Finished Scrappy Spidey Quilt....wahooo!!!

I'm done I'm done I'm done! Ahhh-hhaaaaa-aaaahhhh-hhaaaa-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! (that was the sound of the heavens opening and angels singing) I've been working on this since JULY (if you click on the label "Spiderweb" along the left-hand side of the screen, it will pull up all my posts on this quilt) and I'm glad I was able to finish it in time for Christmas and the end of 2010! Once I post photos later this week of my other finished quilt, I'll make a lovely mosaic of all my finished quilts and swap items for this past year :)

My husband was completely surprised (for once!) and has been living under it the past few days. He gets a little possessive if I try to use it, which I think is really cute ;)

Apparently I must have accidentally touched the lens before I took these, because there's a smudge in each of these photos. I'm sorry! Unfortunately I didn't notice until late last night when it was dark and I couldn't go outside to retake them....and it's raining right now, so I can't run outside and snap a few quick photos this morning either. Boo! So for now dear readers, you'll just have to live with blurry spots :(  I cleaned my camera last night after I discovered the annoying blurry spots, so it won't happen again.

And please pardon all the dog hair. My parents have a St. Bernard and his fur got ALL OVER this quilt. The hair you see is what remains after 2 vigorous washes, so I can tell I'm going to have to lint roll every square inch of this quilt to get it all off...not looking forward to that. 

I used Kona Cotton in Indigo (navy) for both the sashing and backing, and perl cotton in a kelly green color for the hand quilting. For the binding I chose Joel Dewberry's Herringbone in Lake because it matched the navy really well, plus I thought it was kind of spidery looking when I laid it horizontally next to the quilt....so that's how I cut it. This print in Lake and Pond are my two favorites from the Modern Meadow line and I've been stockpiling them like crazy!

I needed to bind it in time for Christmas so I could have a somewhat presentable quilt I could wrap, so I still have to quilt the semi-circle webs that run along the outside edge of the front (next to the sashing).

Ick. The dog hair is seriously grossing me out. If I'd thought it would show up this much in the photos, I would've spent an hour sticky-rolling it. But I didn't. Because I'm impatient. And wanted to put photos up for you guys. Please don't imagine I have a dirty, disgusting house with dust and dog hair floating about on everything...because I don't! Far from it. Whiskers is a low-shed dog, plus I vacuum and dust religiously. Scouts honor.

P.S. In case you'd like to make your very own Spiderweb quilt, here is the pattern I had my fellow bee members use.

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Finally, a quilt!

Maybe it's just me, but it feels like I haven't posted anything about actual quilting in a long time. Whether you've been feeling that way or not, I have a healthy dose of quilt action for you today! I've been covertly hand-quilting my Scrappy Spidey at work during my lunch break every day for the past week. I'm terrible at keeping secrets and my poker face is non-existent, plus my husband is super nosey and good at guessing surprises, so this was the only solution I could think of!

Every day I duck into an old, unused office, close the door, and listen to the Glee Christmas soundtrack while I quilt for an hour. It's actually kind of nice. I'm considering doing more things that require hand-quilting in order to keep this tradition alive once I finish this project :)

There wasn't enough room to spread the quilt out on the floor of the office I've been using, so I had to wait until the work day was over yesterday and spread this out over by the copiers, haha! I used Kona in Indigo (a rich navy) for the sashing and the backing. The sashing is about 4 inches wide.

I'm using a kelly green embroidery thread for all the quilting because 1) I've always loved the navy/green color combo, and 2) I think it gives the quilt a distinct, "manly" look.

And I apologize readers, but the pictures of the back came out awful! It's hard to get good photographs under fluorescent lighting! Everything either looks too light or too dark. Sadly, the photo below was the best of the bunch.

I'm really excited about how the back is going to look with all the circles! I'm quilting 4 circles within each spiderweb, and I'm not measuring diameters or anything while I quilt because I want it to have a really cozy, wonky look to it. Once I finish all the circles, I'm gonna stitch several straight rows down each side of the sashing. The dear hubby loves imperfect, scrappy quilts, and I'm SO EXCITED about how the finished product is gonna look!!! He's also a sucker for a nice cozy quilt, and I find hand-quilted quilts are a little softer & snugglier and drape better than machine quilted ones.

I'd really like to give him this when it's just the two of us, so hopefully our Christmas date night works out! We're waking up early to drive to my parents' house on Christmas Eve, so we're talking about staying downtown at The Roosevelt on the 23rd. There's nothing quite like dinner in the Quarter and strolling along at night amid all the decorations and music :)

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MQG Retreat: Project #1 - Scrappy Spidey Top

Our retreat was awesome! I'm a little tired (from staying up til 3 am every night) and a little stiff (from 3 days of marathon sewing), but I would do it all again in a heartbeat! I had so much fun and can't believe how blessed I am to know such an amazing and talented group of women. They're 100% awesome. When I'm at local quilt shops, I sometimes overhear women talking about little tiffs and feuds between people they're in guilds with, and I'm so incredibly happy we don't have any of that in our guild. Seriously. We're all a part of the MQG to have fun, enjoy each other's company, and be inspired by the work and advice of our fellow members. We stayed up each day until the wee hours of the morning sewing, chatting, watching Glee, laughing, being serenaded by Angela (who has an amazing voice, by the way), and eating Jambalaya and Groom's Cake ice cream *rubs tummy* A good time was had by all, and there's been talk of a Spring retreat because I don't think any of us want to wait a year!

Oh! And I almost forgot to tell you all that the gals had a secret pow-wow and got me the most awesome "thank you" present for organizing the retreat!! I forgot to take pictures, but I'll have some for you tomorrow. I know this will sound like a beauty pageant answer, but I really do all this stuff with the MQG because I love it. It doesn't even feel like work because I love it so much...and I'm happy to do it in order to spend time with my fellow MQG ladies ;) So their gift was a completely unexpected surprise..thank you so much ladies!

So that's that! On to the pictures of my 1st project! I finally collected all 24 of my Bee (A Little Bit) Japanese blocks and put together what I dub the "Scrappy Spidey" quilt top. The top is 95% completed because I still have to add some navy Kona sashing. After that I'll slap the same color Kona on the back and quilt with a Kelly Green embroidery thread. This will be my husband's Christmas present, so I thought the navy and green would be nice and manly for his official "sofa napping" quilt :)

I can't get over how uniform most of the blocks were. They were made by 10 different people and yet I had almost no trouble lining up my seams! Well done hive members!

And here's my favorite block in the bottom right corner. I'm gonna put my tag on the other side of this block once I add the backing. Thanks for the precious birdie Paula!

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Miscellaneous & Sundries

I know, I know. I've made like 500 box pouches and posted them on here, but believe it or not, I've actually censored myself several times and many of them haven't made an appearance. Aren't you proud of me?

Alas, the siren call of wee bitty owls was too much for me to resist, so I just had to share this one with you guys! You see, I'm trying to rope my friend Katie into picking up sewing, so I took her to a local quilt shop to pick out fabric for some curtains in her new house. I knew the designer fabrics at Mes Amis would plant the fabric bug in her, and I was totally right. She went crazy when she saw this print, so I bought a FQ and secretly made this pouch for her! I call it the "Mr. Owl Pouch"....because even though they're baby owls, they wanna feel grown up and all demanded that I call them "Mr. Owl" like their dad.

I'm insane, I know...but I like creating backstories for some of my creations. The scary thing is that what you guys read on here is actually me filtering my thoughts. Terrifying, I know. If I seem this crazy when I'm consciously censoring myself, what must my internal monologue sound like? Probably something like Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka + Kristin Chenoweth + Martha Stewart. There are a lot of show tunes in my head...and I talk a lot...but I'm surprisingly organized and versatile despite my madness.

Right. So. More pictures of my projects, less crazy talk.

Both the interior and exterior fabrics are from Michael Miller. The exterior is Who's Hoot in Olive from the Hedgehog Group, and the interior is Chocolate Dumb Dots. And again, I used linen tape for the zipper pulls on the side.

I've finally collected all my bee blocks from my month as Queen Bee in the Bee (A Little Bit) Japanese! I plan on putting the top together during the New Orleans MQG's fall retreat next weekend. I am so RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED about it!!! This is my first quilting retreat, I absolutely love the people in our guild, and I have a ton of surprises planned that none of my little "guildies" know about. BWAHAHA! By the way, "guildies" is the pet name I've now come up with for our members....I considered "guildlings" for a second...but that sounded way too much like "geldings" and it weirded me out.

And THIS is a project I've been working on for our home. Mail and other miscellanous papers in our house have a tendency to collect into "crap piles" on any flat surface...our dining table, kitchen counters, coffee table, desk...so this will hopefully put an end to that. NO MORE CRAP PILES! I'm using a pattern from One Yard Wonders to make a wall organizer for incoming mail and important papers.

These are my cut fabric pieces and I need to run out and get some grommets before I can finish. Fun fact: this was one of the first pieces of fabric I ever bought (and it was purchased from the first online fabric store I found...purlsoho!), and I've been hoarding it for going on 4 years. I loved it too much to use for a project I'd be giving away, and now that I've found a suitable use for it in our house, I'm happy to finally cut into it! :) Can't wait to show you guys the finished project (and the death of crap piles!)

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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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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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Better Together

Lately I've been getting a lot of different songs stuck in my head while I quilt. This time it was Jack Johnson's "Better Together" while I was laying out these blocks and taking photos. You never know what's going on in my head at any given time ;)

So I was puttering around eating my Kashi Blueberry cereal this morning (or "old people cereal" as I like to call it), when I looked over at my quilting station (aka the dining table) and realized I'd never taken any pictures of the test block I made for our bee. I posted photos of the second block a few days ago, but not the first. I threw together the test block because I wanted to make sure the instructions were good and the block required only beginning to intermediate sewing skills. I'd hate to throw a beastly, complicated block at people - bees are meant for fun, not stress :) Turns out it's a really easy block, and I think it may be my new go-to for quick baby quilts. It's the best of both worlds really - I can churn them out quickly for last-minute baby showers that crop up, and it uses up a ton of my scraps. Win-Win!

First block is on the left, second block is on the right.

Closeup of first/test block.

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I'm walking into spiderwebs, so leave a message and I'll call you back

I want an even 24 blocks for my Spiderweb quilt (I'm Queen Bee for July) so I just finished my 2nd block. The entire time I was sewing this, I kept singing the chorus for that No Doubt song "Spiderwebs" over and over in my head (and I'm sure I unconsciously started singing it aloud a few times). Hopefully I can find a way to shove it out of my brain before bed. Otherwise I'll be sleeplessly staring at the ceiling for a few hours.

We have several international members in our Bee, so I mailed off all my fabric this morning to make sure it arrived by July 1. I've said it before, but I CANNOT WAIT until everyone gets their fabric and starts plugging along on my blocks! I was really nervous about going first in our Bee, but now I'm really glad because patience is not one of my virtues, and I would have been chomping at the bit for my turn!

And of course, here are some photos of my wee lil' Japanese fabric Spidey block.

Hope you enjoy my not-so-lovely shadow. I was in a hurry and failed to realize I was leaning directly between my light source and the block *sigh*

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Christmas in July

I'm first at bat as Queen Bee for the month of July, and I've chosen a Spiderweb block similar to ones I've seen (here, here, and here) on Flickr. The kite/center pieces will be natural linen, and since the focus of our bee is incorporating Japanese fabrics, about 30-40% of the scraps are Japanese prints. We'll be using this tutorial to piece the blocks.

We have a fabulous group of quilters and I couldn't be more excited to see what they come up with. Everything is packed, addressed, and ready for a trip to the post office tomorrow morning (and I'll probably skip through the door like a giddy schoolgirl)!!!

Hello tiny tree. I heart you.

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