Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas to everyone!  Life's been super busy, but I hope to be blogging again very soon.  I wish everyone a healthy and happy holiday.

Design Wall Monday 12/05/11

I have been in kind of a sewing slump lately.  But I needed to get some projects ready for class, so I cruised the internet for inspiration and the dawn of an idea took place.  After playing around in EQ7, I came up with a great quilt and then was totally motivated to get working on it.  There were so many different ways I could go with the colors that I started to get stuck again.  Finally I put my hands on a fat quarter pack of batiks that were ear-marked for another project that won't be happening any time soon.  In no time I had my pieces all cut (shown above).

Then I had to decide how to arrange them.  These are the corners of bigger pieces layed out on my "design ironing board".  Now I just need to do some piecing and it will be done in no time.  It's amazing how much you can get done when you get motivated!

Be sure to check out all the Design Walls on Judy L's blog and get motivated like I did!!

Happy Thanksgiving 2011

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Handmade Holidays 2011

I can't believe I've been so busy at work and home that I forgot that Handmade Holidays began on 11/01/11 over at Sew! Mama! Sew!  Every day in November they have lists of tutorials, recipes, project inspiration and prizes.  Every year I love to check in and see what they have for us.  It's lots of fun and I've found some great tutorials there.  Go check it out and don't forget to go back to the posts that have already posted so you don't miss anything!!

Design Wall Monday 11/07/11

Foundation paper piecing never looks like much before the sections are all sewn together.  Above is what I am currently working on.  Not very exciting!  It will eventually be a Dear Jane block.  It's another one of the simpler ones.  I really need to start on the difficult ones so that they are not all left to the end.

Check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on this week!

Stash Busting - Week 45

I finished the project from Mystery Mondays (pictured above) and I'm super happy with it!  Unfortunately, I rushed through the binding and as a result, I'm not really happy with how that part turned out.  But it's done.  I haven't finished a project to completion for quite a while and this has really motivated me.  It was just a little side project in between the other things I'm working on, so it's kind of a bonus piece.  All of a sudden I have a cute table topper that's completely finished.  I chose to do it in a Halloween theme, so I probably should put it away until next year, but I think I'll leave it out for a while so I can admire it.  It's fairly small, but I think I'll count 3/4 yard out of the stash.  That's probably a little generous, but it motivates me to bust more stash!

Fabric in this week:  0.00 yards
Fabric out this week: 0.75 yards

Fabric in this year: 38.75 yards
Fabric out this year: 8.75 yards

Go to Judy L's blog to see how other people are doing!

Dear Jane F3

I also finished F3 this weekend.  This was a fairly simple block, so I thought I'd use a directional print fabric for it.  Wouldn't you know I flipped two of the outer triangles and got them going the wrong direction!  So I had to pull those off and make new ones.  In the end it looks like it wouldn't be noticeable becuase they are so small, but at least I know they are correct now!

Dear Jane C10

I have two completed Dear Jane blocks to share today.  This is C10, which was in pieces in yesterday's post.  I had a heck of a time putting this together.  I had to take out several seams and re-sew.  It seems pretty straightforward, but sometimes you just have days like that.  I think it turned out wonderfully - well worth the effort.  I scan my blocks in a scanner to get these pictures, and the only thing I don't like about that is the shadows it puts in the block.  It looks wrinkly with dark spots, but the real thing looks great.

One more block to follow shortly!

Design Wall Monday - 10/31/11

On today's design wall is a partially complete Dear Jane block that I am foundation piecing.  The sections are not laid out in the correct order in the picture above, but I'll get them back in order before I put them together.  I have a few DJ blocks that are nearly complete, so I'll have some finishes to show shortly.  

And finally I also have the finished top of the Mystery Mondays project.  It's a cute candle mat.  It turned out a lot different that I thought it would and I love it!  I'll quilt it just a little and bind it and it will be a completed project.  Hey, I can even finally count some fabric out of stash when it's done!  I haven't been able to do that for a while!  It's Halloween themed, but I won't have it done today.  It was so quick and easy that I might make another one.  We'll see.

A new Mystery Mondays project starts today, so I might just be too busy with that one to make another one of these.

Check out Judy L's blog to see what's one everyone else's Design Walls!

Design Wall Monday - 10/24/11

I missed posting last week, but I'm still working on the Mystery Mondays project.  I think we must be close to finished now because I only have a couple of pieces left to sew.  I'm pretty sure I know how it's going together, but you never know.  I haven't printed out the latest instructions yet.  I also worked on a Dear Jane block over the weekend, but I didn't grab a picture of it.  It's still in a lot of little pieces at the moment.

Check out Judy L's blog to see what is on everyone else's Design Walls!

Stash Busting - Week 43

I went to the Pacific International Quilt Festival today.  I have tons of pictures that I'll hopefully get posted this week.  I actually did not buy very much fabric at all!  The only fabric I bought was some fat quarters for my Dear Jane quilt.  My personal rule for my own stashbusting is that I will not count any DJ fabric as stash.  It is dedicated to this particular project and technically not in my stash.  Once I use the fabrics, the scraps will be stash, but I'm not getting that detailed yet.  The rest of the things I bought are actually all gifts, so I won't show them here.  I'm really happy with the fabrics I chose.  They will fit into my quilt perfectly.  I could see that the prices of fabrics are really starting to increase.  Most of the fat quarters were about $3.00 each, which is about $.50 to $1.00 more than usual.  I hope they don't go up too high!  I haven't bought fabric lately because I've been using mostly stash, so this may be old news.

There were a few other fat quarters that I wouldn't have minded getting, but they were only being sold in bigger pieces, so I passed on them.  See how strong I am!!

As for this week, I'm counting nothing in, but unfortunately nothing out.  Hopefully I'll get some things finished soon!

Hanging with Alton Brown

Okay, so we weren't really hanging out, but we did get to meet him at a book signing for the final book of recipes from his show Good Eats.  The Food Network show has just ended after 13 years, but he says there are two episodes that have not aired yet.  One should come out around the holidays and one probably around Valentine's day (on dark chocolate).  The re-runs of his show is currently running on the Cooking Channel.

There were tons of people at the signing.  We got our tickets a while back and were lucky enough to be one of the first 100 people, so we were guaranteed a seat.  The rest of the people (I think there were another 100) had to stand.  He spoke a bit and then answered lots of questions from the audience.  He's just like you see him on his show, very funny and real.  It sounds like he's still got a lot of things going on so even though Good Eats has ended, we'll still be able to see him a lot.  Lance asked him if there would be any more Feasting on Asphalt shows, but Alton says Food Network doesn't plan to do any more.

All in all, it was a great evening and really fun to meet someone I've admired for a long time.

Design Wall Monday - 10/10/11

Just one lonely block on my design wall today.  It is last week's step from Mystery Mondays.  I'm all ready for today's clue.  Other than that, not much sewing going on these days.  I'm having trouble getting motivated.  I will be inspired soon enough, though.  The big PIQF quilt show starts this week and runs through Sunday.  I go every year and come home raring to sew!

Be sure to check out Judy's blog to see what everyone else is working on!!

Alden Lane Quilt Show 2011

A couple of weeks ago, my Mom, sister and I went over to the Alden Lane Quilt Show in Pleasanton, CA.  We try to go every year and this year was wonderful as usual.  What was even better was that it was not sweltering hot like in the past few years.  In fact, it was a little breezy and even started to sprinkle while we were there.  I took a bunch of pictures, but didn't get everything.  The wind was blowing the quilts around a bit, so pictures were difficult.  The Quilt Show has a great slide show that must have been taken the day before because it looked sunnier and the quilts weren't flying.  Check it out here.

There was an interesting color challenge that a group made.  I took pictures of those that I'll share soon.  I don't want to bog the page down too much with pictures.  I'm already looking forward to next year's show!

Design Wall Monday - 10/03/11

I'm all ready for today's Mystery Mondays step!  I pulled my fabrics this weekend and did all of the cutting (shown above).  It's a small project, so it didn't take long.  As usual I was torn about which fabrics to use from my stash.  My first thought was to go Christmas, but I actually have very few Christmas prints in my stash.  Then I saw this Halloween fabric that I bought several years ago.  It has a real vintage feel to it that I just love.  I've been hoarding this piece with no real plan for it.  I only needed a 8 1/2" square, but maybe I'll also use it for the back.

Check out Judy L's blog to see what is on everyone's design walls!