Elephant Parade

Look out! Look out!
It's elephants on parade
Here they come!
Hippety hoppety
They're here and there
Yes, elephants everywhere

Look out! Look out!
They're walking around the bed
On their head
Clippity cloppity
Arrayed in braid
Yes, elephants on parade

What'll I do?
What'll I do?
What an unusual view

I can stand the sight of worms
And look at microscopic germs
But technicolor pachyderms is really too much for me!
–Pink Elephants on Parade,
Music and lyrics by Oliver Wallace and Ned Washington

I thought I'd lead with cuteness. I am pleased to introduce my newest nephew, Baby Firefly. Adorable, no? He's such a mellow, sweet, happy little dude.

And now for the backstory. Because there always is one. In the top left corner is my cute sister, Jill, a.k.a Jilly Beans, and her family. Beginning in the 12:00 position and rotating clockwise, we have Lizard Boy, Firefly, Toad, Cricket and Mr. Jilly Beans.

When Jill announced that she was expecting, of course I put a baby quilt in the queue, right behind Christine's Flower Garden {BTW, Christine still lives in her own home, is in church every Sunday and turns 101 in just two months!}, Friendship Garden and Thoroughly Modern Lily. Jill and her husband decided not to find out the gender of the baby, so I planned to make a smaller version of Friendship Garden because I still had a bundle of half-square triangles sitting about and a multi-colored quilt would be great for either a boy or a girl. Those first two quilts in the line-up, the signature quilt and the triangle quilt, were fast to the finish {nothing like a deadline to keep you on target}, but it took me almost six months to finish the lily quilt. That was kind of fortuitous, because Lorna over at Sew Fresh Quilts started an absolutely adorable and completely irresistible quilt along about a month before Firefly was born and since I didn't finish the lily quilt until after he was born, I then knew the gender and decided that an elephant quilt was in order.

Lorna did her quilt in solids. I loved the uniformity; the mama elephants have dark bodies with light ears and the baby elephants have light bodies with dark ears. I decided to use batiks in my quilt but tried to stay true to the original design by using darker fabrics for the bodies of the mama elephants and lighter fabrics for the ears, and vice-versa for the babies. Each elephant is unique. There are 49 different batiks and I quilted each elephant with a different design in the "headdress" and "blanket." I think this is my favorite quilting.

A birdie with a yellow bill hopped upon the window sill. Cocked his shining eye and said: “Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!”
–Robert Louis Stevenson

I loved making these birds and they were fun to quilt too. I pretty much can't do a quilt without doing a few swirls in it.

Inspired by the way that Geta quilts her hexagons, I gave it a go in these octagonal flowers. Lane frequently uses leaf designs in his quilts, so I tried that too. And, of course, pebbling is all the rage these days, so that's how I did the centers. All art is derivative.

Slow and steady wins the race, right? This quilt took about 2½ months, start to finish as my only project. I was on a deadline for this, too, or it might have been longer. Work takes up so much time and gets in the way of my real life a lot. In any case, I love this little turtle! I used the shell fabric in another quilt and it was fabulous there too.

And this little frog is adorable! Lorna put together such an cute quilt pattern. It was so fun to make and the top went together really quickly.

While I was working on this quilt, the foot pedal on my machine broke. As it so happened, it was a Tuesday night. The tension was also really off on my machine and Wednesdays are service pick-up days for the quilt shop I got my machine from. I called to see how long the wait was {minimum is 1 week and I've waited 3 weeks before} and they told me it was a week. So I dropped Grace off first thing on Wednesday morning. And then I went a little over-board with the embroidered quilt label. It was OK that I did, because it was 2½ weeks before Grace was ship shape and back in working order. {They couldn't fix the foot pedal, though, so I ordered a new one and it was here in just a week. Just a bit ironic, don't you think?} I've been using Fabri-Solvy self-adhesive stabilizer for embroidery lately. It is pretty fantastic. You run it through your printer, cut it to size, peel it off the paper backing, stick it to your fabric, stitch and when you're done, it washes away.

I have a number of pieces of batting hanging about which are too large to throw away and too small to use in a quilt, so I did something I haven't tried before. I pieced the batting. Vicki over at Sew Inspired talked about doing that once on a very large quilt, so I asked her about her technique. She told me how to do it by hand and also by machine, but warned me that sometimes when you do it by machine one side gets stretched a little bit. Not wanting to take any chances I joined three strips of batting together by hand to make a piece large enough for the quilt. It took forever. I may or may not try it by machine next time.

It is a very old tradition, dating back to 2010, to use satin blanket binding and minky or ultra cuddle on a baby quilt. This was no exception. I found a pretty silver sating binding that matched the grey background. And I bought a flat-fold remnant of extremely soft ultra cuddle for the back. You can see a peek of it in the photo with the quilt label above.

I suppose that about does it in the way of talking about this quilt. I would like to welcome the handful of folks who have started following my blog lately. I haven't done much in the way of posting since I started working full-time about a year ago. Nevertheless, welcome, and I hope I keep you at least a little bit entertained. Like with this super cute photo of Grasshopper and LadyBug with their new cousin. I can remember when they were that little and hardly believe I have two full-fledged teenagers.

LadyBug loves to hold the babies. I think that is awesome! And I think more cuteness is the perfect bookend for this post.

Today's post brought to you by:

Thoroughly Modern Lily

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature. ―Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

The photos aren't perfect. I think I had a smudge on my lens. But here is the my Thoroughly Modern Lily quilt finished and hung in the customary quilt photographing spot. Pattern available here.

I worked on a name for this quilt, but nothing seemed to fit. So, I called it what P. called it, Thoroughly Modern Lily, after her Grandma Lillian whose quilt top inspired her. I kept P. in the loop via e-mail while I worked on this quilt. Only after I sent her this photo did I realize that I left a very important bit of information off the quilt label. I didn't mention my inspiration. But I'll mention it here. Thank you, P., for sharing your creative genius. You do beautiful things with fabric!

It was already past dark on the day I took this quilt to my friend, Eloise. We kept missing each other's phone calls and I finally caught her at home. It's been more than a month since I gave it to her, but I called yer yesterday to see if I could stop by and snap a few quick photos. Thanks to LadyBug for the assist. {BTW, she's 13 now and might have finally hit a growth spurt. She's getting pretty tall. I can't believe how grown up she is getting.}

Here's an artsy smartsy shot. I have to say, though, photos just don't quite do quilts justice at all. When Eloise pulled the quilt out yesterday, I was slightly surprised by how awesome it is {if I do say so myself}. If you look at it just right, you can see a sub-pattern of large circles formed by two of the lily petals in each of four adjoining blocks.

And, a snap of the quilt back. I used the same blue on the back as I did for the background on the front; a piece of Kona that I bought for another quilt, but ended up not liking it for that. That quilt was my first quilt made entirely from stash because I had a rather large piece of Kona in another color that I liked better for the back of it. The lily quilt is my second quilt made entirely from stash. I think I used 12 or 13 different colors of thread, and I really like how it looks from the back.

One final, gratuitous quilt shot.

This quilt took me six months, start to finish. I started it right after I finished the triangle quilt in October and it is the only project I worked on during that time. As soon as the Lily quilt was done, which was at the beginning of April, I started my next quilt. But Grace took two weeks off for a spa retreat. Her tension issues were making me tense, so I told her not to come back until she was all sorted out. She took her sweet time but when she did get back, she was ready to get down to business. She makes a beautiful stitch now and my next quilt top is finished. I used stash for everything but the background and back. I even pieced the batting to use up some of the smaller pieces I have on hand. I'm anxious to start the quilting now. If only quilts would baste themselves . . .

The End of the Line

“I've come so far short in so many things. I haven't done what I meant to do when I began ... I haven't lived up to my ideals.”

“None of us ever do,” said Mrs. Allan with a sigh. “But then, Anne, you know what Lowell says, ‘Not failure but low aim is crime.’ We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them. With them it's grand and great. Hold fast to your ideals, Anne.” –Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

My dad keeps telling me I should put up one final post that says, “It's dead, Jim.” He's a funny guy, my dad.

Both blogging and sewing have had to take a back seat, but I'm not done with either of those things yet. It might be a bit of a snooze-fest around here — I started this post almost 2 months ago and am just now getting back it to it. The pictures were all edited and everything, so the hard part was done. All I had to do was add the witty commentary. Wait. Maybe the hard part wasn't done. Anyway I'm still sewing, even if it is just 15 minutes before bed, and still want to show what I'm working on.

While it is not the end of the line for my little blog, I did finish off this spool of 1300 meters {that's 1420 yards for those of us still using Imperial measurements} of AURIfil 50wt thread. Of course, I didn't use up that whole 1420 yards in just this one project. I've used it in a number of projects, but it is pretty cool to think that sometime I've sewn at least 710 yards {because, you know, half of that goes in the bobbin}. I'm sure more yards than that are run in the average football game. And it doesn't sound so impressive when you convert it to miles and find out that you can't even get to the gas station in 710 yards. But still, 710 yards. One stitch at a time.

A while back, the lovely and talented P. over at The Way I Sew It found a quilt top that her grandmother had made. She puttered around with it and collaborated with Sandi at Piecemeal Quilts to put together a pattern for it. Once that was complete, she took apart her grandmother's quilt top and remade it as a wonderful keepsake.

I loved the fun design, and ordered the pattern right away. Sidebar: it is currently available for free here. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, but as ideas sometimes do, it went on the back burner. I have this sweet friend in my neighborhood that I've gotten to know pretty well in the last five years or so, and wanted to do something nice for her birthday. So, I started playing around with colors.

I designed around a piece of blue Kona {I can't remember the name of it for sure, I think it might be Rain} that I bought to go on the back of the triangle quilt, Friendship Garden. It just didn't work on that quilt, but I wanted to try and make it work on this one.

I also had a piece of Kona in Snow, left from Christine's Flower Garden. My first thought was to use the blue as the centers of the flowers and the sashings and the white as the background, but it worked better the other way around.

I started with the easiest bit of quilting first. I did the stitching in the ditch and the meander in the background. Then I decided I wanted some straight lines, but I wanted it to be as easy as possible. Marking with tape is such a hassle and if you use a washable marker, you have to wash the quilt before you give it away. While I do love a soft, crinkly, washed quilt, I also love how a quilt looks after it is freshly quilted. So, I used a Hera Marker to score lines into the fabric. Actually, I started out using the back side of a 99₵ seam ripper to make the markings, and eventually bought a Hera marker. I did everything free-motion and backtracked in the seam allowances, completing each flower without stopping. It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but it was good practice.

To balance out all of the geometric quilting, I put some swirls in the lily petals.

I kind of like how it is coming along.

Here's a close-up of the quilting on the lilies.

The quilt is finished, and I've already taken it to my friend. It was supposed to be for her birthday, which was December 24^th, but I was a little late getting it to her. Like, four-ish months late. I've got photos, but they need editing, so we'll end on a cliff hanger. I'm hoping to finish this story off a little faster than I got it started. In the meantime, you can see what I'm up to on Instagram.

Giveaway: Amelie Purse Pattern from Geta's Quilting Studio

In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude. –Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A couple of weeks ago, I put my name in on Giveaway Day at Geta's Quilting Studio and I was delighted to be one of the winners! Geta has so many beautiful designs. I bought her Flower Ball and Flower Power quilt patterns a while ago {which I will eventually get to} and recently, I made some bags from her Amelie pattern.

While I was perusing her fantastic patterns trying to decide which ones to choose, an idea began to hatch. What if I were to use part of my giveaway winnings as a giveaway of my own? The Amelie purse was so fun to make and everyone who has seen it loves it. I've received lots of compliments on it. The mother of one of the girls I made one for loved it so much that she even ordered the pattern!

It has tons of pockets and would look fabulous in an infinite number of fabrics and colors.

So, I asked Geta if I could use one of the patterns I won from her as a giveaway on my blog and she kindly consented. I'm so excited to share an Amelie Purse Pattern in PDF downloadable format with one of you! I would like to send a huge thank you to Geta for her generous giveaway! And for those of you who can't wait for the giveaway or want to try one of her amazing quilts, her patterns are on sale for $5 each for two days only, through May 28^th!

The Fine Print:
• To enter this giveaway, leave a comment telling me something good that has happened to you this week. Or just leave a comment. Whichever.
• One entry per person, please.
• Non-blogging/non-Google users and international entrants are welcome.
• If you do not have a Google account, use the name/url {url optional} commenting option and make sure you leave your e-mail in your comment in the following format: address (at) domain name (dot) com.
• Comments with no contact information will be deleted.
• Duplicate comments will be deleted.
• Comment moderation is on, so don't panic when your comment doesn't show up. I'm notified of new comments and will approve them periodically each day, after which they'll show up on the post.
• The giveaway will close at 10:00 pm MST on Friday, May 30^th. The winner will be chosen by random drawing and notified by e-mail and announced here by 8:00 pm on May 31^st.

Good luck!

A Stitch In Time: April Finishes Giveaway Winner

Time is free, but it's priceless.
You can't own it, but you can use it.
You can't keep it, but you can spend it.
Once you've lost it you can never get it back..
–Harvey MacKay

Time. The one commodity that we all have in equal measure. Even though I try to spend my time wisely, I often find myself wishing for more time and kicking myself for wasting time. Still, some of my "free time" {if there is such a thing} each day is allotted to sewing. When I only have a few minutes to spend it's frustrating. Progress is barely perceptible at that pace. To keep from getting discouraged, "just keep stitching," has been my motto over the last several months. I've tried not to let time, or lack thereof, be a deterrent to working on something, no matter how small, every day. It finally paid off as I finished seven tote bags this month, which I worked on a bit at a time every day for about seven weeks. I felt like I crept along at a snail's pace. Or maybe it was a tortoise. In either case, there were some days I just wasn't feeling it because I knew I wasn't going to finish in the amount of time I had to spend. I tried to keep things in perspective, though, and I used what little time I had each day to work on the project. And when it was all said and done, having seven finishes at the same time was really awesome. In addition to the bags, I finished two journal {Personal Progress} totes. It was a good month for finishes for me. And now I begin the process over again. I won't have much to report in the way of finishes, but I'll just keep stitching until I do. But enough about me. Let's get on to all the amazing things you finished and announce our winner for the month of April. LadyBug drew the winning number — number one.

Congratulations to

Kathy

at Kathy's Quilting Blog

Kathy will receive a Dottie Charm Pack by Moda from The Fat Quarter Shop, which I'm sure she will put to good use. In addition to the awesome scrappy quilt that was pulled out of the drawing as the winner, she also finished a really fun triangle quilt. There were lots of other great finishes in April, too. If you have a minute, check some of them out. I'd recommend Carin's Garden Fence Table Runner or Cynthia's orange and grey Scrap-a-Palooza quilt.


The May Finishes Linky Party is open, so you can link up as you go throughout the month. Remember to include the May Finishes button {code found in the May post} somewhere in any post you link up. Code for a button for your sidebar can also be found at the bottom of the May post. The giveaway this month, sponsored by The Fat Quarter shop, is a 30' Playtime Charm Pack by Chloe's Closet for Moda.

Today's post brought to you by:

A Stitch In Time: May Finishes Linky Party

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice. –Octavia E. Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories

Does anyone know where April went? I seem to have misplaced it. Actually I did get quite a few projects — several tote bags and a couple of notebook holders — done in April, even though it seems to have slipped away so quickly I hardly know where it went. I'm looking forward to another month with another few finishes in it. I really like today's quote about habit. While it speaks specifically about writing, it can apply to any pursuit. I make it a habit to never sit and do nothing and I sew a little bit every day. If watch TV, I work while I watch. Even if it has been a really long day, I'm not feeling particularly motivated, and I don't get much more than a few stitches in, it is a habit to sew a little bit every day and I love it. And I hope to get a few more finishes in during May. But enough about me. I love seeing what you all are up to, so let the linking begin!

To participate in this month's linky party:
• Your project must be completed sometime in May 2014.
• Once you've got your project finished {as in done, finito, nothing more to add, ready to use/display/give away} with some sort of stitching in it, blog about it or post a photo of it on Flickr.
• Scroll down to see what other bloggers are up to and link to your own finishes.
• Please include the May button in your blog post. Copy the code in the text box below and paste it somewhere in the post you link for this month's finishes. The button is a link to this specific post, so that other bloggers can find their way over and link up too. If you'd like a button for your sidebar, the code is at the bottom of this post.
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://emsewandsew.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-stitch-in-time-may-finishes-linky.html" target="_blank" title="May Finishes"><img alt="May Finishes" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbpbUZkq8xsag7m5c4W_ppI-dgzkThlxCL_M5lG18elFyANII-ksyolp28E2olF5a1eGalU4XMn59dPwT_P2dr-orsNH_ur8377bNRg1ZnB-lDLLpTwRgiSoYEs19tWV-5mfzOyMbUPBJi/s165-no/05+May.jpg" /></a> </div>
• Each time you link up a finished project, you're entered to win the May giveaway, a 30' Playtime Charm Pack by Chloe's Closet for Moda.

• Thank you to The Fat Quarter Shop for sponsoring our giveaway!


The Fine Print {which might be boring but you really should read}:
• Your project must be completed during the month you are linking to.
• Projects must include stitching of some sort. For example: appliqué, crochet, cross-stitch, embroidery, knitting, practical sewing {garment construction, bags, curtains, etc.}, quilting.
• Projects must be completely finished. As in done, finito, nothing more to add, ready to use/display/give away.
• You can pick something new to do, but projects do not have to be started during the month. If you pick up a UFO, Ph.D, WIP and finish it during the month, it counts.
• Finishes must be completed during this month, but you have until 5:00 pm MST on the 1^st of the next month to link your post.
• Post about your finish and then link your specific post {instructions here} above. Links to your blog and not the individual post about your finished project will be deleted.
• Have more than one finish this month? Great! Post about each finish individually and then link the specific posts up separately. Each finish, and therefore each link you add, counts as one entry for this month's giveaway.
• If you've already posted about a finish for this month, there's no need to do a separate post. Just add the button to that post and link up.
• Please copy and paste the code below to include this month's button somewhere in the post {not your sidebar} you link up for this month.

<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://emsewandsew.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-stitch-in-time-may-finishes-linky.html" target="_blank" title="May Finishes"><img alt="May Finishes" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbpbUZkq8xsag7m5c4W_ppI-dgzkThlxCL_M5lG18elFyANII-ksyolp28E2olF5a1eGalU4XMn59dPwT_P2dr-orsNH_ur8377bNRg1ZnB-lDLLpTwRgiSoYEs19tWV-5mfzOyMbUPBJi/s165-no/05+May.jpg" /></a></div>

• Don't have a blog? You can link from your flickr account. Just post a picture, include a little note about your finish and a link back here {code included below} in the description. Then join the linky party.

<a href="http://emsewandsew.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-stitch-in-time-may-finishes-linky.html" target="_blank" title="May Finishes">A Stitch In Time: May Finishes</a>

• Want a button for your sidebar? Copy and paste the code below into an HTML gadget for your sidebar. This button is a link to the main A Stitch In Time Linky Party page, which always has the current month's finishes and links to all previous linky parties.

<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://emsewandsew.blogspot.com/p/a-stitch-in-time.html" target="_blank" title="A Stitch In Time Linky Party"><img alt="A Stitch In Time Linky Party" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWZPuRS75OByqbpvvTh7tzjwrJa71J3Q2YlKJxg2WTUB1esPZ99CR9QjXCislmjFsx_Ej0Oa6oxFNG4KqfrWr2IBhOCcnkzH7xWfYcRkTYl3nCfNklmBBSK6_0Eq8oBNkrdxyKq4Cttbdq/s165-no/A+Stitch+in+Time+Sidebar.JPG" /></a></div>

• Make sure to visit a few of the other links and leave them some love {ie, a comment}. A good rule of thumb is to visit two links for every one you include.
• Winner of the sponsored giveaway will be drawn randomly from among the links and announced by 8:00 pm MST by the 5^th of the following month.
• Kindly consider changing your comment settings to the pop-up window option for faster and easier commenting for visitors to your blog. Instructions can be found here.

Amelie x7

Friends are like handbags . . . you can never have too many.
–Unknown

I've been working on a secret project for the last seven or eight weeks. Before we get to that, I have to fill in with a little backstory. In January, I was called to work with the Young Women at church. I decided that I wanted to make a Personal Progress tote for each of them for their birthdays using Deena Rutter's Good Life fabric, which is based on the Young Women program. I also knew that I was going to need a bigger bag to tote back and forth to church and while I was making one, I could make a few more for the women who work with me as leaders over the girls. I've been working on these pretty much every day since I finished my last quilt, but I had to keep it quiet. We're all friends on The Facebook and my blog posts also show up on my timeline there. Naturally, I didn't want to ruin the surprise. But they've all been delivered now and I can finally show them off.

I used Geta Grama's Amelie Purse pattern. The pattern, with the accent fabric in the front pockets, was perfect for the Good Life fabric. The purse is nice and roomy, but I added 2" to the height of the bag, so they'd be tall enough to fit a standard size binder in them.

I think the funnest part of the assembly was installing the magnetic snap closures, which I ordered from Etsy for a really terrific price.The bag has tons of pockets; besides the two really deep pockets on the front, there are two pockets inside, one each on the lining front and back.

I think the back zipper pocket is my favorite because it has polka-dots inside. If you've been hanging around for any amount of time, you know how much I love polka-dots. I really love the zippers, which I also got on Etsy.

On the practical side, I sprayed them all with Scotch Guard, inside and out. Although I debated about spraying them before I put the pieces together, I decided to wait until after they were all finished, in case the heat from the iron did something funny to the Scotch Guard.

This is the only sewing I've done lately and this is the first project I've worked on from start to finish without getting detoured in a long time. Sometimes I wondered if I was ever going to get them done. It was tempting to work on something else. And having my nose up close to them and seeing all the not-so-perfect top-stitching made me wonder if they were going to turn out good enough to give away. But the reaction I got from the women when I took the bags to them really made it all worth while. One of them said, "this means so much," as she ran her finger over her embroidered name. That meant a lot to me and I'm so glad they are finished and delivered. I can't wait to use mine!

Today's post brought to you by: