Zigzag, baby

Finally, another quilt to show you! I must say this has got to be one of my favorites. I made two zigzag quilts - a baby boy and a baby girl quilt. Today I am showing you the girl one....

So sweet, if I do say so myself! I use crazy mom quilts' zigzag tutorial - it is such an easy and fast way to piece these zigzags.

Once again, I used tons of my favorite color - white! Does that count as a color? When my kids ask me what my favorite color is and I reply "white", they always seem a little frustrated. The binding is a large print that doesn't do itself justice as a binding, but the colors were too perfect to use anything else.

I threw the scraps from the front into a spare piece of fabric I had for the backing. I'm finding more and more that I don't feel like putting a whole lot of work into the backing after the front.... Simple is my mantra.

This quilt went to one of my friends who just had a baby girl. It was pure selfish motive that made me give this quilt to her - I want to see this quilt occasionally so I didn't want to sell it and not have that opportunity :)

I have a few more quilts to show you in the coming days. I've been doing some work for my husband's business lately and that has eaten into my blogging and quilting time... but there is still more to see... so stay posted!

Learn as you go

I am still trying to figure out how to make a proper set of coasters. They should be a quick project for me, but I keep stumbling on the finished edge. Binding such a small object has proven to be much more frustrating than it is worth, with the binding taking me longer then all the rest of the project. On my last set that I made, I attemped something a little different. Let me show you from the beginning:

I reached deep into my scrap bin and pulled out some coordinating scraps. I put them together with as little rhyme or reason as possible. I was trying my hand at improv piecing.....

After the scraps were together, I made the quilt sandwich and traced some appropriate sized circles for the finished size of the coasters.

I quilted in those circles, then cut them out. See? Almost done.....

Then a tightly zigzagged the edges to finish them. I could have done it even tighter. If you have a serger and know how to use it, it would be very handy in this last step (I have a serger, but the tension never seems to be right; it intimidates me). Et voila, a set of mug rugs.

I would love to have a beautifully binded edge... but am thinking that may be beyond my realm, and I hope this could be good enough. Thoughts?

Valentine's Day 2011

I always plan to put so much effort into this day... decorating for the kids, baking sugar cookies with them, making beautiful handmade valentines... picking out just the perfect gift for the love of my life... and somehow, the day sneaks up on me and I am left scrambling. Well, this year is like every other. But I am trying to embrace it - for this is who I am! We did manage to make our valentines this year, but I wouldn't call them beautiful... hence, no picture for you!

The three oldest were to wear red, pink, and white for school today. The youngest felt the need to participate as well. Fabric polka-dots were added to supplement a basic wardrobe:


Such well behaved children.... sigh..... :)

Somebody is going to be excited about their Valentine's gift this year:

A custom set of pillowcases for a special lady - ordered by her wise husband (good job, Jeff!!)

Remember those half-square triangles I showed you last week? Here they are in the quilt top (loose strings and all).

The colors are quite a bit darker than they looked in the sneak peek last week, and I think it's gonna be gorgeous when done!

Instead of going out for Valentine's Day this year, we are having a feast at home with the kids (and then putting them to bed for some time by ourselves). I had to plan out a vegetarian feast to accomodate my husband's diet. How's this:

Appetizer: Bruschetta, Roasted Garlic on crackers

Salad: Avocado Caesar Salad

Main Course: Stuffed Manicotti, Homemade Foccacia, and some random vegetable.....

Dessert: White Chocolate Creme Brulee and.....

Yummy, right? I don't think that we are suffering too much by cutting out the meat.

How are you celebrating Love Day?

Grade school math...

Usually quilting doesn't hurt my head. The measurements are super easy for me to figure out - since I piece everything with a 1/4" seam, I have to add 1/2" length and width to each piece's finished size. Easy peasey. That is, until I decided to try out half square triangles.



I know I learned how do do this all in grade something or other - sine, cosine, and hypotenuse (I had to look up that last one to remember it.... sad, I know). Can I recall any of it now? Nooooo. I was also too lazy to look up the directions for these quilting blocks..... :-)

But this quilt is only planned to be a baby quilt, so I started with 5" squares, and I figure I'll end up with somewhere in the vicinity of 4" squares after I've made them into the half square triangles. Good enough for me.

There they are. I supposed I could go measure them right now, before even posting this. But I'm not going to. Isn't the suspense just killing you? What size are they actually? Oooooooo.....

In other news - my little girl had to go to a double birthday party and I whipped up these - aprons for both little girls. Pretty cute and speedy!

I'm not going to make aprons for you, though - nope. If you want cute aprons for your kid (or yourself!), you must go here. Check out Lemonade Handmade - best.... aprons..... ever. (That's right Christine, I heard you referred someone to me... you rock!!)

That's all for now! More soon.....

The story, as promised...

I promised a story about this quilt for my sweet niece.





It was just over a year ago, January 12, 2010, that an earthquake rocked Haiti. It took an agonizing two weeks for two little sisters to finally be allowed to leave Haiti and join my sister (in-law) and brother (i-l)'s family that were anxiously waiting for them here in Canada. I have marvelled many times at how such beauty can come out of such desperate pain.



As a person looking in, the family has adjusted so well, and I am so proud and happy to have these girls, and their brothers and sister, as my nieces and nephews. Adyne, my sister-in-law, has exemplified unconditional love and has shown an extreme amount of patience (Chris, my brother-in-law, has as well, but as a mother I notice it in Adyne sooner :) ).

Adyne requested a quilt for the baby's new "big girl" bed, and here is what resulted. I love the texture on the white that has been added by row after row of straight line quilting - a feature which you cannot see in these pictures. Poor you. It's beautiful :)

The colors are so perfect for a little girl's room - so bright and hopeful, just like these sweet princess' futures. Love you, Bell family....

Chris and Adyne did a few interviews, but the only video I can find of them is here, from a year ago.

Rugs for mugs...

I didn't want to post this picture earlier... and it still may even be too soon.... but this is the "little something" that Lindsay won in the recent giveaway (along with all my reject fabric). I had been wanting to make some mug rugs, and this was the perfect excuse to whip some up.

Truthfully.... I don't know if they were worth it. If Lindsay hadn't already been a real life friend, I might not have sent them to her. Granted I was trying to hurry while making them, but I don't feel like they are a true representation of my sewing/quilting abilities. Obviously, I put one of the nicer looking ones on top of the pile, but take my word for it - some of them are a little wonky. Perhaps it's because I'm not used to working in a smaller scale.

Isn't that a cute box behind them? We recently turned our playroom/sewing room into an office/sewing room (not sure whether I should be happy or sad that my kids are of the age that we don't need a room dedicated to toys anymore) and I made a few purchases to beautify my sewing area. It still could use a lot more, but I first need to sell more quilts... hint, hint.... ;)

The Winner....

Wasn't that just awful of me, making you wait in the dark for a full day before I posted the winner. I know, I'm an awful person.

The winner is (by completely random choice of my son)..... Lindsay! She said:

I love your blog kendra....I can hear you talking while you type. LOL! I'd love your throw away fabric! I've recently started sewing a whole lot of doll clothes and little pieces are perfect because I HATE cutting anything longer than a m. (bad I know). As a side note. For my scraps I use a see through shoe organizer on the back of my door. It works great. I can organize straps by colour just by shoving them in. Best of both worlds. ~Lindsay

Congratulations, Lindsay! You didn't tell me what colors you like, but I think I might know.... or you can drop me a quick note. I will have these scraps off to you very soon! (I need your address - can you fb me?) And thank you for the scraps tip. I love that idea!

Nothing much has been happening on my sewing machine lately - I've started doing some random jobs for my husband's business which has taken up some sewing time. But, I did order another 40 yd bolt of batting, which means I'm committed to do something.... soon.... or risk the wrath of a certain wonderful man (the wrath part was a joke). Maybe one of you could send me threatening messages dealing with the lack of quilting and then I would start again....

My stash... and a giveaway!!!

I am a snoop. When we are driving home from somewhere and it is dark out (it's dark a lot at this time of year), I ask my husband to slow down so I can look into people's houses. Yep, I'm that person. The person that you close your drapes for just in case they drive by. "Oh look," I say to myself, "They hung their art way to high." "Ooooo, I like that paint color." "Time to rip out those 1970's room-divider shelves...."

I am pretty sure that there are more of me out there - or more like me - who like to see how everyone else lives. So, I'm gonna show you my stash today. I don't know if you frequent other quilting blogs, but oh my goodness!! the stashes that some of them have! Mine is shamefully tiny compared to theirs.

Here's my quilting fabric. Usually I have a huge roll of white too, but I happen to be out of it right now. It's loosely arranged by color, or theme, or by how I happen to be feeling.

I also have another cupboard of non-quilting fabric, but I'm not showing that today. You'll have to come peak in my window to see that.

The white box on the shelf contains my fat quarters or similiar sized pieces. See?

Then I have a big cardboard box that I throw my scraps into. Some people have their scraps arranged by color and size. Not me. I have a box. It's better than the floor.

Also, I have these fabrics pulled out for the current project.

Now, I organized my cupboard slightly for these pictures, and while I did that I pulled out the fabrics that I don't want anymore. Either I was given them and I hate them, I've over-used them and I'm sick of them, or I'm just not inspired by them (and I'm not gonna tell you which is which).

Does anybody want them? If you think you might use them (I'm not looking for a promise here, just a hope that you might find them useful), leave a comment on this post. I'm gonna send something little along with it, just as a thank you for taking these fabrics off of my hand, so I want you to put in your comment what you might sew with these scraps, and what your favorite color is (although I'm not making any promises that it will be included in your surprise). You have until Monday, January 24 at midnight to comment, then I'll randomly select the winner. The pieces are all around fat quarter size - some a little bigger, some a little smaller. I will ship this anywhere. Anywhere. Or I'll bring it to your door with my 4x4 if you live close enough.

And why would I need to use my 4x4? Well......

We've gotten some snow lately. I don't know what measurement it's at for snowfall, but I do know that the piles I've made by shovelling my driveway are over my head. The above picture was taken before we got the last 10" or so, too. I like this picture 'cause there is a cornice on top of the gate. This is our deck, and there is 12" or so of snow on top of the railing, and about 2' on the deck itself. I love it.

I love it because it makes me feel all warm and cozy and like I should be sewing. So I did.

This is a quilt top for my darling niece... more story coming later.

My other skills...

I have 2.5 kids in school (kindergarten counts as half), and all my kids are so blessed to have completely wonderful teachers. There have been some issues lately that have affected them, causing extra work for these wonderful teachers. So, I decided to bake them all something.

I'm a half decent baker. Give me a recipe, and I will modify it to taste good almost every time. Usually my modifications are born out of necessity, not any stroke of baker's genius. Case in point: This morning I decided to skip the grocery store and deal with it tomorrow. I got home from the morning school run and wanted to quickly bake some treats for the kids to have as school treats and after school snacks. Half the ingredients were in the mixer for a poppyseed loaf when I realized I was out of milk (it had been on my list that I decided could wait for tomorrow). Not a problem. One and a half cups milk became half a cup of sour cream and one cup of water. I moved on. The last ingredients in the recipe were almond extract and butter flavoring. I always have almond extract in the house and never have butter flavoring in the house (I'm not so good at pre-reading the recipe). A quick check of the pantry revealed mere drops left in the almond extract. So, I used the remainder of that, and threw in some maple flavoring. The poppyseed loaf turned out so delish that I made a mental note to not follow the recipe next time (writing down the changes would be too easy - I like to challenge myself with the mental notes). My husband complains that the exact same recipe will turn out to be a completely different dish each time I make it. I don't see the problem - they are all delicious, right? Variety is the spice of life....etc, etc, yada, yada....

I digress. I baked for the teachers. French bread. 50% whole wheat, 50% white. I followed the recipe ( I think I have this recipe memorized already, I've made it so often). It turned out beautifully, like always. It was still warm when the teachers got it. 5 points for me!!



However, there was one small problem. One of the teachers is a celiac. I'm always up for the challenge. Recently my husband was diagnosed with something that makes us have to cut almost all meat out of his diet. So, for the most part, we eat as vegetarians (except at Christmas, we cheat then). I know that it gets frustrating when there aren't options for him, so I wanted to do something nice for this particular teacher. Chocolate mousse, anyone??

I'm not gonna lie to you, I scraped out the bowl and licked up every remaining morsel. It was goooooood. And yes, I know that chocolate mousse isn't a baked item. I'm a half decent cook, too. Just saying. Also, those are scraps from quilting tied around the lids. It probably didn't really help with the appearance of the jars, but I wanted something pretty-ish wrapped around the top and was running out of time.

Now, if there are any other vegetarians out there, or anyone who wants to get a few more veggies in their diet, here are my favorites so far: Lettuce wraps (the lettuce used as the wrap with a bunch of stirfried veggies and noodles as a filling, use hoisin sauce to season), African Peanut Soup (look it up on allrecipes.com), and Potato Curry (I actually just throw whatever vegetables I have on hand into a pan and add one can of mushroom soup, almost 1/4 c curry powder, small splash of mustard, maybe some ginger and garlic.... and serve over rice).

Do you have any good recipes for me?

The long return...

Forewarning: This post is loaded with images. If you come here to read primarily about quilts, feel free to scroll all.....the....way....down.... Otherwise, be prepared to read all about my family.

I inadvertently took a long Christmas break. It's been two weeks (!!) since my last post. I don't blame you for being annoyed - I am slightly annoyed too (only at myself). But I'm back now, and one of my New Year's resolutions is to be more constant with my social media opportunities.... so here's to that!

We have only had one ornament calamity this Christmas. Sadly, it was a dear one....

I should be knocking on wood right now, since the decorations have yet to come down and be put away (hopefully later today). This is my youngest's Christmas ornament from two years ago, and she was overly eager to help decorate the tree. Glass ornament and hard floor met, and tears resulted from mommy and daughter. I really need to grow up when dealing with these kind of things.

Remember the quilt that I finished in the last post? Had I mentioned that it was a gift for my Dad? He had asked for one, but had been told that it wasn't going to happen for Christmas.

This look makes the extra work to surprise him totally worth it.

I don't know how it is with the men in your life, but I find it difficult to elicit a large level of excitement from them over gifts they have received. So, with the photographic evidence from the picture above, and the picture below, I will chalk this Christmas up as a success in the "eliciting excitement over gifts" category.

This is my husband expressing his happiness over the box of cigars that were brought back from Dominican Republic for him by my parents.

While at my parents, my sister took the opportunity to try out the new equipment for her camera that she got as a gift. I happily obliged by allowing my children to be photographed....

Khyler

Campbell

Graydon

Scarlett

Our Christmas days (we have three days to celebrate with different families) were spent happily in the most predictable ways. Eating, visiting, playing outside, hunting for a gift in an elaborate scavenger hunt my wonderful in-laws planned, playing games.....

And overall relaxing..... (a sleepy boy, what is better??)....

The week between Christmas and New Year's was spent doing as little of the activities that resemble normal life as possible. I treasured the days off with the kids, and made a point to steer clear of the sewing room (as much as I love quilting, I needed the quantity of time with my family).

We spent three nights, including New Year's Eve, out at sled camp. I can't help but relax when I'm there. Last time we hadn't brought the sleds out, but this time we had five. We took the kids on a trail ride to see Kakwa Falls. I didn't bring my camera along for fear that it would get broken (I'm not such a great sledder and didn't trust myself not to crash the sled and in the process wreck my camera... Writing this down makes me feel a little silly...). The falls were frozen, and since I didn't have a camera, go here to see approximately what they looked like. For some reason, I had expected them to look like water falls perfectly frozen straight down, without that huge pile of ice leading up to the top. I guess I hadn't put too much though into it.... You learn something new every day.....

The kids thought it was fun just to sit on the sleds....

And pretend they were racing off into the great unknown on their own.....

My parents came out to spend New Year's Eve with us.

And we made sure to teach the kids some important fire safety and outdoor skills (aka fireworks at 8:30 pm).

Our New Year's Day brunch.... Tower o' Pancakes.

That's all I have for our Christmas break. Now those of us who live in this area settle in for the long hibernation that lasts until the snow melts in April....

Now, finally, for those of you who scrolled all the way down for the quilty goodness. This last week has been a stretching one for me on the creative end. I took on a quilt intended as a birthday gift for a friend, ordered by her husband (who felt very proud of himself for knowing she wanted this). I love custom projects, and I love a challenge, but once again I found myself questioning my sanity while attempting to quilt a queen size quilt on a standard machine. I can only handle a queen size about three times a year, because by the end of it I am ready to never see a sewing machine again! Okay, that's exaggeration..... That feeling goes away once it is done and I see the finished product - beautiful as always (sorry if that sounds braggy). I learn something every time that I stretch myself, though... so I think I need to keep on making it difficult for myself.

The finished quilt - picture taken before the sun had come up since it came out of the dryer half an hour before this picture and had to be delivered half an hour after this picture. Talk about cutting it close...

Final measurements were approximately 100" x 100". Mammoth. This is why there is no full picture of it. I learned something else too - I don't have a 100" x 100" spot in my house to lay out a quilt. That makes life interesting when one is trying to baste a quilt by stretching it out on the floor. Mental note made....

Here is a detail of the binding. I tried something new - the zig zag. I'm digging it. You?

Close up of the piecing. The quilted lines are purposefully very organic and randomly spaced (I guess I feel like I need to point out the purposefully part so that you don't think I can't sew a straight line for the life of me).

I'd like to do a post with a collage of all the quilts that I completed in 2010. My goal (or last year's New Year's resolution) was to finish 20. I know I passed that goal, but I don't know by how many. This year I plan to try new patterns and techniques, as well as expand my online presence. Any requests for things/quilts you'd like to see?

I've learned so much these past three months - that's about when I got quite busy with custom orders. Timing, my likes/dislikes, my kids' ability to put up with my work schedule..... The learning curve has been steep, and there are a few people that I could not have coped without as I added this sometimes full-time job to my already full-time stay-at-home mom position. My sister, Erika, has often insisted (against my protests) that I drop off a kid or two at her house so I can get my work done. My mom has randomly picked up a child or two and dropped off miscellaneous groceries. My dear friend Dara (please check her out here) has been a faithful ear for venting about home-based business start-ups. And Krista, whom I think of as a sister, has fully acted like family and stayed my friend even when I haven't had the time to act like one.

I'd like to thank you, my readers, for simply reading my ramblings... I like this thing we got going.

More soon....