A Tisket, A Tasket, A Row of Pretty Baskets.

After Kirsten did such a great tutorial for her Easter Baskets I decided everyone needed a new basket.  The large one in the middle is Zoey's and it's the size of Kirsten's smaller one.  The other 4 were for my "big kids", Kirsten, her husband, my 17 year old son and my husband. (Guess I should make one for me next year!) I decided they wouldn't need theirs for egg gathering and I just wanted something big enough to put some candy in for them.  Since I will be adding to these baskets when my other 2 sons get home from their missions and add daughters-in-law and more grandkids, I decided to just pick the boys favorite colors to make theirs.  I also stayed away from girlie fabrics for the boys.  Since Kirsten's current fabric love is Verna by Kate Spain, it seemed like a natural choice for her basket.  Zoey doesn't have a favorite color yet, so I just picked from one of my favorite fabric lines, Clementine by Me and My Sister.

Catching up - I WON!!!

Just because I haven't posted in a while doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything.  It just means I'm terrible about posting!

So I'm going to make an effort to catch up a little.  I don't want to cram everything into one post, so hopefully blogger will be nice and post my next few posts as scheduled.

First and probably the most important...I WON!!!!

I was out and about one evening and I got a phone call from Kirsten squealing, "YOU WON, YOU WON!!"

I had entered this drawing and guess what?  I WON!!!

I didn't even know what the drawing was for when I entered it but about a week later, this is what was in my mailbox!

Yes, that is a layer cake AND a honey bun of Wonderland by MoMo for Moda.  Also some jumbo red rick rack and some Smarties to munch on while I plan what I'm going to make out of this lovely gift.  It's not every day that you get a gift for someone else's birthday!  Thanks again, Angela!

Tune in tomorrow for more...

Anybody else see a zebra around here?

Remember that little peek I posted a couple weeks ago? Well, that peek turned into a quilt! ooooh, it's magic! :)

Yeah, this is the quilt I pulled out a lot of my pink stash for. And then I realized my pinks were taking over the world. Apparently I like pink.

My free motion is getting better! Still had a few slips on this one, but I feel I am improving. It was annoying, sometimes I would get into this great groove and all my stitches were good and my loopys were awesome, and then something would happen that made me have to stop, and when I went back I just couldn't get back in the rhythm! Anybody else have that problem, or is it just me?

I used this awesome Michael Miller pink dot. I think I need dots in every single color and size now. Need.

And hot pink binding. How does it get better than that? Really? I love this quilt. I wish I had a good reason to keep it, but I don't, so it is now up for sale in the newly-formed shop!

For inquiring minds:
42"x54" pre washing finished size
zebra print is Summer Soiree by Paula Prass
binding is Park Slope by Erin McMorris
I am not going to list all of the other pinks because that would be a little crazy, and because I don't know what a few of them are. If you really want to know, you can ask :)

It's an animal party!

UPDATE: My etsy shop is now up and running! With one whole listing...for now :)

After days of procrastinating going outside for a photo session (for a few days it was too dang hot and next few were a bit too cold!), I finally get to show off this cute little quilt!

The inner squares finish at 3", and the outer squares finish at 8".

This one came together super fast, it was fun. It is also much smaller than I usually make, but I decided to break the mold :) Before washing, this one finishes at 32"x40 1/2", a good stroller or carseat quilt. I quilted 1/4" away from the edges of all the squares- it's actually easier to see it on the cream strip on the back. Quilting this small quilt makes me dread the TWO 70"x90" finished tops I have sitting waiting for backing...

I used up all of what I had left of my Animal Party prints for the backing. It wasn't quite enough either, I had to throw in the blue strip too! I like how it turned out, it makes this one pretty much reversible!

I don't know the future of this quilt for sure. It might end up for sale (I almost have my etsy shop ready!!), but for right now I'm hanging on to it.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

New Quilt Top!!

So I had a post all written and scheduled to post this morning, and I got on and it had DISAPPEARED! Dumb blogger...anyways, so here I am rewriting it!

I got this new quilt top cut and halfway pieced on Saturday! (Once again, forgive my bad apartment lighting!! I will get good pictures when it is done) This is the one I was to depressed to start on Friday night..lol. I decided a 3 1/2" strip off the yardage for my skirt wouldn't kill it, and if it did, well, I guess I will just have to go buy more..oh darn! ;)

This is my first foray into diamonds, and I have to say, it's been really fun! A nice change from squareness. I am not too sure about the dark dark purple right in the middle, but well, every single purple that I have is in this quilt! And I just got 2 of them on Friday...Apparently I need to branch out when I choose my fabrics :)

Unfortunately, I don't think I will get a chance to work on this one again until tomorrow. This morning was taken up by grocery shopping and hitting 2 different artsy stores looking for specific colors of a specific kind of paint for the husband's design classes. Talk about killing nap time! And lunch time, since we got going a bit late...oops! Yeah, Zoey is just now eating lunch..I'm a terrible mother :) Happy Monday!

So I feel like a loser

Wow, there is nothing like getting all excited to cut out a new quilt, realize you want a fabric that you have planned for something for yourself (a skirt in this case) that you happen to have exactly how much yardage the pattern calls for so it needs to be cut first and then use scraps for the quilt, look at the pattern to see what size you should cut, measure yourself, measure again and try to figure out where all the smaller numbers on the tape went, look at the corresponding size on the pattern, see that it says you are 4 sizes bigger than you thought you were, and suddenly not want to do ANYTHING. (Wow, how's that for a run-on sentence?) I don't want to make that skirt, I don't want to cut a new quilt. You know what I want to do now? Eat ice cream. And miraculously shed all of that year old baby weight that never went away. AAAAAAA!!!

Sorry for the downer, I had to vent!!!

A Peek

Two quilts quilted and ready for binding! I even have the binding ready for one of them, and the binding for the other is cut :)

ps- I'm crossing my fingers that the binding will cover that bit of selvege...I did NOT baste that quilt well...

On a roll!

You know what? I feel really accomplished this week! I finished a quilt and basted another quilt (not this one, another one that I haven't shown yet). And as if that wasn't enough, I also started this little quilt! It's only going to finish at 32x40, so much smaller than I usually do, but it has been so fun! I got it basted yesterday, and hopefully I will get it quilted during naptime today! Cross your fingers for me...

Did I mention that this quilt came completely from stash? Woo woo!! And hubby approved of me buying more animal party fabric since this used up every last bit of what I had. Double woo woo!!!

On another quilty note, I have this crazy hexagon quilt that I started last October that is slowly coming along. I had it out to see how far I was and snapped a picture. I keep the ziplock with all my basted pieces with me, and I do a bit here and there when I have down time (hand stitching this puppy. Yeah, I'm crazy).

I now have 20 "flowers" sewn together, and 12 more to go and then I have to figure out how to put this thing together! Too bad it won't be so portable then...

After a few teasers and shots previously, it's finally done! I am very pleased with this quilt, it turned out really well. It is so nice when a project comes together easily and turns out looking even better than you thought it would!

I quilted this one with a double diagonal crosshatch. There was already a lot going on with all the different fabrics, so I didn't want something too busy. Less is more :)

Here's the back. I used scraps from the front for the inset strip. Oh, and I was able to use stash for the ENTIRE quilt. I didn't ahve to go get anything! Woo woo!

And oh, the binding. A lovely chocolate brown with aqua dots. How can it get any better? I will definitely be using dots for binding more often now. Finished size is 48" x 59" before washing.

Did I mention that it was GORGEOUS outside yesterday? I took Zoey out to do this photo shoot and put her down on another quilt (she doesn't like touching grass, silly girl!), and it was so nice out, we ended up sitting out there for another 30 or 45 minutes. Zoey enjoyed making noise and listening to it echo off the apartment buildings.

This quilt is going to be for sale in my Etsy shop as soon as I get one set up! Tee hee, a little ahead of myself :) If anyone is interested in it before I get it set up, shoot me an email. And, the child just woke up from her ridiculously short nap....oh joy.

Gracie Dress

Here I am finally getting pictures of Zoey's Easter dress up! I've only been meaning to do that for a week...oops! She came out and helped me take pictures of her Easter baskets (yes plural, she claimed them both!).

I love this dress!! She will definitely have more in larger sizes as she grows. I used a fabric from Kate Spain's new Verna line. I love Verna almost as much as I love this dress!!

Here is the back view. I totally forgot to get one while she was wearing it!

So I had to make this dress twice...I used the Gracie pattern from Portabellopixie, which I really like, but there were some issues. First, I made the 6-12 month size, which according to the weight and measurement for sizes would be correct for my tiny 10 month old. Uuhh, I couldn't get it on her...I still had fabric, and I decided starting from scratch would be easier than figuring out how to fix it, so I made the next size bigger. This time the dress was definitely the right size, but it still wouldn't go on!! I would have had to break Zoey's arms to get them into the armholes, because the seam below the bodice was smaller than her shoulders! So, time to modify!

This is what the back of the dress made from the pattern is supposed to look like:

This is what Zoey's dress looks like now. I had to cut apart the first tier, add on some fabric to finish the edges, and put on a third button.

Now it is possible (and easy) to get on, and still looks adorable!! I still need to modify the smaller dress so it can go over some little girl's shoulders, and find a baby to gift it to, too...Now that I know how to make the pattern work, I am happy with it, but talk about frustrating! If somebody that was less experienced with patterns and sewing were to attempt this pattern, I think they would have problems...But after all that, I will probably still buy Portabellopixie patterns, because they are so dang cute!

Yeah, another one!

I was productive again! I got this lovely quilt top cut out and partway pieced on Saturday. I'm not totally sure about the dark dark purple running through the center, but I didn't have a whole lot of options. Every single purple I have in my stash is in this quilt, and I jsut bought two of them on Friday! Can you say hurray for the clearance section in your favorite LQS? I need to go back and get the binding fabric now. It is also in the clearance section...one I remember seeing and I know it will be perfect!

ps- I have one of my other WIP's done, and I'm slowly getting the binding on the other!