Well, it's quilting time.

It's been a long drought of new posts and such. That's completely my fault. I was in a very long and dusty creative block. Then, my sister had her baby. And it was QUILTIN' TIME! Thank you dear sweet Sullivan, you helped me out of my slump.

Here's some of the work I did that helped me back into the sewing creative groove.

These were leftover fabrics from another project I had done years earlier.

Another zig zag pattern? Yes I think so.

I made this design wall out of a 8'x4' piece of wall insulation foam board.
Wrapped in a piece of batting and then flannel, I never have to get on the floor to lay
out a quilt again!! Genius. It just lays agains the all, and is super lightweight.

Final idea approved my myself and my sister, and my mom.

I pieced it together, and then just did a basic stitch in the ditch to quilt it on my machine. 

Note my children's artwork and notes adorn my design wall.
I can use straight pins in it as a bulletin board as well.
I always have those around.

The backing had a little piece work in it. I rarely have enough fabric for the backing, and I love pieced backs. It's like two quilts in one!

 My dear little niece, Sullivan.

Thanks to Tery Wiemers for the
embroidery machine help.

My sister Sully is a teacher at a local high school and she helped me to get this embroidered with her name and date of birth. Big Thanks to Terry Wiemers the fashion design and sewing teacher who let me use the embroidery machine and worked it for us.

Actually I must thank Sully, without her I wouldn't have done this at all. Like I said, I was in a creative slump. Sort of. My sister was having a baby in May and was planning on name her Sullivan. So my older sister the original Sullivan, Sully to all of us, insisted we do a project together for our new baby Sully.

Sully: "Ruthie, we need to do a project for baby Sully. And by us I mean, that we brainstorm a project, and that you do it for me."

Ruth: "That definitely sounds like one of our projects."

Now Sully, is and was an artist and art teacher, and Home Ec teacher. And this was apparent even when we were children. She taught me art, and how to make taffy, and how to make candles, how to silk paint, and read me stories, and created treasure hunts and musicals that are lovingly recorded on video for all of our combined amusement and horror. For birthday presents, she would give me "gifts" that were more like projects. Like blank paper and water colors, or gave me an assignment that I would sometimes finish. Once I became a full fledged member of the BFA club, (bachelor of fine arts) we would work on projects together. And by together I mean, she would start one and I would finish it. She has been one of the most ardent supporters of EVERYTHING I do. Well, especially quilts. So after much brainstorming of ideas for little Sully, we decided to do a quilt. Mostly I decided because Sully and I couldn't agree. Maybe this was her plan all along. Hmnn, she's a mastermind older sister right?

So thanks big Sully, and little Sully, and Gracie for conspiring to help me get some fun work done.

Thanks and thanks again.

Ruthie

Peacocks and first Birthdays

My niece is going to turn one this Sunday. I'm not able to make it to her first birthday so I made her a little onesies for the occasion.

My sister's theme was "Peacocks".

Onesies for One Year Old

Here's my design process. I start with a pencil sketch on graph paper.

Throw out some rough ideas.

Start drawing in illustrator based on my sketches

Refine based on new ideas (I liked the dark outline)

Then I liked no outline but disliked the font

Better font, and the colors changed to
suit the printing. 

In the end I had to change the colors in illustrator, to suit them to my desk jet printer. They are hardly calibrated. So even though the final drawing looked a bit to "lime green and turquoise". The finished product looked much more kelly green and peacock blue after printing. Oh, the pains of printer calibration.

4 years old and the happiest place on Earth

For my son's 4th birthday we were thinking of taking him to "The Happiest Place on Earth." AKA, Disney World.

Since he has a tendency to get excited and run faster than me...I had the genius idea of making matching T-shirts in a loud color for all of us, so we can spot each other.

Here's my minimalist idea for what our Family T-shirts should look like.

I think it's cute.

I think it would be perfect.