WIP Wednesday

Hi.  I'm still here!  It's been very busy around here, but I have been making stuff!  I realize now that I never posted the top I made (my first garment, woo!), so I will be sure to do that.  I entered it in Made By Rae's spring top contest, but I don't have high hopes.  I am so not a garment sewer!
I've actually been working quite a lot on my husband's quilt.  All of the blocks are finally finished, and I started putting it together over the weekend.

This is what it's looking like so far.  I think I like it, even though it still looks sooooo 80's to me.  My husband likes it though, which is all that matters.  It is going to be a BIG quilt, and I am kind of getting nervous about quilting it on my inferior machine.  So much so, that I am considering pricing out new ones.  Eeek!

In other news, I FINALLY got my order of Kona solids to start my bottled rainbows quilt!  I placed my order two months ago, and have been really super annoyed with how the backorder was handled, but whatever.  Now I can make that delicious quilt!

I'm linking up with Lee today at Freshly Pieced.  Go check out what everyone else has going on this Wednesday!

Oooh, I've been a bad blogger

April 17th was my last post?  Oops!  It has been pretty busy around here though.  April is a big birthday month in my family, culminating with my own.  My husband got me the best birthday present ever - tickets to an Ohio State football game in Ohio!  I haven't been back since I moved 6 years ago and I miss it so much.  Yay!

My dad's birthday is right before mine.  He likes to bake & cook, so this is what I made him:

Hexie-ful potholder and dishtowel.  I have to say, I was going to make him two potholders and three towels... yeah... I didn't realize that they take FOREVER to make!  I saw him this morning, and I was still working late into last night just to finish these.  Whoops.

The full band on the towel.  Sorry these pics are so dark.  I just bought plain white kitchen towels, and then pinned the heck out of the hexies to sew them on.

Back of the potholder.  The quilting is hard to see, but I echo quilted every other row of hexagons.  I wasn't sure how heat-safe this thing would be.  I used two layers of batting, but I wanted to quilt minimally, because I thought maybe the quilted areas would be less heat-safe.

Dad totally loved them!  His kitchen has a lot of blue, so he's excited to put them in there.  It's my hope that I'll be able to make him the other pieces I intended to.  Eventually.  =)

Wanna see something cute?

Not to toot my own horn, or anything...  Well, actually, I guess I am.  But look how cute these are!

After I made a crayon roll for my niece, my co-worker mentioned that his son would love something like that.  I told him that I'd love to make something for his cute little boy!  After we thought about it for a bit, we both agreed that a colored pencil roll-up would be more appropriate for his 5-year-old.  Using my past experience making Sara's crochet hook case, and Frankie's crayon roll, I made up my own pattern and set to work.  I'd never sewn for a little boy before, but I am loving the Lizzy House trees and ducks!

My co-worker has a one-year-old daughter too.  I didn't want to leave her out, so I whipped up a crayon roll for her, that he can keep until she's old enough for crayons.  He doesn't know about this one, so I can't wait to show him tomorrow!

Today I've been hard at work on the manly quilt.  I'm making good progress, so I hope I have a quilt top to show off soon!

WIP Wednesday

It's WIP Wednesday!  I'll be linking up again at Lee's blog, Freshly Pieced.

I have a lot "in progress" right now...  The only thing that I actually completed since last Wednesday, is my reusable coffee sleeve.  This is pretty much because we were here for a few days:

This is the nicest picture I was able to get at the beach.  In fact, this was the only day we actually went TO the beach, because the weather was so nasty!

Then I had to go back to work.  After a week off.  Monday was hard. =(  Some progress has been made on the "manly" purple quilt though.

This week I'll be working on more of those gray blocks at the top.  Also on the docket are: colored pencil roll-up for a co-worker's son, hexie-filled birthday present for my dad, and piecing the patchwork part of my crewel pillow (since I did go fabric shopping last week!).  Whew!

It was bound to happen...

I got bit by the bug.  That's right.  The hexie-bug.  I knew it was only a matter of time...

My new favorite thing I've made...

Every time I make something new, it's my favorite thing I've ever made!  Haha, sort of.  I'm really loving this guy though.

I've been wanting to make a reusable coffee sleeve for a while now.  The rate I visit Starbucks, I need one!  So this morning, before I went to run errands (errands which included a stop for a grande no-water chai) I whipped this up.  Love it!  Love the stripey inside too.

My errands included a trip to the grocery store to make some yummy treats for my husband's birthday weekend at the beach.  You MUST make Sarah's granola recipe.  It is SO easy and SO good (I am shoveling handfuls in my maw as we speak).  Today macadamia nuts were on sale, so I used those instead of almonds.  Yummmmmmm........  It tastes pretty good with milk, like cereal, too.
I also just pulled a pan of mocha muffins out of the oven.  Which I need to make again, because I accidentally used regular baking powder, instead of sodium-free (my husband is on a super low-sodium diet).  Best not poison the hubby for his birthday...

WIP Wednesday!

Happy Wednesday!  I actually usually dislike Wednesdays - it's the only day of the week that my class doesn't have a specialist, and since we're in the rainy season now, well, let's just say Wednesdays are looooong.
But I am on Spring Break!  Woo hoo!  I have been sewing a lot this week, too, so I decided to link up to Lee's WIP Wednesday.

After finishing my Pop Garden quilt, my husband asked where HIS quilt was.  Then he proceeded to give me a pretty tall order for what he wanted in a quilt:

1.) No prints.  Seriously, none.

2.) Must include purple.

3.) Be manly.

Hmm... well, I like prints, and I don't think purple really screams "manly".  Crap.  But then I remembered that I saw this really great quilt made entirely of solids over on Julie's blog.  And there was a sale on Kona going on too...  So I really quickly emailed Julie for the yardage requirement, placed my order (he decided he was ok with purple and gray), and now I am knee deep in what I think is a pretty 80's-looking quilt.

I do think it will be pretty cool when it's done though.  I successfully cut out the 588 pieces in one afternoon, still have all of my fingers intact, and have actually finished 31 of the 84 blocks.  Go me!

I also finished a springy Nicey Jane table runner for my dining table (I pieced it a long time ago & finally got around to quilting/binding it).  I don't have a picture yet because it's too darn gloomy in here.  I finally gifted my mom her birthday table runner, as well.  She loved it & sent me this pic right away:

Finally, I made a block for Jodi for April of the Fat Stash Bee.  I feel terrible, because her first round of fabric never got to me.  Either one of my neighbors has it, or it's floating around in postal no man's land...  So I made her this one, but I am going to do an extra or two: