Bulbasaur t-shirt

So.... I started this Pokemon cross stitch more than two months ago, thinking I could whip it up in a matter of hours. I'm using waste canvas and 4 strands of DMC embroidery floss to cross stitch the design on a t-shirt. I found the pattern for free here.

A post shared by Carrie Federer (@carriebee04) on Jan 16, 2017 at 2:25pm PST

I worked on it for an hour. Counting cross stitch takes a lot longer than I estimated.

A post shared by Carrie Federer (@carriebee04) on Mar 19, 2017 at 8:08am PDT

And then I worked on it on and off while I watched episodes of Gotham at night. Highly recommend, BTW. At this point, I'm probably 15 hours in and I starting to regret my decision to do this. Should I leave the bulb off Bulbasaur? This is taking so long.

A post shared by Carrie Federer (@carriebee04) on Mar 22, 2017 at 2:53pm PDT

Pretty soon I'd been working on it on and off for a couple months (!!).  It's starting to look really neat, so I soldier on.

A post shared by Carrie Federer (@carriebee04) on Mar 28, 2017 at 1:27pm PDT

And then after a couple more hours it's finally done. I love it!!

A post shared by Carrie Federer (@carriebee04) on Mar 28, 2017 at 1:27pm PDT

Most importantly, Isaac loves it. He got a lot of compliments on it and was so pleased to tell all his friends that his mom made it. I feel like I have to take advantage of the fact that my kids will happily wear things I make for them :)

Bulbasaur probably took about 30 hours of work, split between bus commutes and TV watching. I already started another (smaller!) project that may actually only take a couple hours.

Mitten baskets

This winter I made a couple Divided Baskets (pattern by Noodlehead) to contain the kiddo's mittens, hats, and scarves. Now that winter's over I have time to post about them :)



I made one for each kid, and they are just (barely!) big enough to hold all the gear that we started out with at the beginning of the winter. They live on an IKEA butcher block table in our kitchen, right by our back door.



Now that winter is over the baskets are half-full of mismatched mittens and too-small hats, and soon to be filled with sunscreen, sunglasses and bucket hats.

Another rainbow quilt

I'm 3 for 3! Still on track to finish an average of one quilt per month this year. Also, 3 for 3 on rainbow quilts. Rainbows make everything better!

This one is a baby quilt for a dear friend of mine. I had so, so much fun making it. I think I made twice as many hexies as I needed for this quilt... so I'm saving those for my fourth rainbow quilt this year ;)

I didn't measure this after washing, but I think it started at 37" x 52" - it will fit a standard toddler bed. This size gets a lot of milage at my house - my oldest at 6 is still using toddler-size quilts on his twin bed.



I love this Swedish text print in the corner.



One of the yellow hexies says "BEER" - I swear it was an accident. But I liked it, so I left it. It's from Emily Herrick's Sodalicious line.



An octopus from Heather Ross' reprinted Mendocino line.


An octopus from Tula Pink's Saltwater line.



Super cute origami dog!



It's kinda hard to see in the pictures, but I swapped out my top thread for each section - red, orange, yellow, green and blue. I kept the bottom thread grey to match the backing fabric. I made an extra-scrappy binding to match the rainbow hexies.

This is the third quilt I've made like this and I've got the process down. First, I make approximately a million hexies because they're fun to make, and also easy (for me) to lose. Many of mine have been lost on bus rides, road trips, airplanes, etc and I recently found some that my kid repurposed into an art project. Sigh. Note to self: invest in a better organization system for next time. I iron and starch the hexies so they keep their shape, then whipstitch groups of hexies together by hand. I pin-baste the quilt sandwich. Then I spend hours arranging and rearranging the hexies on the quilt before I finally commit to pinning the hexies in place. If I have enough safety pins handy, I use those and then go straight to quilting. If I use straight pins I go to the ironing board and glue-baste the hexies in place so I can remove the straight pins before quilting.

I use a walking foot to quilt around the edges of each hexie and between groups of hexies. I have to do a lot of quilt-wrangling for this since I turn the quilt 360 degrees to quilt each hexie. That's why I use safety pins or glue-basting to hold the hexies in place. Gluesticks don't hold up to the quilt-wrangling, and then my carefully placed hexies end up falling off. And it's no fun to wrangle a quilt with a bunch of straight pins in it. I tried, and quickly switched to glue-basting.

This quilt was incredibly fun to make and I'm so pleased with it. I think I made so many extra hexies because I didn't want the project to end. I'm rolling all the extra hexies over into another epic rainbow project - more details on that soon(ish).

Ohio star baby quilt

I'm 2 for 2 - on track to finish an average of one quilt per month this year! I'm optimistic that I can keep up this momentum.



This is a 35" square baby quilt that I finished back in February, using the same Ohio star design as my last finished quilt. I used the leftovers from the flying geese and a little extra grey yardage. I pieced bits of the binding (again) to match the colors of the star points.

I donated this quilt to an art auction hosted by (and benefiting) my kid's elementary school. It went home with a generous bidder and I know it's being gifted to a lucky baby. Everyone wins :)

First finish of 2017

I'm so happy to share my first finish of 2017 - a first anniversary quilt for a dear friend and her wife.



I love the bright rainbow colors on the quilt. They're the opposite of this grey and occasionally snowy Minnesota winter weather we've been having. I spent a little extra time piecing the binding for this - I included 9" strips of each color in the binding.



The quilt measures 60 inches square. I quilted it with my walking foot, making straight lines 2 inches apart. I marked the lines with a hera marker so I didn't have to worry about ink, chalk or pencil lines that may or may not wash out. I sometimes have nightmares about marking lines not washing out.

The back is pieced with leftovers from the front, plus a second color of Kona yellow - I only had a small scrap of the yellow leftover and I had to make up the difference.

I'm so pleased with this quilt. I'm already working on a second (smaller) one with the scraps that will be auctioned off for a school fundraiser. 

2016 recap

It's kind of a bad habit of mine to set really ambitious New Year's resolutions. This year I'm taking a moment to reflect on what I accomplished last year before making plans for this year.

I published two new patterns, one embroidery pattern (available as a printed sampler on Spoonflower, and as a PDF on Craftsy) and one quilt block pattern (available on Craftsy and Etsy).

I did more mending, courtesy of a Heidi Parkes workshop through the MMQG.

I finished a few quilts.

A photo posted by @carriebee04 on May 19, 2016 at 7:51am PDT

A photo posted by @carriebee04 on Nov 23, 2016 at 12:27pm PST

I also made many sets of pot holders, sewed a few garments for myself and the kids, completed the #30daysofquiltdesign challenge, and finished knitting a scarf for myself. I'm sure there are a lot of things I'm forgetting - I forget and/or neglect to photograph a lot of projects. Sigh. That's probably the thing I'm hoping to improve most in 2017 - the quantity and quality of my photos. 

Christmas recap

Before looking forward to the new year, I wanted to do a quick recap of the holidays. I did a lot of sewing for friends and family for Christmas! I remembered to take photographs of (almost) everything I made, which is itself an accomplishment :) I made 8 pairs of mittens for nieces and nephews using the Oliver and S pattern in the book Little Things to Sew.

A photo posted by @carriebee04 on Jan 6, 2017 at 2:28pm PST

A photo posted by @carriebee04 on Dec 20, 2016 at 9:05am PST

I made an envelope needlebook for a friend who recently picked up embroidery.

A photo posted by @carriebee04 on Dec 19, 2016 at 5:59am PST

I made a set of Pixie Baskets for Isaac's kindergarten teacher. The pattern by Fabric Mutt can be found here.

A photo posted by @carriebee04 on Dec 18, 2016 at 9:42am PST

And I finished two pairs of Oliver and S Sleepover Pajamas for the kiddos.

A photo posted by @carriebee04 on Dec 18, 2016 at 9:20am PST

A photo posted by @carriebee04 on Dec 18, 2016 at 9:09am PST

Not pictured is a mini quilt I made for my sister with Oh Frannson's pattern.  I think this is my most handmade-holiday yet!