There’s a lot to like about Sarah, but it can be helpful to focus on one aspect of a person if you want to make her a quilt.  Sarah’s seamlessly blended her very techie family life into their historic Virginia home.  She loves sharing the stories of her community’s past and can give you the best guided tour you’ve ever had.  Taken down to the basics, she just has a passion for keeping the past alive and here with us in the present.

When she and her husband got married, Sarah wore a beautiful white dress.  Around her waist was a bright red ribbon in memory of her Dad.  It was a simple but powerful thing.  With a red ribbon, she tied her past, present and future together on one of her family’s most special of days.  This little quilt is an attempt to help Sarah wrap her daughter up in those amazing memories.

And so we have Juju’s baby quilt.  Here it is pieced, but not yet quilted or bound.

The ingredients, if you’re curious: A charm pack of white squares, two charm packs of Silent Film and Kona solid in Red.  I removed the black from the Silent Film packs.  The darkest gray in the packs, Pepper, seemed dark enough without being harsh.  (It looks black in these photos, and it almost is.)  The backing is Kona in Coal, the darker medium gray from the front.  The half square triangles were made as in this tutorial.

The binding is more of the Kona Red, a ribbon of red like Sarah’s wedding dress.

And here’s the finished quilt:

I hope that Sarah will have many new memories of Juju and her quilt!

I need 20 squares to begin piecing together the quilt, and I get can one or sometimes two made before work each day.  Slow and steady wins the race!

The fabrics are from Malka Dubrawsky’s line A Stitch in Color.  Aren’t they wonderful?  I’ll give full details in a future post.

I didn’t really mean to sew anything this morning.  Still, I ended up at the sewing machine and about 20 minutes later I had this nifty little fold over clutch.  I found the not-sequins fabric at Joann’s and fell in love, even though I have absolutely no occasions that require a shimmery purse.  You may see me carrying this to the gym.

But sometimes life throws you a surprise, like your daughter asking you to take her to the fabric store.  Seriously!  It happened!  One of my non-crafty, video game playing daughters asked me to take her to the fabric store.  So I dropped everything and took her shopping.

She set up in my crafting space and spent the weekend making Scalemates, cute little dragon-ish things from Homestuck … this thing she reads.  I don’t know.  It’s kind of like we live in the same house but speak different languages.  But thanks to Scalemates, we found common ground.  Here are the two she made this weekend, completely sewn by her own gamer girl hands:

If you’d like to make some, there is a lovely tutorial by Metroidhat.  My daughter actually said “whip stitch” and knew what it meant.  I’m so proud.  :)

Since she had taken over my crafting space, I started something more portable based on this embroidered United States map seen on In Color Order.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with the finished map.  Maybe a quilted wall hanging?  A pillow?

So quilting had to wait, but it certainly wasn’t a wasted weekend!

it frays up so nicely into a thick froth of chenille.

This style is so easy that it would make a great first quilt for a new quilter, yet it makes a plush, incredibly soft blanket.

This type of blanket is perfect for those fabrics you like so much, you don’t want to cut them up. Show them off!

You can see more about cut chenille blankets here.  In the near future, I hope to make another one of these for a little sports-fan-to-be!

I found this prayer this morning and thought it sounded so modern, that it fit “today” so well.  I was surprised to find it was written by Sir Francis Drake in 1577.

This makes me want to dream a little more, dare a little more and try not to worry so much when I lose sight of land.

I posted a tutorial recently for making half square triangles, the basis of this quilt and pillow, if you’d like to try it for yourself.  I plan to use half square triangles for a very different style of quilt for another upcoming little one soon, but for now I’ll just enjoy the feeling of accomplishment from this one.

Have a great day!

I made this little purse sized sewing kit for a friend and then completely forgot to send it to her.  Oops!  Then I saw Sew4Home repost their World’s Cutest Felt Sewing Kit and remembered — Doh!!  I altered their design slightly to fit the little sewing kit “ingredients” I was able to find, and personalized the outer design for my friend who is from and dearly loves our beautiful state of West Virginia.

Click through to see Sew4Home’s cute cat design, but keep in mind that it’s an easy design to adjust.  These make wonderful gifts IF you remember to send them!  (Sorry, Lori!)

I started the new year as I intend to go through it — making quilts!  So many things I sew are given away as gifts, and after the flurry of Christmas sewing I was ready to be selfish and make something to keep.  I made this lightning quilt as a wall hanging for our family room to soften up a space dominated by the TV and computer screen.  My eyes need a break from all the technology!  This quilt gives just enough “homemade” to relax me.

If you’d like to try making one, here’s a link to the tutorial on Jenn of All Trades.  It was her first tutorial and she did a great job!  (Leave her a comment and tell her so if you agree!)  It really is a simple design, and she’s explained it very well.  She made hers as a doll quilt with 3.5″ squares, but I used 5″ squares for my larger wall hanging, with fabric strips 2″ to 2.5″ wide for the lightning.  You’ll want them to be a bit wonky, so don’t stress too much about measuring those strips.  Wing it, it’ll look great.

Since this was meant to hang on the wall, before binding I added a couple little “pockets” in the upper corners and across the back.

I had a piece of PVC cut to fit used a couple Command adhesive hooks to hold it up.  (Some of the left over PVC pipe went into another bit of craftiness that I’ll share with you later.)

I might make this design a couple more times.  I have some fabric from Kenya and think this might be a great showcase for it, with a solid cream background and colorful African wax prints as lightning.  (It would be auctioned or sold to raise funds for MFFO.org.)  This would also make a great baby quilt for a little boy, wouldn’t it?  I’m picturing a dark blue sky with bright yellow lightning.  Don’t be surprised if you see this again!

I’ve spent the day working on a half square triangle quilt.  Isn’t it beautiful when held up in front of a window?  It’s a shame I can’t stitch the sunshine right in.