Super Girly Fun

I have my last November finish to share now!

I LOVE this quilt! It is so bright and busy and all GIRL! Once again, I started with a fun multicolor print that had been living on my shelf waiting for the perfect project. I pulled out that argyle print while I was supposed to be working on something else (surprise!), and the rest of the fabric practically jumped into a pile and screamed to be cut.

I used the same basic pattern as the quilt in my last post, but I deleted the sashing and made more blocks. I love that it is super simple, almost a plain square patchwork, but just adding the rectangles makes the quilt look like so much more!

I quilted with an all over meandering loop – definitely my favorite free motion pattern!

The back of this quilt might be my favorite part of the whole thing!! This huge yellow chevron (Riley Blake) is fan. freaking. tastic. Seriously.

I bound the quilt in Kona Bright Pink. I have a weird thing for solid bindings lately; I feel like I have done a lot of them! I love how they frame a busy quilt.

The quilt finishes 48” x 56”, and is available in my etsy shop here.

Whew! Now the only finish I haven’t posted from last year is a Christmas gift, and I haven’t gotten pictures yet :) I feel much more caught up, even if I do still have 3 quilts to post (2 need pics…), plus all the fun little stuff I have been up to for the shop!

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 :)

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?

I drank the Kool-Aid…

…and while I don’t love all the prints (gasp!), I think I will be going back for just a few more :)

Even better, I have fabrics for THREE quilts pulled, and two of these eyelets are included in those piles!

Happy Friday!

A Garden Fence

I have lost track of how long ago I finished the quilts I am finally posting now…but the important thing is, they are done!

I first posted about my garden fence quilt way back in August. Really? August? Sheesh…sorry, internal dialogue there.

I made this quilt from a bunch of Michael Miller fat quarters I had around and kept drooling over, and one print of Jenean Morrison’s Silent Cinema. I am glad that fabric designers are such geniuses. I don’t know if I would have ever put lime, teal, and gray together on my own, but it looks pretty dang cool.

I quilted with an all over meandering flower, and bound with a teal Michael Miller dumb dot.

I did “borrow” a little bit of yardage from my wonderful mother for the backing. I didn’t have quite enough of the amazingly awesome large scale print that is most of the back, but mom had some of the stripey print, so I added a bit in :)

My garden fence finished at 55” x 66”, and is listed in my shop here.

And the rundown continues!

Brityn’s Quilt

I made this awesomely pink quilt for one of my friends when I found out she was expecting a little girl.

Ok, really I finished it right in time for the shower, and had to take pictures of it last minute that morning while I was out at a craft fair. And the surroundings were ugly. And it was ridiculously bright. Anyways, I knew I still had to have some sort of documentation!

I pulled all sorts of pinks from my scraps and stash, grabbed my favorite zebra stripe (need to get more of that…), and that other super cute black and pink print, and went to work on a disappearing 9 patch. I debated on the sashing, but I’m glad I took the time to add it, because I love the way it looks.

I backed in my favorite little pink dot print that I wish I had an entire bolt of (Bubblegum Basics), and bound in a Mingle dot. Wish I had a bolt of that one too!
I quilted in an all over meandering flower, which turned out pretty cute.

It is really hard to tell from the pictures from the front, but I quilted the baby’s name into the corner.

There’s the back, where you can actually see it :)
I gifted this one back in October.
And now I am down to just one more backlogged quilt! Oh wait, never mind, I just remembered a few more that never made it to the blog…wow…
I will continue backwards later then!

Basting

A look at my kitchen table right now:

I really wanted to have this cute little quilt ready for the boutique tomorrow (BOUTIQUE TOMORROW! Recker/Guadalupe in Gilbert 9-2! Come visit me!), but I had no ambition this morning, so I didn’t have it basted and ready to quilt by naptime. Instead, I basted it and am now blogging during naptime :) Sooo productive of me :)

Fabric: Sweetwater’s Pure and Kona Ivory

Posts two days in a row!

Miraculous! Not only that, but this is another completed quilt!

This is the other quilt that I finished just before I got laid up on the couch with my parasite, thus never posted.

I love this quilt!! I am seriously tempted to keep it for the baby, but I think I’m going to make one specifically for her instead. We will see :)

I used my square in square method for the blocks again. I always seem to go back to that when there’s some color combo that I want to play with but not think about too much. A few blocks and a couple borders, this quilt went together really quick. Then I decided to play around with the quilting a bit.

I made myself a pattern template (out of cardstock!) for a flowery looking thing in each of the blocks, then a squiggle through the green border, and the scroll loops in the outer purple border. It was nice to try something new!

Oh yeah, and this was the other quilt that I dragged my quilt holder all around my grandparents for :)

I started out with my two solids and then pulled prints to match. The solid green is Kona Tarragon (I think! It has been too long!!), and the purple is Kona Eggplant. The back is a super cute paisley flower print from Basic Grey’s Eva line, and I used almost every bit I had for the back! the teeny bit that was left, I used for a set of burp cloths to match the quilt:

In fact, there wasn’t a large enough piece for the burp cloth, so I added a strip of solid to that one :)

The quilt finishes at 34” x 42”.

Both the quilt and the burp cloths are up in the shop (for now!!)

Oh, and time for a plug for my upcoming boutique! For any of you locals, I will be at a boutique this Saturday, the 24th, 9am-2pm at Recker and Guadalupe in Gilbert (right next to Highland High School). Come check it out and say hi to me! I’ll be the one with the quilts :)

The Post Office is my favorite place…

I finished up that custom order from the last post! And while I am not always drawn to yellow, by the time I was done with this one I was converted! I am very grateful for custom orders that push me a little out of my comfort zone.

My customer wanted a finished size of 35” x 54”, to fit a bed. I believe this is a good size for a toddler bed, especially one with rails, since it wouldn’t have much of a drop. I wanted to try it out on Zoey’s bed, but since who knows what germs are in that cesspool, I didn’t :) She also really liked my Toss Up pattern, so we went with that, though I had to completely refigure the block sizes, which was a PAIN. But totally worth it for the end product!

I quilted a meandering flower pattern, which I think makes the whole thing super cute and feminine. And cute. Did I mention cute? And I didn’t stitch my finger :)

The fabrics were all from stash (yay!), and luckily I had enough of that Oh Cherry Oh yellow flower for the backing. The solids are both Kona; the cream is Bone and I don’t remember what the yellow is, whoops. The almost solid light pink is actually a Basic Grey grunge solid, love it! Oh, and the binding is a yellow pinstripe from American Jane’s Punctuation line.

Now, to explain my post title…so this is the first time I have had to ship internationally, so I had NO idea what I was doing with customs forms and whatnot. So, after standing in the really long line full of old people while my 2 year old shrieked, yelled, danced, and said embarrassing things, I got to the counter. I had done all my forms right(yay!), but then as I went to get my wallet out of my bag, it WASN’T THERE. Seriously. So I couldn’t pay! The lady had already date stamped all my stuff, so I had to go back THAT DAY, too. And it wasn’t the closest post office to my house…it was the one near where I was right then. Anyways, I went and met the hubs for lunch and he pulled me cash and I went back on the way home, but by then, it was 2 hours after naptime and the kid was cranky. Thank goodness there wasn’t a line when I went back!! So, that’s my saga. My wallet was still at home in my bag from the LQS from Saturday…doh! But at least now I will know what to do to ship international next time!

And isn’t that quilt just so cool? :)

A new(ish) finish

I recently completed and gifted this sweet little baby quilt to my soon-to-be-born cousin. Well, I really gave it to my aunt, but you get the picture.

I was inspired by this recent quilt from Ashley at Film in the Fridge, and the stack of pink and raspberry fabrics I bought at the recent quilt show.

Once again, this quilt was just a little too big to fit one width of fabric, so I went with my standard pieced backing. And I LOVE this back so much, it was the inspiration for some new blocks that are hanging out on my sewing table right now! More on those soon.

I quilted this one with fun flower chains running down the blocks. I am definitely loving the ability to experiment a bit more with my free motion quilting. It gives me so many more options! Though my next couple quilts will probably have straight line quilting, haha.

At first, I was going to keep this whole quilt pinks and reds, but the more I looked at it, the more I decided it needed some green. I debated backing AND binding it in green and calling it a watermelon, but I settled on just the binding. And I happened to have just the right fabric sitting in my stash!! Don’t you love those little drops? I think it’s perfect. And come to think of it, that bit of sass the green gives the quilt will probably match this new baby perfectly!

I also made a taggie and some cute burp cloths for baby and mommy.

Now we are just waiting for the new arrival to make her debut!

Shop Update

Here are my newest additions to the shop:

Crayon Totes! I only have 2 up right now, but more soon to follow.

These are super fun to make, and fairly fast, though all those crayon slots are time consuming! And then I forgot to tag them until they were all done, so I had to hand stitch the tags in…doh!

Anyways, just thought I would share my latest creation! and I leave you with a picture of Zoey with HER tote that goes with us all over the place now!

Hugs and Kisses

May I present to you… my latest finish! After making this quilt, I really wanted more on-point fun, so I made this one! It’s amazing how cool such a simple pattern can look! I have to remember that more often…it doesn’t have to be super difficult to be cool!

This was the first quilt I got to quilt on my new machine, and it was HEAVENLY! Rory has a stitch regulator for free motion quilting, so all of my stitches are nice and pretty instead of uneven! To celebrate, I quilted meandering flowers all over. Amazing!

So, of course the top was a few inches too big to fit a width of fabric….As I pondered how to fix that predicament, I thought about the front. What is it? A bunch of X’s! So what did the back need? A big O! Then the quilt wraps you in a big hug! I felt clever :)

Anyways, this one finished up at 46”x46”, and is now in the shop!

Oh and guess what? I am diversifying a bit! There is an item in the shop now that is NOT a quilt! And since it happens to go with this quilt, This is a fantastic time to share!

I have started listing sets of matching burp cloths! So head on over a check it out :)

Happy Friday!

It is Friday, and I finally have a finished quilt to show off!! Barely made my “this week” cutoff…but I DID make it!

I know I say this every time I finish a quilt, but I love this one! I’ve been dying to try out this block style since I saw them all over flickr, but I was kind of afraid it would be difficult from the comments on said flickr pictures. But, I figured out how to strip piece them,and I happened to have a little stack of fat quarters that just screamed USE ME, USE ME! By the way, this entire quilt was made from stash. So proud of myself!

At first, I thought about using a bright pink or orange solid, but settled on the lighter pink (Kona Carnation) for a couple reasons: so that the brights would stand out better, and so that the quilt wouldn’t be so bright it hurt your eyes!

I have serious issues photographing orange fabric. For some reason, the entire picture ends up tinted orange. Any suggestions?

Anyways, this is the back. A wavy stripe print from Amy Butler’s Midwest Modern, with strips of a cute little orange flower print. The orange print is also the binding, which frames the front very nicely.

There’s a less orange-washed picture of the backing, and a better shot of the binding :)

This was the last quilt I quilted on my old machine, and of course this one was a little larger than what I’ve done lately(52”x60”), so the next one was much much easier! I quilted all over loopys (my favorite!).

This one is listed in the shop.

Ooh and guess what? I have another finish to show you on Monday! Have a fabulous weekend!