Foxy Quilt

So first off, what do you think of my new banner?!!!  I am totally in love with it.  It was done by Kayanna over at Junecrafts.  She has recently started taking commissions and I just couldn't resist after seeing the amazing one she did over here at Megan's I just had to have one for myself.  AMAZING!!!  It's like she plucked it right out of my brain.  Kayanna, you NAILED IT!!!   Thank you SO much.  :)

I have been slowly checking some things off of my to-do list.  I finally finished a quilt thats just been sitting needing the binding attached for over 4 months!  Not proud of that, but at least it's done now, right? Before Christmas I noticed that I had made everyone in the house a quilt except me.  So I decided to just make myself a simple one with one of my favorite fabrics and then send it off to be quilted so it would be special.  (Thanks to my hubby for holding the quilt for me while I took pictures of it)

 
I heart Lizzy House.  And Outfoxed is now one of my top 3 favorite fabric lines.  So I some that cute foxy fabric and put it with some of her hedgehogs and a couple of different colors of shot cotton and sent it off the my friend Christina to be quilted and voila!  A quilt of my own!!!  And I love it so very, very much.

The back is some older Amy Butler and Anna Maria Horner that I pieced together with a tiny bit of teal shot cotton thrown in, because it wouldn't be any quilt of mine if there wasn't at least a little teal in it.
I bound it in an Art Gallery print that matches the two different shades of purple tress in the fabric perfectly.

Look at that beautiful quilting!!!  SO SO in love with this quilt.  And it is all mine.

Happy Saturday!

Mendocino

Being the dedicated sewer that I am, I have a tendency to hoard collect fabric.  Especially ones that I deem "special".  I keep them separated from the rest of my stash and call them The Horde.  One of said special fabric collections is Heather Ross's Mendocino.  It was her last line for Freespirit fabrics and it is one of my 2 most favorite fabric lines.  So because it is so special it has been sitting on my fabric shelf for 3 years.

Then a couple of weeks ago Kelbysews had the brilliant but terrifying idea to have a quilt a long where we actually use the fabric that we have been hoarding for years.  GASP!  A little traumatizing, but I thought, "Hey!  I should do that!"

So I got to work swapping some of my less precious fabric for some of the Mendocino prints that I didn't have.  One of the swaps I did was with Amanda.  She swapped me 2 very generous cuts for one of my fabric buckets.  So I decided to practice cutting into some other prints from the horde to make her bucket and also to prepare me for cutting into the Mendocino.

I was able to finish the bucket without too much anxiety.  But now that it's time for to cut into Menodcino I can feel the panic rising.  It is sitting on my cutting table ready to go.  But mostly I just keep moving it around, and petting it, and taking photos of it.

Maybe today will be the day that I work up the nerve to do it!  It's just fabric, right?

On a mission

I have a lot of works in progress that need to be finished and my goal is to get them finished before the end of April.  (the original plan was to finish them all by the end of March, but that has come and gone)  I have been slowly checking things off of the list, but I figured if I list my to-do list here, maybe I would hold myself a little more accountable and finish things off in a more timely fashion.

I did finish a big project a couple of weeks ago, with a LOT of encouragement of friend.  3 years ago, I started a quilt for my husband, wanting to give it to him for our anniversary, but I think I just bit off more than I could chew and it eventually found it's way into the "it will get finished someday" pile.  Well this year, I was determined to finish for out 10 year anniversary, and I did it!!

It is the Alien Hordes and The Race cars pattern from Carolina Patchworks.  The thing that was so hard about finishing this was all of the pieces.  SO many tiny pieces.  But I am thrilled that I finally finished it and can safely say that I will probably never make it again.  EVER. But the husband absolutely loves it and carries it from room to room with him.

Ok, so that's crossed off of the list.  SO now let's talk about things that need to be finished.  I have a huge completed quilt top that needs to be basted and quilted.  I finished it about a year ago and just haven't finished it because it is huge.  I think it is 109"x109"??  Or somewhere thereabouts.  I think I may just send end up sending out to be quilted.

It is made with some of my favorite fabrics in my favorite combination of colors.  I haven't decided if I am going to add a border to or not.  Since it is so big, I might just call it done.

I also have blocks from 2 previous quilting bees that I was in.

I have finished some more blocks for this and I think I have enough to finally start putting the top together.

And then there is this one

The blocks are all different sizes, so I think that I will have to sash each one individually to make them all the same size and then sash the blocks together to make the top.

I think that is a good start to the list.  I know I have some more stuff that I can add so I will have to do some digging and see what else there is.  But for now, these are the big projects to get finished.

Have a Happy easter!

U.S.S. Crafty

One of the awesomely, fun things about the online crafty community is the swapping.  It is such a great way to improve your stash, try out new things you wouldn't normally by, or in this case, add to your lovely collection of mini quilts.

A few of us friends decided to do such a swap where we would make a mini quilt and add it to the flickr group for all of us to see and then we would cast our vote for the top 3 that we most loved and then the leader would then let us know who to we would be sending our minis to.

Here is mine

When I first put it together, it was a little different.  There were no curves or crafty jolly roger flag, and I hadn't decided on the quilting.  So I brought with me when we went on vacation for our 10th anniversary hoping to come up with something to jazz it up a bit.  I love the way it turned out and I was happy to practice my paper piecing skills a little more.

A quick Pop in

Hi Hi!!!

Just popping in to let you guys know that I have been doing some spring cleaning and I am destashing some quilt tops for the crazy price of $50 each!!  (crazy for me, not for you)  So head over to the shop and check them out!!

Is it bigger than a bread box?

Last summer while I was out thrifting, I found this old wooden bread box.  It was pretty grimey and beat up, but I still wanted to bring it home and give it some love.

Well now, almost a year later, I have finally gotten around to giving it a new life.  I took it apart, sanded it down (just enough to get the bigger bumps and bruises out), painted it my aqua (of course), added some shiny new hardware to it and a fancy new back, and put it back together again.  And VOILA!...  what was old is new again.

The glass cleaned up really nice.  Once I scrubbed off all of the icky stuff that was stuck to it, it was like new again.  You can see where I scrubbed just a tad too hard and some of the R came off.  Oops.

The inside especially makes me happy.  Just can't go wrong with some happy scissors peeking out at you.

Now I have a new place to keep my works in progress, or tools, or..... well, I haven't quite figured out exactly what it's new purpose will be, but doesn't it look so nice sitting in it's new home?

And of course, it wouldn't be mine, unless I had some toys or other geekery to adorn it.  Not sure this is the right mix for it though.  I may have to go find some new toys just for my happy little box.

I have been experimenting with some new ideas for the shop.

It's been pretty empty since Christmas, but I plan on refilling it with all sorts of goodies soon.  I will be sure to give you a heads-up when I do.

A Granny A Day!!

So Pip, over at Meet me at Mike's is doing a Granny a day and I decided to sign up!  It sounds like a bunch of fun and I don't wanna miss out.  I may not get to do 1 granny square every day, but I am definitely going to try.

Note: this isn't a picture of a granny square, it is a picture of the beginnings of a monster mermaid, Pattern by the fabulously talented Jess Rollar of MilkyRobot.  I <3 all of her patterns.