Pregnancy Care Centre Sew-Along 2014!

Fenna over at FABulous Home Sewn is hosting another sew-along for the Pregnancy Care Centre! This is a worthy cause, an organization that provides pregnancy information, adoptive and post-abortive support, as well as maternity and baby items to women and babies in need. For ideas of what to sew:

"Part of what we provide for our clients is a big baby hamper full of blankets and clothes. So it is really up to you what you would like to donate. We love receiving quilts, toques, clothes to add to our layettes and all our clients love them as well."

I'm joining in again this year! So far here's what I've got - 2 sock monkey quilts on the go, pieced mostly from the fabrics FatQuarterShop generously donated last year! Suzanne and I plan to finish them together.

Fenna's also planning some giveaways during this two-month sew-along, so keep checking her blog for more details. There's also a Flickr group where we'll be sharing what we've sewn.

Welcome, 2014!

Happy New Year!

2013 was a busy year! So many things for our family to experience, now that our "baby" is 2 and we can do more big kid stuff. We're so thankful to *only* have been in the hospital once this year - Abigail was hospitalized for pneumonia for a week in February. Since then things have been much calmer health-wise than we've ever had since starting our family! Hopefully this New Year will be more of the same. 

Crafty hour wise, I hope to try out some new quilting techniques, make myself some more clothes, of course more things for my little lady, possibly something for my boys too! I also hope I can get back into spinning again, as that hobby's been sadly neglected of late. Lots to look forward to!

Warm wishes and blessings for 2014 from our family!

Advent Calendar in use

Just wanted to update with what we are doing with our Advent calendar. I found a list of Bible verses for each day of December until Christmas (just from this pin, which has nothing else linked), and I also found a printable Advent chain with the names of Jesus. The kids are especially loving the chain! We are doing it reverse of what they suggest - we are adding one link each day and hanging the partial chain on our tree. Each morning so far they run to see what the next name is in the day's pocket and we read the corresponding verse and talk about it. (also we printed it on white paper and they coloured and decorated the strips!)

In the evenings at our family devotions we read the text from the Advent calendar and discuss it, and then we pick a Christmas hymn. So far we are singing hymns such as Comfort, comfort ye my people, O come, O come, Emmanuel, and The people who in darkness walked, which all have a strong feeling on longing and waiting. Closer to Christmas we'll sing more of the Jesus is born songs.

This morning I asked the boys if they knew what Advent means and Ian (6) was excited to share: "It means 'coming'!" I don't know where he learned that, but it's sure a lot simpler of a definition than what I was prepared to tell them! Out of the mouths of infants, indeed. <3

The Places You'll Go!

Finished another quilt to donate to the Pregnancy Care Centre! This makes the fifth, three of which were made mostly from fabrics generously donated by Fat Quarter Shop. The others were an I-Spy Quilt, Flannel Rail Fence, Disappearing 9-patch, and Green Eggs & Ham. Some babies and their mamas are going to be cheered up, I hope!

The fabric is some random Dr. Seuss fabrics by Robert Kaufman, plus some coordinating semi-solids. Suzanne very kindly quilted it with an all-over free motion loop pattern. Dimensions: 33" x 48.5".

The backing is pieced together of all the leftover pieces of Dr. Seuss fabrics. Nicely quilted, isn't it? Thanks, Suzanne! :)

It's Snowing! Advent Calendar & Bonus Table Topper + tutorial

I won a charm pack of Moda's It's Snowing quite a while back and I finally found the perfect project for it!

This year I'm hoping we can be more intentional in our anticipation of Christmas Day and what it means that Jesus came to earth that night. As part of that, I designed this Advent calendar, with the intention to put a card in each pocket with some scripture and an activity.

The charm pack had 37 squares, so after I was finished I had 12 left - paired with the same aqua and red that I used for the calendar I came up with this table topper as a happy bonus!

So here is a little tutorial in case you want to make your own Advent calendar this year!

Materials for Advent Calendar
1 charm pack (It's Snowing! by Deb Strain)
1 1/2 yard fabric for base/backing (53"x25")
26" long wooden dowel or narrow flat strip of wood
coordinating grosgrain ribbon
batting or interfacing
coordinating 1/2" single-fold bias tape
coordinating fabric for binding
Additional materials for table topper
18"x25" fabric for backing (will fit from the base fabric leftover from the calendar)
batting
12 coordinating solid 5" squares
coordinating fabric for binding

First decide on 25 squares of the charm pack to use for the calendar (the leftovers, 12 if you have a pack of 37, can be used for the table topper). Arrange them in 5 rows of 5 and then sew each row together using 1/4" seam allowance. Then bind the top edge of each row with the 1/2" single-fold bias tape.

All the pocket rows pieced together with bound top edges.

Turn under the sides and bottoms of each row 1/4" and press. I first basted 1/4" all around the edges to make it easier to press.

From the base/backing fabric, cut a piece that measures 53"x25". Fold it in half (hamburger-style) wrong sides together, and sandwich either a piece of batting or interfacing between the two layers. The fold will be the top of the calendar and a casing for the dowel. (Alternatively you could use two different fabrics for the base and the backing and seam them at the top.)

Arrange the pocket rows on the base and pin. There should be at least 1" of the base fabric on all sides of the pockets, excess can be trimmed later. Topstitch the sides and bottoms of each row about 1/8", securing at each end with a backstitch. (see white stitching lines)

Then topstitch down the full length of the calendar, through all 5 rows of pockets from top to bottom and then back up again, 1/8" on each sides of the seam lines, securing at the beginning and end.

Now you should have 5 rows of 5 pockets each, with the bound edge of each pocket open.

You can use applique, embroidery, fabric paint/etc if you want to put on the numbers 1-25 on each pocket. I still want to find some small chipboard numbers I can hang from each pocket with ribbon...

Trim the sides of the calendar base to 1 1/4" around the pockets and the bottom to 1". Then fold under 1/4" and press the edges at the fold where the dowel will be going through; stitch. (pic1) Trim 1/4" from the sides to meet up with the casing edges. (pic2)

Bind all around the sides and bottom of the calendar, folding under the binding at the beginning and end for a neat finish. Then push the dowel through the casing. Determine the length of ribbon needed to hang the calendar and cut. Tie a bow at the centre of the ribbon and hot glue or handstitch the ends at the back of the calendar. Hot glue or handstitch a bow at each side over the ribbon.

Your Advent calendar is now ready for the pockets to be filled and hung!

Table Topper
The table topper is pretty simple - just half-square triangles (I used method #2 here) pieced from the remaining 12 charm squares and 12 solid squares.

Cut 12 5"x5" squares from the coordinating solid. With fabric pen and ruler, mark a diagonal line across each solid. Pair each solid with one charm square.

Right sides together, stitch across each pair of squares, 1/4" on each side of the marked line. I chained stitched all of them one way, turned the whole line around and back up.

With rotary cutter and ruler, cut each stitched pair in half along the marked diagonal line.

Once they were all cut, pressed, and trimmed, I was able to play around with arranging them - I chose a chevron pattern, but you could also do pinwheels or diamonds or flying geese... Here are some of the chevron layouts I was playing with (excuse camera phone pics):

Sew each row of your chosen layout together, being sure to match points. Layer backing, batting and top and quilt! I did a simple 1/4" echo inside the solid chevron. Then trim and bind and you're done! Bonus Christmas table topper!

Halloween 2013 - Attack of the Gauls!

Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix came knocking tonight!

Ian chose Asterix when his school had Book Character Dress-up Day this month - Asterix is his favourite comic! Obelix and Dogmatix are obvious choices for the other kids.

Asterix's pants/shirt/belt were from my friend and I was just going to make the hat, mustache and sword and keep it at that - until the night before dress-up day when he was very sad there was no sheath and no magic potion bottle. So I spent a couple of hours sewing up some leather scraps and Asterix was very happy.

A paint stir stick with some carved detail and a bit of paint made a nice sword and I just sewed the leather sheath onto the belt. (ICK! sewing the sheath was a pain. I ended up handstitching the tip because my machine wouldn't make stitches through 4 layers of leather.)

Bottle with magic potion inside (just some scraps of leftover tshirt fabric):

I couldn't figure out why Benjamin was reluctant to be Obelix until he said, "I'm not fat. I don't want anyone to think my tummy is so big!" He changed his mind when I assured him everyone would know there were pillows stuffing his pants... Speaking of which pants, really simply made - I just took a pair of his pants as a pattern, cut the pieces kind of in gores, extended for the torso part, all bargain sweatshirt fleece. Obelix's "chest slipped" (heehee) till I added a pair of straps to hold the pants up. The belt circles are craft foam with fabric glued on, attached to the pants by snaps so if it needs washing they come off.

The helmets: I simply draped an old tshirt over each boy's head and covered it with duct tape. The knobs are balls of tinfoil covered in duct tape, the feathers are layers of white craft foam cut to shape. Both mustaches are yarn tied to clear elastic, looped over the ears. Obelix's braids are also yarn, tied with fleece bows and attached inside his helmet.

Dogmatix: I pieced together the hoodie from largish scraps of white and black fleece on the shelf, added ears with a strip of boning inside each, and pinned a tail onto her (bought) black pants. Abigail's favourite part was the black nose! Here she is, stuffing her puppy face with chocolate and drooling over her spoils of war:

Roses & Black Lace Tunic

(before I found a black belt to wear with it)

Finished sewing up this tunic for myself started during Selfish Sewing Week! I'm very pleased with how it turned out, especially as most ready-to-wear tunics end up being less tunic and more shirt with odd waist placement on me... YAY for getting back into sewing for myself!!

Details
Pattern: New Look 6915, view D
Size: 12 (even though I measure their size 16!!)
Fabric: Roses and black lace print

Fairly simple pattern. I think this style only works for me because I'm tall and have a small bust. It could very easily look boxy or shapeless. The front is cut on the bias and has pleats at the shoulders to help with the draping. I adjusted the pattern for length by adding 2" above the marked waistline casing. The only issue I find with this style is that it slips around a lot on the shoulders. Otherwise it's just how I pictured it!

Here is my only pic so far with a belt: