Progress: Lil' Schep's Soft Alphabet

Woohoo!  I've posted three times already this year, and it's only January!  It might not seem like a big deal to y'all, but this is huge for me.  Life can be taxing, especially right now with the whole I'm-growing-a-human-being thing going on.  Anyways, I'm writing to fill y'all in on my work in progress (gasp!):

This will eventually become a full alphabet set for Lil' Schep.  He's already begun exploring the few letters I have finished, and so far, so good. 

If you remember a year or two ago, I made this soft alphabet for our best friends' daughter's birthday, and boy, was it a pain!  I thought of reusing the same method, but increasing the size of the letters for ease of turning.  Then I came across some felt softies, and thought I'd give it a try.  I do have mounds of embroidery floss laying around to stitch them up with!

I purchased an assortment of 9" x 12" felt sheets from Amazon.  I'm still torn about this.  I shied away from wool because of allergy concerns (my mother-in-law is allergic, and I was planning on sending these over to her house), and frankly, the higher cost.  Having used felt purchased off the bolt at Wal-Mart in the past, I felt (hehe) that even the cheap stuff would hold up well.  When I received my felt assortment, I was disappointed to find that it was stiff, not soft and pliable like the felt they sell at the store.  In the end, I kept going with it for two reasons: (1) I didn't spend very much on the felt to begin with, and (2) it came with a giant assortment of colors that I felt would make the entire project more colorful for my little guy. 


What do y'all think?  Maybe in a few weeks I'll post an update with the newest letters I've managed to finish.  It's good to have a non-intimidating hand sewing project to work on again!  Linking up to Let's Bee Social!  Until next time, God Bless!

Windy Hill Farm Quilt

Hey y'all!  It's been a while--Happy New Year!  I've been busy and not really sewing much, with having a baby and working full time and all that jazz.  I did sneak in a good bit of hand sewing in between hearings and on lunch breaks, which is how I whipped up this gem:



This is the Windy Hill Farm Quilt designed by Antonie Alexander, which is available in her book, Happy Quilts!. 

This quilt was a blast, especially since it was finished just in time to be the central decoration at my son's first birthday party.  Lil' Schep is totally digging animals right now, so I thought the farm theme would be perfect.  Having opted to do the blanket stitching by hand, it was a labor of love.  Alexander's book comes with a CD with PDF patterns for the applique pieces.  These have to be traced onto fusible web, which then has to be cut out, fused to the wrong side of the fabric, and then cut out again, only to have peel off the paper backing, to then fuse the fabric to the background.  Whew!  And then I thought it would be brilliant if I did a hand blanket stitch.

The pattern calls for a border made of small windmill blocks--this is the part I fretted the most over.  Piecing is NOT my strong suit, but my hubby and I tackled it head-on and I cranked out the border blocks in no time at all, even sewing in the early morning hours before work. 

I can't believe my little guy is one! 

And as the good Lord would have it, I found out that baby #2 is on the way right before I finished this quilt:



Move over lil' Schep, the new BabySchep is due in July!

 

 

But enough about me--you came for the pictures.  Without further ado:

 

 

Totes ma goats!



Farmer Girl

Farmer Boy

Brown Chicken, Brown Cow!

Baby photobomb.

Applause!

Hand stitched label.  Dad gets credit for being my helper in the sewing room!

Just a few more details about the quilt: I used a Michael Miller Luxe extra wide backing fabric for the back, which made free motion quilting this a breeze on my Singer Quantum Stylist 9960.  I used Aurifil 50wt thread to piece and quilt the entire quilt.  I used Sulky 12wt thread for the blanket stitching around the applique, and used an 80/20 cotton/poly blend batting in the middle. 

I hope you enjoyed reading about this quilt as much as I enjoyed making it!  Linking up to Finished or Not Friday, which is also doubling as TGIFF, and Finish it Up Friday. 

Until next time, God bless!

New Year's Resolution

I'm not the type to make new year's resolutions, but I do want to be more intentional about keeping up the blog.  This is, after all, a place for me to write about my passions, and it's become all too evident that I'm not making enough time for the things that bring me so much joy in this life. 

In the past, I've done a lot of secret sewing, waiting to write a blog post once the item was gifted.  No more.  You'll see more work-in-progress type posts from me here out.  To that end, here are the projects that are on the horizon:

A new bag (details coming soon!).

A memory quilt for a coworker's husband who left us in 2016.

A softie alphabet set for Lil' Schep.

I finished my son's Windy Hill Farm Quilt on time (hooray!), but still need to photograph it, so expect a write-up on that soon.

In the meantime, I've been listening to audiobooks, so I'll recap the one I just finished this morning on the drive to work:

I've really been digging nonfiction books lately, and this one didn't disappoint.  It's a well-told account of the cholera outbreak in London during the Victorian era, and how it changed the world.  If you're into science writing, you'll probably enjoy this one.  Don't worry--no nitty gritty cholera details in this one!

It's Friday, so maybe I'll get some sewing done at home tonight!  Until next time, God Bless.