Pinwheel Picking

 So here it is without the borders.  I am pretty excited about pulling it all together.

Iron Craft: Challenge #4: Get Cozy

If you click on the picture you will see a larger version.  You can see the flower stitch and then you can also see all the mistakes I made (oops).  A word in my defense, if I made another one, I would correct those mistakes.

I love being a part of this group.  Here is another thing on my list of things to make.  I was given the push I needed to make it.  Fun!

I used an elastic hair band as my elastic to go around the button.  I sewed it right into the seam.  I measured our and cut the shape of a cozy.  I sewed the batting onto my share.  I sewed on end right sides together, sewing the elastic in.  I turned and pressed 1/4 inch folds, then top stitched it into place.  All in all it was not perfect as I did not have a pattern.  Next time I get coffee I will save the cozy as my pattern.

Thanks Iron Crafters for a great challenge. If you would like to learn more about Iron Crafters, click the button below.

Mug Rugs

You may recognize the fabric from the apron I won.  Thank you Crystal and I mean no disrespect but I have tons of aprons and I really liked the fabric.  I repurposed it.

Mug rugs are such great practice for applying binding.  I am totally gearing up to put binding on my about to be finished quilt.  This one is the one I speak of.  A pre class, learning, lots of love kinda quilt.

Iron Craft: Week 3 Bunting

I think Kat (Iron Craft) and company are reading my mind as far as what crafts they are picking.  This is something I have been wanting to do for a while.  One is a paper garland that is sewn on the sewing machine.  And since I craft with some amazing crafters I thought I'd better up my game a little.  So I decided to make some felt hearts with some lace I had laying around.  I had some wedding decoration stuff laying around too that came in handy.  Love that.

Here are my paper ones.  I hung it on the wall in my "craft room", aka, the den.

Beginning a New Quilt

I have been hand quilting my youngest daughters quilt.  It will be the first full size quilt I have done.  And truly you can tell it will be my first one (the pieces here are for my other daughters quilt.).  The squares are a bit out of alignment in some areas.  The quilting is a bit jaggedy and off.  It is so imperfect it isnt even funny.  But I dont care.  Dont get me wrong.  I am certainly getting better with time and I am striving to become more perfect.  My daughter, when she puts it on her bed, won't even notice.  All she will feel is that I made it for her with lots of love and care.  Hopefully by the time she gets to be an adult I will have perfected my craft.  But she can show this first one and say this is when my Mom sucked at quilting.  She will know that with time we improve ( for the most part).  She will know that being slightly imperfect is acceptable too. 

I see way too many crafters out there trying to make everything so perfect.  And really that is good but you guys make beautiful stuff and it comes from your heart.  Honor yourselves. 

That was a bit of a tangent because I wanted to tell you that my oldest daughter has been itching for me to get started on her quilt.  Last week I did.  I have spent many hours searching for the right pattern.  She has looked with me too.  And funny I wans just playing around last week with some variable stars and I liked it.  She liked it too.  The start of the quilt for my daughter!

Iron Craft: Keeping Warm

The next challenge for Iron Craft was Keeping Warm.  I have been meaning to make a draft dodger for quite some time.  I have had wadded up tissue stuck in the front door jam, next to our light switches.  A terrible draft would come through there, especially on windy days. I made this right away.  I had such motivation.

This is our fairly new front door that we bought to replace the old drafty door.

This is the sneaky snake that wiggled his way into the perfect spot and stopped the draft.

Doll Quilt: Around the World

Although it may be small, this is the first quilt I have done completely; pieced, sandwiched, hand quilted and bound.  It is simple but I really like it.  My girls already have doll quilts so I am not sure what to do with it.  Maybe save it for my first Grandchild.  I will probably end up giving it away.

My quilting teacher highly suggested using solids for backings (after I had already chose this).  And so funny because I love the quilts out there in blogland that have a strip of fabric from the front on the back.  I like it because it is a simple design for days when you want a change.

I love the printed fabric on this; sing, dance...  I am so grateful to be able to sing and dance when I can (I didn't say I did it well and mostly in the comfort of my own home). 

Blog names

I dont like my blog name.  It sounds so...  harsh...  It sounds like mastication, which frankly I want to do a lot less of.  So I am changing it.  On one of my blog touring expeditions someone used the phrase, Its the bees knees.  I like it. 

Iron Craft #1: In the light.

 Many moons ago a co Daring Baker and I started Recipes to Rival, a group of people who wanted to do savory challenges each month.  This was before Daring Bakers had Daring Cooks.  The group grew for a while.  And then I dont know what happened but it slowly dissapated and along came Daring Cooks.  It was a lot of work doing Recipes to Rival and I have to say that my cohort, Temperance, did most of the work.  She had technical talents where I did not.  So I mostly sent out welcome letters and the like.  My point to the story is that Kat from Kat Knits and her other blog A Good Appetite joined us.  She was always there cooking, doing the challenges.  Over the the past couple years she has faithfully stopped by my blog and I hers.  I wish I could meet her in person, I would love to craft and cook with her.  Maybe have a beer or two as well.  But since I can not I decided to join her Iron Craft group.

This month, the first month was about light. And who couldn't use light both literally and figuratively sometimes.  I found this neat idea from here at Kootoyoo.  And I plan to do exactly what she had done as soon as I find my lace.  Until then I used this border lace to fashion something pretty for the challenge.  It goes up real quick.  I could see this for a wedding.  It added nice ambient light at a low cost.

I won stuff!

I won some sewing supplies over the Holidays: an apron, measuring tape and lace.  A nice little gift. 

Thank you to Crystal Hendrix of the Hendrix Family Blog.  She has some pretty quilts over there.