Another small finish- improv scrappy quilted pillow

I decided to try my hand at another popular non-quilt project in the quilting world - pillow covers. And since I had an awesome baby sister with a birthday coming up AND some darling scraps from my current big quilt project, I figured that the stars were aligned.

Here is the sister:

She's the second from the left and the youngest.

And here is the pillow:

The fabric line is Bluebird Park by Moda.  It has the cutest little hedgehogs (which is the sole reason I bought it.) Look closely - see them in that orange piece in the bottom left quadrant? There were hedgehogs in Turkey that lived near the base housing and once you've seen those little spiny potatoes, you just can't NOT love them. We used to go looking for them at night. You can see a picture of my mom holding one in this post.

For my big quilt I'm using a jelly roll and layer cake of this line for a fun envelope block quilt using a Missouri Star tutorial. I'll post it when it's finished.  I did a piano key border for the quilt and the leftovers made a great backing. I was even brave enough to put a zipper in. (Yay me!)

I used straight lines and a large spiral swirl for the main block and then did some fun mini swirls and pearls for the negative space. I was pretty pleased with the way the quilting turned out. It's nice to see improvement! (See the hedgehogs?)

This sister has never received a full size quilt from me although I did make her a fun wall quilt when she moved to Texas. (Hey, I guess this one was actually my first mini. Hm... Didn't realize that.)

So although this isn't a full quilt either, (someday Wendy, I promise) it was fun to give her something quilty for her birthday. My mom was visiting us and then visiting her, so she was my delivery girl. So via two airports and a plane ride, it got safely to its new home.

Quilted name tag

Have I mentioned that I'm serving as the Vice President for my local modern quilt guild?  No? Well, it wasn't exactly intentional but after I got roped in committed to it, I've found it very rewarding. I started attending this guild in January of 2014 when it was held in Henderson at Quiltique. It was a fairly robust group then. But through the months and a location change to the Christmas Goose on the west side of town, the attendance dwindled until at last December's meeting there were only 5 of us. Thus the 'nomination' to the 2015 board.

But I'm happy to report that things have really turned around for the guild. Our membership has exploded and we're almost standing room only in our meetings. I love all the ladies on the board and am really enjoying being a part of leading this vibrant group of quilters. I'm in charge of membership as well as swaps and challenges for the group. Our first challenge was to make a name tag. Here's what I did:

I started with a small quilt sandwich of white fabric, batting and black fabric.  I didn't want to piece or applique the letters and had some metal letters left from my paper scrapbooking days so I tacked those on. Then I raw edge appliqued some small square scraps from Geoffrey's black and white quilt along with a fussy cut from my favorite Turkish fabric. Don't you just love those tulips in the bicycle basket? This effectively quilted the layers together.  I added a thin binding of red polka dot. Thin binding is harder to work with my usual 2.5 inch binding. A couple of my mitered corners are less than perfect (by a lot).  But it is good to try new things right?

I thought the letters needed something to finish them so I added a small knot of ribbon to each one. Then I made a double fold strap out of scraps and attached it to the back. I am glad that I attached the straps to each corner rather than the center like a lanyard because it lays flat and straight when I wear it.

I presented the challenge in our February meeting and showed mine as an example. The members who wanted to participate brought theirs to show in the March meeting. We even had a special raffle drawing for those who made a name tag. Here is all our tags up on the design wall together:

I loved seeing all the different ideas and creative techniques.

P.S. I started chatting with a couple of ladies in the check out line at Kohls the other day. The subject of names came up and one of them was bemoaning how she didn't like her name - Ann, because it was so old-fashioned. I shared that my name, Ida LaVern, was even more so.  She agreed and commented that my parents had really screwed me up!  Ha ha!  I forgave her because she let me use her menswear coupon which got me two ties for free. :)   And I've never hated my names or thought that my parents were unkind in giving them to me. And with my new nametag, I think my name looks pretty darn modern!

Frilly Skirt Fun!

After my marathon sewing session last week finishing Delaney's quilt,  I lost my sewing mojo. Which is weird because I never do that.  I leave my sewing machine out and set up in the same room that I homeschool in and I sew at least a little every day.  But not this week.

Until yesterday when I realized that my youngest son's birthday party invitation might be an opportunity. Because the party was for a 7 year old girl. And with my only daughter being already well into her teens there has been a serious shortage of little girls in this house for a good long time.  So I decided to make a frilly skirt. As luck would have it, the girl in question came over to play that day so I grabbed a tape measure and threw it around her waist. And then I measured my son's waist too so she wouldn't get suspicious.

I had the perfect fabric purchased right here in Adana's own fabric district.

 This is just one piece of fabric, with three different shades of polka dots and the flowers. And from the left side of the picture to the right is only half the width of the fabric.  A lot of the fabrics here in Turkey are double wide - about 96 inches in width. I think I paid 7 or 8 lira per meter for this which translates to about $4 per meter.

So to make the skirt I simply cut apart the smaller of the two flower sections and two of the polka dot sections. I used the entire two meter lengths of the darker blue and the flowers but cut the light blue into a 33 in piece.

 I used my serger to ruffle the to bottom sections together. This was a new skill for me and it took me a couple of tries to get it right. But when it worked it was so fun!

After sewing the ruffled bottom layers onto the top section I used some elastic thread to add four lines of smocking in lieu of a waistband. Small rolled hems on the top of the skirt and the bottom of each of the frilly layers and it was done!! All in one night and it was so fun to do!

Sorry for the horrible pictures but you get the idea.

 I'm so excited for Rory to take it to the party tomorrow and I hope that his friend likes it as much as I liked making it!