Yay Finishes!

A week of finishes. All drawstring bags were made with this tutorial.

I had an extremely busy sewing week! Above is a little mosaic of everything I completed. From top to bottom, left to right: 1. Sister's Ten BOM February block; 2. Quilted shift boot cover; 3. Drawstring bag; 4. Skill Builder BOM "Mood" block; 5. Quilted Skill Builder BOM "Magnum" block; 6. Quilted Skill Builder BOM "Sound Wave" block; 7. Skill Builder BOM "Em Dash" block; 8. Drawstring bag for my dad; 9. Drawstring bag for my boss's birthday.

WOW. Seeing it all together makes me feel pretty proud. I got so much done this week! And this isn't even everything I did... I also completed all the blocks for my sister's Kitchen Window quilt and started sewing them together! Here's the next in the "to be sewn into rows" pile:

It's turning out so good! Just like I imagined it. And I was very careful with all the directional animals and cut them so that they would be facing the right direction for both vertical and horizontal windows. It's going to be fabulous! I wish I could stay home and work on this all day, but today is the last day at my part time job. It would be sad to miss it! I think I can at least get the top done this weekend so I'll post a nice picture of it when it's done :) My sister's birthday isn't until mid April, so this is going to be done super early!

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts! What a good week for finishes. Now to go look at all the other eye candy until work time!

Experimentation

Hey, it's Friday!

I don't know where the time goes. Well, that's not entirely true. A lot of it goes to fabric and yarn... a bit to cooking, a bit to dog-care, a bit to movie watching with the boyfriend. But it all seems to go by too fast, doesn't it?

At least I have something to show for the week. Mario (the boyfriend) has been asking me to make him a new shift boot for weeks now. What is this, you ask? Well, it's the little thing that covers up the the hole in a manual car where the shifter comes up from the transmission tunnel. I don't know how newer cars work, but on older cars there is often a sort of utility cover made of rubber or something (which he has) and then a piece of cloth or leather over that to make it look nice (which he doesn't have).

This is what I had to work with for a pattern:

Not pretty, huh? This is what 25+ year old leather looks like when you take it out of your car. All of the pieces were sewn together in a sort of pyramid and then attached to the plastic ring, with goes around the bottom of the rubber shift boot. (Side note- all of my pictures are going to suck today. It's dark in the desert with rain clouds hovering over our head). So, using these, here is my first attempt:

He chose the fabric himself from Joann. It was Halloween fabric, too, so it was on sale for super cheap. It's really not perfect. The top definitely needs to be stitched better next time (I only took pictures of the "good side" so just imagine the horror of the other side...) and I think I'll make the whole thing a little taller so it is easier to sew onto the plastic ring. I will also be changing the order in which I sew things together to hopefully make it easier on myself. Once again, I didn't bother to check and see if there were any tutorials online for this sort of thing. But it was a great learning experience! I am going to make another one. Apparently he wants it quilted. Good thing I bought more fabric than I needed!

So that was a fun experience. I also finished up my second January block for the Skill Builder BOM (link in sidebar). 

I know, terrible dark picture. I tried! But now they are both ready to go! I really like how they both turned out and it was so much fun making them! I didn't really have a plan for either of them. I just messed with fabric and rearranged stuff until I liked it. It was really a lot of fun sewing this way and will definitely be doing it again in the future :) 

Those were my finishes for the week! I also made a good dent in my Hounds Tooth quilt. I still have about half of my stripey squares to press, but I needed a break. I think I might just square a few blocks up and sew a few together to see what it looks like. I'm getting more and more excited about it!

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts! Did you finish anything this week?

The Sound Wave and Other (non)News

Confession: I didn't get much done this weekend. Not just with sewing. In all realms.

My excuse? Well, Saturday my back was hurting. I think I popped something out of place Friday while I was helping to carry a year's worth of journals to the recycling bin. So I did very little Saturday except watch Downton Abbey and sulk because all I really wanted to do was sew but leaning over my cutting table and sitting in front of my machine hurt too much. But that night- a miracle! After trying unsuccessfully to make myself feel better all day- trying to pop my back and sitting with ice packs and popping pain killers- all I had to do was roll over in my sleep. Then- POP! It woke me up, sure, but the sweet feeling of release made me not mind so much.

So Sunday I got to sewing! I had a lot of other stuff to do, too, like shopping and wandering around thrift stores and working and a crocheted blanket for my sister... but I did get something done!

Sound Wave block- Skill Builder BOM at Pile of Fabric

Yeah! The first of January's blocks! I was super proud of myself. I know my seam allowances aren't always a perfect scant 1/4" so I fiddled and fiddled and taped and fiddled... tried different feet and different widths. But FINALLY I figured out my new machine's sweet spot. And I used painter's tape to mark it as a guide so from here on out it will be much easier to achieve the perfect seam allowance. I'm so glad I took the time to do this. My block didn't end up a tiny bit too small for once! I was so proud. I know the picture isn't great. I was trying to angle it to catch the last of the light so you could see the colors. The colors are pretty decent. But the rest of the picture is pretty awful!

I have since added borders to this, though I haven't added backing or batting for the QAYG. I haven't actually made a decision about backing... so I'm dragging my feet. The Magnum block is also almost finished, so I will post more pictures when I get it done! :)

I am hoping this week yields more sewing time. I really need to get moving on the Hounds Tooth quilt if I want to get it done in any sort of timely manner. I'm not letting myself start a new quilt until I make some real progress on it. Of course, I am still allowing myself to do small projects... and I bought some little zippers... so we'll see how far I get on that promise to myself.

Linking up to Fabric Mutt who is hosting the Let's Get Acquainted Monday link up today! Have you been over there? I love Heidi's blog! And she has lovely pictures of her sewing space up today. I should organize mine better so I won't be so ashamed of showing it to people... Some day! Have a great week!