Crocheting

I learned how to crochet shortly after I got married and have been doing it since. Sometimes I crochet more at times while sometimes I just don't want to. We all have those times! Well I get newsletters from Lion's Bran Yarn. They have TONS of free patterns. I saw this beautiful bag and decided to make it.

I used different yarn, the one used for making washcloths....not sure the name...it comes on the cone. I thought it might not stretch as much. I had some left over and so was able to make this one.

I don't like the color as much but it works. So I decided then to make another one in some prettier colors!

I am using this currently as my purse. I was going to make a lining but the wholes were little enough and if I don't put anything too little in the bag it will be fine. 

I ended up making a small flower from this website. I wish I had a plain color so it would stand out more, but alas I was out of yarn. 

I had so much fun making these that I am tempted to make another one and have it as a giveaway! What do you all think?? Have a giveaway and then you get to pick the color?? We will just have to see!! 

I won!

A few weeks ago I won a giveaway!! I finally won something! I was so excited! Ashley over at Lil Blue Boo was hosting a giveaway on embroidered backpacks. I won!! Thank you Ashley for the giveaway!

Baby Oso was so generous and sponsored two different bags. I chose a boy one because well I have 3 boys! Although I would need three!! And since I think Brandon and Nathan are getting too old to carry a bag with their names on it, and I don't want to "favor" Kimball; I decided it would become our new church bag. We used it this Sunday and all of our workbooks and file folders fitted perfectly! I love the colors! And the embroidery turned out so nice! Thank you Baby Oso! 

Challenge and Bee's

Last week I joined Amy's one week challenge and I THINK I made it in time. I wanted to get my bee blocks done by then and I just finished about 1 hour ago!

1 year, 12 quilts

This is the block that Ruth wanted this month. I can't believe how straight my seams are! They are NEVER that straight! We used Oh Franssen's tutorial on Sew Mama Sew. I am glad she chose this block because I have wanted to try it. It takes a little bit but I love how straight the seams are. 

Round Robin Quilting Bee

Here are Pat's blocks. I really liked this block and it was so easy. I like easy! It's amazing what you can do with flying geese! 

Here are Carol's blocks. She requested something with triangles, squares and rectangles. I started searching online then realized that I could just create my own! So I created this and made it for her. I made two for me though. 

Pretty in Pink Bee

Angela requested half log cabins, or log cabin quarters, can never remember the name.I LOVE her choice of fabric and had fun putting them together. She is making this quilt for her niece for Christmas. I know she will love it! I think I might make a quilt with this block and in different colors. I am really into the color wheel right now. 

So there complete! Well for the month of July....although Angela's are due in August. She was just REALLY on the ball and got them out fast. I did however get two more packages in the mail yesterday for the Round Robing bee, although those can wait until next month! 

Next week challenge: 

I think my goals it get caught up on all of my quilt along....ie Summer Star sampler, Summer quilt, and Beginner sampler quilt. 

*****I started from the very beginning making my own blocks for the bees and just have fallen out of the habit and I am not really wanting to make them up. SO I have a few blocks of different sizes and colors. I don't really know what to do with them. Any suggestions? I was thinking that I could make tiny wall hangings or just combine them all in one quilt, although it will be rather ugly. So I need some help with that!******

Preparing

Nathan will turn 6 years old on Saturday. It is so sad to see him grow up so fast!! It just seems like yesterday that he was born! This year for his birthday we decided to have a little party for him. I thought it would be nice to have a Lego theme party. So I started searching on Google for some party ideas and what not. I found this AWESOME site, I'm Topsy Turvy. She is an awesome woman who is very creative, and to boot....she has autistic children as well!! She has already done a Lego Party so I just took from her ideas. I will be trying to attempt to make her Lego cake as well as the Lego candy.

For the Lego candy I needed to either buy a mold or make one. Since 1)I couldn't find any soon and 2)they were very expensive of the ones I could find. But once again, I'm Topsy Turvy made one and showed me how! But let me share with you what I did.

First you create your little mold area. I took 2 small green plates and added a two deep edge. Then in the middle I added Lego's for the different sizes that I wanted. 

I thought it would be really awesome if I had a little dude, so I decided to try it. 

I got my mold stuff from this place, you want the food grade silicone. 

You first mix the two parts together, for my two molds we used the full 1lb set that we bought. We started out in a different container but then just finished it up in the bowls that it came in. You want to make sure that it is 100% mixed otherwise it doesn't mix properly, it won't set. (IF you do decide to mix it in a different bowl once it sets you can easily peel it off)

Then you pour them evenly in each container. We had just enough to make these two molds. I was hoping for more but nope. 

In the instructions it said you need to paint on a small layer on first as well as tap it afterwards to make sure there are no bubbles. We did neither of these and it turned out just fine. The molds were too full to really tap so we just left it. 

We let ours rest over night (best choice). Then we took off the bottom green plate first and then one by one we took down the sides of the mold. Then you can flex the sides and pop the Lego's out. 

You can see where my little person I had to really pry him up and then I made a little slit to the top part of him. He was really stuck in there but eventually popped out just fine. 

So with 1lb we got about 2 6" squares. 

So after having them done I decided to tackle the gummies first. I was going to try Ashlee's recipe on her site but I decided to try a different one. So I used Skip to My Lou's site and used her recipe. I wanted mine more gummier so I added a 3rd gelatin packet but after eating some ( You HAVE to sample your work) I think it is a little too hard, so the next time I will only use 2.

They popped out very nicely

I even had my little dude pop out nicely! 

My pouring skills weren't the greatest so I did have some leakage on top on some of my Lego's

But never fear, that is what the kitchen shears are for! They cut nicely off, no problem. So don't worry if you spilled a little on top, it comes off easily enough. This one recipe filled both my molds with a tiny left over. I just poured it in a bottom of a glass and let that settle. 

I am planning on making more so I have enough to hand out to the kids at the party, but I am going to try some different levels of the gelatin and I am going to also try some sugar free Jello since the gelatin is piratically little calories! Maybe I found some yummy snacks! 

Tomorrow I am going to try and make some sucker candy and more gummies. So stay tuned for some more goodness....

Goals

Amy over at Amy's Creative Side is helping us sewings get our butt into gear and finish some projects. She has created this awesome weekly challenge, we have one week to finish ONE thing. And if we do, what happens???? We get entered into a giveaway!!! I love doing challenges like this!

My challenge for this week is to finish my bee blocks. Once again it is at the end of the month and I don't have them done. granted I got them toward the middle of the month but still, I like to keep on top of things!

My bee blocks:
 Pretty in Pink Block (for August, but why not get ahead?)
1 year, 12 quilts bee (July)
Round Robin (Pat's blocks)
Round Robin ( Carol's block)

Not bad but I make duplicate block for me so I can make a keepsake quilt for me. I am behind on a few blocks from the newest bees so we will see if we get those done too, but still we will see.

I spy progress

One quilt top done....two to go.

I was able to get Kimball's i spy quilt top done tonight. I was really excited to start it but as I went along I lost interest! I think it was because I got confused a lot. But when Kimball would lay down and put the individual blocks on himself I figured I better finish it soon. I would pin it tonight but I don't have any batting right now. So it will have to wait for now. 

The original i spy part was only 63"x 40" and it seemed really small to me, so I took some train fabric (nothing else would work for Kimball) and made a border for it. My border is 10" wide on each side, a little much but I didn't know what else to add and not distract from the trains. 

Some things that I learned while making this....

1. Either my cutting or sewing is off because cutting the patch into 4 I had a lot of problems and had to trim a lot. Even sewing the rows together I was off. I thought my sewing was getting better or my cutting was better but I guess not. So I wouldn't suggest this idea to those who still have problems with that, you really need to have the seams line up. 

2. It is rather small and sew I would suggest making more blocks (therefore needing more i spy blocks) to make it a little bigger. If you want it for a baby, I wouldn't add to it. 

3. Double check laying your blocks out in the particular order. I had a few blocks that had issues even when I was careful. 

4. When I was sewing the pieces together I had two different directions to sew the blocks together and it scared me. But's it's okay and the quilt will come together with them sewn in different ways. Just make sure you have a least 8 sewn together in the same way so that you have your row. 

All in all I like the quilt and I think Cara did an awesome job creating it. But since I need to make 2 more twin quilts I don't think I will be using this layout. I think I will do a simple blocks for the next two, although after making the next one I might decide that I don't want to and change it for the last quilt. 

Hope my opinions and experience helps you if you decide to make one! 

Moving on to something else.....

K since I am the queen of procrastination, I figure I will put off my to do's and start something I want to do!

I have participated in several I spy swaps that Care over at Obsessively Stitching has hosted. So I have built up my stash quilt a bit. I want to make each of the boys their own ispy quilt for their beds. They have always loved the ispy books so I figured they will love a quilt for their bed.

(Cara's quilt)

So I got out all of my blocks and dumped them on the floor and let the boys pick out their blocks. 

Nathan was very excited!! He helped everyone pick out their blocks.

Kimball true to form picked all the ones that had trains on them. Surprisinly enough there weren't many with trains. (please excuse the naked boy. We are in the middle of potty training)

Brandon wasn't that into it. I think he wanted to watch tv more than he wanted to help pick out blocks. He just isn't that excited about it. But he did end up finding some, I just didn't get a picture of him doing it. 

After they got their blocks (88 each) I still have quite a few left as well as the fact that I am in yet ANOTHER swap! LOL it becomes addicting! But I already have a plan on making another quilt but it will be larger and we will use it as a picnic blanket. I figure it will help keep the kids entertained. 

But with me making my doll quilts, Nathan has been wanting to hang a quilt on his wall...so once again I am going to use Cara's wonderful ideas and make one of these for their room. And if Brandon wants one I will make one for his room too. 

I think these might get done pretty soon...With the boys encouragement and how small they are I think they will get done soon! 

Friday Night Sew in Results

I had a very productive evening last night. I got my DQS9 quilts done!!! It feels good to have them done and I really love how they have turned out. I did have to finish the binding this morning though. All I need to do with them now is put a label on the back of the quilt.

I used a clear thread to quilt it. I really like the end results! 

The back looks the same on the other one, but I just showed one. I did a boring back because no one will see the back really. 

Quilt #1 you can't really tell but I quilted around the different decorations and because I used a thick batting, it made everything kind of puff up. It looks cool! 

Most of my time last night was spend sewing on all of these buttons. 

Quilt #2

I hope it doesn't look too cluttered. Also do you see the little lady in the car? Nathan found that button at the store and I just had to get it! Even though it was $2.50. 

Overall a good night's worth of work. Now I need to get the motivation to get the bee blocks done and then get caught up on all of my quilt alongs! I can do it though, maybe this next week in the morning when kids are in school. Their last week! 

Friday Night sew In

I missed last month's Friday Night Sew in, but I bet you $10 I was sewing that night! So I just want to make sure that I post that I am doing it.

Tonight I REALLY would like to get my quilting bee blocks done, but sitting here I don't feel like doing them! I have been working on my DQS9 quilt for a bit and I really want to do that! You know how you start something and you get really into it and stop doing everything else, just so you can do it??? That is what I am doing now!

I worked a little this morning on it, and this is what I have so far.

Quilt #2

Quilt #1

Close up quilt #1

Close up quilt #2

I am really excited to finish embellishing them so I can get them basted and quilted. I have tons of little buttons to add and then I still need to hand stitch around the butterflies and bees, and then add the rays to the sun. I also got some clear thread (first time using) to use to actually quilt it. I didn't want the thread to take away from the quilt. I am really loving these and once again SO happy that I decided to make myself one, even though it is taking longer to make. I can see how people get so addicted to making small quilts like this. It's been fun making it! 

All Stars quilts....

Do you remember this quilt???

I made it for the Moda Bake Shop and it was published in the beginning of June. So many people said that they loved it and wanted to make it! Now that is just flattering in and of itself!! I copy so many things that others do that I just feel honored that someone would want to copy me!! 

The other day I found an email from Beverly who made this quilt using the tutorial

Isn't it beautiful?? She made it to put up in her Sunday School room. She loved it so much that she made another one! 

This one she made a little smaller for a baby quilt! Aren't they so beautiful! I love them! I think she may have even made it better than me! So AWESOME job Beverly! 

Now if you really want to make my day.....if by chance you made one of my tutorials, please please share them with me! I love to see your work!! 

Bee Quilt

For one of my Quilting bee's I was the first to send out my fabric for everyone to make a block or two for me. I received them all in July and have finally put together part of the top. I am just hung up on the type of border I want to put on it.

I asked all the ladies to make whatever their favorite block was. This is what I got!! I only had to make 2 blocks to fill it out. I love it! Hopefully I will get the top done and then I can add it to the pile of quilt tops that need to be quilted (2 are already waiting!). 

DSQ9 Progress

As the month is going on I have seen so many cool looking quilts on the DQS9 thread....I wonder which will be mine! So I have been meaning to get back to mine and I did this morning while kids were in school.

This is the smallest block I have ever made!!! It is only 2" square! 

This will be a quilt for one of the doll quilts I am making....

Then here is the smallest patchwork quilt I have ever made. The seams aren't 100% perfect but it's really hard working with only 1 " squares. 

You can't see the ruler that well but you can get an idea of how big these quilts are!!! 

I also finally found some fabric in my stash that I wanted to use. I put some heat n bond on them and cut out the desired pieces that I wanted. I still have small accessories that I want to add but am going to wait until I sew all of these down and then add my house....I hope I can make my house small enough!!! I should have done that first but oh well....I will live with what I have. But so far I am making some great progress. 

One thing I am not sure is what I am going to do about the quilting....not sure what I am going to do at all.... I guess it will depend once again on what it will look like when it's done. But so far I am LOVING them! This is exactly what I wanted and I am VERY glad that I am making one for me.