Design Wall Monday - 02/28/11

Well life has been very busy lately.  I do accounting work for a living and this time of year is a bear!  Aside from that, Lance and I have been trading colds, and also he was in an accident recently.  Nothing major, but he's pretty banged up.  I've been really unmotivated to sew or do anything else for a while. The quilting class that I teach keeps me moving along somewhat, but I had found myself stalled.  Fortunately, a quilt show in San Francisco over the weekend and trolling the internet for quilty inspiration may just have brought me out of it!  I took lots of pictures that hopefully I'll be able to post as a slideshow soon.  Above is my design wall ironing board for today.  Lots and lots of strips from my blue stash.  I'll mix these with tan for a masculine look.  Some of those are wrong side up, so they look lighter than they really are.  After I finish this one, I have another quilt lined up to make with stash that I am really excited about.  Can't wait to start on it - but only after this top is done!

Check out Judy L's blog for more Design Walls!

Happy Valentine's Day 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!  Tonight I'll be in class.  Lance and I will go out next weekend for a nice dinner.  We've been trading off colds - not fun. Nothing much new with me on the sewing front. I plan to do a lot of cutting tonight and make myself a "kit". Then I can just sew, sew like the wind! (obscure movie reference!)  As far as stash busting goes, nothing in and nothing out for a couple of weeks now.  Hopefully I'll have some busted soon!

Design Wall Monday 01/31/11

Here's my design "table" for today.  I prepped a block to work on tonight in class (along with some Dear Jane blocks that I also prepped).  This is going to be a Woven Heart block as shown in this tutorial.  I'm not sure what it will become, but I thought I would make one to start and see if any of the students would be interested in a Valentine's project using it (to be determined). We are getting awfully close to the 14th, so it may not happen, but it will be nice to have one block made.  It also helps that I still have my big bag of pink fabric scraps sitting on my work table.

To see the fabric basket I made from last week's Design Wall Monday, see this post.

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

Stash Busting 2011 - Week 5

I finished the basket that I was planning on Monday.  I'm really happy with how it came out.  I had some fabric in my stash that was printed in rows of people working in cubicles.  It was the perfect fit for a birthday gift for one of my husband's co-workers.  I used this for the top part of the basket instead of sewing squares together.  The scale of the printed row was just right.  I filled it with cookies before he brought it and she just loved it!  That's about the extent of my sewing this week.  It doesn't really take much fabric, but it did all come from my stash, so we'll call it 1/4 yard out, and nothing in.  I'm getting there slowly but surely!! 

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see how other people are doing.

Design Wall Monday - 01/24/11

I need to do something about these dark pictures!  You can tell that my lamp is in the left-hand side.  This is my design "table" as of right now.  The little pink four-patch from last week grew into a block. This will be for the Block Lottery program in the class I teach (starting tonight).  The block at the top is part of a demo for the same class.  It will eventually become a basket block. I'll post pictures of the finished class projects soon.  The other fabric shown is one of my favorites.  I got it a few years ago and didn't know what to do with it - I just knew I liked it.  It is rows of people at work cubicles.  Tonight I'm going to use it to make a fabric basket for one of my husband's co-workers using this tried and true tutorial from Pink Penguin.  I've made several of these over the past few years and they are always a hit.  Instead of piecing together squares for the top portion, I will put a solid strip of the novelty fabric.  I think it will be really cute and will take less time than sewing together all of those squares!

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

Design Wall Monday 01/17/11

Okay, so my design "table" doesn't look like much.  This is about all I got done this weekend.  One lonely four patch and a pile of blue fabric.  But believe it or not, this is what I'm working on right now.  The four patch was to be the beginning of this project - but I decided to make changes and now I'm not sure where it's going at all. At least those four pieces came out of my scrap bin!  As for the blue pile, these also came from my scrap bin.  I was pulling fabrics to make this quilt from Moda Bake Shop.  I thought I'd use all blues from my stash and use a really nice tan fabric for the sashing strips that's been aging in my stash for several years.  The tan (not pictured) is one of those fabrics that I really like - so much that I haven't wanted to cut into it.  Why do we do that?  So even though it looks like a pile of nothing, there are a couple of projects there!

Check out Judy L's blog to see what other people have on their design walls!

Stash Busting 2011 - Week 3

Well I didn't think I was going to buy fabric so early in the year, but I couldn't pass up a great inventory reduction sale on line recently.  Now I just need to work harder this year!  I got a fat quarter pack of Birdy, a purple fat quarter for my Dear Jane quilt, and a half yard of an orange print.

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

Fabric in this week:  3.00 yards
Fabric out this week:  0.00 yards

Fabric in this year:  3.00 yards
Fabric out this year:  0.50 yards

Homemade Pressing Spray

Sorry, no picture today because I haven't acutally tried this out yet...  I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Freda's Hive, and today she mentioned that she made her own pressing spray, similar to Best Press. Here is a link to the post and recipe that she used. They say that it works just as well as the name brand at a tiny fraction of the cost.  I may just have to try this out!

Stash Busting 2011 - Week 2

Well it's a new year, which means I begin anew with my stashbusting efforts.  I fell off with my reporting last year, but I'm pretty confident when I say that I came in about even with my fabric in and fabric out.  I didn't make any big purchases, and I didn't make any big finishes - just small ones on both sides.  I did finish a rather large quilt that I had been working on for well over a year that I made for my in-laws. However, it was a block of the month that I didn't count into the stash.

So I begin again.  No purchases this week.  Above is one of my last fabrics purchases back in November - a Bliss charm pack.  I did use some of it this weekend in a class project.  I finished the mini quilt this evening.  I'm going to call it a half yard used.  Yay!  I busted some stash already!!

Check out Judy L's blog for other stash busters!

Fabric in:  0.00 yards
Fabric out:  .50 yards

So Sweet

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!  Mine was great - but more on that later.  First a little eye-candy.  My sister has a new addition to their family.  This is Natasha, a kitten they adopted a few days ago.  She is so completely adorable I could hardly stand it.  If I weren't so worried about my own cat being displeased by smelling her on my clothes (he has "behavioral" problems) I probably would have spent the entire day playing with her and holding her.  I do so love little kitties!!!  BTW, this was one of the few pictures where she is standing still - she's a bundle of energy.

Merry Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Max turns 6!

My younger nephew, Max, turned 6 yesterday!  The family got together over the weekend and celebrated at Chuck E. Cheese's where the boys had a ball!

My mom made him a Disappearing Nine Patch (D9P) quilt with a fussy cut dog print that came out really great!  I love the way she planned the print and colors.  I wouldn't have immediately known this was a D9P pattern if she hadn't told me!

Here's my two nephews together - Jackson and Max.  Love those boys!!

Holiday Bingo Game 2010

The Quilt Shoppe is having another Bingo game on their blog for the holidays.  It was fun last time around even though I didn't win.  Go to their site for all of the information you need here.  The game starts on Friday, December 10 and you need to get your words registered with them the day before.  They have daily prizes as well as a grand prize.  Can't wait to start!!

Dear Jane Block J-6

Here's my latest Dear Jane block - created over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  I paper pieced this one even though I probably could have made it without the paper.  The pieces are SO tiny!  I don't have the block in front of my right now, but I'd say the squares in the center are 1/2" or smaller.  I have other projects to work on and finish before the beginning of the year, so I'll probably put my DJ on hold again for a little while.

Dear Jane Block K-12

I've had a couple of finished Dear Jane blocks to be posted waiting in the wings.  Just too darn busy over the Thansksgiving holiday.  The good thing about these blocks is that they are so small (4 1/2" finished) that they fit in my scanner and I don't need a camera to get them posted!  This one was a quickie - paper pieced on one foundation.  Another one will be coming soon!