Sewing: July

I was looking back, and the last exclusively sewing post was for April!  I didn't do much sewing in May, with NO pictures of fabric.  I put together some fabric in June, but I didn't do much sewing.  July was the first month of more sewing!

I wanted to use the summer to get so sewing done, but until July, I didn't really get the chance to sew much.  That is fine, since family life is more important than any sewing project!  With the Mighty Lucky challenge, I worked on April's project.  It was interpreting a photograph into a quilt.  If you think that sounds challenging, in practice it is much harder!  It took between 12 and 15 hours of sewing to get my "block" which could really double as a small quilt.

I used a picture Adrian took of an orchid from our first trip to the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  I never knew I liked orchids until that trip!  This is the picture I based my quilt block off of.

And this is my translation of that picture into a quilt block.  Every time I think about this particular challenge, I think of a quote from one of my favorite quilters Lynn at the Patchery Menagerie.  She says, that recreating pictures into quilts does not use the medium well.  She likes to use quilting to convey other ideas, not recreate pictures.  I tend to agree that the medium is not conducive to reproducing paintings or photographs, but I like the idea of interpretive or stylized pictures and may try this again some day.  In any case, it was an interesting challenge and definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone.

Here are my first four blocks together.  April's block is almost as big as January's and Febrary's blocks put together! 

I started on the May challenge as well!  It is about color contrast.  The idea is to use one block and change the fabric choices for different components of the block to see how it changes the over all look.  I wanted to choose a simple block since I wasn't planning on making a whole quilt and wanted it to be small.  Then I chose my fabrics and got to it!  This is the first of many contrasting blocks!

Once I got started making these blocks, I just couldn't stop!  It was so much fun to see how each fabric choice changed the look of the block!  I went overboard and made more than I needed!

I kept everything organized by drawing out my plan and then stacking the fabric on top of each plan.  With that, I could chain piece several blocks at a time!

Not quite a complete set, but still a lot of blocks and many different looks!

I got to work on Mercy's quilt and actually finished the third color section!  Each section is quilted differently, with the light pink section quilted with "organic" lines and bubbles.  I really like the way it came out, and a bonus was that it didn't take very long to complete!

The blue name panel on the back shows the quilting very clearly.  I love seeing the different quilting styles next to each other!  I can't wait to see this quilt finished!

I wanted to use up some decor weight fabric I had, so I made Mors Bags!  I love how sturdy these bags are, and since making them, I have used them as library bags.  I made several so the kids could have some too.

Project 366: Week 37

September 11 - September 17

Sunday: Sunrise through the rain beyond the pier.  What a beautiful morning!  I love looking for the rain!  I am thankful for God's handiwork.  He could have made the whole world a monotone, but he paints with a million colors!

Monday: Sophia reading to Mercy while they wait to go to the beach.  I am thankful for the ability to read.

Tuesday:  What an awesome experience: to see the Blue Angels!  They were spectacular!  I am thankful for the opportunity to enjoy such an amazing performance.

Wednesday:  I am thankful for the Lord's allowing us this time to witness his creation in different areas!  What a wonderful sunset!

Thursday:  We took the kids back to the Naval Aviation Museum.  We enjoyed some of the displays on Aircraft Carriers and took the guided tour.  The tour was paused for a ceremony to honor veterans who served on the first intentionally build aircraft carrier.  What a special thing to witness! I am thankful for my children's love of learning.  They would have gladly spend another full day at the museum over going to the beach!

Friday: We rented stand up paddle boards.  Adrian and Megan took a couple of the kids out on the boards.  Avalyn and PaigeEE actually managed to stand up on the boards for a good bit of time!  I am thankful to have gotten to try something new!  The paddle boards were a lot of fun, though they provided quite the workout!

Saturday: (Taken on Friday evening) We never managed to take a family picture on the beach, so Friday evening, we took several pictures from the balcony of our condo.  The kids especially love the goof pictures!  I am so thankful to get to spend our vacation with my parents.  It is a joy to get to spend this time together.

First Visit to the Pool

We made our first visit to the pool this year the day after Memorial Day.  We went with my parents, grandmother, and the Presleys.  We shared pizza at the pool and had a great time!  The kids loved jumping in and cooling off.  I don't usually like getting in because it is cold and I don't like getting wet, but I got in for a few minutes just for fun.

All the kids (minus Patrick) with Gma.

Adrian tried to help Patrick float.

Keira and Kyle work on swimming.

Mercy loved throwing the dive toys into the water for the other kids to get.

 The kids loved jumping in in as many ways as possible!

Keira was scared to come to her daddy!  She thought he was going to try to make her float.

Mom took a picture of my baby in the pool.

Sewing: April

I don't really feel like I did a lot of sewing in April.  With spring break, I had hoped to sew, but I ended up rearranging bed rooms!  I did make some progress on my projects though.  Some of the pictures were taken with my phone.

I completed two of the Mighty Lucky challenges, February's and March's.  February's was called One Wrong Color.  The idea was to pick our a set of fabric that you like, then add in one fabric that just looks or feels wrong.  And then you need to play with fabric until you can make it work!  I picked out these purples and yellows.  I REALLY like it!  I added the turquiose because I love the color, but I couldn't find a way to make it work.

Look at all the colors and fabrics I added trying to make it work.  The problem wasn't the number of fabrics I was adding, but that they all came from the same line of fabric.  I just never felt it coming together.

 So in the end I reverted back to the yellows and purples and tried adding another wrong color.  I added in brown.  Even though I wasn't as thrilled with the whole pile when I finished, I thought that the colors worked together.  I made a stacked coin block.

 And this is how it turned out!  I loved playing with colors and seeing how they work together.  I would like to read more on color theory if I ever find the time!

This is the finished result of my February challenge.  It was minimal improv and is supposed to represent a sunset over the ocean.  I think several of my family thought it was a truck, so now we know I'm not so good at minimal!

 I started quilting Mercy's quilt, it is going to take forever!  I am glad I have until next year to get it to her!  I decided to quilt each color section differently.  The purple got pebbles.  I really love the texture it creates!  I finished the purple section and started on the orange.  It is getting concentric arches that over lap with other arches.  It is taking even longer than the pebbles took, so I think this quilt really will take a year to complete.  That is ok, I am really excited about how it is coming along and I can't wait to see how it looks when it is finished.

Sewing: February

To review, I started three projects this year in the sewing department: Mercy's quilt, the #mightylucky quilting club, and Dr. Seuss wonky stars.

I am really pleased to say that I not only finished Mercy's quilt top, but I also finished the back!  I am amazed at how fast it came together and I still can't get over how awesome it looks.  The pattern is wonderful, and I really want to make another one for my bed.  Maybe some time, but not right now.

One of the rows, I really liked the curves so close together.

The top is finished!

The colors from the front with the color that will be the background for Mercy's name.  The background color is from the main quilt backing fabric.

Here you can see Mercy's name panel.  I really wanted to do something with serifs, so I looked up a bunch of different fonts and picked one that I liked.  Then I used that as a guide for how I would make each letter look.  Needless to say, the letters don't look much like the font, but it still gave me ideas on where and how to make the serifs and how big to make the letters.  I really love how wonky these letters are.

The finished back!

A close up of the main backing fabric.  I don't think I could have found a more perfect fabric!

I didn't do anything for the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club this month.  I was really hoping to finish Mercy's quilt in time for her birthday, so I focused on that completely until I couldn't do any more on my own.  (Technically I could have basted it on my own, but I didn't want to!)  I put together some fabric at the beginning of March for February's challenge, and hopefully I can do February's and March's in March and get caught up.

I did make some wonky stars while I was sick and couldn't baste Mercy's quilt.  The stars came together so quickly that I just kept making more and more!  Before I knew it, all sixteen were finished.  I had been planning to leave the quilt top like this, but I had some small pieces left over.  I thought I'd use them on the back, but I changed my mind and decided to make a piano key border. I don't want to waste any of this fabric, so I'm excited about the idea for the border, though it will add a bit of time before the top is complete.

In addition to all that sewing, Megan and I completed two small quilt tops and backs during our Thursday sewing time.  We each took one home to quilt and now all that is left for each is to sew on the binding.

A friend took this picture of me while I was sewing at the church.  Patrick had been fussy, so he was in the backpack.  He likes to be there, and I like being able to get things done while having him close.

This little pink quilt was made and basted all in one day.  I had all the strips of fabric prepared from making two other quilts with these fabrics.  The first quilt with these fabrics was Mercy's baby quilt.  We also make the binding on the same day!
Preparing to baste quilt number 1.

The binding for this little pink quilt is VERY scrappy.  Check out how small some of these pieces are!

The finished binding for the little pink quilt.

This little quilt was made from leftovers from Kyle's bed size quilt.  I love the fabric line because it has gears, circuit boards, flying cars, and robots.  This quilt took longer to put together because we didn't have a lot of any fabric, so we had to piece lots of bits to make each block and then we wanted to make it asymmetrical, so we added more bits to each grouping and sewed them together into the top.

You can see how many little pieces there are in this section of the quilt.

The two little quilts together, waiting to be quilted.  Megan and I were both quilting them at the church when my sewing machine broke!  Fortunately, my handy husband was able to fix it a couple of days later, and it back to working again.

 An close up of the quiling.  Loops seems fitting with the trail from the flying cars.