In A Day Baby Blanket

I was so frustrated by my failed bookshelf curtains that I decided to take out all the work I had done and just sew it all together to make a newborn quilt. Just like everything else in life, if you start it under one mood that is what you will get. I had nothing but problems with this quilt and I want to focus on those mistakes so that both myself, and you the reader, will be able to learn from my mistakes. Let us begin....

I'd like to start off with my binding strip. I opted to make my own as I have done before. All I do is take the 5" charm packs and cut the squares in half. Now, if you do not know how to make a proper binding strip, let me be the first to tell you that the above picture is wrong. All binding strips must be sewn together using a 90 degree angle, not end to end. If you use the above method you will get bunches and catches, both in machine and in hand sewing.

Above you will see my quilt top sewn together and lain flat. At this point I had not ironed it, nothing. This is straight off of the machine. At this point I have to say that I was a bit pleased with myself to see it look as good as it does considering the squares are 2.5" and I'm still not accustomed to my machine. Fast forward.....

....My quilt top has been ironed, the "sandwich has been made, the stitching has been stitched, and the excess has been trimmed. It was at this point that I noticed that some of my blocks didn't match up, my edges are wonky, I forgot to iron flat a seam row from the previous picture, and there are plenty of squares that don't look as whimsical as I would like. I think only one good thought at this point, at least my quilting looks good on the top.

Zoom to read "The line which my stitching should be on."

Which brings us to here. You can see that I have pointed out that I actually missed a line. I used a vine patterned stitch and stitched every other line to both vertically and horizontally. I did this for two reasons.

1. To keep from over quilting

2. To give it a 4 square spacing

There was also the problem of my backing bunching in a few places, but I didn't show you that because I'm not overly concerned with it. Even the most seasoned quilter has the occasional issue with the backing bunching under the quilting process. This is an issue more frequent in machine quilting.

I would love to hang this quilt on my wall as a reminder of my failure, a way to push myself to do better, but my husband has a better option. He has opted that I donate my quilt to one of the many homeless shelters that offer aid to women with children. He brought it to my attention that although many will pass up my quilt with an air of disgust, those women will embrace it as the blessing it is.

Granny's Favorite Flowered Blanket (Crochet-In-Progress)

Hello again, today I want to show you another one of my "in progress" items. This one is a crocheted blanket that I have been crocheting, on and off, for a few months now. I'm calling it Granny's Favorite Flowered Blanket. I know that reads like a mouthful, but it's inspired by my mother who is now known as Granny.

In an earlier post, I showed you my version of an  Roses of Ireland square and the same process goes into this blanket. I opted out of making the leaves and went straight into the background. I'm not to keen on my joining stitches though (explained in the earlier blog post as well). Either way, what's done is done right?

Here is a close up of my squares. I attached them with different colored yarn simply to use up scarp yarn. Haha I'm just going along with this blanket to see where it leads me The only thing I know for sure is that it'll be a rectangle with flowered squares in the center.

Happy Hooking Everyone!

Projects I Forgot To Mention

I have 2 projects worth mentioning today....

Above you will notice that my 4 beautiful children made mothers day gifts. 2 of them made butterflies out of feet, my youngest made a butterfly out of his fists, and my eldest made a jar of fireflies. So much crafting!

They really had a great time making all of these.

My son was not happy that he had to model

We come down to my crochet creation which is a toddler hat. It's made from Red Heart yarn in Aran and Claret. The hat was made using a size I/5.50 mm hook and the rose used a H/5.00 mm hook. The hat I just made up as I went along, but you can find the rose pattern literally everywhere. Just type it in your search engine and go.

Friends, please forgive me for not posting. I was blinded by Google+. They had cookies and cool milk and I let it get to my head..... Haha. Actually, I was to eager to get some love on my newest creations that I failed to post anything about them for you guys. You have my word that it will not happen in the future, I hope.

As always, I look forward to your comments and your feedback is always welcome on my posts. I look forward to seeing what you all have come up with and please enjoy my pages. Hopefully you'll notice that my work is finally starting to improve.

"Kites In The Breeze" Quilt-In-Progress

Pardon my absence folks, I've had quite a few things on my plate since my last post. Between school, kids, husband, and "the big move", I thought it best to take a few moments in between projects for a while. Now I think it's time to get back into the swing of things.

I found this great website Missouri Star Quilting, and took advantage each time I saw one of their amazing "Daily Deals", and I invested in the 5" precuts mostly. My plan was to make the X's and O's quilt (also by Missouri Star Quilting) based off of the free pattern that I was given, upon my first order, and the YouTube video I found at which you can find the link below.

This quilt will be the size of a Twin XL or a nice lap blanket.

So here is my quilt thrown up against my couch and you can see that I've just sewn those squares together and then I've used safety pins to pin the "quilt sandwich" together. I know there are basting sprays and all out there that will do the job of the pins, I have used them all before and although they work great, they bother my breathing to much to use on bigger quilts such as this one.

So I want to show you why it's called "Kites in the Breeze" and explain why I chose kites of all things. I noticed that when sewn together this quilt had a bright Spring/Summer-y feel to it and I want the quilting to feel the same way. I went over so many ideas in my head, but nothing felt right. As I slept that night, I dreamed of sewing kites onto the blanket and I knew that was the stitching I should use. The next morning I began working on my kites.

In this picture I want you to get a closer look at my stitches. Although I can easily work this up on my machine, I'm opting to hand stitch these kites on. I've been using a simple running stitch, and for the kites bows I've been using an embroidery stitch known as the "lazy daisy" stitch. It's simple to make and actually pretty fun. I've posted a YouTube link below for those of you who aren't familiar with this stitch.

There you have it, my Quilt-In-Progress that I hope to have finished before long. I look forward to your comments and as always, your feedback is important to me. All of the links are posted below and I'm eager to have this quilt finished for you all to see.

Original X's and O's tutorial

X's and O's remix tutorial

Lazy Daisy Tutorial