Embroidery, baby quilts, and Br Ba

I have had a slow week for production due to my latest obsession with Breaking Bad. I'm on season 3 right now. I'm so addicted - I wait for the boys to go to bed and watch 3-4 episodes at night and 1 or 2 at naptime.

Yesterday, my mom and I took a lovely trip to Kohler and spent the morning in the spa before doing a little window shopping in the afternoon. I saw a Vera Bradley display and after reading comments about how my work resembles hers, I've found a bit of inspiration. I even went to pick up more goodies today to get chugging along on.

Somehow between all of this, I did manage to finish up another quilt top, a pink baby girl chevron that, in my opinion, needed a lot more planning before I started. It actually began as an idea for a very wide border on the Meadow Hello Kitty Lilies quilt, but I was not fond of the pinks on the top of that quilt. I sewed my sides together and ended up with a not-so-terrible quilt top with a cute stripey border. It's on the hoop right now and I will post pictures once it has been completed. 

I also began a patch for the MHKL quilt that has the recipient's name embroidered on it. It's going to have a solid fill, I'm considering trying ombre but I have yet to commit to that idea.

Tote bags

Quite a gloomy day outside this morning! I've been carousing through Pinterest looking for easy sewing ideas because I am trying to build an inventory for Fondue Fest. My goal is to create quality products that are relatively inexpensive yet desirable to young parents/young adults. I'm hoping to have a few completed baby/toddler sized quilts as well as baby items such as booties, dresses, and onesies. In addition to all of that, I've also started working on these tote bags. They are SO easy and end up with a nice, finished product. My goal is to make more with better lining on the inside with loops, pockets and flaps.

This past weekend, I almost completed two quilt tops. This seems like a crazy amount of work considering that I also finished these bags, but one of them was already in blocks and the other was all cut out. One quilt top still needs a border and the other just needs to be sandwiched, stitched, and bound.

Normally, I would try to get a lot of sewing done today since my husband switched days to be off because I am walking at graduation tonight. Mom said, "I won't speak to you if you don't walk at commencement," and Hub - in a very ultimatum type fashion, "you're walking." It just feels strange because I finished this associate degree in December, and I don't feel much like celebrating after my terrible first semester at "the big school". All that matters is that I accomplished something - got my two year degree! Yay! I deserve to celebrate with my loved ones and so I will  try to enjoy myself. That being said, I am sure I'll have a lot more fun than my hubby and parents sitting in the audience with Linc (1) and Chase (3), neither of whom wants to sit still for more than 30 seconds. I won't feel to bad about that either, I'll just tell them, "you people wanted me up here!"

Meadow Hello Kitty Lilies

It all began with a drawing. Ok, I didn’t design this quilt but I am awful at visualizing what my final product will look like. It helps for me to draw things out and imagine my fabric in the pattern, sometimes even using colored pencils to shade it in. I’m pretty sure that eventually I will master the color palette and be able to visualize my quilt without this step, but for now this happens.












Sewing time usually gets squeezed in when my husband is home from work in the morning or in the evenings when the boys are in bed. I like to say I'm going to sew in the afternoon during nap time but it never happens. Netflix happens. When do I clean? Hahaha...clean... That being said, I do sometimes get the urge to sew when the boys are awake. It requires snacks, tv, and also singing and dancing but, hey. It's pretty easy to dance when you're happy sewing!

This quilt is from a Thimbleberries book, and the pattern is "Meadow Lilies". My niece, Giana, loves Hello Kitty and I like to make kid-size things because I am fond of instant gratification. I'm working on this weakness. The pattern is composed of Meadow Lily blocks offset by nine patches with borders. The nine patch blocks frame the lily blocks and makes a fairly easy pattern look très fancy and complicated. I can't wait to try this pattern again. A lily block is composed of 4 lilies and 4 leaves. Obviously my colors aren't true to the pattern as the leaves should be green, but that's the story of the pattern.

I didn't get a good photo of a finished nine patch block. Here's one in the quilting process. I love the diagonal line quilted through the nine patches. It's funny how I do kid-sized projects for quicker gratification and yet, I prefer to quilt by hand than by machine. I prefer this for a couple reasons. One, I like the way it looks - homemade with love and "stitched in the ditch". Two, I don't have a walking foot yet and I will need a lot of practice as I have trouble sewing a straight line with machine.

I finished her off with a cozy flannel in hot pink Hello Kitty fabric and a satin blanket binding. This was also my first time using binding - in the past, I've wrapped the border around to the front by hand. This was a very handmade feel and took a lot longer than I like. When I get to the binding, I usually am so excited to see the finished product so I loved the fastness of machine binding. I used a zigzag stitch on the top of the binding and I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out. Lesson learned though, if you've never done something before, best to not use slippery satin to experiment on your first try! Or use pins? Maybe that would have helped!