My Little Piggy

Before I started working on my Sis in Law's quilt I caught up on all the quilting bees. I wasn't as far behind as I thought except for the above one from March. I forgot to take pictures of all the rest of them. This a Cathedral Window. Not overly difficult but there is no way I would make a whole quilt this way. Maybe a nice pillow. Here is a tutorial if you want to try it out.

I also wanted to introduce you to my little piggy. My mom was having fun with pincushions and this is my favorite one. He actually gets used although I feel bad poking him in the face. Poor guy.

Why aren't my quilts ever the right size?

My sister in law is getting married this September and I wanted to make her a quilt. My hubby wants to give his little sis cash for their gift so I decided I would make the quilt for her Wedding Shower. That gave me a months less time to procrastinate so I got started. I figure if I can have it done by this Friday I can take it to get quilted and the turn around is about three weeks and that would give me a week so sew on the binding. So here is my start.

Is it loud enough? I was just fascinated with the Coats and Clark advertisement that featured this quilt. Its Kaffe Fassett's Hot Diamonds.

But I am not one to have this much color in my life. I like color but as you can see this is a lot of color. My Sister in Law and her fiance are not afraid of color. She's an interior designer and he does some sort of design . He creates chandeliers and light fixtures for some of the rich and famous. Anyway, they have an orange wall in their living room so I figured this would be a great lap quilt. So, here is my problem. I sewed everything together and according to the template if I made the large diamond, 144 pieces, 12 rows up, 12 down the quilt would be like 54x90 inches (that's a lap quilt to me). Some how the quilt is only like 59x56. I don't know how it happened. I swear I used every piece and I even had extra that I used. So, I am going to add a 15 inch border and make it a Queen Size quilt. I can never make my quilts the right size. Oh well. When I am all done I will take a completed picture to share. I like it but it sure is LOUD! I hope she likes it.

Oh and Diamonds are not that easy. Way too much brain power needed. You can't just line the seams up and sew. It has to be off slightly so it lines up right. Luckily, I figured it out on my third row of where the placement needed to be. I think I might have to make myself a diamond quilt now.

Madeline Quilt

This is actually my mom's. I was at her house and we went shopping and I bought this pattern. I had been thinking about it for a while. Well, my mother stole it as soon as we went home and made herself this. Now it is supposed to be much larger (like 27" x 39") but she made it for a 12x12 frame. She just didn't enlarge the pattern. I think she actually shrunk it a bit. I think its adorable. I might have to make a small one for Doll Quilt Swap 9. Great little scrap buster.

Tea Towel #1

We are going on a trip to Hawaii to visit a friend and the sun and I realized that the friend that we are visiting is having her birthday a couple of days before we arrive so I wanted to bring her a little something so I thought I would make her a couple of tea towels. Also, this is a great little project for sitting and waiting during ballet or tee ball or swim lessons and kids are so fascinated by it. This is the first one. I bought pattern from etsy but it is no longer posted so here is her blog. I am making one more which I should finish this week of a little girl on a swing in a tree from the same artist. I think I want to make myself a set so like 3 or four. I would use some of these patterns (probably the one with the butterflies) and this one ( the tree), the one I will show you next week and the one above. I need new cute towels. I bought the towels themselves at the Sewing Expo in Puyallup, WA earlier this year. I couldn't tell you more than that though.

Embroidery Mini Quilt Swap

I really liked this Embroidery Mini Quilt Swap held over at Quilting Gallery. It was fun to see how one design could look so different. Here is mine. You can check more out at flikr. I also love these small embroideries because they are perfect to take to swim lessons or tee ball. What else am I going to do for a half hour or so. I can only facebook or play tetris for so long on my phone. :) I think next I am going to do a set of dish towels. That is if I can find where I put the dish towels I bought several months ago for this project!

Oh, Doll Quilt Swap 9 is on its way for sign ups. I saw it late so I hope I made it in.

Phew, it's done!

I don't know what convinced me to make this but I did. I had seen the pattern numerous times and wanted to make it but it seemed above my skill level. Well, my mom and I were shopping and she said she would help me make it if I wanted so that's what we did. I made the Amy Butler Weekender bag with the help of my mom. The only thing my mom did was help me translate the instructions, guide me and I made her sew the outside bag together although I could have done it but it got really thick and I was using her sewing machine and I didn't want to be the one to break it. We only broke one presser foot! At least it wasn't her $10,000 machine! It actually wasn't horribly difficult to make just a lot of it to make. I can't wait to use it! We did make a few changes. I added pockets on the inside and instead of making a stiff base we only used the false bottom. I put all the stiffener in the false bottom and used Velcro to hold the false bottom in place. I still plan to put some sort of closure on the outside pocket. I haven't decided but I think I will need something to hold its shape.

The fabric is Anna Maria Horner's home dec fabric and the lining is just a light colored bottom weight. The trim and the side pockets are a black bottom weight.

Would I recommend making this bag? I guess it would depend on how badly you want something unique. The supplies cost maybe $75 and the labor...add about 15 or so hours to that. But I do love my new bag!

I'm awful...

First, I must apologize for my awful blogging. Part of my problem is I haven't done anything news worthy. The other part is I take pictures with my phone and check the Internet on my phone but the phone doesn't allow me to post pictures to blogger or flickr. Its really annoying. I hope they fix that soon so I can post at a moments notice if so inspired.

So what I have done. I went to a recycled fashion show or rather a trash show. It was the 10th Annual Re Store Trash Fashion Show. The Re Store is a store in town that will come to your construction site or you can take stuff to them. They will tear your house a apart and salvage 95% of the housing materials to be reused. Its pretty awesome. To the fashion show...The people are so creative and some if it wasn't made out of trash bags and would be really hot, I would think of wearing it. Enjoy the pictures. I apologize for the quality of some. The top one is made of inter tubes and newspaper. The second is of old umbrellas, third, onion bags, and finally, paper off a table at one of those restaurants you get to doodle on. People were extremely creative. I only posted the mellower ones! One of the ladies brought her kimono that was in Ripley's Believe It or Not.

I also made a few dolls. I used the Jane pattern from Bit of Whimsy. They are pretty simple to make. The first one below I donated to the Kids Safe Whatcom County Fair. The Trauma department at the hospital that I share an office with was one of the sponsors so I thought I would nice. I was lucky to see the recipient of the doll. I hope they like it!

The second doll was for M's friend who had a birthday. We were at Target looking for a present and I asked M if she would like it if I made her friend one and her response was, "Yeah, even though you haven't made mine yet." I'm such a bad mom. Its on my list. :) I also made a doll quilt too but I forgot to take a picture.

I am working on some other projects. Don't give up on my blog yet. I figure when I am FINALLY done with my job I will be able to focus on my projects and my blog. I have 2 months left - word of advice never give 6 months notice - the waiting for the end is torture. Oh, and they haven't posted the job yet! I can't wait to be done. I have a huge list of things I want to get done and start! Thank you to those who have stuck around.

A Few Blocks and Exciting News.

So here are a few blocks I made for some quilting bees I am in. I don't remember whose is whose. I took these with my phone and they have been there a while. Which is why the aren't the best photos. They are really simple blocks. Its hard for me to think really big when I see the amount of fabric I get. Okay - its just hard for me to decide.

This one she was going for complicated versus simple. I did little string blocks and lots of white. I think I over did the simple but I didn't have enough fabric to do too much.

This one was a 9 patch block. You sew nine squares together and then cut directly down the middle of the block and the other direction and turn two of the four squares and sew them back together. Kind of ingenious.

The third was do anything you like going along the lines of a quilt she liked. She sent a link to the quilt photo and we just winged it. I added the orange and sent her a little extra to incorporate it into her quilt somewhere so it didn't stand out. I really hated cutting those little mermaids heads in half but I had no choice.

This one is actually the starts of a mini quilt. I hated it so I folded it up and put it away. I know - I should have just finished it - I may have liked it.

So did I tell you I quit my job? I gave my notice last month. I have till June 30th. Its the busiest time of the year and I am the only one that does my job so it would have been very cruel of me to leave any sooner. Plus they take forever to hire so I figured I'd give tons of notice because after June 30th nothing happens until August. So what am I going to do with all my free time? Well, sew of course. Reorganize our house - my hubby and I are getting claustrophobic. We have a very small house and lots of junk. And exercise, I need to get healthier and not working I won't have an excuse, right? We will see how long it takes me before I get bored. My daughter will be in Kindergarten so she won't be around to entertain me. :) Sad, isn't it.

Mini Quilts Galore

So I signed up for three mini quilt swaps at one time. I know I am a glutton for punishment. I just love doing them so much. So, the first one was for STUD (Swap Till I Drop). The theme was "Love is in the Air" I tried a couple of different things but after I made this I was so pleased with it. It looks so cute. The picture really doesn't give it justice. That's a vintage button in the middle. I was going to make a heart but I thought the button actually looked better. Almost broke my machine putting it on. I was too lazy to hand sew it and it jammed with lots of thread and the mini quilt stuck to the machine. Disaster but I freed it with no injuries.

The Second swap was the Winter Themed Mini Quilt. Its through the quilting bloggers link on the side. I wasn't in the snowy mood. We have had phenomenal weather here and the beautiful black skies with the large moons really inspired me and then I found an article in a really old Quilting Arts magazine that I tried to copy. I, of course, didn't come close but I was pretty happy with it. I hope my swap buddy likes it. She is in the Netherlands with no blog so hopefully she will send me an email when she gets it.My third one was for Doll Quilt Swap 8. My partner really likes saturated colors with a white contrast and I wanted to play with curvy sewing that I learned in the Jean Well's class I took in November. My husband was unimpressed with it but my mom said it looked great and she was impressed with my sewing. Who should I trust? Non sewing hubby who is always brutally honest or my Mom who has years of experience but wants to encourage me? I think I will wait to see what my swap buddy thinks. :)Tonight I am going to start on a mini quilt for myself but using purples and a Kaffe Fasset print. Wish me luck. I hate cutting into fabric with no real idea of what I want to do plus I can't get any more of that fabric until November when the Quilt Show is back in town.

Hope all of you are well and I apologize for my absence. Now I have to turn off my computer before I check my work email. Its a bad habit I have. Really it is!

Testing My Phone

I haven't been very good at blogging lately since I never turn my computer on now that I have my droid. If i can post pictures I will be extremely happy with this app and you'll get sick of me. :)



So apparently I can't post pictures that aren't from a url. Hmmm...bummer.