Onesie Gowns

Here is my first attempt at copying some baby gowns made from onesies that I saw in a magazine. They were quick and easy, but I'm worried they will fit more like straight-jackets than gowns---especially the stripey one. I'll report later, after they've been used once or twice by the recipient.

Randomness

I have had a charm pack of Moda's Flutterby line sitting in my cupboard for several weeks now. In the spirit of one of my new idols, Crazy Mom Quilts, I decided to do something out of the ordinary for me--utter randomness! Honestly--I didn't even look through the fabrics at all, except to split them up and arrange them for this photo:



After the photo, I separated the charm pack into six piles (again, didn't even look at them individually), and cut three 1 1/2" strips from each square. I then cut 2 inches off each 1 1/2" x 5" strip.



To perpetuate the random theme, I jumbled both piles up,



and chain-sewed the pieces back together several times--trying not to even think about color combinations except to make sure that two like colors never touched each other (can this still be counted as random)? It was fun to discover the fabrics as I went along--sort of my own little mystery quilt, I guess. I had intended for this to be a table runner, but I think it is evolving into a small quilt. Here is what I have so far:



I've been playing a lot with the arrangement. I'm going to put them on a brown background--we'll see how the finished product ends up looking--a mystery all around. Sometimes it's fun to just create without a lot of thought. I've been doing a lot of heavy duty brainwork lately (Click here to find out why) and it was lovely just to relax and sew!

What do you think???

Vacation Mini-Book

Remember the Vacation Book I was planning on working on during our trip? Well, I actually did work on it quite a bit during the amazing amount of driving that we did. After we got home, all I really needed to do was a little bit of journaling and then add pictures after they got developed. I'm actually quite happy with the finished product--it's just a jumble of stuff--but I love the memories. The only problem? I stuffed way too many pictures in it, and now my rings are too small. I'll need to get some that are a little bigger.

Dear Jane Progress

Spending 30+ hours in the car in one week, one would think I could finish more than 6 blocks, but hey, six blocks is six blocks. I think they are turning out well. These are mostly applique. The two blocks that I pieced in this set are hand-pieced, which I enjoy, but it's not my method of choice simply because of the time factor. I'm excited to try some of the machine-pieced and paper-pieced blocks. I cut the background squares for the applique blocks a little larger than the 5" finished size I needed because I know applique sometimes causes a block to shrink a little. I will trim them down before piecing them together. I wish I would have thought of this when preparing the hand-pieced blocks. I would have cut those squares a little bigger as well and trimmed them down after completing the applique on them. I think they actually turned out REALLY close to the right size, so I won't redo. Anyway, hooray for getting started!

Travel Ambition

Here's another take-along project for the road...I want to do a travel album like this one using these supplies. I love the idea of having a book ready to fill up with memorabilia and journaling as we go. I'm planning on getting it prepared and ready ahead of time, so the rest should be fairly easy. Also hoping to take some photos that are DIFFERENT than the same old same old ones we've taken the past two times...wish me luck!

Birth of My Baby Jane

I have been dying to get started on this quilt for some time. In preparation for the upcoming 30 hour road trip we are about to embark on, I have been preparing some blocks to take with me. I think this is a perfect take-along project. The blocks are small (4 1/2 inches finished) and there are a lot of them that can be hand-pieced or appliqued. It will give me something fun to do in the car. I'll share my progress after we return....

P.S. In case you are wondering why the "Baby Jane" title, the author of this book calls all reproductions of this quilt Baby Janes.

A Place For Everything and Everything In Its Place

I am loving having a cupboard to store all my crafting supplies in. It's so nice to have it at my fingertips so that when I am ready to make something, I don't have to go digging and searching. Hopefully this makes me use it more! I'm also hoping I can keep it organized and neat...