Silly Dinos

I decided to determine if my Cricut Expressions can help me reduce time when appliqueing. And, to my delight, it works! This cute dino was cut out using my Cricut and then appliqued on to the onsie (a gift for my girlfriend Lori who just had her baby girl).

I made this little shirt for Lori's son, who is almost 5. He LOVES dinosaurs (also very popular in my house) and thought I would make him a little something special. I did the T-rex the old-fashioned way, but used my Cricut to cut out the RaWR! text.

I'm very happy with how these turned out and love to have another gift idea in my repertoire.

Also super excited to see what I can get my Cricut to cut out of fabric. It seems the larger, less-detailed objects and fonts do well, but the smaller, more-detailed objects tend to not cut out as well. Still, this will save me lots of time!

For anyone out there wanting to try this out, I set my needle all the way down (I believe it was the 6 setting - regardless, whatever the highest number is what you want to turn your needle position to), speed set to slowest, and pressure set to highest. I also sort of went along with the needle and tried to keep the fabric down as much as possible (occasionally it would sort of hang up and the needle would catch it). I was using Heat N Bond, with Heat N Bond side down on the sticky mat.

If anyone has tried this, please comment on what success you have had!

Giggles Quilt

It's been quite awhile since my last blog. Several reasons. One, my husband commandered my laptop so I have been without computer access for quite some time. Two, I have not had as much time to quilt as usual.

But, I have been working on this quilt for my girlfriend. She's having a baby girl and I wanted to make something special for her to match the baby's room. She was using these fun apricot and pink colors. I was lucky enough to have a charm pack from Riley Blake's line Summer Song. I was even luckier to find one of my local quilt stores, Cottonwood Fabrics, had a few bolts of this line left in their clearance section.

I was hoping to applique the baby girl's name, but they are not sharing the name they have chosen, so I improvised. When I think of my children as they were babies (or are babies as the case may be), I love their giggles the most. Such joy to hear a baby giggle! A great milestone and one I felt worth documenting.

Here is the finished quilt...

I've been doing so many gifts recently, which I love to do, but I was getting bored and wanted a challenge, so I took on flying geese. This is my first attempt, and I am really proud of how they turned out.

I was also really happy with how the applique turned out. The yo-yo for the dot on the i is also my first yo-yo. The quilting was also the first time I had done some small, filler quilting on my new-to-me HandiQuilter 16. I'm starting to get more comfortable with it and I can't wait to keep trying more and more!

Here is my friend, Valerie, after opening her quilt.

Ghosts, Goblins, and Ghouls

I made this Halloween quilt top last year, but (shockingly) have yet to finish it. Alas, it is still not completed, but steps have been made. I believe these are Riley Blake fabrics from a couple years ago...still my favorite Halloween prints of all time!

I decided to piece the backing with the left over fabric. I really like how it turned out.

I got it pinned together, and I have some great ideas for the actualy quilting part - now I just need to make the time!

The pattern from Crazy Old Ladies showcases this fabric perfectly! I just love this quilt.

Can't wait to finish this one up just in time for Halloween this year!

Apricot Birdies

Although I have been starting a lot of projects recently, I have been working on finishing some as well. I started this quilt knowing it would be the first one on my new (to me) quilting machine - the Handi Quilter 16. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, so I didn't want to spend a ton of time on the piecing of the quilt.

But sure enough, it turned out pretty cute after all, and the quilting is not so bad either.

I really loved these buttons I found and put them on the flowers.

For the quilting, I did a simple loop and flower. Unfortunately, I used a thread that blended in so well you can barely see the quilting on these pictures. Here is the best photo I could come up with.

The quilting turned out much better than I had anticipated - at least for my first try. I was quite pleased. And I just loved the backing fabric too...