Bye Bye, UFOs!

I loathe unfinished sewing projects. They languish for months, sometimes years, just waiting to be finished. When there are so many more interesting things to do and sew, it just prolongs to project almost to neverending UFO status. However, I am happy to report that two UFOs have achieved finished status: a kitchen table cloth that was begging for a rolled edge (yes, at least I can honestly say I was waiting for my new serger and followed through with that one) and my niece's baby quilt that I started in November of 2010. She was born in October of 2010 so it really is an embarrassingly late gift. Here are pics of the front and back of the quilt. There are a couple of reasons why it was so late, the latter one blaming the Internet of which I'll explain below.
Two days ago I picked up my great niece's baby quilt. One that I started last November. We knew it was going to be a girl so I picked up some nice baby quilt fabric on sale at fabric.com. Hot pink cotton flannel and a super soft tie-dye Minky. When those arrived, I took a trip to my local quilting shop to look at their cottons and found a nice yellow one to match the two fabrics. Then I spent another 4 weeks mulling over designs at emblibrary.com. For a while my embroidery machine was smokin', I stitched the designs and quilting fabric together for the front of the quilt, then I stopped. Why? Because I read something on the Internet lol. (That really is the truth!) Maybe I was at PR, but talk turned to quilt backing and someone was thinking about using a knit. Of course, I was using a knit, too, as the backing for my quilt. A few quilters chimed in about how it was a bad idea to use knit fabric as a backing. So what happened? It kind of stopped me dead in my tracks. Doubts creeped in. Maybe using Minky wasn't such a good idea. After all, I'm no quilter. Truthfully, I don't like to quilt, have never really done quilting other than a few specialty projects, and don't sew traditional quilts with fat quarters or anything like that. So that's when the quilt began to languish in my sewing cart.

For many months I thought about the backing. Maybe I could do this, maybe do that, then two days ago I just got fed up. Perhaps I simply got mad that the quilt was taking up so much space in my cart, but I said to myself, "I don't care what people use for their backing. I don't care about quilting naysayers that say knit fabrics shouldn't be used for the backing. I'm going to do it my way, and it's going to turn out great!

""Internet Paralysis" be damned.

So I did it MY way. And you know what? It turned out perfect. The quilt front is made out of quilting cotton and flannel, the back is super soft Minky, and two layers of quilt batting are sandwiched between both. I was going to make my own binding but decided to buy Wrights binding instead to save me some time and finish the project.

This project is one of those kind of lessons for me. Think of what I would do pre-Internet. And that would be just about anything. No one to ever say, "You shouldn't do it that way...That is not recommended...(blah, blah, blah...)" So there you go! I put in my virtual ear plugs, did it my way, and it turned out great!

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.

Chinese Auction Quilt Part 1

Here is the front, semi finished. DD#2 convinced me to add the girls names in the white blocks. Working on that tomorrow because my test embroidery is done. So far, it meets her "Seal of Approval". I cut out the center square of the back. That will have the name of the team and possibly the full names and numbers of each girl on the 14U softball roster.

An hour ago I emailed the team logo to find out how much it would cost to digitize it. Just wondering, because I highly doubt a turnaround time of two days, probably impossible. The quilt has to be ready by Saturday night so I can assemble the basket.

The back squares must be assembled tomorrow, and I'll need to get at least two squares of embroidery names done on the front. At this point, I have to stay on task. There is no time that can be wasted.