Finished the Doll Quilt for the Fab Little Quilt Swap! And Nosey Parker and 2 bitties...

Finished!  Finally, I don't know how many hours/days/weeks I spent making this doll quilt, but I have a lovely partner and I think she'll appreciate it. 

 I really like angled shots better than straight on, I don't know why, I like everything else all tidy and square!

 The back is insane, but it was the only fabric that I had that really seemed to compliment the front.

 I made the label using a bitty block and writing the particulars around the edges.  Her name is covered so as not to ruin the surprise.

This month, the bitty themes are pirates and landscapes.  I'm only doing pirates, arrrrrr!

One group will get this block (they can opt for Scurvy Dogs if "bastards" offends them or they have kids.)

 And the other group gets a pirate who is a little miffed at that crappy parrot!  lol I had trouble drawing this out so I had my husband put on a baggy shirt and pose for me.  No, he doesn't have a hook or an earring or long hair!  

And I haven't shown you any shots of Nosey Parker lately- she's still just as cute and funny as ever and if she's the least bit cold, she seeks out a nice warm lap and pins you down until you think you'll never be able to walk again, your legs are so numb. 

We just love this girl!

That's it from here unless you want to see photos of our cleaned out closets and the linen "black hole" that has yet to be tackled.  We are decluttering and loving it!

FLiQS quilt progress and a couple of bitties...

 I finished the top of the Wheel of Fortune rainbow quilt.  The colored part measures 13.25" square. I've added white borders which I will trim down later, they're too wide right now.  516 pieces of fabric, not counting the backing or binding.  It's a good thing I enjoy doing crazy stuff like this, since I'll be mailing this little quilt off in a few weeks.

 

The back is, IMO, more interesting than the front.  :)

 Here's an angled shot-

 And a close-up of one of the best stars.  ;)

 Today I'll work on quilting it, then all I have to do is make a label and add a binding.  It'll be finished soon, I hope. 

Along with the Godzilla block that I showed you previously, I also made this little 3D glasses guy for a movie block.  Completely influenced from a clipart image, I added clear plastic to the glasses to make it more realistic. He was a big hit amongst the bitty block girls, all but one of them chose him over Godzilla.  He's so silly!

 And our other theme was "Bathroom", so I used a line drawing from a dentist's bib that I had gotten a few years ago and made this little trio for everyone.   People are coming up with some really cute ideas, I'll show you when they've all arrived. 

We are having some lovely weather here in the Ozarks, it's a little hard to stay inside to sew!  I hope you all are having a nice early spring, too!

New Swap, Old Quilt! iPad Cover, too, and one bitty...

 So I'm part of a new swap at Flickr called the Fab Little Quilt Swap, or FLiQS for short.  It's an invitation only swap of experienced, quality quilters who are proven to make consistently really good items and are known to follow all the rules of the swaps they've been in.  I got a really good partner who has a lot of similar likes and dislikes as I have, which always makes it easy and fun, so I decided to resurrect the quilt from last year that I made for my buddy, Dena Wayne, only this time I'd do it in a rainbow of colors. 

 Last time- The Wheel of Fortune Quilt in pinks and reds.

 This time- I had to go bigger to accommodate all the colors...

I started out with a sketch that was going to have me subtly changing the colors,

but that didn't look as good in real life.

 This is laid out like the sketch- I hated the lines between the yellow/green 

and the green/blue, so I needed another plan.  See the first rainbow photo.  :) 

The wheels spin better in the first photo, too.

It took me about a day to cut out all these fabrics, then another one to prewash them all 

and press them flat.  (All my fabrics are already prewashed, but because I'll be using so much white, 

I was afraid that something might bleed anyway and ruin it, so I took the extra time to 

wash a dozen bowls of fabric scraps and then rinse, rinse, rinse and then press. 

I was AMAZED at how much color bled out into the soapy water, it was horrifying.)

 Gravey is wondering how long it would take to rearrange all these for me.  :)

 A very dear friend of mine got an iPad for Christmas and was worried about dropping it, so she commissioned me to make her a case for toting it around.  She really likes red so I thought she'd like this. 

I used the Moda Bakeshop Bookkeeper pattern to start me off, changing dimensions as I needed to.  Added a hair elastic closure and a short handle for carrying, too.  

 Inside- just a pocket for it to slide into.

 The back-

Because I don't have an iPad, I was working with dimensions only and that makes it harder to fit something.  After I squared up the quilted piece, I got scared that the iPad wouldn't fit in it easily so I added an extra piece of batting, exterior fabric and lining fabric, then extended the existing quilting so it would be invisible.  That was a little tricky but I learned something doing it and it came out so well that I wouldn't hesitate to do that again.  (I used a tiny zigzag stitch and butted up another few inches of batting to the quilted piece.  Then I laid the black and white X fabric on top, RST, and sewed it to the exterior of the piece right next to the batting seam. Then I did the same on the lining side, being sure to not catch the added piece from the other side, but following that same line of stitching.  Trim those seams, then press both extra pieces over the batting.  Then I added more quilting, stitching in the ditch to hide it where I needed to.  My friends says she can't find the spot where I did all this, so yay, success!

 And here's a possible bitty block for our theme- movies.  :)  I have everything I need to make a different one and because I don't have enough of the dinosaur fabric, I can't make enough of this one for everyone. 

I really like him, though.  Wish I wouldn't have to buy a whole yard of this extinct (ha!) fabric 

to make 4 more bitties!

I hope everyone is doing well, I'm battling with my husband's cold right now, so not being too productive, unless you want to count mucous.  lol  Sorry, TMI, gross!