Little Gifts

I am having a hard time finding time to blog. Life has been very hectic lately and I definitely want to post about my new crafting philosophy that has developed as a result of the craziness, but I just don't have the time right now. So, I will make do by posting a few pictures of some recent crafts in the meantime.

Some more embroidered onesies for a new baby boy:


And a zippered pouch for my sister to match this purse:

T-shirt Quilt in Progress

The t-shirt quilt has been pieced together and is waiting for me to decide how to quilt it. And whether to put a border on it or not. I have never done a t-shirt quilt before, but I can tell right away that the quilting is going to be the tricky part. First of all, t-shirts are already much thicker than the quilting cottons I normally use. But in order to piece them together, I had to add fusible interfacing, which made the whole thing even thicker. The result is that this top is pretty heavy and bulky, which is going to make it hard to maneuver through my sewing machine.

I decided to test out the quilting on these two swatches on the left. In order to test out different thicknesses, I quilted one with batting and one without. Neither one was particularly difficult to quilt, but that's mainly because the sample pieces were so small that bulkiness obviously wasn't an issue. I think that when I eventually quilt the whole thing, I will need to stick to straight lines and forget about the meandering. I'm not sure though, because I think a basic meander would look better. Hopefully by giving it some time, inspiration will strike and I'll devise a straight-line quilting design that will look awesome.

Archie Makes His Debut!

I bought this make-a-long pattern from Wee Wonderfuls back in December, as a birthday present to myself. I finally made it this weekend and it will be going in Simon's Easter Basket, along with his super cape.

As soon as these patterns were up on the web, I knew I wanted them but couldn't really justify buying them. But then when my birthday came around and I had some money to spend, I snatched them up. The pattern was so easy to follow and took hardly any time at all to complete (at least, compared to quilts!). And, have you seen how cute he is!!?? I can't wait to give him to Simon. He got a little glimpse of the doll this morning and started flipping out because he wanted to play with him so badly. I had to distract him with the dog and hide the doll in my dresser. I shall be sure to get some good action shots on Sunday.