A pillow made with love ❤️

My 9 year old son, little A, wanted to make something special for his sister, Miss V, for Christmas. He knows, she loves things he made himself, and she loves pillows. 

So he struggled with scraps, with the sewing machine....and with himself too.

But look at this:

 

He made it all by himself. 

I am so proud of him. 

PS: she loves her pillow! 

Pillows

I made these pillows for my nieces for Christmas 

 

I like the scrappiness. And circles are always nice 😉

 

They were well received, that makes me a happy quilter! 

A sew-together bag Christmas present

Ever since my mom saw the sew together bag I made in early 2016  she has wished for one. So I made one for her for Christmas:

 

I love how it holds so much, and once you close it up, it's still not too big 

 She was so pleased that I finally made her one.  Now she just needs to figure out what to use it for 😉

Pattern by SewDemented

Tumbling blocks pillows - a birthday present

I have always liked the tumbling blocks pattern - also in fabric.

I had this idea of making one-color tumbling blocks pillows, that they would look good together.

So I started out with yellow

See? No Y-seams! That makes this sooooo much easier.

I finished the yellow pillow 

...and started making a green in the same way

I chose some very colorful fish-stamp fabric for the back

And there you go! 2 tumbling block/fish stamp pillows done:

They were a present for a December birthday and they were well recieved - I do think that the recipient has more than enough pillows now, so if I want a bunch of these in different colors, I may have to make them for myself :-)

Some Christmas sewing

My daughter loves unicorns. She has been looking at a unicorn quilt block pattern since forever, saying things like "ooooh look at this - but....that's too difficult for you to sew, isn't it?"

So naturally, I had to get the pattern. I did, and it sat around in my to-do list forever. Because it looked so intimidating. But I did finish this pillow for her in time for Christmas - and she loves it! 

Pattern by Robyniepatterns

Crazy busy June

This month is busy. I started a new job June 1st (I love it - more about that later)

My sister got married June 4th, it was a very special day. We celebrated with them all day, and it was such a special day. 

I had made them pillowcases for their birthdays, and that was what they wished for as thair wedding present. More pillows. And wine. A combination that makes sense - you want to be comfy while drinking wine, right?!

I wanted to make them different designs, so I started out with a dresden:

I quilted it with a 1'' grid - I really do not have the patience for that...

I also made a kaleidoscope. I still want to make a quilt with this block. I just love it!

I am not sure what the name of this block is, but it is made from 9-patches that are cut op into triangles and sewn back together:

 I like the quilting on the 4-patch pillow:

Here you can see it from the back. Elizabeth Hartman has a great tute for this dogwood quilting.

And here they are, all together:

I am happy with how they turned out. And I think my sister is too :-)

More little earbud pouches

My daugther really wanted me to make some of the little heartshaped earbud pouches for her friends. So I have made a few...

A couple of blue ones for the friends loving blues... And....I prefer turning the zipper the way it is on the top pouch. I makes it so much easier to sew the little fabric square without having it bent out of shape....

A pink and purple heartshaped pouch, and a round one for me :-)

And finally one more heartshaped blue one... I think this last one is my favorite. Well...either this one or the pink/purple one...or the blue one with the owls...

I'll have to make some more. All information about the tutorial is here :-)

My 11 year old hair stylist and an early birthday present

Next Monday is my sons 9th birthday, I made him a floor cushion - and I just couldn't wait, so I gave it to him today! 

I pieced blue strips from my bigger scraps, and quilted with a loopy pattern. The pillow is 65 cm square, so it is big enough for him to sit on, while playing games or watching tv - or building LEGOs or whatever else he does. 

My feet are in the pictures for scale - because you all know how big my feet are, right? :)

The pillow is fully lined, and with its really big zipper, it is easy to just throw this pillow case in the wash.

In other news, I really desperately needed a haircut. So I asked my daugther, if she would do it, she reluctantly agreed. Yesterday she cut 4-5 inches off the length, aaaaah. But, I really wanted bangs....so today, she cut those too. 

Yay. I am really happy with the result. And really proud of my very brave 11 year old hair stylist daugther!

Pencil case presents

Miss V was going to a birthday party and asked me to sew pencil cases for her friends.

I had made 5 pencil cases for presents late last year, and one of them was to be similar to those:

The other 2 were for boys, she chose the fabrics and the zippers:

I followed a tutorial from A Spoonful of Sugar, and they came together pretty quick.

The birthday was today - so these have been gifted. Now I need to work on my blocks for The Splendid Sampler. I guess I'll always be a little bit behind on that quilt :) That's ok!

Happy Birthday to me ❤️

Yesterday was my birthday, I was too busy celebrating it with the kids, to show you these beautiful roses Mr W sent me :-)

Pillows for presents

I made these pillowcases for my mom. I gave her one already, and am giving her the other one for Mother's Day - thinking ahead! Yay!

This was one of the first things I made in a long time, so my quilting is quilt rusty, but they turned out ok, I think.

My mother liked it anyway - that's the most important thing.

I chose a solid grey for the back, and put in a zipper, so they are easy to throw in the wash.

I can't remember the name of the fabric line, it was a charm square pack I had in my stash.

Sewing presents and catching up

I bet you have heard this before, but in 2016 I am going to try to make as much from my stash as I can. I will need to buy stuff here and there, zippers, batting etc. But I really should stay away from getting more fabric for my stash.... Let's see how this goes :-)

I have been sewing a lot of presents - mostly catching up. I can't show them all, because they haven't been gifted yet. But I can show you these pillows:

I love these fabrics from Cotton + Steel

I know it's a simple design, but I really didn't want to draw attention away from the prints...

I also made this Sew Together Bag (pattern by SewDemented), I had the pattern for the longest time before finally putting on my brave pants and making one! 

Considering how much it holds, it really isn't that big when it's closed. 

It fits into a tote quite easily, and can be brought everywhere. Perfect for handstitching projects.

I am using it for my never-ending hexies project:

Now my kids want one each, they have started pulling fabrics.... 

Present from work

At my new (well sort of new) job, we could chose one of 6 different presents for Christmas. So no surprise, but a better chance of getting something you will actually like!
I chose this

This is a SKAGEN watch - I really like it!

Moomin love

Look what Charles gave me today! A brand new Moomin mug!

 

How cute is that? Moomin, snow and a winter-feel! I love it!

I still have lots of presents to buy - and no time to go shopping :/ So I am a little stressed out about the whole gift-giving/-getting thing this year.

And to make it even worse, Miss V has pneumonia. So I have no idea how I am going to get any shopping time. Please keep your fingers crossed that the penicillin kicks in real fast. I so want to take her Christmas shopping!

Happy Lucia Day

Our neighbor brings us these every year.

 

Such a delicious tradition! Charles is half Swedish, so he really appreciates these ;D

Tissueholders

I have seen these around Flickr and blogland, and I have always thought they are really cute.
But as with so many other projects, I have never actually made any.....until Miss V saw these cuties.

She went straight for the scrap baskets and choose 5 sets of 2 prints!

 

So there you go...5 tissue holders, ready to be wrapped up and given away as Christmas presents. 

Miss V is really proud of these, she chose the fabrics very carefully ;)

How did I get this tired?

WARNING: This post is just my tired mumblings......

Look what Charles gave me today! A new Moomin mug!

 

I love this little treasure hunter :)

I am so tired this evening, I had a long day at the office. I had hoped to sew a bit this evening, but I am just too tired. Getting up at 5:30AM does that to me ;)

You'll see all the pictures are taken with my cell while I'm sitting on the couch - I'm too tired and too lazy to get up. So you'll have to excuse the poor quality of the pictures....

I am blogging, watching some Ms Marple on tv, and playing Mario on Miss V's Nintendo. And that's about all I can do this evening ;)

I absolutely understand why these are so popular with the kids!! Little A wants one too - a blue one ;) But at 3 years old, I think he is still a little young. Maybe this Christmas....or when he turns 4 in spring. We'll see.

Also I want to share a comment he made this evening that made me laugh. He wanted to try on my shoes - not my sneakers but my work shoes...I want him to not break his ancle, so I said no.

He then looked at the shoes...looked up at me with a frown and said "These are like little slides mom!"

 

And I guess he is right!

Plain Spoken #2

I finally finished my first 2010 quilt! It's the second time I have made a quilt using FunQuilts' Plain Spoken pattern -and it probably won't be the last :)
I love the colors in this quilt. So bright and cheery!

It is a 40th birthday present for a friend, and I finally tried out the fabric sheet Karen sent me. It was so easy to use!! I'll definately be making more labels this way. Maybe I'll even put labels on all the quilts I've made?!
I used a solid red for binding, and it ties the front and the backing together quiter nicely I think.
It is difficult to find "guy-prints" so I had Charles help me pick out the fabric for the backing ;)
The quilttop reminds me of the beach, sea-glass, swimming pools, summer and all things nice!
It was hard to give this quilt away, but start to finish it was meant for someone else.....so it would have been wrong to keep it. But I can still miss it a little, right?

Slow days

There has been a lot of indoor activities at my house lately...
Miss V loves her Hello Kitty MuffinsGame. It's amazing to see just how much more fun a board game is, if it features your favourite character :)
I wonder if that would be true for chess as well??

We have made some homemade pizza. My kids like olives - and lots of them. When thinking of how many they ate while putting toppings on the pizza, I am amazed that there are any olives on the pizza at all!
I have been spending a lot of time resting, due to some health issues, and sitting at my sewing machine has been to tiring. So I have started knitting... I think this will be a scarf for my dad, maybe for Christmas?!
How is that for an early start on Christmas presents. Lol!

I have done a little sewing. I am in a quilting bee on Flickr, called Row 10.
10 of us are making a row (instead of a block) each month, and the recipient will join her rows to make a row quilt :)
This is my block for Sarah. She requested red/lime as the dominant colors - green/pink/white as less dominant. She is going to make a Christmas quilt and I think it will be gorgeous! You can see the other rows on Flickr.

The plain spoken is all ready to sew....I just need a little more energy, then I'll get to it ;)
I love these colors. Maybe I'm procrastinating so I'll get to keep it myself?