Summer Update!

Time flies whether you're having fun or not!  I can not honestly believe that I've not updated this blog since February.  Wow!  Much has happenned since then.  I got busy with the end of the school year which included my 4th and 5th grade production of the musical, Annie!  Now I'm sewing costumes for our summer musical camp, called SMACK, which is doing The Music Man this year.  We have 200 kids for camp this year and registration filled up with a long waiting list within an hour of opening it.  I'm so proud of this camp.  We've been producing a summer children's musical with amazing shows for 7 years now and the community just eats it up!  I coordinate the costumes and direct all of the music.  If you're interested in the camp, you can see photos and get information at www.smackinfo.com.  

As far as quilting goes, I finished this baby quilt for a sweet addition to a friend's family.  This was for baby number 6 in that family. (I don't know how she does it as I have a strict policy about the kids not outnumbering the adults in my family.)  The fabric is from the Out to Sea fabric line which is still available but you have to search for it!

  

 I don't seem to have a finished photo of this baby quilt but it was my absolute favorite.  The blues and greens were so lovely and I backed and bound it with a navy and white stripe fabric.  I'm having a little love affair with navy right now....not sure why.

This plus quilt was made for an auction to raise funds for my son's fine arts ministry group.  I think it brought in $185 for their summer trip to Orlando.  I love the grey chevron backing!  Sorry the finished photo is so dark.  This is also a glimpse of my #honestcraftroom which is terminally untidy.  I do love the recent addition of this wire clip line from ikea.  I can put all of my works-in-progress up there and out of the way!  

These are costumes for the smallest girls in our Music Man musical.  I've made 18 of these jumpers this week!  The littles will be bringing in the Wells Fargo Wagon in their red and white check jumpers with white blouses and red string ties.  The boys are in knickers, white shirts, red suspenders, and red kerchiefs around their necks!  Can't wait to see them.  These are the campers that are from 6-8 years old.

And last but not least, I drank the Koolaid and made my version of The Staple Dress.  I had to change it up a bit and I learned a lot but I think I may make some modifications and sew it up again.  It's not extremely flattering for us buxom gals but I think it could be with a few changes.  It was a very simple pattern to follow and it has POCKETS!  Every dress should have pockets.

I hope you all have a lovely summer!  Let's see if I can update sooner than 4 months from now.  

Two February Finishes!

This quilt just sort of happened.  I began the year with overflowing scrap bins so I started making string blocks to empty out the bins.  This quilt is 82"X99" and the scrap bins still aren't empty.  If you're interested in making a string quilt, there is a great tutorial here!

Below is a close up of the details and a photo of the backing fabric.  The quilt was quilted with straight-ish lines on either side of all of the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal seams.

                                                
 About the same time that I started into the string quilt, a quilt along for the Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt began to pop up on Instagram.  I couldn't resist so I jumped into two projects at once.  If you are on Instagram there are over 4000 photos of these quilts inspired by the quilt along.  Search for #scrappytripalong.

Scrappy Trip Around the World

Detail and backing fabric

Both of these quilts are for sale in my etsy shop you can find the listings here and here!

Catching Up!

 I haven't stopped sewing!  I am just awful at keeping up with this blog!  So today is a catch up-post!
Last summer, my wonderful friend got married and I decided I'd make her a quilt.  The challenge was that she doesn't really like color.  She's a neutral lover.  I was born to make colorful things.  I struggle with neutral.  She will tolerate blues but more solid than patterned.  So I had this Retro Flowers pattern that I had been dying to try and this is what I came up with!  She acted very polite about it so I'm going to pretend that she is thrilled and I am a wonderful friend.  She lives 10 hours away so it's not like I can stop by the house to make sure it's being used!  The man in the first photo is my very best quilt helper.  In fact, he's my very best everything.  He'll kill me when he sees this but I wanted to express how thankful I am for him.  He has put up this quilt line in the back yard for me just so I can photograph my work and he gets that ladder out and does this every time.  Sometimes he even does it without complaining.  I am beyond blessed.

The next photos are my current works-in-progress!  

This is another string quilt in the works.  It's got a bit of a Roy G. Biv thing going on.  I'm not sure how it'll end up but it's going to be ending soon as it's already 72"X96".

The next two are my scrappy  trip around the world quilt top.  I love the photo with it on my turquoise velvet sofa but it wasn't quite finished in that one.  The second photo is the finished quilt top.  It's rather large too!  I think it'll fit the queen sized bed in my guest room.  This quilt was done as a part of an Instagram quilt along.  If you're on Instragram, I am @thecrookedseam!  Look me up!  Also, if you want to see the other quilt along quilts search under the hashtag #scrappytripalong!  There are over 4000 photos with that hashtag. 

Thanks for stopping by!  Maybe February will be the month that I keep up with the blog....

A couple of weeks ago, I made up this pattern for, what I'm calling, a lunch bucket!  My daughter says it should be called a Girlie Lunch Bucket as no boy would ever carry it!  Whatever!  I like it and it's nice and roomy for hauling my leftovers to school for lunch.  It seems to be highly complimented by the teachers in my school so I thought I'd share the tutorial in case you're looking for teacher-gift ideas for the holidays.  Also, I made the whole thing for around $5 which is my kind of price with the holidays looming...

Finished Lunch Bucket

You will need:

2 pieces of outside fabric cut 10"X12"

2 pieces of lining fabric cut 10"X12"

2 pieces of thermal lining such as Insul-Fleece cut 10"X12"

1 piece of outside fabric for the handles cut 5"X 20"

1 piece of top fabric (yellow floral in the tutorial) cut 10" X 24"

Supplies needed.

First, make your handles.  Iron the long strip of fabric in half and then turn under each long raw edge about 1/2" and iron.  Iron the whole thing flat.  Top stitch down the outside edge and cut into two equal 10" pieces. 

Two equal handles

Next attach the outside fabric to the thermal lining.  I serged mine together on the serger but you could just as easily sew it together with a narrow seam along the edges.  It will all be turned inside of the lining so the raw seams will be hidden.

Next attach the handles to the l2" side of the outside fabric.  I sewed each end of the handles 3 inches in from the edge of the fabric.  

Attached handles

Next you are going to make the top of the bag where the drawstring will go.  Turn in a 1 inch section of the fabric on the short sides and press.

Now fold the entire piece in half lengthwise and press.

Then slip one end slightly into the other end with no more than 1 inch of overlap in the fabric and pin.  Sew this seam together leaving the inch closest to the fold unsewn.  Make sure to backstitch your stops and starts on this seam.

  Now sew a seam all the way around this piece about 1" down from the fold.  You are making the channel for your drawstring.

Next you will sew the outside of the bag together.  Place the two outside pieces with the handles right sides together and sew a 1/4" seam around the sides and bottom of the bag.

 Next, you will box the corners of the bag so it can sit up by itself.  

Pull the bottom corner of the bag into a triangle shape like the above photo.  Match up the side seam with the bottom seam.  Mark a straight line across the triangle 2 1/2 inches from the point.  Sew across this line then cut off the triangle part leaving about a 1/2 inch of excess before the seam.  Do both bottom corners.

The bottom of the bag after the corners have been boxed and trimmed.

Next you will attach the top fabric to the body of the bag.  Push it into the bag, line up the raw edge with the top edge of the bag and sew them together.

Turn the bag right side out.

Now sew the lining pieces together leaving the top open.  Box the corners for the lining using the same method as above.

Fold the top of the bag down against the body of the bag like the photo below.

Place the bag inside of the lining, lining up the side seams.  The lining will be inside out and the bag will be right side out.

Sew around the top of the bag/lining leaving about a three inch space unsewn so you can turn it right side out.

Turn the bag right side out.  Pin the lining to the bag turning under a 1/2 seam where you left the opening. Pull the lining into the bag, press flat and topstitch around the whole top just below the handles.

Thread a piece of ribbon or cording into your drawstring channel and tie both ends of the string together in a knot.

Voila!  A finished lunch bucket!

Happy making!

Well blogging has surely suffered this summer!  We have had an excellent summer with lots of traveling and my son's summer baseball games.  We've been in 9 states this summer!  Plus, the state of bliss that happened while lying on the beach for a few weeks. We've been to two weddings, a concert, a musical, a baby shower, a week-long Fine Arts competition in Louisville, Kentucky, and the most amazing museum I've ever encountered, The City Museum, in St. Louis, MO.

  The quilt below was finished around the second week of July.  It is my absolute favorite.  It hasn't even crossed my mind to give it away.  It will forever be a family quilt.  I just made it twin sized but now I'm wishing that I'd made it king sized to fit my bed.  It is currently across the bottom of my bed but has also done a stint in the car (while traveling) and on the couch!  If I ever catch up on my other sewing projects, I'm going to make another one and it will be huge! I've affectionately named her, "Strings on the Line" as her photo shoot was on my Dad's clothesline!

 This quilt was made for my cousin and his wife who are expecting a little girl in October!  Her name is to be Layla Grace so I foundation pieced her name and added it to her quilt.  It's just random half-square triangles in the colors of her nursery.  I love things with names on them!  Maybe it is because I could never find my name (Randi) on anything as a child!  I may make name quilts for all the baby showers this year.  Maybe I'll start a trend....

Two finished quilts and one WIP!

Matroyshka 2 finished for my good friend's baby's 1st birthday!  I really love how this one turned out!  The color are fantastic!  It almost has a matryoshka surfer girl vibe!

The colors almost look different in every photo I took.  I think these colors are more true than the top photo.  The aqua fabrics are from the Moda Grunge line which I have not used before but will definitely use again!  And the berry color is from the new Michael Miller Broadcloth Couture line which is amazing.  It feels so soft and silky.  When I hear broadcloth, I usually think not 100% cotton but this is 100% cotton and fabulous.  Can you tell I'm a newly converted fan?

I'm calling this quilt Triangle Fancy.  When the Flea Market Fancy fabric reprint was released, I bought almost the whole collection in either 1/2 yard or 1 yard cuts.  Then I stared at it for a while and petted it and tried to let it tell me what it wanted to become...Truthfully, I'm not sure that this is what it had in mind but I needed to make a quilt for a silent auction fundraiser for our son's fine arts group at church and I had all of this on hand and I was rather inspired by this quilt by Anna Marie Horner so this is what I came up with!  I've sewn really biasy things before but I've never done triangles like this.  They aren't difficult but you have to be awfully careful about pulling and stretching!  

The back of Triangle Fancy is so fun!  I quilted with straight-ish lines a 1/4 inch from all of the seams and it made this lovely grid of triangles on the back.  This photo was taken pre-washing but post-washing, it looks even better in all of it's crinkly goodness!  I love what a good wash does for my crooked seams!

This string quilt top has been sorta hangin' out in my sewing room for a while.  I get between projects and add a few more blocks.  This weekend it grew by 24 blocks!  This photo only shows 12 of the new blocks but the photos can't even keep up with me!  I've not measured it yet but each block finishes at 8" square and so far it's 6 blocks by 9 blocks so I'm guessing it's about 48" by 72".  I think I'll add another 16" to the width to make it 64" and one more to the length to make it 80" and call it quits.  It has been hanging here long enough!  But it has made a significant dent in my strip scraps.  I actually had to cut into some orange and purple fabric last night as I was fresh out of those scraps!  Still have plenty of blue, pink, and yellow though!