Feeling lucky :)

I hardly remember, but apparantly I made a comment on a giveaway over at sew mama
sew. Turns out I WON!! I was so surprised to get the email in my inbox. I couldn't even remember making the comment. I must have figured I WOULD NEVER WIN :). But I did - I won one of five prizes. Mine was a $20 gift card to their online store. Man did I have fun shopping over there. I havn't bought really cool quilting cotton in a LONG time. The Katie Jump Rope line by Denyse Schmidt caught my eye and bought nine 3/8 yard cuts (on sale) and only paid for shipping. I am looking forward to making a quilt top with it. I have this whirlygig pattern in mind, we'll see what happens :).

This is something I've been working on. It only needs snaps (I've never done snaps before) and some finishing around the neck and sleeves. I may try some of my new FOE (fold over elastic) that I just got from Sewzannes :) That stuff is so cool. Not as easy to put on as I'd have liked but it is still cool. I may just add some ribbing - I'm good at that. I'm still wondering whether or not to put in the feet or leave the legs opened. hmmm. It is summer, but it cools down in the evenings and babies never leave their blankets on. . . I'll probably leave it open.

fabric birthday banner #2

Fabric Birthday Banner #2 and I think I'm done with birthday banners for a while. Although I think they would be fun birthday presents for some of my friends? Or sisters? OOH - maybe I'll make one for the annual sister's gift exchange this year???? SHHHH :)
Anyway, I like how this one turned out. I LOVE the fabrics together. It is very festive. I made sure this time to put a darker plain fabric on the back side so that if hung up against a window the pattern on the back wouldn't come through and distract from the pattern on the front. I made the individual flags 7" accross and 10" deep. I pinked around the edges, made button holes in each corner and used ribbon through the button holes to secure the flags next to each other. More on the process here.

Fabric Birthday Banner

I have finished one and a half birthday banners!!!! This is something I have wanted to make for years and recently my sister inspired me to JUST DO IT!! This first one I made is very girly and for my daughter . . . and I suppose I could hang it up on my birthday too. The second one I made is more gender neutral with blue, red, green and yellow print fabrics :) I will share pictures when I'm finished with it :).
This first one is a little bigger than I had expected. Each flag is 10" across the top and then the top to the bottom point is 13". You never know until you get all the flags together just how big it will be - I made the second one a tad bit smaller (7"X10").
The process was quite simple if you want to make one. I cut out 32 flags/triangles - 16 for the front and 16 for the back. They were 10" across the top and 13" deep. I appliqued letters onto the front using heat and bond and the directions are on the package or you can find wonderful tutorials online. Then I stitched the flags wrong sides together, pinked the edges with my pinking shears, made a button hole in each corner and tied the flags together with ribbon through the button holes. The two ends have longer strands of ribbon for hanging. There are SO MANY ways you could make these. This just happened to be the way that worked well for me :).

Today I want to blog

There are a bazillion things I SHOULD be doing today -
Ironing hubby's shirts:

Cleaning the boys room . . . (really! who would want to even go in there!?! gross, I can't believe I am posting these ):


. . . dusting blinds, preparing dinner, mopping the floor, wiping out the fridge. . . . you get the picture. But today I wanted to sew and quilt and blog. It has been SOOO long since I have done any of those and this:

has been crying out to me so I grabbed some scraps of fabrics that I think look great together and started stitching away. I love the crooked block quilting that I have seen so much of lately. I don't really know how to do it but it can't be that hard right? I cut up some strips of various widths and cut some at a slight angle. Working in a log cabin design I started peicing them together and then when they get big enough I'll square them into a 6"ish square.
Is there a rule somewhere that says you have to finish a quilt in progress before you start on a new one? I hope not. I still have one in the hand quilting phase sitting in a basket by the couch. It is my movie/tv project.






The colors aren't showing up on my blog as vibrant as they are in photoshop. . . hmm. Need to figure out what's wrong. I guess the ironing will have to wait yet some more.

I heart quilting

It must have been about three years ago that I put this quilt top together. I had no purpose for making the quilt except for a fun place to preserve some of my favorite fabric scraps. My local quilt shop offered this particular quilt class and so I thought I would splurge and actually pay for some quilt tutoring. It was FUN! I learned a lot in the short time I was there. Unfortunately I didn't complete the whole top in class, hence the three years later still trying to get it finished.
This past weekend I got it stretched out on a quilt frame so I could baste the three layers together. Now I have it ready to hand quilt which may take another three years. Hand quilting takes so much time but I actually enjoy it. I can take it with me in the car on long trips and I can quilt while watching tv or movies at home. I havn't been able to justify forking out the $80 or $90 to have it quilted for me and can't even fork out the $100 for a walking foot for my sewing machine. So for now it will be hand quilting for me.

Quilting is something that I could really get into. I love peicing beautiful fabrics together and creating quilt designs. I love the way the stitches and fabric pucker up together when it's completed. It seems to be an expensive hobby and very time consuning too. Hmm, maybe that's why all my quilts are taking several years to complete and why I resort to hand quilting. Even so, I love it.