My daughter's friend Corina wanted a quilt made from her grandpa's shirts. When Corina dropped off the shirts, there were so many that I had to make two. The first one was made from dress shirts and was delivered in time to give as a gift before Thanksgiving. Right after Christmas I started on the second quilt from t-shirts and other knit shirts. There were even a few flannel shirts thrown in.
Sunday
A Memorial T-Shirt Quilt
Thursday
Pencil Me In Quilt
This quilt has been sitting in my sewing room since October. Sadly, it fell victim to the holiday quilting and crafting rush but that's ok, there was no rush to finish it. I used half of a Tula Pink jelly roll to make it and the pattern can be found in Fons and Porter's Magazine. It measures 48' by 68.5" so it's lap size.
Monday
Ruxin's Pet Bed
My cat, Ruxin just loved the charity pet beds I made last month. When I got ready to deliver them, I struggled with taking the bed he claimed away from him. In fact, I delivered all of them except the one he claimed for himself.
I decided I needed to make him one of his own. Instead of using donated fleece that was earmarked for charity projects I needed to buy my own to make a bed for him. I knew it would be a while before I took the time to go to the fabric store to buy fleece, it just wasn't a priority. Then one day I was cleaning out a cabinet in my sewing studio and I came across an unfinished quilt. It was just two pieces of fabric with batting in-between that was used to practice on my longarmer the day it was set up in my house. I decided it was perfect to cut up to make a pet bed. I didn't need to go fabric shopping after all. Yay!
Friday
January Project Plans
Happy new year! I've put away all my Christmas fabrics and I am working on a t-shirt quilt for a client today. The quilt top is done, but I need to get some backing fabric before I can quilt it on the longarmer. My plan is to pick up the fabric to finish it tomorrow while I'm working at the quilt shop.
The design board is pretty empty except for a piece I finished on the embroidery machine. I want to turn it into an apron pocket.
I have a stack of quilt tops to longarm and I'm hoping to get a few of those completed this week. There's at least 4 Quilts for Kids quilt tops in the bunch that are long overdue. I'm also working on a list of craft fair projects to start on. I want to get a jump on those before the March craft fair date gets too close.
Since it is the start of a new year I thought I would list some of my crafting and quilting goals for this year:
- Embroidery machine lessons
- Quilt listings on Etsy and Ebay
- Take a class on collage quilts
- Scroll saw craft projects
- Purge old fabrics
- Rearrange sewing studio
Here's to 2021!
Thursday
December Client Quilts
I didn't have much time for client quilts this month. With all the projects I had to make for my clients from scratch, I did very little quilting for others. Here's the one quilt I did longarm:
That's it for 2020. I had a very productive and successful year with crafting and quilting. I feel very lucky. Happy new year!
Monday
A Christmas Wrap-Up
You would think that since I am retired from the workforce (well kind of, I do have a part-time job at a quilt shop now) that the holidays would be less stressful. Well, they are not. Maybe it is because I pile on more things to do than I did before or maybe it is because I am getting older and I can't get things done as quickly and easily as I did when I was younger. It is most likely a little of both.
I started decorating my house sooner than in years' past and I loved the ease of getting it done. The outside of my house looks pretty good and we didn't break our necks to get the lights on.
We spent an evening decorating cookies with our daughter and granddaughters. Chloe is not pictured since she didn't last long with the decorating - she hates getting her hands dirty. Avery chose to color the frosting in deep, dark colors.
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Wednesday
Jelly Bean Handwarmers
I made a few jelly bean handwarmers using the instructions from the sew4home website. They are so cute. The pattern comes in three sizes and I chose to make the medium size. I only made three of these so far and I took them to my craft fair back in November and sold one of them. I still have the other two and I keep them on my sewing table as a reminder to make some more.
I have a giant ziploc bag filled with rice that has essential oils sprinkled over them. Once in a while I will shake the bag up to make sure the scent get over all the rice. That's what I use to stuff inside the handwarmers. It works great and smells great.
The instructions to make these can be found here. I think this will be a good way to use up some scraps.
Saturday
Unicorn Pillow Cover
I embroidered a few samples just to try out my new machine. So now that I have these pieces, it seemed silly to waste them by letting them sit. I found some coordinating fabrics and the samples are now in the center of a pillow cover. I made the cover with a zipper closure so it can be removed and washed. Not that it's done, I wish I would have added a ruffle. I think that would have made it prettier. I think I will give it to Avery next time I see her.