The Circus is in town!

Ok, so I finished my April In Stitches Sew Along Assignment. I actually finished most of it awhile ago, but I was so disappointed by the fit that it took me the rest of the month to hem the pants and add the finishing touches. So here they are: Amy Butler's Wide Leg Pants.

So can you see why I call them my circus pants? I feel so funny in these pants. Everyone else chose such nice and calm prints and I chose the circus. They do make me happy though. Like everyone else says, these pants are SUPER wide. Like a circus tent. I will now believe Amy Butler literally. My problem with these pants is that the waist is also super wide. I have to bunch up the waist with the drawstring, and it's just a lot of material up there. Oh and there was a lot more material on the legs too. I chopped off 4 inches before I hemmed them. But they are pants, and I can wear them, so good enough for me.

The ribbon trim gave me trouble. In retrospect, I probably should have used a walking foot. Having said that, I do like the ribbon and I think it add a little something special to the already colorful circus pants.

Every month there is a theme, and this month's theme was embroidery/fancy stitching. So my pants were so busy already that I decided that I needed to do something little. I added fancy stitching to the drawstring. All in all, an easy project, but since I'm not such a fan of the fit, I'm not sure if I'll be making these again. Who knows though, they were super easy compared to the other projects we've made so far.

Mmmm Cake!!!

Happy birthday to me!!!
Originally uploaded by lydigann.

Today's my birthday, but it has been a celebration (in my own mind) since Saturday. I celebrated with my family on Saturday. My aunt and uncle and cousin came all the way up from Santa Ana to help eat the cake too! I love Baskin Robbins. Mmmm. It's always nice to receive presents, and I received so many great presents, but it's so much nicer to just be with family and friends. Thanks for a great birthday everyone!

Through the pod vine?

This is the doll quilt I made for Liz for the Doll Quilt Swap. Don't worry she already received it so I'm not ruining any surprises. I based it off of Denyse Schmidt's Vine quilt, after stalking Liz on her blog and flickr site for a couple days. I used invisible machine applique to attach the circles to the background. Sorry for the rainy photos, you can go to Liz's post to see better ones. Not really sure what those circular flowers are called. I always call them pods, but that seems so... sci-fi.


This is the fabric I ended up using as background. It's from Amy Butler's Lotus line. Funny thing, this is the fabric I fell in love with and wanted to use, but once I finished to top, it seemed like too much. However it did dictate the color scheme for the quilt.


I also made a label for this quilt. This was my first time making a label on a quilt, and I really need to start doing it on all of my quilts. I really want to try the bubble jet set print your own custom labels thing. Sounds like fun to me!! Now I've finished the hard part and I get to wait to see who is making one for me! I'm so excited!!

Share a little love...

Kelli, one of the co-organizers for the In Stitches Sew Along is going back to Africa next month and wants to bring ziplock bags of goodies for all the kids. I'm not nearly as eloquent as she is in rousing support for this cause, but if you can help out, please check out here. She's really a great person and always wants to make me help out and just be a nicer person in general.

Hurray for Pigs!

My friend Michelle received her package! That means I am free to post. I made her a log cabin pillow that I freezer paper stencil-ed a pig onto. According to the Chinese Zodiac, we are pigs. I found a chinese cut-out and used that as my template for the freezer paper stencil. I think it turned out pretty nice!



(Sorry if you saw my attempt to use leafletter. I definitely had difficulties and decided to stick to flickr until I figured it out...)

I also made some cookies for her. These are Chocolate Chunk Caramel Cookies. They were ok, but definitely tasted homemade. That's not to say they were bad, but I guess after rolo cookies... everything is just a little less decadent. I do have to say that they were much easier to make than rolo cookies.


In doll quilt swap news, I sent out my package today! I can't wait for my partner to receive it. I've been looking at in progress photos all over and they're GORGEOUS. I must say it was a good idea to finish mine and send it out before I got nervous about my design and started changing it. Whew! I also absolutely LOVE my swap partner's blog, but am nervous that I'll ruin the surprise if I make tons of comments. Which is kind of silly, because I don't know if we're each other's partners or if I'm sending my quilt to her and she's sending hers to someone else. It's my first swap people! :p. I guess we'll see soon!

Operation: Extraction

I have officially finished my doll quilt for the Doll Quilt Swap! I will post photos after my swap partner receives it. However. This morning, as I was quilting it, I noticed something...

What is that little piece of red doing under all white, in the area that I just quilted! It's all sealed off!! Now I think it was just showing because I dampened it to get the water-disappearing marking pen off, but I didn't want to take any chances. Especially since this is my first swap! So what could I do? I took out my trusty seam ripper and un-sewed my quilting and pretty much tunneled a pathway to that little bugger. Then I got a pair of chopsticks and fished that stinking piece of fabric out. I felt very stereotypically chinese.

All better now!

Humongous Fungus

Well, technically it is finished, but it's a gift for someone, so I will wait until it's at least in the mail before I post about it. Lets just say it's a big pillow. What do people do with big pillows? It just seems big to me.

So last Saturday, I helped my sister move. Here is the truck used. The HUMONGOUS FUNGUS! Isn't that great? Literally, it was a huge Uhaul with big mushrooms painted on the side.

Here is the front of her new house that they bought. It's super cute, and the backyard is nice too. I'm very excited to see it when they're done moving in/unpacking.

Anyway, here is a WIP. It's the pattern pieces for the In Stitches Sew Along.

I am also doing the Doll Quilt Swap, and I'm a little nervous! It's my first swap! But I figure I should make the quilt as quickly as I can before I see everyone else's wonderful creations and change my mind last minute about the quilt. Hopefully I will finish most of it this weekend.

Use what you have

Ok, so I'm a little late. Most bloggers did the "Use what you have" thing way back in January. I'm going to start it this month. Lets just say that I went a little crazy and March and now I have tons of projects, but not very many finished. I just read Two Straight Lines' post about being careful to have only one project going at a time... and that sounds like an impossible dream for me. I figure at the very least I can try to cut down my unfinished projects list.

The only thing I'm allowed to buy this month is the fabric needed for the In Stitches Sew-Along. We're making pants this month!


This is how far I've crocheted on the Ripple Blanket. I know I said I would just do a swatch and then pick it up after I finished some other blankets, but how could I resist? The beautiful photos on the ripple-along were taunting me!

Follow the yellow brick road...

A finished project!! I finally finished Ping's Yellow Brick Road Quilt. This was supposed to be her Christmas present, then it turned into her birthday present, and now it is her housewarming gift. We're helping her move into her new house (!!) tomorrow, so I finished it just in time.

The fabrics are from Amy Butler's Belle line, and I really do like them.

I quilted random patterns all over. I'm not sure if I'd ever do this again, because it took a ton of time and a ton of thread.


My favorite part of the quilt:


I quilted Ping's Chinese name using Pink Chalk Studio's freezer paper technique. It doesn't show up very well because of the pattern of the fabric, but I like it anyway. Here is the original image.

I found out that I love machine quilting, but I absolutely hate squaring up quilts. I'm so bad at it! The sides never match up and I'm usually an inch off on one side as compared to the other. Any hints?