the 2014 look back - completed projects list

i feel like 2014 just started, and here we are already looking at the end of the year.
pretty certain i've made more quilts this year than years prior, and i've become more and more pleased with each new venture.  i got braver with my block piecing, ventured in to paper piecing, and even auditioned for a sewing contest.  in total, 14 quilts were blogged this year, with only two of them being not done from start to finish in 2014.  maybe 2 1/2.
i quilted my first queen size quilt all by myself on my little machine.
i also made a quilt all for myself.  that is actually "me" sized.  which hasn't happened in years, if ever.
so here is a collection of every finished project posted in 2014 as lovely reminder of how much i churned out this year, and how much i can't wait to see where we are at next year :)
quilts & quilted items
joshua's t-shirt quilt
catvent 2013
amy & luke's quilt - pair of logs
the modern baby - baby natalie
mod chevron - baby everett
classic winnie the pooh daisy chain - baby jason
music themed triangle quilt
musical pinwheels
fun with flags - sewvivor sewalong
petite trellis - baby mark
pink & purple parallelograms
hexing around - sewvivor sewalong
coloradifornia camera quilt - sewvivor sewalong
where in the world? - map quilt
place mats & potholder set
quilt blocks
quilt block swap round 6
sewing projects
betsy & dillon's pillowcases
nurse themed ruffle apron
amy's keepsake garter
sweet retreat's little sister - sewvivor sewalong
andrew's olaf filled birthday
sarah & raymond's wedding pillowcases
christmas gift pillowcases
cross stitch
classic winnie the pooh - baby jason
paper crafts
amy's bridal shower invites

place mat & potholder set

after seeing some of my previous paper pieced blocks, my mom asked me to come up with a few things for my grandma for christmas.  i scoped out my options on craftsy, and found a few patterns to work in to something for her kitchen.  most of the things in her kitchen & dining area have hints of red to them, so using a cardinal pattern was a good starting point.
this was probably the tiniest pieces i've worked with yet, and surprisingly, it wasn't bad at all.  a little piece of orange from my coloradifornia cameras quilt fit perfectly for the beak combined with some black from the pudge cat catvent that is in progress.  it is quite amazing how quickly things come together when they are just 13x19 and not an entire quilt.
i am quite pleased with these little birdies.
my grandma was the one that bought me all these quilt tags, so of course i had to be sure to put them on these projects as well.
i finished these cardinals on monday, and then come tuesday i still had one more potential item to do.  i still had plenty of fabric, and so i put together a pot holder for my grandma as well.  the apple went well with the "red" theme, and seemed fairly simple.  everything went together smoothly until i got to attaching all the pieces together.  ugh.  that stem was a pain!  i ended up redoing it and then did the quilting and binding in its entirety before going to a holiday party.  success!
a little wonky in places, but it turned out quite to my liking.
and there you have it!
i love seeing small projects turn out quickly and exactly as imagined.
sure helped when working on larger ones in the meantime.
and now, back to the pudge cat blocks...

christmas pillowcases - 2014

< another pillowcase post.
can you say yaaaaaay?!  well, you should.
in the past, i've made pajama pants for friends for christmas gifts (might have been 2012 the last time i did) and this year i felt like getting crafty with gifts for my friends again.  so a handful of peeps got a pillowcase made to suit their likes/interests/whatever reminded me most of them.  only one of these people have not received their pillowcase yet, but i doubt he would even see this blog post before that anyways.  if he does, then he can deal with that minor spoiler alert.  here are the first three pillowcases of the bunch.
jenny's was actually the one to inspire the "everyone gets pillowcases" trend.  she spent the past year-ish living in the bay area and also worked part time at the giants stadium as an usher type person.  so it was very fitting to make her a baseball pillowcase with a hint of giants colors on it, as i couldn't find any actual giants fabric at that moment.
luke's is the second in the line up.  i wanted his to match amy's in a not so super girly way, and i think it came together quite well.  he's an outdoorsy man, and something about this fishing print that sort of matched the wedding quilt i made them seemed perfect.
amy's pillowcase was equally outdoorsy in a woodland creatures sort of way.  had i been able to find whippet fabric, i totally would have made her a pillowcase out of that.  but these deer and rabbits were just too cute to pass up.
this second set of pillowcases is for another married duo and an individual. only because that "individual" is the other half to my duo. while amy & luke's matched a little bit, these two not so much...
i saw this fabric at joann's and thought it would be perfect for erika and her love of wine tasting.  the bottles were a great color and not super cheesy with a bunch of wine types written all over them instead.  simple, but perfect.
erika's husband matt recently left the land of java city and got a job working for the railroad a few blocks away from their home. so of course, i felt it more than fitting to make him a train themed pillowcase this year.
this last pillowcase is for my "boo thang" as my sister and i jokingly call each other's boyfriends.  i found this ninja turtle fabric that was of course, the classic ninja turtles, not the newest formation of them.  my mom also made him one using a different ninja turtle print, so now he'll have a matched set for his bed  :)
and there you have it.  the pillowcase round up of 2014.

where in the world? - baby boy quilt

i can show you the world.
here you go.
my aunt asked me to make another baby quilt for one of her employees, and this one was for a baby boy with a "travel" theme to it.  airplanes, trains, boats, hot air balloons, etc.  my first thought was to us a piece of super cute fabric i've had forever that has little animals in hot air balloons all over it.  once i re-found the piece of fabric, it was way too small to do much of anything with.  after a stroll through joann's to look for inspiration, i hit up pinterest as i usually do in my times of need and found this pattern for a world map quilt.  it was all applique, and seemed fairly simple to understand.  i printed off all of the pieces, taped them all together and sighed about having to trace all of the continents and tiny islands.  i got quite lucky, and my mom did that part for me.  i cut out all the pieces and spent most of thanksgiving laying them out and ironing them down one continent at a time.
usually i would have zigzagged around the edges to keep them in place, but that seemed exceptionally time consuming and something visually just didn't work for me.  i straight stitched the continents down and got everything ready for the quilting.  lisa and i both felt that a wavy quilting pattern was best, and oddly enough looked at the exact same ruler and thought it would be perfect for this.  bought it, chalked it, quilted it.  remind me to not use yellow chalk so roughly... there are still splotches of yellow.  ugh.  but i am quite pleased with the wavy-ness of the quilting.
the back was this neutral compass print that tied in with the "travel" theme quite nicely.  it was a perfect find, since the horizontal-ness of this quilt made everything else  run the other direction and this one was a non-cheesy all over print.
and there you have it!
this quilt was absolutely something different, given i usually piece things together and the "big picture" comes as the blocks form together.  instead, this one was a big ocean (literally) and one by one things got added on.  i love the simplicity of it, and how it looks like it should be really tricky, but came together quite easily.

sarah & raymond's wedding pillowcases

back in october (yeah, its a long overdue post) sarah & raymond got married!  for their wedding gift, i made them a few pillowcase sets to coordinate with some of their interests.  they have a collection of board games, so i found this awesome monopoly fabric to coordinate with the purple of their wedding colors.
sarah is currently getting her master's degree in library science, so this book fabric was perfect for the reader that she is.

365.2014 - week 51

merry christmas 2014

merry christmas, one and all.
this picture happened yesterday... but this next one is what everyone is getting from us in their holiday cards.  enjoy :)

365.2014 - week 50

365.2014 - week 49

weekend wips

hang on tight, peeps.
it's finals week.
i'm down to 2 reflections, 7 peer responses, and 2 final exams.
the end is in sight.
baby boy quilt
after starting my pudge cat blocks, i established i should probably get this done as well.
i bought a wavy edge ruler to draw the quilting lines, and this past weekend drew a few lines, quilted.  drew a few more lines.  quilted.  etc. etc. until it was done.  and then i had to deal with the crooked-ness of the quilt, since my front piece was not the same size as my back piece.  once all were straightened and good to go, it was binding time.  and then i cut my binding 1/2" too skinny.  oops.  luckily i still had enough to recut and complete the binding.  now, it sits and awaits me to do all the binding sewing.  sounds like some parks & rec binging is in my future...  provided my sister is compliant.
pudge-catvent
these blocks have been coming together fairly well.  my first two days were a bit rough, because i had some really crummy white fabric.  wednesday got put off because it is my longest day of work & school (for now) and also i was mad about my fabric.  thursday i was able to get out and get new white fabric and bust out 8 kitties that night.  friday i did them in the morning after work, and then saturday was around 11pm... super long day.  so once i finished saturday's kitties at about 11:30, i did yesterdays, and finished them just after midnight.  kitty party hardy.  now we stand at 28 out of 100 cats already.  moving right along!  the hardest part so far is trying to mix and match all the fabrics without overly favoring another.  i really love a lot of the white on white prints i have, so those are easy to mix around.  the black ones though... i have a few very much favorites that i've been trying to do not SO much of... but don't be surprised if you see a whole lot of cats with black on black stars... that's the front runner favorite at the moment.  guess i should shop even MORE for variety.  am i right?

365.2014 - week 48

weekend wips

hello december.  how did you happen already??
we're back at it, my friends.  even if just for a little bit.
i apologize for the slew of posts that were just my 365 project for the past forever long.  school got super in the way for awhile, but hey!  next week is the last week of the semester.  hip hip hoorah!  anyways, there has been a little bit of crafting going on over here, and a little bit of prep work for a project that is set to start today.  yikes!  let's hope i'm not a liar about that once i get off work today at 3, and that homework and craftiness can play together hand in hand. this list is a whole lot less extensive than some of the prior weekend wips posts, with only two projects on it as of right now.
baby boy quilt
my aunt asked me to make another baby quilt for her, this one for a baby boy of one of her coworkers.  the theme was "travel" with boats, airplanes, hot air balloons and such for the suggested decor for the nursery.  i found a fantastic map quilt pattern on pinterest, and away i went.  my mom helped trace out all the pieces, and this past week i wonder undered them all, cut out the pieces and got them all together.  thursday-saturday i stitched everything in place for reinforcement, and then late saturday night i safety pinned the three laters together.  next, it's onward to basting and quilting it all.  whoot!
catvent 2014
ladies & gents, we're back again with another glorious catvent quilt.  last year's quilt was super fun, and i had pretty much been planning this one since i finished the other.  instead of doing the small 25 again, we're going big my friends.  super big.  100 cats big.  and not just any 100 cats.  100 pudge cats.  what's a pudge cat, you might ask?  this.
many of you know the love/hate relationship between my cat & myself, and when this previous catvent happened, i knew at some point i wanted to make one full of little elroys, almost in a 101 dalmations sense, but kitties.  perfect, right?  as you can see in the preview photo, i even have some pink fabric left over from my coloradifornia cameras quilt to give some of them little pink noses.  oh it cracks me up inside so much.
it should ideally end up the same size as my cameras quilt (lap size) and i just cannot wait.  i'm hoping to stick to the cat a day guidelines as last year - this year four of each "cat" each day but with all my class assignments needed to be done by december 13th, plus work as well, i forsee some days may get doubled up.  in the meantime, all fabric is prewashed and dried as we speak,the outside pieces for all the blocks have been cut and stacked, and now it all waits to be ready for things to happen.  be sure to follow along on instagram to see the kitty quartets as they finish up.
if you've never heard of this fantastic catvent before, check it out here at ohfrasson.com for the quilt along for it.  she's got some other super cute animal patterns on there as well that i'm dying to try in the future.
happy monday, all of you!

365.2014 - week 47

365.2014 - week 46

pink & purple parallelograms - baby girl quilt

a few months ago (but really, a lot more than a few) my aunt asked me to make a quilt for another one of her coworkers.  the parameters for this one were:  baby girl, birds, rosy pink.  i found the adorable bird fabric for the back at joann's, and selected some colors for the front pattern that i thought would best match it.  initially, i stumbled across this pattern that was for a table runner that i thought would translate in to a quilt quite well... but that didn't happen.  instead, this sort of "parallelogram" pattern was created and it came together quite swimmingly!  i think the teal-ish fabric is my favorite :)
at first i considered stitching down the diagonals, but instead went on both sides of the white and in between the two pink edges.  simple, yet satisfying.
i am quite pleased with how this little quilt turned out.
it was totally my first girly quilt in awhile, and the birds were just too fun.
hopefully i'll get a few more things shared soon enough!
and for kicks, here is the original pattern i was attempting to do:  scrappy valentine's day table runner

365.2014 - week 45

quilt block swap round 6: the blocks

the final send outs were just three weeks ago, and i'm now getting to blogging.  sounds about right.
i participated in my first craftster swap in years, and i have to say i thought it would be easy.  but i was wrong.  i thought a quilt block swap would be a piece of cake to have some crafting going while dealing with school work at the same time, but so many other things came up, and i easily got burnt out after my first few block sets.  i did managed to get them all finished in time the day before send outs, and they were on their merry little way.  here are all the blocks i created for this quilt block swap:
double aster
ribbon star
home town/state/country
cat block
garden fence
split 9 patch
quilter's choice - paper pieced
designer's personal pattern
and there you have it!
i think my favorite new block from this set has to be the ribbon star block.  while i had some serious "not reading the directions completely" issues and lots of seam ripping (with the help of my mom) it all came together in the end.  i also am quite pleased with the bigger of the star blocks from the paper piecing set.  which is a good thing, as i plan to use that pattern to make a quilt for my bed... still have a twin sized quilt on a queen sized bed.   soon enough that will change!
here's to hoping that in posting this, i'll be more inspired to get crafting again.
well, december is coming up, and i know i have some plans in store for the first 25 days of that.  it's just the act of getting there now.  ha!