Its Been Awhile: Finished Sewing Projects!

Yeah, it feels like forever since I've actually posted about finished projects. Really, I'd like them to be garments because my garment sewing has been so sporadic lately, but any finished projects are good.

The first project is an embarrassing UFO. DD#2 and I discussed the idea of a Birthday Memory Quilt for one of her close friends. Her friend's parents took the girls to the 9/20/09 Mets game (which they won!), and I asked the mom to take pics for the quilt. DD#2's friend still doesn't know what her birthday present is, but my daughter has been telling her that it has been coming along. For an entire 4 months! It seemed like every time I tried to work on it, I'd get to a point then stop for some reason. I was planning on finishing it the last week of November, but my tension disk went wonky on my embroidery machine. It had to be serviced, and it took 3 long weeks to get it back. At that point, I was pressed for time with 20 headbands for Christmas presents for my daughters' friends.

Here are some of the headbands with their Christmas tags. The school name and mascot were also embroidered on them in addition with each girls' names. I used some great 100 weight fleece ordered from http://www.wazoodle.com/ (royal blue on the front/grey on the back and terrific fleece BTW). I made several changes from a book's design so it's essentially my own at this point and enjoyed using my Coverstitch for the topstitching around the headband edges.

The downside to these headbands? DD#1 came home and said several people were mad at her because they didn't get one LOL. I may have several orders come spring time when Track and Softball starts. Truly, these headbands were a big hit with their friends. These headbands were designed to perfectly match the embroidered scarves I made for their friends for Christmas 2008

Back to the Memory Quilt! Here is the quilt front:

DD#2 picked the pictures to use for the quilt and I embroidered the front with the Mets lineup from the 9/20/09 game. Baseball graphics and text were added for a customized Birthday Memory Quilt. It was great that the game date was also the exact date of her friend's birthday.

The quilt is double sided with orange fleece on the back. That side is plain because I wanted it to feel soft against her skin. The top and bottom edges are fringed and knotted, the sides are just fringed. I used the iron-on transfer sheets for the pics and ironed the pics to cotton flannel. For the edges of the pics, I used pinking shears, then stitched around the inside of the pinked edges to attach the photo blocks to the quilt.

Here's a closeup of the upper front of the quilt:

Here's a closeup of the lower quilt:

The one disappointment? The girls couldn't get a pic of themselves with David Wright ;) . But at least our darn Mets won that game. I was very happy for Danielle. She's a big Mets fan and we're a family of Mets fans although sometimes we wonder why.

Next up, finishing my leopard print skirt.

ETA, I'll leave you with a pics of Jake in my sewing room.