Six years in the making

 Hi everyone, and happy Thanksgiving! Where did November go? Seriously, it just slipped away from me. Maybe you really can fold space and time. That would also explain the never-ending laundry and dishes, wouldn't it?

To celebrate Thanksgiving, I want to show off a finish that I am really thankful for and that seems really appropriate today. It's been done for a month while I dithered about whether I should add anything else to it, but I've finally decided it's perfect as is. Here we are:

 

Can that be the Paper Dolls quilt, after all this time? Yes, yes it is! 

 

I started this quilt way back when we lived in Wisconsin, for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2015. I packed up all the dolls and moved them to the East coast, then finally finished the top in Delaware. And it stayed in the closet for a long time after that. I hate it when that happens, don't you?

I finally pulled it out earlier this year, reworked it a little by rearranging the rows so that it's more square and suited for a bed, and sent it off to Alycia to be custom quilted. She did an amazing job! I went back and forth for a couple of months about the binding, then finally went with the binding that matched the border. It helps that I already had that binding made. I planned to add some embroidery, but in the end I just added eyes to the dolls and let that be enough.

The custom quilting Alycia did is fantastic and really makes the quilt shine. All of the dolls have flowers on their skirts, and there are a variety of different backgrounds quilted in. Look at the extra special quilting on the bride! Isn't that beautiful? All of the dolls got special treatment, and a lot of the bigger open areas are feathers. It turned out so great, and I'm so happy with it.

 

I don't know why it took me so long to finish this quilt, because I love all of the dolls. Some of them are based on people I know, and some of them were just dictated by the available scraps. Oh, yeah-- everything in the quilt except the borders and sashing is a scrap of some sort. It was a scrap challenge, after all. I can't pick a favorite, though the bride was based on my daughter, so maybe I could go with that one. Really, though, I love them all.

The saying in the center of the quilt is not in the pattern, but I think it adds a lot, especially since these are all women of different races, ethnicities, and ages. We all could stand to support each other more in spite of our differences, don't you think?

 

If you zoom in, you can see that the dolls have a variety of different-colored eyes as well as different hairstyles, and some of them have really wild hair. I had a lot of fun creating all of them with all different personalities. Some of them turned out to be very different than I thought they would be, but they're still great. Just like people, you know?

I want to give credit to the designer whose pattern I adapted for this quilt, even though it looks like the website no longer exists. The dolls were designed by Phyllis Paul, and I used her pattern to make the doll bodies, but made up my own hair appliques and block arrangement. I'm really sorry that her pattern doesn't seem to be available any more, because the dolls were pretty easy to make. If you see it anywhere, be sure to grab a pattern!

 

This quilt is going to live on the bed that our granddaughter uses when she is here. That's really why it finally got finished-- I can't wait to see her making up stories about the dolls and looking at all of their fun clothes and hair styles. And who doesn't want to sleep under a doll quilt? (Or on top of it, as my granddaughter does.) 

I hope you all are having a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and are finally getting together with some family. It's a much better holiday this year than last, that's for sure! Enjoy the pumpkin pie!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or not Friday, Brag About Your Beauties, Patchwork and Applique, Oh, Scrap, and soscrappy for RSC 21 (and finally finishing RSC 15!)

Getting our hair done

Hi all! How are you today?  Is it wet or is it snowy where you are?  Or maybe it's really warm?  We've had all three over the last three days.  Not joking! Snow, then rain, then 55 degrees.  No wonder all my students are sick.  And they make sure to cough all over their papers when they hand them in, believe me.

Good thing one of the things I find most relaxing is sewing. The last few days I've been working on the Paper Dolls, mostly stitching in their hair and some of the details on their dresses.  Here's one group:

I think it's really adding to their personalities.  Is it weird that I think of them as individuals?

There's always one sister. . .

Their hair is just raw edge applique, which I'm almost never happy with because the edges ravel, but I think it will be okay because it's hair, which is supposed to be a little bit messy. 

I started playing with layouts, but they have to wait for a few more friends to show up.  I need just a couple more with black or white dresses so that the layout will work.  It's kind of silly, but I want it so that every one of the girls will be holding hands with another.  Nobody goes alone, right?

One other thing that I did this weekend was to meet up with these lovely ladies:

On the left is Nancy from Pug Mom Quilts, in the center is Leeanna from Not Afraid of Color, and I'm the weirdo on the right. (Feel free to ignore me.)  We had lunch and went to the Kaffe Fassett exhibit at the Michener Museum, which was a fascinating museum, if a bit small.  I'm not a big fan of Kaffe, but it was a nice shot of color and a chance to meet up with some great people.  They even got to meet the hubs, very briefly, which is very, very rare as he's generally anti-social.

On top of being a great Pugmom, Nancy is a very sweet and giving person.  Look at this great fleece and flannel blankie she made for my new grandson (no, he's not here yet):

How sweet is that? You can never have too many blankies, and this one has that great satin binding that kids love.  And Leeanna made us both great pincushions.  Here's mine:

Thank you so much, ladies, for the fun and for the lovelies.  Both are much appreciated!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social and soscrappy for RSC15 because I have no brown left!  At least some of their hair is brown.

The Brown family

Hi everyone!  Are you ready for a lovely fall weekend? I sure am.  The last couple of weeks have been really busy and I am ready to settle down and enjoy some down time this weekend.  Here is the happiest part of renting the condo: the leaves are falling and we don't have to rake them!  Let's hear it for landscapers!

This week I spent some time with the girls, making up the brown dolls.  Here's the family:

Aren't they adorable?  I had my doubts about the browns, because I personally don't own very many brown clothes, but I think they turned out great.

And can I just say that they have an amazing sense of color?  I couldn't wear those dresses nearly as well as they do!

There is one more member of this family to show off, although she is quite shy:

Yep, she's the sister who joined the convent and became a Carmelite nun!  If you don't know (or care) what that means, just know that it made me really, really happy to make this one.  It took a while because the dress is fairly complicated (lots of layers) and I really wanted to get it right, but I think she turned out really well.  And she'll certainly fit in to what is turning out to be a global sisterhood.

Now that we're nearing the end of the rainbow scrap challenge for this year, I think I have come up with a setting for the dolls.  I'm really getting impatient to put it together because I really think it's going to be great.  I'm also trying decide if I should put eyes on the dolls, and if so, just how I should do that.  I know they aren't getting full faces, because there's no way that I could do that without really messing it up, but eyes might add something nice.  I know I don't want to use beads or French knots, but I'm not sure how else to do it.  Any good suggestions?

Hope all of you have a great weekend.  I hope to get some sewing in and maybe bake something.  And I'm just now getting back into the full swing of my usual exercise, so I'll definitely get some walking in since it should be cool and perfect for a nice couple of miles.

The last picture from our house!

Happy fall!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  soscrappy, and Finish it up Friday.

Rescued

Hi everyone!  Very exciting news from here this Friday--the girls are here! The girls are here!

Good thing, too.  It was starting to get lonely around here.

Of course, I mean these girls:

Believe it or not, they almost got put into storage with my fabric, but they were rescued just in time, then finally made their way here to Pennsylvania.  Hey, everybody makes packing mistakes and ends up giving an important box to charity or tossing out their tax receipts or something.  At least I didn't do that!  These girls just got stuck in a box going the wrong way.  But it's all okay now, because they're back where they belong.

And they're here just in time to meet some of their new sisters!  I've been behind, so this week I tried hard to catch up and made both last month's and this month's dolls.  Here are the indigo girls, who are not really indigo but are at least blue:

That wild paisley skirt is actually a bit of fabric I saved from a Vera Bradley purse.  It makes a great dress!

And here are some of the orange dolls:

Yes, that girl with the candy corn dress is wearing a witch's hat. It's just how she rolls. It's a fashion choice.

And the last three sisters for this week:

Gosh, they look happy.

I am getting close to finishing up this family, so I need to start thinking about setting options.  I like the idea of them holding hands, which could almost be an "I spy" type of quilt, but I might also want to break it up so that it isn't quite so dizzying to look at all of them.  Any one have any suggestions?

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.  Along with the doll blocks, I also got a couple boxes of my scraps, which means lots of sorting and pressing in my future.  (But, oh, how happy I am to be doing it!)  I might also get to go to a quilt show, which we all know is just this side of heaven.  It's exciting just to think about!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  soscrappy, and Finish it up Friday.

Red hot Saturday

Hi folks!  Hope you are already having a great weekend.  Just another update on the rainbow scrap challenge projects.  It's a hot and stormy day today with a hot and stormy color to show off.

Do you have much red?  I do not.  In fact, I had to really scramble to get any red for my projects at all. I used up most of the actual good reds in the row I made for the row quilt.  I think it's because there are not a lot of good reds any more.  Other people have written about this, and they're so right!  Mostly I have to find reds in the Valentine's or Christmas fabrics, and there's always the danger of snowmen lurking somewhere.  So, I've mostly foregone red and have only one short piece of yardage in the stash, and that's more of a juvenile fabric.

Before the red, though, one last green. I had a weird green floral piece left over from yesterday's project, so this is what I did with it:

I made a skirt for a doll, of course!  I think she's very cute.  The lighter-skinned dolls are very hard to photograph.  They bleach out a lot.  Take my word for it that they do end up looking fairly normal.

Once she was all done, I made her a few sisters:

I love them!  I am so happy to use up that scrap for the doll on the left.  That's been here for a while, but now it makes a great skirt!  And the girl next to her is supposed to be wearing a chemo hat, because survivors need representation too, but I'm not sure how well that comes through. Two of these skirts are more coral than red, but they're what I had.  Where else would you put coral? With orange? Or pink?  I'm never sure.

I also rummaged up enough red strings to make two lonely little red string blocks:

Some of those strings are really tiny, but I managed to get a couple blocks, so I'm calling that a success!  I'm sure they'll fit into the quilt just fine.

That's it from here!  Hope you are making some progress on your projects too!  I do love seeing what everyone else is doing.  I always get so inspired, and then I go crazy because there are just too many projects and not enough days in the week.  I'm sure no one else ever has that problem.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!  Hope the air conditioner is working!  And if you celebrate it, Happy Eid!  Enjoy the feast!

Sharing with Angela at soscrappy for RSC15.

Halfway there

Hi all! Hope you had a wonderful 4th of July.  That was a very long celebration this year, wasn't it? The hubs had a 4-day weekend, so we had a mini-vacation of sorts, plus we got a few things done around the house.  It was nice.

Lots of things are happening around here, and today I'm pulling out all of my RSC15 projects at the halfway point of this year.  I decided that I have too many projects.  Somebody remind me next year not to do so much, because I will totally listen to you and scale back on everything.

First up is the row quilt, which is my major RSC project this year:

Wow, I love it!  I swear they are all the same length--it's the fence that's off.  The rows are just pinned here, and I'm planning to use sashing between the rows, so this will be a large-ish quilt.

Next are the 12-inch blocks, which weren't a part of the original plan but are an offshoot of the block tutorials.

A little washed out, but you get the idea. These will make their own quilt, and I just this weekend thought of an interesting setting for them.  It might require me to buy gray fabric.  That will be an interesting shopping trip, because I never buy gray and don't even know what's out there.

Next are the Framed blocks:

Gosh, how can I not love this quilt?  They're a little wrinkly from having been in a project box, but I still think they look great. These are crumb star centers set in Angela's sawtooth stars and then set in large frames made from the Moda Love pattern.  My fingers are itching to stitch these together! I know I should wait, but I'm ready!

Next are the Paper Dolls, which was my original project to use up weird scraps.  The blue and green dolls never got a picture of their own, so here they are:

And here is the whole family:

Once I let these girls outside, they became unruly and didn't want to stay still for their picture. At least no one ran away.

I'm thrilled to pieces with this quilt so far.  The original pattern has 49 dolls, but I think I'll probably end up with 60 or so, based on the number of months left.  It will be a row wider than the original pattern, but I think it will still be okay.

Last but not least, a collection of string blocks:

They look happy in that little pile, don't they?  I have no real plan for these, but they're fun to make and use up a lot of odd pieces of fabric.

So that's my status report!  I think they're looking good, although I'm starting to be worried about having enough scraps to finish.  I've used up the light blues and most of the aqua, and don't have a lot of red or brown.  I guess we;ll have to adapt as necessary.

Happy sewing, everyone!

Linking to Let's Bee Social,  WIP Wednesday and Angela at soscrappy.

Ladies' day out

Hi all, and welcome to summer! At least, it's supposed to be summer, now that we're past Memorial Day.  Break out the white shoes, ladies, it's officially okay now.  Or the white pants, whatever floats your boat.

Today I have some paper doll blocks to show. These are the dolls in purple dresses, which got made last month and then sat around here without hair.  Poor chicks were bald for weeks. I finally spent part of a lovely afternoon giving them some hairstyles, which is the most time-consuming part of making the dolls. I think they're grateful, because they looked pretty cold to me.

This month, this doll is my favorite:

A sari! Complete with a bindi on her forehead. I love it! And now that I've redrafted the pattern for a floor-length dress, who knows what else might be coming down the road? Even if we don't have a brown month, I think we can throw a special doll or two in there.

Here are two more dolls:

Taken inside because of weather conditions!

And the final three:

Gosh, I love that turquoise print dress.  That was terrific fabric and it looks great again here. 

I tried to get a picture of all the girls just "hanging out" but it turned out pretty washed out.

At least the yard looks good.  Here is a picture taken indoors, where they show up a little better:

I think after I make June's dolls I'll have to pull all of them out and take a family picture all together. It would be a good time to count them, too, and think about how I'm planning to lay out the quilt.

Everybody have a good and productive week. I'm planning to make the green dolls, put some binding on a quilt that's been sitting here forever, and finish writing a paper for a conference in June. Yikes! Maybe I better write that paper first!

Linking to Let's Bee Social and WIP Wednesday, plus Scraphappy Saturday.  Happy sewing!

Tournament stitching

Hi folks! Has everyone had enough basketball yet? In case you hadn't noticed, there is a really big basketball tournament going on and it has taken over my television set. I swear that's all that's on it right now. Sorry--I'm informed that there are two tournaments--one for men and one for women. With 64 teams each, it's no wonder there's always a game going on.

While my husband has been glued to the tournaments, I've been upstairs sewing and streaming Netflix. (Netflix is just one of the many reasons I love the 21st century. Whoever thought this up is seriously a genius.)  I'm still actively avoiding my major projects right now, but I did get a LOT of cutting done, and some stitching, too. First, I finished up the bag made with the Noah fabric from 1987:

As you can see, we've had a little bit of spring snow. Heavy, wet, and gross, but it makes a pretty backdrop. This bag turned out to be about the size of a brown paper grocery bag, which is a great size for shopping.

The only thing I would change is that I should have made the handles a little longer. These wrap all around the bag for stability, which is good, but they're a little short on top. I tested the bag size and it will hold three cereal boxes, so this will probably live in the car and get used for groceries. (It will also hold a ton of fabric, so maybe it won't be limited to groceries!)

I also made up the yellow Paper Dolls:

I love the little hair ornament! And I'm so happy to use up that strawberry scrap. It makes a great dress!

I think I'm getting better at the hairstyles. Once I have a nice stack of them, I'll applique stitch the hair down and put in some details. The doll on the left is supposed to look like braids, and I think stitching in some details will really add some depth to it. And some detail stitching could also help the grandma in the middle there look less like she has a cupcake on her head.

While I was at it, I cut a bunch of sets of skin tones for future dolls, and also cut up some backgrounds for later too. That's going to save a lot of time next month, since the cutting is the most time-consuming part of these dolls.

The last thing I did was make some progress on the sort-of Boston Common quilt, which is being made from three sets of charm squares:

All that's left are two rounds of blues, which may or may not get done this week. I made a big mistake with this quilt by not cutting the charms all down to 4-1/2 inches so that they were all the same size. There are some big variations in size in these charms and that's made some of the seam matching difficult. But it's just a little relaxing quilt that will be donated, so it doesn't matter much, and the fabric is quite busy and hides a lot of fudging in those seams.

Other than that, I basted a couple of quilts this weekend and they are ready to quilt up. There is a lot of basketball coming later this week, so I'm pretty sure there will be some time for that after dinner every night!

Hope you get some stitching time in this week too. Or basketball watching--whatever floats your boat. May both your seams and your tournament brackets be perfect!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social and WIP Wednesday, and also Angela at soscrappy.

Little dresses

Happy Tuesday morning everyone! I hope you're already having a great day. Over the last few days we have had lots and lots of sunshine,which makes me really happy. We're supposed to get more snow today, though, and then the deep freeze. I'm starting to really be ready for spring.

I have been making a bunch more Paper Dolls blocks with my pink scraps.

Festive headwrap, and funky gray hair!

These are fun, and I have a lot more pink scraps than blue ones, so there are more choices. I must not like blue very much, because I really have very little of it. Never thought I had something against it, but somehow it doesn't show up in the sewing room much. Hmmm.

These used up some of the pink scraps, including some that had been hanging around here for a long time.  I actually had to stop myself from making more because there were more scraps to use up. I feel certain those other scraps will be showing up somewhere else.

Gosh, those dolls are fun to make!  As you can see, the hairstyles continue to be a challenge:

Strapless in the snow, with a flip!

My other project so far this week was somewhat related, but real dresses instead of doll dresses: 

Little dresses!

Okay, these don't look like much, but the backstory is good. In January, Kimberly of Kimberly's Quilting and Sewing had a great series of posts on your fabric stash (the first one is HERE) and many of her points hit home with me. The series is really worth reading, even if you don't think you'll find anything there.  One of Kimberly's points was about fabric that will never get used. This is true for me--I save everything, but will likely never use some of the leftover yardage or prints from many years ago. She suggests having a small project that makes up quickly to give to charity.

These little dresses are my charity project. They are made mostly from the leftover half and 3/4 yards from old projects. I don't want another quilt made with these florals, but what little girl wouldn't love one of those dresses?

These dresses will go to an organization called Little Dresses for Africa.  It's a great organization and they sew up really fast, as clothes go. Not "knock it out in half an hour" fast, but quick enough.  Seriously, there is almost no cutting involved. I got the free pattern at Nancy Zieman's charity page at Nancy's Notions. There are also a lot of other organizations listed there with a lot of other free patterns and ideas. Some good uses for old fabric. . .

So, I'm nearly done sorting and pulling out fabric for charity projects and having fun making little things. I hope to also make some little elephants for the Elephant Parade quilt later this week, and I'm working on Kaleidoscope blocks. A lot going on, but lots of progress!

Hope everybody gets some sewing in this week, and that there is very little snow to shovel to get in the way of that. Stay warm!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday,  Let's Bee Social, and soscrappy.  Be sure to stop by! 

Paper dolls

Hi folks! How is everyone today? I am getting better, but that darned cold is still hanging on and sapping my energy. No choices but to push through, though. Too much work to do!

Today I am playing with another scrap project for RSC15 that promises to be a lot of fun and use up a bunch of scraps, especially some of the weird scraps I have that never get used.  I don't know about you, but I have a bunch of scraps that don't really fit into any "regular" color category or are weird sizes or shapes, like this:

I cut some appliques out of this fabric a few years ago and saved the leftovers because I just can't throw out usable fabric. This is the pattern where I'm finally going to use up scraps like this:

Isn't it a cute pattern (available HERE)? I think it's simple enough to make a few dolls every month with scraps from the RSC15 color of the month. After all, who doesn't love a crazy-looking dress or skirt? All those weird colors and patterns will fit right together, especially if I throw in some solids for balance. I may even cut up an orphan block or two if they'll fit the skirt piece. Plus I'll get to use up a bunch of beige scraps that have also been hanging around here forever.

One part of this pattern that I needed to go shopping for was fabric for the skin tones. I saw some bundles online, but I really didn't like them, and had nothing acceptable in the closet, so I spent a happy hour at the quilt shop pulling Kona solids to find a range of skin tones for the dolls. It was really hard! I think at one point we had 24 bolts stacked up. Here's the multicultural mix I ended up with:

For anyone who's interested, those are Kona solids in Eggshell, Cream, Flesh (really, Kona?), Khaki, Raffia, Honey, Biscuit, Mocha, and Chestnut (left to right). There are a lot of others that would have worked too, but I like this mix.

Here are the first three dolls made from this pattern:

I think they're adorable! And look--that weird fabric piece is now going into a quilt! It makes an interesting dress. The pattern is super-easy and goes together quickly. The whole thing is given as templates, but most of it is easier and more accurate to cut in strips and then cut down. Only the dress and the background pieces with it really need the templates. Clearly I'm going to have to work on the hairstyles (which aren't in the pattern) but that should be a part of the fun. Maybe I'll even add some jewelry or something too. We'll see!

The other thing I'm working on this week is finishing up the winter quilt. Once I'm done with that I think I'll have a cup of tea and a nice nap. Have to kick this cold once and for all! Hope you all are feeling well and making lots of happy things. Stay warm and healthy!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, and Let's Bee Social, and also the RSC linkup at soscrappy.  Be sure to stop by!