one shabby chick

Aprons

I am sore - soccer season (for me) is fast approaching and so our team is starting to practice again...and this season I'm the oldest on the team :-)

At practice last week, one of the girls asked me if I could make an apron for her friend's birthday - I had made her one for her bridal shower.

So yesterday I cut out a few aprons and finished one. I made one for the "bride" for Saturday too - because a quilt just didn't seem like enough (ha ha!).

I'm not sure how I feel about the green pockets but I wanted it to look very feminine and this fabric is very feminine.

The other two are more my "style" and I figured I'd give her a choice between the two and then keep the other one to start my stockpile for craft fairs and/or an etsy store.

Quilting Style

Thanks for all the quilt love. It sure is fun making them and it's nice to know someone else likes them too.

And I got a few emails about quilting too - I am so not an expert in this at all. But I thought I'd share my way of doing things just in case anyone had more questions.

I shared a little about my quilting here. My first quilt was full of "what-not-to-do's".

It was only a couple years ago, when a lady from church offered to teach a quilting class, that I learned the right techniques. Like using a rotary cutter (I had been using scissors - shocking I know!!).

I hadn't actually done many quilts up until this point. We made quilts to send to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and she showed us how to machine quilt them on our sewing machines - it was quite a revelation. I had no idea I could do that on my little Brother machine.

That started the quilting again (or the right way anyway). By then I had also learned how to bind a quilt the right way too. Before I had just wrapped the backing around to the front and sewn it like that (very bulky and not very nice-looking).

Since then it's just been practice - slowly feeling more comfortable free-motion quilting. I really like it (for the most part - the bigger quilts are harder to manuever).

I don't have any special equipment (although I do love  my new machine a lot). I have my sewing machine and my darning foot. It's really that simple.

This is a a basic explanation of how I quilt - all you much more experienced sewers (like the Common Threads group) - try not to laugh at me:

I make up my quilt front and then lay the back out right side down (after I've ironed it really good)...I tape down the edges after I smooth it out. Then I lay the batting on top and then the quilt top on top of that (right side up). The I get out my safety pins and pin, pin, pin. This part feels like a work-out (especially if the quilt is big).

(thought I'd show a picture of my little sewing desk)

I roll it up and take it over to the machine. 

And then I just go for it. I usually have a plan of how to quilt it - mostly I just do meandering loops although sometimes I do little flowers.

I haven't gotten the stippling down yet but it's my goal....eventually.

I don't think I'm much of a traditional quilter - I don't wash my fabrics before I start (I'm sure you are all gasping in horror). I don't start quilting from the middle and work my way out. I start on one edge and quilt however I feel like. That's probably why my quilts are always a little wonky but really I don't care.

I'm never really concerned about what thread I use...even though the quilt teacher (see above) is always horrified at me and says she recommends using cotton for the piecing and cotton or polyester for everything else. I'm usually halfway through piecing a top before I remember to check what thread I'm using.

But I love sewing and that's the best part of it all - creating things. This blog is full of great ideas and techniques!

Hopefully this helps and doesn't leave some of you gasping in horror....

Two more quilts

I had started on a nine-patch idea last week (all the pieces are cut and a few even sewn up) for a baby shower present.

But the baby shower is this Friday and it was just going to take much too long to sew it up. And I had to work on the bridal shower quilt (the shower is on Sat.) so I made up this little one instead (using some of the same fabrics).

I sewed it up last night and then quilted it today.

Kinda log cabin-ish. I cheated and machine-stitched the binding on.

And of course I don't have dark purple thread so I just used pink..you know, because it blends so well (Ha ha!). But I didn't make any big errors so it looks ok.

(I made a couple of burp cloths too)

I just knew I couldn't hand sew both bindings on this week and I really want the wedding one to come out nice - (Not that I don't want the baby quilt to be nice - but you know what I mean, I hope).

So the bridal shower quilt...I pinned and quilted it today (think it took about 3 hours in total).

I had picked out a solid green fabric to do the binding in - even had it all ready (cut and sewn up)...but I decided it was too plain and she is pretty girly.

So I decided to give her a girly pink binding on the quilt instead.  I hope she likes it....and forgives me for STILL not having the table runners done!

Oh, my sister-in-law just had a little photo shoot with our friend Marina. They are pretty cool yeah?!

Sad to see it end

I know you are all going to think there is no way I could be done with the massive book already but I am...I am totally a speed reader. I may have to download it on audio too because I really liked listening to them - more than I thought I would.

I stayed up reading until 1 am last night this morning and today we mostly just hung out around the house so I didn't feel bad reading on Bela's birthday. She and Hubby are out on a "date" right now - I think she was pretty excited about it.

My family is coming over tomorrow night for burgers and birthday pie (she wants pumpkin!) so we are celebrating her birthday tomorrow too.

She wore her new dress for her date. She is also getting a new bike tomorrow from my parents and us.

I'm having "audio-book withdrawal" I think :-)

My next series is going to be these but in book form - I just finished requesting them from the library but looks like others have the same idea as me :-(

** I made the bag yesterday as a present for Bela but when I was done decided it was too big for her and am keeping it for myself - I made her a new (smaller) one out of Mendocino.

Eight Years Old

Bela is eight today.

Wow - how fast time flies.

(I was too lazy to scan in any baby photos - sorry!)

She is such a great helper - she's always willing to help out around the house.

She is totally into crafts too - always making little presents for people.

I made her a few things for her birthday and Hubby is taking her on a date and to Walmart to pick out something else.

This is not related to Bela's birthday but I finished book 3 and now have to actually "read" the 4th one...guess what I'll be doing this weekend (every minute I can squeeze it in!).....

** Oh - I just had to add this...USA beat Brazil (in soccer) yesterday 1-0 for the gold - YEAH!!!

Fun Mail (but not for me)

The quilt is packaged up and ready to send to Stacy...

And the skirts are wrapped up for the swap with a blog friend.

I think I would probably spend forever making and re-making things until I got them absolutely perfect before sending them off. But then nothing would ever get sent.

I am so nervous sending these skirts off to their new little home...Is anyone else like this or is it just me?

A zoo in the house

My eldest is gone today - off to his science program. Next week is the graduation and big finale where they shoot off the rockets they have been working on throughout the program.

So we decided since he wasn't here to do school we should have a day off too :-)

Bela and the younger two got right to work making a "zoo" in the boys' room.

The path at the zoo

animals in their natural habitat

And I paid a visit (with camera in tow of course) and even got to witness two puppet shows.

They even had a dinosaur at the zoo!

The first was by Bela and featured animals and audience interaction.

this was the alligator in his moat

The second was by Little Brother and was hilarious. I'm not sure if there were any actual words...mostly just block figures fighting.

The bear cave

It's Bela's birthday tomorrow (that really crept up on me!) so I'm off to figure out something to make for her :-)

Borders and UFO's

I've been slowly working on getting my unfinished project basket empty. I have a few more quilts in it. One is from our last quilt class two years ago and another is a finished top that just needs a back and quilting.

I worked on borders last night at our quilt class (it changed to Mondays for a couple weeks). A border for my class quilt - now I just need to sew up a back and then take it over to her house and quilt it on the long arm.

The other border is for the green "bride" quilt. I just used the light green fabric - I'm a little nervous about quilting this one. It's bigger than most quilts I've made.

I'm also slowly trudging along with the table runners.

And of course, I had to start a new quilt for a soon-to-arrive baby. And as I was cutting strips, I remembered another friend that is due in Sept. also. So another one was added to the list.

In school news, we have started..slowly. I think we won't go full swing until Sept. but for now we are getting the basics done. And Kindergarten (gulp!)....

Birthday mail

I got a package from my sister today...she lives right down the street from this fabulous fabric shop.

And look what she sent...

I love the ladybug buttons - aren't they the cutest!

School is finally starting (the teacher is finally getting it together - what a slacker!) so I'm not sure how much blogging and sewing I'll be able to squeeze in but I'm sure I can get a little in :-) 

Random Number Generators

Take 2...

I wanted to try something different than using the computer and so I thought of this plan.

Three bowls. The first bowl had the numbers 0-3.

Second and third bowls had 0-9.

And I had my trusty helpers pick a number from each bowl.

So the winner is....

Number

2

6

7

267! Stacy of Olive Loaf Design! Congratulations!

I had a few comments where people had left more than one (like they forgot to put their book or left another one to wish me Happy Birthday) so I kept the first one that everyone had left (if this makes sense).

This was really fun and I loved "meeting" new people :-)

Thanks for playing along - I'm sorry you all couldn't win!