Sincerely, Stacy

Quilting: Color Therapy patchwork complete

2014-01-18T11:34:00.001-08:00

I completed the patchwork on this little number today during potty training bootcamp (not the best pic), which will be a wall hanging. The quilting is still to come, but I was too excited to post some quilting progress on the blog. I have had the half square triangles (HSTs) sewn for a while and wasn't sure how I wanted to patch them together (more on that indecision in a previous here), until I saw the new book Vintage Quilt Revival. Check it out, if you're into quilting. Seems like a fantastic new book.

Baby girl quilt wall hanging

2013-10-05T16:09:00.001-07:00

This is a quilt wall-hanging for a friend at work who is having a baby in November. She was such a huge support for my while I was pregnant two years ago at work, that I was honored to make her something special!

Baby girl quilt with English paper piecing and pretty "Posy" fabric

2013-09-13T17:08:00.000-07:00

A quilt finish! For my friend Dawn who just had a baby girl, this is a quilt made with a fabric line designed by Aneela Hoey called "Posy," plus coordinating solids of green, pink, and purple, oh, and the ever popular Pearl Bracelet Fabric by Lizzy House for the binding. I just thought the theme and colors were so "baby girl," and it turns out, they totally matched the baby's room. So fun to give something useful and homemade to friends!

So many ways to patch together half square triangles; so little time

2013-08-28T22:32:00.002-07:00

I don't know if I will ever be able to sew this quilt together. Every time I put together a design I like, I think of another fun way it could look. Here are all of the ways I've played with the half square triangles recently.

A little graphic for Pinterest!

My new (lovely) blog design

2013-08-24T14:50:00.000-07:00

With the great help of my friend's amazing blog and e-book that focuses on empowering women to design their own (lovely) blog, I recently re-designed my site and ended up with a look that I couldn't be more proud of. Here's a fun account of the progression...

The original look
Clean but nothing special

Iteration 1
Showcases some of my sewing but still nothing special about the design. I was really struggling with taking the look to a new level.

Iteration 2

First new design after reading my friend's e-book - starting to play!

Iteration 3

The final look has one of my actual hand sewing projects tweaked in the banner to create a unique, personalized look that I love, that's me, and which leads the eye where I want it to go - to the blog posts!

Huge thank you to my uber talented friend Marianne Manthey for the amazing support and inspiration her website and e-book gave me. It truly is an invaluable resource for blog design. I plan to continue to follow her! Give her a visit!

Design Your Own (Lovely) Blog

www.designyourownblog.com

Baby boy quilt with dragons, stars, and spinning pinwheels for Baby Mars

2013-07-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

I completed this baby quilt a few weeks ago. There is an uncanny story about the design. I asked my friend if she had any preferences on color or themes or anything, and she gave me full creative freedom to choose anything, so I chose stars and dragons and colors and fabric I thought was very boy-like and with nice contrast for a newborn. As matter of the fact, some of the fabric is from a line designed by a man. Anyway, the uncanny part is that the baby's name is Mars. I didn't even make the connection after I learned the name. Too perfect.

English paper piecing with hexagons AND diamonds - oh my

2013-06-27T23:03:00.003-07:00

We recently took a road trip to Montana for a total of 32 hours in the car. I had a blast with my son playing, eating, reading, laughing, looking, talking, and just plain starring at him all of that time. While he was sleeping or playing on his own, which was a minority of the time, I worked on a little hand-sewing project I brought along with me. And as many sewing/quilting projects seem to go, I started with one idea in mind that quickly went in a whole new direction. That's part of the fun, right?

Originally, I was just going to sew up a bunch of hexagons for a couple baby quilts I want to make for friends having baby girls this year. But the hexagons I had printed out on card stock paper for cutting and piecing were separated by little diamonds, and I thought wow, what I could I make with hexagons *and* diamonds, and low and behold I ended up with this little number...

...which was really fun, so I continued and before I knew it, I had created something interesting (to me anyway). You can see the basting stitches are still on. I am not going to take them out until I get some starch on this baby, but I think I am just going to applique stitch it to a small piece fabric and just put it somewhere near my bed to look at it. I have to admit, it was really time consuming, so I don't think I will make another one, but I do think it's a pretty little thing that will always put a smile on my face and remind me of all the enchanting time I spent looking at my son on that road trip.

Of course, this picture will also remind me of our time together, which will be cherished until the end of time (he's working very hard to balance all of the animals; he was even careful moving his head to smile and look at the camera phone...there is nothing more adorable)

A baby quilt finish for my coming nephew

2013-06-12T21:41:00.003-07:00

This is the first good baby quilt I've ever made, and I've made two. (The first baby quilt I made was in 2010 and was a bit of a design disaster. I still posted it on my completed projects page since it was my first, but I am not proud of it. I didn't know anything about choosing fabrics and putting them into a complementary design. Plus, I finished it a week before I found out I was having a baby boy and didn't do well choosing unisex patterns and colors, so it didn't end up being right for my son.) Anyway, I'd like to call this my first real baby quilt!

It's called Forest Path, because of the way I designed the shashing and because of the forest animal theme. My nephew will be born in the Colorado Mountains at about 9600 ft altitude, so it is fitting that his room is themed forest animals. His mom has done a great job decorating it, and I hope she enjoys having this quilt around.

Being a working mom, I have started to machine bind my quilts. It's much faster and stronger, so for both of those reasons, I choose to do it more and more. However, it still takes skill, and I'm not perfect at it, but I'm improving. Here are more pictures. I have another baby quilt to finish for some friends' baby boy due one day after my nephew, so I better get cracking!

Oh, and the back in flannel!

With this quilt, I hope my nephew will always know his Aunt Loves him!

A mini-quilt finish: Urban Energy

2013-06-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

I recently finished this quilt for one of my favorite DJs in Denver. First post here. I don't think this quilt would have come together like it did, without having the final owner in mind. Thank you Nate Ishe -- this quilt was inspired by your mad skilzzz on the decks!

A little more about the project...this was the first time I played with half square triangles (HSTs). I can now see why HSTs have always been so core to quilting designs, old and new. There are so many creative ways to put them together; I can't wait to do more.

Although I have some baby quilts coming to a completion that will follow a little bit more of a traditional design, this quilt was inspired by wanting to do something different, with bold colors, using solids and modern patterns, and playing against the grain to create something that could appeal to both the female *and* male aesthetic. That's the kind of quilting I'm really into.

The fun of this design was in the impromptu nature of putting it together. I played with layout for weeks, moving colors and patterns around as more and more of design unfolded. I loved how shapes kept coming together within the colors and patterns. I love the points and arrows. I love how if you look closely, you can see an abstract heart in the overall final composition. (Which was only realized after I rotated it 45 degrees counter-clock-wise after it was all done, another unfolding of the design, but the final one.)

This is a mini-quilt designed to be a wall-hanging at 20x20 inches. I will enter this into a Modern Mini Quilt Challenge just for fun (hey, it's not a mainstream design, but you never know, maybe it will stand out in the crowd and inspire someone).

Two man quilts in progress - Urban Energy and Dragons!

2013-05-05T21:48:00.004-07:00

Completed this quilt wall-hanging (just the top so far) to thank one of my favorite local DJs for accepting a very special request to spin at a friend's newly purchased home and birthday party this weekend. But this wasn't just any DJ, this was DJ Ishe, an great DJ, a great guy...

"Urban Energy"

Ishe's set was unbelievable. I woke up the next day with a renewed relationship to the bass music I love. I love the music he plays, but his abilities on the decks and passion and presence are like no other. He was channeling, and I am blown away with gratitude and wows. Anyway, I am also honored to have him interested in a quilt and can't wait to gift it to him once I get the binding complete. This is the first time I've improved with half square triangles (HST), and I can't wait to do it again. I got inspired by reading an post on Owen's Olivia blog about HST wall art (that was supposed to be a laptop cover for her husband, lol).

Speaking of man quilts, I just started another one. This will be a baby boy quilt for my friends' nicknamed the Moogies who are expecting a little man in early July. There is no set theme, so I went all out with dragons and stars and pinwheels.

I am really enjoying quilting for guys. There's something really fun and creative about using what most people think is a girl craft to make something a guy would love. I have another one for my coming nephew in the works as well. More to come on that. Have a great week!

Kids Clothes Week Project Complete and Broken In!

2013-04-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

Kids Clothes Week has come and gone (and was so inspirational). I completed this project for my little man, and he broke it in on the same day, spilling on it, getting lots of hugs from friends during a music event we attended yesterday, and giving it some good little boy wear and tear. I knew I had to make the shirt when I saw this fabric. And this is the first time I've sewed a shirt; usually when it comes to clothes, I do vests, so this was a great learning experience.

There was a lot of technical learning here, including shirt yokes, placards, and gather stitching and easing to sew the sleeves, not to mention basting for new reasons I had not done before. It was nice (and fun) to learn a lot of new things doing a small version shirt before a big one, which I'd like to do for my husband some day soon. Already took him to the fabric store to see what fabrics he liked. Hehe. Looking forward to sewing more clothes in the future.

Sugar Block of the Month Quilt Club – work in progress (With improved pictures)

2013-04-27T15:02:00.000-07:00

Here’s the April block I completed as part of the Sugar Block of the Month Club and even better, how all four completed blocks look together. So colorful and cheery – these are so fun to put together, and I am learning a lot every month.

Note: This is a second post with improved pictures. To see the original post from a few days ago, go here.

Kids Clothes Week - Work in Progress!

2013-04-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

Just a quick sneak peak of my Kid's Clothes Week progress...and tracing the pattern! Too fun!

Fabric for a woodland animals baby quilt for my coming nephew

2013-04-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

I have a nephew coming early July and am planning a baby quilt for him with the following fabric. They live in the mountains and are decorating with woodland animals.

I just loved the “Mind your Ps and Qs” fabric, and it matched perfectly with some fabric I already had from “Camp Modern.” I also discovered how a couple colors of a pattern from the new “Glimmer” line was very woodsie and complementary as well.

Kids Clothes Week - Getting ready to make an Oliver +S Sketchbook Shirt

2013-04-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

I am participating in Kids Clothes Week, which is a really fun way to be part of a community (online) focusing their sewing on making kids clothes for a week. The challenge occurs once a quarter and crafters link up their ideas, tips, progress, and completed projects online using blogs, facebook, flickr, instagram, and more.

Here's the fabric I am using. It's from the "Timber and Leaf" collection, and I'm not sure where the flannel is from, but I plan to use it for the placard and yoke of the shirt.

And just cause it's fun to share, I got myself some fabric from the same collection, which will be a skirt for me. Gotta make yourself something once in a while!!

A sunny block for a wintry day (I mean week) in Colorado

2013-04-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

This is the forth block I've made as part of the Sugar Block of the Month Club. I love that a sunshine design was the block for April, when we are getting so much snow in Denver, Colorado.

I also love how nice and easy it is to do one quilt block a month. Although I have a couple baby quilts to make, I will plan to take a long time when making a bigger quilt. I hate it when sewing gets stressful, because it's supposed to be my stress release.

But as with everything, I've notice it is easy to get overextended, so anyway, being part of a block of the month club has demonstrated to me that one block a month is a good overall strategy for future quilt planning.

Another time-management strategy I've put in place recently is to take pictures with my iPhone for immediate upload and wait to take pictures with my professional camera for bigger project or until I really have time for the downloading, processing, saving, and uploading that's required with a larger camera. The quality of the pictures aren't as good, but I'll trade that for the extra quality time I get in other areas of life, like watching my 20-month-old grow like a weed, spending time outside, etc.

Quilted tote – first experience with bag-making and English Paper Piecing quilting

2013-03-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

Finally finished this birthday present for one of my favorite people. This is one of the most fun and favorite things I’ve made, and it was so great getting to think of my friend while making it.

It was my first time with bag making and English paper piecing (the hand sewn hexagons, which are possible to do on the way to the ski area in the car not to mention during a hot bath while listening to a book on tape (talk about multitasking)).

I really loved the combination of sewing something useful like a bag with quilting to make it unique and decorative. I even already started another one, and I can’t wait to get into smaller, zippered pouches.

I used a charm pack of Jay McCarroll’s Center City fabric collection for the hexagons. I just love this line of urban deliciousness. I am thinking about picking up some larger pieces before it is all gone—some of the prints would make amazing summer shirts and skirts.

I learned how to make the bag by watching the free Bag-Making Basics class on Craftsy.com, and I learned about English Paper Piecing by watching one of the lessons that’s part of the free Block of Month 2012 class also on Craftsy.com.

Oil pastels are better than regular crayons for toddlers

2013-03-23T20:59:00.001-07:00

A toddler specialist (http://www.patiencebleskan.com/) suggested buying oil pastels for the younger ones to draw with, because you don't have to push as hard as crayons to get bold colors, and they were a huge success. Our 20-month-old not only created something great, he also colored longer than usual! Here's a link to the ones we bought: http://www.crayola.com/products/28-ct-crayola-oil-pastels-product/.

My little Picasso loves his oil pastels., a photo by SincerelyStacy on Flickr.

Emerald Quilt Challenge entries - my first challenge

2013-03-17T08:56:00.004-07:00

Happy St Patty's Day! I'm entering two quilts in the Emerald Quilt Challenge, which is a quilting challenge based on using mainly the color Emerald. Emerald is the Pantone color of the year. (Prior to quilting, I would have never know what that meant to the design industry.)

You can enter up to three quilts: a mini-quilt, a quilt topper, and a fully completed quilt. I am entering two. Here are the quilts and a ton of what I learned making them.

Mini-Quilt 12.5 x 12.5 (The colors are bolder than the picture displays, but it's close enough)

What I learned:

My sewing machine is cheap and old with bad tension I don't think I can ever fix. That's why I have thread problems sometimes, which can impact the smoothness of the fabric. But I am learning how important tension is.
I also got more experience with paper piecing, as the mini-quilt was fully paper pieced. I used one of the October patterns (and video tutorial) from the 2012 Craftsy Block of the Month, and made a slight alteration to make the star a little larger. Paper piecing is really cool but not something I can do very quickly yet. I'd like to do it again but make sure I have more adequate time. I kept cutting the pieces of fabric too big. That's why the center circle has two different fabrics when I'd prefer it have one.
I also trimmed some corners when I should not have, so I had to sew the block together with a larger seam allowance, impacting how several seams line up.
I had a lesson in color choice--I actually like how the colors turned out more than I thought I would, but I might rethink some of them like making the center circle a lot darker or lighter next time and perhaps switching the ice cream fabric with the bold solids. However, that's part of what makes this block unique.
And finally, I thought I had totally ruined this block, so I just had fun with the quilting and like how it turned out. I want to take a free motion quilting class as soon as I get a new sewing machine that can handle it.

Quilt Topper 33"x33"

What I learned:

I learned that I can use Microsoft Word to design a quilt pretty easily. See prior post here.
I am going to read more about the best ways to sew together a quilt with so many squares. After this one and the paper piecing mini above, I can't wait to do a more free-form quilt where I don't have to have so many perfectly matching seams. I don't know if free-form is more my style or if I'm just experiencing needing to increase my skill set level on square quilts, but this quilt wasn't east.
This is the first challenge I've done. I felt a bit limited both due to time and having design requirements. I kept wanting to add more color and wanted more time to do new things, but such is life!

My first dresden quilt block complete

2013-03-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

Finally finished my mom's birthday present (her birthday was Feb 2 - I have been showing her progress to build excitement and to let her know I haven't forgotten, lol). See this prior post, for example.

The front

The back

One of my other favorite hobbies is snowboarding. I finished hand sewing the binding after a long day, cold, with the heat blasting in my car in the parking lot of the ski area while I was waiting for my husband who was doing one more run. And I have to say, I really enjoyed having some hand sewing for the road.

As soon as I was done, my husband got back to the warm car, which he appreciated, and we drove to my mom's house to have family dinner and pick up the baby (she and my dad live in the ski resort towns; very lucky for us), and I presented her, her completed present. And she loves it. I can't wait to make her something else soon!

Using Microsoft Word (software you probably already have) to plan quilts

2013-03-04T23:05:00.001-08:00

I have not been quilting long enough to justify buying software to help visualize and design quilts I’d like to make, so I decided to use Microsoft Word, software that’s installed on most personal computers these days and which I use every day at work.

I wasn’t sure if it would work at first, but actually, I am happy with the results. I started by creating a basic table with 10 cells across and 10 cells down and with borders turned on. Then I just started applying color to the different table cells to build a design. The pixelated flower design was the first one I attempted and was total freeform—as I had no care how the size or design turned out—I was literally just playing around seeing if the software would suffice for my design needs.

The other project I am planning are a couple jungle themed baby quilts. I have some really great fabric with bright colors and snakes, lions, monkeys, etc that I want to emphasize with some kind of square block design. For weeks I’ve been visualizing wanting to design a really colorful, solid border, so after creating the pixelated flower in Word software, I decided to use the same process for getting the jungle quilt out of my head and on paper, and voilà, it worked great. The results match almost exactly what I’ve been dreaming up in my head, plus the process of using the software helped add ideas I hadn’t thought of—such as the yellow squares in the corners.

Very excited to feel like I don’t have to buy specialized software to do detailed planning. At some point I plan to write up more about the process of using software you probably already have on your computer to design quilts. But for now, I’ve got some quilts to work on!

Claiming my blog on Bloglovin

2013-03-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

Apparently you have to create this post in order to claim your blog on the Bloglovin' reader, so that's all this post if for. :)

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/7168745/?claim=xydsqnhtypv">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Two quilt blocks completed this weekend

2013-02-24T22:00:00.000-08:00

I completed two quilt block this weekend. Both are the second to another block already completed.

The first is a Victorian themed block. This is for a 3- or 4-block mini wall-hanging, but I keep visualizing a larger one, because I'm having so much fun with the free-form log cabin style and the fun prints that I don't want to stop making these anytime soon.

The second is part of the Sugar Block Club - block of the month (BOM) I'm participating in lead by Amy Gibson at www.stitcherydictorydoc.com. I am learning a ton about technique, new types of blocks, using solids, and sewing in general being part of this BOM.

You can see it's not perfect, but I learned a ton doing it. And I don't know what I was thinking using stripped fabric, as if learning paper piecing with this block wasn't enough, I had to spend a ton of extra time trying to make the stripes line up. Oh well, I'm not one for easy.

Like I mentioned, this block used paper piecing--a technique where you actually sew the fabrics together by following lines on a piece of paper, and then you rip the paper away. That was a simplistic explanation, but if you've ever seen more intricate quilted fabrics, very detailed stars or even objects like boats or animals, it was probably done using paper piecing, which is remarkably fun. I can't wait to do something even more complicated some day soon. And now I know how it's done!

Below is a close up of my first 4-point star. I was so excited that I didn't even wait to trim this baby before taking a picture, but you can see the point in the middle looks pretty good.

It makes me so happy to make pretty things. I'm calling this weekend on a success on the quilt block front...now the sleeping front is another story.

My first dresden

2013-02-17T15:34:00.002-08:00

I didn't complete this on time for my mom's birthday but showed it to her on her special day, so that she knew I was working on something. And since she already knows about it, I don't have to keep it a secret! My first dresden block.

This is suppose to be a mini-quilt placemat for the center of my mom's pretty, round, wooden table in her kitchen, but now that I sewed the quilt back, I think it might need to be two pieces or made into something larger. We'll see. That's how projects get much bigger and out of control, so I might just stick with the original plan. I'm giving it a few days to decide!

Daisy-chaining the petals - what a fun block!

Literally scrappy boutineer

2013-02-15T23:00:00.000-08:00

After sewing 15 quilted Valentine's this year, I looked at the pile of beautiful little scraps and thought there has to be something more fun and useful to do with them than just throw them away. So I wadded them and put them under my sewing machine needle, and this is what was created...

Then I pulled a few fabric roses I had out of another miscellaneous basket of craft remnants and attached them, and the creation got even better...

How adorable is this!

All from making these...