April OMG

Door Mouse Retail Therapy 040517.jpgThis is going to be an interesting month for projects! I had hoped that I’d be able to spend the entire month quilting my hexagon diamonds quilt. Silly me, I talked with the head room parent in my son’s class and we are now making a quilt for teacher appreciation week! While I was at The Door Mouse Tuesday I picked out some purple fabrics and I found this really cute panel of teacher quotes that I can use in the border (far right side of the picture). So my OMG for April is making this quilt for the teacher – the main portion of the quilt is going to be the kids drawings bordered by the purple (and some greens that I need to buy still) and we will be working on that next Tuesday at school.

Cassie's quilt 040617.jpgI also decided that I will be making sure that the label gets added to Cassie’s signature quilt this month. The quilt has been done for 2.5 years and so has the label, I just never got it sewn on. Now is the time to get it finished!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.

Past Due Updates

Cassie 3 years old*sigh* This is not my year. I’ve been sick since the beginning of the year and as soon as I think I’m starting to get better I get worse again. I’m almost at the end of another bout of bronchitis and after a pulmonary function test my doctor told me I have asthma. Most likely it was brought on by all the bronchitis episodes this year! Needless to say, since I’ve been sick the last week or 2 I haven’t worked on too much. PLUS we had a birthday to celebrate this last week. My little princess is now 3 years old and I can’t believe how quickly the last year has passed. My sister and I took her for her first hair cut and then took her 3-year-old pictures. This is one of my favorites, although there aren’t that many bad pictures of her (yeah I know I’m biased)! We had a wonderful party and she gets upset when I start to take the decorations down now that celebrations are over.

I did get some work on done on other projects, I’ve been working on and off on Dear Jane EPP blocks and I have 6 of the Row C blocks finished. I had hoped to be working on Row D by now, but it just wasn’t meant to be this month. I will continue on and it will get done when it gets done. I’m in absolutely no hurry on these blocks and I’m enjoying working on them. Getting tired of working on the curved blocks, they are harder to work on than the straight pieces.

xoxohexieswap block 032417I’ve been doing hexie swaps for the last few months and I’ve finally decided what I am going to do with mine. Each swap will be made into a block, about 60 hexies makes a 12.5″ square block. Once I have enough blocks sewn together I’ll sash them and put them together. All of the swap information will be put on the label so I’ll remember where the hexies came from. I just finished the first block last night, these are from the #xoxohexieswap. There weren’t enough to do the whole block, as we only swapped 30, so I pulled from my Valentine’s bag of squares to get enough to finish it. I have the next block planned and ready to start, but I wanted to work on Dear Jane a little before I started putting the next one together. I’m waiting on more hexies to arrive, but some of the swaps aren’t finished yet – I got mine sent in right away and now I have to wait for everyone else to finish and send theirs in. I’m pretty sure I can make 2 blocks from the typography hexies, at least one with the St. Patrick’s Day hexies and I have a few signature hexie flowers that I think I’ll figure out how to put into a block. PLENTY of work to do around here!

I guess my break time is over, time to go work on pinning the second commission quilt so I can start quilting them in the next day or so.

Design Wall Monday – 03-06-17

Commission Progress 030617.jpgI started working on the last 2 commission quilts for my friend. I got all of the blocks cut out and put together for both quilts, I just need to get them put together. These quilts go together so quickly that I don’t mind that I’ve made so many of them. My friend is coming to visit this weekend, so I’d like to have the tops done before she gets here.

Good Night Irene 030617While I work on the commission quilts, I’m working on the border blocks for Good Night Irene, which has been in progress since 2014. I slowly worked on the top during 2014, but it was hard with a newborn in the house. The border blocks are just simple 9 patches, and use 162 white squares and 162 colored squares. My 2.5″ square bin doesn’t even look any emptier! I finished half the blocks needed, I hope to finish the other half today.

Cassie 030617Cassie is LOVING playing with fabrics. She asks at least once a day if she can play with them. Sometimes she wants the 2.5″ square bin, sometimes she wants “her fabrics”. I have a container full of fabrics I’ve collected for her, including 3-4 Minnie Mouse fabrics. At some point I’ll make something with them, haven’t decided yet what it will be. I might wait until she gets her big girl bed and make a large quilt like I did for Alex. Her birthday is in 2 weeks and she’ll be 3, I still can’t believe how fast the last 3 years has gone by! I bought her some Minnie Mouse sewing cards for her birthday, I’ll start her sewing with something easy for her little hands.

Linking up with Patchwork Times.

Happy New Year!

Wow! What a year we’ve had! I so did not get much sewing accomplished this year! Tons of camping, fun with the kids, the oldest is now in Kindergarten, we got a puppy the beginning of December…I could go on and on!

I only made one Christmas present this year, with the help of my sister and kids (just a little) we made our mother a memory quilt. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the finished quilt, I’ll have to try to remember next time I’m at their house. I was working on the binding on Christmas Eve, washed it and wrapped it as soon as it was out of the dryer. So taking a picture totally slipped my mind!

My etsy business is doing ok, I’ve had lots of views of the shop and items, just not many purchases. Only a total of 7 for 2016. I’ve recently created a Facebook page for the business, not sure if that’s helping yet or not. I have 4 commission quilts that need to be done in 2017, the first 2 tops are already done and ready for basting which I hope to be doing tomorrow or Monday.

Our quilt guild is doing a UFO Challenge for 2017 – I’m running it! I have 27 items on my list. I know I don’t have a chance of finishing them all, but I’ll do anything to get that push to finish them. Most of them just need quilted and bound, I just don’t know what I’m waiting for!

I don’t have any other pictures to show in this post, so I’ll just add 2, my little munchkins with Santa and a picture of our new baby, Raven Skye.

Have a wonderful New Year and be safe!!

Alex’s Quilt – Done!

Alex's Quilt 011316I FINALLY finished Alex’s bed quilt! I started cutting out and putting the blocks together January 1st last year, had the whole top finished February 28, 2015. It took me just over 10 months to get it basted and quilted. I had all the quilting finished and ready for the binding to be hand sewn while I was recuperating from surgery. Last stitch was sewn on the 10th and it got washed and now is on his bed. It’s VERY gratifying when he came up to me after it was on the bed and gave me a BIG hug and said “Thank you mommy, I love you”. Unfortunately for him I’m taking it off his bed tomorrow so I can take it to guild tomorrow!

Car quilt 011316I also have had a quilt sitting here for a couple of years that just needed the binding put on. I had found some black binding that was just a few inches too short and just folded the whole thing up and put it in a corner for awhile. I wasn’t happy with the way the quilting turned out, it was the last thing I quilted on my mini-pinni frame before we took it down to make it Cassie’s room. So I figured I’d get it ready for when I finished Alex’s quilt. I found some already made solid black binding and just added it in for the last few inches. You really can’t tell there’s a different fabric in there. At least now it’d completed and it’ll go in daddy’s truck as a blanket for the kids. Now they’ll both have a blanket in my truck and daddy’s truck, and can’t complain about being cold!

A few weeks ago I posted that I just had 1 border left to finish on my 2010 Quilt Show BOM. I needed just 1 more strip to finish off the last side and had ordered 2 greens to try and match it. Yeah, that didn’t work so well. Neither of the greens I ordered matched, so I decided to just take off the 3 sides I had already completed and use one of the new greens to do all 4 sides. I finished taking off the border this morning and hope to get the last border on by the weekend to have another finished top!

So close….

Star Crazy 122915So doggone close! I started this quilt back in 2010 with a bunch of other ladies. I managed to keep up in 2010 and get all my blocks together with some small delays after Alex was born. In 2012 I managed to get the center done, and just had 4 borders to complete the top. I’m in the mood to finish tops this week and decided over the weekend to pull this one out. I do have an ulterior motive, if this is finished I can use the rest of the Moda Marbles in the tub on hexie insanity! So I’ve been slowly working on the borders, those half square triangle borders are hard to get going the same way. I found a piece of very light green fabric that looked like it was enough yardage that I could get both thin borders out of it. It was too much to ask for! I need 1 strip so I can finish that last side. I THINK I found the right color at Miller’s Dry Goods, I’ve ordered it and I’m hoping it gets here by the weekend so I can finish the top. I think 5 years is more than enough time for a quilt top to be completed!

Xmas pic 122915Christmas was so fun with the kids! Santa brought them gifts they didn’t ask for, but still love! The holidays continue this week as my brother-in-law and family will be here tomorrow and we get to spend at least 3 days with them.

Linking up to Freemotion by the River.

Hexie Insanity Update

hexi insanity 070915I’ve been busy with the kids and camping this summer and just haven’t had a lot of time to work on my projects. Cassie is teething and that means lots of sleepless nights for her and for me.

I’ve been working on white hexies for hexie insanity, and started putting the pathways on diamonds so I can start deciding how I want these to go together. I’ll be awhile before I actually stitch them together – I think – but at least I won’t have to do the pathways too. We have a lot more camping trips scheduled for the summer, mostly weekend trips, but one of them is a longer trip to Virginia to Smith Mountain Lake – where we are having something of a family reunion – get to see my BIL, his girlfriend and all the kids along with lots of other family members. I’m going to try working on hexies in the car this time, which I didn’t even try on the Missouri trip, just because I really wanted to read on that trip! I have a lot of white hexies to baste! I hope to post again tomorrow with an update on my sock knitting, getting close to where I need to figure out how to do the heel!

I’m back!

March 21UGH! I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve posted! SO much has been going on around here and I really haven’t had time to work on projects. Cassie turned one in March and yes, mommy made her onesie! I found the design on etsy and stitched it out twice – because the first one I cut the applique wrong and the satin stitch didn’t cover the edges. It was a wonderful party and she looked beautiful!

I started working on the end of school year gifts for Alex’s teachers, both teachers are getting alphabet/number magnets out of felt that are done in the hoop on my embroidery machine. These are pretty quick to do, just need time to work on them! I’ll take pictures when they are done.

In the last 2 months I also created a shop on etsy. I used to have my own website with a shopping cart and never got any hits/business. So I did some thinking and decided that since anything I make on the embroidery machine is custom, and there’s no shortage of items that are decorative that I can do in bulk that I’d create a shop and start filling in items. The listing fee is pretty cheap and are good for like 4 months. Please visit my shop! 🙂 I need to come up with a logo, but I’ve needed that for a long time!

Mondo bag finishedEarlier in the month at guild we had a speaker from a semi-local quilt shop and I bought a pattern for a Mondo Bag by QuiltSmart. I had previously made some Lone Star quilts using their interfacing panels and I really wanted something different for a diaper bag. I wish I had realized how BIG this bag would turn out! It wasn’t too hard once I figured out the instructions, and I do like how it looks. I’m planning on using it as a diaper bag until I can see what size the Midi bags turn out to be. I’m going to get some of those panels once hubby gets paid.

I’m still slowing working on my knitting and my hexies, I’ll have to do some update posts of those soon!

Design Wall Monday

DSC_8604 Well I finally did it.  2 years and 1 month ago I started my hexagon diamonds quilt.  Today I put the last hand stitches into it.  All 2,473 hexagons are sewn together and I just need to add a border to it and then sandwich and quilt it.  I think I have a plan for quilting it, it’s not going to be anything fancy since this is a queen sized quilt! I’m trying to decide how thick the border needs to be, I’m thinking only about 3 inches just to have a stopping spot.  I’m cutting all the sides even, but I still think it needs that little bit on all sides.  I have a few hexies that were extras (counted wrong on a few diamonds) that I was thinking of appliqueing on the borders, I’ll have to see if they really need it when I get them added on.

2014-07-28 16.29.36Since I had the quilt on our bed, even though it is going to be used on the bed in the trailer, I decided my new quilt model needed a pic on it.  She’s now 4 months old and such a joy in our lives! Such a happy baby!! Hope to start posting more often now that I’m getting a little more free time – not much, but I am getting to work on the sewing machine a little more lately!

Linking to Patchwork Times.

It’s Been Awhile….

May 13I have been so busy the last few months that I really haven’t done much sewing.  Why have I been busy?  Because my precious little girl Cassie was born!!!! She will be 2 months old on Wednesday and I can’t believe how fast the time has gone! We cannot believe she’s here, it’s amazing how different she is from Alex in size and attitude. Alex loves his little sister, almost too much, since he always wants to kiss her when she’s sleeping and that wakes her up!

I managed to get a few things done in my office over the weekend, finally made a cover for Alex’s dresser and now it’s protected from scratches. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it’s nothing special just 2 different fabrics (construction equipment and Chuggington trains) with some batting. I didn’t even quilt it, just stitched a 1/4 inch around the edges.

2014-05-14 10.58.35I finally managed to finish the last diamond for the penultimate row of my hexagon diamonds quilt.  At the same time I’ve been working on the black pieces I need for fill in at the top and right now I’m working on putting one of those in place. Everything is slow work since Cassie wants to be fed every few hours! 🙂 I really would like to finish this so I can put it in our guild quilt show this year. Plus it’s for our bed in the trailer!

hexi insanity2014-05-14 10.58.59I joined another group on Facebook for those that are making what is called the Insanity Quilt by Rhonda Pearce. I really don’t need another hexagon quilt to make, but I love the design!!!  I bought 3/4″ and 1/2″ hexagon papers from paperpieces.com awhile ago so I could decide which size I liked better and I also bought the Studio dies that I needed to cut my fabric into the correct sizes.  I got the quilt designed in EQ7 and it’s going to be almost 100″ x 100″!! I’m planning on using the 3/4″ hexis, the 1/2″ are just too small for me.  So when hubby asked what I’d like for Mother’s Day, I found some Moda Marbles jelly rolls on Amazon and gave him that option.  Since it’s a lot of diamonds and flowers, I can start working on them as soon as I get hexie diamonds finished. It’s really hard to NOT cut into the fabric and start working on it!!  I have some Moda Marbles here that I’m using on another quilt that I will also use once I finish the other quilt (yeah I know something else to finish!). I still need to decide on the background color, but I’ll probably use a solid Kona, white or cream. I won’t need it for awhile since I’ll just work on the flowers and diamonds for awhile first.

Well, Cassie is up again, time to get her dressed and fed so we can go out for a walk – I have more baby weight to lose!!!!  And since I just realized it’s Monday, I’m linking up to Patchwork Times!