Wrapping up Q1

The first quarter of 2016 is behind us, and it was a productive few months here. I had nine specific goals for the 2016 Finish-Along, and I worked through six of them (so so close on the seventh!). 

1. Junk drawer challenge (Poseidon) -- DONE
2. Hexagon suns quilt -- DONE (but not blogged yet -- I'll take some photos and do that tomorrow)
3. Best. Day. Ever. herringbone quilt -- nope. I'll probably finish the quilting tomorrow, and the binding is all ready to attach, so I'll just slide this one into the Q2 goal list.
4. Triangle Tiles pattern finalization -- nope. But I'll be teaching this as a class in July at Lisa's Clover Hill Quilts in July, so that will be done in Q2 as well.
5. Allure hexagon placemats -- DONE
6. Skinny Mini quilt swap -- DONE, although I never received one from whoever my partner was. Sad face emoji. I posted a photo on Instagram, but I can't seem to get the link to work from the laptop and my iPad screen shattered today. Weeping face emoji. How sad is that -- I have to type out my emotions instead of using the handy options that the good people at Apple (apple fruit emoji) have pre-coded for me.
7. Zombie shirt for my 12-year-old -- nope, he asked me to wait until the weather warmed up so it would be the right size for him to wear all summer. I like his optimism that he could grow through an entire (oversized) size in three months. The zombie fabric still awaits my attention. Zombie emoji.
8. Two beer shirts for my extra-tall and hard-to-fit brother-in-law -- DONE, although I didn't blog them earlier because he wants to keep them secret until his big festival sometime this month. I won't tag him or put the photos on instagram with a million beer hashtags until I get the go-ahead, but I suppose his tribe isn't creeping my blog too often. Winky face emoji. I think (I hope) I finally have the pattern sized correctly for him, which means before too many more holidays he will have a closet full of custom barbecue shirts of the zaniest fabrics on the market. My husband has over twenty of these, I think -- I'll have to compile a photo collage sometime because his closet is an absolute hoot. Photos of the new beer shirts are below.
9. Rocky Horror challenge quilt -- DONE. Thanks to my Loyal Readers I got over 100 votes!

Shirt #1

For scale, this guy is 5'6" now.

Shirt #2, a little extra length in the sleeves. I think I got the pattern right this time.

Gifts!

Some bits of holiday sewing from this year:

Back in June, I found some really great ocean fabrics at the shop on Sanibel Island. I sewed a few gifts for my husband's aunt and uncle, who so graciously hosted our family at their beautiful home there. For his aunt, I used a pretty seashell print to make a tree skirt:

Beachy tree skirt!

I added some watery and sandy coordinates and meander quilted all over it. Pattern is Over Under by Swirly Girls Design.

And for his uncle, my tried-and-true shirt pattern!

Nautical shirt!

 I was particularly pleased with the alignment of the pocket:

Merry Christmas, Mary and Jim!!

Shirts everywhere

This week's sewing has been a whirlwind of making favor bags for my boy's tenth birthday party (including multisided geek dice, candy, and a dime, because he's ten..."dime bags"...get it?), as well as his quirky birthday shirt, which has apparently become a tradition in this house:

Pink Panther barbecue shirt

In the spare moments, I finished all the pieces for the t-shirt quilt. Now I'm left to choose from a fairly evenly-spaced layout...

Blur One...

...or a more composed central star arrangement:

...or Blur Two?

Perhaps I'll let the quilt's owner decide. Either way, I'll get the pieces sewn together tomorrow so I can baste next weekend and start the quilting.

MORE new shirts?!?

The menfolk wrangled a promise out of me to make them another round of shirts this year. Here's what they picked:

For Barry the Patriarch, who was very excited to find this fabric still available (and who is surely also getting a Nevermore shirt too...hey!!):

For L the Elder, who wants to dress like Shawn's dad (Corbin Bernsen) on Psych:

For C the Younger, who marches to his very own drummer in the style department:

Thing 2...

Just two posts this evening; I do have two more Big Finishes to share, but I don't have good photos yet so I'll photograph those projects in tomorrow morning's sunlight.

A friend of mine asked if I would make him a shirt with some fish or octopus or something like that. Serendipitously, Tula Pink's new Saltwater line had just hit the shops. This friend is the same height as my tall husband, so I already had the basic pattern adjusted. Easy peasy! (I'm really getting fast at making this pattern!)

Hey, I guess natural light really DOES make for better photos!

These octopi crack me up! I love how the seemingly floral print is so much more!

Turtle Shirt

That's fun to say, isn't it? Turtle shirt, turtle shirt, turtle shirt...

I told my dad that I'd make him a new summer shirt for his trip to Hawaii, and he picked out some awesome sea turtle fabric. I took photos at Lisa's and let him pick what he liked...yay for technology!

What could hypothetically be a two-evening process of making a simple shirt ended up requiring three separate trips to stores as I (separately) discovered that I didn't have interfacing, ran out of thread, and needed buttons. (Maybe some pre-planning would be in order next time, huh?) Also, I mistakenly sewed a nehru collar and had to do a Take 2 on the whole collar assembly. Duh. Once I managed to secure all of the necessary notions, and paid a modicum of attention to the instructions, it really did go together seamlessly. Wait, no...strike that last...there are lots of seams in a shirt. Insert whatever adverb you prefer at the end of that previous sentence.

Sea turtles, mate.

Still using these fun labels that Barry got me, lo these many years ago.

I also found some perfect glass beads to use as zipper pulls on Mom's bag. Done and done!

Mom bling!

Birthday sewing!

I do still occasionally dip my toes in the waters of garment sewing...this is for my steampunk guy's ninth birthday this Friday: