Kids Clothes Week Project Complete and Broken In!

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)

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!

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

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

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

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.