Castle Tote

I don't know if you remember the tote bag pattern I bought at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, but I'm finally working on it. It's been taking a long time to make! There are many parts. I've actually done more than what you see here, but you get the general gist of it. There are two pockets on each side, a large one and a small one. The piece on the right will be a round tower and the red will be the tower roof. One will go on each side. I took this photo a couple days ago; now I actually have some pieces quilted. I'm quilting them with green variegated thread to look like vines. The windows are fused on and I still have to satin stitch around them. I'm not great at satin stitch, so we'll see how it goes. The pattern (Castle Keeper Tote by Needlesongs) is well written, if long and intimidating. But the only unsewing I've had to do was when I made a mistake, either by not paying attention (hello, it's right sides together!), or by not actually following the instructions and realizing that yes, she knew what she was saying when she said "a smidgen." If I make it again, I think I might change the order of the quilt sandwich, though. There is some stiff interfacing inside along with batting. The order she has you sew it causes the interfacing to be on the outside and the batting on the inside. I think it might look better if the batting were on the outside. But then it might look too quilty. We'll see. Anyway, I'm very excited to get it done, even though I have other projects breathing down my neck.

New beginner class

I have a new beginner class coming up called Four Patch Lightning. Here's the sample:
I just finished it a few days ago, so it counts as a Spring to Finish! The class is a replacement for my other class, which, while fun, had a few drawbacks. One is that it didn't have real borders. The other was that it just had too many fabrics, so was hard to buy for. This one should go better, I think.

Online Quilt Festival

Amy at Park City Girl is holding an Online Quilt Festival. Here's my entry. It's the art quilt that I made for my daughter's school fundraising auction. I had each child in her class (it's full of three-, four- and five-year-olds) dye fabric with Dye-Na-Flow, then made them into this quilt. There's lots of beads and some embroidery, too. The whole story is scattered around on my blog, since I started the blog partially so that the parents could keep track of the quilt.

Twirly skirt done!

Okay, the twirly skirt is done! I put some giant rick-rack on the bottom. Molly can't wait to wear it to school tomorrow. She had to try it on tonight, post-bath wet hair and all.

It's VERY twirly!

A cute Molly story: We were at Home Depot and there was a bag of fertilizer spilled on the ground. She asked what it was called and after we told her she kept referring to it as "turtleizer."

Twirly skirt!

So I decided after dinner last night to make a twirly skirt for Molly. It's a fairly easy pattern, except that I made it on the fuller side, which made the gathering a pain. The pattern is from Angela's blog Dangit Ange! and her website Cornpatch Creations and I found her links on Beth's Sew Mama Sew! site. Whew! That's a lot of URLs.

Anyway, I think I may invest in a ruffler foot if my girly girl keeps wanting twirly skirts. I need to stop by the shop today to see if I can find some cute trim for the bottom of the skirt. It's also a little short, so I am going to find some cheap Target shorts for her to wear underneath. I'm also going to get her a full length mirror for the back of her door. That will keep her occupied for hours.

As usual, the photo doesn't get the colors quite right. I don't know if it's my camera or my monitor or what. I'll post another photo after the trim is on the she's wearing it. That could be this afternoon!

Graduation/College quilt

I'm so sorry I've been bad about posting. Last week was spring break and we went to DC for a few days and somehow this four day vacation took three days of planning ahead of time! Anyway. I'm working on a few projects and might have a finished one to show you in the next few days. In the meantime, here are some blocks on a design wall to show what the quilt for my niece will look like. She's graduating from high school this year. I hope to get it to her before college starts! She picked out almost all the fabrics herself. They're mostly very large prints, so these are just going to be 8 inch finished squares. The photos here doesn't really do the colors justice. The whole thing is much airier looking in reality. Not sure how to quilt it, though. Any suggestions? It will be a twin.

Spring to Finish

Jacquie at Tallgrass Prarie Studio is doing a little motivational contest. The idea is to finish as many projects by the end of April as possible. I'm in! I have way too many projects (and have two or three more in my head). I'm going to finish as many as I can, starting after we get back from Washington, DC.