Shape Soft Book

My kids didn't let me sleep and I was super frustrated so I needed a little craft break this weekend.
I didn't really have the energy (or patience) to stand at the sewing machine and work on the Mario quilt and I was looking to try out my new hot glue gun anyway (nothing fancy, just not the old one).
So I settled on a quick and easy, no sew soft book about shapes.

I had a plan drawn out a while ago (when I first got into the idea of soft books) and so the first step was already done. As for the rest, I pulled out my felt, ribbons, and stickers and just kind of threw it all together as I went.

Here's the pictures:
(My plan was to be quick, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time on the cover, I contemplated using more stickers, or hot gluing ribbon or twine on to make the cover, but settled on just writing it.. because quick and easy, and the twins were waking up as I was working on the cover.)

 (The little circle on the triangle is a candy corn sticker.)

Quick run-down:
*I planned on the diamond being last, but I wasn't thinking and since it was blank on back I made it the first so the blank side could be the cover page.
*I finished it off with a simple tie binding, since there weren't a lot of pages (and again, trying for quick craft therapy).
*I spent a total of maybe 3 hours over the course of 2 days on this. (Seriously, just nap time plus a little finish up/clean up past nap time).
*I thought about having rectangle too, but the examples are really similar to square, so I went with just square.
*I got KK involved by making her look through the stickers to see if she could find anything to fit the shapes. I saw it as taking advantage of her, but she had fun getting to help out.
*Looking at these picture reminded me that I was going to use the star sticker (the silver to the left) as a shooting star and will add silver streaks with a Sharpie after I finish typing this up.


That's all for now,
Jo!

New Quilt

I've not really had a whole lot of time for crafting lately. KO has earned the nickname Baby G (short for Baby Godzilla) because she has a tendency to investigate, through destruction, everything she finds. So to keep her safe, I have to keep my needle points tucked away, or anything that would require scissors or hot glue or anything else that she could manage to hurt herself with. (And with all the work to get it all out and set up and then remembering to put it back up, it's become easier just to grab a puzzle book than to craft recently.)

There have been a few minor projects that I didn't get pictures of, most recently a book cover for KK because the school got new math books so they're required to keep a cover on them. They made covers out of paper sacks at the beginning of the year but it ripped and so I had to make one before it went back to school the next day. I even gave her a pocket to keep some things in. Maybe I can catch it at home soon and grab a picture of it.

Otherwise, the sewing machine is in a whole different room that Baby G doesn't get much access to, so I have been working on a project for my brother. A few weeks ago he sent me a picture saw online of a Super Mario themed quilt and said "I need you to make this for me". Ha! Apparently he's forgotten that I've made 1 quilt in my entire life and I spent about a year doing it. Also, made up nearly entirely of appliqued pictures. I told him to give me some time to do some research and see what I could find. I was honestly hoping to be able to find a whole collection of pre-made iron-on patches, or a fabric that incorporated the same quilt block look that I could make a simple blanket from, but instead I found (what I'm assuming is) the inspiration picture for the user posted picture. (PS- it wasn't even like a blog post picture- it was just a single picture of the finished project, laying on a bed draped partially over pillows, posted to a "list" site.)

Anyway, I couldn't find my easy way out. So I took the source picture, enlarged it, and started tracing my shapes, marking coloring along the way. I took the chance to use up some of my scraps by seeing what I had there first (which honestly was a pretty good portion of the appliques). After a few days of tracing (and realizing I forgot to flip the images and flipping) and tracing and cutting and ironing and cutting, I was here:

FYI: This is missing a shape, that I didn't realize I was missing until I went to apply them to the squares.

So this is all the applique pieces just laid out, I honestly had a bit of fun with it all. I've never done big appliques; I think the most has been adding little shapes to clothing (hearts on gloves, birds to a shirt to make it match a skirt). There were a few pieces that gave me a hard time, you can see the light green liked to curl, but getting it on the square and off the paper took care of that, and there were a few pieces I had to add more bond to because it didn't take, or maybe I over heated it- I don't know, just know that it needed redone.  But overall, it was fun.

Here's the pieces all laid out:

I've actually got them all sewn together, but apparently that picture didn't load. Anyway, right now it's about 56"x37" so it is throw/lap sized. To finished it off, I'm just going to use a Mario branded fleece for the back (brother's request) and do a simple (probably blue or green) binding. I contemplated self binding, but I didn't want to loose any length, seeing as my brother is over 6 foot tall.

I'm also contemplating a star shaped pillow to throw in for the fun of it... we'll have to see.

PS- the dark teal for the squares (behind the star) is GORGEOUS in person.

That's all for now,
Jo!