Henry's quilt top is HUGE. I don't know why I thought I was making a twin sized quilt, it's really more like a full.

Of course that's not huge by most people's standards, but it's huge by the standards of a Brother CS6000i sewing machine, which has a ridiculously short neck. I had trouble doing twin quilts on this machine; I don't know how I'm going to get a full through it.

This is what made me decide that I need some alternate method of basting. I've tried taping quilts to my kitchen floor and pin basting, but the tape never sticks and I just end up frustrated. I've tried spray basting them, but the spray basting never sticks either, and I just end up frustrated. So this time I tried Googling "fool-proof quilt basting" and I found instructions for making a basting frame.

The parts cost me around $45, which is really very cheap when you consider what something like this would cost ready-made. Of course I only got 8 foot boards for mine, because the 10 foot boards were $1 a foot while the 8 foot ones were only $1.30 total. Huge difference, and I figured I wasn't ever going to be using this thing for a king anyway, since I'm having trouble imagining even quilting a full on my little Brother.

So the original plan was to ask my husband to make this thing for me, but let's face it--I can't even get the guy to replace a smoke detector in a timely fashion. So unless I want my boards sitting in the garage gathering dust it looks like it's going to be my project. And I'm about as handy as a two year old, so it should be interesting.

My kids go to an expeditionary learning school, which (without going into too much detail) basically means that they go on a lot of field trips. Because I'm always looking after Henry I hardly ever get to chaperone on these trips, but when I do I am always annoyed to discover that I have to carry around this folder full of papers/instructions/emergency contact information etc. regardless of where we are or how long we're there. So last time I went on one of these trips I thought to myself, hmm, wouldn't it be nice to have a bag I could use to carry all that stuff around in?


Voilà! Here's one I put together in a couple of hours. I could have done it a lot faster if I was better at sewing. I still think it's pretty cute though. The strap was way too long so I just folded it over and stitched it so there's a little shoulder pad on the strap instead of all that extra length. Here's the picture:

The pattern came from a book called "The New Handmade: Simple Sewing for Contemporary Style " by Cassie Barden. Of course, this is the second bag I've made out of this book, so it doesn't really fit the whole "crafting my library" thing since the idea is to make just one project from each book. But I really needed an expedition bag, so once again ...

The pattern is called "Reading List Tote" and it's on page 16. I did change the pattern so the bag is crossbody instead of a tote, since I need to be able to comfortably carry it for several hours at a time.

Anyway just so you know I haven't gotten lazy, I have actually been making stuff, just not posting about it. I finished Henry's quilt top today, too, which turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. I have no idea how I'm going to quilt it on my tiny little machine.

More later ...

Yes, it's birthday party season, as you can tell because about three quarters of my posts are party invite related.

Just like I did with Dylan's invite, I kept Natalie's simple. She wanted a unicorn party so I threw this picture together in Photoshop, then I got some RSVP cards and just cut and pasted (in a literal sense). They came out pretty cute, but I think I prefer doing these invites with characters (like Harry Potter, Speed Racer, Captain Jack) because for some reason it makes me laugh to see my kids' faces pasted on famous people. :)

But you know, you give the birthday girl what she wants!

Still slogging away on that dinosaur quilt and hope to have some pictures to post in a couple of weeks.

I made Henry a quilt back when he was in a crib, but now that he's in a big-boy bed I owe him a new one. We had a talk about it and he decided he wants dinosaurs.

So in keeping with my theme, I chose a book from my library (one I've never made anything out of). Here it is:

This book is called Easy Quilt Projects: Favorites from the Editors of American Patchwork & Quilting. The pattern I chose is called "In the Meadow." It appears on page 11.

This pattern does indeed look easy, just as promised by the book's title (it's just squares and rectangles, without any borders). And I really need easy right now, after that nightmare-of-triangles chicken quilt.

I had a little bit of a tough time choosing fabric for this one, because I initially went to a fabric store that didn't actually have any dinosaur fabric. But you know, I can't walk out of a fabric store without any fabric, so I bought a bunch of greens thinking I'd find some dino fabric in green, for sure.

And I did, but the line also came in a blue, so then I went back and bought some blues. And then the ladies on the QuiltingBoard suggested adding some oranges and yellows so it wasn't just a lot of cool colors, so I bought more fabric and got rid of some of the other ones I was planning on using. So I bought way too much fabric. But hey, that's what my stash is for right?

Anyway here's my final palette:

 I'm going to cut and sew at least part of it on Friday, state of mind permitting. :)

Dylan is on a Harry Potter kick, so for his eighth birthday party we're doing a Harry Potter theme. Which means of course that I had to come up with a Harry Potter party invitation. Hello, Photoshop.

I love doing these, they always make me laugh.

For this invite I chose a poster from the Deathly Hallows, featuring the devastatingly handsome Neville Longbottom:

In case you aren't with me on the whole "devastatingly handsome" thing, you have seen him recently, right?

Yes, that's right. I thought so.

Anyway I got Dylan to pose for me, looking as Neville-Longbottomish as he could, and then I Photoshopped him into the poster:

And then I laughed for about 20 minutes.

Sans-blood, of course (this is second grade after all).

After I was done laughing, I changed the date from 7.15 to the date of the party, and on the inside I put "(Being a 7-year-old, I mean)" You know, as in "It all ends: being a 7-year-old." Which I thought was marginally funny though I'm not sure anyone else will get it.

Cute, though. Can't wait to send them out!

OK, here it is: my chicken quilt. It turned out OK, if you don't look at the back.

The pattern came out of Farm Girl Quiltsand is called "Fields of Red Clover" (page 30). 

Just about everything that can go wrong with a quilt did go wrong with this quilt. First, I have no business messing with triangles. Seriously. I don't know how I managed to get my seams so wrong but after I was done sewing all of the triangles together those little keystone blocks were so much bigger than they were supposed to be that I had to trim them all to make everything fit. Same with the sashings. So this quilt is maybe 10 or 15% smaller than it's supposed to be.

Then, I noticed that some of my seams were coming apart. When I flipped the quilt top over I found loops on the back. How I didn't notice this while I was piecing is beyond me. Amateur. So I had to rip some of the seams out and sew them again.

Then after I sewed the border on I noticed that it wasn't even laying flat. This must be a symptom of the seams being so off, I don't know. So I had to take the borders off and retrim them to make the quilt lay sort of flat.

Then I bought fusible batting. Oh no, never again. It didn't lay flat out of the package and it didn't stick very well, so I ended up with tucks all over the back after I quilted it. Huge, terrible, awful, worst-ever tucks. Some of them I even ripped out so I could redo the quilting, because they were that bad.

But does it pass the "12 feet away from the back of a galloping horse" test? I think so. And I did manage to get a pretty cute photo of it anyway. The question remaining, of course, is if I ought to still give it to Monica given how many problems it has. Maybe I'll just promise to make her another one when, you know, I'm a little better at this. :)

I'm almost done with Monica's chicken quilt, which I'll post in another day or two. Really this is just about as close to a disaster as any quilt I've ever made, but I'll vent on that later.

I bought Heirloom Fusible Cotton Batting to use in it, because I thought "Ooo, no pinning." then when I got home I read the care instructions:

OK so I know quilts need special care, but seriously? Who is going to spend the time to "agitate manually" every time they need to wash a quilt? If someone gave me a quilt with those washing instructions, I would put it on a shelf. Occasionally, I would unfold it and look at it, but then I would fold it up again and put it back on the shelf. Quilts were made to be used, and that means they should be washed.

Also, I've never heard of "Orvus."

Also, I can't dry anything flat because my kids will walk all over it. Monica has dogs, so her problem is even greater than mine.

At least one person told me that these washing instructions are CYA, but I think I'll avoid fusible batting in the future (and quite possibly all batting from this particular company, if the washing instructions are similar). I need simplicity in my life. That means cold water, gentle cycle, tumble-dry low. I will even spring for Woolite. But I'm not going to stand over my machine for 15 minutes and "agitate manually." Give me a break.