Last minute sewing

I knew since way early in the week that we had a birthday party to go to today. I was pretty low key, mainly cupcakes for the kids.  I'm not sure why I put off making a sweet dress for the birthday girl, but I did and we were fashionably late by a mere 30ish minutes.

Here are the fabrics I chose.  I have a HUGE stash of remnant's from Jo-Ann Fabrics and so I went fishing in my 'pool of fabric'.  I don't litterally have a pool, but I do have a a lot of remnants.

I did though learn that if I set my mind to I can make a certain pattern from ironing and cutting the fabric to putting the last stitch in the hem in just under 2 hours.  I may have gotten a few speeding tickets along the way with sewing so fast, but it turned out great and the birthday girl put it on as soon as she opened it and last I heard she still would not take it off.  I think she likes it.

I just love sewing sweet little dresses.

And for anyone interested, this pattern is McCalls #3918

A Soft Place To Land

This should have posted yesterday, but for some reason it didn't.  So so so sorry it is a day late.

Way back at the beginning of August Kristy from Hopeful Threads asked me if I would be interested in doing a special project for September. She even sent a link to the patterns that I could choose from! For those of you who have never heard of Hopeful Threads you can find more about Kristy's passion on her Hopeful Threads blog. For those of you visiting from Hopeful Threads, Welcome!

At the time I wasn't super busy or thought, the kids will be in school I will have plenty of time to sew. I think you all know what happens when you have that thought even for a split second, you guessed it, life happens and all of a sudden there just aren't enough hours in the day.  I thought many times about backing out, but I couldn't do that.  I had gave Kristy my word and I was going to hold myself to completing the pattern that I said I would make.

I choose the pattern titled 'A Soft Place to Land'.  It is a very soft and Frilly baby quilt that you can make with 2 1/2" strips.

It was a fairly simple quilt to construct.  I didn't have a lot of experience sewing/quilting with minky going into this project so it isn't my best work, but even though my binding isn't laying flat, I think the waviness of it goes with all the ruffles that are on the blocks.  I chose to free motion quilt in a random meandering for this quilt.

Here you can see the back and how I didn't quilt near the ruffles.

I don't know why the computer decided to rotate my picture, but it did and the photo editor I normally use is not being cooperative at all.  Google lords if you are reading this I hate your new photo editor, please change it back, I'm begging.

I encourage everyone to check out the Hopeful Threads blog.  The pattern for the adorable quilt I made is a mere $5 and you get it in digital format so you don't even have to wait for the mail carrier to bring it to your door.

Also be sure to check out all the other projects being made this month on the September 2013 Hopeful Threads Flickr group.  If you make something be sure to add it to the group.

I am going to donate my quilt to one of the local elementary schools in our town who has 17 homeless children enrolled.  I just know that one of them will have a baby sister that needs to stay warm this winter and what better way to give the family a little HOPE than by giving their child, a soft place to land.

Just a little late

Remember the All Framed Up quilt I made in July?  I made it to the park last week and did a mini photo shoot for the big release, but then I totally spaced sharing this exciting news last week when the pattern was released (sorry Melissa). You can read more on the big release and see this beauty made with different fabrics on Melissa's blog Sew BitterSweet Designs.   I really want to do a king sized version of this, the one on Melissa's blog is just beautiful.

Melissa has released the pattern!  You can purchase it from Craftsy for only $5.00!  It is a digital download so no waiting on the good ole postal service to bring it to your mailbox, you can get started today!  Visit Craftsy to get your pattern.


We had a great weekend at our house and in return, I'm gearing up for what seems to be a busy week, but it may just be today since soccer starts tonight for my boy. Then on Saturday both kids will be playing so I will be getting a workout running from one end of the soccer fields to the other.  

September ALYF, Goal

I have a lot on my plate for this month, but I hope to get the quilting done on the Circles of Hope quilt before the end of the month.  

I do have a plan in my head for the quilting on this beauty.  

I haven't done any sewing for several days now.  I noticed last week when I was trying to put some Sun Bonnet Sue blocks together, that my iron was not getting very hot and that it was using an excessive amount of water when I needed the steam for fusing the interfacing.    I also noticed there were some dark spots coming through my ironing board cover, so I pulled back my cover and was grossed out by what I saw.

So, my warning to you is, if you have dark brown or black spots showing up through your ironing board cover, you may have a rusty board.  You can sand the rust away and repaint with rustoleum paint if you don't want to buy a new board.  I opted to buy a new board, because I don't have time to do all that other stuff.

I will leave you today with a picture of raw joy.  We took the kids on Saturday to see the NHRA drag race qualifying in Indianapolis.  This is my daughter and her reaction to one of the runs after we we had been drenched by rain earlier in the afternoon and waited out the delay.

And to quote her, 'That was the fastest car I ever seen!'.    Have a wonderful Wednesday!