Sew Stitchy

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

2011-05-14T15:10:00.000-04:00

Finally, I have a quilt that I can share for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival! I've been around and watched the past few festivals, but never had something to share at the time.

The quilt that I am sharing is probably my favorite out of all the quilts I've ever made (not that there are that many, but I still love it!). I don't have a clever name for it, I just refer to it as the Purple Nine-patch Baby Quilt.

I was inspired to make this quilt by this one I found on Flickr. I just loved the gray and purple together, and wanted to use that color scheme and nine-patch style. Around the same time, I decided to make a baby quilt for a friend of mine who was expecting a baby. She and her husband are huge Lakers fans, and so I knew the purple (although technically, yes, it isn't Lakers purple) would be a perfect choice for their baby girl.

I collected purple fabrics for some time, picked out a handful that coordinated well, and paired it with some Kona Ash.

For the back, I did one large 5x5 square in the middle, again inspired by the style of the original inspiration quilt.

I quilted it with an allover stipple, and once I washed and dried it, it crinkled up so wonderfully and was sooo soft and snuggly. It was so hard to send it away, but I just know its recipient will love it and get great use out of it.

Also, after I shared the pictures of this quilt on Flickr, it was chosen to be shared on the Modern Day Quilts blog, which was great! I felt very flattered!

All in all, it was a super simple quilt to make, but I think the end result is just fabulous!

Thanks again for stopping by!

A little non-quilty sewing

2011-04-23T15:38:00.001-04:00

Yesterday and today I've had several glorious hours of alone time. My husband's at work, and my daughter is off with grandma, who is in town visiting, at my sister's house. I decided to put my time to good use and make a few things I've been wanting to make, but haven't had enough time to set aside to make them.

Both patterns I made are from Keyka Lou Patterns. She has some amazing, super cute patterns, and I finally bought a few this past week while she was having an anniversary sale.

The first one I tried was the Ditty Bag pattern. I made the medium size. The pattern was very well written. It turned out very cute, although I did mess up a little. When I attached the back of the bag to the front pieces, I put it together upside down. You'll see that the hanging tag should be at the same end of the bag as the zipper pull, when the zipper is closed. Instead, it's the opposite. Oops. And that's why the flowers are upside down, they should be facing the other way. But that's okay. It's still cute and functional, and so I'm going to leave it as is. A good reason to make a few more in the other sizes!

The next pattern I made was the Laptop Sleeve. I made this with the intention of modifying its size to make it smaller to fit my new iPad. I used the instructions referenced for how to modify the size, but again, I screwed up somewhere! :) But I was able to eventually make it work. Although in these pictures, the velcro is in the wrong spot. I need to move the bottom pieces down a few inches so the flap attaches lower (in the spot it's in in the pictures where it's closed). But that should be fairly easy and then it should fit fairly well. Just a hair too big, but that's okay. Again, the pattern itself was awesome, it was just my lack of spatial understanding that prevented me from being able to change the dimensions. Overall, it turned out great, and I am super happy to have a cute new bag for my iPad. Plus, it uses some of my most favorite fabrics, especially the Alexander Henry Farmdale blossom, so I am really happy with it.

I have to say that I would highly, highly recommend these patterns. Very thorough and easy to follow. I have one more I'm going to try today (the Inset Zipper clutch and pouch) and I will most definitely try others in the future.

Hello bandwagon, room for one more?

2011-04-18T20:03:00.001-04:00

Holy cow, a month and a half since my last post? What the heck happened? I have no idea. I'm sorry!

Anyway, last week, I, along with half of the online quilt blogging/Flickr community, had a collective freakout when we realized fabric designer extraordinaire Denyse Schmidt had released a new line of fabric at Joann Fabrics, of all places.

I gathered up my coupons like a good little shopper and hightailed it over there on Friday, after some of my lovely modern quilt guild buddies let me know that the fabric had arrived.

On my first go around, I picked up this lovely stack of my favorite prints out of the bunch.

Aren't they pretty?

Then I gathered up some more coupons and headed back over today to pick up a few more of the prints.

I still don't have all the prints, but at this point I think I have all the ones I like.

And while I was there today, what else did I find? Some lovely Alexander Henry Farmdale prints! The aqua blossom print is one of my absolute favorite fabrics of all time, so I splurged and bought a whole bunch. I don't ever want to run out of this fabric!

So, yes, I have been stashing fabric, but not doing a whole heck of a lot of sewing. I do have one more finished quilt to show, plus another quilt top and back ready for basting and quilting, but I need to get some pictures. Soon!

And this time, I promise it won't be another month and a half before I update again! :)

No progress.

2011-03-02T21:06:00.001-05:00

That's what I've got to show you. Nothing. No progress on any projects. Why? Because I haven't been sewing. I have been absolutely overwhelmed by work. I can't remember ever having this much work to do before at one time. It's exhausting, and by the time I get home (on the days when I actually do get home, and am not out of town) I am too tired to do anything.

I am hoping this will all let up in the next few weeks. I'm almost through it all. The biggest stressor of all will be over with and done next week, then a few other things to finish up in the week or so after that, and then hopefully things will be back to normal.

In the meantime, what do I do when I am stressed and busy and can't sew? I buy fabric to make me feel better. :P

Last week, Purl Soho had a huge sale. They had tons of great prints for just over $5/yard, some lovely flannels (Anna Maria Horner!) for just over $6/yard, Echino for $10/yard...it was great. So of course I couldn't pass it up. Look at the lovely stack that came to live with me.

One yard each of the Modern Meadow prints (the top four), five yards of the Folksy Flannel on the bottom of the stack, and then 2 yards and 3 yards of the other two flannels. The Modern Meadow prints are great stash builders and I cannot wait to use the flannels as some very cozy quilt backs for all the quilts I plan to make with my overflowing AMH stash.

Ahh, fabric. It's amazing how it lifts the spirits!

My next project

2011-02-20T15:54:00.001-05:00

I have made tons of progress this week on different projects, and now I want to move onto something new!

First, to recap, I finally pieced a back for my Hunky Dory 9-patch quilt. No picture right now, but hopefully soon once I get it basted and get to work on quilting. It's the first time I've done a pieced back and it was so fun!

I also finished the back for this purple 9-patch baby quilt I've been working on. I think I've mentioned this quilt here before but haven't shown any pictures.

Now I've got to get to quilting on that one too!

The only backing I have yet to get ready is for my Bliss quilt. I have some flannel for the backing and I honestly only need to cut the length of the yardage in two and then sew them together to make the backing, but I haven't done it yet. Maybe later today I can get to that.

But in the meantime I've decided to start another quilt! I think I'm putting off all the basting and quilting for the others, to be honest, those parts are my least favorite of the whole process!

For this quilt, I decided to work with my Dream On charm packs that I've had in my stash for a while. I've seen a few quilts on Flickr that paired up Dream On with Kona Ash, and I loved how it looked. I'm not really into sashings in non-neutral colors (like pinks or yellows) for some reason, so the only other option I was considering for this line was white. But I feel like these fabrics would fade into the white background too much, and you'd lose some of the definition of the prints. So Ash it is!

Given that I have charm packs, I thought it would be fun and easy to just do a ton of half-square triangles, and then see what kind of pattern I can come up with. Maybe a diamond radiating out from the center of the quilt? I don't know yet, we'll see what they look like once I get them all made.

Right now I'm in the midst of marking all my squares. Once that's done, I'm going to settle in for some serious chain-piecing! I'm hoping to maybe get them all done today. Is that possible? We'll see!

February Blogger's Pillow Party

2011-02-17T21:10:00.002-05:00

Stitched in Color is hosting the very awesome Blogger's Pillow Party.

Every month is a new contest, with super cool judges and fun prizes that you can win if your pillow is chosen! This month, the super-talented Rita from Red Pepper Quilts, one of my absolutely favorite blogs, is the judge.

I finally decided that I was going to go ahead and enter! You've all seen this pillow before, but I just love it so much I think it's worth entering in this contest.

So for the second time--my Christmas wreath pillow!

This pillow is based off of a Moda Bake Shop tutorial for a wall hanging that I modified to make into a pillow. I made this in December, and I really wanted to do some Christmas sewing, but I wanted something smaller than a quilt and more realistically finish-able for me (as I am so slow sometimes!). I was looking around for inspiration and happened upon the tutorial and immediately popped into my mind the idea of doing it pillow size in bright, modern fabrics. I scaled it down to result in a 20" pillow, and I absolutely love how it turned out! It is so bright and fun, just what I was looking for. I used some of my favorite fabrics--I have quite the stash of green fabrics as it's one of my favorite colors, and I was able to use quite a selection of those!--and it felt good to make something for me that was exactly what I wanted. It was also my first time installing a hidden zip, and I think I'm a convert now, I want to put them in everything I make! This is also some of the smallest piecing I've done--I think I started with 1.75" squares, resulting in 1.25" finished squares. It was quite a feat trying to get all those corners to match up! I also attempted free-motion quilting again, and am reasonably satisfied with how it turned out. :) I think every time I attempt it, I get a little bit better! This is only the second pillow I've made, and I think this one has really convinced me to make more. They are relatively quick (faster than a quilt for me, for sure!) and you can try out new techniques or fabrics that you might not want to commit to in a whole quilt. I'm thinking of all the different blocks or ideas I want to try out, how fun would it be to have a series of pillows documenting my stitching adventures? :)

The pillow is now waiting very patiently in my sewing room for Christmas time to roll around again and I am dreaming of the Christmas quilts I can make to go with it. I am imagining maybe a full size quilt with small pieced squares in a similar minimalist, modern-type design, but perhaps making a Christmas tree? :) That might be fun!

Thanks for stopping by! Now I am off to check out all the other lovely pillows entered for this month..

Patchwork and Quilting Blog List

2011-02-10T19:33:00.000-05:00

Do you love reading quilting blogs as much as I do? If you do, head on over to Red Pepper Quilts! She has a very cool new page on her blog with a linky feature for quilting bloggers to share their blogs! I've added mine to the list, and plan to go back and click through all the rest in hopes of finding some new blogs to add to my already crazy list!

In other news -- apologies again for the long break! I've been super busy with work and life! I did get a very awesome day of sewing with my modern quilt guild ladies, and that was fun! I finished the purple baby quilt top, I just need to get the quilt finished up as the baby it's for was born last week -- eek!

Also in exciting news, at the last modern quilt guild meeting I was selected as the new vice-president, and some very cool ladies were selected as our new president and secretary, and I think the three of us will plan some awesome things for this next year of the guild. First on the list is a meet and greet for new members this Saturday. I'm also going to start making a little newsletter after each meeting to send to our members to sum up what's been going on and what's coming up. So that's fun!

I also have been buying fabric. I know, when do I NOT buy fabric? Fabric.com is having a very good sale right now, through the 14th, and I scored some awesome Robert Kaufman Metro Living Circles for a STEAL. Less than $6/yard. Plus some other fun stuff! I'll come back with some pictures soon, I promise!

All right, time to get to quilting...I've got a bee block I've got to get done!

Stashing of a different sort

2011-01-23T10:21:00.001-05:00

Editing to add some photos--

Yesterday my family decided to go on a little day trip. Although we live only a few hours drive from Asheville, North Carolina, we've never been in the 5 years we've lived in this area. So we decided to head out for the day.

When we take these kinds of trips, we usually have two objectives. My husband's--to eat at yummy local restaurants we can't find around our house. Mine--to visit as many yarn and quilt shops as possible! ;)

So yesterday we stayed true to form and did exactly that. We managed to cram in a lot of shops in one quick visit of just a couple of hours.

First, we traveled straight through Asheville to the eastern edge of town, to Black Mountain, NC. There we visited Black Mountain Yarn Shop. The yarn store was FABULOUS, and I picked up some Spud & Chloe Sweater yarn I've been wanting to try. My daughter picked out a beautiful teal blue color and I plan on knitting her a sweater. (Did you know I used to be as obsessive a knitter as I am a quilter? It's slowed down considerably but I still love yarn and love to knit!) I also picked up a skein of Malabrigo Rios in a beautiful blue-green colorway Aguas to make myself some fingerless mitts.

The next stop was Marti's Patchwork Cottage. This was a small shop, with mostly traditional fabrics. I did a quick look around, and bought one cute bird print that my daughter picked out for me to make her a pillowcase. Even though they didn't have much that was my style, the staff was super friendly and they did have a big sale rack of prints, including a few Authentic prints, at a big discount.

Next we traveled back to Asheville and stopped at the Asheville Cotton Co. This store was quite large and had a great selection! They actually had quite a few modern prints, including lots of Heather Bailey and Amy Bulter, and even some of Anna Maria Horner's new Innocent Crush. They also had tons of great basics and many traditional fabrics as well. This was a great shop and I will definitely be back if we travel to Asheville again. They had a sale table with lots of fabrics marked between 30 and 70 percent off! I got a cute Kitty Yoshida print for 50% off (the Orange/Magenta Brocade & Circles)! They had 3 1/2 yards and I bought it all with the intention of using it as backing for a raspberry quilt I'm dreaming up for the future. I also bought a cute flowered print with ladybugs for daughter that she picked out for another pillowcase. She has been wanting a ladybug pillowcase for a while and so we finally found something cute!

After that we were off to downtown Asheville to eat at the Tupelo Honey Cafe. Oh. my. gosh. This place was awesome! It was packed with people and had lots of character, and the food was just delicious. I think this is a must-visit if you're in Asheville. They have great biscuits they give you while you wait for your food, with blackberry jelly. We had delicious pimento cheese dip with tortilla chips for an appetizer. My husband had a crab meat omelet (yum!) and I had grilled cheese with fried okra. Yum yum yum. Highly recommend it!

While walking to the restaurant from our car we stumbled across another yarn shop that I didn't even know was there! It was called Purl's Yarn Emporium and it was great. A small shop but packed full of good stuff. I picked up a skein of local yarn, a nice tweedy brown alpaca that I plan to use for a hat. I also got a skein of O-Wool Legacy Bulky in a natural color to make a hat for my daughter. Highly recommend this shop and will definitely return on the next trip to Asheville.

We did a little bit of walking around downtown Asheville (we definitely need to go back so we can have time to explore all the stuff we missed) and then headed out of town. On the way out of town we made one last stop at Yarn Paradise. This stop was in a cute old house and was filled to the brim with yarn. Lots of great stuff. While there I found some Louisa Harding Grace Hand-Dyed on the sale table for 35% off. I had seen a swatch of it knit up while at Purls and loved it, but couldn't find any on their shelves, so I passed it up. And then, lucky me, I stumble across it on the sale table at the next store. It was serendipitous! :) So I got all the skeins they had in a lovely green color (I think it's Kiwi) to make a shawl, as well as a beautiful ice blue to make who-knows-what.

So that was our day. I have to thank my husband, when we go on these trips he is usually happy to follow along to any stores I want to visit, so long as we get to visit a fun restaurant or two. That's the kind of trip I like!

Hopefully soon I'll have some finished projects (knitting or sewing!) to share. I'm off to start knitting my daughter's hat, I've already rolled the yarn into a ball... Until later!

Friday Flickr Inspiration

2011-01-21T23:54:00.001-05:00

Lately I've been thinking a lot about aqua and yellow. I've seen this color combo popping up a lot lately, and I love it!

I gathered today a bunch of aqua and yellow inspiration over at Flickr. I'm feeling the need to start a new quilt! But I need to finish all the others first!

1. Vintage Contemporary Feedsack, 2. aqua & yellow mini quilt, 3. 4 - bedding and sunshine quilt, 4. mini quilt sparkle binding, 5. Aqua Daisies Quilting Weight, 6. Baby Mish Mash, 7. 3x6 Mini Bee Block, 8. Pincushion - Yellow Aqua, 9. Nursery Chair, 10. Boycotting Snow ~, 11. nicey jane by heather bailey for free spirit fabrics, 12. aqua + yellow, 13. Patchwork Rose in Yellow & Aqua, 14. Colorscheme--aqua,yellow, 15. yellow roses, 16. Summer Flowers*Aqua

Speaking of my other projects, I still haven't basted the Hunky Dory or Bliss quilts. I'm nearly finished piecing the purple and gray quilt that I mentioned recently. We're having a sew-in with the modern quilt guild next weekend so I'm hoping to get a bunch of stuff done then!

Finally!

2011-01-13T22:39:00.000-05:00

Today I received in the mail my new O2 quarter inch foot from Janome for my new Horizon 7700. As some of you may have heard, there's been some problems with some Horizons sewing over thick seams with the quarter inch foot. I was super sad when I had these problems from the get-go with my new machine.

Janome was said to be working on the problem and was designing a new quarter inch foot to alleviate the issue. I waited patiently to receive mine, nervously wondering all the while whether it would fix my problems. I tested out all the other features of the machine, and there were no other issues.

So today, the foot arrived! I immediately wanted to try it out, and luckily had some 9-patch blocks in progress that would be the perfect test. So I got the machine set up, and gave it a whirl.

And guess what? It worked PERFECTLY! I swear I nearly wept in gratitude! It was so smooth. Like buttah! It went right over the seams, no hitches, no veering, no slowing down, no clunking. I'm so happy! Yay! Now I can actually use the new machine. Relief!

A few finished quilt tops and some future quilts!

2011-01-10T14:07:00.001-05:00

Today my daughter is sick and couldn't go to daycare, and it's been snowing outside and the roads out of my neighborhood are essentially impassable, so I am at home and have time to post!

My first news is that I finally got around to taking pictures of a quilt top I finished months ago, mentioned here. It's the Hunky Dory crazy 9-patch made from the Oh Fransson! tutorial. I used a Hunky Dory layer cake and Essex linen/cotton in Putty.

I'm not sure of the exact size, I think it's around 56" square. I love it so much! I just need to get the backing ready so I can quilt it. I'm thinking of a pieced backing with the couple of leftover layer cake squares and some of my Hunky Dory yardage.

I also got my behind in gear this last week and finished the quilt top I gave a little sneak peek of last week. It's made from Moda's Bliss and I love.love.love it. I used the patchwork print for a border, along with some Kona premium bleached muslin. It is so bright and cheery and happy.

You'll have to pardon my pictures, I was doing the best I could without an assistant to hold them up for me, the ironing board had to do....

Again, I just need to get the backing ready so I can get it quilted. For this one I have some Bliss flannel that just needs one long seam sewn to join the two halves of the backing. Maybe I can get to that today.

I have also been planning my next quilt! A good friend of mine, one I have known since the first grade(!) is expecting her first baby, a little girl, in the next couple of months. She and her husband are huge Lakers fans, so I thought a baby girl quilt in purple might be nice. I didn't have any Lakers purple fabrics, but I did have some other very nice options, and so I pulled together this stack to make a quilt ~~shamelessly copied from~~ heavily inspired by this one that I just love.

Aren't those lovely? I am going to pair it with Kona Ash for the background, along with a gray print that I'll be using for each of the 9-patch centers. I can't wait! I think I'm going to start cutting fabric as soon as I finish this post.

And the last item I'll leave you with is some fabricy goodness that came into my home recently! I was lucky enough to find one lone fat quarter bundle of Sherbet Pips at an online store recently, and snatched it up! Now I just have to decide what to do with it!

Until next time!

A very late Christmas pillow, and a new project

2011-01-02T14:44:00.001-05:00

I mentioned in my last post that I had made a Christmas pillow! This was my only Christmas sewing, and I didn't manage to finish it in time for Christmas, I only just finished it a few days ago.

I found a tutorial on the Moda Bake Shop for a Christmas wreath quilt. I modified it a bit to make this pillow. First, I made the squares smaller, starting with 1.75" squares, to make the finished pillow a 20" square. Also, I substituted the more subdued traditional fabrics used in the tutorial with bright, modern fabrics, for an updated look.

I also did my very first hidden zipper on the back! I used this tutorial from the House on Hill Road blog, and it was super simple! The instructions were easy to follow, even with having to change the dimensions a bit to fit my larger pillow. It went together so well and I am so happy with my finished project! Now I just need to put it away and wait for next Christmas!

I also decided to start a new project yesterday, in honor of the new year. On Friday, my local quilt shop had a big end of the year sale, with 40% off all fabrics. They had some lovely Bliss flannels, and I purchased 5 yards of one with the intention of using it as a backing for the Bliss quilt I planned to make with all my hoarded Bliss fabric (I just love that line!). So yesterday I decided to just get on it and start making it so we can use it!

I had three charm packs, and started randomly sewing them together in some simple patchwork. Here's a sneak peak of the quilt top. I have a couple more rows to add on, then I'm going to add a border. I'm really hoping to finish this one quickly! I have to go with the momentum when I have it!

All in all, a good start to the new year. I hope I can keep it up!

Goodbye 2010, hello 2011!

2010-12-31T15:09:00.000-05:00

Although my last post was sort of a recap of 2010, I thought I'd come back and do an official goodbye-to-2010 post, along with some thoughts on what I hope to accomplish in 2011.

Overall, in 2010 I finished about a dozen projects.

1. Pinwheel Baby Quilt - Front, 2. Perfect 10 quilt top, 3. Bibs and burp cloths, 4. Potholder swap - front, 5. Friendship bag swap, 6. Quilts for Kids - finished quilt, 7. PTS3 Pillow - finished!, 8. Handsome Hexie Swap, 9. DQS9 - All done!, 10. Urban Home Goods swap package, 11. Verna Scruffily Quilt, 12. Scrappy Hoop Swap - finished!

There were more projects than this (bee blocks I made for others, projects I've started but not yet completed, and a few little things I never took a picture of) but these were the main items I finished.

Although it's not that many, I feel good about the number of things I accomplished! I finished four quilts, several swap projects, and lots of other little items. I felt like my skills improved quite a bit as the year progressed. I have a lot more confidence in my quilting and sewing skills today, at the end of 2010, than I did at the beginning!

So what's in store for 2011? I don't think I'm going to have a list of items I want to make--we've already seen how bad I am with keeping to those lists given the fact that I finished not a single thing from my 2010 list! But I do have a list of goals, or new years' resolutions, if you will, for 2011.

1. Be a better blogger! This is a huge one for me. I am so terrible about coming around to post on my own blog. Sad, isn't it. The truth is that I'm often limited due to photo-related issues. I work a full-time job--meaning I have very little opportunity to take photos during daylight hours, which means most of my pictures are dark and/or ugly. Who wants to put that on their blog? So I wait for the perfect photo-taking opportunity, and inevitably forget to ever post anything. Then, my good camera takes a memory card type that my laptop doesn't have a slot for, so I always have to go find the separate memory card reader, and the cord, and plug it in, and now I don't have photoshop since my old computer died, making it difficult to edit the raw photos from my camera....anyway, as you can see, I struggle with photo issues! But my goal this year is to not let that stand in my way and post more often!

2. Make more quilts. This is another big goal. I have SO much fabric--it's ridiculous really how much I've accumulated in the last year and a half, and I need to USE IT! Quilts are a great way to use lots of fabric! I would like to set a goal of 6 quilts this year, that's one every two months. I think I can do it! I just need to set my mind to it.

3. Sew a few garments. I have several super-cute clothes patterns for my daughter, that I haven't yet tried. Very very soon, she is going to outgrow the sizing on some of them. So I need to get over my fear of garment sewing and make her more stuff!

There are so many other things that I could add to this list, but I need to keep it realistic. I'm hoping these few items are things that I can actually stick to throughout this year! I'm going to give it my best shot.

In the meantime, I've got a few days off this weekend (nice daylight hours) so I'm hoping to take a few photos of the couple of little projects I finished recently (and now that I think about it, which should be in my mosaic above but aren't because of the lack of photos). Plus, I'd like to get in a little sewing time, obviously! So I'll say goodbye to 2010, and I'll see you back here next year!

2010 recap (i.e., Goal Fail, but Overall Win)

2010-12-11T23:44:00.000-05:00

So today I remembered that I had written a post back at the beginning of this year setting out some quilty goals for this year.

Looking back on the list now, I just have to laugh. I think immediately upon hitting publish on that post, I promptly forgot about each and every one of those goals until today. I never even started any of those projects! And now some of them I'm pretty sure I'll never get around to.

Instead, this year I finished the Pinwheel Baby quilt, the Perfect 10 quilt, the Verna Scruffily quilt, and pieced the Hunky Dory crazy nine-patch quilt top (which I have still never shown a picture of, and I'm still hoping I might finish this year). I also made a quilt for Quilts for Kids, burp cloths and bibs, numerous chicken saddles, a potholder, a friendship bag, a pillow, a doll quilt, some placemats, napkins, and coasters, some hexies and a holder, a scrappy hoop, and several bee blocks. I also made a pillowcase for my daughter (finished just last week and still need a picture!) and as of today, two dog beds for my sister (she of chicken saddle fame).

When I run through the list like that, wow, I actually got way more accomplished this year than I realized! Even though I didn't even touch any of the goals I put on my list earlier this year, I am proud of all that I accomplished, given that I work full time, have a very high-maintenance toddler to take care of, and actually occasionally do non-crafty-related things. :)

I am alive!

2010-11-29T21:57:00.000-05:00

Just in case you were wondering, I am alive! We returned a week ago from our trip to Florida and there's been no sewing in this house. I have barely thought of sewing or crafting endeavors for the past month!

Hopefully there will be some sewing action going on soon. When there is, you'll hear about it! In the meantime, I'll be freaking out about the rapid approach of Christmas. Yikes! Time is flying by!

Blog break!

2010-11-06T10:49:00.000-04:00

Sorry everyone for the unintentional blog break! And it's going to go on a little longer.

I haven't done much sewing since I got the new machine. I did piece one top (the Hunky Dory crazy 9 patch) and I made my hoop for the Scrappy Hoops Swap. But otherwise I've just been too busy to do any crafting! My husband, as I may have mentioned before, started a new job. He's got crazy hours and so I'm home alone a lot with my daughter and she is a handful, which equals not much time for sewing. And then we were all sick, and now my daughter has pink eye, and next week we're going to Disneyworld...

So! Due to all this craziness, I will probably not be able to post until we get back from our trip, on the 20th. Wish me luck, that my daughter's pink eye is cleared up before we leave, and that Disneyworld is not packed with crazy people, and that we do okay with the 12 hour drive. I'll be back soon!

Catching up.

2010-10-10T19:08:00.000-04:00

I've got a few things to post on, it's time to catch up.

First, I got a little present this week! (Well, a present to myself. :P) My local Janome dealer, where I bought my 6600 last year, called this week to say they were having a big sale on the new Horizon 7700QCP. It was a really good deal. So much so that I went there that very day and got one! Because it was on sale, I wasn't eligible for the trade in deal they offer (for one year after purchasing a machine, you can trade in and get 100% of what you paid in trade). But it was such a good deal I didn't care, and decided I'd just keep the 6600 as a backup.

Here she is, all set up in my sewing room.

Isn't she gorgeous? So far she's been great. I am noticing a few things that I've heard about this machine (some issues going over thick seams, etc) but I'm hopeful that Janome will figure out a way to address them. I've loved all my Janomes, and I can't afford the equivalent machine from Bernina, so I'm sticking with Janome for now, and I am sure this will be a great machine. It's been quite pleasant to sew on so far!

In other news, I finished a quilt recently! I never posted about this one while working on it, I have no idea why not! I followed the Scruffily Quilt tutorial from the Moda Bake Shop.

I used Verna by Kate Spain for Moda. I deviated a bit from the tutorial and made my quilt 6x7 blocks, instead of 6x6. I also used a layer cake and two charm packs instead of a layer cake, charm pack, and jelly roll, to save money. The jelly roll called for in the tutorial is only used to make the 2 1/2" center squares for the blocks, so instead I purchased another charm pack (saving almost $30!) and cut the 2 1/2" squares from those. I used the Panache print in Budding Pink for the back, and one of the striped prints from the line for the binding, cut on the bias.

While basting this quilt in my kitchen, my 2 year old daughter was 'helping' me. She told me, "This is the most beautiful blanket, Mommy!" Aww, so cute! Sold! So this quilt now lives on her bed and she loves it. Today, while putting her down for her nap, I asked her if I could take the quilt while she napped so I could take pictures of it. She shook her head and got a worried look on her face, and said, "No! You take my blanket, I cry!" Well, of course I couldn't take it then! I had to wait until after the nap to snap the photos. :)

I am also working on another quilt. In July, during my modern quilt guild's sew-in, I started working on some wonky 9 patch blocks from this Oh Fransson! tutorial. Today, I finally finished them all up. I used a layer cake from the Hunky Dory line. I love this line, and am so happy to finally be using some of my fabric! I plan on pairing it with Essex linen/cotton blend in Putty, and making the Oh Fransson! Nine-Patch Lattice Quilt.

So that's what I've been up to. I'm hoping I'll be posting more often and completing more projects soon...my husband started a new job last week and will have rotating shifts...meaning he will be working some nights and some weekends. This means alone time for me at home, which I will hopefully fill with blogging and sewing!

Bliss

2010-09-30T21:41:00.001-04:00

Once again, I've managed to neglect my blog for two weeks! What's up with that? Well, I kind of had a good excuse. I was sick with a sinus infection (still on meds), busy at work, I had to take a trip to DC for work...plus I've just been plain exhausted and haven't much touched my fabric or machine!

But I am feeling rejuvenated! Starting with this lovely little pile! Bliss by Bonnie and Camille for Moda. I love this fabric! I picked up these prints at my LQS and may have ordered some other prints the shop didn't have online. ;) Also, a fat quarter bundle of Anna Maria Horner's new line Innocent Crush may have also fallen into an online cart of mine. Can't wait to play with all these new fabrics!

I also am almost done with a new quilt! I am handstitching the last few feet of binding and will have pics soon! Plus, an exciting sewing-related gift I received from my husband for our anniversary last month needs to make its debut soon as well. Back soon with more pics. (And excuse the quality of this one, it's from my cell phone.)

Urban Home Goods swap package sent!

2010-09-11T17:22:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I sent out my completed Urban Home Goods swap package. I have been busting my behind this last week or so to get this stuff done, it took me some time but in the end it was all worth i! I love how everything turned out.

I decided to make a set of items for my partner's table. I made 4 each of placemats, napkins, and coasters, all designed to coordinate with one another.

The main placemats have a natural linen background, with some Orla Kiely inspired embroidery and applique. The binding is a Moda Crossweave.

I also made some matching napkins and coasters. I didn't have enough linen for the napkins, so I used Kona Cotton in Bone, which matched the color of the linen perfectly. I then made some little coasters with the leftover scraps from the placemats and napkins.

I really think my partner is going to like them. I can't wait until s/he receives them! And I'm also excitedly waiting to receive my package as well! I wonder what I'll get? :)

DQS9 received!

2010-08-29T21:22:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, my Doll Quilt Swap 9 quilt arrived in the mail!

Isn't it lovely? It was made for me by Nichol (HardyPartyof5) and it looks beautiful against my green walls in my sewing room. I love it! Thank you again Nichol!

I also packaged up my quilt and sent it off to my partner yesterday...

I hope my partner loves it!

I'm also working away on my items for the Urban Home Goods swap. I'm doing a little Orla Kiely inspired embroidery for a placemat set. I am going to do two embroidered like this below, and two with fabric applique in the same design. It will be set against a Kona Ash for the main background.

All right, I've got to get back to my stitching if I'm going to be done in time!

Sew and Tell Friday - Doll Quilt all finished!

2010-08-20T19:41:00.000-04:00

I am happy to report that I have a finish to report for this week's Sew and Tell Friday!

I finished my Doll Quilt Swap 9 quilt! And I have to say, I think it turned out beautifully!

I decided to use a black and white Kei honeycomb dot for the binding. I think it sets off the rainbow of colors in the quilt nicely! The label is already attached and it is ready to go to its owner. I just need to add a few little goodies to my package before I mail it out!

In other swap news, I've started working on my projects for the Urban Home Goods Swap!

My first project I've got planned is a set of placemats. I'm imagining the background in Kona Ash, with a strip of white somewhere along the placemat, with a pretty little embroidery on the strip. As you can see from my picture below, we've got some Orla Kiely inspiration going on here. I used one of her lovely designs and created the drawing I'll be using for the embroidery. I hope it turns out like I'm envisioning in my mind!

I'm hoping to get some work on these done tomorrow at the modern quilt guild sew-in I'll be attending! Can't wait, I'm so excited! Hopefully I'll be back soon with pictures of lots of progress to show.

Catching up!

2010-08-15T21:07:00.001-04:00

I need to catch you all up on what I've been doing over the last two weeks.

First up, in my last post I showed the hexies I had made for the Handsome Hexie swap over on Flickr. In addition to the hexies I posted, I also made a cute hexie holder for my partner. I combined the gathered clutch pattern over at Noodlehead, with the cute hexie holder tutorial at Comfortstitching.

Here's my hexie holder. Cute, isn't it?

And everything all together!

I have also been working on my quilt for the Doll Quilt Swap 9. You may remember this post about my start to the quilt, the pink and grey spiderweb. Well, I abandoned that project. It was just taking forever and I knew I wouldn't be able to get it done before the deadline without completely forgoing any and all other projects, and I didn't want to do that. So I went another route. Based on my partner's preferences, I thought s/he might like something like the Colorwheel Quilt from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. So I used my dresden plate template ruler to make a giant dresden plate color wheel. I think it turned out great!

I did simple quilted lines 1/4" on either side of the stitching line between wedges, and a circle around the center. From the back it looks like a sun and its rays. Simple, but I love it.

Now I just need to finish up the binding and label, get a few little other things together for the package, and I'm done!

Now I am off to work on a pincushion for a swap at next week's meeting of the local modern quilt guild. I've never made a pincushion before! A first time for everything...

Hexagon swap

2010-07-25T14:40:00.000-04:00

I recently joined a hexagon swap over on Flickr. You're assigned a partner, and you make 25 hexies to send off, along with a little holder, if you like.

This swap has a very short turnaround, as I received my partner info this last week, and the hexagons must be mailed by the beginning of next week. So I went ahead and jumped right on it so I could get everything done on time.

I decided on a red/aqua/gray theme for the hexies. They were so much fun to make, now I want to make some for myself! These are 1 1/4" hexagons.

Now I'm going to whip up a little pouch to hold them in, and send them off to my partner. I can't wait to see what I receive!

Quilt show wrap-up

2010-07-22T22:40:00.000-04:00

The quilt show last week was a lot of fun! I met up with several of the ladies from the local modern quilt guild and we wandered around together, looking at the quilts and shopping. It was a bit overwhelming, how much stuff there was to see! I think next time I'd actually plan on two days...one to see all the quilts, and one to shop. It was a lot to take in at once!

There was a lot of good fabric to be found. I told myself ahead of time that I wasn't going to buy randomly, that I was going to be very good, but that all flew out the window. A couple of vendors had some really good stuff and I just couldn't resist. The best vendor, hands-down, was Some Art Fabric. She had tons of great Japanese prints plus lots of other yummy stuff. I got a bunch of Heather Ross from her plus some japanese prints. A couple of other vendors had nice selections of fat quarters and I picked up a bunch of cute ones, including a bunch of Urban Chiks, which I was excited about.

First, my Heather Ross and japanese prints.

Next, random fun fabrics (including some Flea Market Fancy! The vendor actually had several prints and all of us in our group very quickly snatched them all up!)

And finally, the various Urban Chiks prints I picked up from a couple different vendors. I have a 1974 jelly roll so I grabbed those prints to use with that, plus of course I couldn't resist the Summer in the City prints.

I also bought some batting, which I don't have a picture of. It was a great price! They had 18"x18" square 'sample' pieces for $0.50! I bought a couple of those in different types (soy, bamboo, cotton), as well as a queen sized bamboo/cotton, just because it was sooooo soft, and at only $20, I just couldn't pass it up.

In other news, this past Saturday the modern quilt guild has a sew-in. We had a bunch of fabric given to us by a local charitable organization, and we used it to sew some baby items to donate to the organization. It was so much fun! I completed one baby blanket and am nearly done with another. I'll be finishing that one up to send off for donation as well. I also handed out my bee block fabrics, and can't wait to get those blocks back. I've seen a couple of girls post their completed blocks already on their blogs and Flickr and I am super excited.

It was a busy weekend, and on Sunday the family headed to Atlanta to Ikea to buy some more Expedit bookcases for my daughter's room and our living room, as well as a few other items. I came back with a few more pieces of fabric! A few Ikea fabrics (no picture), as well as these two from Whipstitch. I highly recommend visiting Whipstitch if you are in Atlanta, it's a very cute, nice store.

So, there has been way too much fabric acquisition in the last week. Yikes. Now I need to sew some of it up! I do have many many projects in various planning stages, and I need to get to them.

Stash, Squares, and Shows!

2010-07-13T23:59:00.000-04:00

Gosh, I just can't manage to get myself over here to post on a regular basis, can I. So lame.

I have a few pictures and some exciting things to share.

First, some recent stash enhancement. Moda's Hunky Dory line. I freaking love this fabric.

I just feel compelled to buy it. I already have some more yardage on its way to me as well. And if I can find some more yardage of that blue flowered print on top, I'm going to snatch it up. I just love it! I am planning on using the layer cake to make a quilt top using this technique from Oh Fransson! I have been wanting to try the crazy 9-patch tutorial, and I've been wanting to make something with this fabric, so I'm going to dive in. Soon!

But first, I've been working on getting my fabric ready for my upcoming month in the local modern quilt guild's quilting bee! Our next meeting is this Saturday, and I've got to hand out my fabric. So I've been a busy little bee cutting away.

I've decided to ask the members to make me this block:

Isn't it awesome? It was fun to make, but it takes a while. I hope the ladies in the quilt guild don't kill me because it's complicated.

Here's my stack of all the printed fabrics I'm giving out, nicely cut and waiting to be divvied up:

I can't wait to hand it all out, and see the blocks I get back!

In other exciting news, the AQS quilt show starts here in Knoxville tomorrow! And I am going! I took the day off of work and will be meeting a group of the modern quilt guild members tomorrow morning for a day of fun shopping and quilt gazing. I can't wait! I've only been to a small, local show, never a big one, so I am very much looking forward to it.

Also, this Saturday's meeting of the modern quilt guild isn't a regular meeting, it's an all day sew-in! We are going to be working mostly on charity projects with some donated fabric, and I am really looking forward to an entire day of sewing with like-minded people!

What a fun, fabric-filled week! Hopefully I'll be back soon with a report from the quilt show and maybe some nice things I found while there!

Tempted

2010-07-07T22:45:00.000-04:00

So yesterday I stopped by my local sewing machine shop, where I purchased my Janome last fall, to drop off my old Kenmore sewing machine for a tune-up. I tried to use the machine over the weekend to teach my sister to sew (Hi sister, I know you're out there, dreaming about more chicken saddles! :P) and it had some obvious tension problems. No matter what I set the tension at, the bobbin thread was always showing through to the top side of the fabric. So off to the store I trotted to get it fixed as I need it for a sew-in the modern quilt guild is having in a few weeks.

Well, in talking to my sewing machine guy about the machine, I asked him some questions about extra feet for my 6600, and he asked me if I'd heard about the new Horizon 7700.

I told him that I had, and that it looked super nice, but obviously I had just purchased my 6600. At that point he told me that for the first year after I purchased my machine, I can get 100% of what I paid for it if I want to trade it in for an upgrade.

WHA-WHA-WHAT??

Why did I not know this? How awesome! So now I'm supremely tempted by the new Horizon. I checked it out in person while in the shop and I am very tempted by its extra throat space, the free arm, the extra stitches, and the fact that it comes with a clear extension table, and the extra free-motion feet I was thinking of buying for my machine...but I don't know. I'm thinking about it. It's a lot of money, even just paying the difference between what I paid for my machine and the price of this new one.

But there's also the issue that next week is the AQS show here in Knoxville, and there will be a show special on the machine at the show, at a significantly lower price than the regular price through the shop. I can't get the trade in deal at the show, only buying at the regular price through the shop. So then I thought, maybe I can just sell my machine outright, and even if I don't get all that I paid, I can probably get close, and then I can get the other machine at the show, and with what I'd make from selling my machine, I'd end up paying less of a difference in price than the trade in. Assuming I could sell it. Hmm, I don't know. Anyone interested in buying my machine? Just kidding. Maybe (not really). :)

New fabric storage!

2010-07-02T22:15:00.001-04:00

I am excited to report that I am the proud new owner of an Ikea Expedit bookcase for my fabric storage! A coworker/friend of mine traveled to Atlanta this last weekend for a trip to Ikea and told me if I wanted anything to let her know. I asked her to pick me up the bookcase if she had room in the back of the truck after getting all her stuff, and lucky me, she had room for my boxes.

Hubby and I put it together and set it up this week, and I've thrown my fabric on it in an attempt to start getting organized.

It nicely holds all my books and magazines on the bottom, without fear of shelves bending and breaking and everything falling, and I've tentatively placed my fabric and other bits on the rest of the shelves. Right now they are kind of broken down by color, or style, etc. I have all my precuts on one shelf, all japanese fabrics on another, all solids on another, and the rest of my cut fabric separated by color. It's still in the organization stage so it's likely this will change a bit. I am also planning on refolding my fabric to uniform sizes so right now it's kind of haphazardly thrown on the shelves. But I am happy to see that even with all my fabric on there (well, not ALL, I do have bunches of fat quarters in some boxes that have yet to be pulled out) I still have lots of room for expansion. I think this is going to help immensely as far as keeping track of what I have and having everything out where I see it and use it.

In other news, I've started my DQS9 quilt. I'm doing pink and grey spiderwebs. Here's my progress as of a few nights ago.

Just a little bit. I've since sewn a bit more and it's about double this size. The plan is for there to be 9 full spiderwebs, so I've got a way to go. I'm still not sure about how it's turning out, or whether my partner will like it. My partner has been quite silent since the swap started, not much input lately, and none really on the swap itself and so I just don't know whether s/he will like it! The plan is to finish it up, see what I think, and if I don't think it's good enough/the right style/etc., I'll just keep it for myself!

That's all for now. I'm planning to head upstairs for a little bit of sewing tonight, and then enjoy the rest of the three day weekend! Happy 4th of July to all my American friends!

Tap Tap Hello, is this thing on?

2010-06-26T23:41:00.000-04:00

I know I seem to have fallen off the face of the earth lately! Life has been super busy. I have been busy and preoccupied with work, traveling quite a bit over the last couple of weeks, and my husband and daughter returned from their trip about two weeks ago, so they've been home and occupying my time (which is a good thing!) and so I just have not had much spare time!

I have been doing some sewing and quilting related things!

First, last weekend my chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild went on a shop hop! This past week has been shop hop week in East Tennessee and we decided to all get together and shop hop for our meeting this month. It was TONS of fun, we visited six stores in one day (!) and I bought some yummy stuff. Unfortunately, no pictures. Part of that whole busy-with-life thing!

I have also spent most of the little sewing time I've had over the last week or two getting my siggy swaps done and out in the mail. I finally finished a day or so ago and put them in the mail today!

Here they are, all signed and ready to go, all 101 of them! I am super excited to receive back the siggy blocks, from 101 different quilters, and assemble them into a neat little quilt!

And I've also been thinking and thinking about the quilt I will make for Doll Quilt Swap 9! I have been stalking my partner's Flickr and blog, and trying to come up with a good idea. I think I've finally got one. I've pulled these fabrics, and am thinking about a spiderweb quilt. What do you think? Are you out there partner? Do you like?

So that's what I've been up to. I'm hoping work will slow down a bit (at least I won't be traveling so much, I know that!) and I'll be able to have more time for sewing. Next weekend is a three day weekend and so maybe I can get in some sewing time then.

Hopefully soon I'll be back with a post about some of the lovely fabric I've acquired recently... :)

Doll Quilt Swap 9

2010-06-16T22:54:00.001-04:00

I'm very excited to be participating in the latest round of the Doll Quilt Swap over on Flickr! I've watched the last few rounds from the sidelines and when signups came open this time I decided to just jump in, having more confidence now that I've partcipated in some other swaps.

We were just assigned our partners a few days ago, and I've commenced to stalking my partner! I also need to start dropping some clues for my own stalker. So I made a mosaic of inspiration pieces, which hopefully gives them a place to start. And as time goes by, I will try to add more posts with more inspiration, as well as sneak peaks of my own quilt I'm making for my partner.

I'm so excited! The anticipation is so much fun!

1. The Modern Flying Geese Quilt, 2. Scrap X quilt, 3. Circles and Waves quilt, 4. Cobblestones, 5. dqs7 quilt maybe?, 6. The Princess and the Pea embroidery, 7. The Lady of the Lake Quilt top, 8. Fat Quarterly E-Zine Flying Geese Challenge, 9. far far away 2 quilt top, 10. a wonky anna maria horner string quilt, 11. 1st attempt at Dresdens!, 12. Color Wheel Mini Quilt, 13. DQS8 Received!, 14. dqs8 received, 15. Flea Market Fancy hexagon quilt, 16. My Doll Quilt from katiejeanbags

Sew and Tell Friday - Pillow Talk Swap 3 pillow!

2010-06-04T19:57:00.000-04:00

I finished my Pillow Talk Swap 3 pillow! And I love how it turned out!

(Please excuse the picture of the back, it got super wrinkly while I was trying to shove a too-big pillow form inside!)

I took several ideas my partner mentioned and that I saw in their favorites on Flickr, and came up with this. It's a simple design, just squares, but I added the little whimsical appliques in between to make it more interesting. I think my partner will like it! I hope so, at least!

Anyway, it will soon be winging its way to its new home, hopefully to a very happy new owner!

And with this, I've also finally got a finish for Sew and Tell!

I am so indecisive!

2010-05-25T23:16:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned recently, I was lucky to join in for the latest round of the Pillow Talk Swap over on Flickr. Right before I left on vacation I received my partner information. I have until June 18 to make and send out a pillow to my partner based on their likes/inspiration, etc.

And now I am stumped! I really loved the items shown in my partner's inspiration mosaic, they have some great stuff in their favorites list...but I just can't commit to a design! I think I have a pretty good idea of what they want, but it's something I've never done before and I'm a little scared! There is so much talent in these groups and I just don't want my partner to be disappointed!

I think I need to just sit down and start something. If I wait too long I think it will make things worse, especially as time starts to pressure me. And right now I'm home alone with nothing but time to sit and sew without interruption, so I reallllllly need to get this done before the hubby and baby get back and time escapes from me.

Plus I joined the Siggy Block swap being hosted by Jaybird Quilts, so I'm thinking about what to use to make those (and actually sitting down and making them), and I've got a bee block to complete for one of the modern quilt guild members for last month that I need to bring with me to our next meeting on June 19...I need to just sit down at the machine and get to it!

I'm back, with a lot more fabric!

2010-05-24T21:51:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone! I returned home yesterday from my vacation in CA, toting quite a haul of new fabric!

You know I am crazy when I tell you that I took the fabric in my carryon on the plane, because I didn't want to leave it in my checked bag and risk some unscrupulous airport employee stealing it or it getting lost if my bag was lost. LOL Not to mention the fact that it weighed too much to add it to my bag, would have put me way over the limit!

Anyway, I am home now, sans husband and baby. They stayed to visit a little while longer and so I am home alone with lots of time to myself! This is both good and bad. I'm lonely, which is bad! But I have lots of time to make fun things, which is good. I hope I can keep myself occupied and distracted until they get back. But I miss my baby girl (and of course my husband as well!) so much!

So here's a run down of what I picked up in CA, I know this is what you're interested in.

First, I posted this last week, but here are some better pictures. My haul from the Purl Soho warehouse distribution center (minus the honeycomb FQ bundle, couldn't get a good picture of that with the little crappy camera I am using while my DSLR is in CA with the hubby).

First, some more quarter yard cuts of Anna Maria Horner's Little Folks voiles, to add to my current collection, for my future all-voile quilt!

Next, some Japanese prints. Russian dolls, a cute sewing print, tiny deer, three fairy tale prints, and a gorgeous Kokka floral that I've been seeing all over blogs being used in some bee blocks. I loved that one so much I got a whole yard. I think I might use it for my bee month I have upcoming in July with the modern quilt guild.

Next I visited a store that specializes in Japanese fabric and notions/crafts, etc. It is called Momen+ and it is located in Torrance CA. If you are ever anywhere near this area, GO GO GO. This store was fabulous. HUGE selection of Japanese fabrics, notions, trims, etc. So wonderful. And good prices! The fat quarters were only $2! I grabbed a huge stack.

These are some half yard cuts I picked up...check out the Heather Ross Far Far Away! So excited.

Plus all 18 fat quarters I grabbed! And two Far Far Away remnant pieces that were 50% off.

Following that, I did a little shop hop of my own around Southern CA and visited several stores. I didn't get much (only spent $30 total, can you believe it!). But part of what I found is below, check it out, American Jane pez!

All in all, it was quite a satisfying trip, and I am super happy with my new stash. I highly recommend visiting the Purl warehouse and Momen+ if you're in the area, they are well worth the trip, and more! Both totally awesome, friendly staff and great selection.

In other exciting news, when I returned home I had a box waiting for me! My Vintage Sheet Swap fat quarters arrived! How exciting. Can't wait to make something fun from these.

Overall, a great stash week! :)

Purl!

2010-05-18T18:30:00.001-04:00

I'm on vacation in CA right now, but had to let everyone know where I went today!

I visited Purl Soho's warehouse distribution center. And oh my, was it amazing! So much good stuff, it was overwhelming.

I finally managed to narrow down my choices. I picked up a FQ bundle of honeycomb dots in various colors, a bunch of super cute Japanese prints, a Kokka floral that I've been seeing all over blogland being used in some bee blocks that I just love, and a bunch of Anna Maria Horner voiles to add to my collection for a future voile quilt. I'm attaching a bad picture from my phone to give you an idea of what I bought (that's my Perfect 10 quilt in the background, I brought it along to work on the binding).

Next on the list is a store that specializes in Japanese fabrics, I think tomorrow... :)

Pillow Talk Swap Round 3

2010-05-10T19:06:00.001-04:00

I was lucky to recently get in on Round 3 of the Pillow Talk Swap! I am sooooo unbelievably excited about this! I've seen some of the pillows from the last two rounds around Flickr and they are amazing! I am so looking forward to making something awesome for my swap partner and receiving something awesome in return!

We are supposed to be receiving our partner's information soon. In the meantime, we've all been making inspiration mosaics for our future partners, to give them an idea of what kinds of things we like, to help them out in deciding what kind of pillow to make.

Below is the inspiration mosaic I created for my partner.

1. Twinkle pilow , 2. pillow swap d.o.n.e., 3. Hexagon Pillow in its new home, 4. Pillow Swap Round 2 - Full View, 5. Arcadia Wonky Log Cabin Pillow, 6. Quilted Pillow, 7. postcards from the park quilt, 8. hexagon quilted pillow 2, 9. String Quilt Pillow, 10. Pillow Talk Swap *Sent*, 11. Half Square Triangle flea market fancy , 12. Red and Aqua ZigZag Quilt, 13. Pillow Talk Swap & Tutorial, 14. Pillow Talk Swap 2, 15. Pillow Swap - A little bird, 16. Sew New To Me Virtual Quilting Bee * Corey *

How fun!

Quilts for Kids - a finished quilt!

2010-05-09T22:45:00.000-04:00

I recently requested a kit from Quilts for Kids. They partnered with Downy for the Touch of Comfort program, which enabled them to have an awesome program where anyone could request a quilt kit, for free, and they mailed it out to you to make, and you then send the finished quilt back and they donate it to a needy child in one of the participating hospitals.

After I found out about the program, I requested a kit. My kit came in just a few days. Check out how cute it is.

It comes with instructions and a 9-patch pattern, the pieces are already cut and ready for strips to be sewn and further cut. There's also a label to fill out and attach.

I set to work making the quilt, and it was very easy and quick to put together. I actually finished the whole thing a month or so ago, but it took me a while to get to quilting and binding, and then a while longer to wash it and get it ready for mailing. But now it's finally totally done and ready to go in the mail tomorrow!

I think it turned out really cute! I hope some very deserving kid will love it.

Here's a close up of the quilting...some of my first free motion quilting. I can definitely use some improvement, but I think it turned out pretty good for my first large scale project.

And here's a shot of the back and the label. There is a spot for your name, and the name you've give to the quilt. I decided to call this one "Puppy Love," it just seemed appropriate.

The binding and label were zigzagged on, as this was specifically requested so as to not catch IVs or other equipment when used by the recipient.

Overall I'm quite proud of it! Obviously, I probably wouldn't make something like this for myself, so it was fun to do a project outside of my comfort zone, and one for such a good cause. I really hope whoever receives this quilt will love it!

In other news...the family and I are going on vacation later this week, so I may be scarce around here for the next week or two (not that I've been that great about posting anyway!) I'm hoping to hit some fabric stores while we're gone so maybe I'll come back with some goodies to show everyone!

Vintage Sheet Swap

2010-05-08T23:04:00.000-04:00

I recently signed up on Flickr to participate in the Vintage Sheet Patchwork Swap. Each participant sends in fat quarters cut from vintage sheets, and receives an assortment of fat quarters in return.

I finally was able to divide my sheets up, and I've now got my stacks ready to go! I just need to drop these in the mail on Monday. I really hope everyone likes them. I think the florals are really pretty. And the pattern on the bottom left, and bottom right, both have butterflies on them, which I just love! I can't wait to see what I get in return. I am sending in around 45 fat quarters, so I should be receiving that many in return. I can't wait to see what I get!!

At this point my plan is to make a simple patchwork squares quilt with whatever I receive in return. I saved one whole sheet, with a small floral print, to use for the backing of whatever I make. I'm thinking maybe using it as a picnic/outside play blanket. So excited to see what is coming my way.

Actual quilting in progress!

2010-04-29T19:53:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been MIA yet again. I just get so darn busy, that whole going to work, having a small child thing is definitely getting in the way of sewing and blogging. :)

But there has been a little bit of sewing going on!

First, I want to show the pictures of my swap item that I teased you all with last time.

For the last meeting of the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild, we decided to swap a friendship bag. We decided we'd use this tutorial from P.S. I Quilt for the basic idea and dimensions. I decided to tweak the tutorial a little and add a band of solid fabric around the top and change the size of the fabric strips on the side. I think it came out super cute!

Unfortunately I haven't yet taken any pictures of the bag I received, but trust me, it's super cute! I'll try to get some pictures soon.

I also finally decided on how I wanted to quilt my Perfect 10 quilt. I had picked out a backing a while back (from Hobby Lobby), got it all basted a few weeks ago, but have been procrastinating because I couldn't decide what kind of quilting to do or what color thread to use given all the different colors in the top.

I finally this last weekend, after some trial and error, to use a clear thread for the top. I tried white, and brown, and they both just stuck out too much on some of the fabric colors in the top. The clear, while a pain in the butt to work with, looks the best. I'm using a dark brown on the back. In the pictures below you can see what I chose for backing, the dark brown with the simple floral in white. I also decided to just do straight vertical lines for quilting. I'm not confident enough yet in my stippling, especially to do a quilt this large (it's about 60"x70"), and I couldn't think of any other pattern that wouldn't fight with the design of the top. As soon as I started quilting, I knew this was the perfect choice, as I LOVE how it's turning out! I can't wait until it's done. Right now I'm a little over a quarter of the way through, and it's taking a while with that many lines close together. But hopefully I can finish it up over the next week or two.

Now I've got to get back to it!

Sneaky peaky

2010-04-18T13:46:00.000-04:00

A little sneak peak of the project I finished yesterday...

I can't show more, because it's for a swap next week and I don't want to give away too much...

I had so much fun making it, and I really hope whoever gets it enjoys it.

Drool worthy

2010-04-12T23:06:00.000-04:00

Look at what arrived today!

My fabric from Hawthorne Threads! Fat quarter sets of Nicey Jane and Modern Meadow!

Nicey Jane:

Modern Meadow:

I can't believe how fast they arrived. I placed my order Friday night, fully expecting they wouldn't ship until today or tomorrow. Imagine my surprise when checking my email last night and seeing an email that said they had shipped on Saturday! And then when I arrived home from work today, there they were! Wow! I must say it again, even though I sound like a broken record, I seriously love Hawthorne Threads. They are going to make me broke, but I love them.

Now, what to make with all this? :)

Sunday Stash: Voiles

2010-04-11T14:19:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I've posted a Sunday Stash...need to get back into the habit.

Today's edition is my stash of Anna Maria Horner's Little Folks voiles. Yuummmm. I just love these fabrics. So soft! The prints I picked up at my local quilt shop, a 1/4 yard in each print they had, and the dobby stripes I ordered from FabricWorm.

I'm going to use them all in a quilt together, I'm thinking maybe just simple patchwork squares. Nothing fancy, just let the fabric do all the work.

Mmm, fabric.

2010-04-09T23:28:00.000-04:00

So, things have just been busy busy busy around here! I don't know how the time has flown by since my last post, but suddenly I realized it had been another week...

Anyway, there's not been much sewing/crafting going on over here, again. We've had visitors and so there's not been time. But I did manage to find the time to order some yummy fabric. ;)

I've been drooling over Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane fabrics since they came out, and hemming and hawing over buying them. I've wanted them since day one, but for some reason couldn't commit.

When the Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow collection came out recently, same story. I instantly wanted them, but just couldn't commit! Why??

So finally, tonight, I just said screw it and ordered myself the fat quarter bundles from Hawthorne Threads. (Side note--Hawthorne Threads is seriously my new favorite online fabric shop. No connection, I just love them. They have EVERYTHING, great prices, fast shipping--what's not to love??) I just threw them in my cart, punched in my gift certificate I'd been waiting to use, and hit submit before I could think twice! And now, I wonder why they heck I kept waiting! So yay, lovely fabrics will soon be winging their way to me. :) And then I need to go on a fabric diet and buy no more as I seriously do not need any more fabric! Hmm, we'll see if that happens.

What I've been doing

2010-04-02T01:16:00.000-04:00

And it's not sewing! Super cute Easter cake pops. Found the idea on bakerella.com.&nAren't they clever? :)
Back soon with actual sewing content!

Radio Silence

2010-03-29T22:21:00.001-04:00

Sorry everyone! I just disappeared, didn't I? Things have been a little hectic here! We finished up our basement remodel finally, thank goodness. But since then we've had some thunderstorms, which means a terrified toddler who won't sleep, which translates into little to no crafting/sewing time for me, since I only get to that after she goes to bed at night. So there's been minimal sewing going on.

But! I did get a little time over the weekend, and I actually finished something! I'll be back soon with pictures...plus I started a new project! Back soon!

Potholders!

2010-03-20T17:41:00.000-04:00

Today we had another meeting of the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild chapter. For today's meeting, we decided last time that we would do a potholder swap. I've never made a potholder before, but I had fun making this one and I think I might make some more in the future.

I almost didn't give this one away, I thought about keeping it and making another one to swap, it is so cute!

And here's the one I received in the swap...isn't it cute? I love the color combination.

Isn't that fun? Next month we're going to swap little quilted tote bags. Can't wait!

(I realize I never came back to post about the quilt show I went to last week...hopefully I'll get around to it!)

Liberty of London at Target

2010-03-14T23:23:00.001-04:00

Today my family and I were shopping at Target for our normal household stuff and I remembered that today was the day the new Liberty of London line for Target was launching! Like a bunch of other bloggers, I've been eagerly anticipating these items, it's probably the only way I'll ever be able to afford anything with these gorgeous prints!

There were some great items there, but I was good and only purchased two things (although I am thinking of going back and trying on some of the sundresses, they were sooo cute...only problem is that I am really too fat to be wearing a sundress, but anyway...).

The first thing I grabbed was this super cute bin. I'm going to use it for my fabric scraps, right now I'm using a little plastic basket and it's overflowing after making only one quilt.

The other thing I grabbed was this set of 3 mixing bowls. They are so pretty! I am going to use them to store basting pins, binding clips, stuff like that. I think they will look so pretty in my craft room.

Aren't they pretty? There are so many other gorgeous things that I want too, but alas, I am not made of money! But I do think I'll go back to check out those sundresses...and the little girls dresses, I just know there will be something that would look super cute on my daughter...

Tomorrow I'll be back with a post about a quilt show I went to yesterday, my very first!

New stash

2010-03-10T20:44:00.001-05:00

So I added some new fabrics to the stash recently. I just couldn't resist!

Below are some 1/2 yard cuts I ordered recently from Hawthorne Threads.

Aren't they yummy?? I've got a bug in me to do a red and aqua quilt (like everyone else I guess!) so I picked up some in those colors. Plus I've got another bug to do a quilt with gray, so I got some gray fabrics. Plus, a few others that I just thought were cute. :) Can't wait to use them! Isn't that new hedgehog fabric ADORABLE?

Also, my LQS was having a precut sale this last weekend. Buy 2, get 1 free, or 25% off each individual one. Sooo I stopped in and picked up some charm packs. Plus, my mother-in-law was with me, and she is so sweet, she bought me a jelly roll I had my eye on! Below is the haul -- top row, L to R -- Urban Chiks "1974" jelly roll, 2 Verna by Kate Spain for Moda charm packs, 1 Simple Abundance charm pack. Bottom row, L to R: Oz by Sanae for Moda charm pack, Leanika charm pack, and Whimsy by Joanna Figueroa for Moda charm pack.

I have no idea what I'm going to make with these, and a few of them are a little different than my usual style, but I'm sure I can come up with something!

I also picked up a few other things recently but have no pictures, so those will have to come another day. Right now, I have to take advantage of my daughter quietly sleeping (she has been an absolute bear to put to bed recently!) and go make something! Be back soon!

Yay!

2010-03-04T23:37:00.001-05:00

Rachandcarl has claimed her prize! Yay, congrats Rachal!

I have so many new goodies I want to share with you all, but things are a bit crazy around here! We've had guests, which has been great, but doesn't leave much time for taking photos of crafty things. And tomorrow we are having new carpet put in our basement, which has required prep, yet another time suck! Hopefully there will be time over the weekend. Until then, we'll be painting, moving furniture, cleaning things up...The fun never ends.

Giveaway Winner!!!

2010-03-03T18:21:00.000-05:00

Yay, it's time to announce the giveaway winner! First, I just want to thank everyone who stopped by and left a comment. I love having visitors to my blog, it's nice to know I'm not talking to myself! :)

Second, thanks especially for the nice comments on my finished projects! I just knew everyone would get a kick out of the chicken saddles, especially! I had never even heard of them until my sister asked me to make them! And you know what her selling point was, in asking me to do it? "Hey, you can write a funny post on your blog about how you sewed some chicken saddles!" Hehe, I think she was right in that it would be good blog fodder!

All right, on to the giveaway...we had 31 total entries, so I plugged the numbers into the Random Number Generator, and the winner is...

Number 5! Which is .... rachandcarl!

Congratulations rachandcarl! Please send me an email to claim your prize! Unfortunately you are coming up as noreply-comment@blogger.com so I have no way to reach you! On the right hand side of my blog ---------->

there is a link to My Profile, from there you can click on the Email link on the left side to send me an email to claim your goodies.

If I don't hear from rachandcarl by Friday, March 5 at 5pm Eastern time, I will choose another winner.

Okay, a whole box of goodies arrived today from Hawthorne Threads, so I need to go pet them. I've also got a bunch of other things I got during some recent sales at the LQS to share. I just haven't had a chance to take any pictures! I really hope I can do that soon. Stay tuned!

Reminder!

2010-03-02T20:56:00.000-05:00

Don't forget! Tonight's your last chance to enter the giveaway, if you haven't already done so! The deadline is Midnight tonight, Eastern time.

I'll be back to announce the winner tomorrow. I do have to work, so it won't be until the evening. Good luck everyone! :)

Sew and Tell - and a giveaway!

2010-02-26T21:45:00.000-05:00

Well, this is my 50th post! I've decided to celebrate by having a little giveaway. Make sure you scroll down for the details.

But first, I have to share my finishes from this week for Sew and Tell!

I have two finished projects this week. The first one is something totally hilarious. Get ready for this...I sewed 6 chicken saddles. Yes, you heard right, chicken saddles!

My sister has a bunch of chickens, and some of them were getting a little torn up on their backs from the roosters jumping on them and scratching them up with their claws. In order to protect the chickens' backs, you can make (or buy) these little chicken saddles! See here for an example!

So my sister bought a few of these saddles for her chickens, and then asked if I could make some more for her. So we headed to Joann's, she bought the fabric and all the necessary notions, and I've been sewing them for her. This week I finished 6, bringing my lifetime total to 10 chicken saddles. ;)

Here's what one looks like (it's just missing the snaps that attach the straps under their wings).

And here's a picture of one of her chickens wearing one, you can just see it:

Isn't that hilarious?

My next finish this week was to finally make a carrying case for my Nook!

I used this tutorial at the Moda Bake Shop for the basic dimensions and directions as to how to make it, although I didn't do the strips and applique as they set it out. I used only scraps left over from making the Perfect 10 quilt top. I also took this opportunity to finally try out free motion quilting! I stippled my little cover, and after a couple of rough starts, and lots of unpicking and retrying, I finally managed to conquer it! My stippling isn't great, but it's halfway decent! I'm so proud of myself! Check it out!

I completely machine stitched the binding, and so that part didn't come out the greatest, but I still think it looks cute. I needed a cover to protect the Nook, and I now have one that is super cute, plus I got to learn some new skills while doing it. What's better than that.

Okay, now on to the giveaway!

In honor of this being my 50th post, and to celebrate the recent completion (and successful gifting--they loved it!) of my Pinwheel Baby Quilt, I am giving away a set of supplies to a lucky reader so that you can make your very own version!

Included is one Wee Play charm pack, as well as the remaining ruler and green numbers fabric that was left after I finished my quilt (about 5/8 yd of the green numbers and 2/3 yd of the rulers).

Just add in your own white cotton and you should have what you need to make the quilt top, binding, and a pieced backing with the leftovers of the two fabrics.

If you'd like to win, just leave me a comment below! Also, you can get another entry, for a total of two, if you mention this giveaway on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, or if you just tell a friend! Just leave me another separate comment telling me you did so. I will accept comments through Midnight Eastern time on Tuesday, March. 2. After that, I will use the random number generator to choose a winner! I'll ship anywhere, so anyone and everyone can enter. Thanks to everyone for stopping by, and good luck!

Okay, phew! I think that might be my longest post ever!

Fun stuff in the works...

2010-02-25T23:49:00.000-05:00

Ooh, I did some fun sewing tonight! I can't wait to reveal it to everyone! But it's not quite ready yet...head back tomorrow for some pictures of a few finished projects this week for Sew and Tell!

Plus, my next post will be my 50th post, so there will be a giveaway! Make sure you stop by!

President of the club? Maybe vice-president. Or secretary.

2010-02-23T22:39:00.001-05:00

Remember this post? I became a member of the official serious sewers club when I
sewed through my finger?

Well, I think I now deserve a higher position in that club. Because yes, I managed to injure myself again because of this hobby.

Tonight, while continuing to clean my sewing room after the big reorganization, I stepped on a random needle that had somehow fallen in the carpet. It jammed about an inch or so into my heel. Why yes, it hurt quite a bit!

But I am relieved it was my foot it went into, and not my daughter's or husband's or sister's, all of whom were in the room with me all afternoon Sunday. Guess I can be grateful for that!

I wonder, do I need a tetanus shot? Eww! ;)

Don't forget-giveaway coming up soon!

Modern Quilt Guild

2010-02-21T10:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I attended the first meeting of the Knoxville chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild.

It was so much fun! We discussed quilting, favorite shops, did a show-and-tell of our projects, had a fabric swap, talked about philanthropy projects we could get involved in, and came up with some ideas for future swaps and bees. It was so nice to get together with others who share my love of fabric and sewing and crafting! I don't know anyone else who enjoys all these crafty pursuits like I do and so it's great to find others to share this hobby with!

We will be meeting every month, hopefully, and I already can't wait for next month's meeting. I think we are all going to have so much fun. If any of my Knox Mod girls are stopping by, a big HELLO to you, it was a great to meet you!

If you would like to join a Modern Quilt Guild chapter, check their site for a list of chapters that have been formed and find one in your area, or if one isn't there already, start one up yourself! It's so worth it!

Speaking of modern quilting, I purchased this pattern this week:

I purchased the pattern from the Blue is Bleu Etsy shop. It arrived super fast! Audrie, the proprietor of Blue is Bleu, has a great blog, too, check it out!

The pattern looks a little intimidating, but I really want to try it. It requires 31 or 36 different fat quarters. I think between my Flea Market Fancy fat quarters, and a fat quarter set of Katie Jump Rope that I purchased recently, I'll have enough. I think that will make an awesome quilt! But I'm so indecisive, I'll have to think about it some more before I jump in!

Also, I wanted to mention, I am approaching my 50th post, only a couple more to go...make sure you come by, because I am going to have a giveaway to mark the occassion!

Perfect 10 quilt top

2010-02-20T16:45:00.001-05:00

I finally got a picture of the fully finished Perfect 10 quilt top!

I really love the way this turned out. Now I just need to figure out how I want to quilt it. It's pretty large, so I'm not sure how that's going to go!

I'll be back soon with another post about something super fun that I did today -- I attended the very first meeting of the Knoxville Chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild! It was so much fun, I'll be back with more details in a separate post.

Sewing room = bit of a disaster area!

2010-02-18T13:20:00.001-05:00

There's not much sewing going on at my house right now. The reason? My sewing room looks a bit like a bomb went off in it!

My husband and I decided to rearrange the furniture this past Monday while I had the day off. We managed to get the furniture--two large L-shaped desks--rearranged. But to do so we had to pull everything out and off...it's not pretty.

I do have a picture of the desks in their new spot. (It's a little bit fuzzy, it's from my cell phone.) We pushed them together to make a big surface in the middle I'll use for sewing and cutting. I'm super excited for all of this space! But you're only getting a picture of one half of the room. What you won't see is what's behind the camera--a huge pile of crap! ;)

Slowly but surely the room is being put back in order so hopefully I'll have some new sewing to show soon.

Perfect 10 quilt top - done!

2010-02-15T02:01:00.001-05:00

I finally finished my Perfect 10 quilt top! I'm not 100% thrilled with the border fabric, but I couldn't decide on anything else, so it will have to do. I'm hoping to get some pictures of the whole top when I baste it in hopefully the next few days, but for now I only have this photo of it folded up. I apologize for the quality, it's from my cell phone. Back soon with more pics and other exciting things!

Cute owls!

2010-02-06T21:04:00.000-05:00

So I am still working on the Perfect 10 quilt. I've got the top 2/3 totally pieced together and done. I just need to finish the bottom 1/3 but I haven't had time this week. I did get out to the LQS today during a sale to pick up the fabric for the border. I got a dark brown with small white polka dots. It matches the dark brown fabrics and I think it's neutral enough that it won't overwhelm the rest of the quilt. I hope it looks okay. I will try to get some pics up soon.

But for the last couple of days, I can't stop thinking about owls! These owls, to be specific, from Pottery Barn:

Photo from PotteryBarnKids.com

Aren't they adorable? I first spotted these owls in the catalog some time ago and I just think they are too cute. I don't want to pay $25 dollars for one, but they have inspired me to think about trying to design my own version of one for my daughter. I like the smaller owl the best and so I am inspired to try to create one in a similar style.

I have some corduroy I picked up at Joanns recently and I'm thinking I might use some to try to make this little owl. I love the idea of being able to pull some really cute fabrics from my stash to dress it up and coordinate it with my daughter's room.

I really don't need another project, but I have a feeling I won't be able to resist trying out one of these owls sometime soon!

It's here.

2010-02-02T20:54:00.000-05:00

There will be no sewing going on in this house tonight.

LOST is back. YAY!

12 Days of Christmas

2010-02-01T21:15:00.000-05:00

I subscribe to the Fat Quarter Shop's newsletter, and one arrived today in my inbox. In it they featured the 2010 Designer Mystery Block of the Month, featuring the upcoming fabric line 12 Days of Christmas by Kate Spain for Moda.

Image from the Fat Quarter Shop

I just love this fabric! I think it is so cute. I don't know why, but I am just drawn to some Christmas/winter fabrics lately.

I also really love this kit they have listed (but won't be available until May).

I don't know what it is about Christmas fabrics that makes me love these more cutesy styles and patterns (like Frolic) but I do. I guess when it comes to Christmas I feel like I can allow my style to be more cute, rather than modern!

Anyway, I think this fabric is super cute and I am eagerly awaiting it. I put myself on the notification list for when the quilt kit comes out and I think I might have to get it when it's available.

Officially part of the club

2010-01-31T20:59:00.002-05:00

I think as of today I am officially part of the serious sewers/quilters club. Why, you ask? Because I did something that I imagine every sewer or quilter does at least once in their lifetime. It's like an initiation rite, I think.

What did I do?

I sewed through my finger.

Yes, I sewed through my finger. I was happily sewing away during the baby's nap, so grateful to see what my sewing room looks like in the daytime hours, when all of a sudden, my finger got sucked in somehow. I think I was reaching to pull out a pin right before it went under the needle and my finger just got in too close. It went right through, luckily just beyond the tip of my nail. I think it would have been much worse had I sewn through the nail. Ew. In my state of shock I started yanking on my finger and in doing so the needle just ripped through my finger. Kind of like when you get an earring torn out of your ear? Yeah. Gross.

But it must have actually punctured me twice. Because in addition to the puncture that tore out of the end of my finger when I yanked it away, there was another entrance and exit wound with THREAD SEWN THROUGH IT. So nasty. I sat there staring at it, thinking to myself, how the hell do I pull this thread out without killing myself with pain? Luckily my wits returned quite quickly and so I picked up my scissors, clipped the threads close to my skin, and then closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then yanked them out. By this time my finger was throbbing, there was blood...I ran and rinsed it off, cleaned it with some peroxide, then bandaged it up. While I was doing that I was literally shaking and felt like I was going to pass out. Usually the sight of blood and stuff like that doesn't bother me but it usually isn't my blood! But it did reaffirm my decision to go to law school instead of medical school, as I thought I might be a bit too squeamish for that, and it looks like I may have been right. :)

I'll spare you any gory pictures. Just know that it was majorly gross.

So what was I working on when I did this? Well, I'm piecing together the Perfect 10 quilt. I finally got all the fabrics cut during several evenings this past week, and started piecing it together. I think it looks awesome!

Here's where it's at now:

Please pardon the messiness of the room peeking out from the edges, especially my huge pile of trimmings from the pinwheel quilt and the christmas pajamas.

I love how this looks! It's hard to tell from the photo, but the quilt divides into three sections that you piece separately, each comprised of three mini-sections within it. I have the top third done (it includes the top three white-sashed squares). I also have a portion of the second third done (the pinkish square on the left above two green squares above a brown square with big pink dots, as well as the white sashed turquoise square to the right of it and the three little squares atop and bottom). Those two pieces will be sewn together and then pieced with the sections to the right of them.

It's going fairly quickly and I'm hoping to have the top finished this week. Then it will be on to quilting!

I do have a question for anyone that cares to opine--do you all use starch when you're piecing? I'm pressing very carefully as I go but even then sometimes everything doesn't stay as flat as I'd like and I'm wondering if others use starch at this stage. I have no idea. Let me know!

Okay, back to the piecing, being VERY careful to keep my finger out of the way!

Baby gifts all done!

2010-01-26T17:00:00.000-05:00

Along with the Pinwheel Baby Quilt I made for our dear friends who are expecting their first baby in March, I also made a flannel receiving blanket, and had plans to make coordinating bibs and burpcloths. I finished the receiving blanket first, made the bibs along the way while working on the quilt, and obviously, finished the quilt recently.

All I needed to do to finish the planned gift was the burp cloths. I've had the burp cloths ready and waiting for the flannel to be sewn on forever, but just hadn't taken the time to get it done. Finally this past weekend I just sat down and did it. It was super simple and quick, I don't know why I kept putting it off. Well, I guess I know why, I was busy making the Christmas pajamas and the quilt. :)

The bibs (which I never posted a picture of), and the completed burp cloths. The bibs are reversible, like the receiving blanket, and there are three burp cloths of each print. I am very relieved to finally have this gift all done, and way ahead of the March due date! I am NEVER done with anything with this much time to spare! I am proud of myself. Now I just need to get the label sewed on the quilt and everything boxed up to be shipped out. Hopefully I can get that taken care of before March!

My next project!

2010-01-25T23:29:00.000-05:00

I've decided on my next quilt project, now that the Pinwheel Baby Quilt is done.

In my last post, I showed some of the cute fabrics I picked up in Atlanta. One of the purchases I made was a cute fat quarter bundle of six Michael Miller prints from Little Quilts. These fabrics were just calling to me and so I decided I wanted to work with these fabrics next.

Lucky for me, while out shopping this past weekend (I just had to check out a few more of the local shops) I found this cute pattern.

It's called Perfect 10, by Swirly Girls Design.

Another crappy photo. My apologies for my recent atrocious photography.

The pattern calls for 10 fat quarters, plus a neutral accent fabric, plus a border fabric. I fished around in my stash, and managed to come up with several other fabrics that matched with the fat quarter bundle perfectly.

The six fat quarters at the top are the bundle I purchased. The four fabrics on the bottom are the ones I pulled from my stash to coordinate.

I love these colors, and I just can't wait to get started! I think I'm going to use white as my accent (see the white square outlines in the pattern above?) and I haven't decided yet on what will be the border. I don't have any other fabrics in the stash in large enough quantities that coordinate to use for the border, so I may have to buy something, or use a solid, either one I've already got or one I'll buy. Haven't decided yet.

I didn't get around to cutting yet, so I'm hoping that I can do that tomorrow and get to piecing! Can't wait, I think it's going to be super cute.

Wow, that's a lot of stuff.

2010-01-18T22:39:00.001-05:00

My family decided to get away this weekend, just for a couple of days. It's a three hour drive from our house to Atlanta, so we decided we'd go overnight and just hang out, hit some shops, eat at some good restaurants, and have fun!

Of course, I mapped out the quilt shops we'd be passing on our way down, so I could stop and check them out!

Our first stop was in Chattanooga at Lavender Lime Quilting. This shop was very cute. They had some of the best displays I've ever seen! Beautiful quilt samples up, super cute packaging of fabrics (for example, coordinating fabrics in what looked like a Starbucks kind of cup, called something cute like a sundae or something like that). The shop had mostly traditional quilting fabrics, but did have some nice more modern fabrics. I picked up some Amy Butler fat quarters, a cute Christmas panel that was on clearance (don't know what I'll use it for, but it was cute!), and some Mary Ellen's Best Press, which I've heard good things about.

Our next stop was Red Hen Fabrics in Marietta, Georgia. This place was huge! They had more notions, books, patterns, rulers, doodads, etc, than I have ever seen in my life. This store is worth visiting for that reason alone. They also had a TON of fabric. Again, mostly traditional quilting fabrics, but a few cute modern fabrics here and there. Here, I did have one super awesome find...some Flea Market Fancy! They had TWO BOLTS of the pink freckles/dots fabric. I was good and only bought a fat quarter to add to my FMF fat quarter collection. But if you are looking for this fabric, give them a call. It was $7.99/yard, I believe, and like I said, two bolts! I picked up some other fun fat quarters, and a drunkards path template so I can make a scrappy circle quilt (like the Roundabout quilt I linked to here).

Next stop, Little Quilts, also in Marietta. This store was AWESOME. When I walked in, the front room was mostly repro fabrics, traditional stuff. But beautifully laid out, very charming. Then I walked through into a back room, and holy cow! They had a whole section with modern quilt fabrics, I was drooling. Nicey Jane, Meadowsweet, Amy Butler Love, lots of Kaffe, Michael Miller...TONS of great stuff. I grabbed quite a few fat quarters, including a super cute fat quarter bundle of Michael Miller fabrics. They also had a corner full of 1930's repros that were very cute. I grabbed a charm pack that had a nice selection of those as well.

While in Atlanta, we also made a stop at Ikea. Love Ikea! While there, I also picked up some sewing related items. First, I was on the lookout for Dvala sheets. I read a tip over at CrazyMomQuilts about this, so I wanted to pick some up. I got two in white, one in red, one in navy, one in khaki, and one different style sheet in a dark gray. So awesome, at around $5 each, for yards worth of fabric! I also grabbed some fabric bundles (they all look like they'd be super cute for baby quilts), a little ironing board, and some boxes that I'm going to use to store my fat quarters.

We returned home last night, and today we went out and searched out some quilt shops in our town that I hadn't been to yet. I have to say, I have the most fabulous husband in the world! He was totally happy to drive me around, stay with the baby in the car while she was sleeping, or come in the store and wrangle her while I looked around. He really spoils me.

So we visited three more shops in the Knoxville area, where we're at, and I bought a few more things. Of the three shops, I'd highly recommend two of them. One is Mammaw's Thimble (sorry, no website). Huge shop. Absolutely huge. Again, mostly traditional fabrics, but tons of Moda Jelly Rolls and charm packs, and a few nice modern fabrics. I was super excited to see a Sweetwater Make Life charm pack, which I grabbed up!

The other shop I'd recommend is called Kat Lover's Pur-fect Quilts and Fabrics (again, no website that I know of). It's a tiny shop, but the staff were SO nice. The nicest of any shop I've ever been in, I do believe. They had a very small selection, but I think it's worth stopping in just because of the service. I did manage to find a very pretty fat quarter pack plus a couple of other fat quarters while there. The fat quarter pack is not my usual style but I was very drawn to it for some reason!

The last shop we visited didn't have much that was my style. It was a bit disorganized and most of the fabric wasn't what I like (I won't mention the name since I'm giving it a less than stellar review). But they did have a ruler organizer there I've been wanting, and I did find two interesting fat quarters. So I grabbed those.

Overall, I'm feeling a little dizzy over the amount of money I spent this weekend on fabric! No fabric buying here for a while! And I just realized that I've bought tons of fabrics over the last month or two that I haven't posted here yet. I need to put those pictures up. You all will think I'm crazy when you see it all here together but know that it was all purchased over time! :)

Anyway, this was a great weekend, I had so much fun with my husband and daughter on our little excursion this weekend (the baby girl was SO good, what a trooper!), and my husband is really a great guy to put up with all this shopping, with a smile the entire time and not a complaint about how long I was taking in each shop!

Now, I need to actually USE some of this stuff!

Non-sewing related, but still fun!

2010-01-14T21:10:00.000-05:00

So in the last couple of weeks, I've gotten two new toys that are totally non-sewing related, but super fun. I have to share them with you.

First, I got a new iPod touch. This was a Christmas/birthday gift to myself I bought with money I received from various family members. This thing has revolutionized my life. I don't know how I lived without it!

Second, I got the new Barnes and Noble Nook eReader. I am so excited! I can download books on the fly and take them wherever I go. It is so cool!

I was telling my husband, with these two items, I think my life is now complete. You could lock me in solitary confinement and so long as I have these two, I'd be okay! :) Well, I'd probably miss my sewing machine. And my knitting needles. And of course, my hubby and the kiddo.

Pinwheel Baby Quilt - Finished!

2010-01-12T23:44:00.004-05:00

The Pinwheel Baby Quilt is finally finished! And I love it! It turned out so beautiful.

I had my hubby take some pictures, sorry, they are kind of crappy, I haven't had a chance to take any with my good DSLR as I don't get home until dark every night!

(Click the pictures for bigger versions where you can see more detail close up)

In these pictures, the quilt is unwashed. I have since washed it, and it's now all crinkly and has a well-used look. I still love it, but I'm a little worried about the recipients! I know that's what quilts are SUPPOSED to look like, but I'm afraid they'll think it looks old or used or something! My hubby keeps reassuring me, saying "That's what quilts are supposed to look like! That's what makes it look like a quilt!" (He's a keeper! :) ) but of course I worry. I had no option but to wash as the finished quilt had pencil lines on it from where I marked it for the quilting. I think I'm going to hit it with the iron and some steam, just to try to smooth it out just a teeny bit (especially the prairie points, they are all curly now) and I think that will make it better.

I will try to get some pictures of the quilt in its washed state, and some better closeups of the quilting. But for now I wanted to get these pictures up so you all could see. I am so proud of myself! For my first real finished quilt, I think I did a great job! :) I can't wait to make another, this time for myself!

Editing to add -- I added this to Sew and Tell over at AmyLouWho's. Go check out everyone else's projects!

Also, I've been getting several emails asking if this Pinwheel Baby Quilt is based on this Moda Bake Shop tutorial. Yes, it is! I mentioned this back in my first post about the Pinwheel Baby Quilt, but I don't know if I've mentioned it again since then, so I want to make sure I direct everyone over there so you can get the pattern if you'd like to make one too!

Update and Goals

2010-01-09T19:06:00.000-05:00

I am still working diligently on the Pinwheel Baby Quilt. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to show! But as I mentioned last time (I think?) I got the quilt all basted and ready for quilting. It took me several days to get the quilting done, and it looks great! I did end up using the multi-colored Sulky thread, and quilting on the diagonal. It was tricky because of the prairie points, I basically had to do the inside lines first, then do all the lines outside the points, making it look as if they are continuous. This resulted in gaps in the stitching on the backside of the quilt, between where I stopped and started, but there wasn't much I could do about that given the quilting pattern I used. This will all be much clearer when I finally have some pictures!

I also cut and machine sewed the binding to the front, and I'm in the process of hand sewing the binding down on the back. It seems like it's taking forever, especially as I don't have much time to do it. I brought it down with me today so that I could do it while relaxing on the couch, watching TV, but of course my daughter decided that she couldn't play with her toys or sit in her chair, she had to sit ON TOP of me, so not much got done. I'm hoping I can make some good progress tonight once she goes to bed!

Since I don't have any pictures to share of my project, I thought I'd use this post to share some of my crafting goals for 2010. I saw a post like this on another blog I visit (can't remember which one now!) and I thought it was a good idea. So here it is: my list of things I hope to accomplish in 2010.

1. Frolic Quilt

I've been collecting fabric for this, and I really would like to get started on it soon. I just know it is going to take me FOREVER. I have hopes that I could have this finished before next Christmas, but I'm not sure that's going to happen. But I do want to get started. I did find this neat tip over at Alison's (Within a Quarter Inch) site that may help me with the applique, so maybe that will speed things up.

2. Roundabout Quilt

I just love the Roundabout Quilt from Amy at A Commonplace Life. I would like to try her tutorial to make one. Maybe with my Flea Market Fancy fabrics? I've got a new stack of Katie Jump Rope fat quarters too (I need to post about those...), maybe I'll throw them all in together for one super happy quilt.

3. Stacked Coins Baby Quilt

I would also like to make the Stacked Coins Baby Quilt from the Moda Bake Shop. I bought a jelly roll specifically for this (Aviary by 3 Sisters), and it's been sitting and waiting ever since. It seems fairly simple and I am hoping this is one I could complete pretty quickly.

4. ZigZag Quilt

I have been planning in my mind a zigzag style quilt, like this one from the Purl Bee. I've been buying various pink and green fabrics for this, imagining one with pink, green, and white rows of zigzags.

5. Dresden Plate

I have a Happy Campers jelly roll and charm pack waiting specifically to be made into a dresden plate quilt. This was probably the first project I wanted to make once I decided to try my hand at quilting. I knew it was probably a good idea to get some other basics under my belt first, and so I haven't started yet, but I think I'm at the point now that I could try!

There are many others that I'd like to try as well (probably some that I'll start before these!) but I'm putting these down as goals for this year. And when I say goals, I mean that loosely. I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't get to it, or do other things first. :) I don't have a lot of spare time and so I may be overly ambitious, but that's okay!

All right, almost time for the little one to get in bed, so I'll be able to get back to that binding...hopefully I'll be back soon with some pictures of a finished quilt!

Holy Cow...Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T20:27:00.000-05:00

Where did the time go? I don't know what happened, I didn't mean to disappear for two weeks, but I guess with the holidays and all that accompanies them the time just escaped me!

I did manage to finish the Christmas pants, for those wondering (not that anybody is :) ). Once I managed to rustle up a picture I will try to post one here. They turned out really great! My daughter's fit GREAT, they were just a tad too long. Mine fit great, perfect length, they were just a tad long in the front crotch-to-waist part. My husband's fit, but were too long. Now I know what adjustments to make for future pairs.

Other than that, there hasn't been much sewing or crafting going on over here. I managed to make two baby bibs to go with the flannel receiving blanket I made our friends. I also managed to get the Pinwheel Baby Quilt basted, and I'm planning on going up to my sewing room as soon as I'm done with this post to get started on the quilting. I hope I can get a good portion of it done tonight, or maybe even finish it. I've decided to go ahead and try using my multi-color thread, I'm going to do simple straight line quilting along the diagonals. I contemplated sending it out for quilting but I really want to do this project all on my own, so I'm going to try it. If it starts to look totally horrible, I may pull it out and change my mind, but I'm going to try first.

I'm also looking forward to some fabric shopping this Saturday. My local quilt shop, the same one that had the crazy after Thanksgiving sale, has been having an end of year sale...the last day is this Saturday, 40% off fabric, including fat quarters, 50% off fat quarter bundles (I'm hoping there are some left!) plus big discounts on patterns, notions, etc. I'm getting up bright and early to go!

In closing, happy new year to all of you! Here's hoping 2010 is everything you're hoping it will be.

Dear Santa...

2009-12-17T22:33:00.002-05:00

Dear Santa,

A little birdie told me that you'd be making some very special deliveries this Christmas, and granting some wishes!

I have been a very good girl this year! Really, I have! I've taken care without complaint of a small person who returns my love and effort with smooshed in peas in the carpet, nose-picking, and darts across the room the second I remove her diaper. ;) I watch the shows my husband wants to watch on TV without complaint even though he rewinds the same two minutes over and over, forcing me to watch it when he doesn't think I'm paying close enough attention because I'm blogging on the computer. ;) I have been a REALLY good girl!

I would be oh so grateful if in return, you'd drop off some Cool and Swell Nicey Jane fat quarter bundles for me! I LOVE them!

And my life would be absolutely complete with some Kiwi and Peach Meadowsweet fat quarter bundles!

Thanks Santa! I know you'll be busy with all the boys and girls of the world, I really hope you can find the time to swing through my corner of town...

Love, Jennifer

PS -- If you want to write your own letter to Santa, swing by the Jolly Jabber for all the details!

New fabric, new project...

2009-12-10T22:36:00.002-05:00

I have been a bad blogger. I just can't seem to find the time in the evenings to get on the computer. I have so little free time between working full time during the day and taking care of my daughter once I get home that it's a wonder I have a minute to do anything else during the day! But anyway...

I finally received my order from Joann Fabrics that I mentioned before. I ordered some new flannel at the $1.99 extended Black Friday sale price. I ordered 3 different one yard cuts for PJ pants for my daughter or perhaps baby items for friends, as well as a bolt of Christmas/winter themed flannel to make matching PJ pants for me, my husband, and my daughter.

Is it just me, or does Joann's seem to have better and cuter prints these days? I think these are all SUPER cute! Obviously the bolt on top is the Christmas Pjs flannel. I love this print! I can't wait to make our matching PJs. I apologized to my husband because I think the print is maybe just a TAD girly, but that's okay, he'll get over it. The background is blue, right? :)

The three on the bottom are definitely new prints I didn't notice when I ordered my first batch of flannels a few months ago. I love them all, but especially the two on the right. That green and blue diamond is especially fabulous and I'm thinking it would make a GREAT backing on a cool, modern baby quilt. I'm wishing I had ordered more than one yard!

The other item included in my purchase was this, a new magnetic pin cushion.

I've been wanting one for a while, and that want turned to need after last week I bumped my little container of pins while working one night and the ENTIRE package fell into my trashcan and pins flew EVERYWHERE. I had to sit there and pick them up and pick them out of the trash. No fun. So the magnetic pincushion was added to the order!

In other news, I completed the next part of the gift for our friends, the parents-to-be (who are the recipients of the yet-to-be-finished pinwheel baby quilt). It's a flannel receiving blanket.

It's double sided. It's hard to tell from the picture but the back side is a narrow green and white stripe. I got the idea for the blanket from this tutorial from Chickpea Sewing Studio, although my dimensions are different (about 30" square). Both flannels are from Joann's. I topstitched around the blanket after turning right side out with green thread (actually two different greens, I just so happened to have two spools of green thread that matched the two slightly different greens of each side of the blanket, so I used one as my top thread and the other in the bobbin) with a wavy stitch.

You can see the topstitching a little better in the photo below:

I am now going to use these same two flannel prints to make a couple of reversible bibs as well as a set of burp cloths. I also need to eventually quilt that darn pinwheel baby quilt so I can finish the whole lot up and send it off to them! I'm just so nervous about quilting that quilt, my first 'real' quilt, and maybe messing it up!

I still haven't decided how to quilt the pinwheel quilt. I don't know how to stipple, I've never done any free motion quilting before. I know it takes practice and so I don't think I want to do it for the first time on this quilt (even if I practice first) and potentially mess up a gift. I'd rather try that on something I'm keeping for myself. I'm thinking diagonal lines maybe, like a half inch on either side of the pinwheel seams? I just don't know. Any suggestions?

I'm also having serious second thoughts about my choice of quilting thread. It's a Sulky Blendables, I think? Color 4108, American Antique. Here's the sample photo of some stitching from the Sulky website. The colors match the quilt colors, but I just wonder if it's going to be too distracting?

What do you think? Yea or nay?

Hopefully I'll have the bibs and burp cloths done sometime this week. And then I've got to do the Christmas pjs to make sure they're done in time for Christmas. I don't know when I'm going to get to the couple of zippered pouches and tissue holders I was wanting to make for Christmas for a few family members...there's just not enough time in the day!

Hopefully coming up soon, the new STACKS of fabric I've been stashing up for the Frolic quilt (why am I so obsessed with making this quilt?), plus a few other things (hint: two fat quarter sets of Denyse Schmidt fabrics) *grin*

--Editing to add--I'm linking this post over at Amy's Sew & Tell. Even though my project was super simple, it was a finish nonetheless, and for me, that's a big deal, since I get so few things done! :)

Pajamas, Part 2 - All finished!

2009-12-05T16:12:00.000-05:00

I am all finished with the pajamas I posted about in my last post. They turned out super cute and the fit is pretty good! As I finished these on Thursday (but was lazy in posting about it), it counts for Sew and Tell so I am going to post my linky over there!

The pants are a little big around the waist, so I know next time I'll just use a little bit shorter elastic to tighten it up a bit. Also, just as I suspected, the velcro on the shoulders is very bulky. And my daughter wants to grab them and rip it open. So next go around, if there is one, I will do a button on each shoulder instead.

But overall I think they turned out quite nice. As I mentioned, I made the size 1, although my daughter is a size 18-24 months/2T. So the sizing is definitely off. Just know it runs big.

But I'm very pleased with myself, given the fact that this is really my first finished garment that is wearable.

I already ordered some more flannel from Joann's (did I mention that already?), including a Christmas print that I'm going to use to make matching pajama pants for me, my husband, and my daughter, for us to wear on Christmas morning. Dorky yes, I know, but I think it'll be cute!

Pajamas, Part 1

2009-12-01T23:03:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, my current sewing project is a set of pajamas for my daughter. I do have a little bit of progress to report!

I am using this pattern, McCalls M4643:

So far I've only completed the pajama bottoms. I have the pieces for the top cut and ready to go, but haven't started on it yet. But the pants turned out really cute!

The flannel I am using is from Joann's. I have heard all over that most of the big pattern company's patterns run large, so I made this in a size 1, although my daughter is 18 months old and wears anywhere between an 18 months and 2T in clothing. This was a good decision, as the pants are nearly exactly the same size as a pair of her store bought pajama pants that I was using as a guide for sizing, which are a size 24 months and a little big on her right now.

I didn't need to modify the length of the legs at all, they are to the pattern measurements, and are about an inch shorter than the legs of her store bought pants (which are a little long, so that's fine), and the same width. I did have to shorten the pattern at the waist though. If I had created the waistband casing according to the pattern directions, the waist would have been about an inch and a half higher than it is in the picture above. I just laid the pants over her store bought pair, matched up the crotch, and figured how much I need to cut from the waist in order to have the right amount of fabric to turn over for the casing and end up with a finished crotch-to-waist length the same as her store bought pants. But other than that, the pants are made to the pattern size 1. I haven't tried them on her but I assume they will fit as when I lay them on top of her store bought pants they are nearly identical.

Next up is the top. It is intended to have velcro at the shoulders, so that the top opens up for the head to go through, and then the shoulder pieces velcro together. I don't know if I like that, so I am thinking of sewing shut one shoulder panel, and then on the other side, instead of velcro, putting a couple of buttons, or maybe snaps. Or maybe I'll just stick with the velcro on the first pair and think about modifications to further sets after I see how this one turns out.

Overall, I am super happy with the pants, and if the top turns out well, I think I will make several more sets of these PJs for her for this winter, as I've got a stack of flannel sitting here (and I actually just ordered some more tonight from Joann's website, now that it's back up and running after its Thanksgiving weekend crash, and they are honoring the Black Friday sale price of $1.99/yard on their flannel through tomorrow night).

Maybe I can come back tomorrow with an actual picture of my daughter wearing the pants...

Sale!

2009-11-28T20:39:00.004-05:00

My local fabric store had their Thanksgiving sale today (the Day After the Day After Thanksgiving Sale!) so I stopped by (twice actually!) to pick up some good stuff. All fabric was 40% off (1 yard minimum), with everything else (fat quarters, notions, patterns, etc) 30% off. I couldn't pass up that deal.

So I got the backing and binding fabric for my finished Pinwheel Baby Quilt. They had some Wee Play yardage, so I ended up with the green fabric with red numbers for the backing, and the blue/green rulers for the binding. I hope it looks okay! I also got some nice variegated Sulky thread to use for the quilting, in blue/green/red/yellow. It's a subtle variegation, not screamingly bright, so I hope it looks okay. If not I think I'll use white instead.

I picked up some fabric (obviously!) I got a couple yard cuts of some cute pinks and greens, a few from the Leanika line I mentioned the other day, and one Michael Miller print, as well as some fat quarters.

I also picked up a few patterns. The first one I bought is Gracie, a cute little girl's dress/top pattern from Portabellopixie.

Photo from SandyHendersonDesign.com

The other three I bought are all quilt patterns. These are the first quilt patterns I've purchased.

The first is called Whimsy Playground, by Crazy Old Ladies. I just loved the cute little owls and birds and trees, and thought it would look really cute in some of the pink and green fabrics I have.

Picture from CrazyOldLadies.Etsy.Com

The next one is called Birdie Big Blocks, from Barbara Brandeburg. I really liked the birds, and it said it was good for learning to applique, which I'd like to do, and again, I think it would look cute in some of the pink and green fabrics I have!

Picture from CabbageRoseQuilts.com

And the last one is one that is totally out of my comfort zone. I'm not sure what about this pattern appeals to me...it's totally different than what I'd call "my style." It seems much more traditional, not modern like I'm normally drawn to, a lot more "cutesy" than what I normally go for....but for some reason I just really like it! I heard this pattern mentioned on the Sew Stitch Create podcast, and then I saw it in person in a quilt shop I visited recently, where they had a sample made up and hanging on the wall. Ever since I've been thinking about it, and when I saw they had the pattern today, I went ahead and bought it. It's light years ahead of my skill level, but what the heck, I'll give it a try.

It's called Frolic, from The Vintage Spool, by Verna Mosquera.

Picture from TheVintageSpool.com

See? TOTALLY different than anything you've seen on this site! I don't know what it is. I just like it!

So that was my haul from today. It was lots of fun. The place was packed and it was crazy, all these women (and a few men too!) jostling around for fabric. Kind of hilarious.

In other news, I'm in the midst of sewing a pair of PJs for my daughter from some flannel I purchased at Joann's recently...hopefully I'll have a successful finished project to show soon!

Meet Peanut, the Eyeless Elephant

2009-11-26T00:16:00.001-05:00

Remember in my last post, I showed a super cute pink fabric with little elephants on it, wearing green blankets on their backs, and said that I was getting ready to use it for a super cute project?

Well, here it is! It's Peanut the Wee (in this case, Eyeless) Elephant! The pattern is from Joelle Hoverson's book Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts.

Isn't she (I've decided to call it a she, because of the pink) so cute?! She's a pink elephant with a green blanket! ;)

I just love how this turned out, and this will be going to my 18 month old as one of her Christmas gifts this year. The only thing left to do is put on some eyes, I just haven't figured out what to use for eyes yet. I don't have any felt like they suggest in the pattern, so I'm trying to figure out if I can use something else I have (buttons?).

I love her ears...

...and her super cute tail.

This was a fun diversion from the quilting of late, and my very first softy. I think it turned out great! I can see many more of these in my future. I'm already imagining a version in a soft corduroy, I think I've got a remnant piece in my stash already that would work great.

It's time for bed, so I'm signing off, but before I go, I hope all my American friends and family have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'll be enjoying my four day weekend.

Edit--I've added this at Sew & Tell for this week!

Sunday Stash, one day late: AGAIN

2009-11-23T21:17:00.000-05:00

Here I am, late by a day AGAIN for Sunday Stash. I don't know why it is on Sundays I just can't remember! Oh well!

This week's offering is a super cute fat quarter I picked up recently at the LQS. When I saw it I immediately had to have it, for what, I didn't know yet. It's Lakehouse Dry Goods' Doll Dresses line, Elephant Toss in Pink. Too cute.

Inspiration has struck, and this piece is on the cutting table tonight. Hopefully I'll have a cute finished project to show you in a day or two...

A Finished Pinwheel Baby Quilt top!

2009-11-21T00:18:00.000-05:00

I actually did it! I finished the Pinwheel Baby Quilt top! And it is awesome! I'm so excited I can participate in another Sew and Tell!

Sorry for the crappalicious photos, they were taken inside tonight after dark with a flash.

I've been working on this slowly but steadily this week, a bit each night. Tonight I finally sewed on the prairie points and the sashing. I LOVE it!

And for being my first "real" quilt top (I don't really count the receiving blanket quilt as it was just squares and weird stretchy flannel, etc), I think my piecing is pretty good! Nearly all of my corners and points line up, there are one or two that are a hair off but you don't notice it unless you know to look for it. I doubt the recipients will look that closely!

Now I just need to get some backing and binding fabric. I have an early morning hair appointment tomorrow that isn't too far from the LQS so I think when I'm done with that I'll swing over there and pick something up. I noticed they've got some yardage of Wee Play and so hopefully I can get something that coordinates.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In other exciting news, there is a giveaway going on over at the Flea Market Fancy Freaks blog!

Run right over, there is all kinds of good stuff to be given away, including 29 fat quarters of FMF! Unfortunately, not all to the same person. ;) Wouldn't that be awesome! I'm running right over to enter, you should too!

Slowly but surely...

2009-11-17T20:40:00.000-05:00

...progress is being made on the Pinwheel Baby Quilt.

I got all the pinwheels sewn together last night. Here I am auditioning them on the floor last night.

Sorry for the crappy photo, I had the wrong lens on my camera and I just couldn't get far enough away from the quilt lying on the floor, even standing on a couch, hence the funky angle and weird photo.

I switched the pinwheels up a bit from this layout, for better distribution of the colors and fabric patterns, and I now have all the rows of three sewn together. Now I just need to sew the four rows together and I'll have the top mostly done, and I'll have to move onto the sashing and prairie points. That's the plan for tonight, hopefully I'll have a completed top tomorrow! (Or maybe Thursday...)

Moving Right Along

2009-11-16T20:35:00.001-05:00

I have in fact made some progress on the Pinwheel Baby Quilt. I managed to get all my half-square triangles pieced, and now I've joined sets of two together to form the tops and bottoms of the pinwheels.

Tonight I plan on joining the tops and bottoms of the pinwheels together. And if I'm able to finish that, maybe I can actually figure out the layout of the pinwheels and start piecing them to each other. I'm pretty slow so it might take a while. Luckily the baby won't be here until March so I've got plenty of time to finish (I hope!).

Sunday Stash, one day late: Flea Market Fancy

2009-11-16T20:22:00.000-05:00

So I missed Sunday Stash again. But rather than remember on like Wednesday, like last week, I actually remembered this morning, and figured one day late was better than never, right?

Here's this week's stash--my newly acquired Flea Market Fancy. This my stash of fat quarters, all acquired through swaps of the lovely blue seeds I found. Aren't they pretty??

Mmm, Pretty Fabric

2009-11-13T23:10:00.001-05:00

So, although I did make some nice progress on my Pinwheel Baby Quilt last night, sewing a good portion of the half square triangles, I don't have any pictures. Sooo, instead I am going to post some pictures of some pretty new fabric I found and am lusting after.

One of my favorite pasttimes recently is to visit my favorite online fabric stores and put all the fabric I want into my cart. And then I click away from the store without purchasing anything. It makes me feel like I'm shopping but without spending any money. :P

Today I was doing this over at Sew Mama Sew and came across a new fabric line. It's called Leanika, by Free Spirit.

I don't know why, but I just LOVE it! Maybe it's the cute little birds! Here are some of my favorites.

I think this would make the sweetest little girl quilt....thank goodness I have a little girl!

The Latest Project - Pinwheel Baby Quilt

2009-11-12T22:26:00.003-05:00

I finally decided on my next project when I happened to be visiting a new local quilt store yesterday while out having fun with my family on a day off from work.

I was browsing the store, which had mostly stuff that wasn't quite to my taste (but was a nice little shop full of tons of patterns, kits, notions) and found a whole stack of these Wee Play charm packs in a little nook.

I've been wanting to make a quilt for some friends who are expecting (and who aren't finding out the sex, necessitating gender-neutral gifts) and have been trying to decide on a pattern and fabric. I really wanted to make this Pinwheel Baby Quilt from the Moda Bake Shop but I only had two charm packs, neither of which would work. I also really liked the idea of the Wee Play fabrics for a baby quilt good for girl or boy, but only had a Jelly Roll which I had already committed to another project, and which wouldn't work for this anyway (unless I wanted really tiny pinwheels). So when I came upon these charm packs I grabbed up two, knowing immediately what I would use it for.

I cut my white squares first from Kona Cotton White, and then I separated out the charm squares and chose 24 for the pinwheels. There are six color families in the Wee Play line (dark blue, light blue, red, green, yellow, and orange) so I chose 4 charms from each color family, coordinating sets of 2 to use in each pinwheel of each color. I'll end up with two pinwheels of each color.

These are the charms I chose for the pinwheels, although you can't see all the individual ones I chose. The remainder will be used for the cute prairie points in the pattern.

Rather than following the tutorial exactly, which calls for the charms and background squares to be cut into triangles which are then sew together for the pinwheels, I'm simply pinning the charms to the white squares, marking on the diagonal, and then sewing two lines a quarter inch on either side of the diagonal, then cutting down the diagonal, resulting in two half square triangles. Feels like this eliminates an extra step or two.

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow or soon after with some more pictures of sewn triangles or perhaps even some finished pinwheels!

Bad Blogger

2009-11-10T21:56:00.000-05:00

I am a bad blogger! But I have a reason for it. We've had family visiting since the weekend and so there's been no time for anything crafty. But they are leaving tomorrow, so I'll have some time to work on some projects. So hopefully tomorrow I'll be back with a picture of SOMETHING! :)

Christmas Coasters

2009-11-05T23:10:00.004-05:00

Finally, another finished project! Took me long enough.

I decided to tackle a relatively easy project. Some simple Christmas coasters. I picked up two coordinating fat quarters of these Michael Miller fabrics recently and decided to make some reversible coasters. I was originally going to try for some pinwheel coasters, but I decided instead to just make simple reversible squares.

I cut squares from both fat quarters, I think they were 4 1/2" square.

Right sides together, I sewed around with a 1/4" seam, leaving a gap on one side for turning, and clipping the corners.

I then cut squares of batting around 4 1/4" square, and then holding them in place on the wrong side of the fabric, turned the squares right side out with the batting getting stuffed inside in the process. (This turned out to be much easier than what I tried for the first coaster, which was to stuff the batting through the turning hole AFTER I turned the coaster right side out, after which I had to fiddle with it for 10 or 15 minutes to lie square because all it wanted to do was get stuck and stick to the fabric where it shouldn't be.) I used a point turner to poke out my corners.

I then turned in the edges of the hole and pinned it shut, and top-stitched around the entire coaster at somewhere between a 1/8" and 1/4" seam (I wasn't super precise from one coaster to the next.) This finished off the coasters and sewed shut the turning hole.

Super easy. I'm sure I didn't need to explain how I did these here, as even the most beginning of beginners could figure this one out. But I like 'em! Can't wait for Christmas to use them!

Editing to add -- I've added my project to Sew and Tell over at AmyLouWho's. Go check out everyone else's links!

Editing again -- I am totally lame, I messed up in adding my link at Sew and Tell and accidentally linked to my blog and not this post, as we were specifically instructed to do. I just had a total boneheaded space out moment. Sorry! Hopefully people will still stop by and check out my humble coasters. :)

Block Party Giveaway!

2009-11-03T20:56:00.000-05:00

Head on over to the Block Party blog where they are having a fun giveaway!

In honor of the kickoff of their new quilt along they are giving away two fat quarter packs.

Images from Block Party

So head on over and enter for a chance to win!

Sunday Stash: Flannel

2009-11-01T22:48:00.000-05:00

This week's Sunday Stash is not very exciting. It's my stack of inexpensive flannels from Joann Fabrics. I bought these to make some PJs for my daughter, maybe some pajama pants for me, and some burp cloths and other baby items for some friends who are expecting. I got most of them while Joann was having a recent 50% sale on flannel (much to my dismay it went on sale for 60% off not long after I bought them all...oh well!)

Joann Fabrics Flannels

Swappy McSwaperson

2009-11-01T20:02:00.000-05:00

That's me! Today I managed to swap away the majority of my Flea Market Fancy blue seeds for 19, yes you heard correctly, that's 19 fat quarters of various other FMF prints. I'm going to drop all the fabric in the mail tomorrow and I should be getting my fabrics sometime soon. I'm so excited!

In other news, I finally gave the new machine a whirl today. I sewed a little on a couple of scraps just to try it out. It's so smooth, so quiet, and so FAST! I can't believe how different it feels from my old machine. I can't wait to really use it, it seems like it's going to make everything so much easier! Hopefully soon I'll have some pictures of a new project.

Right now I'm trying to decide which quilt to make next. Since I finished the receiving blanket quilt I haven't started one. I started a couple of Christmas coasters and the Village Frock. Both are in progress, but I've been waffling on which quilt to do next. I want to do a coin quilt with one of my jelly rolls, a dresden plate with another, a hexagon Grandmother's Garden type hand-pieced quilt with the third, and then I have another charm pack that is intended for either a pinwheel or hourglass pattern. Decisions decisions! I want to make a baby sized quilt for some friends who are expecting, who I thought by now would know the sex to help me narrow down my selection, but they told us recently they don't intend to find out. So now I have to come up with something unisex. No big deal, but just adds another layer of decision making to the whole project! I need to hurry up and pick something out!

Coming up next, Sunday Stash...

Guess what came to live at my house?!

2009-10-31T22:39:00.002-04:00

You'll never believe this! I can barely believe it myself. Guess what came to live with me?

Yep, a brand new Janome MC 6600P, which I just talked about recently. Crazy!

Right after I posted about it, I stopped into the local Janome dealer just to "take a look." Well, they didn't have any in stock. They said it's very popular and they have a hard time keeping them in stock. I figured this was probably a good thing, as I was sure if I had seen it in person I would want one. So I told them I'd check in every so often and once they got one I'd stop in to see it.

Well, little did I know that after this, my husband starting calling around to all the Janome dealers nearby, checking to see if anyone had one. Well, none of them did. Until this week. A day or two after he confessed to me he had been trying to find one, the local dealer got one in stock. My husband called me at work to tell me he was going to pick it up! I half-heartedly tried to talk him out of it, but it didn't work. When I got home from work on Thursday it was waiting for me! Since I learned of this machine I've checked out some Bernina's and a Husqvarna, as well as the Pfaffs online. This one seemed to have a lot of great features and was the only one at a price range I could even begin to contemplate.

So this is my belated anniversary, Christmas, birthday, and probably next Mother's Day gift all rolled into one! I can't wait to try it out. I only opened the box today and I'm going to run upstairs right now and see if I can work up enough bravery to try sewing a stitch on it. I started on the Village Frock the other day and I would love to finish it up on the new machine. Now I just have to give it a name....

Fabric Splurge

2009-10-27T23:45:00.001-04:00

I got some good news today at work, and so to celebrate, I let myself have a little fabric splurge tonight!

I was reading through blogs, and noticed over at Fabric Family and Fun a post saying that she was having a 20% off deal in her shop Above All Fabric on all Michael Miller fabrics. So I popped over to check it out, and before I knew it a bunch of Michael Miller fabrics, some sale fabrics, and a few other pieces just fell into my basket!

I picked up a nice selection of dotty fabrics:

Candy Ta Dot

Minnie Ta Dot

Celery Ta Dot

Lagoon Ta Dot

Tangerine Ta Dot

In addition to those (and some other dots), I also picked up a nice variety of some other fabrics, including:

Amy Butler Midwest Modern Moss Nouveau Trees

Amy Butler Midwest Modern Olive Garden Maze

Pillow and Maxfield Whimsy Kiwi Dottie Grid

Paula Prass Flights of Fancy Ocean Cobblestone

All in all, I got 26 separate 1/2 cuts....13 yards total! Wow, I went a little crazy. :) Can't wait til it all gets here!

Sunday Stash is for the birds

2009-10-25T22:15:00.000-04:00

This week's installment of Sunday Stash is courtesy of my shopping trip to the local fabric store yesterday. In addition to my fabulous Flea Market Fancy find (say that three times fast!) I also picked up a few fat quarters. These two caught my eye right away and since there's a little theme here I thought I'd show them both for this week's Sunday Stash.

I saw these cute little birds and just couldn't resist. The fabric on the left is from the Hopscotch collection by Red Rooster Studio. The one on the right is from Feathered Friends by Wendy Slotboom for In the Beginning Fabrics. Super cute.

Score!

2009-10-24T14:55:00.002-04:00

So I stopped into the local fabric store today to browse around. I went there for the first time a few weeks ago and was totally overwhelmed by the huge selection! I bought a few things and wanted to go back for a more leisurely stroll through.

I had noticed last time, tucked back in a little corner, a nice selection of American Jane Recess fabrics. Near the end of my shopping trip today, I wandered back into that corner to have another looksee. I bought a Recess jelly roll recently and thought I might pick out some yardage of one of the fabrics to use as the centers in the dresden plate quilt I'm thinking of using it for.

Well, guess what I found? Tucked in between all the bolts, I see this:

Flea Market Fancy by Denyse Schmidt - Blue Seeds

Can you believe it? 5.75 yards of FMF goodness. I couldn't believe my luck. I snatched it right up, took it to the cutting counter, asked them to measure how much was on the bolt, then said that I'd take it all. Plus I got 20% off with my frequent buyer membership! (Although their prices are a little higher so it pretty much evens out to normal retail.)

I'm hoping to keep some for myself, use some for swaps to get some other yummy fabrics, and then maybe give some away here in a giveaway. So everyone keep your eyes peeled here...

Go check out True Up!

2009-10-22T21:18:00.000-04:00

If you love fabric, you should go check out True Up! It is an awesome blog dedicated to fabric. They post all kinds of great information about all things fabric-related. Right now, they are having a giveaway for some very cute Japanese fabric. Head on over and check it out!

Finished Receiving Blanket Quilt

2009-10-22T21:02:00.003-04:00

I finally managed to take and upload some pictures of the finished Receiving Blanket Quilt. Although you'll have to forgive the crappy quality of my photos. I have a very nice camera and am normally a pretty good photographer, but I work during the day and by the time I get home at night and can take the pictures (once the little one is in bed) it's dark and it's only ugly indoors w/flash photos that I can get.

Here's the front, you can see some puckering but I still think it turned out super cute.

Click the picture to see a bigger version up close.

Here's the back. As I mentioned before, this is pieced from the remainders of a twin size Pottery Barn flat sheet that matches the bedding in my daughter's room, that I originally cut up to sew her crib sheet. I managed to get this backing out of the L-shaped piece that was left after cutting out the piece for the crib sheet.

Click the picture to see a bigger version up close.

And here's a closeup of the binding. I love, love, love this pink stripe fabric I used for the binding! I have no idea what it is, I bought it as a remnant at Joann's, but I think it matches perfectly. And I think I did a pretty good job of sewing the binding, you can't see my stitches unless you look REALLY hard. I used this tutorial for an invisible ladder stitch, it was excellent!

Click the picture to see a bigger version up close.

Now it's time to move to the next quilt. I just have to figure out which one I want to do next!

Oh--I forgot to mention when I posted this earlier...I quilted this on my cheapy little Kenmore machine, using my walking foot and setting the metal stitch guide at an inch and a half. With six inch squares, this put a line directly through the middle of each square, then another line through the middle of each half of the square. I then stitched in the ditch to finish it up (although I think maybe I should have done that first, as maybe it could have prevented some of the puckering. Oh well, live and learn.)

Sunday Stash

2009-10-18T18:18:00.000-04:00

So I've seen around blogland other bloggers showing their stash on Sundays. Since I am super nosy and love to see what kinds of things people have in their stashes, I figured I'd adopt this for my own blog as well.

Believe it or not, I don't have a huge fabric stash. I think this is because I'm fairly new to sewing. ;) For now I'll just pick one or two things each week to feature, and hopefully with stash enhancement I'll have enough to keep showing each week!

This week's stash is from Moda's American Jane, the new Happy Campers line. I recently purchased a jelly roll and charm pack, from the Fat Quarter Shop and Missouri Star Quilt Co.

My original plan was to make a dresden plate quilt with these, but I'm waffling on that now. I bought another American Jane jelly roll, the Recess line, and I'm thinking of using that one instead. So as of right now I don't know what I'll use this for, I'll see if inspiration strikes.

No progress

2009-10-16T21:46:00.000-04:00

I haven't made any progress on any project this week, most of all my receiving blanket quilt. I had hoped to have it finished so that I could put up an entry in ParkCityGirl's Bloggers' Quilt Festival, but alas, it was not to be.

Between work I had to do at home on Sunday, Monday night, and last night, and just being too darn tired on Tuesday and Wednesday, I just didn't have any time to work on it and finish it up. It's at the exact same place it was when I last blogged about it. And I'm not going to get any work done it tonight as I didn't get to bed until almost 2am this morning, then was up at 6:30am for work, so I am exhausted once again and am going to take the opportunity to go to bed early tonight (as soon as I post this!) and try to get a full night's sleep before the little one wakes me up bright and early sometime in the 6:00 hour tomorrow morning like she always does.

Hopefully there will be some sort of crafty progress made at some point this weekend!

Cute tiny dresses

2009-10-15T23:33:00.004-04:00

Tonight I purchased the pattern for the Village Frock from Sugar City Shop.

Picture from Sugar City Shop - Village Frock

I want to make this dress for my daughter, I think it is so beautiful! Very classic style, but still cute. I've been inspired by these gorgeous fabulous versions.

Although all of the versions I seem to be drawn to are made with solid fabrics with perhaps a pattern trim, I am drawn to these two prints in the new Amy Butler Love collection:

Amy Butler Love Water Bouquet Midnight

Amy Butler Love Memento Midnight

But I just don't know how these larger patterns would look in this dress. Maybe I can find a nice neutral solid and use one for the binding? But then I'd lose the impact of the large beautiful flower patterns. Hmm, decisions, decisions...

I'm a slowpoke

2009-10-14T22:49:00.001-04:00

Well, I don't have a finished receiving blanket quilt yet. I've got the majority of the quilting done, but it is taking forever. I had to unpick a bunch of the lines I had quilted, losing about an evening's worth of work, because somewhere in the process the stitch guide on the walking foot had gotten pushed over and was at the wrong width so my grid pattern was totally off. But I've sewn most of the vertical lines, everything except the lines in the seams, and am halfway done with the horizontal ones.

But, the flannel top is puckering badly as I quilt it. I think it's because it's such cheap flannel from the blankets, and it stretches like mad. So I'm getting lots of puckers as I cross-quilt across the vertical lines I've already done. But I don't know how to fix it. It doesn't look horrible, so I'm just going to leave it and hope when I wash it when it's done, the whole thing will get puckery anyway and kind of disguise it. Oh well, it's my first try. I hope when I make my next one using regular quilting cottons that I won't have the same stretch problem. Other than that, it is looking really cute! But geez louise, it hurts my arms and wrists to push it through the machine and try to keep it all bunched up to fit under the arm.

Hopefully it will be done some point this weekend and I'll be able to put some pictures up. In the meantime, I'm contemplating some smaller projects for some instant gratification. I bought two fat quarters of this Michael Miller Christmas fabric on Monday during an outing to a local quilt shop I was visiting for the first time:

Michael Miller Fabrics' Christmas Joyful Damask in Red and Lime

And I'm thinking of making some of these quilted pinwheel coasters from The Long Thread:

Picture from thelongthread.com

I think they'll be cute for the holidays with the two fabrics together, or maybe even as cute little gifts for someone I know.

Sewing Machine Lust

2009-10-13T21:34:00.000-04:00

So in perusing the various craft and sewing blogs I follow, I came upon a post by a woman where she talked about her new sewing machine, a Janome MemoryCraft 6600P.

Curiosity got the better of me, as I've been reading about all different kinds of machines--Berninas, Janomes, Pfaffs--and so I looked it up to get an idea of its features, price, etc. Just the other day I was at a local sewing/fabric/quilt shop and took a look at some Berninas and was wondering how this would compare.

Well, this was a mistake. Big mistake. I now have major love for this 6600P. It looks like the perfect machine for me! And at a much more reasonable price point than any of the Berninas with comparable features (although still far out of reach for me!). It's got the Accufeed system, variable speed, automatic thread cutter, a knee lift, a bajillion needle positions...plus tons of other good stuff.

I have to put it out of my mind! Maybe someday. Hmmm, wonder how much money I can make from selling all the craft supplies I don't use any more...

Sharin' the Love

2009-10-13T20:20:00.000-04:00

Amy Butler recently released her newest line of fabrics, Love. It's absolutely gorgeous.

Picture from Mrs. Schmenkman

I don't have any yet in my hot little hands, but I would love some. Would you like some? If so, go on over to Mrs. Schmenkman's, where she is giving away a stack of fat quarters. Hurry over quickly and leave a comment to enter into the drawing...I've already left mine!

Receiving Blanket Quilt

2009-10-09T21:19:00.003-04:00

I just recently decided that I wanted to try my hand at quilting. I've had a renewed interest in sewing recently, and have sewn a few bags, and decided I wanted to progress to quilting.

I immediately decided that for my first quilt, I wanted to make one for my daughter, as a kind of memento. I have had a stack of her receiving blankets sitting in her room for quite some time, since we stopped using them for her, and I had the idea that I would cut up the receiving blankets into squares and piece them together to make her a quilt. I also decided that I would back the quilt with some leftover sheets that matched her bedroom set. When I was decorating her nursery, the crib sheet that matched her discontinued bedding set was nowhere to be found, but I could find sets of sheets in other sizes on Ebay (thank you Pottery Barn for making matching bedding sets from crib through queen size!). I had bought a twin set and cut up one sheet to sew her crib sheet. I figured I could use the leftover pieces, and the fitted sheet as well, to make a backing for the quilt.

Here's a pic of the Ava bedding, the crib sheet you see here is the sheet fabric I decided to use for the backing.

Pottery Barn's Ava bedding set

With my plan set, I went through the blankets, and picked out six different patterns in pink/white/green colors and patterns to match the PB Ava sheets I was going to use as backing. I have a pink stripe that reminds me of the pink stripe in the quilted bedding, a couple of tone-on-tone pinks, a white with pink flower, and a green gingham that goes well with the green gingham ribbons on the bedding set. My hope is that the quilt will nicely match her room, which has the above crib bedding, and also a double bed with the full bedding set on it.

I cut them up into 6 1/2 inch squares, with the plan that I would make a simple 6 square by 8 square quilt top. I arranged the squares, and then started sewing. A really horrible, inside-at-night picture of the quilt top pieces is below:

I then sewed the blocks together in rows, then sewed all the rows together. I pieced the two strips leftover of the twin top sheet that I had cut to sew her crib sheet into a backing. I've made my quilt sandwich, and just last night I began the quilting process. I'm doing straight line quilting with the walking foot on my machine at 1 1/2 inch intervals, which results in quilting on every seam, down the center of every block, and then again through each half of the block between the seams and center quilting line. I got about half done last night, and I'm hoping to do more tonight and maybe even finish it up.

I've already cut my binding strips, I picked out a cute pink and white striped fabric that was a remnant from my stash. Hopefully I'll have everything completed in the next few days, in time to participate in the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Here we go!

2009-10-08T00:05:00.000-04:00

Well, I've decided to go ahead and start a blog to record my crafty pursuits. I've recently become addicted to reading craft blogs (how did I ever live without Google Reader?) and thought I'd like to share my own projects.

I do a little bit of everything. I love to knit, and this has been my main outlet for the past several years. But recently I've begun sewing and this has quickly rivaled knitting for my attention. I've also scrapbooked, although this has fallen by the wayside over the last few years, but I need to do this more now that I've got cute baby pictures to document. I've made jewelry over the years, I used to cross-stitch, I embroider often...it's actually quite exhausting to think of all the things I've tried!

I'd like a way to document my projects, and knowing how much I love to be nosy and look at what others are making, I thought someone out there might be interested in seeing what I make. I want to use this blog to share what I'm working on, my stash(es!), what I'm into at any given point in time...you know the drill.

Coming up next...my recent foray into quilting! But that will have to wait until tomorrow, as it is way past my bedtime and the buzz of the alarm clock waking me up bright and early for work will be here all too soon.

Sew Stitchy

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

A little non-quilty sewing

Hello bandwagon, room for one more?

No progress.

My next project

February Blogger's Pillow Party

Patchwork and Quilting Blog List

Stashing of a different sort

Friday Flickr Inspiration

Finally!

A few finished quilt tops and some future quilts!

A very late Christmas pillow, and a new project

Goodbye 2010, hello 2011!

2010 recap (i.e., Goal Fail, but Overall Win)

I am alive!

Blog break!

Catching up.

Bliss

Urban Home Goods swap package sent!

DQS9 received!

Sew and Tell Friday - Doll Quilt all finished!

Catching up!

Hexagon swap

Quilt show wrap-up

Stash, Squares, and Shows!

Tempted

New fabric storage!

*Tap Tap* Hello, is this thing on?

Doll Quilt Swap 9

Sew and Tell Friday - Pillow Talk Swap 3 pillow!

I am so indecisive!

I'm back, with a lot more fabric!

Purl!

Pillow Talk Swap Round 3

Quilts for Kids - a finished quilt!

Vintage Sheet Swap

Actual quilting in progress!

Sneaky peaky

Drool worthy

Sunday Stash: Voiles

Mmm, fabric.

What I've been doing

Radio Silence

Potholders!

Liberty of London at Target

New stash

Yay!

Giveaway Winner!!!

Reminder!

Sew and Tell - and a giveaway!

Fun stuff in the works...

President of the club? Maybe vice-president. Or secretary.

Modern Quilt Guild

Perfect 10 quilt top

Sewing room = bit of a disaster area!

Perfect 10 quilt top - done!

Cute owls!

It's here.

12 Days of Christmas

Officially part of the club

Baby gifts all done!

My next project!

Wow, that's a lot of stuff.

Non-sewing related, but still fun!

Pinwheel Baby Quilt - Finished!

Update and Goals

Holy Cow...Happy New Year!

Dear Santa...

New fabric, new project...

Pajamas, Part 2 - All finished!

Pajamas, Part 1

Sale!

Meet Peanut, the Eyeless Elephant

Sunday Stash, one day late: AGAIN

A Finished Pinwheel Baby Quilt top!

Slowly but surely...

Moving Right Along

Sunday Stash, one day late: Flea Market Fancy

Mmm, Pretty Fabric

Tap Tap Hello, is this thing on?