slytherin kitten pillow

and now, we enter the phase of christmas gifts.
i'm trying to catch up, i promise!
after having a lot of fun while making the slytherin hazel hedgehog pillow for a coworker that was leaving, i thought about the idea of making something similar for my roommate who is also a slytherin.
spoiler alert, i am also in the slytherin house.
since we are both slytherins and cat ladies alike, i figured this would be a perfect time to test out one of elizabeth hartman's "the kittens" quilt blocks.  i had bought the pattern awhile ago, and lisa and i had strong plans to make them one day, so why not give it a trial run and make a kitten?
i chose to use the "daisy" kitten, because i liked her two tone color scheme.
granted, she's two shades of green, but it was just enough to amp up her cuteness.
we have a gray couch in our apartment, so having the gray fabric in the background helped tie in with our current decor.  well... we also have a red couch... so i guess this helps keep things festive during the holiday season as well?
i kept the quilting simple to not detract from the cute kitten face. plus, a small little pillow is easy to knock out with a walking foot and a ruler!
i used slytherin fabric for the backing and made an envelope style closure.
if i was to do a pillow like this again i would consider doing a zipper backing, just to try something new.  having the slytherin fabric on the back helped tie everything together.
so now that i've made a slytherin kitten and hedgehog, what animal might be next?  ha!
pattern: the kittens by elizabeth hartman

slytherin hazel hedgehog pillow

i cannot believe we are officially in to october at this point!
it felt like it was taking for-ev-er for summer to end, and now here we are getting ready for halloween.  well... our apartment has had bits of halloween since stores started selling things in august.  no shame.  along with those fall/halloween vibes came this little guy!  we (the preschool staff) found out our awesome theater coordinator was leaving us for a new AMAZING job that she couldn't pass up at all.  ever since i made my civil war hazel hedgehog and she had commented on it, i knew someday i would make her a little something when one of us left the program for new adventures.  well... we found out on a wednesday and her last day was a friday.  oy!
two of her well known favorite things are harry potter and hedgehogs, so i couldn't help but combine them in the most perfect way.  i was at joann's anyways to buy a stamp pad and impulsively decided that this project NEEDED to be done.  she is all about those slytherins, so finding these two greens were PERFECT for his spikes with a subtle but coordinated harry potter themed background.  originally i got to the check out line with plans to make it a simple mini quilt that she could choose to hang on her wall, use as a mug rug, etc... but then i decided to transform this little guy in to a pillow!
i always forget how easy it is to transform things in to pillows.  my pillow form was a little big bigger than the "block" alteration in the pattern, so i added a few more inches prior to quilting and trimming.  cross hatch seems to be my jam right now - i did take a walking foot class and still have yet to bust out some new motifs on quilts... someday, right?
since i've also been in apron mode, i used my rolled hem foot to edge the two pieces for the back "envelope" portion of the pillow to give it a fancier edge.  i had originally purchased a different fabric for the back, but it clashed a bit too much color wise, so it found a new home.  i had the perfect amount to use this same fabric from the front on the back!
and here's that other fabric!
since she's a slytherin, i knew this fabric would be perfect.  sure, it is hidden inside, but should it ever need to get washed (she's also a cat owner) then she'll get a little peek at slytherin crest hiding inside.  the white with the tan just wasn't working for me.  i'm sure you'll all understand :)
now that i've made a hedgehog quilt and a hedgehog pillow, i feel very strong hedgehog making vibes.  i posted about wanting to make pillows to cover my apartment and everyone agreed there was no shame in that, including my roommate lorien.  my mom asked if i was going to make a hedgehog for each hogwarts house... and not gonna lie, that sounds like a lot of cuteness!  do i keep going with hedgehogs, or use a different elizabeth hartman animal for each house?  do i just elizabeth hartman our whole living room?
also, i appreciate our leaf covered patio REALLY amping up the fall vibes for these photos.
pattern: hazel hedgehog by elizabeth hartman

paper pieced heart - february appreciation gift

this is the post that was actually supposed to happen last week, but instead i got everything mixed up, posted the beauty & the beast pillow set and then straight up forgot to post this.  so anyways, a week later, here it is!
since february has valentine's day in it, i went with a simple heart paper pieced patter that i found on craftsy.  using the scraps from the pillow set you saw last week, it all came together with essentially not having to buy a single thing for it!  i only state that, because it was intended by our program director to not spend any money, but if we had to, aim for $5 or less.  i alternated the reds to be light and dark to make it look a little more dimensional.
originally i intended to just use something from my stash for the back as well, but when i saw this crayon fabric, i thought it would be perfect.  i stitched in the ditch for the quilting, and i super like how it looks on the back as well :)
this is more than likely the easiest paper pieced pattern i have done yet.  i would absolutely recommend it to anyone who is thinking about trying paper piecing, or just wants a really cool looking heart block :)  even better, it was free!
heart pattern on craftsy: click here

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...

sewvivor sewalong - sweet retreat's little sister

hello again, sew-vivor fans!
here we are at the post for challenge 2: quilted bag.
when this challenge was posted originally, well before i auditioned and such, i thought instantly that it would be my weakest project.  no high hopes or anything for it.  just... blah.
i pinned a billion different ideas, but none of them really wowed me.  i stumbled across the "sweet retreat's little sister" bag pattern while at joann's one day, and decided it would be my project.  i picked out my fabric, and did some of the quilting the night before i left for colorado, and then finished it up while out of state.  turns out, i should have read the instructions a few dozen times before doing anything.  i had to requilt some things, and others were fudged as well.  and the binding... oh was there lots of bias cut binding.  oy!  but it's all finished now, and i had this super cute lorelai just sitting around to model my bag for me.  everything looks better with kidlets, right?
this bag has a whole lotta pockets on it, which makes it even more awesome. one on each side, two on the front, two on the back, and 3 on each side on the inside. i told you... a whole lotta pockets.  and that zipper was fantastically easy to put in.  and it looks great too.  love it.
this bag was a pretty good size,so i'm a little afraid to see what it is the "little sister" of... lisa and i were pretty certain if kent curled up in a ball, he would fit inside quite comfortably.
love those side pockets. although having to sew that curved edge... not so much love.
hugh would have easily fit inside the bag. with a whole lotta room to spare. now on to the solo bag photos, just to get a smidge more of the details while lorelai ran around like a crazy person.
and on a final note...
while this bag turned out better than i envisioned it day one in colorado, i am quite thrilled to be getting back to quilts.  big, flat, rectangular, snuggle up in quilts.  okay, maybe they're not going to be big enough for me to snuggle up in... but at least they won't be bags.
i shouldn't be talking too much trash about this challenge.  it was good for me to do something like this and try something new.  and i keep seeing posts about this weekender bag people have been making... perhaps that will end up on my desires to sew list.  in the meantime here is some info about the bag pattern:
sweet retreat's little sister by whistlepig creek
here is a fantastic tutorial i wish i knew about before i made the bag.  makes everything a whole lot more visual than the itty bitty drawings in the pattern:  tutorial by the designer
how funny.  the designer is from colorado.  it's like it was meant for this bag to be put together at lisa's house.