Mega Mushrooms!

So this week, I got quite a bit of sewing in.  I finished up the last little bits on some totes I was making for a swap on Craftster.  I also decided to make Lila Tueller's mushroom pincushions for the same swap.

Man, these guys are big!  It's hard to tell from the pictures but the portobellos's are aprox 5.5 inches across and 5 inches tall.  The other thing I forgot to think about is how I plan to ship them to my swap partners!  I don't want to get boxes because that would be expensive.   I am hoping they will bounce back from being so crushed in padded envelopes.

This little guy?  He's mine.  I love how he turned out and I couldn't bear to send him away.  Sorry swap partners!

What did you sew up this week?  I am linking this up to Amylouwho's Sew n Tell.  Go check out the other fun stuff being linked up.

Giveaway for me...

Okay, I admit it, I am a giveaway whore.  There, I have said it.  :)  I enter them like crazy.  Here's the thing though, I never win.  Well, except the ones where everyone wins.  You know, like the crane game where you keep playing until you win?
There is a point to this.   Heather over at ALa Mode Fabrics is having her one year blogiversary.   She's having a fabulous giveaway of all these great Heather Ross fabrics.  I really would love to win it and am taking up every chance I can get.
So go here and check out Heather's great quilting/fabric/ crafty goodness and you can also enter to win.
(See all the pretties?!?)

pic from ala mode fabrics 

Weekender in, oh, about 3 months

On the off chance you were wondering how the Amy Butler Weekender turned out that I posted about here, I am finally uploading some pictures.

And then the interior.  I purposefully overexposed this one so that you could see the inside a bit better.  

This bag was a beast to make and I am glad that it's finished.  I procrastinated way too much on this.  My poor swap partner ended up waiting about a month longer that she had probably planned to get this.  

    I do love how it turned out.  My swap partner picked out the fabrics for the outside and the interior.  We are both aware that the interior does not go with the exterior.  However, she loved the interior fabric a lot and  wanted to use it anyhow.  I really love that I was able to find a corduroy that matched almost perfectly for the handles and the piping.  Normally this bag uses only two different fabrics but I ended up with four on here.  I bought five but replaced my original choice for the piping with the corduroy fabric.

  So what do you think?  Do you like it?  I have made two more of these bags that I will probably post on here some time also.    

Vintage Linen Love

Here's a fun fact about me.  I am a huge fan of vintage linens.  (ie. bedsheets, pillowcases, etc.)  I made my easter dress last year out of a vintage sheet.  It turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself.  ;)  Please ignore the goofy face in the picture below.

  I bring this up because Jennifer over at Rosey Little Things  is hosting another Vintage FQ Swap!  Yippy!  I participated last time and I got some lovely goodies back.  If you are also a fan of vintage linens, you should head over here or over there ---> and sign up.  Maybe you'll get one of my FQs and I will get one of yours.  

Here we are again.

So I am there.  The horrid part that I have been dreading ever since I started this project.  The part that made me say, "I will never again make this pattern" after finishing the last one.  Yet here I am again.  If you have made this pattern before, you will know what I am talking about.  If not, consider yourself lucky. And that is all I have to say about that.  Got to go force myself to finish it up.  I am supposed to be shipping this thing out Monday...

Princess for a Day

So Amy is host her weekly Sew N Tell.  Technically it was due yesterday but I just finished up my project and I am posting today.  :)  So my finish for this week was my daughter's Halloween costume.  She wanted to be a princess this year.  I planned ahead(ha!) and grabbed McCall's M5731 when it was on sale back in Aug.  She picked out the colors, and I think after everything we spent $20 on materials.  This wasn't a super cheap costume but I think it's nicer than the store bought ones you get for $20.

I hemmed it this morning so it is all ready for trick or treating tonight.

I did a test fit last weekend and had to take up the shoulders about an inch.  Since I want her to wear this for awhile (for dress up), I just folded it over and did a quick hand stitch.  You can kind of see that and how messy my sewing is here.

And the final fitting, we couldn't find her crown this morning.  Hopefully it will turn up for tonight.

She loves it and so I am happy.  So what did you finish up this week?

Commenting problem

A huge thank you to Kit from Diva Quilts  for her e-mail, letting me know that there was a problem with my comment form.  I had been wondering why I hand't gotten any comments on my Quilt Festival post.  I was starting to feel a bit bummed...
Anyhow it should be all fixed up now.  Thanks for stopping by!

Penny Jane's Quilt *Fall Quilt Festival*

 vPark City Girl is hosting another Blogger Quilt Festival.  She did one in spring that I browsed through a bit.  I decided that it would be fun to participate this time around.  This time she wanted us to post our favorite quilt.  So I pulled out the pictures of a baby quilt I made earlier this year.

I modified Valori Well's Urban Baby pattern for this quilt.  I love how it looks completely random but isn't.  :)  It was so much fun picking out the fabric for this quilt.  I started with that really loud one and went from there.

  This was a gift for a close friend's daughter who was born in May.  I was a bit bummed when I heard the name they chose for her since it is one of my two favorite baby girls names.  (In fact I had a flash/premonition as she was getting ready to tell me.  I wanted to cover my ears and go," Don't say it, don't say it!"  I just knew in my heart she was going to say Penelope.  I'm not sure how I knew, but I just did.)  I was heartbroken for about two weeks.  My husband thought I was being weird.  Trying to make me feel better, he said he never would have agreed to name our next one Penelope anyhow.  (Men!)  Once I got over it I figured the girl with my favorite name should be the owner of my favorite quilt and I set out to "make it so".

The cupcake fabric was something I bought on clearance over a year ago.  I think I originally bought it to make myself PJ pants but never got around to it.  I am glad I didn't.  It makes for such a fun backing.

Now go visit some of the other sites that are in the Festival!  :)

Gone a bit applique happy...

So I am finally getting around to posting some recent applique projects.  (Recent meaning in the last year or so.   )  Most of these were for Craftster swaps.  My favorite was the owl.  It was based off my partners wist, but it was on an apron.


an owl on an unintentionally tie-dyed onesie


A little blue pick-up truck


A dragon, it's a bit hard to see.


Reverse applique Sock Monkeys


a tree


VW style car


Handwritten with fabric markers then appliqued on


an "M" (duh!)

An elephant and an octopus

Vroom-Vroom! Car themed baby quilt

 I made this last year for a close friend.  Her baby was born in Aug '08 and I finished it a few weeks after he was born.
  I used this block pattern to make the entire quilt top:
http://happythings.typepad.com/happythings/2007/05/scrap_strips_sq.html
(I love her blog, you should totally check it out!)
    When it was done I found it kinda plain so I appliqued a car in the corner.
    I actually had the whole thing pinned and ready to quilt about a week before he was due but could not decide how to quilt the thing.  I am usually just a free motion quilter but the layout of the quilt top just didn't "say" free motion to me.  So I thought and thought.  I finally decided to attempt quilting each panel in free motion, with a car shape also.  I drew out the car shapes with a disappearing marker and got to it.
   I then pieced the binding out of leftover fabric.  I love the different colors in the binding, I might do that again.  I gifted it to her and she seemed to like it.  Plus, I was over there a few weeks ago and had to run and get something from the baby's room.  The quilt was lying on the rocking chair in his room.  
  (Who knows, she could have done that just before I got there.  But at least she cared enough to make the effort.  )

  So here is the finished quilt:


Close-ups of the car stitching:



The car applique:


You can see the backing flannel fabric here:


And here is is after pinning but before quilting: