Christmas Gifts - Round 1

I managed to finish quite a few projects for Christmas.  First up are some surprise finishes for my husband!  First I made him a throw pillow.

The front is a panel that I put small borders on in order to make it the right size.  The back is a simple envelope construction.

He suspected I was up to something, but I still managed to (mostly) surprise him.  I couldn't make so many people something hand made without making something for him!

Then I threw together some nerdy pillowcases!  The body fabric is all sorts of mathematical terms and figures.  I found this fabric just before Thanksgiving at The City Quilter in New York City when I had almost given up finding something suitable.

Linking up with Finish it up Friday.

Pillowcases and a Sneak Peek

I've been working on a couple more pillowcases.  I had about 9 that I wanted to make before Christmas, and I now have 5 finished.

The one on the right is a second one for my crazy color loving sister.  This one was a special request, she picked out the fabric and asked me to make her a pillowcase.  In the course of making it I found that despite the fabric having a large selvage, the label was printed on usable fabric above the edging!  That cost me a little bit in width.  Not enough that it should be a problem, but enough that it was annoying.

And I'll leave you with a sneak peak of something I'll be posting all finished in a few days...

 Linking up to Fabric Tuesday.

Crazy Chevrons

I have been busily working on pillowcases.  I have nine that I want to make for the holidays this year, four of which will be for charity.  With these first two pillowcases I'm halfway there!

Next up is one of two pillowcases for my sister.  This one I have been planning for a while.

Hint: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13...

I was originally going to make this pattern in more subdued colors, but then realized that wasn't my sister's style.  My sister likes bright and loud.  The one time I brought her into a fabric store she thought all the brightly colored chevrons were awesome and should be made into a single quilt.

I didn't quite manage a quilt, but I think I think I covered lots of chevrons and bright fairly well.

It's a little long for a pillowcase in order to accommodate the pattern I was going for.  I usually make pillowcases about 20x30 inches, and this one is 33 inches long.  (Bonus points to anyone who knows what the pattern is.)

Linking up with Fabric Tuesday and Finish it up Friday.

Team Pillowcases

Fabric purchases!

Phew!  Summers are always so crazy.  Most of what I've had time to do on the quilting front is buying more fabric and racking up the projects.  Because that seems reasonable right?  I can't get to the ones I've got, so I'll just sign myself up for more?

One set of fabric is currently in my husbands possession.  I'm not allowed to start any new quilts before I have one finished!  So it's a good thing he's got it.  Resisting fabric is not my strong suit.  But it also means I can't show it off.

However, I do (finally) have a small finish to show off.  Recently we had a co-worker who suffered a house fire.  I thought it would be nice to make his kids pillowcases.

We started with the idea of soccer.  But my husband pointed out that the boys were probably too old for something like soccer ball pillow cases, so I had to get a little inventive.

I found out their favorite players and decided to make pillowcases with more subdued fabric in the colors of the teams.  Unfortunately one of the teams had only white as their color, and that wouldn't make a very interesting pillow case.  So I decided to try and mimic the stripes on the jerseys.  What could go wrong when making something more complicated?

After sewing the three blue and three white on white strips together for the band, I figured out which was the right side of the white fabric.  And it wasn't the side I'd used.  Whoops.  But with a bit of stitch ripping in front of the tv, I'm pretty pleased with how they came out!

Linking up with Finish it up Friday.

Finally Pillowcases

Nothing big to report today, just thought I'd share these pillowcases.  I made them this week while taking a break from struggling with my machine and the free-motion foot.

I make pillowcases for charity with the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge when I can, and this fabric has been sitting around waiting for me to attend to it.  I'll probably make a few more before bringing them in to my local quilt shop.

I don't know if you can tell, but the pillowcase with the gold band is actually purple.  I find purple to be one of the most difficult colors to photograph.  What about you?

They call me Little John. But don't let my name fool you.
In real life, I'm very big

Linking up with Finish it up Friday.