Knock Knock Knock Knock!

Anyone still out there?!!!!
It has been a long time in "blogland" time of me posting a new post here!

I just haven't been sewing much this summer so the blog has been on the back burner for some time now.

Plus summer is just busy here in Wyoming!  Everyone who lives here knows how short the summers are.  You try to get outside every chance you have before the cold comes again.  This summer has been full of gardening (not going too good this year), to Big Birthday trips, to family reunions.

I did get a bit of sewing in the last part of July.  These darling babies are my grandkids.  The littlest one is missing in these pics since he doesn't walk yet.  Let me tell you....trying to get 6 kids, 6 and under, to cooperate for pictures was exhausting.  First picture the photographer took, the baby did a face plant on the concrete and cried for the next hour and a half.  The next child, 15 months, just kept getting up and walking off every time you sat her down.  Sigh.  Like I said....exhausting.

I had been wanting to make some clothes for the girls for awhile now so figured this would be the time to do it.  After quilting for so many years, it was hard to come back to sewing clothing!  Just reading a pattern was confusing to me at times.  I found a couple of cute patterns on etsy for the tops and used a pattern I already had for the capris/bloomers.  The fabric is from an Adornit line called Nested Owls that I picked up at the Utah Shop Hop in June.  I love it!
 

Ahhhhhh......I already miss these munchkins!

My darling daughter-in-law has caught the bug!

My daughter in law joined my daughter and myself this past year in making the BOM at our LQS.  She got so excited about sewing that she bought a couple of panels and made them into floor quilts for her boys.  I am so proud of her!


She had a wonderful quilter quilt them.  Click the picture to see the detail.

Emily wasn't satisfied in just a plain black border.  She appliqued every yellow piece of fabric on that inner border so it looked like a road!  Notice the face of that cute lil' recipient of that quilt!

Again, some great quilting! 

Emily is now working on finishing her BOM to get it to the quilter next week.  I can hardly wait to see how she put it all together.

Floor Cushions

Sorry for the blurry pictures!  I'm not that great with a camera but I also have some wild and crazy grandchildren!  Sometimes they just can't sit still!  I should show the "bloopers".....nothing but blur in most of the pictures of these cuties!

A pattern was introduced several months ago at my local quilt shop for a child's floor cushion.  I thought it was very cute but did not want to pay the $12 for the pattern.  You would be or not be surprised as to what you can find online!  I did a search for a floor cushion and found a great tutorial here.  So many people have made these that this girl started a flickr page to show off their creations.  You can see that page here.
There is also another pattern here.  I like the patchwork top on this one.

One thing I did change with the cushions I made was that I filled them with bean bag pellets.  You can find them at Wal-Mart.  I was told that some of the pellets stick together and go all over if you buy the cheap brand.  Mine were pellets from Bag of Beans.  Surprisingly enough, they played nice as we (it's a 2 man operation filling these things) poured them into the cushions.


I was a bit afraid of sewing with piping but it really wasn't hard to sew on.  I made my own piping by using Nancy Zimmerman's Wrap n' Fuse Piping.  Can I say I LOVE that stuff?!!!!  It can be hard to find but so worth it if you make your own piping.

I also used just regular cotton fabric.  Directions said to use upholstery or other canvas but I decided to use what I had.  I also made the pattern as big as I could so the kids could hopefully grow into them.  The original pattern I saw is quite small compared to what I made!  I plan on making a couple more but maybe a bit higher so I can use them for footstools.

The kids seem to like them.  Another success on Christmas Day from Grammie!

What I've Been Up To...

Couldn't show a lot of things I have been doing before Christmas.  I know it is already the middle of January but having been gone so long from the blog I had to really decide if I wanted to come back.

Christmas was the year of the grandchildren.  I bought the Ellie Doll Bed pattern (Kwik Sew) several months ago but it just sat in the pile of "maybe I will get around to making that one day".  Finally at the first of December I decided to open the pattern and see if I could follow the directions.  It was actually quite easy.   Especially since I didn't put the zipper into the bottom of the bed so it could be taken off to wash.  It was easy enough that I made 3 of them for our little granddaughters for Christmas.

I really loved finding the fabric for each bed.  This one was made for our 3 year old in Denver (soon to be Iowa).


We visited her a couple of weeks before Christmas.  I couldn't stand not being able to watch her open up her gifts we gave her so I let her open a few while we were there.  She loved the bed.

In fact, she loved the bed so much she wanted to sleep in it!

When I got home from our trip to Colorado I knew I needed to get going on the other two so they would be ready by Christmas.  It was hard not sharing with the mommy's what I was making.

 

So happy I was able to capture this one's face!  

This baby is a bit too young yet but she loved throwing the pillows around!  I knew if I didn't make it now along with the other two, I wouldn't ever make it so her mommy has it on a shelf until baby is a bit older.

 

All in all a successful project for 3 cute lil' girls!