A little something for myself

Have I mentioned lately how much I love to sew?  While quilting is my 1st passion I also just love to sew all kinds of different craft projects and clothing. Especially quick sew projects that I have all the materials and notions on hand for. Before I show you what I made I have to tell you about the past couple of weeks which were filled with county fair fun and building a better fence for our growing goat herd. My oldest earned some blue ribbons with his goats and we were all very proud of him. I mean how can you not love those little sweet goats all curled up together!

What can I say, proud mama moment. But back to the reason you're here...sewing. I am usually making things for other people and putting off my own stuff for when I have spare time. Which means that I rarely get around to making the things I want for myself. I have dabbled in designing patterns and usually keep a sketchbook of some kind with me at all times. My colored pencils have gotten out of control, when we moved the last time my pencil box somehow got cracked and was not doing the best job of containing my growing pencil collection! 

I searched Pinterest for a couple of minutes, ok it may have been an hour or so. I found the perfect tutorial for a zippered vinyl pouch, you can find the instructions here. I already knew exactly which fabric I was going to use. I have been saving it for the perfect project and this was it! Are you afraid to sew with vinyl? It can be a scary medium to sew with. Scroll to the bottom and I will share a couple of tips with you.

This pouch is the perfect size to hold my pencils, ruler, pencil sharpener and my notebook.

Here are a couple of tips for working with vinyl:

Pins are not vinyl friendly, they put holes in it that do not disappear. You probably have seen the plastic clips that many quilters use when they are binding a quilt...they are wonderful to use in place of pins. Another problem with vinyl is that it does not slide nicely through the machine. It can stick and pull and do all kinds of funny things. The best way to take care of that is to use a piece of the tissue that the vinyl comes rolled with to sew on. It glides right through the machine, no skips, no pulls and no puckers. And it easily rips off as the needle has perforated it nicely as you can see in the pictures below.

Happy little binder cips holding it all together

The tissue tears right off and leaves nothing behind!

 My finished bag had me smiling all day. It went together quick and turned out awesome. My favorite critics (my two boys) both exclaimed "That is so cool, I want one" and "You made that?!" They always know the perfect thing to say.

Time to break out the serger and work on some clothes this week and finish up quilting my oldest's new quilt. He wants to be surprised so I have to work on it after he goes to bed at night! Follow me on Instagram for random picture updates of projects I'm working on.

Happy Sewing!

-Amanda

Under the Needle

Busy, busy, busy...the story of my life! Our county fair is coming up in a couple of weeks so my oldest son is frantically trying to make up time training his goat to walk nicely on her collar. His mother goat is doing just fine, but the baby goat he plans on taking is haing no part of the training at all, she just wants to run and play and nibble on our clothes and shoes. He is in 4H and does not have all his projects done yet so that takes up a lot of our time. I hope to enter a quilt in the fair next year in the open class.

I have managed to make time for myself to sew and have had fun making patterns that I have had sitting around for some time.

If you follow me on Instagram you can see the quilt I started this weekend here. I bought the pattern and fabric over 2 years ago and just never put it together. It is coming along nicely and I hope to make some more progress before I go to bed for the night. It feels so good to get something accomplished.

Last week I made some holiday table runners and toppers. I used the scraps from the pole twist table runner to make a couple of small candle mats or mug rugs. Now to just get them quilted. Which I can finally do since my cord for my stitch regulator came in the mail yesterday!

You can't really tell, but the cream fabric is sparkly.

I love my 60 degree ruler! I bought it after I was at a retreat and saw the border print table runners that everyone was making. I cut out quite a few but I don't think I ever finished them. Hopefully I find the box they were packed in soon. For the Halloween runner I just cut 2 1/2" strips and cut out my triangles and sewed them together. I will definitely be making more of these.

I wanted to challenge myself and seeing that I had never made a lonestar block before I decided that it was well past my time to try it. I am a fairly experienced sewer/quilter however; I lost count of how many times I used my seam ripper on this block. It was a learning curve for sure but I absolutely love how it turned out and I see this becoming a focal block in a baby quilt very soon. I love to learn new techniques, even though I have been sewing for almost my entire life (almost 30 years ago my Grandma taught me how) I still learn new things about sewing all the time. I encourage you to step out side your comfort zone and give new blocks and techniques a try.

I am toying with the idea of creating a pattern/tutorial for a table runner that I am designing. I have never attempted a tutorial before but it is on my bucket list to do. Stay tuned for that in the coming future!

I think the kids finally fell asleep, time to go sew for a few minutes and relax.

~Amanda

#ivegotthis

One Year Ago

Hey All

I realized that it has been almost one year to the day since I last wrote a blog post. The last year has been quite the journey for me. I all but gave up on my dream of having a blog and sewing and well a lot of things. I thought about hitting the delete button on the few posts that I had written. Seeing every ones beautiful pics and posts and the list goes on and on I was very discouraged. I was my worst critic and basically shut myself down sewing not for fun or enjoyment but because I said I would make something for someone. Just getting stuff done and probably not quite to the best of my ability. I tried to concentrate on being a mom and wife which I love both, but I also love to sew and without that I became a very sad soul. It is my happy place and helps me to calm down, contemplate and just be me.

Life has calmed down, I graduated from college, our house was finally done being built and ready to move into. Then I made a few special gifts and something inside me just reignited. Hearing both of my boys exclaim how pretty something is or how they would rather have something I made then something store bought makes my heart fill with so many feelings. Both of them also want to learn to sew...how can I not teach them? That being said I started being really happy when I was sewing (even when the old seam ripper made her appearances). I started putting my love back into my sewing and I think it shows in the end result.

A graduation quilt made with lots of love!

Owl pillows for one of my dear nieces.

I had also started sewing two different sampler quilt sew-a-longs. I fell miserably behind felt defeated. I was able to start back up and join the group working on the second go round of The Splendid Sampler and I am excited beyond words to be making these blocks. 

Unpacking my sewing room has been a journey in itself. Seeing fabrics I had packed up in our last move and never unpacked are now seeing the daylight and will be put into quilts and various tote bags. Having to run to the store to buy Velcro and elastic because I still can't find which box my stash is in!

 I have a dream to start going to craft shows again and have built up a small inventory so far. I am going to keep plucking away and see where it takes me. I've always been a fighter and even fighters have bad days or years. I hope to interact with you guys more and share my love of sewing and quilting. If you read all the way to the bottom, Thanks!! 

#keeponsewing

Hey June....wait it's July!?!

Hey everybody, remember me? I seem to have let the month of June slip right by. I was quite busy with summer classes, 2 sixteen week classes crammed into 6 weeks! My children only knew me as the lady behind the computer with her eyes glued to a text book! Thank goodness that is over with. Luckily I was able to find a few minutes to get some sewing in. Nothing like letting your cares slip away as you sew away...until you need the seam ripper.

I manged to make 8 more memory bears and I have all but abandoned my Farmer's Wife quilts. I will get back to those later I think. I finally got another Splendid Sampler block done! #42 Pencils and I found my antique pencil box to sit by it.

So much goes by in a month. My littlest guy turned 5 in June. Father's day came and went. I did manage to make a fun shirt for my dad. I used my Silhouette machine to cut the iron on material (I love using that machine!)

On a whim...ok my almost weekly stop to the local quilt shop I came across a pattern I have been wanting for some time now. Plus it was on sale! The Spicy Spiral table runner, it's my new favorite pattern. I'm thinking that these would make wonderful Christmas gifts. This one is mine though. It has all my favorite colors in it, what a coincidence.

I'm off to work on more fun stuff. 

Happy Sewing!

~Amanda

Spring has sprung

As normal, time has flown by and I have neglected my writing. As usual I have been so very busy, spring semester finished up and my summer courses just started this week. I am so close to being done with school I cannot wait! Then I will have more time to sew and talk about everything sewing and quilting.
At the retreat last November I scored some beautiful batiks in pastel colors, I knew they would make a gorgeous baby quilt, I just needed to figure out who that was. It just so happens a co-worker was having a baby girl soon and so I got to work and made my first Hunter's Star quilt. I used the tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Co and it went together quickly.

This gave me the opportunity to get some much needed practice in on my Platinum 16. I made up a meandering pattern with some free form flowers mixed in. Practice makes perfect...I need to practice!

Oh, hey there, just quilting the day away.

My free form flower

I had a streak of about a week where I just could not get into my sewing room. I just wanted to sit on the couch and do nothing...yikes! I finally got myself back together and decided I needed to make something quick and fun for myself. I have just discovered how much I love those little plastic clips instead of pins for some projects, but I needed something to keep them in. I saw this tutorial from the Crafty Gemini to make a cute triangle pouch and knew that was what I needed to make. I love it! I tried to get creative with my picture taking, the tree was in full colorful bloom. I am definitely going to make a couple of these for some birthday's that are coming up, it's the perfect size to hold a gift card.

Well, I'm off to finish up some last minute projects, that really aren't so last minute. I just have put them off!
Happy sewing,
Amanda

Teddy Bear Land

It's been quite the month. It feels like we have experienced all 4 seasons in just a couple of weeks! 60 degrees one and and an inch of snow the next, got to love Wisconsin weather. I have kind of lost steam on my Farmer's Wife 1930's quilt along. I managed to get a couple of blocks cut out but have not even got them close to my sewing machine.

So what have I been doing? I have definitely been sewing and quilting! Of course I found another quilt along that I just had to join, because I needed another 100 block quilt to work on. It is the Splendid Sampler and I just fell in love with the blocks. I'm hoping to get caught up on those and my Farmer's Wife blocks soon.

At the beginning of March we lost the patriarch of my husband's family, Grandpa Gene. He was loved by so many and filled our lives with so many memories. I wanted to find a way to honor his memory. I asked for a pair of his striped farmer bibs and some of his flannel shirts. Here is what I came up with.

They were made for some very special people to honor a very special man.

One of my favorite pictures of my boys and their Great Grandpa.

I have been working on a couple of other projects as well, but I will get to those another day. Today I'm just remembering all the memories and stories those striped farmer bibs held

~Amanda

Lots of sewing...not much quilting

Another month has almost flown by, it is spring break for me this week. My last spring break, woo hoo! I am ready to be done with school and focus on other stuff, like sewing and quilting. Next week my kids have their spring break and we have a couple of fun things planned. In between school work I have found some time to sew, I am excited to be launching a new business. I have not did much quilting at all, but I have been sewing like crazy. My first crafty love is quilting, my second crafty love is doll clothes. You may have seen a picture of my tag on Instagram or Facebook.

I have a bunch of nieces and they all have 18" dolls and they had birthday's recently. I was enlisted by another Auntie to make some doll clothes. I haven't sewn any in a while and had forgotten how much I loved sewing them. Long story short, I have decided that I am going to make some to sell! I am hoping to do some local craft shows and sell online as well. Scroll through and you will see some of the fun outfits I made for gifts.

    

I do have to say that I despise glitter tulle and will not be using that again anytime soon. I am still finding glitter everywhere in my sewing room!

    

I had so much fun making all of these, and they were loved my the little girls that got them.

Swimsuits or gymnastics leotards in colorful sparkles.

Last, but not least...my favorite outfit inspired by the movie Frozen. One of my favorite Disney movies.

I am working on a custom order that I will post pics of soon, it is turning out so cute and I can't wait to share it with you. Keep an eye on my Facebook page I plan on posting a couple outfits when they are done for sale. You can always contact me at quiltingpanda@gmail.com I have made my first brochure, you can see it below. Please be aware that the prices listed do not include shipping.

Well I better be off, time to go back to reality and make supper. I can't spend all my time sewing...unfortunately. Thank you to everyone that takes the time to read to the bottom, this blog is a work in progress and I can't wait to see what the future holds. 

Have a great day!

~Amanda