November Happenings

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been gone for so long! We've had a lot of visitors over the past month and I haven't had much time for sewing. I thought I'd check in before we all get swept away into Thanksgiving and show you the two small things I've completed this month. 

First up was my Color Bee Shocked bee block for October. Yes, I said October. I know, I know I became one of those people. I never meant to get behind, but it just happened and I don't know how to explain it. I felt really guilty about it so I included some extra goodies along with my block and apology note. I've made a pact with myself never to let that happen again! Anyway, here's my block:

It's called X Marks the Spot and uses a bunch of HSTs. It was actually pretty fun to put together, so I shouldn't have waited so long to do it!

My other November project I just put together today. It's a laptop sleeve for my new computer. 

I had a bunch of 2.5 inch squares left over from my double Irish chain quilt, so I decided to put some of them to good use. I just sewed them up corner to corner and cut off the excess. That way I wouldn't have to trim up all of those HST corners. 

For the layout, I wanted something more modern (I had thought about doing a simple pinwheel pattern, but it just didn't seem cool enough). So, I played around with turning the HSTs left and right and came up with this broken square design. It's more modern than I usually go, and it's growing on me. :) 

Speaking of modern, I did get to go to my first Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting this past week! It was a lot of fun and I got to put a face to an online quilting friend. Thanks for coming with me, Kathy! Hopefully we'll be able to attend their holiday meeting in a couple weeks once they nail down the date, time and location. Until then I'll try my best to get some more sewing time in!

Happy Thanksgiving and happy sewing everyone!

Summer Is Here!

Hello everyone! After having such a long and snowy winter we finally made it to summer! I wasn't sure it would ever get here since spring was pretty cold here too. This weekend it is supposed to be really hot, and today we are getting severe thunderstorms. I just hope the hail and tornadoes stay away!

So, that means I should stay inside and sew this weekend. I did just finish up another kindle case since now I have a small kindle instead of the one with the huge keyboard at the bottom.

Now I'll have something pretty to carry around with me and my kindle won't get all scratched up! :)

I have several other projects going on right now too, but what I really need to do is figure out what pattern I'm going to use for my bee month. I host August and since we'll be moving at the end of July I'll have to get my act together early. Any suggestions? I'm thinking I might design my own block and put up a tutorial... We'll see if I have time for that I guess.

Anyway, I do have a little finish to share today. I have finished my June bee block.

It was the first time I've had to do real paper piecing, and I was kind of nervous since I had to make this for someone else! I think it turned out OK though. The middle isn't quite on, but I'm happy with it. And, I only had to rip one seam! I'd say that's a win! :)

So, what are you all working on this summer?

March Bee Blocks

Hello everyone, and happy Easter a day early! :) I'm sure I won't have time to post tomorrow, so I just wanted to quickly share the March Color Bee Shocked blocks that I put together the other night.

Our theme for this month was to make a star out of white-on-white fabrics with a blue star background. The fabrics were provided by our host this month and I really loved the blue background fabric!

I put together 2 blocks, both more traditional looking blocks. There were several people who had already made some wonky or paper pieced blocks. The point was to get a bunch of different looking stars so I went with something that I knew how to do. :) Hopefully our host likes them. She's putting together a quilt that will assemble the stars into a constellation for her husband which I think is an awesome idea!

I should keep this idea in mind for my father. He's a HUGE space nerd. He grew up during the space with Russia and has a closet full of astronaut pictures that are all signed and booklets from all of their missions. When he was a kid he used to sit under a card table with star maps and pretend that he was in a spaceship going to visit different planets and stars and things like that. Just one of the many things I love about my dad. :) So, maybe I'll keep this in mind for an Orion wall hanging or something like that. It would be a neat Christmas present for him for next year...

Anyway - hope you all have a wonderful Easter! Spring is almost here in full swing. The birds are back and the snow is melting. I think we're supposed to get a couple flurries between today and tomorrow, but then hopefully we'll start warming up! :) Happy crafting everyone!

February Bee Blocks

I can't believe the first bit of sewing I did this month was on the 18th! The month is over half done, so that's just crazy!

For February, our host for the Color Bee Shocked Bee asked for a Japanese X block done all in blues. She sent a lot of great fabrics and I had so much fun putting the block together that I pulled out some of my blues and made her a second block. She is making the quilt for someone else, which I think is awesome. I'm sure they'll love it.

This past weekend I was very busy with wedding and bridal shower things. My good friends Heidi and Sarah were in town. Heidi's wedding is coming up in May and she lives in Florida, so this was the last time she would be in Wisconsin before the big day. I think she had an appointment every hour on Saturday, but she got a ton done.

Sarah and I spent our day between appointments and getting the goods for a bridal shower we hosted for Heidi on Sunday. Unfortunately, I was so busy getting everything ready and leading games that I didn't take any good pictures.

(well... I did get one of the cake after it was cut...)

But, we put together a mimosa bar along with half a dozen other beverages. We also had a bunch of little appetizers including little fruit parfaits, veggie pizza, hot crescent roll sandwiches and some other finger foods. It was a lot of fun and I think everyone had a good time.

We played a couple games. I think the one that people got the most into was the "What's in your purse?" game. It's a game where you get points (either added for good things or subtracted for bad things) that end up in your purse. The mother of the bride won the game and her purse was very heavy, but filled with lots of good things! I also gave a prize to the person with the least amount of points for having the cleanest purse. Sometimes I think that's the hardest thing for me to keep clean!

We also played a trivia game for the Bride. I asked her fiance a bunch of questions in advance and she had to answer them all the same way he did - sort of like the newlywed game. If she got the question right I gave her a dollar. If she got the question wrong then she had to eat a piece of gum. We had some really bad flavor combinations and she had quite a mouthful by the time the game was done. :)

The activity I liked the most was creating a date night jar for the bride and groom. I saw the idea on Pinterest. I had 3 colors of popsicle sticks for date ideas. White was a stay-at-home date. Red was a cheap or quick go-out date. Silver was a more involved or more expensive go-out date. We had a lot of good entries. My favorite was an at-home date submitted by the bride's Grandma: Clean the garage and then shower together. :) When they were all filled out, the sticks went into a jar for them to pick from when they want to do something but don't know what to do. Some of the sticks were still blank, so those will be choose-your-own-adventure dates or sticks where they can write some of their favorite activities.

So, now that the shower is done and most other wedding plans are all figured out, I might be able to do some more sewing. I've still got my Over the Rainbow quilt to finish and plenty of other things waiting in the wings. Happy crafting everyone!

Little things

It's been quiet here lately, and I'll admit I haven't had time to do much sewing. Between cleaning and organizing our apartment and getting back into the swing of things after the holidays, I feel like there's no time left in the day! So, January has been dull for me on the creative side of things. I plan on having a much better February!

All that being said, I have managed a few small things in the past few days. I put together the January block for the Color Bee Shocked Bee. Our host for the month had a little goof with her measurements on the fabric she sent everyone, so the outer border is from fabric I added from my stash. I think her quilt will turn out quite unique since she'll have a lot of different fabrics from everyone in the bee. I'm really looking forward to seeing it all put together.

I have also added the border to my Over the Rainbow quilt top, so that is ready for basting. I also sewed up the back for it. I know everyone loves to have a pieced back (or maybe it's just trendy right now??), but for some reason they just don't sit right with me. I used one on my Dots on Dots quilt, but I'm not very fond of it. So, this quilt just has one fabric for the back and I'm happy with that. :) I'm hoping to have it pinned and ready for quilting by the weekend.

The last thing I've started is a rag rug. My husband was actually helping me cut up all of the little pieces. It was really fun to see him using a rotary cutter and quilting rulers!! We are using old T-shirts that are worn out or the wrong size to make the rug. I'll keep this one in cool colors, but I do have some red shirts I'll need to do something with. Any ideas??

My Longest WiP (and other projects)

Hello everyone,

I've got a special project to share today. It's still in the works, but I can feel the completion date getting closer and closer. I've been working on this quilt since I was either in High School or 8th grade. I'm thinking 8th grade since I know I was "too cool" to quilt in High School. (Wow, I can't believe that was 12-13 years ago!!)

It's a quick and easy 9-patch quilt called "Over the Rainbow" that I fell in love with many, many years ago. I've always loved Amish quilts with vibrant colors and black backgrounds, so my mom and I started planning this quilt. I was lucky enough to find one patterned fabric in all of the colors - purple, pink, red, orange, yellow, green and 2 shades of blue.

I've been carting the fabric around from apartment to apartment through college and after, knowing that some day I would eventually finish it. Earlier this year it finally earned a spot in one of my 3 WiP drawers. That means I need to finish it before I can start another project because I'm not letting myself store in-progress projects anywhere but those 3 drawers. (Unfortunately, all of my current projects are large quilts, so this was the next one to finish up.)

My 8th grade self had already done most of the leg-work. The fabric was cut into 2.5 inch strips and sewn together for quick piecing. I just needed to cut apart the strips to make the pieces for each 9 patch block.

Ta da! I've got everything all cut and ready to go for the blocks. (My 8th grade self had even pieced together the light blue blocks, so I'm one more step ahead of the game.) I'll have to put a close up of the fabric I'm using in the next post. I can't decide if it looks like puzzle pieces or germs (maybe a combination of the two??), but I still think it's amazing that it came in all of those bright colors! I'm pretty sure we bought it at Wal-Mart - back when they still had a decent fabric section - but it could have been JoAnn Fabrics as well. Either way, I doubt I'll be able to find anymore if I happen to run out...

On another note, I finished the second Color Bee Shocked block (the one for November) and sent everything off in the mail today. Here's what I came up with:

It looks a little wonky to me, but hopefully not too bad. This was the first time I'd really worked with set-in circular seams, so I practiced a couple times first. I made the fugly Americana pot holder in my previous post and also made the below block. I plan to make it into another pot holder/trivet for my sister. (She said she needed a lot...)

This one I like way better than the Americana one I made. It almost looks like a little house - maybe a gnome home? :) My sister is coming to see me on Sunday, so I've got to get this little guy finished up by that time. So, with the circle bee block completed, I've finished one of my November goals of finishing up both Color Bee Shocked blocks. I also finished the knitted birthday present for my sister as another goal. I won't be showing that off until November 30th or December 1st.

With those two projects done, I the last goals I have for November are to sew together half of the Leaf Quilt blocks and plan/cut out the fabric for the Christmas quilt for my dad. I'm not sure the Leaf Quilt blocks will get done this month, but I've already planned out the pattern for the Christmas quilt and have the fabric for it. Hopefully I can finish the Over the Rainbow quilt top and get the Christmas quilt fabric cut and ready to go.

Anyway, this post is way too long, and I have some blocks to sew! So, happy crafting everyone!! :)

Little Projects

Tonight I wanted something to work on while watching the votes come in, so I decided to practice some in-set circles. One of the bee blocks I'm supposed to make wants a block with circles (something I've never done before) so I wanted to give this technique a try.

Fittingly, I was working with some left over Americana prints. I decided to make my creation into a fugly pot holder for my sister. She said she's running out of pot holders because she's worn through most of the ones she has. She likes to cook, and apparently likes to cook a lot! I don't think I've ever worn through a pot holder. I usually only get rid of them when they have so much cake batter on them they can't be cleaned.

Anyway, I thought I didn't do too bad on the in-set circle, even if the whole thing does look pretty ugly. Now I just need to do this on the real block with the real fabric!

I also put together the hand-made portion of the birthday gift for my sister. Here's a sneak peek:

Obviously you can tell that it's red and knit. :) I'll post the entire project on November 30th or later since that's the day my sister will be getting her present. :)

Lastly I put together the bee blocks for the December host in the Color Bee Shocked bee. I know, I know, I'm going out of order. I should have done November's block first, but circles are intimidating!!! Here's a pic of the blocks I put together for December:

Nice and easy flying geese. :) These were really simple, but the pattern made a lot of waste. I think if I were to put some of these together for a project for myself I'd use another method where there isn't as much scrap fabric to cut away. Otherwise, I really like the choice of fabrics the host sent along.  Lovely color combinations. :)

So, whether or not the votes went the way you wanted them to this evening, I hope you all were able to work on something fun! Happy crafting!