My Second Quilt - Vintage I-Spy

 I just finished my second quilt! This one is called the Vintage I-Spy Quilt from Amy Smart. I also got all the printed blocks from her. The pattern was very easy to follow and an easy quilt to do.

The size is 40 x 40 and a perfect size for my new nephew that will be born in just over a month!

In addition to the printed squares, I used Ash Kona cotton for the solid squares and the backing. The red was also a Kona, but I am not sure exactly which one. The red and white is a new one from Moda -- Circa 1934 Davis in Red. As you can see it is a much brighter red in person. The blue is a Timeless Treasures fabric.

 I quilted it by echoing the seam lines. Not too confident in my free-hand quilting ability yet, so I'll stick with this for now! Here's a closeup of the label I made by hand-stamping and hand-stitching.

Other Sewing Projects

I've been busy with some other sewing projects too besides the quilt I showed you yesterday. I made a new Halloween table runner for my kitchen table. I used this method and I can get it totally done in about and afternoon. I have done quite a few of these for gifts and they are so fun and easy to make!

Here's my new laptop case I made from DS fabric from JoAnn. I got the instructions from this book. It has a lot of cute ideas for sewing and the instructions are pretty easy to follow. It fits my laptop perfectly and has double batting to keep it safe. It was my first attempt at straight line machine quilting.

This one I am pretty proud of. I made the design myself, based on the laptop case. It was really out of necessity because it is hard to find a case for it since it was just released.

It's a case for my newest gadget that DH got me for my birthday. It's a Acer A100 tablet. I really didn't need a smartphone since I rarely use a cellphone, but I wanted the functionality of having an Android. This is the next best thing. I picked this one because of the size. It's 7". I didn't want the 10" version because that is almost the same size as my laptop!

 

So far I haven't tried to download too many apps. But one of my favorites is the GroceryIQ app. I can make out my grocery list at home and then take it with me to the store and check off things as I get them. So much easier! I usually forget to add things to my list as the week goes by, but with the app I can just add as I go along and you can even scan the item's UPC to add it to your list!

My First Quilt!

I've been working on this for a while if you remember. After the kids went back to school, I made the push to finish it up. The quilt pattern is from Denyse Schmidt - A Hop, Skip, and a Jump. I had a lot of fun selecting all the patterns for this. I made it for my son, Cole. I think it reflects his colorful personality. He told me that it was the best thing anyone had ever done for him. Awww.

Here is the front of the quilt. It is fun to collect all those wonderful patterns and put them together!

I'm so glad that it turned out well and I am already working on my next one that is a gift for someone special. After that I have 3 more to make for my other 2 boys and one for me!

Here is the back of the quilt. I just used the same pattern to go the whole way across in a rainbow.
I machine quilted it in a random straight pattern. 

My newest pursuit

The kids have been enjoying the warmer weather. If it would just moderate and stay around 70°, I'd be happy! I hate it when it's warm one day, cold the next.  It was so windy yesterday -- that's why they have the tarps -- to pretend they were parachutes.

Or tents.
I already have cut the grass once ad rolled they yard. We must have a huge family of moles living in our front yard. The whole thing was all torn up with mole tunnels, so I had to roll it before cutting so that the mower blade didn't chew up the high parts.

I plan on starting my Spring Cleaning this week. Lots of dust and dead stink bugs to remove. Yuck.

This is my newest pursuit. I started quilting. I made my first smaller project from a kit that I found here (but now out of stock). It came with all the fabric, all I had to do was follow the directions for cutting and sewing. It was good to start out on something smaller. The quilting was hard to get the hang of -- it's something I'll have to get more practice on. I did enjoy the whole process.

I must say that one of my favorite aspects of quilting is all the fabric. I love to pick out prints! There are a few shops not too far away, and there are lots of fabric on Etsy. That's where I've gotten the majority of mine.

And here's why I wanted to learn to quilt:


I had fallen in love with these types of quilts. So I wanted to do a quilt for each of my boys (and one for me). This is only one block of Denyse Schmidt's Run, Hop & Jump quilt. I'm using a random grouping of fabrics from my stash for this. I have 4 blocks done, but still need to do about 26 more! I enjoy the cutting and piecing process...I did all 4 of these while watching the NASCAR race yesterday. I can't wait to see what it turns out to look like! This particular quilt is for Cole.