I didn’t want to use strip piecing because I was hoping for a more random arrangement of squares, so each square was individually cut and painstakingly arranged (I always overthink that part!) I sewed the front blocks together using interfacing, which I had read was a shortcut for piecing small squares. It ended up being a major pain and if I were to redo the quilt I think I’d skip it the next time around. The back piecing was done without interfacing and I feel like it went more quickly while still being just as accurate.

The fabrics I used are not only quilting scraps but scraps from dresses I made for my girls as toddlers and the overalls I made for my son’s first Easter. There are scraps from bags and baby blankets and Christmas gifts… when I look at this quilt I am flooded with memories of all of the things I’ve made, which is a pretty great feeling. I also got the added bonus of majorly cleaning out my fabric cabinet. I cut all of the remaining scraps down into manageable and regularly shaped pieces and folded them neatly, and tossed all the tiny pieces. It’s nice to finally feel like I’m not drowning in fabric (for the moment).

The quilt is backed in a super soft double gauze cloud 9 cotton with a strip of pieced squares down the middle. I love how soft it is, but it did wrinkle a little bit underneath while I was quilting it together so it’s a little wonky. As is everything I make. I think the softness makes up for the imperfections. It’s bound in a crazy patterned bias binding that I made… I figured the total lack of cohesion in the fabric patterns called for something extra outrageous as binding.

Hooray for finished quilts, hooray for using up years worth of scraps! It’s my new favorite blanket.

I constructed Anna’s costume in four separate pieces, a long sleeved mandarin collared blouse, a vest, a circle skirt and a cape. The blouse fastens with two hook and eye clasps and has ribbon detailing at the neckline. The vest is made of a slightly stretchy thick knit fabric that can pull on over the head without any type of fasteners. All of the embroidery on the vest was mimicked with felt which was hand stitched into place. The skirt is a full circle skirt for maximum twirling and the designs were hand painted using acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium. The cape is made of a thick flannel and edged with pompoms. The heart shaped clasps were made of sculpey clay and are attached on top of a large hook and eye closure.

Elsa’s dress was sewn to be pulled on over the head without fasteners as well. The main sequined bodice piece is fully lined in a costume satin to avoid itching and wraps from the front around the sides and into the back. It is split in the center back underneath the cape and the back panel is a shirred costume satin in a matching color. The shirred panel allows the dress to be stretched to pull on while still appearing fitted. The skirt was sewn from a solid colored costume taffeta and hand painted with streaks of silver and light blue as well as glitter (never too much glitter for a children’s costume!) Elsa doesn’t wear a crown in her ice princess dress in the movie, but that didn’t stop us from making one (because tiaras are so much fun, obviously).

The Kristoff costume is four pieces. A long sleeve light grey knit shirt, a pair of dark grey knit pants, a belted fleece tunic and a fleece cap. The tunic has ribbon and faux fir as edging and the belt is made from two ribbons sewn together. The cap has a fleece pompom. Kristoff’s costume wouldn’t be complete without Sven and we used a puppet that we already had at home as his trusty sidekick.

Not wanting to be left out of the Halloween fun, I decided to make myself a costume last year as well. My husband and I decided to dress as the parents from Frozen, who never are called by name during the movie, but Disney wikia claims are named King Agnarr and Queen Iduna. They only have a few minutes’ worth of screen time so it was hard to dig up reference photos for their costumes but it was a fun challenge. Queen Iduna’s costume is made in three pieces, a long sleeved mandarin collared shirt with ribbon at the neckline, a purple underdress and a black overdress with painted detailing on the back. All of the ribbons on the overdress and coat were hand painted to mimic the patterns on the movie costumes and the medals and overdress clasp were made of painted sculpey clay.

In a last minute day before Halloween decision we talked my mom into wearing an Olaf costume (because what is Frozen without Olaf?) I used a white hooded sweatshirt and added felt buttons, eyes and eyebrows and pipe cleaner twig hair. The nose was a cone of orange felt and she wore white pants. A super easy and quick costume and she was a huge hit while we were out trick or treating.

Once again a highlight of the Halloween season was taking the kids to Disneyland to meet the real Anna and Elsa. I’m a little bit sad that the kids have decided on non-Disney costumes for this year’s Halloween, but it will be fun to have total creative freedom with the sewing this time around. One month to Halloween… time to get started!

The backing is a solid blue flannel with a cloud applique – a little nod to the sky and rainbows. The label is a painted message along the bottom of the cloud.

I finished this quilt with a handmade bias binding, machine sewn on the front and hand stitched in the back.

This is the first quilt that I made using a wandering quilting stitch instead of straight lines.  I did a fairly widely spaced pattern and was surprised at how quickly it went.  It’s not perfect by any means but I’m happy with how it adds a cloud-like feeling to the back side of the quilt.

I’ve also (finally!) finished Edith’s baby clothes quilt and will be sharing that one next!

I took the photo below while the costumes were still in progress so the yellow wrap on the Belle costume wasn’t finished, but this is the best shot of Pascal’s tail, the twirliness of the Rapunzel dress and the major poof in the Belle costume.

The Belle costume was sewn almost 100% as written directly from this amazing tutorial for a child’s Belle costume. I couldn’t possibly write enough good things about this tutorial. It had so many great ideas, especially the shirring. What a genius idea for a kid costume – no zippers or buttons and it fits a wide range of sizes. It’s never going to look baggy. It was perfect. The tutorial was written for a toddler so I knew the skirt wasn’t going to work exactly the same way on a much taller child. I added more width and also planned for and sewed a simple petticoat to go underneath for maximum poof factor. I also made some quick and easy yellow fingerless gloves, based on this tutorial. Add a rose and hair donut and presto. Belle is ready for the ball!

The Rapunzel costume was a combination of many tutorials and as you might guess… sort of (extremely) involved to sew. I took the basic idea for the bodice construction from the Belle tutorial (because, once again, shirring! Genius!) but added lace detailing at the top and bottom and a couple of ribbon loops for lacing in front. I used some sleeve tricks from this other Rapunzel dress tutorial (coordinating with the Pascal tutorial from earlier). I sewed the stripes on as shown in the tutorial, but attached the sheer portion before sewing the entire thing into a finished sleeve. It took me a couple of tries to get the order of operations right, but I think it was worth the effort. I decided that the skirt had to be a full circle skirt to really match with the movie and I used two colors of fabric panels to mimic the center underskirt. I don’t have an embroidery machine (or the kind of time required for hand embroidery or applique) so all of the detailing on the skirt is painted on. I finished up the costumes too late to order a wig online (and most of them were over the top expensive anyway) so I made a yarn wig from this tutorial and glued in silk flowers to finish it off.

Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair! She was insistent that the yarn wig reach all the way to the ground for authenticity, so she spent a lot of time with it looped over her arm in an attempt to keep it from getting dusty.

Pascal was constructed entirely from the tutorial I linked above. Why mess with a good thing? Especially when it is so quick and easy.

The kids had a total blast on Halloween showing off their costumes… but my favorite part of the entire project was seeing them with the “real” Rapunzel and Flynn Rider at Disneyland. I can’t wait to get started on the next batch of princess costumes!

The back of the quilt has a row of strips from the leftover fabric from the front, just because I can’t stand to leave the back of a quilt plain (even if it would be a time saver and I could always use a time saver).

The majority of the fabrics (the prettiest ones for sure!) came from my friend Jean (thanks Jean!) who was trying to get rid of some fabric that no longer sparked joy for her (thank you to Marie Kondo too!) and I am so glad that she gave them to me because they were definitely the inspiration for the color palette that I chose for the remaining fabrics.

My favorites are the bright reds and deep purples, I love how they pop out when you see the whole thing together.

I finished this quilt with some hand sewn bias binding and a painted label. I still just don’t seem to have the patience or talent for nice hand embroidery so I prefer the look of a painted label for now.

Hooray for finishing another quilt! I was hoping to have this one done by Christmas but was able to hand it over completed on the 26th. Not too bad for a hectic holiday season. I also finished one other quilt, the one I had been working on for ages for big brother Raylan, so I will be sharing that one next. Now if I could only finish up that baby clothes quilt for Edith…

During the first year of my 365 days of sky project, remembering to take a photo each day was something that took practice and concentration. This year it felt like second nature, like something that I have always done. I am excited to keep the project going and to see what years and even decades of sky look like all together. If you want to follow along as I post you can find me over on instagram – @katyregnier and you can see all of my sky posts under the tag #krdailysky

One of my favorite dresses to wear on a weekday was this soft green one I have had for over 5 years, but since it’s so well loved it’s starting to show its age. I’ve been thinking about making a replica for a long time, but I finally got up enough motivation to actually do it. Taaadaaaaa!

The original dress was so comfortable and so easy to wear – looks like real clothing but feels like pajamas is my gold standard – so I couldn’t resist making one that fit exactly the same. I just pulled some cotton out of my fabric closet (hoarder stash?) to make this. It’s a quilting cotton so it obviously doesn’t have the exact same drape as the original, but it works for me.

Since I never zipped or unzipped my original dress (it had a hidden side zip) I decided to leave it off, and I thought that the tie sash might be a little much with the busy fabric pattern so I left that off as well. It was such a quick and easy project – just a simple trace and cut and an afternoon’s worth of sewing. It’s the kind of project that makes me wonder why I don’t make more things for myself… especially when I can have a new version of my most comfortable and long since out-of stores dress in just a single afternoon without even leaving the house. I think I need to make more of these…

This post is part of my #365daysofsky series on instagram which I have been working on since January of 2013. Follow me @katyregnier if you don’t already – lots of pretty sky goodness served up daily! You can also find all of my monthly sky series wrap-ups since 2013 here.

This post is part of my #365daysofsky series on instagram which I have been working on since January of 2013. Follow me @katyregnier if you don’t already – lots of pretty sky goodness served up daily! You can also find all of my monthly sky series wrap-ups since 2013 here.

I used a super simple ripple afghan pattern that I found on ravelry and my favorite part was choosing the colors of yarn. Back when I first started the blanket, we were living in our old house and Edith’s room was a pale buttery yellow. I knew that I wanted to use that and that I also wanted to mix in some bright colors to keep it from being too baby pastel. I wanted it to be a blanket she could grow into. She had an arrangement of photos in bright blue frames so I pulled in a similar blue yarn and also picked up a few of the colors from her rug and striped changing mat as well.

Now we’ve moved and she has a peachy orange room instead of a yellow one (I replicated the mural I’d painted in case you were wondering) and she doesn’t really use her changing mat anymore (potty training, yikes!). Being older and much more opinionated than she was as a baby, Edith has also now vetoed her pretty pink simple sheets in favor of some Winnie the Pooh ones, but oh well, at least the blanket still goes with her rug.

I didn’t set out a repeating pattern (or any sort of a pattern) before starting work on this project, the only thing that I decided on in advance was that there would be less blue than any of the other colors. I just sort of added in stripes willy-nilly as I was going along, I thought it would give a more spontaneous look to the blanket (the variations in thickness are random as well) but in reality I just drove myself crazy over-analyzing which color should come next when it came time to switch yarns. If I had it to do over I would probably pre-plan the stripes.

The blanket is big enough to completely cover the whole mattress in her crib (which she is also very soon to outgrow) and she gets tucked in with it every night. I love the projects that end up being put to daily use. They’re always so much more satisfying than the ones that are just for show. Just look at that sweet face… snug as a bug in a rug. Or hand crocheted chevron baby blanket. You know…