Pinwheel quilt along & a new toy

I made the Pinwheel Party block A-1 hosted by twiddletails. Looking forward to block A-2 on Monday!

And I got a new sewing machine. My sister and I went machine shopping on Friday.I need to go get it set up and see if I can figure it all out. It's a bernina. I bought the 230 Patchwork edition. This machine appears to have everything I need for now, there were some really neat upgrades on some of the higher end models, but I can always trade it in down the road if I decide I want something else. Right now I'm just glad to have a machine that makes such lovely stitches. I never realized how unimpressive my current machine is, until I got to try a really nice machine.

Birthday

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. Because we still have chocolate cake with peanut-butter icing here I thought I should make him something different for a birthday treat. He loves fastnachts(A Pennsylvania Dutch treat). I thought that would be a perfect idea. I've never eaten one so I really don't know how they are to taste. I'm not exactly sure why I never ate one, but I haven't. I followed a recipe that was in the Lancaster Farming a couple weeks ago. They weren't too hard to make although quite time consuming. I was told they were pretty good.

I have been having fun making dolls the last couple days. Since the dolls I made are for my nieces birthdays this summer, and I am having trouble keeping them until that time, I decided to make them some tiny dolls for their Easter baskets. They aren't finished but just wanted to share a little "in progress" picture. These two little dolls are about 2/3 the size of a pair of scissors, maybe 6 inches tall. They were a real challange to turn, especially the arms and legs. I imagine I won't be making too many of these tiny ones.

This and That

I've been in a sewing mood lately. I finished two doll quilts this week. One was a scrap quilt from Sew Mama Sew. I just stitched scraps onto a fabric sandwich and put a binding on it. The other is for a friend's daughter. The quilt is made up of fabrics left over from a larger quilt I made her. I added smaller versions of the flowers that are the same as what is on the larger quilt.

A while ago I came across Black Apple Dolls. I'm not even sure how I stumbled across them, probably browsing from blog to blog. After some more research I found that the creator Emily was on Martha Stewart and that you can get a free pattern to make the dolls for your own personal use. Since I have no little girls I figured they would make great gifts for my nieces. I dug out the scraps and got to work. First I picked fabrics that I thought would be cute for the dolls and laid them out. I decided they needed pigtails so I had to tweak the pattern a little.

I put one of the dolls together to see how it would look. I think she is cute. She's not quite complete because she needs a face. I'm also thinking of trying to make some little clothes so they can change them. They are really fairly easy to make.
I need to finish stuffing the one with the pink dress yet. I have a feeling I'll be making a few more of these. I would like to make the arms and legs a little more substantial in my next version. I feel like they are a little too skinny for my taste.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the second one complete later on. Well complete minus the face. That part scares me a little because I'm not artistic in that way.

Now I need to get out to the kitchen and make one of my husbands favorite meals. We will be having pork from the pigs we raised, and homemade saurkraut. So thankful that my Aunt Jean told me how to make the saurkraut. It's so easy, and absolutely delicious. I've used just about all I made so I really need to try to get cabbage and make another crock full before it gets warm out.

Baby Quilt Top

Last night I finished a baby quilt top. I used a Moda Love U Charm Pack for this quilt. Yesterday my sister, mom, and I went to Sauders fabric shopping. I found the pink heart print to use as a border. Then my sister found the pink stripe, and it was a perfect choice. I tried mitered corners for the first time, and they came out pretty good, not perfect, but it was a first attempt. I have a pretty yellow piece with flowers for the back. Now I just need to send it off to be quilted.

I also picked fabrics for the Pin Wheel Quilt Along that Twiddletails is hosting. The only one I'm not sure about is the background fabric. My favorite piece is the blue print on top. Now that I have the fabric I can't wait to get started. I've always loved pin wheels but haven't gotten around to doing anything with them.

No Sew Block Swap

I participated in a No Sew Quilt Block Swap hosted by Kathleen. My group did a red/white/blue theme. The blocks came in the mail this week and I dove right in to working on them, not because I didn't have lots of other things I should have been working on. Now I have to figure out what borders I'd like to add. I'm thinking about adding a few more blocks of some type to make it a bit larger. I'd ideally like it to be at least big enough to cover up with on the couch. Here are the blocks all completed:


Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get to the fabric shop. I'm in need of fabric. A baby quilt I made needs a pink border so that's on the shopping list. Also on the list is fabric for the Pin Wheel Party Quilt Along. Not to mention I need backing fabric for a quilt I'd like to send to Kathleen to be quilted.

Another Finish

Thanks to the snow we got this weekend I had time to sit down and finish the binding on one of the quilts I just got back from Kathleen.

Swaps

Recently I signed up for two swaps . The first was a new sew block exchange hosted by Kathleen. My choice was Star of Virginia for the red, white, and blue group. I finally got my fabric cut today, well almost. I decided to sew my block together to see how it looked.

I had a whole bunch of white squares left, the fabric that I ran short on. I was so mad at myself for messing up the cutting. I looked at the pattern again and realized I should have followed the directions and not just gone on memory. After a lot of time with my seam ripper I found it's actually to look like this:

So yes, I still need a little of the white fabric, but I'll hopefully have the block kits in the mail by the end of the week.

The other swap is an I Spy swap. Now that I signed up and explained it to my boys they both want an I Spy quilt so I guess I'm going to have to find another one to sign up for so I can get more blocks to work with. Here are the fabrics I purchased for this swap.

Hopefully I'll get to the post office by this weekend because I have a lot of things I need to mail out.