Quiet Book Sew Along - Week 2

Second week of  Stolen Moment's Quiet Book Sew Along. I'm working on two quiet books for Christmas

With my plan in hand, I started scouring the internet for templates.  There are so many wonderful ideas in cyber space!  I've gone crazy ordering items on Etsy.

I ordered the Colors Quiet Book kit from Turnbow Designs.  I started working on it last week.  I wanted to practice making a small book with all the pieces provided to me before I embarked on making 2 quiet books for Christmas.

It's turned out too cute! I still have to work on the flowers and sew a few more buttons on, but I'm leaning towards embroidering the flowers instead of trying to use my buttonhole on my sewing machine.  I can't get the buttonholes lined up in the middle of the flowers.

I've decided to embroider several of the designs.  I've found one embroidery designer that has several Bible Story quiet book pages.  I'm waiting to see if her designs will go on sale.  Another embroidery designer, Marge's Creations, has "paper" dolls.  I've ordered the Little Sister doll and she has a Little Brother design on her Yahoo Groups page that is free to download. Right now each doll/clothes design is 1/2 off! It was too good of a deal to pass up!

I cut all the pages out of muslin that I will need for the quiet books.

The Sew Along Schedule:

Fridays July 22nd-Sept 16th – Sharing Pages (this is 9 weeks for the pages of your quiet book, so for planning purposes you could take a week off, make one page a week, and have an 8 page quiet book. I’m planning on making a larger book, so will need to have a bit faster pace.)

Sept 22nd and Sept 30th – Construction and Reveal (putting the pages together and showing off the finished project)

I'm a bit behind but hope to complete the books by Sept 30th.

WIP Wednesday #9

Last week's goals:Current Projects:

1. Paris in the Fall BOM - FINISH the borders!!!
2. Cut pieces of dark fabric for Down and Across Quilt
3. Schedule time on long arm quilting machine for the Kaleidoscope and Carousel quilts
4. Finish Colors Quiet Book
5. Cut fabric pages for other Quiet Books
6. Order fabrics for Batik Swap

Finished Projects:
Fleece blanket for Nephew #1 - Dinosaurs
Fleece blanket for Nephew #2 - John Deere

Carousel Lap Quilt - I pieced the backing and am now ready to quilt.  Still need to book time on the quilting machine. 
Kaleidoscope Quilt Along - Piece backing and quilt
BOM Paris in the Fall Quilt - Piece backing and quilt

Down and Across Lap Quilt - Waiting on half yard of dark fabric to arrive - then I need to finish cutting the black borders and add the borders to the blocks.

I'm hoping to complete the quilts above before the Happy Hauntings BOM arrives in September.

Projects on my Radar
Happy Hauntings Block of the Month - should recive this BOM next month!
Merry Christmas Block of the Month - debating whether I should join the BOM.  It would be for my sister's family Christmas gift next year.  Guess I'll see how I'm doing on the HH BOM before I commit myself to this one too.
Postage Stamp Quilt Along
Blockapalooza




This week's goals:
1. Paris in the Fall BOM - piece quilt back and quilt
2. Cut pieces of dark fabric for Down and Across Quilt
3. Schedule time on long arm quilting machine for the Kaleidoscope, Carousel and Paris quilts
4. Finish Colors Quiet Book
5. Cut fabric pages for other Quiet Books
6. Ship batik fabrics for swap
Thanks to Lee at Freshly Pieced for hosting this Linky.  I feel more organized when I post my weekly progress.  Finishing these gifts for Christmas may actually happen this year!

Weekend

So how was everyone's weekend?  Too short? I had a great weekend. My replacement desk top arrived from Ikea Friday, so my husband and I put it together Friday evening. It's so nice to have a stable work surface

Of course Saturday was a morning of Garage Sales.  Got Christmas covered for my nieces - I found 2 cooking kits (includes spoons, rolling pins and cookbooks) for $5.  I'll put together a cooking basket for them and embroider aprons for them.  The plant lady was also having a sale again this weekend.  I picked up a few more plants - a morning glory tree, large leaf elephant ear, and a ginger plant.  We also purchased a couple dozen boiled crabs Saturday from Tony's Seafood.  They were incredible!  The full moon is this week and the crabs are full.  Makes me want to go buy a dozen more just thinking about them.

Sunday, we had a delicious brunch at Beausoleil Restaurant.  We just had to try their Bloody Mary - made with their own Bacon Infused Vodka. It was delicious with a very smoky flavor.



Yes, that is a piece of bacon in the glass



Hope you had an enjoyable weekend too.  Did you do anything fun? 

Have a great week at work!

April

Quiet Book Sew Along - Week 1

I'm joining Stolen Moment's Quiet Book Sew Along. I hope this will help me complete two quiet books for Christmas - one for my sister's family (pink) and one for my brother in law's family (blue).  The pictures below are outlines of each of the books. 

This week I'll begin purchasing supplies and hope to get a couple of pages done by next Friday.

The Sew Along Schedule:

July 15th – Sharing Plans (fabric, pattern, page sketches)

Fridays July 22nd-Sept 16th – Sharing Pages (this is 9 weeks for the pages of your quiet book, so for planning purposes you could take a week off, make one page a week, and have an 8 page quiet book. I’m planning on making a larger book, so will need to have a bit faster pace.)


Sept 22nd and Sept 30th – Construction and Full Reveal (putting the pages together and showing off the finished project)

I'm a bit behind but hope to complete the books by Sept 30th.

WIP Wednesday #8

It's been a couple of weeks since my last WIP post, so I actually have compelted a project!

Finished Projects:
Moda Bake Shop Snuggly Layer Cake Throw - Quilt for my niece.  Just a few more pictures of the finished quilt. 

Look at my puppy!

My sister and nephew searching for my niece's name in the quilt.

I bet my nephew $100 that he couldn't find where I quilted Becca's name in the quilt.  I gave him 2 clues (each costing $25) but he was able to find it.  Now I owe him $50! It was worth it.  We had a lot of fun searching for it.

Current Projects:

Kaleidoscope Quilt Along - Need to piece the backing. Then I'm ready to quilt! 

Carousel Lap Quilt - Will also need to piece the backing for this one.  Then I'm ready to quilt.  I'm going to schedule a

BOM Paris in the Fall Quilt - still working the borders. 

Down and Across Lap Quilt - Received dark fabrics

Goals for this week:
1. Paris in the Fall BOM - FINISH the borders!!!
2. Cut pieces of dark fabric for Down and Across Quilt
3. Schedule time on long arm quilting machine for the Kaleidoscope and Carousel quilts
4. Finish Colors Quiet Book
5. Cut fabric pages for other Quiet Books
6. Order fabrics for Batik Swap


Projects on my Radar
Happy Hauntings Block of the Month - should recive this BOM next month!
Merry Christmas Block of the Month - debating whether I should join the BOM.  It would be for my sister's family Christmas gift next year.  Guess I'll see how I'm doing on the HH BOM before I commit myself to this one too.
Postage Stamp Quilt Along
Blockapalooza
Fleece blanket for Nephew #1 - Dinosaurs
Fleece blanket for Newphew #2 - John Deere

Thanks to Lee at Freshly Pieced for hosting this Linky.  I feel more organized when I post my weekly progress.  Finishing these gifts for Christmas may actually happen this year!

FINALLY - Long Arm Quilting!

Ah-mazing! I quilted my first quilt (the very first quilt I made) on a long arm today!!!  I traveled to All Brands in Metairie for a private quilting class with Belinda V.  So worth my time and money.  I now have an excuse to continue quilting - I'll actually finish the quilts I start.  Right now I have 3 waiting to be quilted.

This quilt is for my niece and was made with the Hunky Dory Line by Chez Moi for Moda fabric.  This was my first quilt ever - I made it over a year ago.  I had just gotten my sewing machine and figured quilting & sewing were the same thing.  I just downloaded the pattern and started sewing.  There are so many problems with it.  I pressed the seams open.  I didn't know anything about chain piecing so I backstitched the entire quilt.  All the squares are a bit wonky.  I still haven't learned the lesson to square everything up before I stitch the blocks and rows together.  

Sewing quilt to leaders

Stretched on the frame

Rolling the quilt on the frame

Quilt sandwich on frame

Ready to begin

Close-up of quilting

The free motion swirls that I chose to quilt are so very forgiving.  The quilt top was filled with puckers but the pattern hides them easily. I even got adventurous towards the end of the quilt - I quilted her name & flowers into the quilt!  Besides all of my beginner's errors, I'm still very pleased with this quilt.  I hope my niece enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it for her. 

A little flower

mostly finished quilt - still needs the binding

Have a great weekend!

April