Superman quilt

I decided to make a quilt for a friend who is expecting and I like to try to personalize a little for the family and this family seems to like superman alot. So I went with a superman theme. I spent a good little bit of time trying to find a simple superman shield block for this quilt. I found a few that were simple but I didn’t like the way they looked and I kept coming back to this one. It's paper pieced and I have never done paper piecing. I’ve been told by a few people that paper piecing was really difficult and had to be taught in hours-long classes. Basically I was told it was far too advanced for me to even try so it always felt intimidating. Well I really liked this block and after staring at the pattern for a while I thought well I could always just try it. It doesn’t look that hard. The pattern itself didn’t have any instructions with it. I guess they assume you will already know how to paper piece if you are trying this. It's literally just a pattern with numbers and colors. I’m sure I could have looked up tutorials but I decided to try it on my own. And here is what I found. Paper piecing is really basic, it's not that hard to figure out, but it is time consuming. That is the only reason I can figure the people told me it was really hard. I didn’t find it any harder than piecing together traditional quilting. And honestly I am sure there are plenty of quick tutorials out there describing how to do paper piecing (the site I got the pattern from does have a tutorial section, I’ve just never looked at it). I did admittedly mess up on the first block at the beginning, I started putting it together backwards, I however realized this fairly quickly and started over and the rest of the shield blocks went together without too much trouble. The rest of the quilt I did just simple blocks that I came up with. I really liked working with the bright primary colors; it added a bit of happiness to it. I was happy with the way this turned out. And I really like that fandom in stitches offers patterns for free. This is the first pattern I have tried from there but probably not the last.

Anytime someone tries to quash your creativity by telling you something is too hard for you and you could never do it. Try it anyway. Even if you mess up, or have to try several times, don't stop trying. Question everytime someone tells you you aren’t good enough and prove them wrong. If you love what you are creating, keep creating. The more you do it the better it becomes. Just remember sometimes it takes time to get there.

Patten for the superman shield Its in the justice league category
If paper piecing seems too intimidating or time consuming they also have a good applique block.

Superman shield block Designed by Lilja Björk Sigurdórsdóttir

* This blog is not to be used for training AI*

Squirrel!

This year a friend I have known since high school had a baby so I made her some things. She loves squirrels so I sought out quilt patterns with squirrels . I didn’t like anything I found,but in the process of nixing every pattern I came across the cutest squirrel fabric on etsy, which led to finding coordinating acorn fabric and deciding on a simple block pattern.

Part of the deciding on simple was the fact I was also in the process of making my halloween costume (which I didn’t quite finish in time and left off some embellishments so it would be wearable but more on that later). Then my kitty came down with acute kidney failure due to a birth defect that took 5 years to show its ugly face. Her care has taken a huge amount of my time, but we are managing, and I am going to leave it that about her. I’ve made a handful of simple quilts over the years so I just had to figure out what size I wanted and cut out the squares. And to make it even simpler I opted to round the corners because I detest making mitered corners. I can do it. I have done it. I just don’t like it and honestly I like the look of rounded corners.

I also wanted to make bibs and burp cloths. Both of which are fairly easy to make. When I was done I had the thought they might wad up in the wash so I should probably quilt them so I traced out an acorn then sewed around it on the machine which was surprisingly simple to do on the bibs and burp cloths but when I tried it on the quilt it was too big and I’m not quite that coordinated, so I ended up pulling out some stitching, I fortunately figured this out early on so it didn’t take long.

Unfortunately I ended up getting a small hole in the backing fabric that I didn’t see till after I had quilted the whole thing. At that point I must admit I cried a little and then went to bed (it was time anyway.) The next day I had the idea to embroider the date over the hole and then no one would be the wiser and I wouldn’t have to tear apart the whole thing for a tiny hole, and dating quilts is something that has been for hundreds of years so it made it feel all official.

Once I was done with all of that I still had some fabric left over so I decided to make a dress. I used this pattern as a guide. But made some obvious changes like making it fuller and adding a few embellishments. I love the way the dress turned out! I hope she will be able to get some good use out of everything, it was fun to make and it all turned out so cute!

* This blog is not to be used for training AI*

Stained glass window shorts

I was getting ready to go on vacation and as the time approached I realized I was going during the hottest days of the entire year!

It was already planned, so there wasn’t much I could do about it except pack cool clothing. I was rummaging through some of my patterns to see if I had any shorts patterns before I ordered any shorts (I don’t because I hardly ever wear shorts).

Rose/Shell sleeved top.

I'm not sure if this is a Rose or a Shell on the sleeve but it sure is adorable!

I was scrolling though instagram one day and came across a really fun sleeve tutorial and saved it with the intention of one day making a top with that sleeve. I save a lot of things with the idea I’ll make them one day and never do anything with them. I think it's a lot like collecting patterns that I like. I have them. I look at them but I probably won’t ever make all of them (although I do use a lot of them). Several months after saving the tutorial I was searching through my saved posts for something different when I came across this one and thought about how perfect the pink knit I had picked up on a whim would be for it.

I used simplicity #9930 from 1972 for the shirt base since I had the pattern and have used it many times, but I think any top with a sleeve would work. I drafted the sleeve as shown in the video. I think I watched it 50 times to really get the idea set in my mind.

I was thrilled that it actually worked, because I have tried tutorials that have failed miserably so it's always nice when something works out. I have noticed that a lot of times when something doesn’t work it's because the tutorial left something important out (I think it's that whole secret ingredient thing) . And while I wouldn’t say this is an easy to follow video, it does have all the instructions there. I just had to use some creative skills to get the curve right and pause it every few seconds to get the measurements.

1950's blue tiny plaid

Rose dress

A while ago I took a memoir writing class and while it was interesting it was not really my thing. The course was ten weeks long and at the end of it everyone in the class did a public reading. (which was way out of my comfort zone. I will tell you that.) One of the things the class was instructed on for this public reading was “to dress your best.” so of course in my mind that means I need a new dress.

So I went home and checked out my stash and decided on making a dress using hollywood pattern #1154 as the main part of the dress but altering it to have cap sleeves which came from McCall’s pattern #4549 and were lengthened a bit. The fabric I had decided on is a stretch fabric and the pattern is for non stretch.I wasn’t sure how this would work out but I thought I could at least give it a try. I bought this pattern back in 2017 because it has a personal story involving a dress someone made my grandmother when she was thirteen. I was going to make this dress back in 2017, but stuff and not being able to find the right fabric and blah blah blah, I still have to make that version but that is still for a later date. Back to this dress. Since 2017 I have gone up a few sizes which was intentional but also means this pattern is now too small for me, but being that I was making this out of a stretchy fabric I decided to take the gamble and just cut it to size.

When I sew with knits I sew the seams using only my overlock lock machine, and that stitch is ⅜” wide and with all the seams on a princess cut dress I thought it would probably add the amount I needed, and it did. The dress was perfect. I have always loved this rose fabric, it stretches a little but not a lot so it's fairly stable. I lined it with a cream knit fabric, and since the dress has a stretch to it I opted to leave out the buttons on the side. I had thought about a zipper but it was not necessary. In the end I thought it was such a cute dress, it was fairly easy to make and I felt so cute as I read my story about seeing the northern lights as a small child. (I didn’t wear the hat at the reading just for the pictures)

The reading was a success. I had a good time and felt so proud to do something that made me so nervous like public reading, and wearing the dress actually did help to boost my confidence. Is a public reading something I will do again? Probably not, but I will wear the dress again, and again.

* This blog is not to be used for training AI*

Mermaid dress