I did it!

I like to take my wedding rings off when I sew.   I just realized I see them here in this picture, haha!

I have conquered the quilt!  My very first quilt is completely done, and has been in use for about 4 days now.  It is rife with imperfection and beginnerness, but I love it nonetheless.  Unfortunately I don't have very good pictures of it because the weather is horrible here, but...  Horrible weather makes perfect curling up under a new quilt weather!

Stats:

Size: throw (I forget the actual dimensions, but it's a big throw)

Fabric: Heather Bailey's Pop Garden and Bijoux, plus Kona white

Quilting:  machine quilted, straight-line 1/4 from the seams, by me

The binding might be my favorite part!  I won't lie - quilting this on my dinky little machine was hard...  But not so hard that I'm not ready to jump right in & make more!

Fat Quarter Friday

One of my local fabric stores has a "fat quarter Friday" sale every week.  Buy 3, get one free.  This week I decided I needed to treat myself to a fat quarter Friday.  I needed some more yellow, orange, and blue for my newest project: the Bottled Rainbows quilt along.  I've been intrigued by this quilt ever since Rachel at Stitched in Color first mentioned it, but I didn't think I had the stash for it.  Darn if she isn't persuasive though!  She kept posting links for scraps and Kona bundles, and pretty soon I could no longer resist.  I can't WAIT until my rainbow gets here so that I can start sewing!

While I'm waiting though, I also have been trying out a new craft!  Crewel!  I've wanted to try this for a while, but I knew I wanted to start with a kit since I didn't know what I was doing.  Most of the kits out there, however, are...  a little grandma-ish.  Sorry grandmas of the world, but that's not my style!  Then I found Tako Fibers on Etsy.  Oh my goodness.  I love everything about her kits.  Super easy instructions, modern designs, and even the packaging is so amazingly adorable.  Love, love, love.  

Check this out:

I think I'm going to turn it into a pillow.  Fantastic, no?

Oh, and I'm also finally quilting my Pop Garden quilt.  Yay!

Just One Star

Yesterday I ran to the post office to mail out Rebecca's block for the Fat Stash Bee, but also this little block here.  It's my contribution to the Just One Star Project.  The people at Moda fabrics are working with the Semper Fi Fund to make 100 quilts in 100 days for soldiers.  All you have to do to help is make one of these star blocks and mail it in to them.  They will gather the blocks, assemble the quilts, and deliver them on Flag Day.  One block?  How easy is that?  I only made one, but I might make more, it was that easy (and enjoyable).  Those words on the block are the sewer's name and home state.  So each soldier that gets one will have a quilt from all over the country.  Cool.

I really enjoyed participating in this project, and I hope to do more things like this in the future.

Treats!

The weather outside has truly been frightful.  Yesterday was dark and gray, with howling winds, and pounding rain.  I stayed indoors and made myself a little treat to brighten the mood around here.
Meet my new pincushion:

It's only about 3 inches square.  It was the first wonky star I've made, and it's backed with my fabric obsession Sandi Henderson's Henna Garden in blue.

Also, something you should know about me is that I am a coconut-aholic.  I spent my entire 2-week honeymoon stuffing my face with everything under the Hawaiian sun containing coconut, and came home with a bottle of coconut syrup for my pancakes.  It doesn't even have to have real coconut.  Ever had coconut M&Ms?  They don't even contain coconut (seriously), but I always had a pack on me in HI.  They're much harder to find back here on the mainland, but if I see them, I buy them.

Anyway, I just found these over the weekend:

These. are. even. betterthantheM&Ms!!!  I just ate an obscene amount.  AND they actually have coconut in them!  How sad am I that this is an Easter-only special?  Husband, if you're reading this (doubtful, he didn't even know I had a blog until yesterday...) I want a ton of coconut creme kisses for my birthday next month.  And a new sewing machine.

Buzzzzzzz...

See that little badge on the right over there?  The one that says, "Fat Stash Bee"?  Yep, I joined a bee!  Quilting bees are not just for grandmas anymore.  It turns out there's this whole world of "virtual quilting bees".  A VQB is a group of people that come together, and just like a traditional grandma-bee, each person makes blocks for everybody else.
Typically, a bee has 12 members, and each member is assigned a month.  They send out fabric and directions to the other participants when it's their month, and everyone makes blocks & sends them back.  At the end of a year, every person has a whole quilt, made in part by everyone in the group.  In this bee, we're sending each other a fat quarter when it's our month, and then we get to pull from our stash of fabric.  Hence the name "Fat Stash".
March was our first month, and I just finished my block:

This is Rebecca's month, and she asked for a "neighborhood quilt".  Every person was to use some of her orange fabric to make a block with a house, or other building.  I made her a log cabin.  =)  She's expecting a baby, and mentioned that she wants to use the quilt in the nursery.  How great is it that people all over the world (we have members in Canada & Germany too!) are helping to make something for her baby?

See that crocheted flower in the picture, too?  I crocheted something!  It's been a while since I've crocheted anything.  I first saw this on Angela's blog, Fussy Cut, and have been wanting to make some since.  It's supposed to be a potholder/trivet, but I think it'd make a great scrubber too (it is made of all-cotton yarn).  Tutorial can be found here.  Now I must go and binge on our impulse-purchased Easter candy, and cheer on my Buckeyes (even though I hate basketball).  Go Bucks!

Now for something completely different...

Yes, two posts, back-to-back.  Because this is a total departure from paloozaness.  Anyway, did I mention that I'm doing another quilt along?  I am.  I draw a lot of crafty inspiration from the ladies over on the Nest, which is a sister site of the Knot - a site I used a TON to plan my wedding.  Happy day for me, when I discovered they have a whole board of craftiness for us now-married folk!
One day, one of the girls on there posted a question: did anyone know of any scrappy quilt alongs going on/starting?  Well, I didn't, but I casually suggested that we start our own.  So now we have a Nestie quilt along!  To keep it simple and conducive to using up a bunch of scraps, the person in charge chose a 9-patch pattern.  I don't have enough scraps saved up for a whole quilt, and I was kind of thinking of doing a black & white quilt for our living room.  So I bought more fabric.

Sorry for the horrible lighting.  It's pretty hard to take pictures of anything inside when it's winter in Washington.

I was really loving the fabric I chose, but I wasn't to sure about traditional 9-patch.  I did not want my quilt to look like a checkerboard, and I wanted it to be pretty modern.  So, after a little google image searching, I settled on this type of layout:

Yes, I know, the white squares are kind of cheaters.  Why do all that cutting and matching of seams though, when you don't have to?  So far I am LOVING how this is turning out.  I want something really fun for the backing, and right now this Michael Miller print is a strong contender:

It's called "Prom" and it totally cracks me up.  It is a very dreary day here in the Pacific Northwest, which means I may be able to make some progress on this one.  Or I could baste my Pop Garden quilt top.  It's pretty large though, and I'm scared.  Plus, I don't feel like vacuuming up all of the dog hair so that I have a space to put it...

Enough of my ramblings!  I leave you with some more pictures of my Nestie QAL goodness:

Block-a-palooza 13 & 14

The other day I was showing off block 14 to my husband.  He said, "Aren't you finished with that yet?"  I was able to tell him, I almost am!  Next week is the last week of new blocks, and I can't even believe it.  I'm not sure I'm in love with my fabric choices for number 13.  This whole QAL I've been trying to get my hands on an aqua solid, and none of the fabric stores in my area have any!  So I made do.  I'm really liking 14 though!

Block #13

Block #14:

Paloozin'

I won something!  I'm so excited, I've never won anything before!  At the half-way point of our Block-a-palooza, everyone was invited to post a collage or picture of their blocks #1-8.  Five people who posted were drawn at random to win prizes of fabric.  I was one of the people selected!  I won a layer cake of Charlevoix:

This line of fabric isn't quite my style, but I've already got ideas about making it into a quilt as a gift for a family member.  Exciting!

I've also been hard at work getting caught up on blocks 10, 11, and 12.

Block #10:

That top corner needs a little editing.  I've already ripped it out and resewn, like, six times though, so I'm taking a time-out from this one.

Block #11:

Block #12:

And here they all are together (so far):

There are only four more blocks left (2 weeks), then we start the sashing/assembly process.  Seeing them all together like this makes me pretty excited for the final product!

Puppies and Rainbows

Phew!  It's been quite a week!  That plague really got me, and then it was back to work for a super busy, jam packed week.  I haven't done either of my Block-a-palooza blocks for this week, but I did do some sewing.  My niece, Frankie, turned two yesterday, and she is the biggest beneficiary of my crafty side around here.
First, I made her this scottie dog stuffed animal:

I used this pattern from Denyse Schmidt, and a bunch of scraps, mostly Amy Butler and Heather Bailey. This puppy turned out to be a lot harder to make than I imagined - the patchwork was fine, but attaching the pink strip in the middle was quite the task at the corners.

I also made her a crayon roll:

So all together, she got puppies and rainbows:

Luckily, my hard work paid off, because she loved them!  After she opened her puppy, she wanted to take a break from present opening and just snuggle it.  Then later, when she opened the crayon roll, she wanted to color right away.  My brother & sister in law had never seen a crayon roll before, and thought it was the coolest idea.  Now, if only I could take credit for that one... haha.

She's got her arm around that puppy.  Oh!  In the background you can see the bacon & eggs I made her for Christmas, too!

Happy Birthday, Frankie!  I hope you enjoy your gifts as much as I enjoyed making them for you!