a doll quilt

I started this doll quilt back in October. I was at my sister's house, without my fabric stash and I was desperate to sew. I had a few pieces of fabric with me that I was going to pawn off on my sister if she wanted them. (She didn't.) So here's the fabric, in doll quilt form.

For the quilting, I branched out. I was going after this look. It didn't go well. At all. I was tempted to throw the whole thing away and forget I ever made it. But, I persevered because I am a die hard finisher. I washed and dried it, and much to my delight, it looks a little better now. My daughter uses it for her baby. So success, after all.

Working on a doll quilt scale is a challenge for me. I much prefer lap quilts. But I do like the challenge of working out of my comfort zone. It's also a great size to try out new techniques. Even if they do bomb completely. ;)

stash

For the life of me, I couldn't decide what to blog about today. I'm working on a quilt and writing a pattern (!!!), so I can't reveal it yet. I'm finding out that pattern writing is hard! But even worse is trying to figure out yardage requirements-that's almost more than I can handle.

In my post on Monday, I had a question about what my stash looks like right now.
This is just for you, Debbie in Wa.

I've been working on stash busting, and I think I've been doing pretty well.

These are 1 yard pieces or less.
I'm excited, because I'm down to only two drawers of fabric.

I use the happy zombie's folding method for these pieces. I love it!

Then I have this large stack...my "flat folds", as I call them.

These are yard and a half pieces or larger.

I don't want to know how many yards are in this stack.

Many many yards.

These are set aside because they will eventually become a king size quilt for my bed.
This is going to be one girly quilt.

My husband will be so pleased. ha!

This stack alone is about 10-11 yards.

Then I have my charm pack stash-they are from various lines.

I LOVE charm packs!

I feel like my stash is pretty well under control.

Or am I in complete denial?

And then there are my scraps.

Now they are out. of. control.

a beanie for my baby

my silly baby, that is.
tutorial here.
thank you, leslie!!!

i am weak

Last January I tried to not buy fabric for the entire month.
I was successful.
So I thought I would try it again this year.
I only made it 20 days.

First off, I bought some simplicity charm packs. I had a moment of panic thinking, "What if they are all sold out and I miss out buying some of this beautiful fabric forever???" Oh, I shudder to think of that happening! My plan is to make another quilt much like my Christmas charm quilt with these. They came from the fabric shack.

I went to Joann's last night and I walked out with about 24 yards of fabric.

(I'm finding that it's better to NOT caluclate these things...)

The reds and blue will go into this quilt. I think.

I bought the rest of the bolts of both the orange and the grey.

I'm planning new bed quilts for my boys.

They are very excited.

They love orange as much as I do. :)

These fabrics I first saw on Anna's blog.

They are from the Darla line by Tanya Whelan. They are delicious!!!! I purchased these with a gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop that I received from one of my blog readers. Isn't that the sweetest thing ever? Thank you so so much, Edith!!!

Now please excuse me. I have a LOT of sewing to do...

knitting

thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the nice comments on my snippets quilt! i appreciate each and every one. my son saw it on the wall when he came home from school and he said, "i like the other one better." i had to laugh. he likes change about as much as his mama does. :)
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i've been knitting. a lot. it's been crazy cold here, so i have a good reason to finish up all these projects. the sooner the better!

mistake stitch scarf

i love the texture...it's an easy knit...and the name...could you ask for anything better? i mean, it's got mistake in the title! that's my kind of knitting project. :) i'm nearly done with this one...(this photo was taken a few weeks ago). oh, and the fact that it's pink AND orange makes me giddy.

chunky knit beanie

i had this yarn on hand and it was intended for a scarf, but that didn't work out.
so it's going to be a hat for my daughter instead.
this is my second try. i knit it in the round the first time and it had obvious problems. (i'm a rookie.) this time i am knitting it flat, then i will sew it up. it's looking much better. (yay)

my so called scarf

this is for my neighbor mary. she picked out the yarn + color. isn't it fabulous? i knit this pattern once before in orange and i gave it to heather. (she finally started a blog!) next time i knit this scarf pattern, i'm keeping it. :)

toasty mitts

i am beyond excited about these....i LOVE fingerless gloves. i can't believe that i'm actually knitting on DPN's!

if these mitts work out, i can see having a collection of them in every color imaginable.

thank you leslie for sharing such great patterns!

this is my first attempt at a sock. it's supposed to be a spiral knit sock (therefore no heel) but it's not working out quite right. i'm going to keep trying.

after i'm finished with all of these, i have several requests from my boys for scarves and hand warmers. too bad their favorite color of yarn is camo. we might have to negotiate that one.

snippets

normally, i'm not one to hang quilts on the walls.
but i am slowly changing my mind.
this quilt really helps to persuade me to do so!
it's too white for a baby quilt. or a throw.
but perfect for my front entry wall.

this is the back-i LOVE the one little strip of patchwork.

this quilt is all scraps, except for the binding-i even pieced the batting.

all the little colored bits were pieces that were minuscule, but i still couldn't bear to throw them away. i'm so glad that i didn't! that being said, this was a very intense quilt to piece. it took me a long time.

i stitched a sleeve to the top, then inserted a dowel for hanging.

most of the colored scraps are only about 1" wide.

i quilted it on the diagonal using a walking foot and 2" wide tape for marking the lines. i chose a grid pattern for a few reasons: there are so many seams both in the front and the back-i was afraid that it would get bunchy if i stippled it. plus, stippling is hard on my arms. the straight line quilting (especially on this scale) was much easier. actually, i think jacquie is rubbing off on me. ;) she does gorgeous grid quilting.

the final piece measures 32" x 47".

again, the tutorial is here.

I LOVE this quilt!!!!!!!!!

whirlygiggle

the top is done! isn't it fun?

it is a twin size. (the layout is 6 blocks wide by 8 blocks long.)

i can't wait to see it quilted!

whirlygiggle measurements

here are the measurements i used for the whirlygiggle blocks.

the width is 5 3/4"
the height on the left side is 3 3/4"
the height on the right side is 2 3/4"

i made another template (the exact same size) and labeled it for use for the bottom. because sometimes my mind plays tricks on me. and i wanted to do as little stitch ripping as possible. it worked wonderfully until i got to the solids. i had to rip stitches to repair one block. not too bad.

the tutorial for construction is here. thanks michelle!
(i used my rotary cutter and my sewing machine for construction.)
after i constructed my blocks, i needed to do a little trimming, as you can see.
final blocks ended up at 11".
the auction quilt top is almost done. yay!
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the quilt in the previous post is something i am helping my friend Darcy make from my stash and scraps. (there is no pattern-it was all pieced improvisationally.) we started it last summer and now we just have the binding to go. i didn't whip it up over night. :)
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i have had several questions about the next quilt along...it's coming...not sure when exactly, but i have the idea and a rough draft. I'm thinking it will be a baby size and will last about 4-5 weeks.


have a GREAT monday!

today's project

more stippling!

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one of my local quilt shops is having a cold weather sale. (quite appropriate, considering it was -22 F yesterday morning.) all fabrics on the bolt were 45% off yesterday. i went, walked around the store about 8 times and walked out with NOTHING! can you believe it?

heather and i are at it again

quilt blocks-11" unfinished

this time we are collaborating to make an auction quilt for our boys' school.
original inspiration quilt here.
many thanks to marie' for providing me with the measurements for the large scale blocks.

i have a feeling we are going to have a hard time letting this one go.

custom order

this was made for my friend Darcy to give to her mom for Christmas.
the fabric is from a Moda Charisma charm pack.
it veers from my normal style, but i think i like it anyway.

flea market fancy 2

Boy, it's been awhile since I finished a pink quilt. I've been slacking!!!

I love the pink line of flea market fancy fabric, and I had several large pieces of it in my stash. The only problem is that they don't match many of my other pink fabrics. Weird, I know! So I put all these pretties into one quilt. There is a little bit of Heather Bailey's Freshcut fabric and an Alexander Henry print in the mix, too.

I'm fairly happy with the results, although looking at the photos of the quilt, I see that I should have used more contrasting fabrics.

I love how the muslin crinkles after it's washed.

I used a bias stripe fabric from Moda to bind it. The print is on the diagonal, so you can cut the strips salvage to salvage, but still get the fancy looking diagonal stripes. It's perfect for binding.

For the back, I cut 11" squares and joined them into a strip, then used muslin for the rest. I love a pieced back. The nice thing about this one is it came together quickly. I liked using the large blocks a lot.

All the materials for this quilt came from my stash. That being said, I'm hoping that I can actually notice a dent in the stash sometime soon.

snippets

quilt top, measures 32" x 47"

made from 100% scraps, even the background fabric!
tutorial here
destined to be a wall hanging for my front entry way
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for those of you who asked, there is a stippling tutorial here.
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one more thing...it's Roxanne's 30th birthday, so why don't you stop by and wish her a Happy Birthday. she is the happy recipient of the first flea market fancy quilt. yay!

odds 'n ends

have you seen this blog??? i feel like i hit the jackpot when i found this site.
today i am trying out the taco soup recipe.
more crock pot use=more quilting time!!!
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several of you had asked if i could pick a favorite quilt from 2008. no, i can't. my least favorite was the green quilt. it turned out ok, but i don't LOVE it.
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in my new year's post i said i was going to make fewer lap quilts, since i have 20. did you know that all 20 of them are in use throughtout my home at this time? none are sitting in my quilt cupboard. not one. granted, my boys have 5 or 6 quilts each on their bed right now. they love quilts, just like their mama. (insert large cheesy grin here.) i just might toss out that goal...
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my daughter (2) has been calling me "sir" the last few days. she cracks me up. it makes me think that she's been watching too much Charlie Brown lately.
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and did you know...I LOVE TO STIPPLE????


i really, REALLY do.

flea market fancy 2

here's another flea market fancy quilt top.

tutorial here.

original quilt here.

as you can see, i'm not doing well with any of my goals for this year (slowing down, making something other than lap quilts, making quilts for others....). but hey, i am using my stash, so that has to count for something. i guess if they were easy, they wouldn't be called goals, right?

new wip

based on this quilt (i love this quilt!)
inspired by this color scheme (love this one, too!)

scrap rug

knit scrap rug--30" x 19"

i finally finished the knit rug that i started back in october. i first posted about it here.

materials used:

scraps leftover from cutting quilt pieces, including some selvages. ALL pieces used in this rug were originally destined for the trash can. pieces varied in width from about 1/3" -1" and were various lengths as well. (the longer the better.)
what i did:

cast on 65 stitches on size 17 needles, knitting in a simple garter stitch throughout the rug. i joined new strings as i was knitting, knotting them end to end as i went.

i am pretty happy with the result. it is very satisfying to use up every last bit of fabric. this rug is currently in one of our bathrooms. i'm going to see how it wears before starting another one. i do love the results-it feels great under bare feet. and it will match ANY color that we choose to paint our bathroom. :)

quilts of 2008

2008 was a big quilting year for me. I finished 34 quilts.

My goals for last year were:

1. Make more charity quilts.

I donated 6 quilts to the Linus Connection yesterday. I also donated two for silent auctions earlier in the year-one for a family in crisis and one to my church.

2. I have a few friends that I have known for a long, long time that don't have an Amanda-made quilt, so that needs to be remedied.

One went to Linda.
And one to Nancy. (those were the two i was hoping to cover last year.)

3. Finish the 4 quilts that I currently have in progress.

I think I did.

4. Make more quilts with triangles in them.

I made 4.

5. Make another 2 color quilt.

I was pretty close with this quilt.

6. Beyond that, I just plan to do more of the same quilting that I have been doing...scrap quilts, improvisational piecing and pretty much quilting like crazy. And working on my list.

Yes, I can safely say that I DID quilt like crazy. And it was great.
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Now, looking ahead to 2009...

I hope to make my in-laws quilts this year. Only my MIL has a quilt made by me. I think the rest of the family could use some quilts, too!

I would like to donate at least two quilts to Quilts of Valor, which is an organization that gives quilts to wounded soldiers. I found out about this program through one of my local quilt shops. What a great cause to quilt for!

I need to start making more quilts that fit beds and make fewer lap quilts. Last time I counted, I have 20 lap quilts in my house. That's a great plenty. I want to make more quilts for our beds so I can change them out with the seasons...but I'll start with changing them out twice a year. I have such a hard time committing to a color scheme and design for bed quilts, though.

And I hate to say this, but I really, really need to slow down. My arms hurt. I have been in a lot of pain due to my obsessive quilting. It scares me. I'm only 33, and I really, really don't want to have to give up this hobby of mine.

I don't really want to end this post on a down note...I am excited for the year ahead. I have given myself some time off over the holiday and am anxious to start all kinds of new quilts. I have a feeling this will be a big year for me...I'm looking forward to good things.

Happy New Year, friends.