Sewing For A Girl

Today we are celebrating my one and only niece's 3rd birthday.  Yup, I have 2 sons, 5 nephews, and only 1 niece.  So whenever I get the opportunity to sew for her, I love to go all girly and pink and princess.  This little girl is as girly girl as they come.  And she loves her dollies and just like any little girl she has tons of them and naturally they all have tons of little accessories to go along with them.  A while ago I had seen this quilted suitcase tutorial, and at the time, while I thought it was adorable, I didn't have anyone specifically to make it for.  When it came time to brainstorm ideas of what to sew for my niece's 3rd birthday, I remember having seen this suitcase and thought it would be a perfect idea to make for her to hold all of her dollies' things in.  Pulling from my stash, I found I had a yard of this really cute princess and castle fabric. Combining that with a few other fabrics from my stash, I got right to work on the suitcase. 

 The tutorial was pretty straight forward, and combined with my previous bag making skills and tricks I had learned, the suitcase went together pretty quickly.  That is until I got to the park where I attached the top of the suitcase to the zipper and center gusset.  I might have gone a little pin crazy to make sure everything lined up and needless to say, I ended up stabbing myself and bleading a little bit on the zipper.  ouch! yukk....

Thankfully it cleaned out pretty well.  However, I got stalled on adding the binding to the raw edges on the outside of the suitcase.  You see, in order for it to look nice, the binding needed to be sewn down by hand which is most definitely Not my favorite method of sewing on binding. 

Finally it was done, but I felt like it was missing something so I whipped together two opened wide zippered pouches from my favorite tutorial found here.  These will be great for storing all sorts of dolly accessories.

Still feeling like this gift wasn't quite done especially since I had a few largish scraps of the castle fabric left, I decided to purchase this pattern to make a set of doll sleeping bags. 

They turned out so cute even if my husband insists they look like oven mitts.  Finally, I was done and this adorable set was ready to go.  Even my niece's dolly that she had accidentally left at our house the other day seems to be pretty happy with how things turned out.

I'll be giving this to my niece at her birthday party later today.  I'm pretty sure she'll like it. :)

Spring Fling Mini Quilt Swap

As the Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt Swap that I was a part of was wrapping up in January, I decided to sign up for another mini quilt swap since I had had so much fun making and being a part of the Schnitzel & Boo swap.  I signed up for a Spring Fling Mini Quilt swap that had a due date of mid-April.  After receiving my partner's information and thoroughly stalking her on Instagram, I noticed that she had included Megan Bohr of Canoe Ridge Creations Starshine quilt in several different mosaics she had posted for several different mini quilt swaps she was a part of - including the Spring Fling swap.  I love Megan's quilts and I jumped at the chance to re-create one of her gorgeous quilt designs into a mini-quilt for my partner. 

I decided to make 16 stars like in the original Starshine quilt, but shrunk them down to a finished size of just 6" each.  This made for some itty-bitty half square triangles in each block which I'm not a fan of.  Since I had recently learned how to foundation paper piece, I pulled out my ruler and pencil and drew up a paper piecing template for the stars. 

For the fabric selection, I wanted to keep the rainbow affect of the original Starshine quilt.  However, not wanting to buy 16 different pieces of solid fabrics (my solids stash is kind of small and lacking in color), I decided to utilize a fat quarter bundle of Kona Cotton's newest 32 colors which I had won last fall.  After playing around with the colors for a while, I finally manged to come up with a palate that I liked and I thought my partner would like also.

Assembly began, but it was slow going!  Each star had 8 smaller paper pieced units and when you multiply that by 16 stars - that's 128 units to sew together and trim!  yikes!  Thankfully, I landed on my idea fairly quickly at the beginning of the swap so I had a little more than 2 months to work on the quilt.

I did start with a test block to make sure everything worked, and happily my math and engineering skills didn't fail me.  I later incorporated that test block into the back of the quilt. 

Even though this quilt only finished at around 30 inches square, it was probably one of the most labor intensive and time consuming quilts I've ever worked on. 

But I love how it turned out, and it was well work the effort. Just as the quilt I made for my first swap was really hard to part with, this quilt was equally as hard to part with. 

To finish up this quilt, I decided to go with some spiral quilting starting at the center of the quilt.  It's one of those quilting techniques which looks hard, but once you get the spiral started, its really pretty easy since I just let one side of my walking foot simply follow along the previous quilting.  Also, I love how spiral quilting gives a quilt a beautiful modern look without being overly complicated. 

I ended up going with a solid black binding for the quilt to give it a framed look since it is meant to be a wall hanging quilt.  Surprisingly, I finished this mini quilt with 2 weeks to spare!  Thankfully, the sun did come out and the weather was beautiful the Sunday before I had to ship it which meant I was able to take this quilt to a local park for some proper photographs while my husband watched the boys during naptime.  Finally, it was time to send this beautiful little quilt off to it's new home.  I added in a few extra goodies when I packed it all up.  

 

My partner received it and was thrilled!!  Can't ask for more than that :)

New Blog!

If you are here, then that means I was actually able to figure out how to properly re-direct you from my old blog site.  Welcome welcome to my new blog "It's Maggie Made"!

This switch has been a long time coming and I finally took the plunge.   A whole new blog domain name and a new blog layout, but it's still me and I'll still be posting when I can about all my obsessive sewing projects.
Thank you dear reader (you know who you are Liz! =D) for making this switch with me! 

The Sew My Stash Bag Challenge

Since the beginning of the year, I have been making a serious effort to take part in the challenge that Leasa over at Project: Leasa put forth for us to be sewing from our own stashes for our projects.  I have actually been really enjoying it.  It's quite satisfying to put together a whole or most of a project simply from the fabric I have sitting on the shelf.  And even more satisfying is finding fabric that I had forgotten about and falling back in love with it all over again.
Anyways, for the month of April, Leasa issued another challenge to help keep us motivated.  The Sew My Stash 2015: Bag Challenge is a challenge to make a bag (larger than a zippy pouch) that is made 75% from stash and finished by the end of the month.  There was bonus for making a coordinating zippy for the bag. 

I saw this challenge come out right after the craft fair I had in early April.  I was a little burned out from all the crazy amounts of sewing I had been doing to prep for the craft fair, and this challenge was the perfect thing to help me get my sewing mojo going again.  Now I'm sure you are aware that just like any other crafter/sewing/maker out there, I have a "want to sew/make/do" list a mile long.  On that list is to make a pair of Cargo Duffel Bags for my boys for when me take road trips to go see either set of grandparents.  Well, I didn't really have time to make two duffel bags since I have an impending pile of little people birthday sewing calling my name, but I did have time to make one.  

 So, over the coarse of a few of days, I pulled out some of my toddler's favorite prints from my stash - mostly anything that has cars, fire trucks, trains, the color blue, and mustaches on it makes him happy.  Thankfully I had enough interfacing in my stash for this bag as well.  Oh and I had the zippers and snaps I need too - making this bag made from 100% of my stash! 
Since it's my second time making this bag (I made one as an overnight bag when I had the baby last spring), it made making this bag a little easier and also I knew what modifications I wanted to make to the bag.  I ended up using Soft and Stable to interface the main body of the bag which gave it great shape without being stiff.  I cheat when using Soft and Stable - I use quilting spray baste to baste the fabric onto the Soft and Stable making it then a breeze to work with.  I also added 2 inches to the zipper/bottom gusset of the bag making it 2 inches wider.  On the back panel, I inserted a zipper that went the length of the panel.  I then added a secondary panel to the back panel creating a large pocket for holding story books.  The last change that I made to the pattern for the bag was to add a "lining" fabric to the back side of each of the main bag pieces.  Thus when bag pieces were quilted and all sewn together, it looks like the inside has a lining even though it technically doesn't. 

 I really do like making this bag because its a very straightforward bag pattern that is easily tweaked to customize the bag as desired.  The only part that made me want to throw the bag across the room was the last step where binding is used to finish off the raw edges on the inside of the bag, but I pushed through and finished it! 

There were a few scraps left over which I ended up using to make a toiletry zipper bag, a toothbrush pouch and a drawstring bag.  Looks like the toddler has everything he needs for a sleepover trip to grandma's house - which he keeps asking me about almost every day..."are we going to grandma's house now?"

About Turning 30

So my husband who usually doesn't even pay his birthdays any attention was a little unsettled by his birthday this year.  Because he was turning 30 years old.  Ach - that sounded so old to us when we met in college 10 years ago, and now it still almost feels like we are just starting to get this life things figured out.

 Anyways, I wanted to make the day special for him even though I was under strict instructions not to throw a party.  So I decided to come up with 30 presents I would give him that would convey to him how much me and our two boys love him and how awesome we think he is. 

 I managed to buy quite a few things that would make him smile or were things he needed but wouldn't buy himself.  I also cheated with a couple of  "coupons" thrown into the pile.  But in between all the other sewing I've been doing over the past few months, I did managed to sneak in a few things that I sewed up just for Tim such as the BigFoot doll, a Dumpling pouch, a Box Pouch, an Open Wide Zippered Pouch, and a couple of nesting little boxes (totally made up based off of what fabric scraps I had left and what stiff interfacing I could scrounge up from my stash). 

I ended up wrapping all of his gifts in brown craft paper and washi tape.  On each gift, I wrote him a little note that went along with what the gift was that expressed what a great guy he is.  On his birthday, we ended up having a nice quiet evening home with our two boys opening gifts, eating cheesecake and enjoying the new 30 year old in the house.  :)

Buzz Buzz - April

I must admit, one of the best sewing community things I've become involved with this year has been the sewing bee for #thebeehivequilts.  I love the community I have with these women, and I really am looking forward to each month getting a chance to make my small contribution to this fantastic group of women.  

For April, Melissa got to be the queen bee and pick a quilt block and color scheme for us to all work on.  She picked the Star Plus block as her block, and she requested that we do a navy boarder, white background and either an aqua or pink center star.  Another fantastic choice by a queen bee!!
Even though I was just a few days away from a Craft Fair, I decided that I need to clear my head and got to work on Melissa's block. I raided my stash, pulled out some hoarded prints and got to work.

 Since I had all ready made this quilt block in February for the February Queen Bee, I actually found it quite easy to put together this time around.  I was really happy with how it turned out and kind of wished I could have kept it.  Since I couldn't do that, I decided to use some of the left over fabric to make myself a smaller version of the 1 Hour Basket.

It ended up being the perfect size to set next to my sewing machine to hold some thread, my pin cushion, scissors and other sewing accessory odds and ends in a vain attempt to keep sharp pointy things contained and out of reach of Mr. Grabby McGrabHands (aka baby).

Wanting to add in a few little extras to make the Queen Bee feel special, I decided to make a little English Paper Piecing starter set.  I have a 1" hexagon paper punch (from Joann's on Black Friday sale) which is perfect for making a pile of EPP papers in a hurry.  Digging through my box of 2.5" square scraps, I even managed to pull out a respectable rainbow of squares just begging to be turned into cute little hexagons.   And for a finishing touch, an itty bitty drawstring bag to hold everything.

Buzz Buzz

Cabin Fever Spring Craft Market

Geepers, I can't believe that I've completely fallen off the grid on my blog for the last month or so.  Sometimes life is pretty boring, and sometimes life gets kind of crazy busy.  Crazy busy has been the story around here since mid-March.  And when life gets busy, this blog gets the short end of things.  So the biggest news is that we are buying a house and all the crazy that goes along with that!  Also, my husband's 30th birthday was here in mid-April, and I have a niece, nephew and son who all have birthdays between now and the end of May.  Lots and lots of birthday presents needing to be made!  Oh, and the weekend after Easter, I had a booth at a craft fair at Bayview Wesleyan Church in Traverse City. 
Last fall, I was part of the fall craft fair at the same venue and it considered it a success.  When the spring craft fair was announced, I decided to do it.  My sewing machine went into overdrive.
I ended up making 10 more Dolls and Daydreams Teddy Bears.

I designed my own bunny lovies and made three of them for the craft fair. 

 My toddler insisted I make him and baby each their own so they did get their own for Easter. 

Kelly of Kelbysews recently came out with a free pattern called the 1 Hour Basket.  It's a super cute fabric basket that's a little addictive to sew together.  I put together four of those for the craft fair also. 

 

 In an effort to start cleaning out my sewing space and get ready for a move, I pulled out a box that had some hidden WIPs in it such as this cute little drawstring bag (pattern by Jeni Baker of In Color Order).  The bag was all ready cut out and needed only a few minutes to get sewn together. 

 In that pile of WIPs, I also found eight of these medium Open Wide Zippered pouches (Pattern by Anna Graham of Noodle-Head) that were all ready all sewn together - they just needed the zipper end pulls attached to them.  A few minutes of sewing time and I had these ready to go too. 

 

 Remember the cute little Bigfoot I made for my husband?  yup, I decided to go ahead and use up what fluffy fabric I had left and made 5 more in time for the craft fair as well. 

 I needed to throw in a little easy sewing in the mad flurry of prep for the craft fair, so I put together a whole pile of fresh burp cloths and two more mustache baby blankets to add into the mix. 

 Oh yeah, I forgot to add that in the midst of all the craziness, my in-laws ended up coming out for a visit during my mother-in-law's spring break from school.  (It actually ended up working out well because they helped watch the boys while we had a few meetings with the realtor)  Needing some handwork to keep my fidgety fingers busy, I pulled out enough fabric from my scrap bin to start piecing together 2 large and 3 small pentagon patchwork play balls (tutorial by Abby Glassenberg of While She Naps).  I was able to finish one before the craft fair. 

I got the pentagons basted for the rest of the balls, and I took them with me to the craft fair.  I ended up finishing 3 of them during the down time the few times it was slow.  

 

 Phew!  I'm just tired from typing up everything I worked on for the Craft Fair!  But it was worth it.  The Craft Fair ended up being pretty successful and I made some good contacts for a few different craft fairs this coming fall.  What didn't well at the craft fair, is listed in my Etsy shop.
Hopefully, I'll keep posting when I can, just as I'm hoping to keep sewing as I can.  I'll try not to be a stranger ;)