The {Quilting} Year in Review

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. –Hal Borland

Michelle over at The Prairie Quilter did a post about the quilts she'd done this year and I thought it was a really good idea. I loved to see her beautiful work from this year all in one place, so I'm going to do the same. I had to think about what counts as a quilt and I've finally decided that anything that has batting between two layers of fabric counts, regardless of the size. So here goes.

LadyBug's High School Musical Quilt

Machine Quilting by Angie at 5 Little Monkeys Quilting

Valentine's Table Runner

Machine Quilting by Ramona at Corn Wagon Quilt Company

Scripture Covers

Hearts Knit Together Table Runner

Eternity Wall Hanging

Rainbow Sherbet Snowball Quilt

Baby Frolic Quilt

Quilt of Many Colors

Machine Quilting by Karen of Karen's Quilting Service

Art Notebooks

In all, I had 69 fabric finishes this year, among which were sixteen aprons, six Abbey bags, six vests, three dresses and two Halloween costumes. I hope you don't mind if I toot my own horn for a minute, but I think that is pretty amazing. I can't wait to see what next year holds.

Aprons № 102, 103 & 104: Pink Princesses

I believe in pink. –Audrey Hepburn

The Little Bugs 'drew' sisters for the cousin gift exchange on Mr. Bug's side of the family. And when I say 'drew,' I mean that I'm in charge of the exchange, so I list out all the cousins {all 30 of them} in the order they were born in one column and then I put the same list in the next column, only I move it down one person {and then another the next year, etc.}. Then I look it over to make sure that nobody has their brother or sister and if they do, I pull those names out and do a little rearranging so that everybody gives to a cousin. This year, I tweaked the list a little bit when rearranging so nobody had a sibling to give to, because I already had fabric {bought clear back last March} and plans for pretty pink aprons for these {three} sisters. Since we only had two of the sisters in the draw, I worked out a deal with the sister-in-law whose child had the third sister, and voila. Three pink princess aprons. You can't tell in the picture, but there is a little bit of sparkle on the pink floral print in the pockets and ruffles.

Hooray for three more December finishes!

Art Notebooks

Coloring outside the lines is a fine art. –Kim Nance

During Blogger's Quilt Festival, I came across Geta's blog and was so inspired by her beautiful work. While I was there, I found a tutorial for an Art Journal and knew that this would make a perfect Christmas gift for the Little Bugs to give to their cousins. This year the Little Bugs drew Miss Butterfly and Roly Poly on my side of the family, so that is who these went to.

All of the fabric {and batting} came from my stash; frugality was a requisite for my Christmas crafting this year. Most of the fabric I used was given to me by a cute friend who was cleaning out her stash. I really love how Roly Poly's turned out, but am not so happy with the thread choice for the quilting on Miss Butterfly's. The dark purple thread on the light fabric and the combination of loopy flowers and stippling just looks too busy. It doesn't look as messy on the dark fabric on the inside, but I'd already added the monogram so making the outside the inside wouldn't work. And since I was pressed for time and didn't have enough fabric to do a remake, I left it as it was. I do really like how the monogram initials came out, though. I did a messy free motion appliqué ala Little Miss Shabby. My technique is improving .

I made my Art Journals a little bit smaller than the directions call for to fit the little art notebooks I could find, and also changed the pockets on the inside to fit the supplies I wanted to include. I love the little ruffle across the notebook pocket and considered doing picots {prairie points} on Roly Poly's, but time was a consideration, so I skipped that. All in all, I think they turned out really fun.

These make two more finishes for December!

The One Where Elizabeth Does Machine Quilting for Hire And Decides To Make A Last-Minute Gift

The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play. –Arnold Toynbee

I have this cute friend, Pink. Pink's father-in-law passed away very unexpectedly last spring and so Pink gathered up all of his clothes and began cutting them up to make quilts {and the most adorable stuffed animals} to remember him by, as gifts for his family members. She started with a lovely quilt for her husband for his birthday. And she just finished two more quilt tops for Christmas; one for her husband's sister and one for her husband's brother. She asked me if I would machine quilt them for her. I had to stop and think about that. My sewing time is my 'therapy' time. I've done sewing for hire before and when I'm on someone else's deadline it loses all its fun-ness and becomes work and I hate it. But I decided that a little extra money for Christmas might be a good thing, so I agreed to it.

And then I procrastinated for a whole week after I got the quilts from Pink. I think I was afraid of messing them up, or possibly having it take so long that the hourly rate would be laughable {we agreed on a price per inch, like they do it at the quilt shops }. But finally the time came where I could no longer procrastinate, because if I did, then Pink wouldn't have time to get them bound and wrapped up for Christmas. Nothing like a deadline to motivate me . So Monday night, I got all set up and started quilting. It was marvelous. I was on a roll. And then my free motion foot cracked {it is a combination of plastic and metal} beyond repair, putting a serious crimp in my style. I was able to get a new foot on Tuesday, but had so many other things to do that I only got to the ¾-mark before I had to leave off for the night. I finished it up on Wednesday afternoon and am so happy with how it turned out.

I was enjoying myself so much that after I finished the first quilt, I got the second quilt basted and about ⅔ of the quilting finished on it before going to bed {admittedly a bit late} last night. I was up early this morning and had the quilting all finished by 9:15 am. And that makes two December finishes for me .

As I worked, and the crisscross pattern emerged in this second quilt, an idea began forming in my mind. I loved the thoughtfulness of the memory quilts that Pink had made for her family and was inspired by another blogger, Mary, who decided 12 days before Christmas that she was going to make a t-shirt quilt for her husband . She posted yesterday to report her progress and she'll have that quilt finished by the weekend. I started thinking about a pile of old t-shirts and sweatshirts from Mr. Bug's Navy days that I came across while I was straightening the shelves in our closet a few months ago. There was a t-shirt quilt at the quilt show in town this summer and when I found Mr. Bug's shirts, I thought to myself, hmmmmm, these might make a neat t-shirt quilt . . . someday . . .

The tangibility of Pink's memory quilts and the quick progress of Mary's t-shirt quilt collided in my head and an insane idea for a quilt for Mr. Bug began to take shape. I knew I'd seen some US Navy themed fabric at Wal-Mart and so I went straight there {after work} today to get it. Only in my head, the print was opposite — the background was navy blue {because it is the Navy, after all} and the circles were red. And that threw off my plan. There were about eight yards left on the bolt, so I figured it would be safe for me to leave it and do a little shopping around and then come back, if necessary. Because who would decide to make a quilt {or use up those eight yards in some other way} with only nine days until Christmas? That is just plain crazy. I came home and clickety-clicked until I found the most fantastic Navy fabric ever. It was even on sale {if you think $8.89 a yard is a deal }, so I ordered up 4½ yards of it. I'm crossing my fingers that they ship it tomorrow {their FAQ's said same-day, but I ordered after hours} and that the postal workers just know that I need that package on Monday, because this quilt is not going to be a gift for Mr. Bug for Christmas. It is going to be a gift for Mr. Bug's birthday, which is two days before Christmas .

You see, Mr. Bug has gotten the shaft on his last five birthdays. I'm always running around like a crazy person trying to get the last-minute Christmas things finished and he doesn't get much attention on his birthday. Besides that, I never know what to get Mr. Bug. He likes fancy video cards and mother boards and stuff like that and he likes to pick them out. That kind of takes me out of the whole gift giving process. I always get him a new pair of jeans {which I usually have to return because he doesn't like the cut or something} and a shirt or a sweater. But after 15 years, that gets kind of old. This year, I want to do something special. I only wish I would have thought of it, um, like, four months ago!

Today I got his shirts rough-cut and figured out the layout. I'll stop in at JoAnn's tomorrow to get some woven interfacing so that I can get that fused to the blocks and get them cut to exact size. Then I'll cross my fingers some more and hold my breath and hope that the fabric comes on Monday so that I can get the top put together. I want to quilt on Tuesday and bind and wash on Wednesday. Is it possible to get this {and the sixty-eleven other things I need to do before Christmas} done? Yes. Is it likely? Let's just say that I might be wrapping up a partially-finished quilt for his birthday this year. And I'll have plenty of time to finish it for his next birthday .

P.S. Santa, if you're reading this, I would really love to find a long-arm quilting machine {and a room added onto my house to fit it in} under my tree this year. xo –El

Favourite Things Friday: Halloween

On Hallowe'en the thing you must do
Is pretend that nothing can frighten you
And if somethin' scares you and you want to run
Just let on like it's Hallowe'en fun.
–Unknown

Halloween is my favorite holiday. It marks the beginning of the holiday season and lots of nice things in store; mine and Mr. Bug's wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving and finally the Christmas season. But first we get to dress up and get a little crazy. I don't have much in the way of Halloween decor, but that's because I spend all my creative energy on the costumes. This year the Little Bugs wanted to dress up as Harry and Hermoine from the Harry Potter series. I was only too happy to oblige. I've had my Professor McGonagall costume ready and waiting since 2005. I checked out several costume spots, but wasn't super impressed with the quality or price of the Hogwarts robes, so I headed to JoAnn's during a 50% off sale. Patterns were on sale for 99₵, which was a big bonus. I put together two sets of school robes {hooray for two more October finishes!}, complete with Gryffindor crests on the chest and we were ready for a little magic.

True confession time — I've had a little bit of a procrastination relapse lately. I was doing fairly well until recently. The procrastination on the Halloween costumes, though, was the worst its been in a very long time. I ended up pulling an all-nighter to finish these costumes in time for the Little Bugs' class parties and Halloween parade at school on Wednesday of this week. It was pretty rough, but worth it (the all-nighter) to hear how excited the kids were on the morning of their parties. Before I went to bed {around 6:30 am} I put their lunches together and showered. When Mr. Bug's alarm went off at 7:30, I

appraised him of the costume and lunch status and asked if I could stay in bed. He was completely obliging. I could hear the kids when they got up. They were pretty excited when they found their costumes on the couch. Mr. Bug was pretty enthusiastic and cute about it too. It had snowed a bit overnight, so he said to the kids that it was like Christmas — snow on the ground and presents on the couch . They came in to show me how they looked before they went to school which was fun.

Oh, and when I say I had the costumes finished, I mean they were wearable, but not done. I still had the hems left but this fabric doesn't unravel so I left that until they got home from school. And I still need to fix one little goof-up on one of the sleeves in LadyBug's costume, but I'll do that before we go out trick-or-treating.

Here is a close up of the Gryffindor crest. I lifted the image from the internet {it's no secret that I'm a dirty sneak thief} and printed it onto fusible ink-jet fabric sheets, adding the perfect finishing touch. I haven't decided if I want to do a little satin stitch around the crests, or not, but I can always go back and do that later.

This portion of today's post brought to you by:

Continue reading for more of one of my Favourite Things. Let my spooky playlist to put you in the mood and let's talk a stroll with the Ghosts of Halloween Past. Click on any of the pictures for a closer look.

Halloween 1999: Little Pumpkin, Queen of Hearts, and the Mad Hatter. October 31^st was Grasshopper's due date. I thought that would be a great day for a birthday, but I rented costumes from a local theater and planned on dressing up for work and then attending a party we were invited to, because, you know, first babies are always late. Because of the huge skirt, this costume did a great job of camouflaging my belly. As it turns out, that wasn't necessary because our Little Pumpkin showed up 12 days early. Mr. Bug and I still went to the party, but I was recovering from a c-section and we only stayed for about an hour.

Halloween 2000: Little Pumpkin.

Halloween 2001: Tigger.

Halloween 2004: Tinkerbell and Peter Pan. I'm not sure what happened to 2002 or 2003 , but here we are. I bought a zillion yards of Tinkerbell green satin and organdy {or is it organza? I can never remember} because I started out with a pattern that I was going to make over to work and then found a better one. I'm pretty sure I made three Tinkerbell costumes that year, one for LadyBug, one for Miss Butterfly and one for another cousin on Mr. Bug's side who doesn't have a clever Bug name. I wish I had pictures of all three girls together. Oh, and there's a really good reason that LadyBug is bald. We shaved her head. Really. We hoped that it would help her hair grow thicker and faster and it totally worked. In less than six months she had more hair than we shaved off. The only regret is that we didn't do it sooner.

Halloween 2005: Spiderman and Spidergirl. I didn't really have a pattern for these costumes — only an idea and some really great fabrics. I cobbled together a couple of patterns and filled in with my own design. Sorry for the picture quality. I didn't have my good digital camera and I must not have had the costumes finished when we went to have professional pictures taken for Grasshopper's birthday. I also made my Professor McGonagall costume this year and I decided that I was only going to make costumes every other year after that.

Halloween 2006: Leonardo the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and I can't remember what Grasshopper was. But I obviously implemented the every-other-year plan for making costumes. Grasshopper was done with trick-or-treating after we did our city's Safe Halloween downtown. He didn't want to go around the neighborhood after we got home and changed out of his costume before I could get pictures. On the other hand, LadyBug was a die-hard. We covered every single house we knew in the neighborhood and she still wanted to keep going.

Halloween 2007: King Peter of Narnia. I didn't make this costume; I was going to make him a Batman costume but I ran out of time {procrastination issues } because I was working on LadyBug's costume . . .

. . . Supergirl. Again, I didn't really have a pattern. I cobbled together a couple of different patterns and filled in the rest with my own designs.

Halloween 2008: My sister loved the Supergirl costume from the year before, so the week after Halloween she ran and bought fabric on clearance for a whole family of Supers for 2008. Unfortunately, I had MAJOR procrastination issues and only got a Superman costume done for Cap'n Underpants. I still owe her three more Super costumes.

The Little Bugs really wanted to be Clone Troopers. They have names based on the color of the costumes, but I don't remember the details.

Halloween 2009: No photos and the Little Bugs did not want me to make costumes. Grasshopper was a Clone Trooper again and LadyBug was a police officer. And they were cute. Take my word for it.

I hope you enjoyed my little trip down Halloween Memory Lane.

Today's post brought to you by:

Extreme Makeover: Skirt Edition

I base most of my fashion sense on what doesn't itch. –Gilda Radner

Sunday was the Primary Program. And I made myself a new dress to wear for it. But I wasn't the only girl at our house who needed something new to wear. So after I finished up my dress {late Saturday night/early Sunday morning} I did a little makeover on a skirt I'd picked up for $3 at Wal-Mart for LadyBug. It was totally worth staying up until 3:00 am. Just look at our spunky girl.

LadyBug is a no-frills, no-nonsense kind of girl. I have a hard time finding clothes in general and Sunday clothes in particular that she likes. A while back, we had a few Sundays where she wore pants to church because she refused to wear a dress. We eventually found a little denim skirt {with shorts sewn underneath} in a box of hand-me-downs from her cousin, Miss Butterfly, that she liked to wear to church about 85% of the time. But she's outgrown it. So when I saw a similar skirt, I snapped it up. I knew it was too short, but I already had a plan.

I had some striped denim left-over from a jeans-making experiment back in 1986. Why I still had it, I'm not sure . But I knew it was around because I'd just gone through stacks of things tucked away in the backs of closets and set it aside in a new stack of things to donate. I was glad I hadn't done that yet. I cut a strip of navy blue broadcloth the width of the fabric and then a piece of denim to match the width of the broadcloth and to my desired length. A few seams, a hem and some gathers later and it was ready to attach at the waist of the skirt. And they'd left me a nice seam allowance to work with. I think it turned out pretty cute {iron malfunctions not withstanding}. It looks a little bit like she's got an apron over top of her skirt.

The skirt's waistband is a little big on LadyBug and the under skirt is a little long, but I'm totally OK with that. It'll prolong the life of the skirt and she can grow into it. Yay! Another October finish .

A New Dress for Me {Finally}

Just around the corner in every woman's mind - is a lovely dress, a wonderful suit, or entire costume which will make an enchanting new creature of her. –Wilhela Cushman

This summer my youngest sister got married. The wedding was on July 31^st. On July 27^th I decided that I was making dresses for my sister {not the one getting married or the one who was the matron of honor}, my sister-in-law and me. It was a brilliant plan, really, but I was up to my elbows making vests for the little boys, which left me . . . not enough time to finish all three dresses. I knew it would be a stretch, but that I could finish two of them in the time I had, so I had to prioritize. Of course, I couldn't make my dress and leave one of my sisters without, so I decided that I'd make theirs and then worry about mine later. And later has come .

Sunday was the Primary Program and I was kind of in charge. It was the perfect opportunity for a new dress. A dress that was all cut out and waiting to be finished. As is my usual modus operandi, I procrastinated to the very last minute, finishing it at about 1:15 Saturday night/Sunday morning. [Editor's Note: part of my procrastination tactic this time was to spend three hours on Saturday with the Little Bugs sorting, de-junking, cleaning out and completely organizing their toy area, which turned out to be a brilliant bit of avoidance as it eliminated one of the major things on my list of boring, but necessary chores — wohoo ! The downside was that I stayed up way later that I really wanted to finishing up this dress.]

I have to pause here and note that although I got tons of compliments on my dress, I felt a little bit out of place when I looked around and saw everyone wearing their pretty fall-colored cardigans at church yesterday. You see, the temperatures have dropped and the leaves have changed and it is officially fall. It started raining late Saturday morning and pretty much hasn't let up. My shiny, springy, turquoise dress didn't really fit in with all the navy and burgundy and olive and pumpkin everyone else was wearing . I would have fit in much better here.

In garment construction, zippers are one of the most difficult things to conquer. I was one of those people who thought I'd be 30 and still calling my mom to come and put the zipper in for me. Lucky for me, my mom got tired of doing zippers for me so she showed me how way before I hit 20 . I have always wanted to do an invisible zipper. It seemed like such a magical and amazing thing to be able to pull off. The last few times I had to do zippers I picked up invisible zippers while I was getting my notions, but always chickened out right before going to the check-out and put them back and got the regular ones instead. But before I bought fabric and patterns for these dresses {clear back in July} I found a tutorial that made invisible zippers look do-able. I can't find the tutorial again, but as it turns out I didn't really need it because invisible zippers come with instructions {the very same instructions that the tutorial gave} and they are so easy! Way easier than regular zippers {ignore the gap at the top of the zipper — I made a change to the neckline after I'd put the zipper in and wasn't about to unpick}. I was able to line up my seams at the back on all three dress a lot better than with regular zippers {don't look too closely — it is still a little off}. And now I am in l♥ve with invisible zippers. Hooray for learning something new and an October finish!

One last thing: a close up of my 4" bronze, [faux] reptile skin, super pointy-toed stillettos. I think they'd do The Shoeologist proud.