Hello From The Other Side

Hello, it's me. It's been a long time, and maybe you remember that I used to sew and blog quite a bit. Things have been, um, quite different.

I'm going to go further back than necessary and say that 2020 was a year for me. I think it was a year for everyone, but being pregnant and having a baby during a pandemic was especially difficult. 

Despite the fact that I was at home more than ever, I sewed less than ever. I managed to do some quilting and mask making early on, but even that tapered off significantly once I moved my sewing space into the guest room and my sewing room became the nursery. (I do have two finished projects to post about, eventually.)

I did have a baby boy in October, so that was my main project for the year.

And since then, everything has been a blur. There were supposedly a bunch of holidays that have already come and gone. My idea that I could sew while the baby napped was a farce. My sweet grandmother passed away due to coronavirus complications without meeting my son. A flurry of family came to visit. My son is already three months old and doing all sorts of things that make me wish for time to slow down. I'm back to work (part time on site, part time work from home) and figuring out being a working mom. 

I'm not sure what's next but I still have all of those same unfinished projects hanging around, so maybe I should finally just work on those if I can ever figure out how to find time to sew again.

Jingle Bell Square {Blocks Are Done!}

I have finished up all of my Jingle Bell Square blocks! I needed to make 6 additional green blocks and 4 additional red blocks to bring me to the 49 total blocks that I needed for the quilt.

My next task is getting fabric to sash the blocks. I had bought some fabric on clearance online when I was ordering other fabric and unfortunately it is NOT going to work -- it is too large scale of a print and takes away from the blocks. I will definitely need something smaller in scale and with less color contrast.

So for now, this project is back on the shelf, but ready to go whenever I get sashing fabric. I have all or nearly all of the QSTs for the pieced borders made (they are the same as the QSTs in the center of each block!) so that won't be a delay in finishing the quilt top. 

I'm also thinking about replacing one of the skinny scrappy borders with a single fabric border since I have some larger pieces of Christmas fabrics left over from some quilt backs that might be big enough to use for some of the borders and binding on this quilt. 

Have you started on any holiday sewing? Or are you like me and have random Christmas projects going all the time?

Mosaic Mystery Quilt {Quilt Top}

It's been a LONG time since I posted about this project -- last year in fact! The construction directions were released in January, I printed them out, and only now finally managed to finish the quilt top. 

Because my burgundy fabrics were cut from three different fabrics and not from one fabric, I arranged the units so that a single fabric was used for an entire star. I ended up needing to make a few extra units as I put the rows together, but I had plenty of extra fabric. I didn't end up doing that with the pink fabrics and placed them randomly throughout the quilt top.

Going through my old blog posts, it looks like my original plan was to cut the additional pink fat quarters that I have (in the same fabrics I used in the quilt) into strips to make a scrappy, chunky border. I'm not sure if I want to do this or not but I don't have anything else left from this kit that would be enough yardage for a border. (I do, however, have another burgundy fabric that will work for the binding.) So this week I'll be deciding on that. It is probably big enough as is, but I might as well use the rest of those fat quarters.

What do you think? What have you been sewing this week?

Bag Lady {Two More Finished Open Wide Bags}

Since I had enough notions -- with the exception of zippers -- to make a few more Open Wide bags, I bought a few more zippers and got to work.

The first one that I made is the same three fabrics as the large pouch that I made in the original set, just in the smallest size. I used all of the same colors of thread for quilting and construction so that these are a matching set. 

For the second, I made a medium sized bag using only two different fabrics instead of three. I used the same fabric for both the lining and the accent fabric for this bag and skipped the mesh pockets.

I also cut the pieces and parts for a large sized bag to match the original medium sized bag that I made, but I'm not sure when I'll tackle that project. I'm going to try to get some actual quilt tops finished over the next month before baby arrives -- I actually have a finished top to show you later this week!

Happy Monday -- what are you working on today?

Open Wide 2.0 Bags in Floralicious {It's In The Bag Blog Hop}

 Today is my day to share for the It's In The Bag Blog Hop, sponsored by Island Batik and By Annie!

The collection I got to use for my project is the new Floralicious collection!

If you remember back to my unboxing post from this summer, I got all of the pieces and parts to make a set of the Open Wide 2.0 bags from By Annie!

I have long avoided three dimensional sewing, but this was my chance to try something totally new and I am so happy with how the bags turned out!

I started with the largest size bag and worked my way through one entire bag before starting on the next one. I used a lot of different colors of Aurifil thread too! Each bag had a main color, lining color, and accent color designated for each particular size.

I free motion quilted meanders for all of the bags. It was a different feeling for sure quilting the foam stabilizer rather than batting! 

I had never ever sewn a zipper before so that was also a big adventure! I really appreciated how clear the directions were in each step -- especially for someone with a fear of three-dimensional sewing and zippers like me!

One very nice aspect of these bags is that they perfectly nestle inside of one another for storage if you make yourself the entire set! 

Now I am totally addicted to the idea of making more of these bags as gifts! I have quite a bit of fabric and supplies left over other than the zippers, so I am going to have to buy some more zippers to make more of these bags (maybe in some sets!)

Thank you to Island Batik, By Annie, and Aurifil for graciously supplying the supplies for this project! I had so much fun making these and if you are like me and things like zippers freak you out -- definitely try out a By Annie's bag pattern!