Baby Quilt

I finished the baby quilt! And the baby hasn't even been born yet!

Here's a shot of the finished product. Many many small patches. I think the largest patch is 2"x2" and most are far smaller. I started in the middle and worked my way out. After the first few sections, I took Mom's advice and used fusible interfacing underneath the patches to hold them on just a little more tightly.
I fell in love with this quilt and loved putting it together in pieces so that I got to see it evolve throughout the project. No feelings of being let down after the initial design phase was done. I'm thrilled with the way it turned out and Hillary and Jesse seem to love it just as much as I do, so I was very happy to give it to them. I'll try to get a shot of it with the baby when he/she comes next month.

Brian's latest creation

Brian has been welding lately. He made the metal planter holder that I posted this summer and he just finished this coat rack. It's made of wood from a reclaimed beam from an old building and some metal curls that he cut and welded in place. I love how it looks like it's floating on the wall since the L-brackets are hidden. And I love even more that I have a place to put my work bag, jacket, and scarf when I walk in the door!

Sewing with the Baltimore girls

Dan and I were in Baltimore for the last week at Emily and Brian's house. We were so busy exploring the neighborhoods, and trying out all the food and drink in the city (!) that we didn't have a lot of time to sew! But I helped Emily put together some of her postage stamp "scrap" quilt. She's using 3-inch cut squares and sewing together strips of 30. I donated some fabric and scraps from my collection to the cause and we managed to get a few more strips put together.

We used the railing in her guest room/craft room to drape all the strips. We didn't get too far arranging them, but had fun admiring all the beautiful fabrics. Izzy enjoyed it, too! She plopped down on the comforter that we were using to lay out the strips and made herself comfortable. She knows how to appreciate a good quilt!

Blogs to Follow

I found a couple of crafty blogs that I wanted to share, but I don't think I can edit that list at the side of our blog. Here they are:

http://mairuru.blogspot.com/ is by a young Japanese girl who makes small hand-sewn gift-type items. I've tried a couple of the projects but I had difficulty with them - they were so tiny. But I love to read her commentary. She's reall sweet. She writes in broken English and I just love her commentary on Japanese crafts and life.

http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/ has great projects and fabrics and it's updated often.

I'm participating in a Block Party. I've never done one before, but apparently each month everybody in the group makes two blocks for one of us (there are 12 in all) so at the end of your month you have 24 blocks to put together into a quilt. There will supposedly be pictures posted on Flickr at this link:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=tethered%20threads%20block%20party&w=all

or you can just sign into Flickr and search for Tethered Threads Block Party.

Dresser Scarf

This is done with English paper piecing then appliqued onto the background. I don't usually like to do hand sewing, but this looked easy enough, so I tried it, then did the hand embroidery, and since I had already done all that hand work I decided to hand quilt it too.

Snuglets

It's officially autumn on the East Coast and that means time to pull out the fleece blankets. Inspired by Maya's creation that I saw on a visit to Pittsburgh this summer:
I made a fleece snuglet (an obvious rip-off of the Snuggie) for Zac. It is his Christmas present from me, but I felt he might need it during football season. Then I remembered he lives in LA and probably never ever needs a fleece anything unless he's trying to pick up hiker babes. Anyway, he likes it and facebook LOVES it.

This is incredibly easy to make. You just make two sleeve tubes and sew them into the holes you cut out. It practically makes itself! I think I made 2 in one hour. Pattern here: http://www.sissonfamily.com/Sewingroom/images/2006projects/thesnuglet.pdf
Thanks, Maya!

ROY G BIV quilt

Look what my sisters made me! Pam and John are visiting us in San Francisco and Pam brought us this beautiful quilt made by her and Kathy. Pam said that she thought it was appropriate for me, because I taught her the ROY G BIV method of remembering the colors of the rainbow! (I don't remember that, but OK, as her older sister I'll take the credit!) The pattern is from a book called Simple Patchwork Gifts, which I had just gotten out of our library, and was sitting on my coffee table when Pam arrived. It's absolutely beautiful!!