The Final Countdown Challenge

 Happy New Year, everyone! I'm looking forward to a productive year of sewing. Hope you are, too!

To get the year off to a great start, I love to participate in the Final Countdown Challenge hosted by Shelly of Prairie Moon Quilts. It runs until January 7th, when she'll do the drawings for prizes, so it's not too late to jump in and by doing so, you'll have a more organized creative space to enjoy!

You can read all about it HERE

So for the first task: Clear off your main work surface.

Mine was fairly tidy as it's just a small drafting table.

 So I picked the very first task Shelly posted 12 years ago when she started doing this challenge, and it was to put a binding on a quilt. I found a very old UFO that has been sitting on a shelf, waiting for it's binding. 

I'm still working on finishing this up.

For the second task: Clean up the fabric storage and stray fabric piles. 

I decided to move my fabrics from a cupboard to a wall storage unit, where I'd had books and magazines. This is how it looks now:

It may look messy, but seeing scraps and fabrics just makes me happy, and helps motivate me to create something, so I wanted to see them more; crazy as that sounds! Now most of my fabrics are in this corner, except for bulkier fabrics and on-going projects that have their designated fabrics boxed up with them. I purged a lot of my fabrics this year, and want to continue to use up what I have.

And this is where my fabrics had been stored. It is a cupboard that my grandfather made in 1974. I think it will work better to store the books and magazines.

For the third task: Take stock/organize/deal with unfinished projects. 

I've been working on this the past year, going through my projects and deciding what I wanted to keep or discontinue making. Those that I did want to continue with, I have boxed up in clear totes, labeled and put under my cutting table. I'd really like to complete many of them, this year.

They are all listed here, except for a few small random projects. I sure hope to make some progress on them this year!

So this is my sewing room now, all cleaned up, thanks to Shelly's challenges:

Left side of room:

Right side of room, where my design board is:

I really do enjoy this challenge each year. I find it fun, too, in that I can look back and see how I've arranged things in the past. It's also nice reading and getting ideas from other's on how they store and manage their creative spaces. I love peeking into other's sewing room's!

So if you have some time to organize your creative space over the next few days, hop on over to Shelly's blog and join in on the fun! 

And a big thank you to Shelly, for doing another year-end challenge and getting our New Year off to a great start!

Gifts made in 2019

This past year wasn't a productive year for me, in terms of finishing projects, but I did do alot of piecing, and making of blocks for quilts. So hopefully in 2020, I'll be able to show some finished quilts.

Gifts that I did finish:
Knitted scarf:

Yarn was called Infinity by Red Heart and I used the pattern that came with it.

Wool hat:

Yarn was Patons Classic Merino wool. You can find the pattern for it HERE. 

Table runner:

Fabrics include Country Orchard by Blackbird Designs for Moda, Larkspur by 3 Sisters for Moda and scraps. I adapted an old pattern I had, to make it smaller.

And Ornaments that my 11 year old made:

You can find the video for making these, HERE. It was good practice for her, as there is both machine stitching and some hand work, to make them.

Now, going into 2020, I need to rearrange and tidy up my sewing space. What better way, than to join in on Shelly's of Prairie Moon Quilts, Final Countdown challenges! You can read all about it HERE. It starts today! I've done this many times now, and it's a great way to start the New Year off! Come join the fun!

Thanks for dropping by!

2018 Final Countdown Challenge

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been working on Shelly's Final Countdown challenges for a few days.  It's a great way to start the year off with a tidy sewing space. The three tasks are to:

- clean off your main work surface.
- deal with a pile.
- preform a project assessment.

So after cleaning off several work surfaces and moving numerous piles, my room finally looks like this:

After assessing my project list, I realized that the reason why many of my projects are not finished, is because I had no room to do the quilting part of it, without moving a lot of things. (The machine I mostly quilt with, is inside the desk that is in the foreground. I could not open it up, where it was previously). My desks and sewing machine were against the back wall.  This lead me to start moving things around, and now I have the tables in the center. After having it this way for a few days now, I wonder why I hadn't done this sooner?! I really like it this way!

As for the piles of things I had around, they were mostly bins, which I made space for on the shelving unit I have behind my design board (the design board just slides back and forth easily.) And one shelf now holds most of my works-in-progress. I'm going to try to keep to just having these for my projects on the go.

Another change I made was to fit in another storage unit.  I just love these units (I buy them from Home Depot) and have various sizes throughout the house.  I find the collapsible canvas storage boxes are so handy to use. I love that I can label them, too.

Thank you, Shelly for doing this challenge again!  It's been fun and very helpful for me to do, and gets 2019 off to a great start!  

Final Finishes of 2018

My 10 year old daughter made the following gifts for Christmas:

Two mug rugs:

She made them completely herself, choosing the fabrics, pressing and sewing them entirely on her own.  For the larger one, she used a paper foundation, which she tore off after sewing the strips together.  Then did the machine embroidery to quilt it to the batting. After that, she added the backing, turned it right-side-out and topstitched it all around the edge. Makes it so much faster, than having to add a binding. 

A bookmark:

She made this for an elderly neighbor who enjoys reading.  For this one, she didn't use any batting on the inside.

For my gifts, I made:

An apron for my Mom:

I just used one of her old aprons as a pattern.  It's the same fabric on the back, so it's reversible. And it makes it easier to add the straps this way, as I just tacked them in place, before turning it right-side-out and topstitching all around.

Knitted hat for my husband:

This tote, that I'd made earlier in the year for my daughter, worked out well to hold the project. I'll definitely have to make another one for myself now.

I used some handspun wool yarn that I'd bought a few years ago, for this. The pattern is a free pattern found on Ravelry, called Handspun Ribbed Hat. I think I tend to knit tightly, so next time, I'll add a few more stitches when I cast on. But hubby loves it and finds this type of hat nice and warm.

Now I'm busy tidying up my sewing space, as Shelly of Prairie Moon Quilts is challenging us to do in the 10th Annual Final Countdown Challenge.  You have until the 7th to get the tasks done and be eligible for prizes.  I've done it many times and it's such a great way to kick off the New Year, with a better organized sewing space.  So there's still time...join in the fun!

Thanks for dropping by and happy stitching!

An easy baby quilt

I wanted to make a baby quilt for my niece recently, and didn't have a whole lot of time to get it done in. I'm really glad that I found this pattern in my files, called Speedy Baby 2 by Deslynn Mecham.  I wanted to provide the link for other's and give credit where credit is due, so I found it still available for free HERE  on her blog called taffy talk.
I think it's a great pattern for a quick quilt or for a beginner quilter. It would also make a great I Spy quilt for a child. With a charm pack and some yardage, it comes together easily.  I chose to use my most favorite line, called Aviary by 3 Sisters for Moda.
I have limited pictures of the process and final quilt, as I was rushing to finish it on time.  But here are a few:
The finished quilt:

Since it was only 45" square, then I was able to baste it by pinning, on the floor. I use curved basting pins to do this.

I only had time for some basic quilting, so I just stitched in the ditch around each border. I used my ironing board on the left side, to help support it as I stitched.  This worked out well. 

 The only change in the pattern I had to make because of the amounts of fabric I had, was to make the first border, into two borders. 

Hopefully my niece will enjoy using it, for her baby girl!

Thanks for dropping by and happy stitching!

Yes, I do like making pincushions!

I enjoy taking a handful of scraps, and seeing what I can make out of them.  So recently, I took some scraps that I had left over from another project...

And using THIS great tutorial found on Crazy Mom Quilts blog, I made this block:

And it just had to become a little pincushion.

For the backing, I decided to keep on with the scrap piecing, and ended up with this for the back:

So scrappy, so fun, to use and make something functional from bits that I could have just tossed.  I'm glad I didn't. 

Thanks for stopping by!

A Jean quilt

I had seen THIS tutorial a few years ago on the blog Piece N Quilt, and had thought what a great idea!  Since I do enjoy re-purposing clothes, especially jeans, I had lots of old jeans from my family, to choose from. And the recommendation to just tear your strips by hand, was an excellent one!  It really does make it very easy to make your strips of denim. After I had pieced it, I had shelved the project various times for different reasons, but now, I can happily say it is done!

For the backing, I used a cotton camo print that I had on-hand.

It is a heavy thing, even though I did not use thick batting in the middle. I chose a thick flannel for the middle instead, just for added warmth.  But in hind sight, that may not even have been necessary.

I did include two pockets, one from my son's pants and another from my husbands'.  I especially liked this one, because it has my husband's name, Edwin, on it!  He wore those jeans a ton!

 I had intended on using the camo print for the binding, but only had a small amount leftover. So I used strips of denim combined with the camo fabric, for the binding. I had planned on doing the binding all by machine, so I attached it first to the back, then I pressed the seam allowance towards the center and I was able to complete the sewing of the binding on the front by machine.

I rather like the outcome, as to me, it just looks like top-stitching on both the front and back.  I will definitely be doing this again with other quilts.  It sure beats sewing it on the back all by hand, like I usually do!

So in summary, for myself to remember for the next time, as I would like to make more:
-tear jean strips
- chose wide range of denims for contrast
- use a walking foot and jean needle
- use long straight stitch
- sew binding on back first

Thanks for dropping by and happy stitching!