Fabric Friday

Today's fabrics are brought to you by the 35% off Fabritopia sale ;)

(L to R): Hedgehog Heaven in Aqua, Castle Heraldry in Cardinal Red, Erin Stripe in Amber, Ta Dot Moss, Diamond Dandy Piney Woods, Ta Dot Teal, Canyon Stripe Fiesta

(L to R): Little Folks Forest Hills in Berry, Little Folks Forest Hills in Sea

I've wanted to buy those Little Folks prints in particular for a loooong time, but $14/yard is a little hard to swallow. I've been gradually buying prints from that line as I find them on sale, and I was (ridiculously) excited to finally find these two!

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Best Mail Day Ever!

Normally I come home to a mailbox full of bills or the occasional lonely flyer from Ashley Furniture...but not today! Today was the BEST MAIL DAY EVER! Look at all the fun things that arrived...

This is one of the two spiderweb blocks that arrived all the way from merry ol' England. Thanks Paula for the most adorable songbird ever crafted out of thread!

As if Paula isn't awesome enough, she made me my very own zipper pouch! Union Jack on the front, party in the back.

My 3rd block from the 3x6 Bee also rolled in today. I picked "surprise me" instead of choosing specific colors because I wanted to see the awesome things people came up when they had no restrictions, and by some miracle, all my blocks so far match! Whoda thunk it?

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Tackling My Next Project

I've had the flu for almost a week now and can't seem to shake it. I decided to bow my head and try to plow through it, but it seems my body finally caught up with me. I woke up like a zombie this morning, called work, and then slept until 11 am. So here I am...lying on my sofa, watching old episodes of the X-Files, and blogging. And even though I'm sick and he's not, my dog has been even more worthless than me today...he's been asleep on the sofa next to me for the past few hours. As you can see, everyone in our family loves quilts.


This latest project is for my former college roomie (and bridesmaid) who's one of my best friends. Normally I wouldn't recommend that friends room together because I saw many friendships implode that way, but Meghan and I were awesome roomies. Possibly because we're the only two people on Earth that love all of the following: 1980's Care Bears Movies, Fran Drescher, and Broadway Showtunes :)

Anywho, when she visited a few months back, she fell in love with the brick path quilt I was making. She loved the simple pattern, and since she lives in frigid NYC, I offered to make her a quilt to bundle up in on those cold winter nights. I told her to consider it a thank you for putting up with me for so many years ;)

I let her rummage through my giant cabinet o' fabric, and she came out with a set of Modern Meadow fabrics I got from Fabricworm awhile back. I thought the Anna Maria Horner voile would be perfect for the back because it's ridiculously soft and perfect for snuggling under while watching a movie. For the binding I'll be using Honeycomb in Sunglow because the I think the pattern will work well for bias binding.

Here's hoping I feel better in the next few days so I can get to work on this. She'll be moving into a new place soon and I'd like to send it to her as an "apartmentwarming" gift.

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I WON! I WON! I WON!

I actually won something...and a BIG something! I follow several different quilting blogs and leave comments for giveaways whenever they have them, but I never really anticipate that I'll win...esp since most of these blogs have hundreds of followers. But God must have been smiling down on our little NOLA Modern Quilt Guild, because I'm going to be receiving this giant box of scraps in the mail soon from Oh Fransson! I'm gonna haul it in for our Weekend Sew when we make our blocks for Rainbow Around the Block :) Hope you NOLA MQGers are excited!!!

Behold:

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Finished Girly Girl Quilt

I don't have much time because we have to run out the door in a few minutes to celebrate my brother-in-law's 23rd birthday, but here are a few quick photos of the finished Girly Girl Quilt. I'm mailing it off to my cousin in Kentucky tomorrow morning!

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If I'm gone tomorrow, you'll know why

If I mysteriously stop posting, it's because my husband has finally snapped from all my fabric purchases and locked me in a closet with no internet access. In my defense, most of the fabric is for Christmas projects my coworkers have asked me to make. But two of them are for my own evil purposes...*twirls mustache*

I've been meaning to buy the Kelp Stripe for a while because I want to make a flocked pillow exactly like one I saw in One Yard Wonders. The fabric.com Last Chance sale seemed like as good a time as any to finally buy it. I also picked up 2 yards of the Teeny Tiny Zoo because I make a ton of baby quilts. Can't beat $4/yard with a stick.

L to R: Mendocino Kelp Stripe in Brown, Alexander Henry's Teeny Tiny Zoo in Primary

L to R: Sparkle All the Way Trees in Lime/White, Groove Dance Floor in Green, Sparkle All the Way Small Trees in Lime, Christmas Little Flakes in Red, Sparkle All the Way Reindeer in Blue

L to R: Flannel Classic Christmas Play Dots in Multi, Flannel Classic Christmas Yule Trees in White

I accidentally ordered those last two in flannel instead of regular quilting cotton. Curses. Fabric.com's Christmas in July sale has ended, so now I'm going to have to find some other website that has them on sale. I refuse to pay full price for seasonal fabric.

On a happier note, I plan to use the scraps from all these Christmas fabrics to finally make a skirt for our tree. It's been naked the past three Christmases. And to double the fun, I'll be backing it with the fabric pictured below. Isn't it presh? Took me a full year to track it down because it's a discontinued print from a 2007 Michael Miller Christmas line. It's called "Holiday Hostess"...how cute is that? I think I might make a table runner out of it too...and cook pot roasts to set on it like Sissy Spacek in Blast from the Past. I love that movie.

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Far Far Away

Wanna win a set of 4 different Far Far Away prints? Then visit the Bunte Fabrics blog for a chance!

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Hair Bow Love

I see so many things now-a-days that I wish I'd had as a kid. Like super cute hair bow holders. I didn't know such things existed until a coworker asked me to make one for her little girl's 5th birthday....my bows were always shoved in the top drawer of my dresser. Functional, but hardly fun. Especially since the drawer would always come off the track when I opened it and I'd have to spend 5 minutes (which equals eternity in child time) wrangling it back in.

Anywho, I didn't know what such a thing as a "hair bow holder" would look like, so after 30 minutes of googling, I stumbled across some that looked like princessy dresses. However, they were made of solid wood and hand-painted, and since I don't have a woodshop tucked away in my apartment, I had to come up with a fabric-friendly alternative. Below is a picture of my spin on things :)

I used two layers of heavy weight, fusible interfacing to make the body. I folded one piece of interfacing in half and hand-drew an outline on one side. Then I cut along the lines and opened it up to have a symmetrical dress. I traced the dress onto the second piece of interfacing, cut it out, and then hot glued them together. The interfacing was fusible on one side, so I pressed the fabrics onto the top, cut the excess, folded the raw edges over the back, and hot glued in place.

The strap is linen tape. I sewed it onto the top of each side and made fabric flowers to cover the stitching.

I used a cow hitch knot to tie the strips of tulle onto another piece of linen tape. Then I sewed the 3 ribbons (on top of the tulle) directly onto the linen tape. I folded the ends of the linen tape over the back and stitched them in place. Then I hot glued the purple sequined ribbon directly over the linen tape to hide all the knots and stitching.

To finish, I hot glued a piece of pink felt over the back to hide my mess :)

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I'm just a little black raincloud...

...hovering under a honey tree (this is the latest song that's been stuck in my head while I've been quilting).

I drew and posted a sketch of my Doll Quilt Swap 9 project about a month ago, and I finally started working on it this afternoon! Now that the beastly double wedding ring project is out of the way, I've actually had time to work on several different things (more on those later).

I like that the hexagons are so portable, but they're ridiculously time consuming! I still have 2 more clouds to go - the other two will be a little less symmetrical than the one pictured.

The Flea Market Fancy fabric makes for perfect grass...too bad I'm down to only 1/2 yard :( I think we need to start a Spoonflower campaign to get the Seedlings reprinted!

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Thank you, fabric.com

...for letting me use coupons on sale items. Your items are already marked 30% off...and what's that you say? Why yes fabric.com, I would like to take another 20% off of that price. Oh, and I'll also take the free shipping...and have it waiting on my doorstep for me when I come home from work 2 days later.

I have quite a few "commissioned" projects for paying customers due in the Fall (aka my friends at work want me to make birthday/holiday presents), so I thought I'd go ahead and order fabric for them while the gettin' was good.

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

(L to R): Modern Meadows Honeycomb in Grass, Weekends Go By Bike in Violet, Weekends Hopscotch in Lime, Weekends Lollies in Grass, Weekends Hopscotch in Butter

(T to B): Castle Peeps Flourishes in Lime, Castle Peeps Towers Stripe in Lime, Castle Peeps Town Peeps in Lilac

(L to R): Good Folks Fortune in Sea, Good Folks Festival in Plum

Confections Frozen Treats in Pastel

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Girly Girl Quilt

,So I said I was going to take a week off from quilting after I finished the DWR Quilt for Allison...but as you can see, my resolve only lasted a few days. All I kept thinking about was how many projects I had backlogged, and I started getting antsy. Ray and I would be watching TV at night, and I'd take secret glances at my machine out of the corner of my eye as it innocently sat covered on our dining table (I was taking the break partially because I was exhausted, and partially because I told my hubby I'd take a breather and watch movies with him).

But I realized after work today I had to squeeze in some sewing because I had nothing for the show & tell at our Modern Quilt Guild meeting tomorrow night. Since I'm the one driving this flying umbrella, I couldn't show up to the meeting with empty hands. The DWR Quilt occupied all my sewing time & energy for so long that I didn't have any other projects I was working on, except for a pile of cut fabric I'd set to the side for my cousin Nikki's baby quilt. Out came the blocks, and up and down went my needle.

I only got the first 3 rows done, but that's good enough for my purposes.

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Bee (A Little Bit) Japanese Update

If you remember, I'm "queen bee" for the month of July. As of today, I've officially received half of my quilt because blocks #11 & 12 rolled in from Ms. Natalie Leppard. When I was coming home from work today, I heard the melodious sounds of the postman rustling around as I rounded the corner to my apartment. I tried to be casual and say "don't mind me, I'm just being lazy and don't feel like walking back down 2 flights to get my mail, so I'll just stand here for a bit". Which was a lie, because I'd have to come back down to walk my dog anyway. Despite my attempt to seem nonchalant, I'd already eyeballed the fat envelope with my name on it in the stack in his arm, and I wasn't about to wait another 10-20 minutes while I coralled my insane dog for his afternoon walk.

My impatience was rewarded (a small victory for character flaws!) because not only were my two new blocks inside, but a loverly little pincushion from Natalie! (by the way, I can spell, I just have a really annoying habit of mimicking Liza Doolittle by saying things are "loverly")


Can I admit another flaw? I love gifts. I know...that probably makes me sound like Dudley Dursley counting his birthday presents, but it's true. Doesn't matter how tiny or seemingly insignificant the gift may seem...I get excited about everything! Last week a lady at work gave me an extra purse-size first aid kit she got at a Humana meeting, and it made my day. Seriously. I even used a band-aid from it while we were driving to Kentucky. Score. And on that note, another Bee member Kerry send me a sheet of adorable stickers with her blocks (all the way from England!), and I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I make/draw a lot of cards for people, so if you're a friend, you may see some precious new stickers incorporated into your mail soon ;)

Since I had enough blocks to make some decent sized rows, I thought I'd take some photos to showcase our Bee's talent. Everyone's done such a great job and I can't wait to snuggle under my international quilt! Enjoy! Gotta run....my mouth's ready for an asparagus party that'll be arriving from my oven in about 2 minutes.

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Finito!

I'M DONE I'M DONE I'M DONE!!! Below are lots and lots of photos. I actually took about 15 more than what's shown below because I wanted to document every square inch of this quilt before I gave it away! A part of me is incredibly sad to give it away because, and not to seem braggy, it's the prettiest quilt I've ever made...and definitely the most difficult, so it's hard to part with something I've spent so much time and effort on. But the other part of me is chomping at the bit to give it to Allison and William! I've decided to give it to them after the rehearsal dinner instead of wrapping it for the wedding because I want to have a more personal exchange and explain why I made it for them :) They're such a loving couple and I thought this quilt would be the perfect symbol of their unity and lasting love. I've known Allison since I was 10 years old, and she's one of those lifelong friends that I'll never lose touch with. She's an incredibly sweet and loyal friend, and she's been dating William for 7 years, so he's come to be a good friend of ours as well. They always trek out to visit us no matter where we live...Philadelphia, Chicago, and I imagine they'll visit New Orleans sometime in the near future...Will loves fish too much for them to stay away for long ;)

We're driving to Kentucky today after work, so wish us luck! Our car ride will include an impertinent Scottish Terrier and a giant box of french pastries from La Boulangerie, so cross your fingers that both the pastries and the dog make it up there intact :)

I tried something new with the binding for this quilt. I've found that the weakest link in my quilts is always the hand-sewn back of the binding. Since it took me almost three months to make this quilt, I was determined that it be of such good quality that it would hold up for years and years (and years...and years). That's why I did the painstaking free motion quilting to hold the layers together, and ultimately why I decided to try machine quilting both sides of the binding. To do this, you sew on the front of the binding like usual, flip it over, and then finish the back with a decorative zigzag stitch (making sure the stitch lines up on both front & back). I'm happy to say it was surprisingly easy! I may start doing this for all my quilts.
We shall see...

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Zombieland

I retreated into my quilting lair last Tuesday and have just now emerged. It feels like I haven't posted in a month, even though it's only been a week. And I feel a little bit like a sewing zombie. Good news is, the reason I rejoined the land of the living is because I finished my Double Wedding Ring quilt!!! (a mere 20 minutes ago, to be exact). I don't have it in me to take pictures right now, so instead I dug up a sneak peak of my finished Mixtape Blocks. I had a sewing party with my mother-in-law this past Saturday and took a few photos of my finished blocks while I was at her house. I'm probably going to take a week off from sewing after I get back from the wedding this weekend, but I'll start cutting the linen and putting together the top for this Mixtape adventure after that.

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend!

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