My Second Stuffed Animal

I got the pattern for this bunny at craftster.org. It was rather more challenging than the duck I did last week, so I fully anticipated this being a bit of a trial run for the bunny. I was going to use microfleece so it would come out soft and fuzzy, but I decided to just use some cotton scraps I already had - it would save me money, and why would I want to spend money on the practice bunny!!?? Well, it turns out I was right in not spending money on this fellow. He may look OK in the picture, but he is not so stellar in real life.

I was really excited after I finished the head, because I thought I did a really good job with that. Except, of course, for the way too floppy ears. I decided that for any future bunnies, I would lightly stuff the ears so they could stand up better. Also, I realized that I needed to use the same color thread as the fabric. When quilting, I can use white thread to piece everything together and it hardly ever shows, but this red bunny has all of these cream-colored threads peeking through the seams.

The body was a bit tricky, but relatively easy to figure out, considering that the directions were in Japanese. Stuffing the body proved to be the most challenging part. I'm hoping that fleece will be a little more forgiving in the stuffing department. The most challenging bit of all though was attaching the head to the body. I stitched them together, but it was so hard to maneuver the needle since the parts were so stuffed and not very giving. The head came out a bit crooked and very floppy. I used some fabric glue to keep the poor bunny from constantly getting whiplash.

I had no problem giving my duck to Simon. Sure, he primarily used it for chewing and sucking on, but I'm a firm believer that my crafts should be used and not just displayed. And that's what babies do with everything. I had intended all along that after I finished the bunny I would hand it off to Simon and let him do with it as he would. But now the bunny's head seems so fragile that I don't think it would survive long in Simon's clutches. I think I need to improve my methods before giving Simon a bunny. And maybe make it out of fleece. That way, it will be more cuddleable.

The problem now is that if I don't give the bunny to Simon, what will I do with it?

K.I.S.S.

I finished the quilt! As you can hopefully see, I decided to go with the straight line quilting. I figured that since it was a baby quilt, it didn't need to be busily quilted. Too much quilting might overwhelm the quilt. Of course, it didn't hurt that it took less time to finish that way.

I'm very excited to have finally finished this quilt. It had been hanging up on my wall waiting to be quilted for months! It has another friend that is still hanging up there, but I'm working on another softie before I tackle that one. I fully anticipate having both finished by the end of this week. I'm feely really productive - so many projects are being completed!

Quilting Dilemma

I'm about to start marking a quilt top that I've had ready for months - only now I'm torn between two different quilt designs. One is straight lines and will be very easy to do. The other is full of circles and will be much more time consuming. I want to do the circly one, but I'm not sure that it will look any better than the straight lines. Why put all that effort into the quilting if it's not for better results? But then, it might look much better than the straight lines. I need to just bite the bullet and make a decision!

My First Softie!

Yesterday I took a book out of the library (Teach yourself to make soft toys: simple techniques and patterns for stuffed animals) so that I could learn how to make stuffed toys. I thought that since KCquilts is partially named after Casey the Wonderdog, we should have a little mascot. So, I want to design a stuffed doggie that will represent Casey Quilts. This book does a great job of teaching me to make soft toys, but not how to design my own toys. I guess I have to figure that out for myself.

I started by making a duck because the duck is one of the simplest designs in the book. Also, it is one that I don't actively dislike. I'm rather proud of this duck and thought it looked pretty good. However, when my husband came home he laughed and said that it looked like it has cancer of the beak. I'm still not sure exactly what that means except that I think he should try making his own duck and then we'll see what that looks like!

Anyway, I suppose I'll try making a few more of the designs from the book before trying to design them myself. I have a feeling that I will need LOTS of patience for that endeavor.

Quilting the Quilt

Well, I've started quilting the dorm quilt and it is a beast. As previously mentioned, there is not a lot of room under the arm of my sewing machine. This makes quilting such a large quilt difficult, but it is possible. However, it is so not my best quilting job. The stitches are not even. They are very small in some areas and then large in others. I would be most embarrassed to give it to someone, except that its intended recipient will never notice such details anyway. My husband says that I'm probably the only one in the world who would notice, but I know he's wrong. I guess I won't be making any such large quilts for sale until I got a larger machine to go with them. That's ok. I really like the fast turn around of the baby quilts much better. And I have so many that I want to make!

Behold the Holder of the Pots

I love making homemade gifts for people. I also love receiving homemade gifts from people. It's just a nice feeling, knowing that someone took time and effort to create something special for you. The problem with making gifts, however, is that after so many years you start running out of ideas of what to make for people. At least I do. I've made pillows, wall hangings, aprons, and tote bags. This past year was the year of the potholder.

Potholders are great because they are a small project. Since I had a newborn, I figured that potholders were the way to go for Christmas this past year. It was a great success, but that same newborn must have sucked out all my brain cells because I completely forgot to take pictures of any of the potholders! This one here I made for my grandmother's birthday, which is a month before Christmas. I was able to take a picture of it this past weekend when I visited her for Mother's Day. She has it proudly displayed in her kitchen, where it is never used.

And that is a topic for another day: how most people think quilts are too pretty to actually use. Sigh.

What to do With a Bridesmaid's Dress?

I have two bridesmaid dresses and I know I am never going to wear again, despite certain ads that try to convince me otherwise. I've thought for years that I should make something out of them - that those expensive dresses shouldn't go to waste sitting in a closet never to see the light of day again. I thought that maybe they would make nice pillows to give to the bride in question, but pillows didn't seem special enough and my pillows always seem lumpy anyway. Then I got into quilting and thought that I would one day make a lap quilt out of all my bridesmaid dresses.

Well, it's three years later, I only have two dresses and they are scarlet and lavender. Short of petitioning my friends for all of their bridesmaid dresses, that lap quilt just isn't going to happen. Although I do like the idea of making a quilt and passing it along every month or so to a different bridesmaid so that she can claim that she used the dress again. And everyone could take pictures with the quilt to show to all their friends who complain about not using those dresses again.

That is a project for another day. For now, I've decided to take the plunge and actually do something with one of my dresses. The first step is stripping it for parts:


Now that I've actually dismantled the dress I'm hesitant to do anything with it. My first idea was to make a small wall-hanging that is a sort of wedding announcement commemorating the day. It would have the bride and groom's name, the date of their wedding and a nice scripture quote all embroidered by hand. The bridesmaid dress would serve as the borders to the wall hanging. My other idea is much more elaborate and may be beyond my skills, but would be an excellent way to expand my quilting abilities. It would be another wall-hanging, but an art quilt. It would be an actual bridesmaid done all in fabric, holding a bouquet of silk ribbon embroidered flowers. She would be viewed mostly from the back, but with her face in profile. My biggest problem here is that I'm no artist, and would need to use a model to get all of the proportions right. I'm hoping that my sister will pose for some pictures this weekend. Maybe she'll even give me a bridesmaid dress ;).

No Sewing Does Not Equal No Quilting

I had a very busy weekend and never made it down to my sewing room, but I did make some quilting progress. First, I created templates for the quilting pattern I need to trace onto the dorm quilt I'm still working on. I really hope that I can quilt it on my machine with the tiny underarm space. If not, all that tracing will be in vain and I will have to tie it. I hate wasting time like that, so I really hope that I can machine quilt it. Also, it will look much better that way.


I also broke out the graph paper this weekend and designed two baby quilts. I'm trying to make quilts that I design entirely by myself, using books for ideas and inspiration instead of taking patterns straight from them. I'm playing right now with interesting pieced borders to go with the quilts. I'm also playing with color combinations. The really frustrating thing is that I can design the quilt in such a short amount of time, but it takes so long to actually make it and see what the design looks like when completed. This is especially true when you have four other projects you are already working on and must finish before you start any new designs!

Completed!

I finally finished a project, but it's not a quilting project. Nevertheless, now that it's out of the way I can concentrate more on quilts.

The carrier took a lot less time than I anticipated, but came out rather different than I had envisioned. I thought the green would show more. I didn't realize just how large the pocket was on the front and, consequently, just how much it would end up looking like a beach umbrella.

I won't go buy more fabric. I swear!!

By the way, I completely forgot to give credit for the pattern. I got it from Beth, who was so kind as to share it with the internet. Thank you so much!

Not Another Project!!???

I finished piecing together the top and back of the Virginia Tech quilt, but I still need to mark the top for quilting, baste it, and actually quilt it together. But, apparently, that won't stop me from beginning yet another project. I really have a problem. Now I have one big quilt, two small quilts, one wall hanging and this new project in the works. Somebody needs to stop me.

It all started when I decided that I wanted a new baby carrier for Simon, since he is a gigantic baby and it would be much easier on my back if I had a carrier. A friend introduced me to the Mei Tai baby carrier, so I started looking into them only to discover that they were quite expensive. But then, I found this web site giving instructions for how to make one. I was sold and immediately went off to buy fabric instead of waiting for a sale or a coupon, like I should have done. This was when my real problem became apparent.

The fabric store had so many lovely fabrics to choose from that I shopped around for way too long. I pulled all kinds of bolts off the shelves and played with different fabric combinations until I probably made the staff very angry. I had such a hard time choosing that, if I had the time and money, I'm sure I would have bought fabric for three or four baby carriers. As it is, I'm already doubting the ones I chose. I mean, they're nice, but maybe some other combination would have been better! What if it doesn't look as nice in a baby carrier as it does as a bunch of pieces of fabric???



I have to stop dwelling on it before I start a stash of fabric for baby carriers like the one I have for quilts. Really, I only need one obsession.