November OPAM Finishes

I have been super busy this month, which I guess is a good thing! haha  I feel like I've managed to accomplish a lot.  Maybe that's because I had firm deadlines that I had to hit with several quilts I had made tops for.  I managed to finish 6 quilts this month!  I know, totally crazy!!

The first quilt I finished was this one I made for Mother's Day for my grandma.  It had half the binding done, and was sitting on a box in my closet.  Yep, I was that close to finishing it.  I finally bit the bullet, took it downstairs, and didn't move my butt off the couch until that dang thing was finished!!  I'm going to give it to her for Christmas, even though the label says Mother's Day 2011 on it, because Christmas is also her birthday (and I already bought her a Christmas present).

Surprisingly Super Simple quilt

Close up of Strip quilt

The second quilt I finished was a little strip quilt I made for the Breaking Dawn: Part 1 charity showing of the movie I helped with. Colton's Angels did an awesome job, as usual, making it fun and enjoyable.  The door prizes were great, thanks to tons of donors.  You can see a full list of the door prizes here.

I also finished this Surprisingly Super Simple quilt for the movie.  I thought I was so ahead of the game when I purchased my fabric back in October and pieced the quilt tops.  But then they sat at work waiting to be quilted for weeks and weeks.  Before I knew it, it was November 14th and the movie was on November 18th, and neither of the quilts were quilted!  Yikes!  Luckily I was able to pull it out and get them done just in time.

close up of the SSS quilt

I also finished this mail center I designed a few months ago.  I had the binding all attached, but just needed to stitch it down on back.  It seriously probably only took 10 minutes to finish, but it's been sitting in my drawer for weeks waiting to be finished!

Mail Center

I also finished a darling pirate quilt for my son for Christmas.  I was a little stressed that I wouldn't ever get it finished in time.  Usually when I have quilts for Christmas I put off the quilting until Christmas Eve, and then I'm up until 5 or 6 Christmas morning working on the binding.  I was determined not to do that this year, so I quilted the pirate quilt Thanksgiving weekend and attached the binding to the front.  Then it sat in a bag at home on my sewing table.  Last night I was so stressed that Munchkin would see it and ruin the surprise that I pulled it out and got it finished (plus Mike and Marshy cleaned the house and I wanted to put it away in the closet).  It took half of Iron Man 2 and about 45 minutes of Star Trek to get it bound, which isn't bad considering I was also working on laundry at the same time!

Pirate Quilt

In addition to the 2 quilts I made for the Twilight movie, I was also in charge of making the quilt and the tree skirt for the donated tree for Colton's Angels.  Every year we donate a tree and display to Festival of Trees.  Proceeds from the sales of the tree displays go straight to Primary Children's Medical Center.  Our theme this year was "L'il Boys Are Made Of".  We used this darling fabric from Sarah Jane.  It was so perfect for our theme!  I made this quick and easy strip quilt.

Festival of Trees Quilt

 I also made the tree skirt....or in this case, tree pants!  I saw a great tutorial/sew along on Sew-Mama-Sew, hosted by Monica Solario-Snow (of Happy Zombie fame).  The pattern is for tree pants, because not every tree wants to wear a skirt.  I just love that!  And it's true!  I'm kind of sick of round tree skirts, and this pattern was PERFECT for our tree.  I finished it a few weeks ago, luckily, and we took all of our tree stuff up to the South Towne Expo Center in Salt Lake City yesterday and put up our tree.  If you get a chance to go to Festival of Trees, it's well worth the $5 entrance fee.  The Festival runs from Wednesday, November 30 thru Saturday December 3.  It's definitely a fun outing for families, groups, or just by yourself.

tree pants

So, if you've made it this far (haha! sorry it's so long!) you'll realize that I finished 7 things this month!  HOLY COW!!  SEVEN!!!  I don't think I've finished that many in one month for a long time!  Of course, December is going to be totally different.  I'll be lucky if I get 1 thing done.  But hey, 1 thing is better than nothing, right?  :)

More Sewing, and a Reminder

tree pants

 I have been sewing up a storm lately!  I feel so great about getting so much accomplished.  Now if I can just get everything quilted and bound before the end of the year. haha :-)

We (Colton's Angels) are participating in Festival of Trees again.  This year our theme is "Lil' Boys Are Made Of".  I made the quilt for our display last week.  You can see it here.  This weekend (mostly Sunday) I made the tree pants, because not every tree wants to wear a skirt *snicker*.  If you'd like to see what we did in 2009 (don't ask me where the 2010 pictures went. I have no idea!!), then you can see our posts here and here.

I used Monica of Happy Zombie's pattern that she did for the Sew Mama Sew! holiday sew-along.  You can find the pattern and instructions here, here, and here.

donation quilt

You can see all of the darling tree pants that everyone has done on the flickr group.  Can I just tell you all how much I love flickr?  Yeah, it's pretty awesome.  Like, the bees knees awesome.

I also pieced this darling red, black and white quilt top.  We are doing a charity showing of Breaking Dawn this year (we did Eclipse and New Moon previous years).  We are selling tickets for $25 which includes your movie ticket, your donation, and an entry into our door prize drawing.  It is going to be a lot of fun.

This quilt, once finished, is going to be part of the door prizes!  I'm making another quilt for it, too, which should be done later this week.  Hopefully they'll be quilted by next week, maybe sooner. :)

I'm feeling pretty good about how much sewing I've done.  I have a few projects that need to be finished in time for the Sweetbriar Cove Open House on Thursday, but once they are done I will be able to start sewing on my own stuff for Christmas!!  I'm really excited about all the things I have planned for this year.  Now the trick is just finding the time to get it all done.  If you have any tips for getting everything done, I'd love to hear them in the comments! :)

Also, a quick reminder that TODAY is your last day to enter my giveaway.  The giveaway ends tonight at Midnight, mountain time, so make sure you enter! :)

Sew filled weekend

This weekend I was lucky enough to actually get to sew some more!  Yippee!  Okay, so in reality I was really sick and couldn't go anywhere, and rather than spend my days lounging on the couch watching infomercials, I opted to sit at my machine and sew.

I'm unfortunate lucky enough to get to sew in my kitchen, close to all of the household action.  Okay, okay, so it's not ideal, but it is the only available space in our tiny apartment.  I clear off our folding table/kitchen table and put my cutting mat on it.  I set the ironing board up in front of my desk, and pull my sewing machine out of the cabinet against the wall under the window (across from the table).  I have a rolling desk chair (it's a really nice one I bought at Office Depot last month) and I roll from place to place on my linoleum kitchen floor.  I know it doesn't sound great, but it actually works out perfectly.  I never have to get out of my chair! :)

So, what did I make this weekend?  I made the quilt to go with our Festival of Trees donation tree next month.  Our theme is "Lil' Boys Are Made Of" and we are using Sarah Jane's fabric Children at Play.  I finished piecing the quilt on Sunday afternoon, and it turned out so cute!

On Saturday I went to Joann's (I know, insane the week before Halloween) and bought fabric to make 2 donation quilts for the Colton's Angels charity showing of Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1.  I am making 2 different black, white, and red colored quilts for the door prize drawings.  I'm really excited about them.  Also, I'm really excited that they'll actually be done before the day before the movie (unlike previous years.  Procrastinate much? haha)

I don't have them quite finished yet, so no pictures....sorry.  But, I am hoping to have them finished some time this week and will post pictures later. :)