Fabric Giveaway!!!

Lila Tueller is having an amazing giveaway! A Layer Cake and a Jelly Roll plus a couple of her patterns thrown in! The fabric is her beautiful new line called "Eden" and just screams spring, which is when the fabric will be available in stores. Go on over to her blog and check it out. I think I see a springtime dress or 2 for Zoey (and maybe even Gramma :))

A New Project

Lookie what I started late last night? I wasn't done cutting strips, but I had to start a block just to see how it was going to look :) I am way excited for this quilt. First, I am finally starting my own kid's quilt! Second, many of the fabrics for it are Erin Mcmorris' Park Slope, which I LOVE. Every time I get another coupon for my LQS, I go get another cut of one of them(college student husband and 4 month old budget :)). Someday I will have them all! And then I will have to do something else with them, hee hee. At least I cut the sashing for my Oh Cherry Oh quilt while I was cutting strips last night though. I was procrastinating that...

Finally, I have pictures of a certain FINISHED quilt too, but I can't post them until the recipient has recieved said quilt :) So Mel, it is done!!!

Kirsten

Naptime Fun

So you know those precuts I almost got to play with the other day? Well, two more naptimes have yielded this stack of blocks! The are so bright and fun, I love it! They are still sitting in a nice stack though, because I have been working on another WIP that is now almost done! No pics yet, since its recipient reads this blog, but I have the binding sewn on, and it just needs to be stitched to the back!! So hopefully I will get to blog it by the end of the week :)

Kirsten

Other creative mediums

Since our profile says our creative mediums may change, I thought I would share some of our other creativeness.

One of my favorite things to do, when the weather here in sunny Arizona allows, is woodworking. I built this solid cherry dining room table for Kirsten as a wedding gift.


At the same time, I was also making Kirsten's wedding dress, complete with hand beaded bodice. I wanted to get a photo of her in her dress with the table, however due to trying to complete 2 major projects at the same time and with a looming due date, I decided it was more important to complete the dress before the wedding than the table. So, while the table was completely built before the wedding, in time to give it as a gift, (and I think I actually surprised Kirsten, which is really rare) the stain and final finish was not completed. We finally got the picture of the dress and table together (a picture of 3 of the best things I ever made!) but as you can see, it was taken in indoor lighting by someone who is most definitely NOT a photographer (ME). But hopefully you get the idea.


And as well as making beautiful quilts, Kirsten is also an accomplished seamstress. She made Zoey's blessing dress, which happened to be made partially out of scraps from Kirsten's wedding dress. (And let's not overlook the quilt that Zoey is laying on, made by my SIL and Kirsten's aunt, Jennifer.)


As Kirsten mentioned, Zoey isn't sleeping in her crib yet, but that's because she has this beautiful cradle to sleep in. This was so much fun for me to build and especially since most of the cradle was built from wood left over from Kirsten's table! This was probably one of my most challenging wood projects so far, since Kirsten picked a style of cradle she wanted and I couldn't find any plans, so I had to design and build it from scratch.


And the cradle is even more adorable with the bedding that Kirsten made for it. And you can't tell from the pictures, but the skirt on the cradle and the skirt of Zoey's blessing dress were from the same piece of fabric. We like to be thrifty in our crafting :)

Come back and visit again as we post more beautiful things that we are constantly making!
Tracy

Oh Cherry Oh, Oh my!

Looky what I was about to break into until naptime was suddenly over! More to come on that after a few more naptimes! And guess what I found at my most favoritest LQS? Oh Cherry Oh yardage in the CLEARANCE section! That's right, clearance! So I decided I needed the rest of the 4 bolts that were almost gone. And how much of a discount did I get? 50% maybe? 60 you might think? Nope! Between a sale and end of bolt discount, I got it for 65% off! That's right, SIXTY FIVE PERCENT OFF!!!! I was sooo excited. And I restrained myself from getting other cuts of it, but I don't know how long I will hold out until I have to have what they have left...Mom got 1/2 yard of all of them they had left :)

On another note, I finally finished Zoey's crib bedding! Yes, she is already 3 1/2 months old...But she's not sleeping in her crib yet, so it hasn't been neccesary yet. I have actually had them done for maybe a month, but I hadn't gotten the foam for them yet, so they sat...and sat...But now they are done!!!

Notice the solid sides, no corner posts, and large center section on the back of the crib. Nowhere to tie to! I had to figure out how to construct these so they would stay in place. I ended up making two separate bumpers, each with a long and short section. That way, the long sections with ties would hold up the short sides without. We will see how well they hold up.

Another awesome part of these is that all the green and brown is leftovers from work (custom drapery workroom), and I bought the pink at Joann's like 5 years ago when I found it in the red tag bin for $3 a yard and couldn't pass it up.

The green is the softest velvet you have ever felt. I want to make a throw with it eventually(I have a lot more), because it is sooo dang amazing.

And a shot of the fat quarter stash in the drawer...Who would've thought a crib drawer would make perfect fat quarter storage? My machine is just to the left of the picture.

I need to get more nursery shots, cuz I have some awesome draperies up in there too, but I need to finish a few more things up first. So, coming soon!

Now, maybe I can go test out those bumpers and see if the kid will let me play with fabric...She's sucking on my thumb right now...

Kirsten

Giveaway!!!

Head on over to Piece N Quilt and sign up for their give away for an adorable Soiree Market bag and check out their store while you are there!

Vintage Quilts

Since this blog is supposed to be mine and Kirsten's, she seems to think I need to actually add some posts. Well, this weekend, we went to visit my parents and I realized how many quilts my mom has and that I had no idea where any of them came from or who made them. We gathered them all up and made a pretty stack of them and then the adorable Zoey consented to pose in front of them.
Now, here is the stack without Zoey. There were 11 quilts in all. We brought them all out for my mom to help identify them. Some of them were made by my Great Grandma Wiig. Some she wasn't sure where they came from or who made them. It really made me realize the importance of labeling quilts.

Thanks to the assistance of my husband, son, son-in-law and Kirsten, we were able to photo all the quilts. Get ready for photo overload! You will notice that many of these quilts have been well loved and were well used and could all probably use a good cleaning.
This one was machine pieced, hand appliqued, and hand quilted. We believe it was a gift from my Grandma James to my parents and was possibly finished by some ladies in Southerland, Nebraska.
This double wedding ring was a wedding gift to my grandma Cox from her mom, who was my great grandma Wiig. It was machine pieced and hand quilted. Friends and relatives wrote their names on the quilt and then the names were embroidered.
This was the embroidered signature of my grandma's aunt.
This Texas Star was was made by grandma Wiig. It was machine pieced and hand quilted.
This one was machine pieced and quilted and we don't know where it came from.
This one was my favorite. It was made by grandma Wiig. It is hand pieced and quilted. And my sweet mom let it come home with me!!! I think it will be very happy in its new home and I'm so glad my mom didn't make me wait to inherit it.
Here is a little detail of the piecing and quilting. Mom thought some of the fabric in this was from flour sacks. Kirsten and I think the fabric looks a lot like the 30's reproduction fabrics that are out now.
This was made by my great grandma Wiig, for my mom. It is one of a pair that were made for my mom's 2 twin beds and were well loved. One apparently was loved to death and is no longer with us. I don't actually remember this, but my mom said my brothers and I used to fight over who got to use these quilts. This was machine pieced and quilted.
Here is a little detail. of the quilting.
This one was in my grandma Thompson's things but we don't know who made it. It most likely came from Kansas. It was machine pieced, hand appliqued and hand quilted.
Here is a detail of the applique.
We don't know where this beauty came from. It was machine pieced, hand appliqued and hand quilted.
Here is a detail of the quilting.
This one is in pretty rough shape with some of the fabric worn all the way through. This is another that we don't know where it came from but it had great 30's fabrics that also looked like the repro fabrics.
This one hangs on the wall in one of the bedrooms at my parents house. It was hand pieced and hand quilted by my grandma Wiig. Don't those look like perfect circles?
Here is a close up of the amazing hand quilting and piecing.
And finally, another that we don't know where it came from. This one was in really rough shape with many of the fabric pieces completely worn through. Since it was so worn, I could see that it didn't have batting, but rather had a flannel sheet in the middle. I love how the fans make it look like it's moving and it was the softest quilt in the collection.

I'm torn in my feelings about whether these beautiful old quilts should be restored and the worn pieces replaced or if they should just be cleaned and carefully loved and preserved as they are, with their original, if worn out, fabrics. What would you do?

Tracy

Drawing Supply Roll-Up (I need a better name...)

My hubby, Spencer, is in a drawing class this semester for his industrial design program, and he had to get a bunch of special pens and pencils and whatnot, so I took the opportunity to flex my creative muscles. It popped in my head when I saw him pull a hobby lobby bag of supplies out of his backpack that he needed something to hold them all! So, voila! Behold the roll-up! I know it's been done, but it was my first :)


Here it is all rolled and cinched. Spencer didn't want ties to hold it together, because he said it would be too "girly," and I had the D rings in the house, so that's what he got.

Rolled out with the flap down

And, open! I put a zipper pocket on the side for his erasers, lead, sharpener, ect. I need to find a better way to install it, because I know I will have to make another one eventually when he wears this one out. I just did a buttonhole opening this time. And I made it big enough for him to add more stuff to it, since I know he's going to accumulate more... I am also hoping (fingers crossed!) that a few of his classmates think having a roll-up for all their crap, er, supplies, is a good idea, and ask him about it and want one for themselves! I love any excuse to purchase fabric!

Here's Spencer holding it up! He was making a funnier face before I grabbed the camera and said I was gonna take a picture. He tamed it down and said something about being on the "interwebs". Silly boy :)

Kirsten

Daffodilhill too!

There is another awesome giveaway going on over at Pleasant Home, this time hosted by Daffodilhill too. It is for SIX half yard cuts of some awesome Michael Miller Christmas fabric! Head on over to enter!

And I will blog about something besides giveaways as soon as I can get to my sewing machine to finish something. My baby seems to prefer attention to toys... :)