Yellow and Gray Quilt FINISH!!

So, I started this quilt MONTHS ago, before we moved. In fact, I took my first few blocks with me to the Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild meeting back in June!

I started working on blocks again last month (from my square in square block tutorial, though I want to revamp that now…), got on a kick, and pushed through to get them all done. In fact, I took plenty of photos on my phone, but I didn’t even take the time to get any with the real camera while I had all those beautiful blocks up on my *new* design wall!

Photography frustrates me. If I take the pictures in full sunlight, I get weird ugly glares, and it’s too bright. If I take them in the shade, they turn out dull, like these. Any suggestions from those of you that are better at this than me?? The colors are so much more vibrant in person!!

I combined two of my favorite free motion patterns, and quilted loopys and flowers, per my mom’s suggestion. It turned out so cute and I love it! And I love this block with the big chevrons. It is left over from the backing of another finished quilt that I just got photos of, and will share soon.

This picture does not even do the backing justice. It looks AMAZING in person. It is a Joel Dewberry print from Aviary 2 (L O V E!!), and the border is a BasicGrey grunge yellow. It is AWESOME.

I bound the quilt in Kona Charcoal. I love the way it frames the blocks. It was definitely the way to finish it!

Each block finishes at 10”, and the quilt is 50” x 60” finished size.

I seriously wanted to keep this and change my entire bedroom to match it, but my husband wasn’t too keen on the idea :( Too bad, it would have been fabulous!

Since I didn’t get to use it for my bedroom, I have listed this quilt in my shop here:)

Know Thy Machine

Hey all! I am joining in on the fun over at 13 Woodhouse Road, and I have the honor of being the post on Thanksgiving! Woo hoo!

Anyways, head on over to enter for fabulous giveaways on Shruti’s blog after you read AAAAALLLLLL about my sewing machine :)

 

1. What machine(s) do you have? Brand and Model.

I have a Bernina Aurora 440 QE

2. When and where did you buy it? What were the reasons for selecting this(these) particular model(s). What was its approximate cost.

I bought it a year and a half ago at a local quilt shop called Quilter’s Ranch. I had been looking at the 440QE for a while, and had test driven one at a quilt show a few months before. The real selling point for me was the Bernina Stitch Regulator, which regulates your stitches while you free motion quilt. It is AMAZING! At the time, my machine cost me about $3,000(after tax, blegh) on sale. However, they have clearanced out my model since they have a newer one out now.

3. What do you like about your machine? Have you named it? Have you made a cover for it?

I like almost everything about my machine. I LOVE the BSR, my walking foot is awesome, and I especially love the heavy duty-ness of the entire machine. When you pick it up, you know there is more metal than plastic to it!

I have named my machine, though I rarely actually call her by it :) She’s Rory.

I have not made a cover for it. I use it way too often to bother covering it up. Besides, it’s in my sewing room(and my husband’s office), so I have no reason to cover it.

4. Does your machine give you any problems? Could you tell us a few?

The only problem I have run across is that I can’t wind a bobbin of heavy duty super thick outdoor thread. I was kind of sad about that, but that has been the only thing my machine can’t do so far. Well, I guess it didn’t really care for the super heavy canvas I sewed on this week…but we managed :)

5. What do you sew on it mainly? Quilts, Clothes, Bags etc. How much time do you spend sewing on it? What are the features of the machine that help you improve your work?

I sew mostly quilts. I also sew other small items occasionally, like drawstring bags, hot/cold packs, whatever I decide I want to sell at craft fairs, with an occasional little girl dress. I have also sewn custom pillows, outdoor cushions, indoor cushions, duvet covers, and who knows what else, in a variety of types and weights of fabric. Rory took them all like a champ!!

I sew almost every day for at least an hour, but it always depends on what naptime brings :)

 

6. What advice would you give others when deciding about which machine to buy?

I definitely recommend test driving a few machines before you purchase!!

7. Will you share with us a special memory associated with your machine?

Hmm, a special memory…she still feels “new” to me, so I don’t feel like I have that many memories yet, but one thing does come to mind. Occasionally my oldest sits on my lap and “helps” me sew(which really tries my patience, but I know it’s good quality time!!). Well, last year, she was sitting on my lap, playing with the pins, and next thing I know, she had stuck pins in two of the small holes on my machine!!! The holes were just barely big enough that the pins fell all the way into my machine. Luckily, they must have fallen straight through to the bottom, because nothing happened. I was very surprised not to hear anything about them when I took the machine in for her yearly service though!

8. If you had unlimited resources in the world, which machine would you choose to buy and why?

Oooohhhh…probably a Bernina 830. It’s my machine on steroids…so much more space…It has more functions than I would ever dream of being able to use, but oh is it pretty! And it has the ONE thing I wish my machine had…an automatic thread cutter.

Thanks for visiting!

On Quilt Sales (and a finished quilt)

So, I had a craft fair last Saturday. I found myself low on boy quilts, so I decided to throw one together last minute (and I shared a pic of it being basted). Now, truth time. I very rarely end up selling my quilts at the craft fairs I vend at. However, I still have a good time, and I make enough in small item sales that it’s worth it to go. So, I figured I would still have this quilt to list in my etsy shop this week. Imagine my surprise then when a woman decided to buy not just one, but two of my quilts fairly early in the morning last Saturday!
Luckily, I remembered at the last minute to ask if I could grab a picture of the quilt before she left, since I hadn’t taken ANY pictures of the finished thing yet!

She was even kind enough to hold it up for me! I quickly snapped a few photos, so they aren’t amazing, but at least I got something, eh?

And the back. Loved the back of this one! I used up every bit of the harlequin and the giraffe print I had on it, which made me sad, but it looked so good it made up for it :)
And because I am sure you are just dying to see the rest of my booth, here it is:

My cute bunting was a recent addition, and I love it :)

Getting Ready

 

Once again, I am rushing around this week trying to get things ready for another craft fair this weekend. This quilt is now basted and waiting to be quilted:

I  basted another, too, but apparently I forgot to get a picture of that one, whoops! (I did finish up the one from my last post, and I do have pictures to share!)

Now my table looks like this while I go through my inventory:

Always so much work!!

So, if you are local, come check out my craft fair this Saturday at American Leadership Academy at Pecos and San Tan in Gilbert! They are hosting a carnival with rides and games, open to the public, with the craft fair held in the gymnasium.

On My Table

Well really, now it’s sitting on my sewing table waiting for me to quilt it, but 10 minutes ago, this was what my table looked like :)

Trying to finish this one up to have at my craft fair on Saturday!

Speaking of craft fairs, if you are local and want to stop by and say hi, I will be at Chalice Christian Church on Gilbert Rd just north of Williams Field/Chandler. I love visitors!

Some Red and Aqua love (with a touch of pink)

So remember this photo of a bunch of teeny triangles on my cutting board? I sewed them together, set them in a field of aqua, and turned it into this!

Oh my goodness, I had so much fun with this quilt! I have had so many custom jobs and baby quilts to make lately that I haven’t just PLAYED with fabric and made something because I thought it might kind of look good. It was great!!

I tried to push myself a bit with the quilting, too. I know I need to branch out and do some more free motion quilting. Originally, I was going to just do the diagonal lines on all of the blue (there’s something different in the triangle area, but it’s hard to see here), but after I got partway through I could tell it needed something else, too.

So, I pebble quilted a strip, and I LOVE it!!!! It was SO much fun to quilt! Definitely want to play with some of that again.

Aha, now you can see all of the quilting. I kept the back solid; I liked the idea of just having that one block of triangles in the whole quilt.

I bound the quilt in one of my favorite dots ever. It’s a dot from Bonnie & Camille’s Bliss line.
Quilt finishes at 42” x 49”, and is now available in my shop here.

Fabric finds

So there is this store sort of near me called SAS that sells fabric, ribbon, and other sewing shtuff. This store (Salvation Army Surplus) drives me nuts, because it’s a mess. And dirty. And they don’t have a public bathroom (and I have a 3 year old…) And you have to dig through mounds of loose fabric to find anything. And I’m not really a digger. However, after yesterday, I might be a convert:

The mound of fabric was as tall as me (no kidding!) on the table, but I barely had to dig to find all of this treasure! In fact, I ran out of money (and my 9 month old ran out of patience) long before I ran out of fabric!

These pieces range from 1/4 yard up to almost 3 yards. And did I mention it was only 3.99/yd? Yeah, it was only 3.99/yd. SCORE.

About half of this is going to live in my mom’s stash though. I shared the love :)

A Domestic Bliss Baby Quilt

I finished this cute baby quilt recently and finally got pictures on Saturday:

I duplicated this quilt that I finished a few months ago, but this time I used two charm packs of Domestic Bliss. LOVE this line! I didn’t like it immediately; it took me a few times seeing it to decide that it is fabulous. Unfortunately, since I didn’t purchase any right away, I missed out on a few prints that I really wish I had now!!

My sashing is a cream solid, and for the life of me I can’t remember now what color it is, or if it’s a bella or a kona! Those solids are just so tricky!

I backed the entire thing in this cute print. It’s so fun and happy! And I love the binding!! Kicking myself for not getting more than a 1/2 yard of that one…

I went straight line quilting with this quilt. I felt like the prints were so busy, it needed something simple. I quilted 1/4” away from the sashing seams to emphasize the grid pattern.

This cute, fun little quilt finished up at 38” x 47”.

It turned out beautifully! I really love the super saturated colors, especially for a fun modern baby quilt.

I have listed this quilt in my shop here :)

FAIL

I recommend NOT laying shelves down on newspaper to paint them with regular latex-based paint. I also definitely recommend not letting said shelves DRY on the newspaper. Well, unless you WANT to sand the dried on newspaper back off and re-paint…

In more successful ventures, I have this:

This quilt is actually put together and basted already, and I have a tutorial for something in the works!

Back to last-minute boutique prep…

Happy Wednesday!

And Another Herringbone

Ok, you are going to have to pretend the pictures in this post aren’t atrocious. Because seriously, they are beyond bad. I was finally going over to see my friend and her new baby, and the quilt was finally done so I could deliver it, and it was RAINING. And OVERCAST. And DARK. And I was grumpy.

And you get two herringbone quilts in a row! :)

I actually made this cute little baby quilt before the other super-sized herringbone; this one made me want to make the second one!

I had extra pieces from cutting too much, so I pieced another strip, and lined it up on the back so that the quilting would match both the front and the back seams.

Wow, you can’t even tell in this photo, but the main print in the backing is the blue and yellow star-looking print from Heather Bailey’s Nicey Jane line.

I really enjoyed making this little herringbone quilt. It came together very fast and easy, per Melanie’s tutorial (doesn’t she have awesome tutorials?), though I mostly used it as a guideline instead of a rule, since I am incapable of following any directions exactly…

Oh yeah, and I used this unfinished top for our monthly photo shoot 2 1/2 months ago (still at the old apartment!!):

I have miraculously kept up with Jocelyn’s monthly picture, even if I haven’t posted one on here in forever! I keep using friends in-progress quilt tops (since I don’t have enough for a new one every month myself), and then I have to wait until I get those quilts done and to said friends so they don’t see it beforehand! Tee hee.

A Finished Custom Job

I finished this beautiful king-size duvet and pillowcase custom order just before Labor Day Weekend.

My bed is definitely NOT a king….so it’s a bit big :) And I wouldn’t normally put customer work on my bed, but this job was for one of my mom’s friends from work. ps- do you like my amazing gray walls? I should show you a before picture. It was a VERY gold tan…

The fabric was absolutely GORGEOUS, and was super lightweight so it was great for a duvet! I backed the duvet with a sheet though, since the top was actually a last minute fabric change and I thought it was going to be heavier weight. Heavy fabric + duvet insert = a bed covering you never want to MOVE, let alone sleep under! And Target has some super super soft sheets that they sell individually, not as a sheet set, so it was perfect :)

This order also included this awesome quilt:

I KNOW I say this about all the quilts I make, but I L O V E this quilt! It is about 60”x74”. Jen is a little taller than average, and was tired of blankets that would cover either her shoulders or her feet, but not both at the same time if she was stretched out, so she wanted a nice, long throw quilt. And oh is it nice!

I backed it in this navy print from Sweetwater’s Reunion line. Have you felt the softness of that fabric? If you haven’t you should! It is SOOOO SOFT!!! Add in mostly Sweetwater fabrics on the front, and I wanted to keep it. Or make an exact replica for me, either way.

I quilted 1/4” away from the seams so that the chevron would repeat on the back. I also used navy thread in my bobbin so that it would stay subtle.

I also got to hand-deliver this, which was so much fun! It was a neat experience to watch a customer be so excited about and thrilled with something I had created.

And since she said “This is MINE, my husband better keep his mitts off it!”, who knows, I might have to make another soon!

How often does this happen??

I figured out what to do with my small scraps before I even started cutting out the quilt the scraps would come from! Hurray for no teeny scraps languishing in my scrap drawer!

Oh, and the quilt I was really cutting out is up there in the corner :)

I HAVE been busy…

I finished two baby quilts for friends! However, the photos of one are ATROCIOUS, because I had to snap them on a rainy day before I delivered it to my friend with the now 5 week old baby…oops! And it has still been rainy off and on, so I don’t have pics of the second yet(that baby is only ummm….2 months old…oops again!)

So, in the meantime, boutique and craft fair season has arrived, and I have been a busy bee making these:

A nice little selection of awesome business card (or credit card, or ID card, or gift card) holders, per my friend Melanie’s tutorial. She’s so cool :)

I love these little card holders. I use mine that Mel made me ALL the TIME. Right now mine houses a few of my business cards and my birthday money so I don’t get it mixed up with grocery money :)

Seriously. Can’t I keep them all? I have no idea what I would do with 15 more, but they are so cute!! Especially that little gray pennant one…LOVE! And all from scraps! Fantastic!!

I won’t have these on my etsy site, since Melanie sells them as well, and I don’t want to add any more competition, but I will have them at all of my boutiques/craft shows this fall. However, if you see one that tickles your fancy, we could probably arrange something :)

I also have a bunch of new hot/cold corn bags made up(I haven’t ever put those up here, have I? Note to self, write blog post…). A few are in the shop, but I won’t list them all until after the 29th.

I am thinking of whipping up a few flatiron travel sleeves too. What do you think? Good idea or bad idea?

Another completed quilt!!

I finished this custom pink and zebra quilt yesterday and snapped a few pictures. My customer saw this quilt of mine on flickr and asked if I could duplicate it for them.

I had some adventures trying to find the fabrics for the quilt. I was out of the zebra print, but I knew I had seen it recently at my LQS, so I figured, no problem! Yeaaaahhhh…I got there, and it was GONE! Drat! Now, there are a lot of zebra prints out there, but I really like the one from Summer Soiree by Paula Prass. Unfortunately, it’s old. After scouring the interwebs, I found ONE seller that happened to have just the amount I needed! Hurray!

Then, I was looking around for a suitable binding, because I had used a Park Slope print on the original quilt(now long out of print), and while it looked fabulous, I doubted I would be able to find any, at least in quantities I would need…Well, I couldn’t find anything else, and decided to search etsy for some lovely Park Slope(which I still LOVE), and found a seller with NINE yards of this hot pink print. Well, I immediately called my mom to see if she wanted any, and we took a good chunk of that yardage off her hands :)

Ok, now here’s the problem. I ordered the fabric TWO WEEKS ago Monday, and I still haven’t received it. Yesterday I finally realized I had just enough left to bind this quilt and went ahead and finished it with what I had on hand, but I haven’t received my order!

And now I need some opinions. I didn’t receive any notification of shipping or anything (and boo they didn’t combine shipping so I paid WAY MORE than needed to ship 5 yards of fabric), so after a WEEK, I messaged the seller and asked if they had shipped. They replied “shipping tomorrow”(that was the entirety of the reply message). Now it has been another week, so I messaged again asking if they had a tracking number or anything. She said she shipped several days ago and the package should be here. What do I do? I really want to give this shop a negative review, because seriously, I have ordered fabric 4 times either the same day or AFTER, and I have received ALL of it. But, I have a really hard time, as another etsy seller, giving a bad review. Help!!

ANYWAYS, that was my fabric saga. Now this quilt is finished and winging its way to the new owner! It was pretty cool, I got all of the front pink squares out of my scrap drawer, woo woo! The backing is a Michael Miller Quarter Dot in Fuchsia(ordered from Cotton Blossom Farm, AWESOME shop. That one, I would totally recommend, Cathy has fantastic customer service!)

My custom herringbone from my last post is coming along as well, just a slight glitch in my math skills = needed another row pieced in, whoops.

Finished Bricks Quilt

Ok, I can’t believe I spaced out and never posted this finished quilt!

I finished this quilt back in June (!?!?) and sent it off to its new owner.

I based the pattern on the Pezzy Brick Road tutorial on Moda Bake Shop, but I changed pretty much all of the measurements for chunkier bricks, wider frames, and skinnier sashing. Though there is a pezzy print in there!

I ended up really loving this baby quilt. When I first began with the color palette I had some doubts, but as it came together it looked fantastic!

I went the black and white binding route. I love the way it frames mulit-color quilts without emphasizing any one color.

Lizzy House red pearl bracelets made for a gorgeous backing (and a serious itch for every. single. pearl bracelet. color.), and I used a rather large all-over stipple for the quilting.

And now on to my multitude of basted quilts sitting next to my machine!!

Excuse the mess

We are redesigning our look, so it might look like a hot mess over here for a day or two!

My Friday of fabulous fabric

Cut and layed out this quilt today

And had this helper

Good times great fun!

Have a fantastic weekend!