Because I Sew So

WIP Wednesday-Down on the Farm

2012-02-08T01:00:00.000-05:00

The first 55 blocks for the Farmer's Wife Quilt Along

After having the cold that kicked my butt for almost 2 weeks straight (made me lose my voice and everything) I finally felt like sewing this past weekend. But the only thing I managed to work on was my Farmer's Wife Quilt Along project. I had gotten a little behind on these blocks and then the group decide to take a break over the holidays. I imagined I would get caught up during that time but instead I worked on other projects and so with the group kicking it back into gear today I felt the pressure to use this weekends sewing time to get caught up. Get ready for some pictures in no particular order.

Block # 25 Cups & Saucers

Block #56 Maple Leaf

Block #51 Hovering Birds

Block # 2 Autumn Tints

Block #103 Whirlwind

Block #107 Windblown Square

Block # 23 Country Farm

Block #98 Waterwheel

Block #108 Windmill

Block #73 Rainbow Flowers

Block #111 Wrench

Block #29 Economy

Block # 1 Attic Windows

Block #83 Spider Web

Block #31 Evening Star

Yup I made all but three of those on Saturday and Sunday. One of the blocks (Windmill) was done but it had a block turned the wrong way. Turns out I had to rip out like 7 seems on Sunday to fix it but now it's made the right way. The other two blocks (Maple Leaf & Hovering Birds) I sewed together Tuesday night. I had cut out all the pieces for Hovering Birds in between commercials on Sunday (you know the real reason to watch that thing called the Super Bowl).

Be sure to head over to Lee's and check out what everyone else is up to this week.

The First Finish of 2012 (well at least 1/2)

2012-01-19T05:00:00.000-05:00

My mom and I worked together on this quilt for my nephew. It's hard to believe he is almost a year old already. And with a face like that who wouldn't want to make as many quilts as possible just to get in a little bit of extra snuggle time.

Finishes Max and Whisker's Quilt

It all started last year when Julie released a bunch of patterns designed to be used with the lazy angle rulers. I knew I wanted to make one or two of these quilts. I also knew I needed to find a good excuse to make something with the Max and Whiskers line because it was just so cute. My mom and I went on a mini quilt shop hop last year around the same time and one of the stores we stopped at had the pattern, ruler, a jelly roll, and yardage of Max and Whiskers. We ended up picking the Fast Forward pattern.

I started things off by sewing together the jelly roll strips and cutting out the blocks. I did make a huge mistake when cutting the orange grunge fabric. I left my fabric folded in half thinking I would be smart and cut two pieces at the same time. Needless to say I ended up having to recut half of those pieces because they were all backwards. It was completely my fault because after rereading the pattern Julie even mentions not to do this.

Close up of quilting and stars

Once the blocks were together the pieces and I went to visit my mom and at that point we sewed the rows together and laid them out. It was at this point that we decided to skip the sashing between the rows which is what gave us these more defined stars. And since we were making the lap size quilt for a small child size wasn't really a factor. Once the quilt top was together my mom took it to her local long arm quilter who quilted the sweetest little paw prints on the quilt. She says it was intentional but I love that the stars ended up with a great clear paw print in them.

Back of the quilt

For the back of the quilt my mom used a piece of yardage we picked up for the back and left over pieces from the front of the quilt. I love that print on the back and I think it is one of my favorite from the entire line. I loved working on this quilt with my mom and I would recommend Julie's patterns for anyone looking for a fun and quick project. If speciality rulers aren't your thing she does include a template for the blocks. But with a whole line of patterns designed for use with the rulers and a ton of other ideas on the internet it really is worth the investment.

WIP Wednesday

2012-01-18T09:20:00.000-05:00

How is it already Wednesday again? You would think that the three day weekend would have helped but the truth is I just feel that much more behind. I did make some progress this week though. I finished piecing my Loulouith Tiles Quilt.

This quilt has really been a lot harder than I expected. I did a few things different from Rachel's suggested pattern. I increased my size to a queen because I wanted it to be big enough for my bed. Rachel suggested adding a row to the top and side but I found I actually needed to work them both in to the height to get to the queen size I wanted since the width was already there. I worked in one of my extra rows in the middle and the other at the top. So far I am happy with the way this one is coming together. I just need to piece a small strip for the back and then this one will be off to the long arm.

I'm still not sure if I'll had some hand stitches in those picture frames or not. Anyone have any thoughts on that? I think it would look good but I picked up my backing fabric on sale and it even though it is from the same line the fabric does not appear in the front of the quilt and I'm not sure it would look good with the hand stitches.

My fabric came in for my Sunny Trails Quilt I just needed the white fabric still so I am picking that project back up to work on. I don't think it will be much longer before that one is ready to go to the quilter as well. Now for this one I do plan to have it quilted all over by the long arm and then I will go back in and add some hand stitches so it will be a nice combination of the two. I like the idea of hand quilting but I'm a little afraid of it as well. Quilts around my house take a lot of beating between washes and dogs so I need them to hold up and I'm just afraid a little hand quilting won't last.

Sorry for the iphone photo but my camera died.

Finally I am working on getting my center pieced for the Awesome Rawsome Round Robin Group. It is a spin off of the Old Red Barn Quilt Along group and I am super excited about this project. Since I'm not participating in any bees this year I wanted something to do with a small community of quilters and this seemed like a good idea. As the top goes around my group each person will add a round. I plan to add more to this before sending it off to the next person. Think braid and mini weather vane blocks, hopefully I can pull it off.

Be sure to head over to Lee's to see what everyone else is up to this week.

Holy Quilt Along Batman!

2012-01-12T13:02:00.000-05:00

So along with all the list, resolutions, and goals popping up all over the internet for 2012 there are also a ton of new quilt alongs to get those creative juices flowing. Have you seen them? Are you looking for something to do? Do you need a fun project to jump start your 2012 sewing? I'm not going to claim this to be a comprehensive list because I am sure I have missed some. If you know of a quilt along I've left out please leave a link in the comments. I always love to check them out when I can.

Jeni and Megan are hosting this fun little quilt along. The first post on choosing fabrics went up today. I am thinking this would be a great opportunity to make a child size quilt to complete the goal of making more quilts to donate. I love the solid colors she used in the button but I am sure some fun prints would look equally as amazing.

Rachel is also currently hosting a quilt along. Now this little ditty is more like a support group for scrap addicts. The goal is to finish a quilt made from scraps by March. It can even be a project you started a long time ago. But of course their are tons of new ideas and inspiration over in the flickr pool as well.

This is a fun little quilt along I just happened to stumble across. To be honest I'm not sure where I first saw it but I'm super excited about this one. There was a mock up in Echo and Heath that was just amazing. So I am pretty sold that I am going to order those fabrics to make this quilt for a dear friend for her 2012 Christmas/Birthday gift. They are both in December and I figure that should give me plenty of time to finish this. It's pretty massive at 80 by 80 but I've been told it is super easy and will go together quickly.

This quilt along being hosted by Shelia looks like a lot of fun. In fact my mom and I have Zippity Doo Dah fabric we ordered to make 4th of July Picnic Quilts with but our original plan didn't turn out so I am thinking this quilt along might be the perfect plan for using those fabrics and actually getting our 4th of July Quilts done. Maybe we can even finish them in time to use them this year. We have a neighborhood picnic each year on the 4th of July and it's bring your own seating.

So there you have it four fun and exciting quilt alongs. I'm sure there are many more out there these are just a few that I've seen popping up over the last little bit and thought I would share with you. All of these pictures have links back to pages with more information as well so be sure to check them out. And remember if you have more to share please just link them up in the comments. I'd love to hear about them.

****Edited to add****

I don't know how I managed to forget this one in my list yesterday but Elizabeth is also hosting a Sparkle Punch Quilt Along. I loved this quilt from the start I was contemplating how to make a quilt top based on this quilt but with a lot of negative space when she announced the quilt along. I'm planning on using a gray and blue bundle I bought for another project that never happened to make this one in baby size for a friend who added her first little one in December.

WIP Wednesday

2012-01-11T18:39:00.000-05:00

With all the craziness that has been going on here I haven't been doing as much sewing as I would like so I don't have a ton of things to share this week. I am at a stopping point on my Sunny Trails Quilt because I have to order some Bella White but once I do that I plan on finishing up that quilt top pretty quickly.

In the mean time I started work on my Loulouthi Tiles Quilt. This quilt so far has not been what I expected. There were some hiccups with cutting followed by some frustration in layout but now that I have it all worked out and on a chart I am making steady progress on this one. This quilt is a little different for me because it is put together in sections rather than in rows. It's a fun challenge making sure you put the sections together in the right order and then that you connect them the right way. Since I snapped this photo a few days ago I have completed another section. But it's dark and rainy here so no updated photo. Sorry for the bad iphone photo as well. But that's all I had on hand when snapping the picture.

This one is going to be a massive queen size quilt for my bed. Not sure yet about the quilting. I do plan to do a little hand stitching around the large blocks as Rachel suggested but probably before I make my quilt sandwich and then I will probably have the rest of it quilted on the long arm. Anyone have any experience with this? Or thoughts?

Be sure to head on over to Lee's to see what everyone else is up to this week.

The List Part II

2012-01-08T21:30:00.000-05:00

2011 Finished Quilts

So I've been thinking more about these quilty goals for 2012 and while 12 quilts seems like a lot I realized that my list did not include a lot of growth. I'd really like this year to be as much about quality as it is about quantity so that means learning some new skills. So I've been giving a lot of thought to what I want to learn in 2012 and what opportunities are out there that can help make that happen.

So obviously the big one is Sewing Summit. I'd love to attend but since it is in Salt Lake City again this year I'm not sure how reasonable that will be. It is the weekend of my birthday but I already started pricing plane tickets and the cheapest I could find even this far in advance was 400 bucks round trip. So the budget is probably going to rule that one out for me but I can always keep looking and who knows maybe it will work out.
Learn to embroider. I was planning on learning this is 2011 by following along with Corey and her birdie stitches quilt along but I never got started and ended up not following through on this one. Maybe this year I will have better luck.
Curves-I'd really like to learn to sew curves. Rachel is gearing up for a curves class over at Stitched in Color and I am seriously considering joining in. Right now though I am trying to weigh my options. I'm not sure I would be able to keep up with a project a week and if I can't finish them then I won't know what I'm doing wrong or what questions I should be asking so it seems like it would be kind of silly.
Paper Piecing-this one scares me a lot but I am determined that I need to learn this skill. There are so many projects I have missed out on because I don't know how to do this. So I need to learn for sure. Besides there are some amazing blocks out there that can only be made through paper piecing.
Quilt Along-I'd really like to cohost a quilt along this year. I've been toying with some patterns but I'm not sure I have the time or the following to warrant hosting a quilt along. I was lucky to participate in some great quilt alongs last year hosted by multiple bloggers and I am hoping I might get the chance to work on one myself this year.
Tutorials-I'd like to share a few tutorials here. I'm starting to dabble with creating some original blocks and patterns and I'd love to share them here. Still working out in my own mind what's worth sharing and what someone might be interested in so there's that. What would you like to see?

So what new skills do you want to learn in 2012? What are you excited about out there? Is there anything you just can't wait to participate in? I'd love to hear them maybe it will encourage me to expand my list a little.

WIP Wednesday

2012-01-04T17:47:00.001-05:00

So the lovely Lee is once again hosting WIP Wednesday and I thought I'd better get started again so I could maintain some sort of schedule. I don't have as much going on in my sewing room as I would like these days. I know I'm never going to reach that goal of 12 quilts if I don't get busy but there has been a lot of adjustment going on here. But that's a whole other story.

I am making progress on my Sunny Trails quilt. I have 11 out of the 20 16 patches sewn together. So that is pretty good progress there. I imagine I will have the rest finished this week, although Wednesday did sneak up on me a lot faster than I expected it too. Hopefully the rest of the week won't go by too quickly.

16 Patches Sewn Together

I've been spending a lot of time online searching for the perfect center square for a new project I'm doing this year. Some of the members of the Old Red Barn Quilt Along Group have branched off and are doing round/row robins. I am part of the group doing the round robin and I am super excited to try it out. It's a lot like a bee I guess except we get to make whatever we want and at the end you have a finished quilt top and not just a bunch of squares. I figured it would be a fun way to meet some new friends and get to know some other ones better. I'm just having a really hard time deciding what parameters I want to set for my quilt top.

Stack of Farmer's Wife Blocks

Other than that I've been making a little progress on my Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Blocks. The Quilt Along isn't starting back up until February but I needed to make a few blocks to get back on track with the group so I am sewing away on those. More details on those blocks later.

Be Sure to head over to Lee's and link up your WIP's. I always love seeing what everyone else is up too.

Homemade Holidays (Part 2)

2011-12-30T21:45:00.000-05:00

The other big finish for my Christmas gifts was the quilt I made for my mom. Yellow is her favorite color and last year around November she mentioned to me how much she liked the Origins fabric line. I ordered what I needed to make a quilt for her thinking maybe I would do it for her birthday in January. Well then I saw this quilt and I thought it was amazing. I emailed Kati and asked her how she did it and she told me she was writing a tutorial for her blog. So I showed my mom two options and asked which she liked better. Months later when I was ready to make the quilt she couldn't remember which she had chosen so I opted not to post about it here. Of course those of you who are on flickr have seen the finished top before it was quilted.

I used Kati's tutorial which was so well written it couldn't have been any easier to make this quilt. I used Kona Maize for the solid in place of white to give it more of a yellow factor. I am a side seam presser and I figured out very quickly that if I ironed all of my seams towards the yellow on one side of the block and the patterned fabric on the other that I would have no troubles matching and locking my seams. It made this quilt top come together very quickly. And then of course I stalled. Since I had ordered my fabrics based on the measurements of the other quilt I had to think about how to piece the back. Once I figured it out I made a cutting mistake and then ended up needing to add a piece to the side of the back to make it large enough. It worked out and hopefully no one but me would know this wasn't the plan for the back. Sorry I didn't get a good picture of that.

I knew I wanted to have this one quilted on a long arm with a rose pattern since roses are my mom's favorite flower (yellow roses to be exact) so when I saw Nichol's post saying she was still taking quilts in time for Christmas I sent her an email. Have you seen Nichol's work? I know she is relatively knew to long arm quilting but she did an amazing job. And get this, she even listened to what color thread I asked her to quilt it with. You can see what Nichol had to say about my mom's quilt here.

All in all I am very happy with my mom's quilt and I hope she is too. She texted me after on Christmas to ask me how I made her quilt smell so good so I thought I would share my secret with all of you too. I used Downy Unstoppables in the wash with my quilts. They are pretty pricey so I only get them when I have coupons and I only use them in loads like my sheets, towels, and quilts but they make the laundry smell fresh for a lot longer and really is there anything better than snuggling under a great smelling quilt on a cold day.

Homemade Holidays (Part 1)

2011-12-29T17:20:00.000-05:00

Just in case you thought I forgot to share all of those holiday projects I has been working on here is the first part. I bet you thought I was all talk back in August when I shared my plans to make Vanilla Extract as Christmas gifts but I actually did it. It's so simple and it was a huge hit with the husbands family. It made great last minute gifts for a few people I hadn't planed to gift give with but who I knew would be at family events and would be bringing gifts. I actually received a cookbook wrapped in a kitchen towel with a cookie cutter holding it shut and thought that was so nifty I implemented the idea myself the next day with a bottle of vanilla inside.

I made the labels on my home computer and just printed them off on Avery Labels. It was simple enough and the overall look though not everything I had hoped for turned out well enough I guess. I hope that doesn't sound like too much of a cop out but the truth is I was sick right before Christmas and even bailed out on some family functions just to make sure I had enough energy to make it through the BIG day.

UNC Quilt

My big surprise present this year was a quilt for the husband. See we aren't big on sports in our house but we both really enjoy college basketball for some reason. I don't really know why I like it because being in the Marching Band in High School I always went to football games but it worked out that way and the fact that we both like UNC (University of North Carolina) is an added bonus. So my husband wanted me to make him a quilt with all of his UNC t-shirts, he has a ton of them, even though he never went to school there. I gathered them up and started making a plan which quickly fell by the wayside. Then way back last August 2010 when it was my turn to send fabric in the Circuit Bee I sent out fabrics and asked for blocks inspired by this quilt. It was a difficult task to say the least, using collegiate fabrics and making minimalist blocks at the same time but the ladies really pulled through for me.

It turned out better than I could have imagined.

I went to my mom's for a day of sewing and got the top and backing put together with the help of my mom. Thanks again mom! The finished quilt is about 44" wide by 68" long, it still amazes me how much they seem to shrink. This one especially but I think that may have to do with the fabrics and knowing I didn't prewash them I can't complain. I knew I wanted to have it quilted with something Tarheel related but not over the top. I took it to a long arm quilter here locally because I was pressed for time. Remember when I said I would never use this person again? Turns out I did and now I really mean it! It's not that I don't like the quilting I do and she was even nice enough to order the foot design special for me. But sometimes it's the little things, like the fact I asked for it to be quilted in white that didn't happen obviously, but I do like it. And there are some rather large spaces that don't have quilting if you ask me. In the end I love the way it turned out though so I really shouldn't complain.

One of my favorite blocks. I can't believe how she made the symbol and everything.

My mom was nice enough to sew the binding on for me so I could keep it a secret. And it was right up until we were about 1/2 way through opening presents on Christmas Eve with my side of the family. The hubs admitted that he assumed since my mom received a quilt for Christmas (look for part ii for that quilt) that was the only one I was making. He later admitted to me that after she opened it and my dad told him maybe next year he had the feeling his UNC quilt was in one of the boxes beside him yet to be opened. Not too bad for a surprise present. I say he didn't really know and doesn't want to admit I managed to surprise him. Although for the life of me I don't know how I pulled it off because I am terrible with surprises and I almost told him about things that happened along the way about 100 times.

Step 1: Just Sew Something

2011-12-27T05:00:00.000-05:00

After setting such a lofty goal for 2012 I knew that if I dragged my feet I would never be able to accomplish 12 quilts in only 12 short months. So after giving Bertha a good cleaning and a fresh needle I changed the blades in my rotary cutters and got down to business. Since I have almost everything I need for Sunny Trails and the pieces are small enough to cut in my tiny sewing space I thought I would start there. For this quilt I am following Corey's Moda Bake Shop Tutorial. So far things are going well. I did a little rework of the math since Corey advised she had a lot of extra pieces left over. After I took out the solids and duplicates as Corey suggested I had the same 37 layer cake squares left. From this I figured out that I could cut three 2" by 10" inch strips from 18 of the squares and four 2" by 10" strips from the remaining 19 squares. This left me with a larger piece left from some of the squares which I plan to incorporate into the back of this quilt.

All of the pairs sewn together and cut back down. Now time to sew the four patches.

I knew I wanted all of my words to go in the same direction so I took special care when sewing together the pairs and then separated out all of the pairs with words when cutting down the strips. The next step is to sew all of the pairs into four patches which is where I am now. I had to order some Bella White since none of the local stores carry Moda. So once I get my four patches and sixteen patches done I will be putting this project on hold for just a little while until the White fabric arrives but have no fear I have Farmer's Wife Blocks to make to get back on track and ready to start with the group again at the end of January. That means lots of sewing and lots of projects to share.

Almost done making four patches.

The List

2011-12-26T11:46:00.001-05:00

I know I'm not the only one making list and thinking about crafty goals for 2012. I'm interested to hear what you guys have in mind for the upcoming year. My personal goal is to make 12 quilts in 2012. It just seems like the thing to do, right? Well I was sharing this with my mom and I think she thought I was a little bit crazy. But she must have at least half believed me because she did sign up for 12 slots with the long arm quilter (we share) but that really got me thinking could I really do it? could I afford to do it? what about the fact I can't commit to a project? what about all the new quilt alongs in 2012? what about all the new inspiration? what would I do with 12 more quilts? So I made a list to help get me started on the right track. Of course this list will be subject to change but you know what the heck I can put a rough draft of the list out here just to give you and idea, right.

Twisted Fandango- Remember these post. Well I have everything I need to finish this quilt. Reality is I'm just working on getting the boarders sewn on and then I'll have a finished quilt top. I have my backing and binding already so this should be a pretty easy finish if I can just pick it up and then stay on task.
Sunny Trails-When Corey first introduced this quilt on Moda Bake Shop I knew I had to make it and I had been waiting for the perfect project to make with Sunkissed. I ordered all the materials then and it has been sitting waiting for it's chance at the machine.
Swell-I was telling Mary (my online buddy) once about how much I liked swell and how I had gotten on board too late to find any. Well she tracked down a Jelly Roll and sent it to me and then with the help of another online friend and a swap I now have everything I need to make this quilt. Right now I am leaning towards a quilt from Camille's Book.
Farmer's Wife Quilt Along-This quilt along is on holiday right now but when we pick back up the end of January we will be at the half way point. If I can stay on track or make up a few extra blocks between now and then I should finish in plenty of time to call this one a finish in 2012. I am still really excited about this quilt and how it will turn out.
Anchors Away-Yes the Neptune Quilt. It scares me a little because the fabric is out of print, it's hard to find, and I have just enough to make this quilt. It also involves circles and applique neither of which I am happy about but I find that after spending a year on the hunt for everything I need to make this quilt that it has to happen! Lucky for me my dad has volunteered to help with the cutting. He might say he was volunteered but either way I'm happy to have him on board for this project.
Loulouthi Tiles-Rachel hosted this quilt on her blog and I loved it. My parents got me the kit for my birthday back in October (thanks again Mom and Dad) and my dad helped me cut it all out. I will admit it is a little tricky to get those large tiles cut out, luckily there is enough room in the fabric provided in the kits. I still need to cut my sashing for this one before I can get started on it but I think it will be another fun quilt to put together.
Swoon-Santa (or rather my amazing parents) brought me the swoon quilt kit for Christmas this year. I love the Ruby fabric and the pattern for this one and I am excited to put it together. I've seen tons of these quilts in blog land made from all sorts of different fabrics and I am excited about having the chance to make one of my own.
Multicolored Stars-One of the bees I participated in (and hosted) back in 2010 made these amazing blocks for me and I have yet to put together the quilt top. The truth is I'm not really sure how I want it to go together and I am at a total loss for quilting it so it has been sitting in my sewing room for a long time. I am committed to seeing it finished in 2012 it deserves a chance to sparkle.
Summer Sampler Quilt Along-This is one of those projects I was late getting started on. I really wanted to participate but I didn't have what I needed. Then one of my amazing blog friends hooked me up with this amazing kit to get started. I jumped in right away and finished the first 3 blocks, then we got to paper piecing. I've mentioned before I am no good at this. I really wish I had it in me but I get it all wrong all the time. So I stalled but I would really like to see this one finished up.
Max and Whiskers-This one may be a little bit of a cheater since this quilt is finished and back from being quilted but it still needs binding so technically speaking it isn't finished just yet. Hopefully those stitches will wait another week or so. This one may also be a little bit of a cheat because it is one that my mom and I made together. So I only 1/2 made it. Do you think that counts?
Postcards-When Ashley first made this quilt I loved it and I wanted to make one for myself. I thought that Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow line (that's how long I've been planning) teamed up with gray for the "grout" would look great. I've had the bricks cut out for a long time but have yet to get sashing and make this quilt top.
Dueling Flurry-My husband and I have matching Christmas Quilts that my mom and I made. I thought she and I were going to have quilts made to match but in the end she gifted hers to me and now the hubs has mine. This year we decided to make matching quilts for my brother and SIL. I'm going to call this dueling flurry for now because I will be making one and so will my mom. Hopefully they will like them both.
Just in case you guys rule out the Max and Whiskers quilt I'll give you a bakers dozen. Spring Weekends-This quilt top is all put together and about 1/2 quilted. I just need to order more yellow thread to see this one completed. Funny how it would be so easy and yet I still procrastinate.

So there you have it a tentative list of hopeful quilts for 2012. But reality is I have a ton of things in my sewing room I still didn't mention. Like my chasing chevrons quilt and a few other quilts tops that are hanging in my closet waiting to be quilted. Then of course there are things like quilt alongs. Have you seen the one coming up in January. I'm thinking of making that in child size to either donate in 2012 or have on standby for one of the babies I know that are coming soon :)

Stay tuned because I have plenty of Christmas projects to show you in the next week or so and then hopefully we will be spending more time together in 2012 learning new things and accomplishing new goals together. So go ahead throw it out there. What are your quilting plans for 2012? I'd love to hear all about them. Who knows you might just throw my list completely off track :)

Sometimes It's Just Hard

2011-12-15T20:29:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to update my blog for a while in fact I have even sat down and started writing out blog post only to leave them unattended until they are no longer relevant. Things here have just been hard lately. It doesn't seem possible that Christmas is just a few short days away. Don't panic it's not here yet but I am sure I will be putting the finishing touches on presents on Christmas Eve. A few of those gifts are actually surprise gifts that I am very excited to be gifting. Not that I don't always put a lot of thought into my gift giving but this year there are a few that are pretty sentimental and I'm hoping the recipients will love them as much as I do. Plus this is the first Christmas with my nephew so I am super excited to see the joy through a little ones eyes this year.

This is what my tree currently looks like, it's only about 1/2 decorate because I just wasn't really feeling it this year. Like I said it's been hard. I had the tree about 1/4 of the way done when we had to take our bulldog to the emergency vet. Unfortunately she never got to come home with us and so like I said it's been hard around here lately. After that I managed to get enough ornaments on the tree for it to not look too sad and I've managed to wrap the two gifts you see there. I guess I better get busy and wrap some more since Christmas is almost here.


Denali Snowberry Boyd July 21, 2005-December 5, 2011

I have been making some progress on a few projects. I started slowly sewing together my hexagon charm quilt. I decided to just go with an all over scrappy look. It's very slow going and I'm not very good at it so I'm just hoping and praying the darn thing will stay together when it's finished.

Hexagon Quilt

I also managed to make a few of the blocks for my chasing chevrons quilt along quilt. The quilt along is actually wrapping up but I'm still working away at it making blocks. I've been sidetracked some by projects I can't share here just yet but as soon as the presents are opened I promise to write about them here.


Chasing Chevrons

Wishing you and yours a very

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Departure from the Norm

2011-11-23T22:17:00.001-05:00

How is it that about this time every year I get quilting ADD. Okay so I know I have it all year but right now I should be putting finishing touches on Christmas gifts and making sure everything is ready to go. Instead I'm busy starting new projects. I told you if I could eek out some time I was going to join in with Jennifer on her newest quilt along. Immediately I thought it would be a good chance to use some of the Garden Party I have slowly been collecting. But when I pulled out my collection I realized it was a lot smaller than I thought. I actually have a pretty good mix when I add my Garden Party and Good Folks together and since I know I will never manage to collect all of the pieces to either collection I decided to mix them together and use them for this quilt along and then swap out anything I have left when I'm done. If your looking for either one let me know and I'll put you at the top of my list. Be warned though I'm not sure when I will actually be done with this project.

Okay so I went into the store planning to be just plain jane and pick up some Kona Snow. It's a safe choice and I use it in just about everything and since I couldn't remember exactly how much I needed if I bought a little too much it would be okay. And then I saw this really pretty hand dyed fabric in this deep burgundy purple. Then I saw the price tag and though hum my rough guess was 4 yards and this stuff is almost $15 bucks a yard. Needless to say I didn't buy the hand dyed fabric. I probably would have invested if it was a quilt that I had a plan for and new for sure it would work but I wasn't totally sold on the fact that it would look good with the fabrics and I don't really have a plan for this quilt it just looked like it might be fun. Instead I took the hand dyed fabric back over to the Kona wall and settled on Kona Garnet. Now this is such a departure from the white, off white, and gray that I've used in past quilts where a solid was required. I made up a few blocks tonight when I should have been making pot holders. I'm going to let them sit on the wall for a few days and see if I still like them. But I'd love your feedback. Is it too much? Do you like it? Do you not like it? Would you scrap it and go back to Kona Snow? Is there another color you would suggest?

To all of my US Friends I hope you all have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving and stay safe if are going to brave the crowds on Black Friday.

A Little Farming (Week 25)

2011-11-15T18:46:00.001-05:00

Pretty little stack of blocks

My love hate relationship with the farmer is continuing. I haven't been making a whole lot of progress on this one lately and it's already week 25 which means I should have 50 blocks completed and be just about half way done. But I only have 40 blocks finished. In reality I'm not as far behind as I thought I was. Just ten blocks really isn't too bad and really I have one that just needs a little fixing and two that could be finished if I wasn't remaking them because I don't like the fabric choices. But when all is said and done and all things are accounted for I have a strong 40 blocks and I'm okay with that. Here's a look at what I worked on this past week.

Block # 5 Bat Wing

Block # 8 Bouquet

Block # 44 Gentleman's Fancy

I think Bouquet is my favorite out of this group. I like them all but that one is just so cute. Sorry for the bad lighting but my sewing space doesn't have great light. I keep wanting to get one of those daylight lamps for my room but haven't yet. Maybe Santa will bring me one (wink wink).

Please don't mind the mess I ripped my sheets off my bed to snap this photo.

Here is a look at them all laid out together in no particular order. I pulled the sheets off my bed and threw them all out there together and snapped a quick picture. I don't have a design wall and I have these all put in a plastic tub as I finish them so I was hoping to get a feel for balance of color. Funny even in this photo Farmer's Puzzle and the Snowball block stick out as my favorites. Do you have a favorite block yet?

Sometimes It's Just Life

2011-11-10T22:35:00.001-05:00

I got to work and open my lunchbox only to find that the milk for my cereal that morning had spilled in the bottom of the bag. I cleaned up the mess and contemplated what I would eat without milk for my cereal. As I loaded the rest of my lunch back in the bag my peach that was way too soft already and should have probably been thrown out hit my water bottle and exploded. Yes exploded! It was a mess and I was angry. I grumbled under my breath about what a great day it was going to be. Yup that pretty much sums up the way my days have been going as of late.

I haven't been sewing very much and the few things I have been sewing are for Christmas presents so I haven't been able to blog about them just yet either. Now no excuses, it annoys me when people don't blog for a while and then apologize and promise they will do better so I'm not going to do that because reality is with it this close to the Holidays and less than 1/2 of the items on my Holiday Sewing List complete I probably won't have much time for sewing things I can share in this space so it would just be an empty promise anyway.

If I do find some time to sew just for fun I fully intend to participate in this quilt along. It looks like a lot of fun and having used Jennifer's last quilt along to sew up my Spring Weekends quilt I know her instructions will be easy to follow. I even picked out my fabrics already. I'm planning to make use of my Garden Party fabrics with a lovely gray I think. Of course I may change my mind twenty times between now and then.

Also over at the Old Red Barn Quilt Along Group we are just gearing up to make Dresden's. I am considering making a few of these blocks for some Holiday Throw Pillows. Or I might just make some everyday throw pillows for my living room. It's pretty plain right now and the place could use a little jazzing up.

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Week 20

2011-10-11T05:00:00.000-04:00

So here we are at week 20 of the Farmer's Wife Quilt Along. I am still loving working on these little blocks at my leisure without the rush of needing to finish something. Since I made so many blocks early on I gave myself some time off to work on other projects (like those must finish holiday gifts) and then I sort of just slacked off for a while in the sewing room to. Do you ever feel like that? Like you love sewing but every time you go into your space to sew you just get distracted or can't decide what to work on and before you know it the time is gone and you haven't made anything. I get that way sometimes and usually the distraction is reading blocks and looking at flickr which just leads to more must make projects.

This week though I made six blocks. This brings my "official" block total to 36 which is still two blocks behind schedule. Well I have 3 more blocks that are basically done. Whirlwind which still has a corner turned the wrong way. It will be easy enough to fix I just need to take the seam ripper to it. I also made Blocks 1 &2 Attic Windows and Autumn Tints early on using a solid fabric. Well I decided I didn't like the solid even if it is just Kona Snow and haven't used it in any blocks since so I need to take the seam ripper to those as well or just remake the blocks. Those two luckily will be pretty easy.

Block # 14 Butterfly at the Crossroads


Block # 33 Farmer's Puzzle

Farmer's Puzzle is my new favorite block. I used Lori from Bee in My Bonnet's tutorial on easy corners and this one went together really well. I love how impactful it looks in person. It's not as bold in the picture but hanging on my design wall (piece of batting taped to the wall) it looks 3D.

Block # 46 Hill & Valley

Another trick I figured out this week (I know I can hear you guys laughing now, but yes it just occurred to me) is that if I spray all my fabrics will Best Press and iron them before cutting any pieces I have less stretch and pull at the end with the final block. This was especially helpful with block 46 Hill & Valley although it still isn't perfect it is a lot better than I expected it to be.

Block # 54 Kitchen Woodbox

Block # 58 Mother's Dream

Block # 77 Seasons

Hello...

2011-10-09T18:26:00.000-04:00

Funny things happen around the internet when so many sewers meet in one place at the same time. Flickr has been strangely quiet, blogs haven't been updated, and the online quilting community is like a ghost town. Funny, right? I wasn't able to attend sewing summit this year but I can't wait to hear how it went and all about the adventures I know so many of my online friends are having this weekend.

You know what else happens when you aren't spending all of your sewing time reading about what everyone else is being creative and making? You actually get some sewing done. I spend my sewing time this weekend working on a quilt I can't show you just yet (Christmas present) and some Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Blocks. I was so excited that I had made extras early on that I gave myself some time off to work on my quilts for 100 Quilts for Kids but realized this weekend that I was starting to get behind so I made a few blocks.

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Blocks

I may or may not have made even more since snapping this picture earlier this afternoon. Okay I'll give you a clue I did but more on those on Tuesday. Other than that it has been a pretty normal weekend. The hubs had to work so I spent my time "playing house," (my mom is still trying to convince me it sounds less like work when you call it play) sewing, and making a mall run.

Target Goodie Bag. Samples and Coupons make for a good day!

I went to the mall to get some new clothes for work. I need some more options but I got distracted in Target and ended up getting groceries and coming home instead. Are the Target's near you remolding? Ours just added a fresh foods section. Just when I was ready to give up on Target they woo me back in. Check out this goodie bag they were passing out today. And the prices on their new grocery options are comparable to any grocery store. Plus they carry Panera Bread products. I almost stocked up on soup (broccoli and cheese) for work lunches but decided against it since I have homemade soups in the fridge and freezer already. Remember that bug I got to cook? It hasn't gone away which is great because we've been enjoying some tasty homemade (or at least semi-homemade) around here as of late. I'll share more on that soon. Promise!

Hope you all had a great weekend and if you went to the sewing summit I'd love to hear about it.

Things I Wish I had Learned from My Mother (Part 1)

2011-09-25T14:28:00.000-04:00

My mother is one of the best cooks I have ever met. Growing up she always made our meals and she was even creative about food. You know what I'm talking about preschool parties with little dogs made out of hot dogs with olives for the eyes and smaller hot dogs for the legs. Cupcakes for class birthday parties with multiplication problems written in icing on top that had to be solved before you could eat them. I'm sure there were plenty of things my mom cooked that I complained about at the time but I really only remember one dish that I truly truly hated. When I was younger I was in a church group called GA's (girls in action) and at one of our slumber parties the teachers thought it would be a good idea if we ate ethnic foods from the country we were studying. I can't remember the country but I can still remember the peanut butter stew. Needless to say there were a bunch of hungry kids that night. I'm not a very good cook, I tend to get busy doing other things and I burn a lot of stuff. I do okay with recipes but leave out a lot of ingredients because I just don't have them. I wish I would have spent more time when I was younger learning from my mom how to be a good cook. I'm sure she would have taught me if I had been willing but I was difficult and didn't want to back then. Now I wish I would have taken the time to learn.

Every once in a while despite the fact that I know I'm not a very good cook I get the wild urge to cook something. Yesterday was one of those days. I made pumpkin bread which is very delicious when served hot with butter. Then I put my crock pot to work with a white bean chicken chili. Both turned out surprisingly well. The hubs and I enjoyed the chili with homemade cornbread today for lunch (I froze the rest which means I can look forward to at least one good meal sometime soon). I was so amazed with my sudden culinary success that I have Black Bean and Lime Soup in the crock pot as we speak.

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Bread

3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp backing powder
3 cups sugar
1 cup butter, really soft (I melted mine in the microwave)
3 large eggs
1 16oz can of pure pumpkin
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and spray 2 medium loaf pans with nonstick cooking spray.

2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, spices, salt, baking powder, and baking soda and set aside.

3, In the bowl of a mixer (or large bowl) cream together the sugar, butter, and eggs until fluffy (about 2 minutes) add pumpkin and combine well.

4. Slowly add the dry ingredients mixing well until blended.

5. Pour 1/2 the batter into one of the prepared pans. Add nuts to remaining batter and mix then pour into prepared pan. Bake for about one hour or until the top is golden brown and a knife inserted come out clean.

Notes: I only have one loaf pan so I cut this recipe in half (told you I do crazy things like this) I also omitted the cloves because I didn't have any and couldn't see spending almost eight dollars for some at the store for one recipe (told you I leave stuff out all the time).

What are you making?

2011-09-19T06:00:00.000-04:00

I had a lot of fun sewing together quilt tops this weekend to make into quilts for 100 Quilts for Kids. I was lucky enough to have blocks from quilt bees and swaps to use to make up into three tops that I hope will make some child happy. I love that these quilts are small enough I can quilt them on my own machine and that they will give me a chance to practice my quilting skills. Most of my larger quilts (okay all of them) have been sent out to be quilted by a long arm quilter. I've only done one or two myself on my home machine but I've been wanting to do some more. This is a great project to use up some of those abandoned quilt blocks from projects that you just gave up on. Or blocks from bees that you might have loved when you picked them out but now realize that your taste have changed. No shame in that put all of that hard work into a gift a child will love. Once these three quilts are quilted and finished I'm planning on trying to squeeze in at least one more. See while I love these quilts they all say girl to me and I want to send along something sweet for a little boy too because little boys need soft cuddly quilts too. So how about you? What are you making? I'd love to hear where you are planning to donate your quilts to as well since I am still trying to decide. Don't forget apart from the joy I know all quilters feel from giving from their heart you can also win some great prizes. Check out the information on 100 Quilts for Kids Here.

Momo Wonderland Story time Quilt.

Arkansas Crossroads Quilt. Made from blocks received in the Modern Tradition Bee.

Made form Bento Blocks I received in a Swap. Lots of great fabrics.

Scrappy Goodness

2011-09-18T13:03:00.000-04:00

I had planed to make up a back and quilt the Momo Quilt today but as luck would have it I didn't have enough fabric for that. Don't you hate it when you lack like 3 inches of fabric to finish something up. Well that was me this morning and of course since it is Sunday the quilt stores in my area are closed. No worries, I can just run out at lunch tomorrow and pick up something. So instead I decided that I would make up another little quilt to donate.

Right now this measures about 46 inches square.

I have a whole box of bee blocks from last year a long with a few blocks from swaps that are just sitting waiting to be made into quilts. My husband made the comment the other day that we have a lot of quilts (that's a story for another day) so I thought really these bee blocks have been sitting and why not share the love. So I pulled out the blocks from the Modern Tradition Bee and sewed up a few of them into this quilt top that is full of scrappy goodness. There are so many amazing fabrics in the blocks. Everything from Amy Butler to Heather Ross to Flea Market Fancy.

Smaller squares sent by bee members

Before you think I lost my mind, I started the morning with blocks that looked like this. Each of the larger blocks is just four of these squares sewn together and in fact one of my bee members had even sent her four smaller squares back sewn into the one large block. It made putting the quilt top together pretty easy. I pieced one more of the larger blocks for the back. Now I just need to find the right fabric to surround the larger square and then I can baste, quilt, and bind this little bit of scrappy goodness in time for 100 Quilts for Kids. What are you working on this weekend?

So many fun fabrics!

100 Quilts for Kids

2011-09-17T21:33:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about joining in on this project for a while now. I love homemade gifts and there is just something about wrapping up in a quilt that is like wrapping an extra hug around yourself. Last night as I snuggled down under two quilts I thought about all the time and effort that went into creating them and how much I hope that the few individuals I've made quilts for could feel that love in their quilts even if they are seldom (never) used. So today I went digging through my sewing room looking for materials I could use to make a child size quilt.

See More Details Here

I've had this tin of Summer in the City for a while now and haven't attempted to make the project inside yet. I read through the instructions and realized that it only uses about 1/2 of the charms and only makes a 16 1/2 by 16 1/2 inch quilt. What would you even do with that? I thought I could expand it and make it bigger but my brain is still recovering from a migraine and I couldn't think that hard. The tin includes a full charm pack plus extra squares of this dark brown fabric. Of course I have no idea what color brown it is so buying more is probably not an option. I do have a few ideas floating around in my head and so I still may end up making a quilt from this to donate.

Next up I found this pack of 6 fat quarters. When I found this pack at a quilt show it had been made into the cutest bag but of course they were out of the bag patterns by the time I decided I had to make it. So I picked up the fat quarters anyway thinking I could go online and purchase the pattern. That was almost 4 years ago and I've never found the purse pattern (I probably wouldn't remember what it looked like now) and I haven't used the fabric so I thought it would work.

The DC Modern Quilt Guild did a Quilt Along based on this pattern. Once I saw that I figured I could turn this tomato red/orange fat quarter set into a children's quilt pretty easily. I had some Moda Champagne that I bought to make my Greek Cross quilt with. I didn't like the way it looked with the Joel Dewberry Heirloom so it was sitting in my sewing room on the table. I thought it looked pretty good at first with the Wonderland.

Now that the quilt top is together I'm second guessing it. I don't think the palette is exactly what I would think of for a child's quilt. I'm hoping the dark colors will make it usable to some mother out there and that the whimsical flowers and polka dots will win over the child. I haven't found a place here to donate too so I'm hoping to do some research tomorrow to find a local charity that accepts quilts that I know will put them to good use.

WIP Wednesday #10

2011-09-14T20:31:00.000-04:00

I haven't been spending much time in the sewing room lately. It just seems as though there are a million things competing for my time and attention. This weekend I got to experience what it was like to have a hot water heater dump itself in my laundry room/pantry floor. Luckily there was no damage other than the tank that had to be replaced. Which was a two day very expensive venture but in the end it turned out just fine but left little time for sewing. Here's a look at what's going on in my sewing space.

I'm working on this quilt still for my mother's Christmas present. She knows I am making it so that's not a surprise but unfortunately I can't share more details because I really don't want her to know much more than that. Luckily for me I previously gave her a few options for the layout but she doesn't remember which one she picked so that should amp up the surprise factor just a little bit.

I'm still married, to the farmer that is. We haven't been spending a lot of time together lately but I'm hoping to make up for my neglect in farm wife duties this week by making a few extra blocks. Last week I only made one new block and then I took Whirlwind apart for the umpteenth time because my mom pointed out one of the squares was turned the wrong way. I still can't believe no one else here or on flickr pointed it out to me.

Do you see it now?

I wish I would have used fabrics with more contrast here.

And then of course I am still debating joining in on the dead simple quilt along. I thought I knew what palette I was leaning towards until I saw another picture on Corey's blog today of her fabrics and her palette. I'm going to try and only work with materials from my stash and since that is incredibly lacking in solids and diversity at the moment I may need to rethink the palettes all together and go with what I know.

After seeing this bag this week I have ideas to make one of my own. I have a Fossil Bag that I LOVE that my brother and sister in law gave me last year for Christmas. I'm thinking a mix of the quilted solid and corduroy for the top and straps will be just dreamy. Do any of you have a bag pattern that you just love? I'd like to avoid zippers because well I'm lazy and I don't know how they work. Someday maybe I'll tackle them. And I need a large size bag because I'm always carrying around a ton of stuff.

Check out what everyone else is up to by stopping by Lee's.

Quandary?

2011-09-10T19:10:00.002-04:00

Lynn is hosting a new quilt along called the Dead Simple Quilt Along. The purpose is to explore colors outside of your normal palette while sewing a very simple quilt. In other words the challenge is in the fabric selections and not the concept of the quilt. I've been avoiding this quilt along because honestly I just don't need another project right now. I'm already feeling more than a little overwhelmed with all the things in my sewing room already and adding something else just doesn't feel like a good idea. But today my good friend Corey posted about the quilt along and I was struck by her choices of inspiration and the solids she pulled to go with them. I could see some of my favorite prints playing nicely in that palette as well. And of course her inspiration made me go start looking at colors and inspiration. I was immediately drawn to this photo with the cool blues and warm browns.

Source

But then I started thinking about the fact that if I was going to commit to making another project that while this is lovely it would be just another project. BUT Rachel is also hosting Celebrate Color right now and I've been toying with the idea of making something which incorporates purples for this. I rarely ever use purple in anything. It's just not a color I am very comfortable with. But since Rachel posted such a great set of inspiration photos for Celebrate Color in eggplants, figs, and rich purples I though it must be okay to use purple as a fall color and why not mix the two things together into one project and knock out two personal goals in one. I can always donate the quilt to a worthy cause when I'm done. Kate is hosting 100 Quilts for Kids so maybe if I make something in purple hues it will be like checking three things off the quilting goal list. I saw this inspiration photo and I really dig it. I'm not sold on the tan and green in the photo but after all it is just inspiration so I could go with something a little richer if I wanted, right?

Source

But when I think of fall colors I don't really think of the cooler colors of fall like the silvers and purples. I think of the rich warm colors. I was telling Corey about my ideas and she sent me this inspiration photo which I love! So my quandary is really this, do I go with something I'm comfortable with and make something I know I will love? Do I go with inspiration that I like that just because I like it? Or do I go with something that will push my normal limits and allow me to check a few things off the quilting list?

These last two are just some inspiration that I love and are really just for fun. Although I have to be honest the more I look at the oranges, peaches, and grays in this one the more I am drawn to it. Can't you just see that as an amazing little quilt. I'm thinking some nice solids with a little Fresh Cuts thrown in, Dreamy!

But then again this last one does work well as a inspired palette for boys. And of course if I'm going to be donating it we all know there aren't that many quilts for boys out there. It's just so easy and fun to make something pink and frilly.

One Block

2011-09-06T18:35:00.000-04:00

The farmer and I aren't fighting much lately. In fact we haven't really seen that much of each other. Between a storm that was a brewing (Irene) a vacation with my real hubs and all the preparation that went into those two things I haven't been making much time for the farmer. I gave myself a pass for the last two weeks because I knew I had made extra blocks early on and that I wouldn't really fall behind if I allowed myself a break from the Farmer for a little while. I must admit I didn't plan to take two weeks off or that now approaching the third week I would have still only made one block within the last three weeks. And actually I made this block while Irene was gusting outside of my sewing room window before the power started to surge and I was afraid something awful would happen to Bertha.

Block # 103 Whirlwind

This block was simple enough to make but I'm still unhappy with the way a few of my points line up. You know that feeling when you think that could be a little better but you take it apart and do it again and it's almost worse. Well every time I took this one apart (I lost track after the third time) it got a little more off than the time before so finally I decided to leave well enough alone for now. I still may go back and remake this one before putting the final quilt together. I'm not sure what blocks I want to work on next so I am hoping a little inspiration will strike me this week.

Central Rails

2011-09-05T14:42:00.000-04:00

I finally finished something. It feels like it has been a long time since I actually sat down and finished something. I like some of the long term projects that I have going right now like my hexagon quilt and my Farmer's Wife Quilt but sometimes it's nice to just finish something too. I've been a member of the Old Red Barn Quilt Along Group for a long time but this is the first quilt from that group I have actually finished. Ironically enough it is also the first quilt that the group made. I used two Jelly Rolls of Central Park by Kate Spain for the front and yardage of a piece for the back. I had originally planed to use the left over fabric from the back for the binding but in the end I had enough strips from the jelly roll left to make a scrappy binding. This is the first time I used that technique and I actually like it a lot. So I see more scrappy bindings in the future.

Front of Central Rails

Scrappy Binding

Back of Quilt. I kept it simple with one main fabric and just an inset of left over pieces from the front. Easier than trying to match up the pattern repeat.

Close up of the quilting.

This quilt was quilted by a long arm quilter in a variegated yellow/orange thread in an open scroll pattern. Fresh from the dryer and I think it has just the right amount of crinkly goodness. I love the simpleness of the pattern but the fact that it still is visually interesting. The fabric is great but then again Kate Spain is one of my favorite designers ever. Hence the fact that I have WIPs in Fandango, Verna, and I'm sure something else I'm failing to remember at the moment.

Me, Myself, and Irene

2011-08-28T17:00:00.000-04:00

That movie has been playing on TV all day for the last two days now. I think it is the cable companies attempt at a little humor. Living on the east coast of Virginia and growing up on the east coast of North Carolina hurricanes aren't really a new thing for me. Now that earthquake we had last week, that made me nervous. I know people in California were laughing at us because we all freaked out over something that most veteran earthquake dwellers would have laughed off and said you call that an earthquake but it was the first time I ever experienced that and hopefully it will be the last. My hats off to you guys who find it to be no big deal. We made it through Irene pretty much without a scratch here at my house, in fact we never even lost our power. Now my brother who lives about 4 blocks away is still without power but I imagine they will get it back pretty soon.

Hurricane prep

The damage from Irene. Nothing major just a pile of downed limbs.

Trimmings from the blocks for my current quilt.

The good thing about bad weather on the weekend is not feeling guilty about sitting inside sewing. I didn't actually sew much because our power was surging a little and I was afraid something bad would happen to Bertha but I did manage to get a bunch of blocks trimmed up for a quilt I am currently working on.

4 Months 9 Days and Counting

2011-08-16T09:09:00.000-04:00

That's right, we only have 4 months and 9 days until Christmas. Did you just realize it will be here before we know it too? I had a little bit of a moment this weekend where I realized just how close it is. I use to be really good about slowly buying things through out the year and typically I would have all of my holiday shopping wrapped up by the end of October. Now that Homemade Gifts are a priority I find that I procrastant more and end up with a last minute rush.

I've been toying with the idea of making little bottles of Homemade Vanilla Extract for several years now. The trouble is that it takes at least 3 months to steep and I usually remember I wanted to do that about a month before Christmas. Not this time. This time I am going to do it. I thought little baskets with some gussied up kitchen towels, homemade extract, and a few other kitchen yummies would be the perfect gift for my sister in law, mother in law, and father in laws girlfriend this year. And so today I ordered my vanilla beans and I'm excited to put this little project into motion.

For those of you who might want to give this a try I found my vanilla beans here. I recommend doing this with a friend because the cost of beans goes down the more you buy. I'm also going to try my hand at making these carmels with some of the left over beans. I am pretty sure I will be getting my bottles here because it's the best value I have found so far but if any of you have a good lead on some pretty bottles let me know. If you have any great homemade gifts that you think would be a good addition to my baskets please share your recipes, tutorials, or links. I'd love to check them out. And as always I'm at a loss as to what to buy or make for the men in my life so any ideas you have about that are welcome as well.

The Farmer and I

2011-08-14T16:22:00.000-04:00

The farmer and I sat down over the weekend and had a nice long heart to heart about our relationship. I told him I felt like he was dragging me a long on an emotional railroad what with all these ups and downs in our relationship and the hard times we had been facing over the last two weeks or so.

Block # 72 Railroad

He told me not to be such a sour puss and that if I would pay more attention to him instead of silly little things like scrubbing the linoleum we might have a real chance at making a go of it.

Block # 71 Puss in the Corner

Block # 55 Linoleum

I agreed to try and by the end of the day we had decided it would be best if we did not waste our love.

Block # 30 End of Day

Block # 97 Waste Not

Most of these blocks went together with very few hitches. Waste Not was made using the templates and overall I am happy with it. That one point their on the left hand side could stand to be just a little sharper but I'm thinking it will correct itself since it will end up a little bit in the seam allowance anyway. It's not as sharp as some of the ones I saw that has been paper pieced but I'm pretty happy with it.

I know this post is a few days early but it was such a cute little story I had to go ahead and share it with you all. Hope you are having a wonderful weekend and I can't wait to see how everyone else is progressing with their farmers.

I'm Moving!

2011-08-09T19:26:00.001-04:00

It's decided the Farmer and I just can't play nice together so I'm taking my ball and going home. Back to the city even. No I'm not giving up on this quilt along just yet but this week really has made me doubt my abilities to see this quilt through to the queen size beauty I was imagining. I'm thinking a twin (throw) might be a better goal at this point.

I made this first block up earlier in the week with little to no trouble. I hung it on the wall and I was quite proud of that little block and even went so far as to name it my current favorite. I like that it has some small pieces so it wasn't the easiest block I had made but there is also something about the fabrics in this block that I think just set off the pattern and make it a happy little block.

Block # 12 Broken Sugar Bowl

Later in the week I was consumed by preparing for a yard sale and then a sick puppy. The yard sale went well but who knew it would be so much work. My mom and dad saved the day by bringing up portable shade Friday afternoon which came in handy on Saturday as I tend to get sunburn just from seeing the sun on tv. Still no clarification on what is effecting the bulldog but I've been doing some research online and my best uneducated guess is that it's a mild case of canine drop jaw. The vet has no idea what it could be. This brings me to Sunday when I decided to sew up my second block for this week so that I would have something to tell you guys about today. So here is the story of my EPIC FAIL.

Oops those aren't long enough

I started by selecting Block #88 Star of Hope it looked easy enough and some quick math led me to make 8 1 1/2 inch HST and a 5 1/2 inch square. It made sense at the time but oops those side pieces aren't long enough.

Fail # 2

Rather than scrap the tiny HST I searched through the book and found Block #93 Swallow. Again I did some math cut the remaining pieces and went to work. Maybe I need to take a refresher course in math because clearly this did not work out well either. So I called it a night. Monday night I was determined that I was going to make my second block for this week. I had heard a few times about Lori from Bee in my Bonnet and her tutorials so away I went. I read through all the tutorials made a trip to Office Max to get some graph paper and then got to work on Block #50 Honey's Choice. I drew it all out and figured out how big the pieces needed to be. I realized that I could use those same 1 1/2 inch HST but I was feeling lazy and rather than unpick that seam I just made some more. Everything was moving along smoothly. I realized I made a mistake in cutting my center pieces 1 1/2 by 3 instead of 2 1/2 so just a quick snip to fix the problem. I finished the block and I was pretty happy with how the pinwheels were lined up and then I went to square up the block.

Too Small

Tears were shed and that was the end of the night for me. The block only measures 5 3/4 instead of 6 1/2 like it should. So I am 3/4 of an inch short all the way around. I'm guessing I can take this apart and just cut the middle pieces a little bigger to correct the problem but hey what did I miss? On the graph paper it all lined up correctly. But then again the graph paper is drawn to the finished size of the block and not the unfinished size so maybe those pinwheels were suppose to be 2 3/4 and not 2 1/2? It's all so confusing to me. I wish I knew how to paper piece better so that I could make some of these blocks that way. In the mean time I don't guess I will be taking any more short cuts but rather cutting each and every template.

WIP Wednesday # 9

2011-08-03T06:00:00.005-04:00

Well I can't believe it's already Wednesday again. I haven't had much time to sew as of late with all the stuff going on around here but I did manage to make a small dent in the WIP list this week. I managed to finish my July blocks for Do.Good Stitches just in time for the end of the month. Sometimes it is the blocks that look like they are going to be easy to make that leave me frustrated and spending way to much time with my frenemy the seam ripper. In the Grace circle for July we were asked to make these wonky cross blocks. Well I don't really like crosses to be wonky so I'm looking at these more as wonky plus sign blocks. Personal preference. But boy oh boy did these little buggers put me through the ringer.

Wonky Plus Signs July Grace Circle Do.Good Stitches

I'm still working away on my Farmer's Wife Quilt Along blocks. I have to say that I am really enjoying this sampler and the skills I am learning and practicing. I will admit that after seeing Camille's blocks this week two things happened. (A) I was wishing Ruby was out already. I mean come on enough with the teasing already. (B) I found that there is another sampler book based on Civil War love letters. I mean really love letters, and the calm colors of Ruby. Yes I'm already plotting adding the book to my Amazon wish list for Christmas. Can you blame me?

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Week 10

I managed to get caught up to block 5 on the Summer Sampler Quilt Along. I know still very far behind but I am really liking the look of these blocks so far. And goodness you should see some of the suggested blocks popping up in flickr to make in order to increase the size of this quilt. Some of them are just amazing.

1st 4 Blocks Summer Sampler Quilt Along

I'm adding a new project to the list as well. After seeing this quilt I knew I had to make one. In celebration of my promotion (yes I got one, no it doesn't really mean anything) a fat quarter bundle of Joel Dewberry's Heirloom made it's way to my house. I can't wait to get started on this one. I picked up Kona Maize, Butter, and Champagne Tuesday during lunch in hopes of getting started but the two yellows aren't right and I can't decide if I like the Champagne or if it just makes the fabrics look dirty. I really have to love this quilt as I am making it to sit out year round on our couch. That's the plan anyway. I wanted something more unexpected than off white but not too dark. Suggestions?

Head on over to Lee's to see what everyone else is up to!

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Week 10

2011-08-01T20:43:00.000-04:00

So since the farmer and I are still recovering from the bumps in the road last week I decided I better stick with two fairly easy blocks for this week. I didn't really want to mess with templates and since I've already discovered my paper piecing skills leave much to be desired I figured I better do myself a favor and go with easy. I ended up making these two little blocks and the only part that required much thought on my part were the center hourglass blocks. Easy enough, I ended up making them larger than necessary by mistake and then just trimmed them down to the right size. All in all I am happy with the way the blocks look.

Block # 109 Windows

Block # 69 Practical Orchard

I found a little bit of Fresh Cottons online and placed an order for a few pieces to give me a little more room to work with. But I am still very much considering adding in another line as well. I reached out to my good friend Corey because I know she loves Fig Tree as much as I do and I knew she would have some on hand to compare. She suggested mixing in Buttercup as it will add blue to my range as well as some peachy tones of pink. I'm thinking the touch of blue might be just the thing so now I am on the hunt for just a little bit of Buttercup to mix in.

WIP Wednesday #8

2011-07-27T06:00:00.006-04:00

I know I missed WIP Wednesday last week but the trouble was I started writing my post and really had nothing to say. I don't want to become so redundant that you guys stop reading. Maybe it was because of that I decided I might actually sew something this week. Trouble is most of my sewing time has been absorbed right now into packing and cleaning time as we get ready to move and with the hubs celebrating his birthday this past weekend family time was pretty much non optional. So that all equates to not much sewing time.

On the Design Wall:


20 Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Blocks (I'm missing photos of 5 of them)

I did manage to continue progress on my Farmer's Wife Quilt Along despite a few bumps in the road with the farmer. I currently have 25 blocks done which means I am almost a quarter of the way through this quilt. It's funny how addictive these little blocks can be. I love seeing them all together there and am excited at how this quilt is progressing.

Pure Elements

I received this beautiful stack of fabric in the mail from a good friend which gave me the opportunity to start working on the Summer Sampler Quilt Along. I know I know but really what's one more project. Since I'm just getting started and the group is already on block 7 with a rate of 3 blocks a week I know I won't be able to get caught up and finish this one along with the group but I'm hoping not to run too far behind schedule.

Block # 1 Star of Virginia

Block # 2 Greek Cross

At the Quilter:
Spring Weekends (I still need to order that thread)
Central Park
Max and Wiskers in Fast Forward

Gathering Dust:
Mod Times Quilt Along Quilt
UNC Quilt for the Hubs

In the Minds Eye:
Anchors Away
Verna Stars
Origins Lattice Quilt
Sunny Trails

I think that's it for me. Head on over to Lee's to see what everyone else is up to this week.

PS-Is anyone else still having trouble with blogger not letting them leave comments? I've been locked in a never ending loop of logging in for the last two weeks whenever I try to comment and it's really driving me bonkers. Suggestions as to how some of you fixed that problem welcome, I don't like not leaving comments almost as much as I don't like getting them.

Edited to Add: Thanks for the tips ladies! I was able to log out and log back in with out the box checked and it seems to have worked. So silly how such a little thing can make such a difference.

Farmer's Wife?

2011-07-26T06:00:00.001-04:00

Last week I read a funny little blog post about the Farmer's Wife Quilt Along and a trial separation. I laughed at all the humor of the post and remarked in the comments that I was sure before this was all said and done I was going to be taking my turn at separation little did I know that this week I would move right past that and be at the courthouse with divorce papers in hand. I want to leave my farmer this week. It all started harmless enough when I decided I would try and paper piece one of the blocks. I'm not very good at paper piecing and it's not something I really enjoy. Of course you normally get all these nice pretty points and beautiful blocks but not me. I end up with extra fabric in my blocks somehow and everything in reverse. So I tried to start with what I thought would be an easy enough block and chose square dance. I mean really how hard could it be it's really just four flying geese and a couple of squares. I hated it so much I chopped it all up to reuse the fabric without even taking a picture. My points we all cut off and I hated it.

Next I tried using the templates again. Once more I started with an easy block because the farmer and I were already on the rocks and it was the hubs birthday so I didn't have a ton of sewing time. This time as I was trimming up the block I cut too much off one side and now that block in 1/4 inch too small. Not a good thing for this farmer and me.

I did finally manage to sew up a few blocks with little incident so I have something worth while to show you. So here they are my week 9 blocks.

Block # 48 Homeward Bound

For Homeward Bound I did change this block a little bit since I was making it without the templates. Those 2 1/2 inch squares in the corners are tiny 4 patches in the original block but since 3 of the squares are the same fabric I just sewed two small squares together and then cut a 1 1/2 by 2 1/2 inch strip for the other side. Does that make sense?

Block # 62 Old Windmill


Block # 70 Prairie Queen

I know I'm not going to have enough Fresh Cottons to make all of the blocks and sashing for this quilt so I am debating adding another Fig Tree line to my blocks. If anyone has suggestions of which line you think will blend nicely with Fresh Cottons let me know because I am open to suggestion. Since this is such a long term project I'm thinking I need to find something a little newer since Fresh Cottons is already proving difficult to find.

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Week 8

2011-07-19T06:00:00.000-04:00

Week 8 Group Shot

I don't know about you but my fields could use some extra water this week. I only managed to sew up three blocks worth reporting on. I sewed one more but it turned out a smidgen too small again. I was having a lot of trouble with my blocks coming out just a little short of the 6.5 inch block when I used the templates. Moving to a scant 1/4 inch seemed to help but then after making another block this weekend which came out short even with the scant 1/4 inch seam I went back to the discussion boards. I thought my printer was printing correctly since my square templates were all printing at the correct sizes. Turns out it was shrinking them down after all. Once I discovered that I made up two more blocks using templates and they turned out fine. My total block count right now is 22 done. But I am considering remaking 2 of them to make them a perfect 6.5 inches and 2 more blocks are in the running to be remade because I used a solid in them. I can't decided if I should remake them or just mix in the solid to more blocks going forward so that they will all blend together. It's just some Kona Snow and it looks fine with the fabrics.

Block # 15 Buzzard's Roost

Block # 20 Churn Dash

Block # 39 Friendship

And just for fun I would love if someone could tell me the difference between Block # 20 the Churn Dash and block # 111 Wrench. I swear to you I don't see a difference at all. I thought this was amusing because she mentions needing one more block and not wanting to pick a favorite to have a duplicate of. I guess subconsciously maybe Churn Dash was her favorite.

Freshcut Square Dance

2011-07-18T13:46:00.001-04:00

Freshcut Square Dance is finally done! I'm so thrilled to have this quilt finished. I started it what seems like forever ago as part of Amanda Jean's Round and Round Quilt Along. I had so much help with this quilt from L tracking down the jelly rolls of Freshcuts to my mom finding the backing fabric. This one is staying with me as long as possible.

I did make mine with a Jelly Roll of Snow and a Jelly Roll of Freshcuts that was cut by a local quilt store (for L) from yardage of Freshcuts. I used yardage of snow later in the quilt for the larger pieces so that I did not have seams in my sections of white. I did not have any of the problems Amanda Jean mentioned about the strips being to long. I did sew it all with my 1/4 inch foot shortly after receiving it from my parents. I will say that if you can afford the investment that is one sewing machine foot that I would invest in as a quilter. It really has made a huge difference for me.

For the backing I used Elizabeth's technique to match the pattern repeat (I couldn't find it on her blog today) and the seam together two pieces of the same fabric. Because it was such a large seam it's not perfect but even I had a hard time spotting the seam. I'll give you a hint it's not any of those folds you can see in the photo and it actually runs the opposite direction of those.

And just because this is such a better picture here is one of Freshcut Square Dance's beauty marks and a close up of the quilting. I don't know maybe they will grow on me.

Thrifty Thursday and a few tears

2011-07-14T09:30:00.000-04:00

Lately some of my sewing time has been devoted to cutting coupons and searching for good deals. Like everyone else this rough economy has touched a little closer to home then I would have liked. I could give you a million things that haven't worked out as I had hoped and heap on the woe is me factor but instead I thought I would start sharing some of the little things I've been doing to try and spruce up our family budget. I apologize now to my international readers because I know not all of the things I am going to share will be true to your part of the world but maybe it will give you an idea or two as well. So the first tip I am going to share is about coupon forums. Did you know just like we have this great quilting community there is a community of individuals out there that devote all of their free time to hunting down coupons and matching them to local sales flyers. What I love about these sites is that while I don't personally have the time to do all of these matchups myself I can quickly pull up the page and see what hot deals are out there. One of my favorite websites so far is www.hotcouponworld.com they have the matchups all done for you and there is a community wiki that everyone can update with deals that they find. Go check them out but be warned that you might get sucked in. I'll give you my feelings on this "extreme" couponing craze some other time because my opinions on that are almost as long as the debate on dumbed down quilting.

Sorry for the bad Iphone picture but I think you get the point. It's there and it's ugly.

Now for the tears part of this post. I finished my Freshcut Square Dance quilt and I can't wait to show you the pictures of the finished quilt but there were some tears shed over this one for sure. As I was sewing down the binding I noticed this ugly little spot on the back of the quilt. At first I thought I had gotten something on the quilt but upon further inspect I realized that it was a flaw in the fabric. The fabric itself is not dyed. It's like a blank spot (that's the best way I can describe it) luckily the fabric is an off white base and the print is as well so I'm hoping once I wash it that it won't be as noticeable. The frustrating part is that there is a black circle around the spot. This leads me to believe that someone in quality control caught the problem and marked it but the fabric was still bolted and sold. It really bums me out because my mom (she bought this fabric for my birthday last year) got the fabric from a quality quilt store and paid full price for the fabric. See I love Heather Bailey and her fabrics and like so many times I realized I loved the Freshcut line after it became hard to find. My good friend L actually sent me fabric from Canada for the quilt top and then my mom purchased the backing fabric for me because I loved it so much. I put a lot of time in to making the quilt and a lot of love is wrapped up in that quilt to thanks to the generosity of my friends and family. So it makes me really sad to have all of that hard work done and get to the last step and realize there is a problem. See there's not just one of these ugly spots on the quilt there are four. It makes me really sad and admittedly after seeing the second spot I shed a few tears by the time I got to the fourth one I was really upset. What can you do? I guess it will just have to be this quilts beauty mark.

WIP Wednesday #7

2011-07-13T08:30:00.001-04:00

Well I actually have some thing to show you today. I spent the weekend hanging out with my mom and we finished sewing together a quilt top for my nephew. I started out using Julie's Fast Forward pattern and some Max and Wiskers fabric. We decided to go with the orange grunge fabric where Julie used the black because I didn't want the quilt to be too dark and wanted it have a youthful feel. Once the rows were sewn together I realized that if we didn't add the additional sashing the orange made these stars of sort and I really liked it. So we did away with the sashing strips taking this lap size quilt down in size a little but since JR is only 5 months I don't think he will mind and I am confident it will still work on a toddler bed when the time comes.

I'm still working on hand sewing the binding down on my Freshcuts Square Dance quilt but stay tuned because I am sure to have that finished soon. And I'm still plugging away on my Farmer's Wife Quilt Along blocks. So it's a pretty short report from me today but head on over to Lee's to see what everyone else is working on.

Farmer's Wife QAL Week 7

2011-07-12T07:00:00.002-04:00

I managed to sneak in a few more blocks for the farmer's wife quilt along. Here is a look at my blocks for this week.

Block # 81 Snowball

I think that block 81 might be my favorite so far. The colors in the photo are off just a little bit but I really like the bright pink against the white with a hint of pink background. I also decided this might be my favorite way to make snowball blocks. I used half square triangles instead of the templates. Snowball blocks just never seem to work out quite right for me and I spend a lot of time pressing and remaking. This one went together like a dream.

Block # 49 Honeycomb


Block # 66 Periwinkle

Perwinkle is one of the few blocks I've made actually utilizing the templates. I took it about 1/2 way apart after sewing it the first time because it was slightly too small. It's better now but see that section in the top left. It's still just a tad short. So I am sure that I will either be seam ripping this one apart or remaking the block. Typically I would just remake it because I'm lazy like that but I really like the colors in this block and since I am using the limited fabric I have for this collection I'm a little scared to just recut. I just don't know if I would like a different color combo as much.

Block # 41 Friendship Star

It wasn't until after I took this group shot for last weeks blog post that I realized there was something wrong with my friendship star block. It's a little hard to see there in the lower right of the photo but one of the star points is upside down. I took the row apart and flipped it over and resewed it and then realized that didn't work either. Not sure what I was thinking. So I took it apart again and took the whole row apart (I did this while talking on the phone, I should have known better because I was already super tired) as a result I took the wrong row apart and had to then continue ripping seams. It was a good lesson learned that even though these blocks are addictive when you get tired you make silly mistakes and sometimes have to just say enough it's time for bed.

There are a lot of great pictures of blocks showing up over on flickr. You can check them out here. I really like the way a few people have put their own spin on some of the blocks. For example Camille really added a nice touch to block 73 Rainbow Flowers by adding a little detail in the corner of each layer. I love the way Kerri brought focus to the pinwheel in Big Dipper. I have already made this block but am considering remaking it with the pinwheel as the focus because you all know how much I love a good pinwheel. What about you, what are you doing to add a special touch to make this quilt one of a kind?

Manic Monday

2011-07-11T12:52:00.000-04:00

I spent this last weekend at my mom and dad's house and mom and I spent most of Saturday sewing. As I was unloading all the things I brought with me from the car and talking with my mom I found I had an extreamly long list of projects I wanted to work on or was midproject on. So how do you decide? My good friend L and I were talking yesterday and we were looking at different projects and talking about our Farmer's Wife QAL blocks and I was telling her how much I wanted to do the Summer Sampler Series because I thought it would be a good chance to learn some new skills. Of course that starts today and I haven't even looked at materials to use for it yet.

Just because I hate a post with no pictures here is one of my "kids" sunbathing.

With new quilt alongs popping up almost daily in blog land and a seemingless endless amount of inspiration on flickr how do you decide which projects to join in on? Do you have a method? I think I look at projects and pick fabric around that mostly. But every once in a while I find myself searching for a project to fit some sort of precut I purchased or some fabric I just had to have. This method works but with a growing list of projects I want to do and not enough hours in the day to do them all I'm wondering how to edit this list. What do you do to keep it manageable?

WIP Wednesday #6

2011-07-06T09:04:00.003-04:00

So what can I tell you about my works in progress that you don't already know? Well here is a little look at what's been going on in my sewing room. Sorry if some of it sounds redundant.

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along: I am currently a little ahead on this one. I have a total of 15.5 blocks made and according to the schedule we should be at 12 this week. I have to say I am really digging this quilt and the more blocks I make the happier I am with my choice to use the Fresh Cottons. (Thanks L for helping me pinpoint what it was I liked so I knew what to do).

Freshcuts Square Dance: Currently working on the binding on this one. I can't wait to show this one off but I have a little more work to do on it first.

Spring Weekends: This one is about half way quilted and now I'm waiting on thread. I really do need to order that.

Other than that things have been a little slow around the sewing room. I took advantage of my time home alone this weekend to give parts of the house a little deep cleaning. How is it that a fan in constant motion collects so much dust?

If you happen to be looking for new WIP to add to your list (I keep seeing this and making plans to join even though I already have a ton of projects) here are a few new quilt alongs floating through blogland. Keep in mind this is not a comprehensive list because in all honesty I just can't keep up.

Amanda Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts is kicking off a 36 Patch Quilt along in celebration of her birthday. I've been meaning to make one of those beautiful 9 patch quilts that she did so 36 is just as good, right? It's really just 4 9 patches sewn together.

Katie, Faith, and Lee have teamed up to host the Summer Sampler Series. This one looks like a lot of fun and a good opportunity to learn some new skills. I am thinking about doing this one in solids as a quilt for charity. One of my goals for this year was to make a donate a few quilts and so far I haven't done that and seeing as how it is July already (what happen to 2011?) I better get busy accomplishing some of those goals.

The girls over at QuiltStory are hosting Rockin' Robin and if you need incentive to join in on another project they are giving away some great prizes for those who have completed quilt tops in the flickr pool by the end of the quilt along. You can find more details about this one over here.

Kaelin over at The Plaid Scottie is kicking off a double wedding ring quilt along. This is a quilt that I have always wanted to try and so I am finding this one to be extremely tempting as well. So many choices and not nearly enough hours in the day.

Check out whatever one else is up to over here. But be fair warned if I haven't already given you at least one more project you want to work on you are sure to find inspiration by following the link.

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Week 6

2011-07-05T19:04:00.000-04:00

I hope all of you here in the states had a Happy July 4th yesterday and that my friends in Canada enjoyed their celebration of Canada day on Friday. The hubs went out of town with his family the weekend so I had the house all to myself. I didn't do as much sewing as I would have liked and the time I did have I spent mostly working on more little blocks for this quilt along. Funny how that happens, these little blocks are so addictive. So I have more than two to show you today but I figure this will get me off the hook one week when I don't have time to make any.

Block # 21 Contrary Wife

Block # 29 Economy

Block # 34 Flock

Block # 61 Northern Lights


Block # 102 Whirlpool

I was having a little bit of trouble with the blocks I made from the templates turning out just a smidge too small. I ended up listening to my mom who suggested I move my needle and make a scant 1/4 inch seam. Personally I like to sew with a true quarter inch seam and usually I am okay with that because it is consistent but since I made some of the blocks with out using the templates I decided that they all needed to square up to finish at 6 inch blocks.

Farmer's Wife Quilt Along Week 5

2011-06-28T07:00:00.006-04:00

After playing catchup over the weekend I am now on track with the Farmer's Wife Quilt Along. The goal is to finish 2 blocks a week for the next year. I think that goal is pretty do-able since these little blocks don't take too much time to make and are actually a bit addictive. So this week I made blocks 84, 16, 10 and 92. These four blocks make me even with the quilt along. I haven't really been going in any sort of order with these blocks. Just whatever I feel like making that day or what I already have the templates or measurements figured out for. Here is a closer look at these two blocks.

Block # 84 Spool

Block # 92 Streak of Lightning

I think I will take after Elizabeth over at Don't Call Me Betsy and try to post about these blocks every Tuesday. That is if I can have them done each week by Tuesday. And yes I know this is really my week 5 but I figured since that is where the group is at that I would get caught up and then just pick up with everyone else.

Block # 16 Calico Puzzle and Block # 10 Bowtie

The Farmer's Wife

2011-06-26T13:29:00.001-04:00

I caved! I was trying to avoid new projects because I just have so darn many that I need to finish up. But I may or may not have sent my mom an email while she was in Texas telling her about this quilt along and that I thought we should make this quilt. I was surprised when I saw her Friday night and she brought me this book. So Saturday when I got tired of hand sewing down binding (I can't wait to show you guys a finished quilt in a few days) I was chatting through email with my good friend Leanne and we started talking about this quilt along. I had planned to make these blocks scrappy because I'm not allowed to buy any fabric right now. I couldn't decided what to do. L had a great idea of making the quilt out of solids but I looked around and well I just don't have many solids. Truthfully I don't have much of a stash at all I tend to only buy what I need for a specific project unless it's something I just love and happen to find on sale. Out of all of the lovely photos in the flickr group I kept coming back to one person's in particular. Of course being the fabric designer of the line and having access to fabric that doesn't come out until October helps. I pondered what I wanted to do while I sewed up bee blocks for Do.Good Stitches. This is the only bee I am currently participating in and since it only requires sending finished blocks and not the back and forth of fabric I think it will be a good one. Besides the quilts are all donated to charity and that makes it even more gratifying. If your not already a member be sure to check it out.

Finally I realized what it was about Camille's blocks that I liked so much. All of the fabrics blend really well together and they are in softer tones which means the fabric isn't fighting with the block to see who is in control. I had a jelly roll and layer cake of Fresh Cottons that I had originally purchased to use for a hexagon quilt along over at the Old Red Barn Quilts group. Since I had only gotten a few pieces in and figured I would probably not get back to it anytime soon and I have my little hexagons going I thought it would be okay to cut that project from the list and use the fabric for the Farmer's Wife Quilt Along. And I must say I am pretty happy with the results. While these fabrics are not as bright as the ones I usually use I think their softness is the perfect blend of modern/traditional fabric. I think that is exactly what I needed to make this very traditional quilt in a more me style. I'm excited to keep going but I have to admit that these blocks are very addictive. I was able to catch up to the group in just one evening of sewing. Here is a more detailed look at my first 6 blocks.

Block # 1 Attic Windows

Block # 2 Autumn Tints

Block # 4 Basket Weave

Block # 6 Big Dipper

Block # 9 Box


Block # 11 Broken Dishes

I found that the blocks are relatively easy to piece. I have used a combination of both the templates and using my math skills. For example in block number 6 the Big Dipper I used the templates from the CD in the back of the book. But on block 11 Broken Dishes I used my regular method of constructing half square triangles instead of the templates. I knew that using the templates would mean sewing all of those little triangles together on the bias and I tend to tug and pull on my fabric a little bit especially when using small pieces so I felt this was a safer way to go. I'm happy with the way it looks and I don't feel that my points are off in the block so I think overall it was a success.

Goodie Bag Swap

2011-06-24T11:22:00.001-04:00

My partner has finally received the package I sent along for the goodie bag swap so now I can share a little more about it. I was starting to get really nervous about this since I mailed it back on June 1st. I understand it had to fly half way around the world but waiting is not something I necessarily do well.

You may recall this picture of the back that I showed you before. I used this tutorial to make up the bag. Only making a few small changes. Mostly because I think I did the corners wrong and ended up with something different. But I like the way the corners made the bag less square.

Inside of the bag.

I also made my partner a little case for her glasses. I have to admit that I way underestimated the amount of time this one was going to take. Sewing all of those little hexagons together. I also had a bit of a hard time with the lining. The seam wanted to keep popping open so I hope it is still together now that my partner has it. I think sewing through the hexagons, interface, batting, and lining was just a little difficult for Bertha. I added the layer of batting for a little extra protection since my partner mentioned this was going to be for her glasses and not sunglasses. I used this tutorial for the case and matching fabrics from the bag. The inside of the case is different it is a cute little love bird print just for fun.

I'm so glad that my partner has received it and is happy with the package I put together for her. I was a little worries as always that she would receive it and hate it so there is always some sense of relief when you know they like what you have made.

The package I sent my partner. Bag, eyeglass case, fabric scraps, and a Liberty of London journal.

Package I received. Bag, zipper pouch, journal, notepads, and gummy candy.

Here's another look at the goddies I received in this swap. I really love my bag too. And it made the trip with me to Milwaukee and the zipper pouch was great to make sure I didn't loose any of the receipts I needed to keep and turn in for my expense report. Being out of town means not much sewing has been taking place here but hopefully I'll have some fun things to show you all soon.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2011-06-16T22:13:00.000-04:00

Yup I love that song. But it's true tomorrow morning I head of to Milwaukee for the GFWC convention where I will be representing the nonprofit that I work for by day. (General Federation of Woman's Clubs, I know you'll ask because despite attending at least one Juniorettes meeting in High School I had no clue until last year either.) But I couldn't leave you all with out some eye candy (especially since I won't be back until at least Tuesday of next week).

I received a great little package in the mail this week. My bag from the goodie bag swap came from Corrie and I love it. She nailed it. Let's see I told her I liked pink and orange and needed a bag with plenty of room because I often carry not only my own stuff but my husbands medical supplies as well. This is what she came up with. Isn't it the sweetest.

She even nailed me on the sweet little extras because she sent gummy candy (which I love) a little zippered pouch and a journal book. Which by the way I've been wanting to pick up to keep grocery list and coupon match ups in since I have become so concerned obsessed with keeping tabs on lately. The only required "extras" for this swap was a sandwich size baggie of fabric scraps. Sorry they didn't make it in the picture because I already started using them...

I made my first block for the Japanese + & x quilt along. It's made all from scraps and at first I thought I hated it but then it grew on me a little. Now I think I kind of like it. Maybe I do like it. I trimmed mine down a little small by accident. I thought it strange I had so much room on the sides but oh well it was really a practice block anyway. I might trim them all down to this size though or I might just start over. I am finding myself wishing I had some fabrics with words on them. The blocks with words in the flickr group are just so appealing to me. Honestly I don't think I own a stitch of Japanese fabric so maybe that's what is missing.

Hope you all have a great weekend and I'll see you when I get back from Milwaukee! If you know of great quilt stores or restaurants there leave me a comment and tell me about them. I'll have some time in the evenings and I'd love to check it out.

WIP Wednesday #5

2011-06-08T08:00:00.002-04:00

I haven't been doing a whole lot of sewing since I am trying to get prepared to go to the GFWC Convention with work next weekend. Lots of time spent doing stuff around the house and trying to make sure I have everything I need to go. If anyone has suggestions of things to see and do in Milwaukee (or where some good quilt stores are hiding) please let me know. I'll be there for four days this time and I'm hoping to get the chance to see some sights.

What I have been working:

I quilted about a third of my Spring Weekends quilt before running out of thread. I always underestimate how much it will take. I went with the all over loopy pattern again and I was really surprised by how much easier it has been the second time around. Not as many problems with the flow of the quilting. I did take your advice and go with a pale yellow for the quilting. It is subtle but I like that it's something different from the typical white.

I'm still working on this robe for my coworker. Hope to finish it up today as a matter of fact. It just needs buttons and the bias tape at this point. So I have been making a little progress. She asked me to make a second one for her son but I declined. See sometimes I can say no. Bertha didn't really enjoy the first one and it dulled my rotary blade really bad cutting the towel. Not to mention there is still pink fuzz flying all over my sewing room.

I'm slowly turning the pile from this post, into a quilt. It's slow going especially since I cut a bunch of pieces wrong the first time. More on that later. As I plan to write up my thoughts about the quilt and pattern a little later. Probably once the top is finished.

I decided to use this lovely stack of fabric for Elizabeth's Quilt Along. Although I am still trying to make a decision about which solid to use. And then again I'm still eyeing my collecting of Garden Party and wondering if it might be a better choice. What do you thing?

Head on over to see what everyone else is working on.

Oh and with a little help from this tutorial I spruced up the blog a little bit. Head on over and check it out. It was a lot of fun and now I'm looking forward to changing it up more often.

Looking for Something To Do?

2011-06-03T17:14:00.001-04:00

Even though I have a ton of things on my sewing room table right now and about a million more on my list of things I ~~need~~ want to do, there are some amazing projects popping up all over blogland right now so I thought I would share some of them with you just in case you haven't seen them yet. I'm still entertaining which of these projects I'll be participating in and which ones I'll be adding to my ever growing list of projects I just have to try.

Elizabeth over at Don't Call Me Betsy (one of my favorite new to me blogs) is hosting a Kaleidoscope Quilt Along. The button she created based on the color palette for Prince Charming has me drooling. You all know I am a huge fan of Tula Pink anyway and these colors just make me happy. She's worked out some discount deals on fabric so I am entertaining the thought of picking some of this fabric up but the logical part of me that wants to take a vacation in August for my upcoming anniversary is suggesting this might be a good time to use something I already have. Maybe Garden Party with white would look nice. Or perhaps this would be a good time to break out my High Society with a nice warm color for the perfect fall quilt for my living room. After all it will probably take me that long to finish.

If you like traditional quilts Angela and Amanda have teamed up to host a quilt along based on the Farmer's Wife book. I love how Angela has taken the approach of making these traditional blocks in fabrics from some of today's hottest designers. The blocks look amazing and I am excited to see how this one progresses.

Angela is going to be starting up A Zig A Zag Quilt Along. There aren't a lot of details on this one yet but it looks like fun. I like how the zig zag is more elongated than what you typically see and I'm interested to see how she will do this. I am really digging the mock up in two solids and I'm thinking a blue and gray color combo would be nice. Maybe ash with a mix of blue prints. Maybe different colors altogether. This one is on my maybe list and I'll have to see where I am when more details are released.

Last but not least I wanted to mention the Japanese + and X Quilt Along. This one is really a great scrap busting project as all of the pieces are fairly small and you don't need a lot of each fabric. I am planning to do this one but at a relatively slow rate. More or less as an in between projects kind of thing. So on nights where I want to sew but don't have a lot of time I can complete a block here and there. Check out the flickr page here and take a look at all of the blocks that have already been finished. They are amazing! I do think fussy cutting lends a lot to these blocks so it might be slow going for me for a while.

Not As Easy As It Seams

2011-05-30T21:47:00.000-04:00

Hah Hah I love a good pun, don't you. Well I spent most of the day today working on a project for a friend. One of my coworkers found this tutorial on Sew Mama Sew and thought it would be the perfect thing for her daughter who is required to have a swimming robe at daycare. Knowing that I quilt she asked me if I would make one up for her since she doesn't sew. And I said yes after reading through the tutorial and assuming it would be a pretty quick and painless project. I mean really it looked all innocent and sweet there on the page. I spent all day on it and I'm still not done. Bertha did not exactly appreciate me asking her to sew through a towel. Apparently I forgot to ask her first if it was okay.

My applique piece didn't fit and after all that work cutting it out and even using some of my precious Neptune I couldn't take no for an answer so I asked the hubs what he thought and he suggested just wrapping it around the side. Okay so the instructions call for it to be added prior to sewing the pieces together which is why I didn't think of that. So after I had it all sewed together I added the octopus. I still need to add the eyes but I didn't have any black so I will have to pick that up tomorrow along with some buttons. Overall it's a darling pattern but I don't think I would make another one. The towel unravels very easily and it is difficult to sew through. I have coral colored fuzz all over my sewing room.

Other than after finishing up my bag for the Goodie Bag Swap yesterday morning I decided to make a little extra goodie to go inside. Sorry I can't show it to you yet because it is something my partner specifically asked for and I'm afraid it might give it away. But again lets just say I was underestimated the amount of time it would take me to make and sew together the 30 hexagons needed for the project.

Speaking of hexagons did you think I had given up on that project? Well I haven't here are just over 1000 that I have basted and I still have a ton of squares that are cut and ready to be basted. The trouble I'm having is I can't decided on a layout. Do I want to go all mixed up? Keep each collection together? But then what do I do with the random pieces I made from scraps or received in a swap? Suggestions welcome. Until I decided I guess I will just keep on basting hexagons. I want it to be a lap size quilt so I still have to make a few more.

Up next my mom picked up some Central Park for the back of my quilt so I just need to piece in the strip to the back and then it will be ready to go to the quilter. It's almost a queen size quilt and I know what I have in mind for the quilting so I won't be tackling that one on the home machine. Time to save some pennies for quilting. And then I am going to work on this fun project. The original plan was to make this in lap size for the new nephew but now with the orange fabric in hand I'm not so sure I will be able to give it away. After all he is a baby, what's he going to do with a lap sized quilt.

My Love Hate Relationship

2011-05-29T15:34:00.000-04:00

So I know I've told you about these kinds of relationships in the past but I have another one. I have a love hate relationship with swaps. I love to join them because it gives me the chance to meet amazing people and make something for someone else. I hate them because when the project is done and you are sitting there waiting to find out if your partner likes it the doubt starts. Did I get it right? Will he/she actually like it? Will it sit in the back of their closest unused? Will it end up in the next box to goodwill? This is where I am at in the Goodie Bag Swap I signed up for a while back. My bag is done and ready to go in the mail. I changed my mind a lot about this swap. I wasn't really sure I had a good sense of what my partner really wanted. I didn't want to make something to small but I didn't want to make a huge bag she wouldn't be able to carry with her either. The inspiration mosaic had all different size and shaped bags but they did lean a little bit to the square boxy side. So I thought I would go in that direction. But as luck would have it I couldn't find a square bag I liked. In the end I made this one and I really like it so I'm hoping my partner will too. This is just a little peak. I promise a full recap including a link to the tutorial I used once my partner has received it.

Check back tomorrow for some other projects and updates. I plan to sew the rest of today and most of tomorrow because what better way is there to spend a day off work.

Work In Progress Wednesday #3

2011-05-11T07:00:00.004-04:00

I didn't mean for this to turn into a once a week blog but things have been a bit crazy here lately. I haven't spent much time with Bertha again this week. I haven't been feeling the best and sitting at the sewing machine has just been low on the list of things to do. I won't bore you with the details but I'm hoping that making some changes will have me feeling better and back at the sewing machine in no time.

After swearing off bees for this year my good friend Mary asked me to participate in the Bee Neptune. A sewing bee just for those of us who love the Tula Pink line of fabric. Since trying to track it down for my Anchors Away quilt I have developed a small collection of the line and decided that it would be okay to join in on the fun. The bee doesn't officially get underway until June but our bee mama and first up sent out her fabric already. I was able to finish this block up just in time to add it as a completed project to this weeks WIP Wednesday post.

I also reworked the top of my Spring Weekends quilt to make it an even 7 by 7 instead of the original 5 by 7. This one is all basted and ready for quilting but I can't decided what color thread to use for the quilting. I'm considering white because that what I have on hand and I wasn't able to match the aqua at my LQS. Any suggestions? Here's a look at the top again just in case.

Dreaming About But Not Underway:
I decided I would share some (because the list gets longer everyday) of the quilts I have planned but not started.

Anchors Away
Origins Lattice Quilt
Sunny Trails
Verna Stars

That does it for me this week. Be sure to check out what everyone else is up to over here.

WIP Wednesday #2

2011-05-04T08:36:00.000-04:00

I can't believe that it is already Wednesday again. Where did the second half of last week and the weekend go? I didn't spend much time with Bertha after Wednesday last week but I did manage to fit in a little sewing time. I finished putting together the Central Park quilt top and now this one is awaiting fabric for the backing. I do plan to send this one out to be quilted. It is on the larger size measuring in at about 73 by 73 inches right now. This quilt was a lot of fun to make and it went together really quickly. I think it would make a great gift for someone.

My Spring Weekends quilt made little progress this week. I decided to do a little reworking on this one and make it an even 6 by 6 rows. I found this great fitted sheet at a local thrift store. Sorry for the crummy photo. The colors are actually a bit brighter in real life. I've never used a sheet on one of my quilts before and I am a little nervous about how well it will hold up since I don't think this particular sheet is 100% cotton but rather a poly/cotton blend.

Freshcuts Square Dance is still at the long arm and I have yet to continue progress on Twisted Fandango. I am still working on my string blocks for the Mod Times Quilt Along but hope to get them done as well as the next step of the quilt along this week. I did decided on my fabric choices for my bag for the swap I am in so hopefully I will get some progress made on that soon as well. So even though I don't have any finishes this week it is nice to be able to share where I am in the process with several projects. Be sure to check out what everyone else is up to over here.

WIP Wednesday

2011-04-27T07:00:00.003-04:00

I just found out about Work in Progress Wednesday through some blogs I recently started reading and so I thought since (a) I love to make list, (b) I find when I put it out there on the blog I am more likely to finish it, and (c) I love linky parties it might be just the ticket to a regularly schedule blog post that actually chronicles more than just a finished project.

Hot at the Machine:
Spring Weekends- I'm doing a little modification on this quilt top. I'm going to make one more block and changed the layout to 6 by 6. It will be a little shorter but also wider which I appreciate. I found a great vintage sheet to use for the back so this one is almost ready for a little basting spray and then quilting.

Close up of Spring Weekends Quilt Top

Mod Times Quilt Along-This is a new quilt along and this week is all about cutting the fabrics and getting ready to go. Since I decided I wanted to make my rectangles rainbow string blocks I am working on putting those together first. I still need to cut the other pieces but I have my solids all ready to go.


The start of my rainbow blocks.

Central Park Quilt: This quilt would be progressing nicely. But I need to order another jelly roll (bad math skills) and some fabric for the back and then figure out who I want to have quilt it. It is a little big for my home machine so I am pretty sure I'll be sending this one out to be done.

Awaiting TLC:
Freshcuts Square Dance: This one is at the long arm quilters. She is having her studio remolded and I'm not sure where this one is on her to do list but hopefully I will have it back before to long.

Fussy Cut Bee Log Cabin: While I have a lot of bee blocks from last year I'm not ready to commit to all of them yet. I broke this one out first because I have a bit of a plan for it and I think I can make it happen. I'm on a push to get some things finished because I've made a deal with myself that I won't be buying any more fabric until I use up some of what I have.

While my overall to do list is much longer than this I wanted to start small. Sometimes my list gets a little muddled with things I want to do and not just the things that are actually started or that I have actual materials for.

Be sure to check out what everyone else is doing over here.

Foiled Plans

2011-04-26T07:00:00.000-04:00

Last night while the vintage sheet was in the washer I had planned to cut my blocks for the Central Park Quilt and get busy sewing. Unfortunately it didn't work out like that. My jelly roll only yielded enough for half of the blocks I need for the quilt. So I am putting that one on hold while I wait for another jelly roll to arrive (have to wait until next payday to order it). In the mean time I went ahead and got started on the next thing on my to do list. I decided that I wanted to do the Mod Times Quilt Along. Now I don't have any kids of my own yet but I do have a brand new nephew not to mention the number of people at work having babies so i thought it couldn't hurt to put a few baby quilts away in the closet for those times when I need a gift but just don't feel like making something right then.

One of my goals for this year was to try and think outside the box a little more. This quilt along is great and I could have just picked a great print and went about it the easy way. But no not me I decided I needed to be more complicated then that and I needed to make my rectangles from rainbow colored string blocks. I've had plenty of practice with paper foundation piecing since being apart of the Spider Web Bee last year. I made my first few blocks. I can't decide which way I like them better. The first block I tried to go in ROY G BIV order but since I am making two of my rectangles from one paper foundation only half of the rainbow ended up in the block (not to mention I forgot the yellow) and then because of a piece that was too short I ended up cutting the second side of the block down into two of my needed squares. The second one I pieced I used a more random plan and just grabbed whichever strip happened to be there. What do you think, do you have a preference as to which looks better?

Return of the Mojo

2011-04-25T18:16:00.000-04:00

After whipping up Spring Weekends this past weekend I found myself with time left in the day and a desire to keep on sewing. It's been a long time since I felt like I was able to really sit down with Bertha and accomplish something. I joked with my good friend Leanne who's been MIA for a while that I was glad she came back and brought my mojo with her. I had a jelly roll of Central Park and no specific plans but a quilt I had seen a while back that I couldn't get out of my head. I don't typically like to make a quilt in the same fabrics that I've seen someone else use. Don't ask me why I'm just big on changing it up some at the very least by using different fabrics. But Laura's quilt was just so stunning. I've been a member of the Old Red Barn group over on flickr for a long time but I've never actually made one of the quilt along quilts. Okay well I started the hexagon quilt but lets not talk about that. Regardless it felt good to have a plan and to have something I could work on while looking for a vintage sheet for the back of Spring Weekends. (Which incidentally I found today at the very first thrift store I went to. I expected it to take a lot longer.)

I was able to get the jelly roll strips all sewn together into sets of six. The next step is to cut these strips down into blocks and then sew them back together into a top somewhat like a rail and fence pattern. I'm really excited about this one too because I think it will be big enough to replace our bulky comforter on the bed for the Spring and Summer. I'm one of those people who has to have covers but hates to be hot so something light will be just the ticket.

Spring Weekends

2011-04-24T14:37:00.000-04:00

I recently found some new to me blogs that I have enjoyed reading for the last couple of weeks. One of those blogs is Elizabeth's. Oh before we get to far into this you might want to grab a snack and a drink. I have a lot to say today and lots of links for you to look at. Go ahead I'll wait. Well one of the features on Elizabeth's blog is Work in Progress Wednesday which you can link up to by visiting Freshly Pieced each Wednesday and sharing your current projects. While following the links I noticed Lee had linked to a quilt along. I assumed it was a new quilt along so I followed the link and got really excited by what I saw. Yes I know I have a million projects going but there is just something about a quilt along that I usually manage to keep up as long as I get started at the same time as everyone else. I completed missed the dates and the fact that this quilt along actually took place last year. But this quilt along only called for a single charm pack and 3 yards of solids. I knew right away that I would use my lonely charm pack of Dream On because really there are so few projects for just one charm pack. But what color would I use to go with it. A quick look around flickr and I had it narrowed down to a few choices. I could go with aqua, corn, or ash. I already had white in my stash so I knew I could mix any of the three with the white. I also thought I could use aqua or corn with the ash. A quick trip to the local quilt store and I discovered aqua was the only one of my three choices they had in stock. So aqua and white it was.

I love how quickly this top came together. I started piecing my squares on Friday night at about 9 o'clock and sewed until about midnight. By that time I had all of the inner boarders on and one side of my outer boarder. yesterday I spent a little bit of time sewing and by the end of the night I had squared (well really wonked) all of my squares. The rows went together super fast and then the top as well. I have to admit I was a little nervous about the wonky part. I don't do wonky really well but this was a great quilt for getting my feet wet. These blocks are wonky on purpose and not just because my seams aren't quite right. And now that I've accomplished the look in a way that makes a lot of sense it will be a method I can see myself using again.

I'm going to check out a couple of thrift stores this week and try to find a vintage sheet for the back of this quilt. Something nice and bright. And then I plan on doing a little free motion quilting on it myself. I think that this one is small enough to manage on my home machine. It's a little smaller than what I usually like to make but I think this one will be just right to keep around on those spring days when you need a little something but don't want to be completely bundled up. I'm considering Spring Weekends as the name for this one but as always I'm open to suggestion.

Suprise & Delight

2011-04-22T20:33:00.001-04:00

In the office we have a little joke about surprise & delight because it usually in tales someone bringing in cake or some other form of reward in the way of food. Every once in a while though surprise & delight really is a surprise & it really does delight. Today we found out at about 1:30 that the office was going to close at 3pm today. Yeah! More delight was that with my extra two hours off I came home and took a much needed nap. You know the kind where you sleep so hard you wake up in a haze and think man is it tomorrow already. More delight is that my husband and brother in law are busy playing video games so Bertha and I are going to spend some quality time together turning these pretties into something wonderful. Hopefully I'll share my full plan with you soon when I can get some better pictures. Happy Easter and Happy Sewing!

Dream On, Kona White, & Kona Aqua

Well Hello Betty

2011-04-19T18:49:00.001-04:00

I finished the Hello Betty quilt top and I already have ideas spinning around in my head for my next project. Overall I like the way this quilt is turning out. She is going to take a break as a WIP for a while though because I haven't figured out if I want to make more blocks and make this quilt larger or if I am happy to just keep it as a baby size and share with some cool little girl I have yet to meet. Right now the top is about 45 by 45 inches and I do love the way these fabrics and this design came together. I think they work really well to give it just the right amount of vintage modern flair I was after.

Feeling the Love

2011-04-18T08:46:00.001-04:00

I've been having a lot of conversations lately with one of my good friends about how I can improve my little corner of the blogging community. We've talked about things like taking better photos, posting more consistently, and writing tutorials. All of those things sound great in theory. My own conflict with myself is that I want my blog to be consistent and focused just on my quilting projects. If I start talking about other things I'm afraid I will become a big jumbled mess. So I started doubting my reasons for even maintaining a blog. Truthfully when I first started it was all about having somewhere to display all of my bee badges and then it became something more, something fun. I'm open to any suggestions you have for making this little bit of the blogging world better. So as I was wrapped in my blanket of self doubt Beth nominated me for an award. Thanks Beth!

Let me tell you a little about my history with Beth. Beth hosted the first swap I ever participated in which was a Scrappy Holiday Squares block. You may remember me talking about this around Christmas time because my mom surprised me last year for my birthday with one of the charity tree skirts made from that swap. You can read more about that here. I didn't realize until a little more recently when Beth started commenting that she was actually still following my blog. That realization reminded me that one of my goals for this year is to leave more comments because I read a ton of blogs where I have never said anything so the author of those blogs probably doesn't even see me out there reading. One more thing about Beth, she is going to be someone to watch ladies, I don't know if she knows it yet but she has a talent for design and I know she is working hard at getting some patterns released. Hey Beth if you ever need a pattern tester just let me know and then remember the little people when you hit it big.

Okay so the rules of this award are really simple. All you have to do is link back to the person who nominated you and then nominate three blogs yourself. One thing I love about this award in particular is that it is meant to highlight smaller blogs. Those blogs you love to read but feel guilty about keeping to yourself. So my nominees are Mary, Leanne, and Lesly (Girls if you don't want to participate then feel free to pass.)

52

2011-04-17T18:55:00.000-04:00

52 is the number of seams I ripped out today so that I could trim 52 HST to 2 inches. Last Saturday my mom and I had a sewing date and I haven't touched Bertha since. Today I decided to get back to it and I picked up my Hello Betty quilt again. Now might be a good time to mention that my house is in total disarray as my brother in law has moved in with us for a while. Needless to say I wasn't prepared when I got to my mom's last weekend. I forgot my 1/4 inch foot among many other things. In my haste I went ahead and sewed those little HST to the ends of the strips thinking that I could always fix them later. Yeah that didn't work out quite like I saw it in my head so the seam ripper it was.

But in the end I finished all of the blocks and now I'm ready to start sewing the quilt top together. Even though Corey's instructions were easy enough to follow I had a really hard time with these blocks. I have a particular way I like to make HST and if I had thought it through enough I would have just stuck to what I know instead. Also I have found that when using precuts it's a little more fussy to get everything just so. I don't know if it's because there are slight variances in the precuts, if it's because those little spikes on the ends kind of freak me out, or if I just don't know how to sew a straight line. In any case I always find cutting up precuts and putting them back together to be a little more complicated.

Irony at it's Finest

2011-04-05T22:01:00.000-04:00

At the risk of offending someone I thought I would tell you guys about my next project...

City Weekends Baby Quilt by my Mom

I was talking with my mom today about my last blog post because she has been out of town and was oblivious to what I was talking about. During that conversation my mom was sharing her thoughts with me on how when she first started quilting she was only drawn to what "modern quilters" would call calico prints. As I started quilting I never once told my mother I thought her choices were bad. What I did do was send her lots of pretty fabric photos to look at and links to some of the blogs I like to read. Please understand I didn't do this to change my moms opinions. I wasn't trying to influence her into liking the same things I did but rather I wanted to introduce to her that there were other options out there. I realized in this process that my mom was picking up designer names and it became a little challenge to her to see if she could identify a designer or line in a photo I sent her about my next project. To me (which is just my opinion at the risk of offending someone) my mom now uses a mix of "modern" and "old school" fabrics. I used "old school" because I don't have a better word for it right now. Sometimes my mom picks things that I wouldn't and sometimes I can see her picking over at my project when we get to sew together and I know she's thinking "I don't like that!" But that's okay because we are both making things we really enjoy.

Polka Dot Remix Baby Quilt by my Mom

I say all of this to tell the back story of what I'm about to blog about. Wasn't that nice. In this conversation my mom thanked me for teaching her about designers and showing her there were other options out there. I call this irony because today in my mail box I got a Hello Betty Layer Cake that I ordered for my next project. Yes, Hello Betty as in a very retro vibe kind of print. I don't know what it is about this line because I don't really like retro. I'm not typically drawn to reproductions or the anything with that retro vibe. I know a lot of people from my generation are collecting "vintage" but it just never really appealed to me. This line though has been in my head since I first saw it at a quilt show more than 2 years ago. When I saw Corey's latest Bakeshop project I knew I had finally found the perfect project for Hello Betty. There was something about her quilt that just made me think immediately of that line. Do you ever do that? Most of the time I find projects I like and then search for the perfect fabric. This time it was an instant knowing that I had to make that quilt and I had to use Hello Betty to do it. My layer cake came in the mail today and I've already started cutting my pieces. Twisted Fandango is still in the works but the boarders aren't coming out the way I want and so I'm taking a break from it for a little while. Don't worry, I will push through it and finish it. But for now some easy sewing in my hectic life is what I'm after.


I love the way all these little pieces look when cutting.

Hello Betty

Dumb? Who Me?

2011-04-04T14:11:00.001-04:00

I don't usually join in on these kinds of debates or conversations because my mom taught me a long time ago that if you can't say something nice you shouldn't say anything at all. Well in this case I don't have anything mean to say so I think I'm safe. Apparently I live in a bubble because I had no idea that there was a debate going on about "Dumbing Down Quilting" but once one of my regular reads responded I did a little research and I have to admit I was shocked at what I found. It seems like everyone has an opinion on the subject. And like everyone else I have an opinion too. It seems like what started this whole debate was the complexity of a pinwheel. Did anyone stop and think about this? There are lots of different pinwheel blocks. I made this set for charity and I would agree. Easy peasy, doesn't take a lot of time but leaves you with a fantastic looking quilt at the end of the day. When I was brand new to quilting I hated these blocks because those pesky little points in the middle never seemed to line up just like I wanted them too.

Then over the last year as I developed as a quilter (at least I like to think my skills have improved, although to some that might be a questionable point) I was asked to make pinwheel blocks for one of my fellow bee members for a pinwheel sampler quilt. You can see the blocks I made here. Some of those blocks were not easy for me. Maybe they aren't what some would call advanced or even intermediate but for me they were more challenging than what I personally would consider a basic block. Humm maybe that's the point here. Opinions are after all subjective. So maybe what I consider to be intermediate you think of as basic. But I don't think that makes me dumb.

I am really looking forward to developing my skills as a quilter but as a 20 something (okay thirty something) quilter right now my focus is on my job and building my family. Quilting for now is a hobby. Something I enjoy doing but sadly falls to the bottom of the priority list. As much as I wish I could spend time everyday with Bertha (my machine if you're new around here) that's just not realistic for me right now. So I join in things like quilt alongs and quilting bees. Some of the women in my life that I consider my best of friends are women I've meet through these experiences. They are my friends not only in this online quilting world but in real life too. They are the people I trust to ask for advice and to share my bad days with. But they are also the ones who challenge me to become a better person. Not only in my quilting but in my life as well. I don't think you can cheapen that experience by somehow implying that those experiences have been unproductive by not advancing my skill level.

On that same note one of the things I love about quilt alongs is the fact that while everyone is working with the same pattern the quilts all look different. Each person brings their individual skills, taste, and twist to the project. Take the postage stamp quilt along for example (since it was my most recent experience we can look at those) this quilt, this one, and this one were all made as part of the same project. So on first glance one might be seeing the same quilt on a ton of blogs all at once. But if you look a little closer you will see that it's because it was part of a project each quilter chose to participate in and then you get to appreciate the differences of each quilt. Same basic pattern, each with it's own special twist.

I love my quilting community that embraces me, challenges me, and shares with me. Maybe I don't yet know what kind of quilter I am but the journey is where the fun lies. I look forward to continuing to develop my skills, try out new things, and quilt with great fabrics that I love (even if they aren't the same ones my mom or grandmother would pick). Because I choose to believe that just by being fellow quilters we have a shared passion no matter how we choose to express it.

Twisted Fandango Part 4

2011-03-23T21:45:00.001-04:00

I finally am getting around to trying to finish this quilt. This will probably be the last peak I will show of this quilt before it's finished. For the boarders I really wanted to make smaller pinwheels that looked like they were floating. Once I figured out how to do the boarders I just picked random amounts of pinwheels that I wanted to have interlocked. I wasn't expecting the voids to actually look like pinwheels themselves. But it turns out the end product works. I don't usually like square quilts but I'm pretty fond of this little ditty so far. I have a plan in my mind for how I want to quilt this one. Now I just need to finish a couple more boarders and it will be all good to go.

This quilt has come together really easily and it was pretty simple to make. I just used a layer cake, charm pack, and some yardage of Kona Snow. You will need the lil' twister as well as the larger twister to make one but I see lots of potential uses for both. In fact I have an idea for another quilt floating around in my head right now that was inspired by the boarders and 4 charm packs that I recently picked up.

Crushed Stamps

2011-03-21T18:39:00.001-04:00

Just when I thought the post office and I were making nice they delivered one of my swap packages with nothing inside. Uggh! I was so upset because I started using delivery confirmation on everything to avoid these missing packages and crazy nonsense that is my relationship with the US Post Office. So because of that the name "Crushed Stamps" is staying. Maybe I will change my mind if we ever make up but I doubt that will be for a long time.

I made this quilt following along with Rachel in the Postage Stamp Quilt Along (check out the other finished quilts here). It was a lot of fun and went together really fast. In fact the whole thing took about a month. My dad was nice enough to offer to have this one taken to the long arm for me and I am so grateful for that because it probably would have equaled my post office experience had I tried to do it myself. I used Anna Marie Horner's Innocent Crush fabric line and it is quilted in a soft purple gray.

I kept the back super simple using just one fabric and a row of left over pieces from the front. On my Freshcut Square Dance quilt (waiting at the long arm) I tried matching up the pattern repeat and just using a solid fabric for the back. It went together pretty well for the most part but I think I like this method of a pieced back a little better. Especially with a big print like this one. It is a little easier than trying to match a pattern repeat.

This one is staying at my house and it will be nice to cuddle up under it on the couch. The Christmas quilts have officially been washed and put away for now. So now it's on to the next. I'm working on the boarders for Twisted Fandango and hope to have a finished top to show you all soon.

101 Irons

2011-03-19T13:03:00.000-04:00

So lately I have found myself with 101 irons in the fire. What's one more, right? Somewhere in the chaos that is my life I have been finding time to sew a little as well as plot more projects. I now have a growing list of things I want to sew and a pile of fabrics to prove it. Last weekend as I was waiting for tools and fabric to arrive for this list of projects I cut up a fat quarter bundle that I had no plans for (I usually only buy what I need for a project so having something sitting around without a plan was a bit odd). I sewed these together following Ashley's tutorial and plan to just make a small baby quilt. Since most of my quilts to date have been gifts I usually know exactly when something needs to be finished and who it is going to be for. This quilt, not so much. I am actually just making it because I want to practice my quilting. In the end I will probably just donate it to the nonprofit where I work.

Last night I also got my postage stamp quilt back from my mom who had taken it to her long arm quilter for me. Thanks again mom and dad! This is just a little sneak peak but I promise a full reveal once the binding is stitched down. This one I actually plan to keep which will mean that I can finally put away Red Square Envy and Figgy Pudding Scramble. I know it's March and that Christmas quilts should have been long since put away but I have to have a quilt on the couch and since I don't currently have another finished quilt in the house I have been showing the Christmas quilts extra love.

Also currently in progress is the Twisted Fandango quilt. I ordered a charm pack and the lil' twister tool to make a floating pinwheel boarder. It took me a while to figure out how to sew the charms and the background fabric together to make this work but I think I got it. Here is a peak at the first section which features just two pinwheels.

And remember when I said with this many projects going one more is no big deal. Well if you are looking for some inspiration check out some of the quilt alongs that are showing up. I know that I will be doing at least one of these (probably more).

Check it out here.


Find out more here.

You can find more about this here.

Twisted Fandango Part 3

2011-03-02T07:00:00.001-05:00

I am really surprised at how quickly this quilt is coming together. The top has all been re cut and sewn back together again. Now unfortunately I have to put it away while I await some additional fabric that I ordered so I can finish it up. The whole process so far has been super quick and easy.

If you are planning on making a quilt like this I do have a few tips though. Line up all of your seems. I know that sewing precuts together is suppose to make life easy but they do sometimes have a slight variance. The more exact your corners are when you sew together the original layout the better your finished pinwheels will look. We already talked about the continuous boarder but again I would recommend it. As I was sewing the rest of my blocks together I ended up with one small piece that was less than and inch big. It's no big deal really but I don't like unnecessary seams. Also remember that once you turn and cut the fabric you are working with the bias. It stretches really easily so you have to be careful not to pull on the pieces and stretch them. And my last bit of advice would be to press. After moving the top around so much to re cut the blocks they really needed a good pressing as I went to ensure that they were cut properly.

But there you have it, my almost finished twisted fandango quilt. I must have really found my sewing spark because I didn't sit and sew for hours on end but I was able to sew this quilt up less the boarders in just a few days. Now I am looking forward to starting on my Swell quilt while I wait on the fabric for the boarders of twisted fandango. Still not really digging that name, any ideas?

Twisted Fandango Part 2

2011-03-01T07:00:00.002-05:00

I went and got some Kona Snow today so I could work on the next part of my twisted fandango quilt tonight. Not sold on the name so please suggestions welcome. Once the layer cake squares are sew together the directions call for adding a six and a half inch boarder all the way around. At this point the quilt will look something like this. Again I could have been happy stopping here and having a very simple pretty quilt.

A few things I learned at this point. The instructions included with the ruler/template only called for a 1 1/4 yards for the borders and suggested cutting by length of fabric. If I were doing this step again I would have just bought a bit more yardage and cut one continuous piece for the boarders. It isn't really a big deal but I'll show you later why I make that suggestion.

One of my big concerns about this project was the amount of fabric that would be wasted. Here is a picture of what mine looked like with the first set of blocks cut out. Really not to bad, once the second row was cut out I had about a 4 by 5 inch pieces left from the middle. I don't think this is to much waste because that size scrap is big enough to use in a lot of different projects. I plan to use mine in my borders but they would be a welcome addition to the scrap bin as well.

Here are my first two rows sewn together. As you can see it does shrink a lot from the previous arrangement but I think it will be a nice size throw quilt to cuddle under. Look for more updates on the progress of this one as I move along I'll be sure to share.

Twisted Fandago

2011-02-28T07:00:00.002-05:00

I was reading today about how some of these super crafty seemingly super hero women get so much done in a day and one of them mentioned that they schedule there blog post the night before. This is going to be my first attempt at typing up a blog post and setting the auto scheduler. Sometimes I just don't have the motivation during the work week to sew and blog so I am hoping this might help me out a little with updating more often.

So after I finished the baby quilt, I wanted some pretty easy sewing. I have been avoiding my machine for a while, no I don't really know why it just seemed like the thing to do. But remember that ruler I showed you that my mom and I picked up at the quilt show? It is called "Twister" and it's from Country Schoolhouse. We opted for the larger ruler which is meant to be used with a layer cake. I didn't buy the book so I was a little concerned about how things would turn out but as it is there are very basic instructions included with the ruler for a 61" by 61" quilt. See you sew the squares together very basic like in a 6 by 6 design. I had to stop there because I didn't have the solid yardage I needed to add the boarder. I suppose you could stop here and just have a very nice easy quilt top with large squares to feature some of your favorite fabrics.

In this case however, you use the twister template to make a fun pinwheel design. Well you already know how much I like pinwheels. It seems to me like there is going to be a lot of fabric waste. I wanted to capture the whole process on this one, something I hardly ever do. I am using a Fandango layer cake and I think it looks just lovely in it's current state but I'm excited to see how the pinwheels turn out as well. Right now I am planning to use white for the boarder around the squares which will actually become part of some of the pinwheels and then a blue or coral color for the outer boarder. I'm not really sure but I'm actually just thinking about ordering yardage of one of my favorite prints for the outer boarder. Although depending on how much waste there actually is I might be able to make a scrappy boarder. I think on this one I really am going to just take it one step at a time instead of trying to plan it all out. Besides isn't that really more fun anyway.

Chicken Scratch

2011-02-27T14:34:00.001-05:00

So this was my first attempt at Free Motion Quilting. I decided to go with an all over loopy design because honestly I thought it would hide more mistakes. After ripping out all of my stitches twice and wasting an entire spool of thread I figured I better just stick with it and keep going. I know to some of you more experienced free motion quilters it looks like chicken scratch but I'm really proud of myself for giving it a go. The more I did the better I think it looked. I have decided though that it is about time I invest in a real sewing table because as small as this quilt is, it still created a lot of drag hanging off the table. I'd love to hear your suggestions on tables as I'm on a really tight budget I don't want to get something I won't be happy with.

My husband is working on something in the background there.

I promise we don't always have all that trash in our backyard.

This quilt is for a coworker who is having her first girl. I know she is supper excited about it because to date she has been far out numbered in her house of all boys. I'm a little sad that she won't be returning to the office after having the baby but I guess working just to pay daycare cost doesn't make a lot of sense either. Thanks to all of your name suggestions I finally decided to call it "My Cup Runneth Over" because I know tumblers always make me think of cups too and I know the new mama is overjoyed to be having a girl. The quilt measures 40 inches wide by 48 inches long so I think it will be a nice size. It is made from Moda Bliss using quilting weight on the front and flannel for the back.

I realized as I was typing this post that this quilt marks a lot of big landmarks for me. It is the first quilt that I have quilted myself using free motion quilting. I know I have a lot to learn but with the prices of fabric going up I won't be able to afford to take every quilt to the long arm so I really want to master the art of free motion quilting. It is also the first quilt that I used the machine to attach the binding to both the front and the back. This is probably not my favorite technique but I think it turned out well. I just prefer the more polished look you get with hand stitching. But since it is a baby quilt that is going to live in a home full of boys I expect it will need frequent washing and I thought the machine stitches would be a little more forgiving. This is also the first quilt I have made as a gift for anyone outside of my family. So while my both of my husbands parents and my mom have quilts from me I have never given one away to a friend (unless you count the first Christmas gifts I made my coworkers back in Charlottesville, but I imagine all but one of those is probably at goodwill, long story) so I just hope she will like it. My other hope is that she will actually use it. I hear people say all the time that they don't want to use their quilts because they don't want them to get messed up. I understand that but I'm in the camp that believes it can be washed and that the best way to show someone you love a quilt they made you is by using it.

Quilt Show Bounty

2011-02-26T20:56:00.000-05:00

So here is a look at the things I picked up this weekend at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show. Overall I have to say that this year was a little disappointing. There were not very many quilts on display as most of the room was taken up by Vendors. And I love vendors don't get me wrong but there were a lot of jewelry and other odd ball vendors that didn't really seem to fit in with my idea of a quilt show. Maybe it's just me but I would rather see more quilts. I did however manage to snag some goodies from a few of the vendors who were selling fabric and other sewing related items. 3 Yards of Swells (with this and a little help from my friend in Canada I think my Swell Quilt will be a hit), a Fat Quarter Bundle of Bliss Flannel (after using it to back a baby quilt I knew i needed more), Verna Jelly Roll, Central Park Jelly Roll (20% off, deal!), Fandango Layer Cake, a couple of fat quarters of shot cotton I've been wanting to play with. Then some miscellaneous sewing room must, new pins, bobbin washers, a seam ripper, and needles. Oh and that big yellow thing in the back is a "Twister" Ruler my mom and I got to try out. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Mid Atlantic Quilt Show

2011-02-25T10:17:00.000-05:00

This weekend is the Mid-Atlantic quilt show and I am so excited. My mom and I have made a tradition of going to this show every year for the last 3 years now and it is really what brought me back to wanting to quilt. It's great to have something in common like quilting with my mom because it's something we can do together. Since I'm super excited about the quilt show I thought I'd share some photos I've taken over the last few years at the show. But I have to apologize now that I don't know who made these quilts because before I knew the importance of such things I just snapped pictures.

There are a ton of teeny tiny pieces in this one. But I love the way it looks like real flowers.

I think this one was called the Pride of Texas or something like that. It was amazing and I don't know if you can see it in the photo but there is even some pretty impressive bead work on this one.

Hexagons might be all the rage right now but remember the yo yo? This quilt is nothing but yo-yo's. And I love how the colors cross between the the sections too.

A little Love, A Little Luck

2011-02-12T22:40:00.001-05:00

I'm feeling pretty lucky today. But let's start with the Love part. I am one of those people who never does anything with my hair. I have stick straight very thin hair and it just kind of hangs there so everyday I just throw it up in a pony tail and go about my day. Not anymore! Back in December I started thinking about getting my hair cut and then I realized it was almost long enough to donate to Locks of Love. I got on their website and did a little research and found out I needed a minimum of 10 inches. No problem there, my hair was already almost half way down my back. Then I was watching tv and saw some silly reality tv and they were doing a feature on Locks for Love. I though humm that must not be by chance so I started making my plan. I mentioned at work that I wanted to do this and was totally caught off guard when one of my coworkers said she would like to do the same thing. So last week we made appointments and today we both chopped off all of our hair.

On to the luck part, last week I was talking with my good friend Mary and she was telling me that after realizing my postage stamp quilt was made with just two jelly rolls she wanted to make one. She mentioned that she had a Swell Jelly Roll to use. (This is one line I really liked but had given up on. I've come across a tiny bit of it here and there but had swapped what I had gotten because I knew I would never find enough to make a whole quilt with) I quickly quipped back that I would cut off my right arm for a Swell Jelly Roll. Later she told me it wasn't Swell but Sweet but please not to cut off my arm. We laughed and I forgot all about it. A few days later she told me she found a Swell Jelly Roll on Craigslist for $15 bucks but it was in Idaho. She sent me the listing and I told her I was going to call the woman when I got home from work. Before I could do any of that Mary had already contacted the seller and gotten her to agree to ship it. Did I mention I have some of the best online quilt friends a girl could have. Well guess what showed up at my house today. Yup, my very own Swell Jelly Roll. And believe it or not I already have a plan for this and I can't wait to get started. There are just a few things in line before this one.

I also wanted to say a big thank you to all of you who helped out with my Neptune quandary. Most of you are set as no reply bloggers so I could personally thank you for your help but because of it and a few online swaps I think I now have everything I am going to need except backing for my Anchors Away quilt.

Anchors Away

2011-02-09T21:33:00.001-05:00

How do you pick your fabrics? That's something that has been running around in my mind all day. I think most of my quilts to date have been in one of two categories. They have either been super scrappy or have been made from one line of fabric. Not a lot of mixing and matching going on in my world but I would like to try to outreach more in that direction. A while back my mom surprised me with a quilt kit she picked up down in Florida.

I give my mom a lot of credit because most of this kit is made up of Neptune which my mom had no idea I had been secretly lamenting having come into quilting to late to have any of this great fabric. You know it's one of those lines like Flea Market Fancy, everyone wants it but only a few people actually have any. At lease it seems that way. What my mom did know at the time was that I had been constantly chewing her ear off about Freshcuts by Heather Bailey. I was having a hard time finding it and really wanted to make a quilt from the line because Heather is one of my favorite designers. My mom recognized one of the prints as Freshcuts and snapped up the kit. I was thrilled when she gave it to me. Intimidated to no end by convinced that I wanted to make the quilt picture here.

Now that I'm ready to start thinking about making said quilt I've been wondering why in the world would the add Freshcuts to a primarily Neptune quilt? The colors are the right shades. The prints are the right sizes. But flowers and turtles? Flowers and anchors? I think I am going to give credit to the store and say that they got it right in this case because when it's all stacked up it looks great. But in my quilt I think I am going to try and hunt down a few elusive fat quarters of Neptune. The pattern actually calls for 2 layer cakes and 9 fat quarters plus yardage for boarders, binding, and backing. The shop included 9 fat quarters and 21 cuts that measure 12 inches by width of fabric. I have no idea what I am going to do when it comes time to find boarder and backing fabric but in the mean time I'm looking forward to making this quilt this year. Even if I am a little scared of it. I'd love to hear your processes for selecting fabrics. Let me know, how do you mix and match? And if you have any leads on Neptune I'd love to hear those too.

A Blissful Quilt

2011-02-08T21:50:00.001-05:00

I wanted to make something easy for a baby quilt because one of my coworkers specifically asked if I would make a quilt for her little girl. My mom told me I should make a tumbler quilt but of course I was resistant because I thought it would be super hard. Turns out all I needed was two charm packs and a ruler she had to put this together in a matter of hours. I'm waiting for some fabric to come so I can add a border to make it a little larger but I think it is a sweet little quilt.

If you haven't checked out Missouri Star Quilt Company be sure to do so. They usually have a great deal of the day and you can get that and anything else you order for $5 shipping. It's a pretty good deal. The ruler is their design and it really does make minimal waste because it is designed to be used with precuts. Check out the tutorial here.

I am lacking a name for this quilt. The best I could think of was Blissful Tumbler and I'm not sure that will really give the expectant mom the warm wishes I am hoping for her. Your ideas are greatly appreciated.

A Marathon Quilt

2011-02-05T20:42:00.001-05:00

Keeping up with Rachel and the Postage Stamp Quilt Along was a bit of a challenge but I am happy to say that I finished my postage stamp quilt right on time. Leave it to Rachel to motivate us all by having a drawing for all of the participates who had a completed top at the end. Of course my procrastination almost did me in once again. I didn't order my jelly rolls until after the quilt along had already started. Then I was very slow to sew my strips, cut the strips, and sew the blocks. Of course all that procrastination meant that I was still sewing blocks together when I was suppose to be sewing my rows together. I had originally planned to have this quilt finished on Monday night in time for the drawing on Tuesday but when I checked the flickr group on Monday, Rachel said she wasn't going to close the quilt along until Thursday. So I watched House and went to bed on Monday instead. Tuesday no sewing, I just didn't feel like it. Which meant Wednesday night at 11:30 I was putting the final stitches in my quilt top. A little less than a month and I have a finished top and back and she is in line waiting with Freshcut Square Dance to go to the longarm. I had planned to quilt this one myself just using diagonal lines but then my Dad offered to have it quilted for me. Well I'm no dumbie, I know that she will probably do a better job than I would and it will be a cuter pattern for the quilting so Crushed Stamps waits her turn.

I know "Crushed Stamps" are you all wondering about the name. Well I used Innocent Crush for my fabric and it is a Postage Stamp Quilt and well if you've been reading along with me for awhile you know all about my love hate relationship with the United States Postal Office and their uncandid ability to lose, return, and tear my packages so I thought Crushed Stamps was a suitable name. And well it's funny to me so why not.

If I were doing this one over I would do a few things a little differently. Since I way over think placement on all of my quilts I did this one without laying out anything. I just grabbed whatever was next and went with it. No do overs! And since I used a design roll and not a jelly roll I had more repeats in my fabric. Of course looking at the finished top now there are spots I say oh man look there are like five in a row right there that are the same fabric. All in all though I think it is just random enough to have that I look great without really trying look. The other thing I would do differently would be the back. Rachel's supply list called for 3 and 3/4 yards for the backing. So when Aunt Bea's was closing and she had 4 yards of Innocent Crush on clearance I thought I had really lucked out. I didn't realize that this would mean I needed to run the backing side to side instead of top to bottom the way I usually make my backs. It's no big deal and it worked out in the end I just think if I was doing it again I would choose a busier pattern for the back and be sure that it is non directional.

So there you have it my marathon quilt, and since this one is going out to be quilted I'm on to the next. A tumbler baby quilt for a coworker of mine. If you haven't felt the Bliss Flannel yet it is dreamy. I think I will track some down to make some lounge pants for me.

Plugging Along

2011-01-22T22:00:00.001-05:00

I haven't been doing a ton of sewing but I am slowly plugging away at my postage stamp quilt along (there is still time to join and you know you want too). I am hoping to stay on track with this one because all of those who do will be entered into a drawing at the end. Well you don't have to stay on track you just have to have a finished top by the deadline. I changed out my rotary blade and spent a ton of time cutting my strip sets into strips to be sewn back together into the blocks this morning.

After that I managed to get the first too blocks sewn together. One of each the A block and the B block. I am sure that when I chain piece this process will go much faster but I really wanted to see a finished blocked so I started there. I'm using Innocent Crush and Bella White for my fabrics. I haven't decided on my backing and binding yet. I have my favorite prints but they may not lend themselves to being the best choices. What about you, what would you use? I'd love to hear about the projects your working on now that 2011 is in full swing just because I need more ideas like I need a hole in the head. Happy Sewing!

Sewing with Bertha

2011-01-16T21:24:00.000-05:00

Bertha and I have been quietly working away today putting strip sets together for Rachel's Postage Stamp Quilt Along. I am playing a little bit of catch up because I was very indecisive about what fabrics I wanted to use for what. I love the new Sunkissed line and apparently so do a lot of you. Corey is using that line for her Birdie Block of the Month, Rachel is using it for her Postage Stamp Quilt, and if you haven't heard Block-a-palozza is going to feature the line as well. I'm holding out to use it for Block-A-Palozza and I'm thinking I will be using Nicey Jane for my Birdie Stitches Blocks but I haven't completely decided yet. For the Postage Stamp Quilt Along I finally decided on Anna Marie Horner's newest line Innocent Crush and I am pairing it with White. I struggled with this one too because I was thinking about using a darker solid like espresso or raisin but in the end I went with the white for a couple of reasons. One because we I hate cutting and using one of those colors would have required me to buy yardage and cut the strips myself. Second my mom had already ordered the white so I had it on hand today and I really wanted to get started because I am determined to stay on track with this quilt along. I finished up my A Sets today and I am working on the B sets now but I don't think I will get them done tonight since it is already 9 and there is still laundry waiting to be folded.

Now you know I have told you a ton of times that I don't like cutting so precuts seem like a good idea, especially for this project. Bertha (my machine) however I do not think agrees. She just returned for her annual cleaning and I was looking forward to lots of great sewing time with her. But before I even finished the A sets she started squeaking so I opened her up and cleaned out the dust. Funny how when I started sewing today she didn't have a speck of dust on her and after only a few hours of sewing she was as dusty as when I took her for her cleaning. Bertha is a hand me down machine from my mom (but I named her) and she is a Bernina 1230. A bit of an older model but I love her. I could never afford to by a Bernina on my own so I am very grateful that Bertha came to live with me once my mom got a new machine. When I went to pick her up from the repair shop I said "Come on Bertha, let's go home." The lady looked at me at first like I had 10 heads and then started laughing. What doesn't everyone talk to their machine? Then she told me most people name their Bernina's "Nina" and I laughed. I very politely told her my Bertha was a work horse and needed a good strong name. I'm not sure what she thought as I left but I love Bertha and I like her name.

PS-I call my mom's new machine "Birdie" because she hasn't named her. But Birdie is a much lighter newer machine so I think the name works for her.

Tiled Snowflake Sky

2011-01-09T13:28:00.000-05:00

Do you ever have those moments where you think this is to much of a coincidence to be ignored? I had that going on for the last week so I am putting my thoughts to paper and hopeful that will become a quilt. Here is the back story for those of you who are still with me. Growing up in Northeast North Carolina snow is not something I am use to. When I was a child my family went to North Dakota every year around Thanksgiving to spend time with my dad's family so it wasn't like I didn't know what it was I just wasn't use to it. I was probably to young to even notice then but a few days after Christmas we got a snowstorm here in Virginia and quickly accumulated over a foot of snow. That just doesn't happen this close to the beach so it was a little amazing to me. The one thing I noticed more than anything was how at night everything outside had this blueish/gray tint to it. Immediately I thought this needs to be a quilt. Since I had just gotten Elizabeth's new book for Christmas her birdbath pattern stuck in my mind. I still just couldn't articulate the thought. Then when I was flipping through I noticed that one of her alternate colorways was a blueish/gray tone. It was exactly what I had in my mind. Not too many days later I was reading my daily blogs and saw that the Modern Quilt Guild had announced their Round 2 Challenge. A monochromatic quilt. Now I have never entered a contest like this before. Apart from winning a art contest when I was in elementary school (because of concept not necessarily talent) I do not participate in things like this. I find myself easily frustrated when I think of my idea in comparison to those around me. Maybe it is a lack of self confidence or a fear of failure but have you seen some of the blogs out there. Killer creativity and talent! So I was tossing this idea around in my head of entering the challenge and making something that would reflect the feeling of that blueish/gray night sky that only happens when it snows when I noticed the tile in the bathroom floor at my office. So I snapped a picture with my phone (don't worry I was the only one in there). And yes we actually work in a really old warehouse where everything is falling apart so the tile is really that dingy and gross.

To me this one section of tile looked like a snowflake. I don't know if I just had snow on the brain because I was still thinking about this quilt or what but I imagined that if I could drawn an architectural picture of a snowflake which would translate into a quilt block it would look something like this. So this morning I spent some time making translating a part of that tile into a quilt square and then making a mosaic so I could envision what the finished quilt might look like. I'm still working out the numbers in my head but I think that I am going to go for it and make this quilt a reality. If it's done in time I am even going to enter it into the contest but if not then at least I will have a snugly new quilt to remember how much I enjoyed the snow and the beauty of the night sky when it was here.

The coloring isn't right yet because I still need to decide if I want to go with blues or grays but this is an idea of what I'm thinking. What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts, reactions, color suggestions. You name it.

Freshcut Square Dance

2011-01-02T17:48:00.001-05:00

For the last few weeks I've been feeling this need to actually finish something. I realize that a finished top is not the same as a finished quilt but it is one step closer. Bertha is going into the shop tomorrow for her annual cleaning and check up and since I don't know how long that will take I wanted to get in a little sewing time today. The hubs and I have both been battling a case of the yuckies this weekend and so it has taken me a lot longer to sew together the last few steps but I'm happy with the way it turned out. We are having rainy yucky weather here so I wasn't able to get any good outdoor shots of the finished quilt top but here's a look at the top and a close up of the center.

Fabric: Freshcuts by Heather Bailey

Pattern: Amanda Jean's Round and Round Quilt A Long

If you are looking for the giveaway post you can find it here.

HELLO 2011: HELLO 100 POSTS

2011-01-01T10:08:00.000-05:00

WOW! I can't believe I've been blogging for just over a year now and it has taken me this long to reach 100 post. When I saw that as I opened up to post today it just made me SMILE! I was telling my mom this past week that I felt kind of unaccomplished this year in respects to my sewing. I know I spent a lot of time in my sewing room but when I look back at what I have actually finished it really doesn't seem to be that much. As always my mom was more than encouraging and said well just think about all of the bee blocks you've made and all of the things you've sent off to someone else to help them with a project. So here I find myself writing the reflective post that I told my mom I wasn't going to write. First here is a look at the few things I did complete from start to finish. A few swap items and surprisingly enough 2 quilts.

As you also know I have been working my way through 5 bees this year. Yes I now know I was slightly crazy to take on that many. But when I see the blocks all together like this it makes me feel a little better about having bees as a creative outlet to try new things and to challenge myself in ways I probably wouldn't otherwise. For example through bees this year I have learned to applique, paper piece, as well as a ton of other things. For me it has been more about the experience and the friendships I have found than anything else.

There are a few bee blocks that I forgot to take photos of before sending them back to their owners but this is a pretty good representation of the blocks I have spent the last year sewing. I still have a few more blocks to make and send back for some of my bees and not all of them are wrapping up with December so I have a couple more months of block making to go before my first round of bees is officially completed.

So what do I have planned for 2011? Well in general I am hoping this year will be better than the last. 2010 has been a pretty hard year for me so I am looking forward to taking many more steps in the right direction. From a crafty standpoint I am hoping to learn more new things. To start I am planning to follow along with Corey and her Birdie Stitches Group and learn how to do some embroidery. The first block was posted today so I better order some fabric soon. I'm also looking forward to finishing the tops with the blocks I received this year from my bees and block swaps. All together I think I have all or most of the blocks for 7 tops just from those. I also have so many other ideas floating around in my mind that I am itching to transform into a quilt or two.

And let's see didn't I say something about this being my 100th post? Well what would a 100 post be without a giveaway of some kind. I'm not even sure yet what it will be but maybe some fabric and a few other goodies tucked in a nice little package for someone. I don't normally put you guys through the paces for my giveaways but this time it's going to take just a smidgen of work. I'd like to hear about at least 1 project you are looking forward to in 2011. Feel free to link to the tutorial you plan to use or your inspiration. One entry per person and I'll draw the winner using the RNG a week from today on January 8, 2011.

Coming Soon

2010-12-27T21:21:00.006-05:00

Okay maybe not soon enough. There are some new fabric lines coming out that I am really excited about and although they may be considered to be coming soon I still hate the wait. I mean really they tease us with these great creations and then make us wait. One thing I know for sure is that I am going to start saving my pennies now for lines that are set to hit stores in April. And just in case you haven't seen them yet I thought I would share some of the things I am particularly excited about.

Soulful (Photo from Mark's Blog)

This first line is one I just learned about thanks to a kind comment on my blog (Cara I hope he knows how lucky he is that you are spreading the word). Mark Sesarik's first fabric line is set to release with FreeSpirit and the best part of this one is that it scheduled to be released this winter. The collection debuted at Fall Market and I am sure it will be a success. A few of the things I love about this collection are the architecture of the prints. Mark used background elements of some of the larger prints to make stand alone prints or maybe he used stand alone prints in the background of some of his larger prints. I can't be sure which way it happened but I LOVE when designers do that. Of course I already did a google search and haven't found the fabric to be available as of yet but you can bet I am keeping my eyes open and will be one of the first in line.
Tap

Rhythmic Toss

Not to long ago there was a lot of buzz about a limited number of precuts being available for Sherbet Pips of course with the Holiday Season being in full swing and some of my friends being quicker on the computer I didn't snag any yet but I will be getting this line when it comes out in April. I don't sew clothes but I think pj's would be super cute made from this line. I can't wait to make a snugly quilt to cuddle under all next winter with this line. Aneela did an amazing job on this collection and judging from the buzz already your going to want to pick this one up when you see it. Something tells me there will be a Sherbet Pips Freaks group out there before to long.

Sherbet Pips (Photo from Aneela's Blog)

So there you have it just two of the lines making my heart go pitter patter. What about you guys, are there any lines you are excited for? Of course I need you to share because maybe I just haven't seen it yet.

Christmas Project's Revealed

2010-12-27T09:00:00.005-05:00

Okay I know I promised to show you all what I was working on for the Holiday's. I made two presents for my mom this year and I didn't want to feature them here until she received them just in case. Turns out she knew the whole time anyway. One little sneak peak and she was already sure it was for her. I guess next time I can't even share a sneak peak. Sorry you guys but you can blame her.

The first gift was this table topper. I followed the pattern from Camille's book and it was super quick and easy to put together. The hardest thing was quilting it. I didn't want to quilt it super heavy since it was going to be a table topper. Although now seeing it finished I wish I would have done a little more. I guess we are still in the learning stage here so it's okay to make mistakes. The next time it will be better than the first. The back is the same floral print as the front. I of course forgot to snap photos of it so these were taken by my dad. Thanks dad!

The second little ditty I made for her was a cover for her sewing machine. Here it is on Bertha (my machine) and I'm hoping it will fit Birdie(my name for my mom's machine) a little better since it was based on her measurements. The back is a solid white and the variegated thread I used in bright yellow, green, and orange really stands out. I wanted this to just look sort of impromptu so I did straight line quilting but at somewhat of an angel so they aren't really straight and I cut all of the squares and rectangles on the front in different lengths. My plan was for it to look modern but I'm a little worried it just looks like I didn't know what I was doing.

Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and that you have a very Happy New Year. For now I am going to stay bundled up inside and hide from the snow. It's very pretty through the window.