Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

The downside of being able to sew, crochet, knit or quilt is that your children want you to create gifts for their teachers.  I cannot just pop off to Dunkin Donuts and get them gift certificates.  No,  I have to work my hands and back to the bone.  But I guess since these folks spend more time with my daughters than I get to, they deserve it!

So my daughters decide that I have to make their teachers a quilt.  Oh DEAR!!!!!  I compromised with them by saying I would make a baby-sized quilt as a wall hanging.  Cause the last day of school is June 18th!!!  Luckily, they agreed.

I emailed the teachers to play off each other asking what they liked.  Did they like cats, dogs, coffee, beaches, gardening.....anything that I could use as a theme or color pattern for the quilts.  I got answers back and scoured the Internet looking for fat quarters that matched the themes.

Both teachers like coffee.  Go figure.  It is Rhode Island and we have a Dunkin Donuts on every corner.  We created coffee syrup flavoring.  We eat coffee ice cream.  But finding coffee fat quarters was driving me batty.  There is an AWESOME fabric collection coming out in August.  But that does me jack-diddly right now.

So last night, we jumped over to Joann's to see what fat quarter bundles they had.  Not much.  Sigh. 

But Amanda grabbed a bundle of fat quarters and INSISTED that Mrs Elizabeth, her one-to-one aide, NEEDED this fabric.  It was bright.  It was metallic birds in jewel colors.  I needed 6 and it only had 5, so Amanda picked a random yellow to go with it.  I wheedled.  I showed other suggestions.  One other pretty one she said would be for Mrs Murphy, but Mrs Elizabeth NEEDED this.  So it came home with us.

Amanda has Autism.  She gets fixated on certain things.  One of the things she is insistent on is STYLE.  She has a very defined sense of style for a 6 yr old. Mrs Elizabeth has helped make the last half of Amanda's school year so successful.  We were so worried that she would not be able to make the year in an integrated setting and Mrs Elizabeth certainly helped make it happen.  Without the support and effort of Mrs Murphy and Mrs Elizabeth,  Amanda would have had a much worse year.  And we want to show our gratitude.

I posted on Facebook asking for opinions:

What do you do when the fabric and colors that your daughter picked for her teacher's gift are hideous? Amanda picked this for her Aide. The fabric bundle is birds and I needed one more so she picked this yellow. It is a wall quilt. Do you get it? Or tell her it was not right?

People basically said to go with what Amanda wanted.  So I sat down and started cutting, sewing, ironing and cutting again last night.  And by 11pm, I had all 20 squares assembled.  Took a picture, posted the update to Facebook and took my tired and achy self to bed.

WOW!  Bright!!!

 I showed little Ms Priss my hard work this morning and she wanted to bring it to school.  Sorry kiddo, mommy still has to sew all the squares together, sew the rows, add borders and backing and hand tie this bad boy!

So after the girls got on the bus, I sewed the squares into rows and sewed the rows together.

In all its glory

Put on your sunglasses!

So the little diva was correct.  It does look good together.  I just hope Mrs Elizabeth realizes that Amanda loved her so much that she had to have this fabric for her.

Would your child's teacher or aide have appreciated this?  Would you?

Rescued quilting project

QUILTING: The art of cutting pretty fabric into pieces to sew together and cut up again before being sewn back together......

Yesterday I posted about finding a partially completed quilt top.  All the squares had been sewn together and even one row of squares had been sewn before the project got stored away.

I have been trying to figure out how long this project had been in storage and realized that the fabric came from The Fabric Place which has been out of business in Warwick for almost 4 years.

Last night, I sewed each row of squares together and ironed them.  Then sewed the rows together and added the border.

TADA!!!!!!!




With the borders added



Close up of the pattern

This sweet quilt top is off to the wash tonight along with the pretty paw print backing to ensure that there are no musty smells from being stored for so long in plastic.


Pretty paw print backing

 I really forgot how much I loved quilting.   That may be why there are multiple projects started.  I made a tiered peasant skirt last year from unused fabric pieces.  I know there is one of half finished quilting project.  And I believe enough fabric to make two Christmas kids quilts.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a rainy day.  Perhaps more set up for my sewing area and a deeper foray into my fabric stashes are called for!!!!

Love of quilting

I have not done any quilting for some time now.  Since before I moved into this house in November of 2009.  I had put away a fat quarter quilt that I had started cutting up when we decided to put the old house up in August 2009.  I had to pack up all my projects to have the house ready to view and never really set up a new area in this home.  I had sewed some things but really the area was a disaster.

We are cleaning out the basement and organizing our areas now that the playroom has been completed.  I am finally organizing my sewing area that I share with the 5 guinea pigs  :D  I got a 9-cube shelving unit with fabric drawers.  Craig put up a peg board on the wall and I am setting up a second folding table to create a T-shaped sewing desk.

I have a co-worker whose little man turns 1 in August and has invited us all to share with her excitement on his big day.  So what does a crafter do?  Starts planning ANOTHER project!  WOOT WOOT!!!

I start scouring for fabric.  Immediately come across the center piece fabric and enlist my co-workers for opinions on coordinating fabric choices.  Order it and got it over the weekend.

Last night I started cutting the three fabrics.  Cut out the squares for the main fabric. Pieced the coordinating fabrics that I had cut into 16- 2 1/2 stripes and cut out the 31-6 1/2'' rectangles and the 40- 2 1/2'' rectangles.   Then it was bedtime!  Well, after I check out how it will all look together.  Then it was REALLY bedtime.

This morning I sewed the 40 pieces together into the alternating squares and sewed two rows together.  Very pleased. 

I had forgotten how much I loved doing this.  The sewing....the cutting....the ironing....the final piece assembling itself.

So while cleaning the basement over Memorial Day Weekend, I came across two quilting projects that had been bagged up and put away.  One project has been put on hold of over 4 years!  So I took it to work today to see if I can salvage the project and was astounded to see how close I actually was to completion!

All the squares had been pieced together!  I even had one row sewn together.  The fabric had been in a closed bag,  I even have the border and backing that I had purchased for it.  Just needs to be sewn all together and then I will throw it in the wash before adding the batting and hand-tying the quilt.  Just to get any musty smells out and to iron over 4 years of wrinkles. 

BORDER



BACKING-actually sad that I do not have more of this instead of the border

  Might as well finish it up and put it up online at my Etsy store.  Then perhaps complete the fat quarter quilt that is half started.  Waste not....want not.....