WIP, a few new things

I've got small things and big things on tap this week.

I have this lovely fabric to be made into bee blocks. It looks like an easier block than the last few I've had to do. Fingers crossed!


I started to work on my husband's quilt, the Sparkle Punch quilt. I have a long way to go but I am liking the Kona Ash with the orange so far. This is really going to be an awesome quilt.


2 more bee blocks are on the horizon and I've got to get cracking on some baby quilts too. Yeah for quilting!

I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced.

A couple of finishes and a new club

I finished my Starry Seuss quilt this weekend and it was well received, both by the recipient (well ok, her parents) and my quilt guild. I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out!




Today I finished these blocks for one of my 99 Modern Block Bees. It was a whopper of a paper pieced block and on my first attempt I screwed it up, royally. Usually when you paper piece there is a number for each line you sew, well in this pattern, you start by sewing the line between 1 and 2. I didn't realize this till about 6 rows in (on all sides) so I had to seam rip the darn thing. And of course you lower your stitch count to 1.0 so it took me forever and left nice lines where I had sewn. Hopefully those will come out in the wash. Once I figured out how the pattern repeated it was a snap! They are really sharp looking blocks too.


I joined my first fabric club at my LQS and it's a Kona solids club. Check out this lovely stack of fat quarters. It's the Hot Spice pack. Very cool. At the club I got to meet the inspiring lady who encouraged the shop to carry the whole Kona line AND to get Malka's "A Stitch in Color" line. We got to see some of her amazing work in person, she does wonderful mini's, including a bunch of portraits. Super awesome. Here's her blog. I also inadvertently met one of my blog followers who I will hopefully get to spend more time with at the guild meeting next week.


It's been a great sewing week so far!

WIP, almost finished.

It's Wednesday and I was hoping to have finished my Starry Seuss quilt, but it's still a WIP. It will be done by Saturday when I see my Goddaughter. Notice I'm using the Clover Wonder Clips, they are awesome!


I've been having some trouble with the hand binding. Particularly, my thread breaking and I have no idea why. I melted down some beeswax I had leftover from when I was making lip balm and that decreased the frequency, but I still had the thread break. I was using Aurifil 50 weight. Now I'm using Mettler and although it feels thicker, it doesn't seem better. I've never had this problem before. Any ideas out there?


All of my 3 1/2" squares are cut for the Sparkle Punch QAL, so the hubs' quilt is up next. Then I'm tackling zippers with a bean bag chair.

I'm also thinking about trying some hand embroidery with my mom. She's done it before and is itching to get a hobby going again and she feels like she remembers a lot of the knots. I ordered a couple of books from the library so maybe next week I'll have something to show.

My LQS sent out an email and mentioned they received some Malka, A Stitch in Color. I was waffling on this fabric so I went to check it out. I picked up this delicious stack to make her Whirligig pattern with it. I'm going to make it double sided and add some solids in there. I'm trying to decide if I should buy her battiquey solids or just some closely matching Kona solids. I'm going to wait until Kona Club, which starts next Tuesday at the LQS, to decide if I should get the Malka solids or not. What's your opinion?


I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced!

WIP, lots going on!

Well, well Wednesday. The week is off to a busy start.

Last week, I showed you that I was working on some Thomas bunting for the 3rd birthday party. I think it turned out pretty nicely. I put that bias tape maker to work!!


I'm still working on my Starry Seuss quilt, I'm hoping to baste that this afternoon.

Here are my piles of 3 1/2" squares for the Sparkle Punch QAL. The hubs loves orange and blue. I'm using Kona Ash for the background.


Even though it's January, I am starting to think about my garden already. I am seed sorting today so that I can order/buy what I want to start in February. Very exciting.


I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced.

WIP and a few finished

It's Wednesday, although it feels like Thursday to me. Glad I have another day to get stuff done!

This week I've been completing projects for the birthday boy. I finished my Thomas quilt and it turned out pretty well. I tried to do continuous binding (after a discussion at my guild meeting) and it worked, but since I only needed 1/2 yd of fabric, the square I had to cut was only 18" resulting in seams that were way too close together to use. There would have been considerable bulk around those seams. Instead, I found some blue fabric in my stash to use and I actually like how it looks better than the original blue color. Quilting this on my new machine was a dream! It practically flew through the machine on it's own. Thanks to the wide arm I really didn't have to roll the sides so I didn't have any shoulder strain. Talk about paying for itself....



The art smock I made actually ticks one off the resolution list for this year...to make more clothing. It was super easy and I learned how to work with vinyl. I got this vinyl at a local childrens designer's warehouse sale. They use this for making a mackintosh so it's satiny on the inside. That means no need to finish the seems, thankfully! My good friend, a much more experienced sewer than I, suggested the vinyl AND warned me to use wax paper around the vinyl so it wouldn't stick to the feed dogs. INVALUABLE tip there! Then you simply tear away the wax paper as if you were paper piecing. Pretty neat. Here is the birthday boy modeling it for me. Super glad he wasn't scared of it. You know how goofy kids can be! Now we'll be able to use all the cool art supplies his aunties got him for Christmas.



Immediately on deck is to make the b-day boy some bunting for the house. Can you tell we are going to have a Thomas themed party? I shall be cutting this up later this evening. I came up with a great idea for it, I can't wait to execute it and show you later.


Also on deck is to start Oh Fransson's QAL to finally make the hubby a quilt. He requested a foot flap so he can tuck his feet into it whilst he's on the couch. Anyone have any idea on how to make that? The rest of the fabric should be arriving tomorrow, post soon to come. I'm also anxiously awaiting my coveted Kona color card!!!! I might tackle the UPS guy tomorrow.

I received my I-Spy Spoonflower fabric today and it's amazing. I can't wait to start a plan for that quilt. I'll be doing a little QAL with some local friends so we have to decide what we are going to do soon.

No progress on my Dead Simple quilt, Starry Seuss quilt or my BOM quilt. But in terms of UFO's that's not too bad.

TTFN, I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced!

WIP, I'm seeing stars

It's that time again folks, WIP is back and so am I.

All 20 of my star blocks are done for my Seuss quilt. I'm not sure if there needs to be more white space or not. What do you think? I think I'll sit on this for a while, in the meantime I am going to quilt my Thomas quilt, finally.


Here is my practicing of FMQ. (Ignore the hideous fabric.) I was hoping to do meandering square in squares but I am definitely not ready for that. It's going to take much more control of my new machine before that can happen. Not to mention I enjoy being very precise and let's face it, FMQ is not precise in any way, nor is it supposed to be. I guess that means I'm back to straight lines for now! I'll save the FMQ for a time in which I can be more lackadaisical and not so uptight about it. Maybe a Bee quilt.


Speaking of that, I'm all ready for the 3 Bee's I'm signed up for this year.


Here is the first block to be mailed. Super excited to be doing this! I hope my sewing/pressing skills are up to par. This one clearly needs to be pressed better. Just another thing to work on right?

Last night was our monthly MQG meeting and it has gotten me super energized. We are such a great group of ladies, they are all so inspiring! And, I started the Bee by passing out my fabric. I am so excited that everyone who's in showed up, now I can't wait to see the blocks being made.

I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced!