{WiP} Wednesday ~ The May Edition

Do you feel like this time of year is just WAY out of control? I do. And I purposely let a lot of things slide just so that I can stay on top of the things that are mandatory!

We have 2 birthdays in May, the end of the school year for the girls, and the end of the school year for Dave (an instructor), there are always a couple of formal(ish) dinners we have to attend... it's just too much!  Here's one: We had a formal (called a "dining out" in the military) on the same night - at the same time! - as our daughter's art show at school. So, since it was her first gallery opening, we decided to dress accordingly... ;o)  

And we had one girlie girl turn 4, and had a very busy day, but it ended with a big ol' bucket of modern pop beads, and she was happy. :o)

 And the other turned 6, choosing to go to HuHot Mongolian Grill for her birthday.

We had a small combined party at Build-A-Bear for the girls and some friends, which was fun, and not at all crazy! :o)   Then we took the party upstairs to a new restaurant in the mall called PB and Jellies. The girls each got to make their own jar of peanut butter (with fun add-ins, of course!), and enjoy a PB&J kids meal (or grilled cheese, but WHY?)

Crazy as things are, I'm still trying to sew when I can. I decided to not try to sew something for the girls' teachers this year because it would just take too much time and too many brain cells!

I finished this graduation gift for Dave's cousin. T-shirt quilts aren't that hard to do! I know I was intimidated for a while, and then once I realized I was armed with all the right supplies, and could handle it, I did fine!  There are probably a ton of tutorials out there, but if anyone is interested in how I did it, let me know and I'll do a simple how-to. I also made a pillow out of a sweatshirt that was too large for the quilt, so that'll be fun to have on her college bed. :o)

And I have finally finished some AMH feather blocks for my Bee Happy bee, and I'm wishing I had foundation paper pieced them. There is just SOOO much fabric waste! (Which equals time waste, in my book!)

                                                    

As for my WiPs, there are many. :-/. 

I need to finish quilting my Colorado MQG challenge quilt and get it bound soon. 

                                                

I have to make my do.good stitches blocks for the Faith Circle for May.  And...I have a couple of fun baby things to make!! 

Oh, time. Not on my side. :o)

I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WiP Wednesday. :o) Hope you have a great week!

It's Giveaway Time at Sew Mama Sew!

Hi there, and if this is your first visit, welcome!


My name is Melissa, and I live in Colorado with my husband and 3 young children. They are all very wonderful, and I am so very blessed to be able to stay home with them! I sew and craft when I can, which isn't as often as I would like, but I do my best. :o)

This week I'll be giving away a few of my favorite things: a Pentel Fabric Gel Roller (which is awesome for labeling your quilts), one of Cristy's glue tips for glue basting (I glue baste EVERYTHING!), a new bottle of Elmer's washable glue (don't pay for the expensive stuff when this works just as well!), a 2-pack of sewing-themed washi tape (so cute!), my latest pattern! (Love Letters), and a set of 2 1/2" x 15" strips to complete the alphabet (26 strips from the Kona Solids New Brights palette). And I'll tuck them all into a sweet little Kona Solids tote by Robert Kaufman.

Oh, yeah! There's a bonus "I love Kona" tattoo! :o)

Comments are now closed. The winner is Comment 50 -- Lethargic Lass! (I'm emailing you now...)

Wanna win it?  Just leave a comment below with your favorite encouragement for moms. I am blessed to stay home with my kids, but I admit to getting discouraged from time to time. (Just keeping it real!)  So tell me what you like to say - or hear - as a pick-me-up. :o) 

(And please make sure you aren't a no-reply blogger! I can't reply to you and tell you you're a winner! That would be sad...) (If you aren't sure, then put your email address in your comment.)

Good luck with this giveaway, and all the others you are entering. I hope you come back and visit sometime! :o)

Here's the link back to the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway page. Go back there and comment on more posts! :o)

*This giveaway will close at midnight MDT on Friday, May 16th, and I will randomly choose a winner and notify you by May 18th.* Again, make sure you aren't a no-reply blogger!

Strip-Easy: Quilt Challenge ~ a future WiP. :o)

I need another project like I need a hole in my head, but Denise at Pieced Brain liked this Shape Shifter block, and suggested I look at her upcoming Strip Challenge.

She's calling it Strip-Easy (like "strip tease", but different) (except I'll be teasing you with my design until the big reveal...) ;) and the idea is to use up the 2 1/2" strips that you already have. No cutting open a new jelly roll, no cutting fabric, unless it's for sashing or background.


                                         

So, in reality, my Shape Shifter blocks won't work since I don't have a pile of those strips, but I do have a pile of leftovers from the roll-up of Kona solids from my Love Letters quilt.

                                       

I'm not sure if I'm going to make a baby quilt with some of the letters, or if I'm going to make a special quilt that my little girlie requested...both would be awesome, I just need to decide. :o)

But, again. I need another project like I need a hole in my head! :o(

If you want to participate in the Strip Easy Quilt Challenge, go to Pieced Brain's blog, and check it out! There will be some fabulous prizes for the winner!

Other than that, I'm still working on the t-shirt quilt, but I'm waiting on some flannel for the border and backing. So far, so good, though! :o)

                                  

Then my Colorado MQG Challenge quilt needs to get to the top of the list. I've got a very short amount of time to complete this, and I have to do it because this all-guild challenge was my dumb idea!

Then there's the matter of quilting  everything I have touched since January...(sigh)

I hope you're all having a great week!

(I'm linking up with Lee of Freshly Pieced for her {WiP}Wednesday post)

{WiP} Wednesday ~ And a PATTERN!!

So many WiPs! :o)

Oh, so many.

My first is very exciting. I finally finished and listed this pattern for sale on Etsy!  And it's for sale on Craftsy, too! :)


It's called Love Letters, and it's a pattern for all 26 letters (plus a heart), and each letter is made from squares and pieced quarter circles! Oh, be still my beating heart! :o)

Here's a close-up of the P:


I was inspired by the cover of the ESPN Magazine when Le Bron James was on the cover. See, inspiration is everywhere! ;o)  My hope is that people will use the letters and make personalized quilts. That's expected, right?

I give instructions in the pattern for how to piece quarter circles, but there are loads of tutorials online. I don't use pins or glue. Shocking, I know. ;o)  I just found that the glue made it too difficult, and I found it took a lot more time to use pins, but did not improve accuracy.  Seriously!



Here's my sweet girl playing on the quilt top...which is why this is still a WiP, and not a finish! I'm stumped on how to quilt it!!


(Plus I have 3 other quilt tops that need quilting...shame on me!)

Here's my other gotta-finish-soon WiP -- a t-shirt quilt for Dave's cousin as she graduates from high school.


It's actually a really good project for me right now. I feel like I've only done stressful sewing for so long -- two patterns and quilts for Robert Kaufman at Christmas, a super secret project I can't tell anyone about, and now the alphabet quilt. Sometimes you just need to SEW!!!! I'm not usually a fan of mindless sewing for the sake of finishing another mindless quilt (I like meaning behind my quilts. And patterns.), but it just feels good to sew simple lines and make a simple (yet, meaningful...) quilt. :o) 

I just hope the purple sashing isn't a mistake!

Lots of other stuff on the near horizon. Hopefully I can finish this and start my next must-do-now project and show you some progress next week!

I hope you have a wonderful, and crafty, week!

Linking up with Lee of Freshly Pieced for WiP Wednesday. :)

Shape Shifters ~ A Tutorial

Have you ever come across a quilt block and thought, "Man! I wish I had thought of that!" 

Well that happened to me last week when I saw blocks that my friend, Liberty, is making for a charity bee.  I knew my turn with the {Faith Circle} of the Do. Good Stitches bee was coming up, and I needed something quick and easy. (I'm all about quick and easy for these quilts. We give our quilts to Restore Innocence, and these girls wouldn't know a Swoon block from a butcher block, so as long as it's beautiful, why complicate it, right?)

Anyway, Liberty pointed me to this tutorial, and I started to play. Man, I wish I had thought of that!  So, giving credit where credit is due, there are 3 Dudes in Arizona that came up with this method of making a quilt block. I, however, tweaked it a smidge to make my vision come to fruition. :o)

After playing around with color options, I decided to go fresh and nautical with a yellow, white, navy combination. Delicious! Since yellows are tricky to match, to say the least, I decided to send half of the yellow that all of my bee mates will need, and they can match the other half from their stash.  Hopefully that will allow for some cohesion among the scrappiness of the quilt.

You will not believe how utterly simple this is. Prepare to be shocked. :o)

Note: This tutorial is for each member of the Faith Circle to create 8 blocks for April's quilt, not for the entire quilt. :o)

Fabric Requirements (for 8 blocks) 

• 1 strip mid-to-dark blue (but not navy!) 2 1/2" by WOF
• 2 strips Kona White (mailed to you with the yellow) 2 1/2" by WOF
• 2 strips yellow (please use the yellow I'm mailing to you as a guide, please choose a warm yellow (no green tones) 2 1/2" by WOF 

Sewing Instructions

1. Sew the strips together along the long edge as follows: yellow to white to blue to white to yellow. Use a scant 1/4" seam, and try to sew the strips so that they don't warp or bow.
2. Press the seams to the darker fabrics
3. Square off the left side of the strip set, then measure 10 1/2" over, and cut perpendicular to your seams to make a 10 1/2" square. Repeat 3 more times to make 4 squares.

     4. Rotate two of the squares so the stripes are vertical, leaving two with horizontal stripes (as above)

     5. Place the vertical blocks on top of the horizontal blocks, and secure around all four sides using pins

         or glue. You know how I feel about my glue basting! :o)

     6. Sew around all 4 sides using a scant 1/4" seam, as seen below.

     7. Take your two sewn-on-all-sides blocks to the cutting mat and get a long ruler and your rotary
         cutter.
     8. Placing the ruler across the diagonal from one corner to the opposite corner, cut through both
         layers.

     9. Rotate your ruler to the opposite set of corners, and cut across the other diagonal from corner to
         corner again. Open up the cuts and find beautiful, triangular blocks! Voila!
    10. Press the seams to the yellow (center strip), and you are finished!

I see you!

Thank you, Faith Circle, for always being willing to make beautiful quilts for the girls rescued from human trafficking and supported by Restore Innocence.

Again, this method was devised by the guys in Arizona, I just played with the colors so it would look like eyeballs...just kidding. :o)  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! And if you make a quilt using this technique, let me know!

{WiP} Wednesday - Week 12

I've got something pretty up my sleeve!  It's for that new pattern I mentioned last week, and involves the New Brights collection of solids from Robert Kaufman, although I'm not using all of them.

                                        

                                                    

My sweet little 3 year old saw the rejects hanging on the design wall and said "Mommy, I love your quilt xylophone!"  So...I guess I know what I'll be making when this is finished!  (I especially love how she called it a quilt xylophone - it's just so like that sweet little girl of mine to transpose her words. :o)  )

And I've been working on another secretive quilt project, that I'll show you in about 4 months...maybe...if I remember...but here's a snippet:

                                           

My 5 year old wasn't pleased that I made 2 zippy pouches for our guild swap, and didn't make one for her. (She also didn't like either of the ones I received in return -- more for me!), so she chose these fabrics for me to make a pouch for her (WHEN, child, WHEN do you think I have time for this?????)  But I love this color combination!

                                                     

Have I mentioned that our guild is participating in an all-Colorado Modern Quilt Guild challenge? Everyone who is participating received 4 fat quarters of Free Spirit Solids in colors that represent Colorado, and we are to make a modern quilt that is inspired by Colorado.  (except two of the colors aren't right in this picture, sorry!)

Well, I've had at least 5 ideas, but I am VERY VERY VERY excited about the one that I had Sunday while driving to church. It is inspired by Colorado, and Denyse Schmidt, and Latifah Saafir, and QuiltCon, and my heritage...OH, I can't wait to get that started!!!!  However, comma, I must finish the first thing I mentioned...and then the fourth thing I mentioned...and maybe then the second thing I mentioned if I can do it quickly...


I hope you are having a great, and crafty, and productive week!

(linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced)

{WiP} Thursday ~ Week 11

I hope you've had a great week. The weeks always go by super fast for me! 

(almost two weeks ago, now!) Last Friday I gave a lecture/trunk show on modern quilting to a local traditional guild, and I think it was well received. (At least the people who came up to me afterwards were nice!)

Here I am showing off the awesome mini quilt Elizabeth Dackson of Don't Call Me Betsy made for me in a swap. (I won the jackpot, didn't I?) She turned it into a pattern if you want to make one for yourself. :o)

                                          

Here's the hexie quilt I made during Madame Samm's Hexie Queen blog hop last fall, and I'm donating it to Crafters For Courage so they can auction it off and raise money to build another Courage House for girls rescued from sex trafficking. I recently read that approximately 1% of the people rescued from sex trafficking have a safe place to go, so they often find their way back into the traps of the pimps. (We all need to do more to end modern slavery.)

                                                        

And this is the longest (and largest!) WiP, my Mod Mosaic bee quilt. The Mod Mosaic bee started 2 years ago, if that gives you any idea. :-). It's a king-sized quilt, and all that's left is the binding. Unfortunately, I didn't think about Susie's Magic Binding technique before I started binding this. :-/ But it's for ME, so it can sit. :o)

                                            

My newest WiP is this improv beauty of solids. I am totally crushing on it! Here is a bit of one of the sections:

                                                  

And here is a picture of the whole thing. I hope to get it quilted in the next week.

And something I've been wanting for over a year? The Sew Together bag by Michelle of Sew Demented!  It took me a full week (because I kept making stupid mistakes), but I love it!  And, yes. In case you are wondering, I am planning another one. Hopefully it won't take me another year! :o)

                                                

Here's the outside. I guess I've been in a gray mood lately! Everything I've done lately, including a super new pattern I'm working on, is gray! No worries, though. Rainbow is still my favorite color, and I'll get back to that really soon. :o)

 

And, finally, a super cute dumpling pouch and key fob for our Front Range MQG pouch swap on Saturday.

 

That'll probably be it for things I can show for a while. I've got to get my nose to the grindstone and sew up the new pattern (very exciting and daunting and nerve-wracking and oh-I-hope-this-turns-out-like-in-my-head stressing!)

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I'm planning to post a giveaway -- soon? -- just need to get myself together!

Blessings,
~Melissa