A gift for Baby Leyba, with love from Uncle James and Jen!

A while ago, Dave's brother gave us a gift card to put towards something for Baby Leyba. We thought, and thought, and thought about what we should use it for. Should we use it for something practical? Something fun?! Something special? And then a couple weeks ago, I got sick with bronchitis, and spent a lot of time in bed. I started browsing the world wide web, for cute baby things, and I came across this pattern for quilt and diaper bag. It was love at first site. (pun intended!) So "Uncle James" - thanks! We used your gift card to buy the fabric and materials needed for this quilt and bag. And now Baby Leyba will have something special from her Uncle that she can keep forever.

QUILT

First I cut all my strips into 5 inch pieces, and then laid them out on the table to make sure I didn't end up with two of the same pattern next to each other.



Then I'd pin two strips right-sides to each other and make sure they were ironed well. Some may say this is tedious, I found it relaxing!
(Side note - you probably don't NEED to pin them together since they're such small pieces, but I'm straight-pin happy!)



Next it was time to sew them all up! I'm so glad I finally learned the chain-method of quilting, otherwise this would've taken me FOREVER.




After sewing them all together, it was time to separate and iron again. Did I mention I find ironing relaxing?

That's all for tonight. Can't wait to work on it some more! (At least all tonight on the quilt...see below for the diaper bag!)

DIAPER BAG

Pretty, pretty fabric. I used a jelly roll called "hush-a-bye" (the same fabric the original "recipe" called for - although I changed up the colors a little bit on mine) by Moda fabrics, some solid brown fabric, some soft pink minky fabric, and some yardage by Moda fabrics as well.

Here I am sewing the pockets together.

And here I am quilting the pocket pieces. First this way...then the other way. And with my new sewing machine (thanks again, Dave!!!) I was able to do a fun, curvy, kind of stitch. I really like how it turned out.

Here's one of the pockets all put together....

Making the handles for the diaper bag:

Here is the front of the bag with the trim attached to the pockets, and the handle sewn own.

And HERE!!!! Here is the (almost) finished project!!!

If you're interested in making either of these projects on your own, you'll find the tutorial here:

www.modabakeshop.com/2009/09/hushabye-tote-bag-and-coin-quilt.html

Burp Cloths

Now that Autumm is here, I can't get enough of quilting! My awesome husband bought me a NEW sewing machine for my birthday, and WOW!!!!

I purchased my old sewing machine when I was 16 years old. It was called the PHAFF HOBBY 303. It did two stitches - straight and zigzag and went forward and backward. It worked for what I needed it for. Recently, as I've been doing more quilting, I started having a LOT of TROUBLE with my old sewing machine. It seemed to have tension issues, jamming issues, and one of the biggest issues - every time I needed to wind the bobbin thread, I couldn't get the wheel to loosen up. The last time I wound bobbin thread on that thing it required dear husband to get all sorts of tools out to loosen it up.

So anyway - new machine!! It's a Brother, and it doesn't have 2 stitches - it has 225 stitches!!!! It does embroidery, too! Also - did you know with new machines you don't have to use a pedal if you don't want too?! What the heck. Anyway, I hope it won't be too complicated! hehe. Alright, so all that is to say, I'm using my sewing machine a lot.

Also, side note - is it just me, or does it seem like just about everyone is pregnant these days? And when you have a lot of friends that are pregnant, that means a lot of baby presents...now I have no problem spending money on baby presents, I LOVE buying baby presents! But I also love doing craftsy stuff! When a couple of our friends announced their pregnancies, I thought I would start making baby quilts. And then another friend got pregnant, and then another, and then another, and then another, and - I'm sure you get the picture. As much as I would LOVE to make baby quilts for everyone - I don't have enough time or money or energy to do it for everyone.

When Dave and I started making our registry for our baby, I went onto Etsy.com and fell in love with some burb cloths I found on there. The fabric was so beautiful! And then, I had this thought - I wonder if I could MAKE burp cloths for some of my friends who are pregnant. So I googled "how to make burp cloths" and sure enough I found a tutorial on how to make burp cloths. And I realized that they would be EASY to make, and that it would just take a couple hours to make a set of burp cloths!

The hardest part of making these burp cloths was coming up with the pattern. The tutorial I used (which will be listed below) gave dimensions for the pattern, and even showed a picture of it. Only problem - they didn't have a "print this template" option. So I had to DRAW the pattern myself - not something that I can do very well.

After I got the pattern figured it out, it was smooth sailing.

Here are a couple pictures of the ones I've made so far. I've ordered some more fabric, and I can't wait to make more of these for gifts. This is a GREAT project to do if you're interested in quilting but aren't good at finishing projects! haha. If I can do it in a couple hours, so can you!

The website with the tutorial is here if you want to do this project at home:

http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2008/01/burp-cloth-tutorial.html

Here is a picture of the fabric with the pattern pinned to it. I cut bigger than the pattern on the fabrics, so I'd be able to make frayed edges. I cut the batting a little smaller than the pattern so I wouldn't have waste.

A friend of mine just had the cutest little girl! Her name is Rouen, so I made these burp cloths, and with my fun new sewing machine I was even able to embroider her name on the burp cloths! So cute!

A friend church had a little girl and I made these ones for her! I like to do 4 to a sets.

Happy Quilting!

Contemporary Quilt

I've recently gotten into quilting again. I actually STARTED and FINISHED a baby quilt in a week from top to bottom! I was so proud of myself for FINISHING it! I will post pictures of that eventually, but not yet, because I'm giving it as a gift.

Right now I'm working on a contemporary quilt. It's called "Dominos" - I found it in a "quick and easy" quilt magazine. Here are some pictures...

I tend to pick colors that most people would consider boring, so I tried to liven it up this time. I chose oranges, purples, blues and greens.

I've finished sewing all these pieces together! Never thought I'd get there!!!

Next, I've attached some fusible web to black fabric, and have cut out circles that I will be sewing onto these blocks...pictures will be posted very soon! My goal is to finish this quilt in the next couple weeks. I've already bought fabric for my next quilt, which will be all reds, blacks, and whites. Can't wait!

Day 6

It would seem that today the shoe has been passed on to Jina. Angela's sewing machine worked GREAT! But Jina's...well, let's just say, it was acting like it was from 1928. Anyway. We did get some good progress made today. 1 pattern of fabric down, 5 to go! Jina says that this is just way too tedious, and thinks we should combine our quilts! What do you think?

Day 5

Well, where do we start? Obviously, Jina did not finish her quilt that weekend. We've both had a lot of personal stuff going on, including getting a new apartment and packing, moving, etc. But lets see if we can't get a little caught up here.

We FINALLY got all our strips of cloth sewn into squares! Hurray! Let the celebration begin! While Angela was away for a night, she watched the quilting network...(I know, I know!) and she discovered a life-altering tip! Instead of sewing together one square at a time, snipping thread and starting a new one, she learned you can sew together one square, and then start another one right after the other. Angela calls this technique "the fancy pants" technique. Jina calls it the "chain."





After finishing our squares, it was time to hit the ironing board again.





A lot of ironing. To be truthful, we're still not done...



Now we purposely did not show you the pattern we're following, because it's a surprise. But to tease you just a little bit, here's a possible layout that we were tinkering (because we're fairies) for Jina's quilt.

Day 4

We began quilting our squares together tonight. It was a very interesting, comical night. We will try to post pictures tomorrow, but we won't be doing anymore quilting until Saturday.

Stay tuned to see if Jina finishes her quilt this weekend!

Day 3

Today's a brand new day! We start off feeling like we can accomplish anything we set off to do. Unfortunately, our sewing machines think otherwise. Jina is convinced that Angela's sewing machine must be from 1928 and today it's acting like it. The strips we're sewing are only 20 inches long today, but Angela can't seem to get through even one strip without her sewing machine acting up.

Every strip of cloth must be sewn together. Does anyone else think it's silly that we cut a bunch of fabric up only to sew it all back together?

And then... ironed flat, to press the new seams down...

Then, its back to the cutting board.

Bad news: We will not finish these quilts this weekend after all. (Angela didn't REALLY think we would - but Jina is forever optimistic) Maybe we'll get a snow day tomorrow?