A few pics of what I've been up to!

I made another version of the Oliver + S Music Class skirt and shirt (long sleeve this time), but with a woven wool and a gorgeous Liberty of London cotton!

(Please ignore my finger in the picture!)

I made a few patchwork scarfs for Christmas gifts! I used this tutorial by Trish over at Two Peas in a Pod Homegrown Designs! The scarf really is quick to make and turns out so nice!

For my 6yo's Girl Scout leaders, I used a combination of Amy Butler and my very favorite Meadowsweet prints. This one is 80-some inches long.

And for my grandma, I made one with a few April Cornell layer cake squares and 1 jelly roll strip. This one is about 60 inches long so it's easier for her to manage.

Another Bake Shop Recipe! Lily & Will Log Cabin Baby Blocks!

Be sure to hop on over to the Moda Bake Shop today! I have a special recipe featured!

I made these using Bunny Hill Designs' Lily & Will line, with just 2 charm packs!

You may recognize that these log cabin "blocks" were based on my original Project Quilting Log Cabin block entry made with a Basic Grey Eva charm pack

!

My Above All Fabric Wish List

Melanie of Above All Fabric is holding a fun little contest! Her site has a handy wishlist feature and three lucky winners are going to win gift certificates just for blogging about what's on saved on their wishlist!

Here's just a bit of mine!

Anna Marie Horner Little Folks - Baby Bouquet - Dusk

I finally got some voile, the last bit of Melanie's Coloring Garden, also in Dusk, and it has such a nice texture!

It's no secret I love Oliver + S patterns! I'd really love the pick up the latest, especially the Hopscotch Skirt & Knit Top and the Nature Walk Pullover & Knit Pants!

For the Nature Walk Pullover I've been eyeing the super-cute Riley Blake All Star 2 line! Here's a little mock-up I've made using a photo from the Oliver+S website and fabric photos from Above All Fabrics - add the magic of Photoshop and....

That's Mini Star - Orange on top and Bullseye Star - Orange on the bottom.

Also on my wishlist, the adorable Oliver + S Ice Cream Dress!

I think it would be so cute for Spring in Jenean Morrison's Picnic Parade Mingle in Pink!

And with that I'll end my wishlist post. I do still have more on my wishlist, and even more I've been admiring but haven't added on yet, but I can't post it all! :)

Farmhouse Funk Pillow

I had the pleasure of working with another one of Trish's (aka Two Peas in a Pod Homegrown Designs) lovely patterns a while back and I've been so eager to so you all the result! She debuted finally debuted the pattern at Fall Quilt Market!

Trish has such a fun style! The Farmhouse Funk Pillows really show that off too! Mixing various fabrics, leaving raw edges and using a fun freehand stitch/sketch technique on appliques create a playful end result.

I made a "rooster" pillow but was inspired by the bits and pieces of Bloom & Grow fabric I had left over from my girls' Sydney dresses.  Instead of using the applique pattern included I fussy cut one of the birds out of the large print I used for the dress bodices and made the front panel of the pillow from the fabric I used for the hood.

I didn't have enough fabric left to make the backing just as Trish described in the pattern, so I had to piece together scraps. (My brand new pillowform was extra fluffy at first! The back doesn't gap open anymore.)

And those cute little tail feathers? Those are from the tiny bits I had left of the fabric for the skirt panels, some are even trimmed of selvages I'd saved back! I also used a piece of felted wool that was once a $1 thrift store sweater and a piece of denim from a ripped pair of jeans! 

I didn't have any cording (or any coordinating fabric left) so I used some pretty crocheted lace to trim the pillow.

I just love the result! Don't you? I really want to make a few more pillows to go along with it! I think I will have to try the cute bouncing daisy and buttons & bows designs next time! You can pick up Farmhouse Funk Pillows Pattern at the Two Peas in a Pod Homegrown Designs Etsy shop or at one of the retailers that carry Trish's patterns!

A few more strip-pieced pleated skirts!

It's been such a pleasure to hear from people who have used my Moda Bake Shop tutorial and see their results too! I wanted to share these for your inspiration!

This skirt was made by Marci for her 1-year-old!

And this cute skirt was made by Meredith!

Much to my daughter's dismay I send the original outfit off to be displayed in the Moda Bake Shop booth at the International Quilt Festival in Houston going on right now. I'm hoping to get a picture of it on display for her, so if you happen to be visiting tomorrow, snap a photo for me in booth #1938!

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2010

It's time for another Blogger's Quilt Festival! I've joined in 2 of the previous 3, so I really wanted to jump in and post for this one!

I've posted about this one before, back this summer when I made it and entered it into a contest. I call it "Windy Days Pinwheels."

This quilt is 36 1/2" x 36 1/2".

In the previous Blogger's Quilt Festivals I've posted about each of my girls' quilts (here and here). They coordinate and use a lot of the same fabrics, so it only made sense for me to post about my little boy's quilt this time! I used a lot of the same fabrics again, but just omitted the girly-er prints and used a darker cranberry instead of the rose pink. I also started collecting extra fabrics in these color families as soon as I found out he was a boy, so 2 1/2 years of collecting creates quite the stash. :)



Here's a peek after I chain pieced all 96 half square triangle units together!

My little guy thought it was only fair if he got to help make his own quilt! I hid the rotary cutter--he was safe, don't worry! Although I probably should have hidden it from myself. Not long after I took this picture, while trimming down the half square triangle blocks, I proceeded to trim a bit off my own finger! It was a horrifying sight, but my fingertip healed much better than anyone anticipated. My left pointer finger is just a bit more pointy now. :)

After I got up the nerve to touch the rotary cutter again, I pretty quickly finished up piecing his quilt. I machine quilted it on my sewing machine with a simple diamond grid pattern and added the binding.

Best of all, my little guy loves it! :)

Two finished Jump Rope Dresses & more fun!

The Sew-Mama-Sew Jump Rope Dress sew-along was so much fun! I finished a day or two late, but now my girlies each have a new dress!

I haven't gotten a perfect picture of the view A dress yet, but here's a peek. It really turned out so cute! The woven plaid is thin and so soft! I made the long sleeves but added a tab with a buttonhole inside the sleeve and a button on the outside at short-sleeve length so that the sleeves can be rolled up. This works well with the thin fabric but wouldn't with anything much thicker.

I really like how view B turned out as well!

Today I spent a little time working on a new tutorial for Moda Bake Shop! It's turning out really cute - I can't wait to share it with you all!

I read about fun contest I may try and join in on! Purse Week at Lemon Squeezy Home! I'm going to do a bit of thinking and see if I come up with something to try!

Quick blankie, Jump Rope Sew-Along and a fun suprise!

I wanted to share a quick little project I sewed yesterday! A friend's little girl was so sad to outgrow her very favorite dresses so I was happy to turn them into a special keepsake for her. I thought about what would be the best way to do it for a few days, and finally settled on a simple 4-triangle-panel design because I wanted to keep the ruffles all around the edges.

Here's the before:

And here's the after!  (Excuse the cruddy lighting on both - just phone pictures taken in a rush so the blankie would be ready for the little girl's birthday party.)

In other sewing news, I've been having fun with the Jump Rope Sew-Along at Sew Mama Sew! I decided to make 2 dresses, 1 for each of my girls, although I'm sure they'll both wear each since they they both measure the same size for this pattern! I've chosen a woven plaid for view A and the floral print I mentioned previously for view B! Here's a peek at both in progress (turn you head and pretend Blogger is not rotating for no reason).

And one last bit of fun - my little Strip-Pieced Pleated Skirt recipe was featured at We All Sew! Take a peek - there's a huge list of free project tutorials and several I'd like to try!

New fabric swatch, a pillowcase & request for fabric selection help!

Remember that little contest I held back in July? Well Aubrey AKA Mauby was the winner and she chose a custom design based on my digital scrapbook paper pack, Rough & Tumble! She actually really liked the way the paper pack preview looked, with the patterned stripes, so that's what I used as the basis of the fabric design! Here's the final product! (You can pick some up for yourself at Spoonflower!)

Making this fabric inspired me to finally round out the paper pack and turn it into a full kit, which you can see more about HERE.

Back in May, when I visited a quilt show my little 4-year-old chose some fabric for a new pillowcase. Somehow that little project kept getting forgotten, but no longer! I cut and partially sewed it a few days ago and finished stitching it up today. It has her seal of approval!

The fabrics are all "Spring Meadow" by Cheri Strole. I have a bit left of the main print, about 1/4 yard. and just a bit of the stripe left. It would make a cute t-shirt applique I think!

Have you heard about the about-to-start Sew-Along at Sew Mama Sew? I decided to join in the fun! I received my Oliver + S Jump Rope Dress pattern in the mail yesterday and I'm trying to decide which fabric to use now. I'm determined to use something from my stash because I have way, way too much stocked up! If I don't use all the yards of fabric I've bought to "someday" make an outfit with for my girls, soon they won't want me to make them anything with it! Right now I'm thinking of using a cute floral off-brand I picked up at Hobby Lobby last year or maybe the year before that. I found a photo of the floral on flickr -- click over and let me know what you think! I wonder if it is too busy -- I don't want all the nice Jump Rope dress details to be hidden. I  have enough of a coordinating multicolor dotted fabric to use it for the whole dress and just use a bit of the floral as an accent, but I don't know that my 6yo would be pleased because it's not super-girly.  Now that I'm writing all this out I'm leaning toward setting this fabric to the side making a run for the fabric store for some nice shirting material or a not-at-all busy print like the pink shown HERE. Tell me what you think!

Special coupon!

I've been so thrilled to see the positive responses to my little tutorials! I'm still making my way through the comments, so if you left a link I'll be visiting you soon if I haven't already. :)

I came across a lovely little skirt using my tutorial in the Moda Bake Shop Flickr group!



Why don't you click over and leave maggistitches a nice comment! :)

It's been such fun to see the other blogs that have featured my skirt tutorial! One of those is Crafty Girls Workshop and they are even offering a special coupon to my readers to get 10% off your entire purchase from their shop with the code FQ10 . I've never purchased from this shop before, but I sure think it's nice of them to offer a coupon. :) You could use this discount to pick up an Origins jelly roll for yourself to make the same skirt I made or try a new version that is all your own!

My Moda Bake Shop debut & an applique pattern to share!

If you've been reading along for a while you may remember this little skirt and my promise to one day share the pattern. Well, that day is here!

I am so excited to share with you my Moda Bake Shop debut! Head over and take a look at my Strip-pieced Pleated Skirt tutorial! The tutorial was so long I decided not to focus on the coordinating t-shirt there, so that's a treat for you right here. :)

If you want to follow along and make a coordinating shirt, you'll need a t-shirt, fabric scraps, paper-backed fusible web, some sort of stabilizer (ideally water soluble), and coordinating thread.

The yellow t-shirt happened to be hanging in the closet - how perfect is that?  I knew I wanted to do an applique of some sort and when I sat down with the skirt and my drawing pad, this is what I came up with. (Scanned and rotated so it looked more balanced.) I wanted to mimic the flowers on a piece of fabric but also didn't want to exactly copy them. I'd planned a simple design, but I think my digiscrap side fought its way through and I ended up with a floral cluster!

I scanned my sketch in not just to show you all, but to create the pattern I used to cut out all the pieces. Here it is after a visit to Photoshop.

The next step is to choose the fabrics for each piece! I used the same Basic Grey Origins Jelly Roll as I did for the skirt, some of the same fabrics, and some other strips I hadn't used yet. I roughly cut out the paper pattern piece, then cut a small piece of fabric I could fit the pattern on, and attached paper backed fusible web to the wrong side of the fabric. Instead of tracing the pattern onto the paper backing I just held the pattern right on top and cut it out right along with the fabric!

After cutting, then place each little applique piece on to the fabric to lay out the final arrangement.

As you can see I didn't end up following my own pattern! Instead of layering the big flower's center I fussy cut it (same for the smaller flowers too). Also with the way I placed the pieces it still seemed a bit unbalanced, so I added in an extra leaf on the right.  Once you are happy with the placement, fuse in place according to the directions on your fusible web.

After fusing, it's time to sew! I've hand embroidered along the edges of fused appliques before, but I wanted something quicker for this project, so I used a 30 weight Sulky machine embroidery thread and a machine buttonhole stitch! Use a stabilizer on the underside to keep your stitches nice and smooth. A water soluble stabilizer would be ideal but I didn't have any and didn't feel like waiting, so I just forged ahead and used another sheet of graph paper. :) Worked nicely for keeping the fabric from getting pulled down into the feeddogs and kept the stitches even, but was a giant pain to remove at the end. Looked neat though!

For a nice clean finish, leave the beginning and ending thread tails an inch or two long, pull to the inside, and then knot and trim them. This will also help prevent the thread from coming undone.

I haven't yet, but I plan to fuse a lightweight knit interfacing inside the shirt to cover up the stitches and give it a softer feel.

Here's the finished shirt!

And if you'd like to use my little applique pattern, you can download it right HERE. Please note, this pattern is for personal use only, not for any commercial use including home-sewing for profit. (It would look really cute on a tote bag or a backpack too I think!)

If you do use it, I'd love to see your final result! Post a comment with a link to your photo or send me an email!

Oliver + S Music Class pattern

Did you see? I reviewed another pattern on Above All Fabric's blog yesterday!

I really do love the Oliver + S Music Class pattern! The shirt and skirt are both so versitile!

The year after next both of my girls will likely wear a school uniform every day, and I thought to myself as I was sewing this outfit that this pattern would also work beautifully for that! In the Oliver + S flickr group I saw someone else doing just that!

Click on over to Above All Fabric's blog to see the sweet details on the skirt and shirt!

Oliver + S Sketchbook pattern!

Hop on over to the Above All Fabric blog and see my review of the Oliver + S Sketchbook Shirt and Shorts pattern!

This time around I used Amy Schimler’s Lions by Robert Kaufman for the shirt and camel corduroy for the shorts. I keep finding more and more fabrics that I want to make more shirts and shorts for my little guy with! This is a pattern that is definitely easy to dress up or dress down.

A little catching up!

I was so excited to learn I'd won the public vote in the Project Quilting Office Supply challenge! And in even more excitement I placed 2nd in the judges vote! WOW! I really do love how my little quilt turned out. It was worth those two almost sleepless nights I think!

I have been busily sewing the last few weeks, finishing more projects in a week that I think I every have before! BUT I can't show them all to you just yet. I will soon! I sewed up a few adorable samples that will be featured on the Above All Fabric blog this week, I sewed up a sample for a fun pattern Trish of Two Peas In A Pod Homegrown Designs will publish soon, and I'm working on my very first fully detailed sewing tutorial to be featured on a very exciting website later this month. (Super exciting!) And that's doesn't even cover everything!

And one more exciting bit of news, the MODKID Kyoko dress I sewed last Fall was featured in the Basic Grey August 2010 newsletter!  If you aren't subscribed to recieve them by email, you can download the newsletter pdf right on this page of the Basic Grey website.  Take a peek!

MODKID Abigail with Patty Young Knits!

I should have shared this photos here ages ago! I sewed up two MODKID Abigail dresses earlier this summer with the pattern and some of the fabric the giveaway on The Creative Connection blog! I also purchased a bit more knit fabric to add some pink details.

Sewing with the knit fabric wasn't hard at all! I used a ballpoint needle and ballpoint pins, and my regular thread. For the interior seams I used a stretch overcast stitch and straight stretch stitch for the topstitching.

My 4-year-old in particular adores her dress! I made her a size 5 and it's a bit big, but that doesn't stop her from wanting to wear it day after day. It's her "soft" dress.

I made a similar dress with a different colorway of the mod dot for my 6-year-old. They really were quick to sew and turned out so cute!

I'll be sewing with this pattern again soon. I bought some more knit fabric in the cute Carnival Bloom design especially to make a long sleeved Abigail for when it cools down.