Really?

So it's two days until Christmas, and I don't have anything that needs to be done right now! Sure, the house could use a good vacuuming, but overall it is picked up enough that I don't care. And ALL MY PROJECTS ARE DONE!!! This never happens! The baking is done and cleaned up, all the presents made and wrapped, and most importantly, all the shopping done! Even more, Zoey is napping, so I have a few minutes to just sit and do nothing! I'm debating starting to cut out a new project just for something for my hands to do since I'm feeling a bit bored and slothful! But, then I would have a new project strewn about...
Anyways, I just had to share my astonishment. I am headed over to help my mom finish up her projects after we go to Zoey's other grandma's house this afternoon to decorate cookies to leave out for Santa, so my boredom is probably short-lived. Have a very Merry Christmas all, and be back soon with the projects that couldn't go up yet!

Kirsten

O Christmas Tree

Hurray for pictures uploading!!!
So I still don't have pictures of Zoey's quilt, I am planning on doing that today. And I have another finish done that I can't post about until after Christmas... However, lest ye think I am slacking, check out what I have gotten done!
First up, I finally made my tree skirt!! 3 years in planning and there is finally something besides a red towel wrapped aroud the bottom of our Christmas tree!

I don't know how happy I am with the joins in the banding, because you can TOTALLY see them, especially in this picture (I am NOT a photographer by any means!!!), but overall I love it. The red is a faux silk with embroidered swirlys from Joanns, and the green is also from Joanns, both from the home decorating fabrics area.

Up next is a third stocking! I made mine and Spencer's for our first Christmas together, and happened to have an awesome, just the right size scrap of red fabric from work (custom drapery workroom). When I went to buy the green fabric for the tops, I decided that it should be a banding on a tree skirt too, and got enough for that and (hopefully) enough for any other stockings we will add in years to come. So, I had to get a new pretty red fabric for Zoey's stocking this year!

She gets to match the tree skirt! I had another fabric for the skirt originally; I don't remember why that didn't work out, but I'm glad, because I really like it now! And I have to figure out what to do about getting her name in this thing...It was sitting half finished and driving me crazy while I tried to work that out, and I decided it just had to get done, so she at least HAS a stocking this year, and I will figure out the name thing once the rest of my deadline stuff is done! Probably after Christmas....

Kirsten

Dumb Blogger

So why is it when I finally sit down to upload some pictures and get a new post up(because I am completely wired on Mountain Dew and have nothing else I can do at midnight...), blogger won't upload my pictures?!?!? I am annoyed. I will try again, well, I was about to write tomorrow, but who knows if I will get such a chance tomorrow! So, I will try again as soon as I get a chance! New finished projects, coming soon!

Kirsten

Deeeeaaaar Santa...

Dear Santa,
My mommy always tells me as long as I still believe in Santa, you will still bring me Christmas presents. I still believe!! So, here is my wish list this year!

I would love some of this...


Or even some of this...

This would be even better!

But THIS is what I really really want!!

So pretty pretty please bring me some pretty pretty things via FQS!!

Love,

Kirsten


ps- Merry Christmas Santa!

There really is more, I promise!

I promise I really do have things to post! I just don't have pictures of it yet....Zoey's string quilt is DONE, and I LOVE it! I am going to try to get some good pictures of it this week and get it posted. I also have another quilt that I basted tonight; it is looking pretty dang cool if I say so myself! On top of that, I got part of a Christmas stocking cut today, and part of a tree skirt, too! I have been so busy that there has been no time to post...Don't give up on me!


Kirsten

More squares

I got some more pretty fabric cut up!
And my kid just woke up.

Oh Cherry Oh Finish!

Like I said in my last post, I have had this quilt done for a few weeks. Now that I finished my books, survived the flu coming to reside at my house, and have been all around lazy, I am posting!
I love love love this quilt! The bright colors make me so happy!


I machine quilted this one with a diagonal crosshatch to mimic the lines in the fabrics. Simple, fast, and totally suits it!


I had 4 extra blocks, so they got incorporated into the back. It is hard to tell from the picture, but the main fabric on the back is the yellow and white flower print.

And Zoey has given her stamp of approval! She really did...it now needs to be washed...But she's so dang cute, I had to include this picture!

And here's the string quilt progress! All my blocks made, paper torn off, and squared up! Now it is sitting on my ironing board waiting to be pieced. I LOVE this one too!

My list of projects is growing...and most of them have a Christmas-y time limit...but this one is still at the top of my list. Because really, my kid is almost 6 months old and I haven't finished her quilt yet!

Monkey in the Middle

For some reason, Kirsten's hubby is obsessed with monkeys, so somehow, that became the theme for Kirsten's baby shower. In the past, I have made many baby quilts that were just a yard and a half each of 2 different fabrics, one for the front and one for the back. Instead of quilting, I just tied with yarn and usually used (prairie) points for the edging. Kirsten has one of these quilts that I made when she was a baby as well as one that my best friend gave me for a baby shower gift. These quilts saw lots and lots of use and love and Kirsten still has them packed away in her cedar chest. They have held up and are wonderful snuggly quilts. This was my plan for Kirsten's baby and I decided it would be fun to purchase the fabric and then use it for the table cloth for her baby shower. This was before she introduced me to the evil LQS :) So we headed to Joann's and the only cute fabric that we could find that had monkeys was decidedly NOT girly fabric. But we decided that adding the hot pink as the backing color would make the quilt girly enough. While Kirsten was settling into life with a new baby, she had lots of time to discover quilt blogs and of course, introduced me to them and I was hooked! But I was still adjusting to the random, wonky quilts that are so popular now. I was raised on structured, matchy matchy patchwork quilts. In fact, a really long time ago, I attended a "Quilt In A Day" class at my local Clothworld (now Joanns) and started making log cabin quilts using that method. Somewhere I think I still have a half finished double irish chain, but I digress. I couldn't imagine finding fabric that would go with both the monkey fabric and also the hot pink solid fabric, but then Kirsten told me about a LQS that she had discovered so I headed over there for what has proved to be a nearly weekly pilgrimage. I used to sew, LOTS, I even sewed the model garments for Clothworld's displays, so we were in fabric stores very frequently when Kirsten was little. We were there enough that by the time Kirsten was about 3 or 4, she knew my favorite fabric store as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. But I have to say I LOVE our favorite LQS! So, I found 2 other fabrics that I thought would compliment each other as well as the 2 fabrics I already had and got to work. And that was the beginning of a rekindled fabric obsession! The result was this cute quilt that I hope Kirsten and Zoey will love for a very long time.

I fussy-cut the monkeys for the "Monkey in the Middle". This is a close up of my favorite monkey on this fabric.

I had made one extra block just in case, so I decided to use it on the back. The fabric for the back wasn't quite wide enough and I love the "new" pieced backs, so I just made a checkerboard strip and surrounded it with more of the sashing fabric. And of course, I labeled it. That way in 50 years or so, Zoey's granddaughter won't have to try to figure out who made this quilt like Kirsten and I did back here.

Okay Kirsten, you can have Zoey's quilt now.

Tracy

BOO!!!!!

Okay, so this is not what Kirsten hinted that I should be posting about, but if I wait as long to post about this as I have waited to post about the cutest purse ever that I made and the quilts (yes, plural!) that I have currently in the works, then I would be posting about Halloween stuff around Christmas!

So, I got these 2 black shirts at WalMart for $7 each.


And I got this square of red felt, also at Walmart, for a quarter. (forgot to take a picture before I cut into it.)


And here's what I ended up with!
The second shirt provided the fabric for the extra "legs". I added a bit of stuffing and sewed the legs into the side seams of the shirt. Then I strung the legs at the ends with clear monofilament thread and tied that to fabric loops that I could slip over my wrists so when I moved my arms the legs moved, too. Added this to a pair of black pants and I had a cute costume for cheap and really easy to make. And I had so much fun wearing it to work today!

Tracy

Distractions

Lookie what I got tonight?? I'm so excited! 2 years is far too long to wait for a book! If you like to read and want to get sucked into a fantasy series (this is book 12 with 2 more not out yet...) I HIGHLY recommend the Wheel of Time series. Love 'em! My husband thinks I'm nuts, because I can read them over and over again.

However, I must first finish reading this book before I start on my next installment of Wheel of Time...

This one is also good, and is keeping me pretty entertained, but let's face it, I haven't been waiting for this one to come out for years :)

So, while I AM getting a bit of sewing done (mostly in the way of halloween costumes right now...), and I do have a finished quilt photographed and everything, I'm not taking time to blog it yet...just give me a few days and I will be all done with my books :)

Maybe my mom will get around to blogging about some of her many projects in my book induced absence!(hint, hint)

Kirsten

Wonk wonk, it's Chloe's quilt!

I am so excited that I finally get to post about this quilt, because it is now with its new owner! I sewed the blocks for this quilt pretty much simultaneously with these ones, cuz I was so stoked to try out some wonky quilting, and I wanted to play with more colors at once. And, since my BFF had just had a baby exactly one week after me, and another BFF was recently pregnant(she had her baby this month!), I decided they each needed a quilt, and went with the same pattern for both. Anyways, here is Chloe's quilt, finished!

Front of quilt

This finished at appx. 50"x50", I think. The sashing is white Kona muslin. It is so soft, I love it! I like it more than regular Kona cotton, its much softer, and with a 50% off coupon from Joanns, not too pricey! Various fabrics, mostly scraps, leftovers, and a few bits of fat quarters to add some more prints in the blocks. The binding is solid pink.

Back of quilt

I really really like the back of this quilt. I can't decide if I like the front or the back better...

I hand embroidered both Chloe's name and two butterflies meandering along the sashing. You can also see the quilting a bit in this photo, it is a loopy design all over. My free motion quilting is definitely improving! There were many fewer spots that make me wince on this project!

Close up of one of the butterflies.

The other butterfly is opposite colored. So much fun to add these kinds of things to quilt tops!

This quilt is now in its new, good home, where I am sure it will be well loved for hopefully a long time!

Quilt Festival - Fall 2009 (part deux)

Well, I wasn't going to post a quilt for this festival because 1. most of the older quilts I have made have been gifts and I never even considered taking photos of them and 2. most of my newer quilts are either wips or ufos. But I was talking about it with Kirsten and she convinced me that I should go ahead and post this quilt.

When I was about 13, I had a Young Women's leader at church that encouraged all the girls in her class to make a quilt. This was in 1976, America's Bi-Centennial year, so I chose a very patriotic theme for my quilt. It is actually a 9 patch inside a huge 9 patch. My mom used acrylic paints and painted the pictures in each of the large white squares. I'm sure my mom also helped with most of the sewing to piece the top of this quilt. The square with the Beehive was for the Young Women's class I was in at the time, the Salt Lake LDS Temple represented my church friends, the tree represented my family, the schoolhouse represented my school friends and the star in the center was the Bi-Centennial Star that was everywhere in the U.S. that year. I took the squares to church, school, and to my family members and had friends and family sign their names in sharpie marker. As a class, we gathered to help each other tie our quilts. My leader worked at a place in Arizona that was called Pioneer Arizona or Pioneer City. It was a model of an old pioneer town, sort of a museum, and people could go there to see how things "used to be", so some of us got to take our quilts out there and we dressed in period clothing and set up the quilts on frames inside one of the houses and tied the quilts while people came around and talked to us.

Spread out on my king size bed

Yes, that's my shadow in the picture. Don't you love the big red fluffy yarn ties?

Closer view of the center blocks.
It really is square, but standing on my bed to take the picture sort of distorted it.

Close up of the Family Tree block.

33 years later, you can still make out some of the names.

I guess these are called prairie points, but we just called them points.

The "pockets" on the dark blue fabric say "I like you, America". I still love that sentiment! I used this quilt on my bed as a teenager and it is faded and worn, and loved. It's not a fancy quilt, but the memories around making this quilt makes it one of my treasured possessions.

Tracy

Quilt Festival Fall 2009

Alright, I have been meaning to post this all week and realized I am just about out of time to do so! When I first saw Amy's (aka Park City Girl) post about the blogger's quilt festival, I wanted to join in on the fun. However, the quilt I really really would have liked to post is still in the block construction stage...So, I decided to reach back a little, and feature a quilt I made a few years ago. Here it is! I have it on my queen sized bed right now, so that gives you an idea on size.

Quilt laying on my bed

I came up with the quilt design before I had any idea what the fabrics or even colors were going to be. I just knew I wanted a new quilt for my bed! So, with design and yardage estimates in hand, off I went to Joanns (it was a while ago, I didn't even know about LQS's yet!) to pick out my fabric. Now, you have to understand, I was NOT a pink girl. Not ever my first choice for anything! But while I perused the fabric selection, I found this light pink with darker pink fleur-de-lis. It was love at first sight! I had it in my hands immediately. As I stood there, I just couldn't help drolling over the pinks(though my husband says this quilt is red, I say pink), and ended up with 4 more pink fabrics that worked great together. I was in love with the lightest 3, and so-so about the darker. I ended up at another store for the 5th fabric. (I'm still not in love with the darker 2 fabrics, but they look great as a whole!).

Close up

I pieced the top sitting on the floor in my room. That's right, on the floor. As in, my mom's sewing machine was sitting on the floor in front of me. I was 18 and crazy enough to sit on the floor through a quilt top...It helped that I had just lost my job due to poor management by the CEO (if you live in AZ and do anything outdoorsy, remember Popular? Yeah, that's where I worked..) Anyways, I had lots of time, so I got it done all the way through sandwiching it pretty fast. Then, I had the bright idea to hand quilt it. I had time, right? Yeah, I started it, and it sat for another year...Then I came across it again and pulled it back out. A few weeks later, it was finally done!

Quilt back with awful camera flash spot

I love this quilt!! It is my bed quilt right now(my husband has another one...we have issues with stealing the covers...), and it is sooo soft and comfy. Probably due to my skimpy quilting, but it works for me for now. As you can see from the above photo, the edge is rolled from the back to front, and hand stitched in place. This was before I knew anything about quilt binding, so now I want to go back and bind it, cuz the batting has shrunk away from the edge about 1/2", and the edge is starting to discolor. The backing fabric is the medium color from the top. You can also see my quilting pattern in the above picture. It is jsut a bunch of big flowers all over, looks way cool on the back. Awful pictures, I know, I had help from my 4 month old... I also have no idea what the finished measurements are, and since said 4 mo is helping me post too, I'm not going to go measure...forgive me!

Hope you all enjoy my contribution to the festival!

Kirsten

Progress!

Hurray, this quilt top is DONE! I finished it last night after the kid finally went to bed, and I ran to get my camera because I love it so much and wanted to share it right away. I pushed the "on" button on the camera, and it said "battery exhaused." Haha I think it's so funny that the battery is not dead, it is exhaused! Too much work for it, I guess. So, I had to wait until this afternoon to get pictures. Also, I live in an apartment, and the lawn guys are here today reseeding the grass, so I got to take pictures inside with bad lighting. Oh well, I'm no photographer :)

I am so excited to finish this quilt, I love it!! I had to force myself to stop sewing string blocks to sash this top, but once I got into the sashing, I got all excited again. Now, to prepare the back...

Kirsten

Fabric Giveaway!!!

Lila Tueller is having an amazing giveaway! A Layer Cake and a Jelly Roll plus a couple of her patterns thrown in! The fabric is her beautiful new line called "Eden" and just screams spring, which is when the fabric will be available in stores. Go on over to her blog and check it out. I think I see a springtime dress or 2 for Zoey (and maybe even Gramma :))

A New Project

Lookie what I started late last night? I wasn't done cutting strips, but I had to start a block just to see how it was going to look :) I am way excited for this quilt. First, I am finally starting my own kid's quilt! Second, many of the fabrics for it are Erin Mcmorris' Park Slope, which I LOVE. Every time I get another coupon for my LQS, I go get another cut of one of them(college student husband and 4 month old budget :)). Someday I will have them all! And then I will have to do something else with them, hee hee. At least I cut the sashing for my Oh Cherry Oh quilt while I was cutting strips last night though. I was procrastinating that...

Finally, I have pictures of a certain FINISHED quilt too, but I can't post them until the recipient has recieved said quilt :) So Mel, it is done!!!

Kirsten

Naptime Fun

So you know those precuts I almost got to play with the other day? Well, two more naptimes have yielded this stack of blocks! The are so bright and fun, I love it! They are still sitting in a nice stack though, because I have been working on another WIP that is now almost done! No pics yet, since its recipient reads this blog, but I have the binding sewn on, and it just needs to be stitched to the back!! So hopefully I will get to blog it by the end of the week :)

Kirsten

Other creative mediums

Since our profile says our creative mediums may change, I thought I would share some of our other creativeness.

One of my favorite things to do, when the weather here in sunny Arizona allows, is woodworking. I built this solid cherry dining room table for Kirsten as a wedding gift.


At the same time, I was also making Kirsten's wedding dress, complete with hand beaded bodice. I wanted to get a photo of her in her dress with the table, however due to trying to complete 2 major projects at the same time and with a looming due date, I decided it was more important to complete the dress before the wedding than the table. So, while the table was completely built before the wedding, in time to give it as a gift, (and I think I actually surprised Kirsten, which is really rare) the stain and final finish was not completed. We finally got the picture of the dress and table together (a picture of 3 of the best things I ever made!) but as you can see, it was taken in indoor lighting by someone who is most definitely NOT a photographer (ME). But hopefully you get the idea.


And as well as making beautiful quilts, Kirsten is also an accomplished seamstress. She made Zoey's blessing dress, which happened to be made partially out of scraps from Kirsten's wedding dress. (And let's not overlook the quilt that Zoey is laying on, made by my SIL and Kirsten's aunt, Jennifer.)


As Kirsten mentioned, Zoey isn't sleeping in her crib yet, but that's because she has this beautiful cradle to sleep in. This was so much fun for me to build and especially since most of the cradle was built from wood left over from Kirsten's table! This was probably one of my most challenging wood projects so far, since Kirsten picked a style of cradle she wanted and I couldn't find any plans, so I had to design and build it from scratch.


And the cradle is even more adorable with the bedding that Kirsten made for it. And you can't tell from the pictures, but the skirt on the cradle and the skirt of Zoey's blessing dress were from the same piece of fabric. We like to be thrifty in our crafting :)

Come back and visit again as we post more beautiful things that we are constantly making!
Tracy

Oh Cherry Oh, Oh my!

Looky what I was about to break into until naptime was suddenly over! More to come on that after a few more naptimes! And guess what I found at my most favoritest LQS? Oh Cherry Oh yardage in the CLEARANCE section! That's right, clearance! So I decided I needed the rest of the 4 bolts that were almost gone. And how much of a discount did I get? 50% maybe? 60 you might think? Nope! Between a sale and end of bolt discount, I got it for 65% off! That's right, SIXTY FIVE PERCENT OFF!!!! I was sooo excited. And I restrained myself from getting other cuts of it, but I don't know how long I will hold out until I have to have what they have left...Mom got 1/2 yard of all of them they had left :)

On another note, I finally finished Zoey's crib bedding! Yes, she is already 3 1/2 months old...But she's not sleeping in her crib yet, so it hasn't been neccesary yet. I have actually had them done for maybe a month, but I hadn't gotten the foam for them yet, so they sat...and sat...But now they are done!!!

Notice the solid sides, no corner posts, and large center section on the back of the crib. Nowhere to tie to! I had to figure out how to construct these so they would stay in place. I ended up making two separate bumpers, each with a long and short section. That way, the long sections with ties would hold up the short sides without. We will see how well they hold up.

Another awesome part of these is that all the green and brown is leftovers from work (custom drapery workroom), and I bought the pink at Joann's like 5 years ago when I found it in the red tag bin for $3 a yard and couldn't pass it up.

The green is the softest velvet you have ever felt. I want to make a throw with it eventually(I have a lot more), because it is sooo dang amazing.

And a shot of the fat quarter stash in the drawer...Who would've thought a crib drawer would make perfect fat quarter storage? My machine is just to the left of the picture.

I need to get more nursery shots, cuz I have some awesome draperies up in there too, but I need to finish a few more things up first. So, coming soon!

Now, maybe I can go test out those bumpers and see if the kid will let me play with fabric...She's sucking on my thumb right now...

Kirsten

Giveaway!!!

Head on over to Piece N Quilt and sign up for their give away for an adorable Soiree Market bag and check out their store while you are there!

Vintage Quilts

Since this blog is supposed to be mine and Kirsten's, she seems to think I need to actually add some posts. Well, this weekend, we went to visit my parents and I realized how many quilts my mom has and that I had no idea where any of them came from or who made them. We gathered them all up and made a pretty stack of them and then the adorable Zoey consented to pose in front of them.
Now, here is the stack without Zoey. There were 11 quilts in all. We brought them all out for my mom to help identify them. Some of them were made by my Great Grandma Wiig. Some she wasn't sure where they came from or who made them. It really made me realize the importance of labeling quilts.

Thanks to the assistance of my husband, son, son-in-law and Kirsten, we were able to photo all the quilts. Get ready for photo overload! You will notice that many of these quilts have been well loved and were well used and could all probably use a good cleaning.
This one was machine pieced, hand appliqued, and hand quilted. We believe it was a gift from my Grandma James to my parents and was possibly finished by some ladies in Southerland, Nebraska.
This double wedding ring was a wedding gift to my grandma Cox from her mom, who was my great grandma Wiig. It was machine pieced and hand quilted. Friends and relatives wrote their names on the quilt and then the names were embroidered.
This was the embroidered signature of my grandma's aunt.
This Texas Star was was made by grandma Wiig. It was machine pieced and hand quilted.
This one was machine pieced and quilted and we don't know where it came from.
This one was my favorite. It was made by grandma Wiig. It is hand pieced and quilted. And my sweet mom let it come home with me!!! I think it will be very happy in its new home and I'm so glad my mom didn't make me wait to inherit it.
Here is a little detail of the piecing and quilting. Mom thought some of the fabric in this was from flour sacks. Kirsten and I think the fabric looks a lot like the 30's reproduction fabrics that are out now.
This was made by my great grandma Wiig, for my mom. It is one of a pair that were made for my mom's 2 twin beds and were well loved. One apparently was loved to death and is no longer with us. I don't actually remember this, but my mom said my brothers and I used to fight over who got to use these quilts. This was machine pieced and quilted.
Here is a little detail. of the quilting.
This one was in my grandma Thompson's things but we don't know who made it. It most likely came from Kansas. It was machine pieced, hand appliqued and hand quilted.
Here is a detail of the applique.
We don't know where this beauty came from. It was machine pieced, hand appliqued and hand quilted.
Here is a detail of the quilting.
This one is in pretty rough shape with some of the fabric worn all the way through. This is another that we don't know where it came from but it had great 30's fabrics that also looked like the repro fabrics.
This one hangs on the wall in one of the bedrooms at my parents house. It was hand pieced and hand quilted by my grandma Wiig. Don't those look like perfect circles?
Here is a close up of the amazing hand quilting and piecing.
And finally, another that we don't know where it came from. This one was in really rough shape with many of the fabric pieces completely worn through. Since it was so worn, I could see that it didn't have batting, but rather had a flannel sheet in the middle. I love how the fans make it look like it's moving and it was the softest quilt in the collection.

I'm torn in my feelings about whether these beautiful old quilts should be restored and the worn pieces replaced or if they should just be cleaned and carefully loved and preserved as they are, with their original, if worn out, fabrics. What would you do?

Tracy