I have something new on my wall...

For months and months now I have been looking at these lovely quilt blocks on the wall. But after months of looking at them, it was time for them to come down so I could look at something else. One of the top priorities in the sewing room is to now get them sewn into a quilt top. We'll see how that goes now that school is almost out for the summer. I am very excited for the kids to be home!

I took the blocks down and have a new project underway. If you could see into my brain you would understand how chaotic it can be. Projects all the time. I actually started this one because I wanted a project that I could take to the park with the kids in the summer. I always hesitate taking them because I just sit there. Well, now I have something to do.

In the center of each block is a blank white square that will soon have a piece of embroidery in it. The patterns come from this quilt along and I am very excited to learn something new. Embroidery is all new to me. It will be great! Stay tuned, I will let you know how it is going.

Quincy's Quilt

This is a recent project that I finished up. My nephew Quincy needed a new quilt so I got to make him one. It was so fun for me. It came together quickly and turned out so great!

It is hard to tell but the white fabric is covered with all kinds of sports stuff. All things that Quincy loves!

Happy Birthday, buddy.

A fun package

This week I recieved a fun package in the mail. A week or so ago I actually won an online blog giveaway. I couldn't believe it! I have never won something like that before. So I anxiously awaited the arrival of my package, all the way from Canada. Well, Canadian Thanksgiving and The United States Columbus Day made my package come awfully slow. The fun part of recieving this package was that I knew only of the pattern and DVD coming. All the rest were fun treats. Thank you Madame Samm! What a treat! This pattern will soon be used. I am so excited!

I've been busy...

This lovely stack of fabric has hit the rotary cutter. It doesn't look quite the same anymore. More to come soon.

New Quilt for Jay

This post has been a long time in waiting. Mostly because the quilt has taken me at least a year to complete. Closer to two if you want to be honest. It all started with a piece of fabric that a friend passed on to me with these African animals on it. I really wasn't sure where to start. I mean it had squares with animals printed on it. Then it came to me. Highlight those animals in a quilt block. So I started cutting and sewing and pulled together the blocks. They hung on the wall for quite a while before I decided what to do next.

In the meantime, I had talked to Jay about these animals being his new blanket, in hopes that he would give up his baby blanket that had been washed and chewed to shreds. When I finally decided what to do next, I gave the stack of blocks to Jay and sent him to the living room floor and said to lay them out how he would want them to be for his quilt. The only rule I gave him was that no two animals that were alike could be next to each other.

He had a great time doing this and took his time. He actually put some thought into it. I mean, come on, he is only 7. So I took his layout and added sashing and made the blocks into a top. He was so excited that it was a finished quilt top and he wanted to sleep with it that night. I said no.

Some time passed and I took it to my quilt group to baste it. And then it sat in the sewing room some more. Then I machine quilted some of it. And then it sat in the sewing room again. Poor quilt just wanted to be loved. I finally got up the excitement to finish quilting it about a week ago. Jay was so excited that again he wanted to take it to bed with him. But the binding wasn't on it yet. Sorry buddy. So that night I got right on the binding and he got to have it the next day. The best part...he traded me, my quilt for his baby blanket. Hard to believe he actually gave up the baby blanket. I am just glad to have it finished. It feels so great to finish a project like that!

My quilt top is DONE!!!

I am finally done with the top of my quilt along quilt! I am very pleased with it and now I have to decide what to put on the back and finish it up.

More Blocks

I am pretty well keeping up with the pace of the quilt along. I am a block behind but if I get some uninturrupted sewing time I could catch up pretty quick I think.

This particular block was very hard for me and I really don't like it. Okay the block itself is fine but putting it together didn't work out so well. In making it I missed a very important step...trim the half-square triangle squares to a certain size. In missing that step my block pieces didn't fit together and it just didn't work out so well.
This one is just fine. I wish I had picked some fabrics with a little more contrast of color.

Hope you are enjoying my show. Someday soon it will be a completed quilt top. :)

Block a Palooza continued...

I am very excited to write this post today. My camera went on a vacation with the husband and accidentally got left there. But that didn't stop me from continuing on with my blocks...just no pictures were taken and posted. So here we go...

I have been learning alot along the way and I have really appriciated that. This block (above) in particular I am having trouble with. The colors I chose just don't really work and they make the block different from the original example. For future reference, putting colors together for quilts is different than putting color together for clothing. I am not very good at the quilt part.

Another thing that I have learned is that as a beginner quilter, working with stripes probably was not a good idea. I am funny about how I want my stripes to go and sometimes I just couldn't make it work.

Again...color and contrast...need some help.

I do love this one.

This one was a nice easy change from the last more complicated block.

Applique was a new one for me as well. Like I said...a learning project.

And last so far...I actually skipped a block and moved on to this one. I am having trouble with my colors and stripes on the block I skipped. So I currently have two blocks to do before being caught up with the quilt along. The newest block was just posted today. I am very excited about the new block...just got to make the colors and stripes work. Challenging...

Block a palooza

So, call me crazy (but I think lots of people do that already), I decided to join in on a quilt-along over at Quilt Dad. I am very excited about it. I decided that I needed to use some of my stash. True, I had to buy the green piece to make it fully work, but I think I am doing pretty good. This is the first of 16 original blocks that will be made over the next 8 weeks. 2 blocks a week. I was pretty pleased at how this one turned out. I have never done flying geese (the triangle blocks) before and that was fun. I only cut off one tip of a triangle. I almost took it out and tried again. Then decided that my first block could have a minor mistake. : ) This second block was a little different. Each of these little squares started at 2 inches...that means a LOT of little squares. I didn't appreciate that so much. But I do like the overall look.

Stay tuned...more to come...for the next 8 weeks or so.

Cute Cute Noelle Quilt

As with every quilt that I make, this cutie has a story. This one a little more of a story than some others. It all started with my quilt group. Where else would it start? This particular quilt was put together using a non-bonded batting. That means that the batting will come apart after using it and then you get little bits of batting spread out in globs. I'm sure you have had a quilt like that before. So when you have non-bonded batting the quilting needs to be closer together than if it is bonded batting. With this in mind, I brought the quilt home, ready to machine quilt it.
Then my sister-in-law got really sick and we needed to make the 12-14 hour (depending on conditions of children) drive to Salt Lake City, Utah. Quite honestly, I don't do well just sitting around. I like to have something to do. So I grabbed this quilt, my needle and thread and decided to hand quilt it. I had a few hours to kill.

I didn't work on it much on the drive there because we left late enough in the evening that it grew dark rather quickly. So during the next week, while we were there, I had some time to work on it some more. Then we packed up and come home. My quilt still unfinished by the time we returned home.We got home, school started and life began again. My quilt sat in the closet waiting for me to stop and enjoy it again. That time shortly came when my sister-in-law took a turn for the worse and passed away. We again made the venture to Salt Lake City, with a few hours to kill. I kept at it, this trip was a little more hectic and we came home again with the quilt, still unfinished.

This sweet little one was finally finished this last week. I had a back injury that left me completely down for a week and a half. My that was sure boring. I don't do well with that. But I have a great support system, husband and friends! I love them all! Thanks to them, we made it. And my quilt it finally finished, all done by hand. I don't know how many I will do by hand. They require a lot of sitting around.

One of my other sister-in-laws nicknamed this one the "Noelle" quilt. I think I agree. Too bad another sister-in-law (yes keep counting, there is 6 sisters on my husbands side) is having a boy.

Quilts...quilts and more quilts

In the mix of all that has been happening I have been getting together with a small group of women to quilt. We sure have a great time and have become good friends. Some laugh at me...mostly the husbands of the other ladies. You see, most of these women are in their sixties and seventies. I don't really know how old they are but you get the idea. And then there is me, in my late twenties, hanging out with these older women and having a great time.

It is interesting what brings a goup of people together. We all like to quilt and we have a common goal. To provide quilts to people in the community that may be in need. I don't think there is a better way to build friendships than by serving together. I don't accomplish nearly as many quilts as these other ladies do but here are a few that I have been able to do. I must say that I have learned a lot from these women!

This quilt was a one panel piece of fabric that I was able to machine quilt and bind. I have now learned how to actually machine quilt a quilt. I never really knew you could do that and now I am doing it myself. It is a small baby/lap size.

This quilt I was able to piece from some left over blocks from a different project. That was pretty fun for me to be able to use something that I had already started. It too is machine quilted. My second or third attempt at free motion quilting. I think I may have the hand of it. Although it definatey takes longer than straight line quilting with my walking foot!

This quilt is actually Ace's quilt. One of me friends gave him this animal/creation fabric and told him that I needed to make him a new quilt. So I found something to go with it and he loves it. I asked him if he wanted free motion or straight line quilting and he asked, "Which one is faster?" So that is what we did...straight lines. Doesn't hurt my feelings.

Ace is also our helper. Since the other kids are at school and I am the only young mom that attends, he gets all the attention. He is definately our little quilter in training. Thanks, Ace.

I have finally got my camera out...

I have finally taken some long overdue pictures of recent projects to share. And I have been busy! I am very excited to share that my quilt along top is finally complete. The quilt, not yet. But the top is finished! I am very pleased with how it turned out. Despite the hiccups along the way.

I have given my sister the privilege of finishing it for me. I hope she enjoys is as much as I did and doesn't worry too much.

I did a doll quilt for miss Tee for Christmas to go along with her new jammies. I love having scraps around from things like that to work with. It was very fun for me. I don't know how much she really appriciated it but I had fun. Isn't that the whole idea?

This happened to be a really fun project for me. I am in the leadership for the children at church and as a presidency we decided to do something special for the children that are choosing to get baptized this year. We put together a personalized scripture bag for them with things helping them understand what being baptized is all about. A friend helped with the embroidery and I put the bags together. All 11 of them. Yes, there are 11 eight year olds in our ward.

Each bag is made from a lightweight denim and accented in their favorite color. I laughed a little when out of 11 kids there were only 3 favorite colors. I was pretty sad to realize that I forgot my camera to take a picture of all of them together. What a fun project!


I was able to find some straping that I attached a colored ribbon to accent the bags. Very cute! The colors chosen were pink, red and blue. They all turned out great and loved by the children! Congrats to these sweet spirits!

My quilt is continued...

Well, time has passed and lots of things have been made. First of all I am so excited to say that my quilt project is no longer on hold and is ready to be put all together. But more of that in a minute.

Some of my time lately has been spent preparing for the upcoming Kindermusik semester. My kids have been taking Kindermusik classes (basic music, learning to love and appriciate music, ect) from a wonderful woman in the area. She mentioned one day that it would be great to have a bag to store the kids instruments in. So I went home a made one for the four kids in Tee's class. The teacher loved them, so I made some more. The semester is about to start and I wanted to have some on hand for the new kids starting their classes. They are a simple corduroy bag with a drawstring and they work wonderfully with the kid's glokenspiels.

The next project has been a new apron for Tee. She has been making many cinnamon rolls lately with only one apron around. That means that in between batches I have to make sure to get her apron washed. I thought forget this, I will just make another one so that she can switch. I am really happy with how this one turned out too.

She loves it, which makes it even better.

I think the ric rac around the edge and the ruffle at the hem really make the apron cute and girly. We all know that Tee is very girly!

It, of course, ties in the back.

And now to my quilt that has been hanging on in the back for quite some time now. Partly because of all these other things I have been working on and mostly because I ran out of the blue and white fabrics. So being stuck at 62 finished blocks and needing 70, I had to decide what to do next.

This is what I decided. With the motto...use what you have before you buy more...I came up with these fun yellow and red squares. I really love them. There is only 8 of them and they will be spread out randomly among my more subtle blue and white blocks.

I think it will be okay. Stay tuned to see the finished product. Okay at least the finished top will be soon. The whole quilt might take me a while. We will see. School starts in a week or so. That will change my life dramatically.

Quilt along update

If you haven't noticed on my side bar on the right...I am a little excited about this quilt along project. It has already been a lot of fun. So the day I decided to join in on the fun, I went to my stash and found these two fabrics sitting right next to each other. They just screamed, "Make us into a quilt." Okay, I know fabric doesn't really talk, so don't add too much craziness to what you already think of me. I am not sure it will be enough so I will have to search some more to supplement. My fabric went into the wash that night so it would be ready the next day.

For Christmas last year I was given a new rotary cutter by my dear hubby. I told him at the time that I would have to make a quilt. So now 7 months later I pull it out of the packaging and cut my fabric into strips.

I really couldn't wait to do just one block a day like the quilt along. I sewed three strips and ended up with 8 finished blocks the second day.

The second day was so much fun that the third day was spent sewing more strips and cutting them up to make blocks, for a grand total of 36 finished blocks on day four. I think I am having too much fun!

9 Year Old Quilt...Finally Finished

I am SO thrilled to announce that my quilt is FINALLY finished. So this quilt has been in the making now for 9 years. Yes that is a long time, and I have made many things since the start. Lets just say...I am not a very good finisher. I love to start things but am not so good on the finishing part...unless there is a deadline. I do deadlines very well. Usually the night before, but deadlines are good. So when my mother-in-law took the kids for a week to let me rest from being sick for a week prior, I used my time wisely and finished several things that have been waiting for my attention. My quilt being one of them. After much waiting, may I present....

And best of all, it was finished just in time for the Fourth of July.

So how could a quilt take 9 years to complete? Well that is a very good question, indeed. It all started when a good friend of mine and I went to the fabric store. Yes it has been one of my favorite places for a very long time. We came across this very fun fabric that had 2000 written all over it. Perfect we thought, we are graduates of the year 2000. What a perfect graduation quilt. Well, hers was finished within a few months, and mine sat in a box. I moved away and started college with the intentions of working on my quilt (the first large one I have made). And it still sat in a box.

Then I got married and had a baby girl. My quilt was put off once again. The perfect opportunity presented itself three years after the purchase of my fabric, when we spent several weeks in California. When we packed to go I brought along my sewing machine (did you really think I wouldn't?) and three or four projects, my quilt included. My husband was working and I had my baby, now almost a year old, and my few projects that I had brought along. With no other obligations, I set up at the kitchen table and finished all my projects except my quilt. With nothing else to do I went to my grandmother-in-law (she is a quilter) and said, "Where do I start?" And thus my quilt had begun. I enjoyed it so much that I finished the top in three days or so. Thank goodness I had a good baby. She played and played. We left California and my quilt sat in a box.

Five long years later, after another child, a move, a third child, and four more moves, my quilt made it out of the box and onto some quilting frames. A dear friend spent several hours with me tying it and it was almost done, but not quite. It sat around for another several months awaiting the final binding step. Why it took so long? I don't know. I am not a very busy person. : )

So when grandma took the kids and the Fourth of July was upon us, my quilt once again made an appearance, and this time it is finished! I have been so excited about it. It is 90 degrees outside and I am still huddled under my quilt. I think I am ready for the next one...but this time it won't take so long. What good is it sitting in a box?