Past Bitty Blocks

I haven't posted pictures of my last groups of Bitty blocks that I swapped!  It's about time.  

Snow People was the theme for January.  I made the gal in the bikini in the upper left corner. Miss Sassy Pants!   My favorite of this group is the one with the bird on his nose.  

February's theme was Monsters.   I had so much fun making mine.....he's in the upper left corner.  Mine is my favorite of this group.  :)     My grand sons loved looking at these.  Each time I pulled one out they'd say "I want that one"!    I got out the crayons and paper and had them color their own!  So cute.  

International Quilting Day

Today is International Quilting Day and SewCalGal is hosting a virtual Sew-cial.  We are suppose to share our sewing day.  I have my 8 year old grand son over for the day and he wanted to finish the I Spy quilt he started the last time he was over by himself.    That means I can combine many things I love -- loving on a grand kid, teaching and quilting!

Here he is from the last visit with his squares on the design wall and sewing rows together.

 

We used a fleece blanket for the back and no batting. I sewed it together like a pillow and turned it.  Then we machine quilted over the seam lines in a wavy pattern.  Here he is learning some of the machine quilting.

Good hand placement!  :)

Look Mom...I'm doing it myself!   

All done!!!!   

I'm sure he is as proud of himself as I am of him!

Working with kids takes a lot of patience and a lot of letting go.  My theory is develop the love of something and excellence comes after.  

Hope your day is full of fun sewing.

Get A Clue with Nancy Drew

What a fun week its been seeing so many wonderful projects on the Nancy Drew blog hop and today is my day to share!   I got an idea for my project the very day Madame Samm announced the hop.  Being the procrastinator that I am I waited till this week to make it!  Ha, ha, ha.  

Every good detective needs a journal to write in when they are snooping!

I love to make journal covers. Lately I've been having fun with quilt-as-you-go kinds.  

I like to not over think when I make them.  Just grab a piece of fabric and sew it down.....sew my quilting lines without marking or measuring....eyeball it, baby, eyeball!  :)   Its pretty freeing, actually.

This is the back.   Do you notice the sunshine?  I got lucky and was able to photograph when the sun decided to make a rare Northwest appearance.  

An inside peek.

Two days ago I decided I could whip out another project and use up some more fabric I bought.  My cute little journal cover certainly didn't dent the layer cake I bought.  I decided I wanted a tote bag.  I know you've seen tons already but I *had* to have one!  

Side one:

Side two:

That's it!  Thanks for taking the time to stop by.  

Thanks to Madame Samm and Carol for such a fun blog hop.

Be sure to visit the rest of the last day crew:

Friday, March 15, 2013 

Little Mushroom Cap

Why-Knot-Kwilt

Daisy Days 

Julia P. at That Other Blog

The Day Before This Day

Sew Far

 Rainbows. Bunnies. Cupcakes.

Les passions de Cliodana

That’s Sew Julie (moved from 3/8)

Sew We Quilt

Stargazing block fun

First a little back story.  One of our students, Dorothy, in the Modern Block class is a hand sewer and applique Queen.  Piecing on the machine is often a challenge for her.  And she LOVES little things.  She has often made her blocks smaller than 12 inches.  

While another student, Elizabeth, was making the smallest star in Stargazing (its 3 inches) last month, she commented on how she would never want to make anything smaller.  

This is Elizabeth's "Stargazing" block:

Dorothy said sure, why not? I could go smaller.  We all knew she was serious and could do it!

Here is Dorothy's "Stargazing" block version.  Its only 8 inches and those two tiny stars are 1.5 inches!

Elizabeth then decided to go the opposite direction and she made a large version:

This was made with a layer cake. She used the same piecing process as the block pattern. I didn't measure it but the middle of that big star is a 9.5 inches. I'm pretty sure the smaller ones are 6 inches each.

  It was great to see these two ladies have fun playing with the block.  This is what I love about teaching!!!

March Modern Blocks

Wow!  We're almost done with this year long adventure of making blocks from the Modern Blocks book.  One month to go!   

March class was about revisiting our earliest skills learned.

This block is called "Envy" and was about partial seams again.  

This block is called "Mondrian" and was about precision piecing - lots of seams.

I didn't take student pics this time as I plan to do so next month during our final class.  But I did get some pics of last months block "Stargazing" that I will share in another post.  Two students had fun with it and you'll enjoy seeing what they did.  :)