into family gift-making.  Fingers crossed that I get it all done in time!

Dresdens

It was so nice to reorganize my sewing room, and to have all of my fabrics stacked together by color.  About this time, a friend of mine linked to a Dresden Plate tutorial, and I had an idea.  I thought I'd make single-color Dresden Plates using only fabric from my stash, with preference to using up my scraps. I used this ruler to make the wedges.  The wedges are 6 inches long, and that makes the block sixteen inches.

I started with red. 

And then orange. (Orange is one of my favorites.)

And at some point, I just couldn't stop.  I sewed before work, in the evenings, and for a good part of the weekends.

I rounded it of to an even dozen with a combination plate, using the ten colors twice and a neutral as the center circle.

All laid out together they look like this.

And the cats are happy with it.

And I *think* that it's enough for me.  I really do love making this block, though. Maybe I'll need to make a second quilt?

The After School Quilt

The past fews weeks I've been devoting almost all of my crafting time to a quilt.  Our school's auction was yesterday, and the children in the after school program (where I'm the teacher) helped make a quilt to donate. I've used this method on the previous two quilts I've made with the children, and it seems to work pretty well.

This year I only used solid colored fabric, all of it from Kona Solids.  I chose the six rainbow colors plus black. My co-teachers and I cut out shapes from fused fabric, and the children made collages with them.  It's really amazing to see what they decide to do.  To have something a little different, I also added colored squares along the border, and the children sewed a button into the middle of each of those squares.

Unfortunately, I didn't take very many pictures of the quilt this year, but I did manage to get a picture when it was on display at the auction.  Some people told me last night that they thought it was the best one yet, and looking back at the other quilts, I think I agree.  It ended up raising almost $1000 for the school, and I'm very pleased.

April, May

I have to say that recently my creative energy has been devoted to quilting instead of knitting.  I know it goes in cycles-- I'm sure the warm weather has something to do with it-- so I'm enjoying the change instead of stressing out about it.

It's a good thing I want to quilt, because I had a lot of catching up to do!  I got behind on my One Shiny Bee blocks when I was finishing up my internship requirements.  I churned out March, April, and May blocks pretty quickly.

April  The inspiration for this month was wonky stars.  I had never made wonky stars before, and it was fun.  I used scraps to eke out a third block.  I have to do something for sending my blocks so late!

May The May inspiration was circles.  This was a challenge for me.  I had never (successfully) pieced circles before.  However, there was a link in our group discussion to a great tutorial, and it was so easy and effective.

The first block is machine applique, the second and third blocks are a mixture of piecing and hand applique.

 

   

And that brings me to June for my One Shiny Bee blocks!  I'm finishing up the second block for June now, and I'll be able to show them both to you soon.

Quilts for My School

A week ago I was really busy quilting, but it wasn't for me.  I was working on two quilts for my school's fund raising auction. 

Unfortunately, I did not get very many pictures of the first quilt.  This one is from my during-the-day classroom, with a kite theme.  I worked on this one with the other two teachers in my classroom, and the children helped sew the buttons onto their individual kites.

The second quilt is from my After School program.  This is using the same idea as the quilt I did last year, but this time I cut out the shapes because the younger children are not as adept with the scissors yet.  Even so, the children exceeded my expectations on what they created.

 

Two days before the auction, we hung up the quilt outside so we all could admire it.  The children set up chairs right in front of the quilt, and spent quite a bit of time just looking at it.

The quilts ended up raising over a thousand dollars for the school!  The After School quilt ended up being in a bidding war, and they had to go to a second sheet of paper for the silent auction bidding.  I was so excited.  I think it's so wonderful that something I love to do ends up being so valuable to the place I work.  Yay.

March Blocks

March was a few months ago now, but with burning my fingers and then internship homework, I got a little behind on my One Shiny Bee blocks.  Today I was finally able to devote some time to personal quilting, and this is what I came up with.

The person who sent out fabric and inspiration this month asked for pinwheels.  I took the inspiration for the first two blocks from this series of tutorials.

I love this block, and the combination of the pink/red and green. 

Flying geese are such a fun quilting motif, and I like how they integrate into a pinwheel here.  I added in my own blue solid fabric since it matched so well with the blue fabric included in my packet.

I wanted to include a third block to make up for the fact that I'm 3 months (wince) late.  This was improvisationally pieced from my leftover pieces of fabric.

It was such a thrill to be back in my sewing room and making something for fun.  I'm looking forward to being back at sewing again this summer!

The Remaining Events: Also Gold

It was fun to tie crocheting and hand-quilting into the Olympic mix this time around.  Especially since the amount I quilted and crocheted depended on how Team USA did!

My afghan is still in progress, but it is nine rounds bigger now.  It was fun to think about the Olympian while I was crocheting his or her round.

 

I wasn't sure what to do during the hockey game!  Should I get started on the round just in case?  These are long rounds, now!  In the end I was sad for USA, but happy for Canada and happy that I didn't have to crochet any more.

I probably should have made the hand-quilting a little more challenging.  But my country got a record-setting 37 medals, so I did have to join a lot of edges.   Here is where I am with it right now.  Not all of these were joined in the past two weeks.

I might have this quilt hanging around for the next Olympics!

All in all, it was a very satisfying Olympics for me.  They're fun to watch, and I was able to fit in so much crafting as well!  I'm adding this button to the side bar, because I earned it!

 

February Quilt Blocks

My Flickr friends Chawne, Jocelyn, and I started a Virtual Quilting Bee this year.  We have 13 participants, and each month we make 2 blocks for one particular person.  That person picks the fabrics, the design inspiration, and all of us make our own versions. The month that everyone makes blocks for me isn't until December, so I've got some time to decide what I want!

Jocelyn is looking for a sampler-like quilt, and she asked for one traditional block and one improvised block.  Here's what I came up with.

 

The improvised block features some hexagon trees.  The hexagons I used are tiny; they're only 3/4 inch per side! 

The traditional block is from the book, 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars.  This happens to be the Connecticut star, chosen simply because I like it.

 

I did actually run out of the blue on the last point in the star, and I thought it would be fun to pop a little pink into the block.

If you're curious what everyone else is making, you can see photos in our Flickr pool, One Shiny Bee.  I think this will be a fun project for 2010!