Projects

I've made a few easy projects lately and felt very proud of myself, since I don't often get around to stuff like this.  Here is the first one - fleece ponchos for the kids.  I was just going to make one for Anna, but Matthew wanted one too, so I tried to make him a boy one.  The directions I was following called for 3/4 of a yard of fabric but I would have liked a little more than that for Matthew's, maybe a yard.  So his is a little small, but he still likes it.  They wore their ponchos to my doctor appointment the other day and told everyone that asked about them that their mommy "cut them out" for them (this was a "no sew" project).  :)  Here are Matthew and Anna modeling their ponchos.  Matthew is trying to be camouflaged in his.  I got the idea for these HERE.

Another easy project.  I bought this smocked fabric on sale at the fabric store this week.  Anna was very excited about it when we bought it (I also bought a blue Ariel piece of fabric) but less so once I got it finished. She wouldn't try it on for several days and when she did she though it was too loose.  That's why I wanted her to try it on!  She finally agreed to try it on AND let me take a picture (a rarity) as long as she could wear it over her nightgown.  Those were her conditions.  :)  It was a little big, so I might have to take it in a bit, but I still thought she looked cute. It was easy to make too.  Just sew it together and add straps.  My kind of project.  They had fabric like this for grown ups too.  Maybe I'll make one for myself! :)

Here's the dress without the nightgown underneath...or the little girl in it.

And another project that was not as easy, but easy enough for me to handle.  This is the completed quilt top for Grant's baby quilt.  I wasn't too crazy about the design I chose as I was making it, but once it was finished I liked it a lot.  I have green minky fabric for the backing but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to proceed from here.  I have more experience making the quilt top than doing the quilting, backing and binding part.  So hopefully I can figure it out.  I used precuts (a layer cake of the patterned fabric and jelly roll of the white) and it made this come together so fast.  Love it!  Now to finish it.  

Another project I have in the works is an I Spy quilt (see some examples HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE).  I did an I Spy quilt block exchange a while ago and am finally thinking about putting it together.  I didn't like all the quilt blocks I got, at least not for a kids quilt and some were very gender specific, so I'm trying to collect a few more to make a little boy quilt.  These are the squares I have for a boy quilt so far.  I'm not crazy about the random arrangement, so I'm going to explore some different options.  The examples I linked above are more orderly looking I Spy quilts with borders, organized colors, neutrals interspersed etc. so I might do something like that.

The Okinawa Quilt

I got this red fabric to make a border for the front.  I am just laying it out to see how it looks and I like the red.  We were supposed to have 20 squares and ended up with only 18.  I thought, no problem, I would just lay it out in a 3x6 block pattern, but when I actually tried it I didn't like the way it looked.  Too long and skinny.  So now I am back at 4x5 with two empty spots.  I don't know what I'm going to put in that spot.  I'm not that motivated to make new fancy squares.  I have some Japanese and Okinawan fabric that I might use to make a couple quick quilted squares on a muslin square so it will look kind of like the rest but also like an embellishment.  I don't know.  Any ideas?

Here is the red fabric for the border close up.  I decided I wanted something red and this reminded me of a shi shi dog.  :)  Ahh Okinawa memories.  I'll get around to all these projects...eventually.