Wednesday, January 19, 2011

New quilt

I started a new lap quilt for my dad.  I thought the combination of MoMo Freebird and linen would be perfect but my husband says it's too girly.  When I protested that it wasn't just flowers and butterflies, there were polka dots, too, he just rolled his eyes at me.  I'm adapting the pattern for the sewing machine cover in Fresh Quilting but am still not sure how big to make it . . .

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Pattern Testing

What a horrible picture! Oh well.  This is the Reversible Big Hoodie Coat from Dear My Kids.  My local fabric shop has a horrible selection so this is not exactly reversible -- the lining is a knit and while it is comfy I had a hard time sewing with it and the lining does not look great.  The coat is super comfortable, though, and I love the hood.  I will definately try this one again but maybe this time in fleece.  And I will cut the sleeves longer.  And I will try position the snaps better (still planning on fixing that here).

Monday, January 17, 2011

Still don't like it but it's finally finished!

A friend of mine offered to teach me to quilt pretty much exactly two years ago.  I was, of course, overly ambitious and instead of sticking with the baby quilt size, decided to make a twin size quilt. 
When I got the top pieced together, I hated the brown sashing but decided to soldier on.  I got two thirds of the way through handquilting but I just couldn't bring myself to finish.  I noticed more and cut off points with each block I quilted and didn't like the sashing any better. 

Every time I would start a new project, my husband would shake his head and ask when I was going to finish the quilt.  I kept putting him off but finally I said I wasn't ever going to finish.  His response "so what do you do with it now? cut it up?"  I scoffed at him but decided he was right -- I cut off the three (four?) rows I hadn't yet quilted and bound the rest (add "quilt from the centre" to the things I learned after the fact).  I still don't like it but it's done!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

next year I'll get them right . . .

This year I got the size right for the nightgown for my eldest.  The one I made for K. was way too big.  You'd think I'd have learned by now that when I'm using commercial patterns to make them smaller than I think I should.  J.'s is a size three with added length (she's five and normally wears size six).