Mrs. Chapman's UFO's

 About a month ago, Julia and I picked up a large donation of fabric from Mrs. Chapman. She heard that our guild makes quilts for Habitat for Humanity and she wanted her unused stash to be used for a good cause. Fast forward to last week when some guild friends came over to help me sort through our recent donations and to reassess our previous stash. 

In the middle of all the fabric, we found quite a few (more than a dozen?) unfinished projects. We each took a few that we thought we could finish. The rest will be offered to other guild members at the next meeting. Here are the projects I've been playing with...

There was a small pile of half-hexies that were pieced from a wide striped fabric. Rather than sewing them together into full hexagons, I had fun rearranging and combining them with solids from the stash. It was a good exercise in color and design. I found the perfect narrow stripe for the border in my own stash. This will be a sweet baby quilt someday.

There were just 10 half square triangles made from the same wide stripe. Now there is another placemat in the donation pile for Meals on Wheels.

This animal print top was almost complete. I pieced together the outer border from leftover fabric that looked like swiss cheese! It looked like she had done some fussy cutting for another project. Backing and binding fabric also came out of her stash, so this is waiting to be quilted, too.

My favorite UFO was a small pile of pieced butterflies. There were some spare parts and additional sandy fabric for the background, so it took no time at all to assemble the top. The fern border print came out of my deep stash.

The butterfly wings were cut from mirror images of the print. Isn't that nifty? If anyone knows the source of the pattern, please let me know. I didn't find it with a quick google image search.

I accidentally pieced in one of the butterflies upside down. Oops! 

I had so much fun quilting this little quilt. It took me a while to find a binding. This one is just OK. The backing was also deep stash. 

This one will go to the Adirondacks with us when we visit Julia at the Wild Center. They can hang it in their offices or sell it to raise funds.

Butterfly Wall Hanging

27" X 37"

Started by Mrs. Chapman at least 15 years ago

Completed by me 6/22/15

Apron by Julia

Julia's BFF's birthday is today, so she made her an apron. Genevieve loves to cook and bake, so an apron was the perfect hand made gift. I shopped the stash with Julia, then she went to town. I didn't see her again until she was wearing the completed apron. I'm really proud of how far she has come as a sewist.

She used this brand new tutorial from Maureen Cracknell Handmade. It is a generous size, so it looks like a skirt in the photo. The focus fabric we pulled first is Philip Jacobs' Waltzing Matilda. Then we chose a couple of coordinating batiks. Genevieve's favorite color is purple.

I'm confident that Julia will have no trouble making the skirts she is planning to wear on vacation this summer. She is inspired by Summer of No Pants and What Would Emma Pillsbury Wear.

I'm linking to:

We know summer is here when the monarchs return!

Counting Down to Savannah!

Julia was in a show this weekend called All Shook Up. It's the story of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night set to Elvis music in the 50's. So FUN! Isn't she the cutest bobby sockser? We all agree she was born in the wrong decade. She should have been a teenager in the late 40's or 50's.


I will be in Savannah, Georgia, one week from today with my Girl Scouts and I can't wait!


I picked up some Kaffe fabric at the Button Box last week with my girls in mind. This fabric coordinates beautifully with our pink and lime green trip t-shirts, so I thought I would make them all a headband or something. Today, that something was luggage tags. I pre-printed their contact info on cardstock with one of our troop logos (554).


There are a bunch of tutorials out there for fabric luggage tags. I cut 2 pieces of fabric, 4x6", and 2 pieces of fusible interfacing, 4x6". The strap is a 12" long piece of grossgrain ribbon. The vinyl is cut 2.5 x 4" and topstitched on. Easy peasy!


Since I have a few extra luggage tags and my 100th post is coming up, stay tuned for a giveaway to be announced on Sunday. Some goodies from Savannah may be included!