12/31/2014

The Last Finished Top For 2014

When I woke up today, there was beautiful frost on our trees. Probably not exciting to many of you, but we don't get pretty things where I live too often!


I was hoping to have this quilt done, but a top is all I have for my last work of 2014. I had to take advantage of the snowy ice to at least grab some pictures. Below zero here with the windchill is very rare, so if the pictures all look the same to you, sorry!



And one more that shows the quilt a tiny bit better. I sort of forgot it was the quilt I was trying to photograph and not the trees!


I purchased my fabrics from Fort Worth Fabric Studio and I believe they are on sale right now!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year! May it be full of health and happiness :)

Linking to Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts and Fabric Frenzy Friday at Fort Worth Fabric Studio

12/19/2014

Dreamin' Daisies Finished

I have a finish! It was actually done a few days ago but I was so worried about my Christmas quilt I forgot to share it :)


 Awhile ago I bought a fat eighth bundle of Dreamin Vintage by Jeni Baker for Art Gallery Fabrics from Pink Castle Fabrics. I saw Jeni had a cute little 2 sided pattern, Lazy Daisy, on her website. You can see them all at In Color Order. I realized I had a vintage sheet that was new in the package, that would match perfectly! If you are unfamiliar with Jeni's work, she loves vintage sheets also. So I knew the combo was meant to be! 


 It's simple patchwork squares and this pattern could be made with 2 charm packs and a solid as well.


I found a 9 yard bolt of Pellon white cotton batting online at WalMart pretty reasonable and this was my first time using it. I like it but I still like my big roll of Soft N Crafty better. However, I wanted white with this quilt.


The white is Bella solid white 97. I used the last of this and ordered more Bella white 98 (it is brighter white) from Thousands of Bolts. I found them to be the cheapest on Bella solids. They sent me a free spool of Mettler cotton thread. I used it on this quilt and discovered the 3,000 meter spools of Gutermann I buy from JoAnn's actually works better, in my opinion. I had a lot more lint in my machine from the Mettler than I do with the Gutermann. When on sale it's only 10.00, so you really can't beat that!


The binding is a print from the line and purchased at The Intrepid Thread.




I received 2 free quilt labels with my fabric purchase from Pink Castle, a nice surprise! So I used one on this quilt. I'm really loving handmade labels on quilts that I'm keeping or gifting. It just feels more personal. I literally picked the name as I wrote. Dreamin from the fabric line and Daisies from the pattern. Not very original I know, but that's ok :) I put a heavy stabilizer on the back this time but it didn't help my writing any. I know I need to get a bigger tip Micron pen. The .01 just doesn't feel heavy enough to write smoothly. If anyone uses this, which one do you use? I'm thinking the .03 or .05 may help with smoother writing.


The quilt finished at 57 x 70. I lost a few inches from the pattern, but that's nothing new for me...


I've started cutting a Christmas quilt. Yes, I know, a little late. Better late than never is my motto these days!

Linking up to: Fabric Frenzy Friday at Fort Worth Fabric Studio, Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts and Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
 

12/12/2014

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Winner!





We have a winner! Random generator chose number 77


Kristen Jones you are the lucky one to receive this bundle of Art Gallery goodness! I have notified you, please email me your address and I will get this out right away.

Thanks to everyone that entered and to all the new followers, I appreciate it!

12/10/2014

A New Quilt In Progress

Awhile back I bought a fat eighth bundle of Jeni Baker's Dreamin Vintage fabric line. I also saw Jeni's little 2 sided patterns at a great price. I couldn't resist grabbing a couple. I decided to use the Lazy Daisy pattern, it did after all, feature Dreamin Vintage. If you've been around my blog, you know I love Art Gallery fabrics and I love Jeni's work!

 The rows are all finished, now I am joining them.

I found the perfect vintage sheet in my stash to use as backing. It was still new in the package! I also received a free spool of thread with my last order for Bella solids, so I am going to try it out on the quilting. I received this label and one in pink with my fabric purchase :)

I will share more (and better photos) on everything once the quilt is completed!

12/08/2014

Giveaway Day!


You have lots of places to visit so I'm going to make this quick and easy!

Up for grabs are 10 fat quarters from the Winged collection by Bonnie Christine for Art Gallery.


Just leave a comment letting me know your favorite holiday, or anything you would like!

Giveaway will be open until Friday, December 12th at 8 PM Mountain Time. Due to the high cost of international shipping, this is open to USA residents only. Winner will be drawn by random number generator and emailed. Don't forget to visit  Sew Mama Sew for a chance at all the other prizes!
Please, please make sure you are not a no reply blogger, if you are unsure, leave your email in your comment! This is important friends, we have to know how to reach you or a new winner will be drawn. Good luck! GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

The winner is number 77, Kristen Jones, congrats!!

11/20/2014

Two More Quick Finishes

My husband also wanted a cover for his kindle. I wanted to sew something this week. So, a cover for him it is.

I have never tried wavy line quilting, so I used my husband as a guinea pig! If it looked a mess, he wouldn't care :) But I soon learned it's kind of hard to mess this technique up. I enjoyed doing this!


I won a piece of laminated fabric many moons ago from Just Laminates and I found the perfect use for it! The top of my card table was getting pretty ragged from the grand kids painting, etc. I took the screws out, removed the old covering and put on the new laminate. It turned out so good and smooth. Sorry for the lousy and fast photos. 


 It is like a new table now :) 

My kids are coming this weekend for a week, I'm so grateful for that! I have a new quilt project all laid out and ready. I'm excited to get started on this one. It involves Jeni Baker fabric, one of my vintage sheet finds (new in the package!) and a Jeni Baker pattern. The perfect combination! I plan to get started after Thanksgiving is over. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday :)

Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation and Fabric Frenzy Friday at Fort Worth Fabric Studio

11/13/2014

Small Stuff Finished

Hello, it's been awhile. After my last post things got pretty awful with my health again, so I haven't been doing much lately. I had a couple good days and decided to get all the small stuff out of the way that has been piled up on my table.

First is a set of identical Christmas minky blankets for my two youngest grand daughters that are just 2 months apart.


I had bought this Ann Kelle for Robert Kaufman minky print a long time ago at one of my visits to SAS fabrics. I had no clue what I would do with it, but it was cheap! It finally got put to good use :) I just paired it with this cute print from Hobby Lobby and two Christmas gifts are done.


 My girls have the same boss at work. She likes to feed the squirrels peanuts on her break. I was asked to make her a bag for the peanuts. I knew I wanted to use laminate and was lucky enough to find a piece with squirrels on it!


The print is from Tula Pink's Birds & Bees collection. The top strip is from a fat quarter I've had forever that I thought I would never use. I tried Jeni Baker's tutorial from In Color Order. I really love the construction of this bag, so simple!


I wish I would have fussy cut the squirrels to center them better, but you know me, I hate to waste a scrap of fabric. I also used the laminate on the inside since peanuts can be kind of messy :)

Next up was another simple blanket for my dog. I just used two pieces of flannel with a scrap of batting in between. He loves it but didn't deserve it because he bit the UPS man the same day! :(
So he's pouting from getting in so much trouble...


Do you remember my potholder tutorial? Well I finally finished the second one from that post. That was almost a year ago!


These are so sturdy and perfectly sized, I love them! They would make great Christmas gifts, if you need an idea, head on over and check out the tutorial.

My husband got me a Kindle HDX for our 19th anniversary. Of course I had to make a case. I also have lots of mini charms collected so I decided to use my Pedal Pushers by Lauren & Jessi Jung for Moda. The prints are so pretty. I got this mini charm pack from Green Fairy Quilts. I love when they have sales because they always have free shipping.


I guessed on measurements and was pleasantly surprised I got a perfect fit! My satisfaction was quickly squashed when I realized I forgot to put the magnetic snap in, ugh! The lining is a piece of one of my vintage fabrics.


I have no clue what that white circle is on top of my kindle, very odd...
Since it was just for me, I added some velcro and didn't get too mad at myself for forgetting the snap.


My table is now clutter free and no more small unfinished projects nagging in my mind. It felt good to be able to sew again and have these things finished, so I can get back to quilts when I'm able!
Thanks for stopping by!
Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday 
And Fabric Frenzy Friday
And Finish It Up Friday

10/08/2014

A Small Finish, A WIP and a New Start

I have been trying to post all day. Something very odd is going on. All of my computers, my phone and my printer will not work right today. Now the TV volume is going loud and low. I think the mercury retrograde has landed in my house, grrr.
Anyhow, gosh, it's been a month today since I had a quilt finish! I needed to do something that made me feel like I can actually accomplish something, so I made a cell phone wristlet.

I had a few scraps from my Nordika quilt (that still isn't finished). I just love Jeni Baker's fabrics. I have gotten all of her lines so far. The colors are just so bright and fun!


I think I may use this for my camera, I haven't quite decided yet what I will do with it :)

Awhile back I won this bundle from Camelot Fabrics.
I have been wanting to brave making a quilt with bold colors without adding any white. I use a lot of white! I also have been wanting to make a log cabinish type quilt. So I decided, what the heck! I made one block and almost stopped. All the colors thrown together look a bit overwhelming to me, not my usual for sure.


I decided to just get on with it, good or bad. I have the top finished, the back pieced, the quilt basted and some quilting done. It's just one of those projects I got tired of looking at so I set it aside for the moment. I am going to donate this to Quilts For Kids. The ask for bright colors so I guess they will be getting that!

I started cutting for a new quilt today, one I'm going to love!


Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
Fabric Frenzy Friday  at Fort Worth Fabric Studio

9/10/2014

Craftsy Class Sale

(This post contains affiliate links, sponsored post)

 Craftsy is having a sale on classes thru Sept. 15th. I have heard great things about the free motion quilting classes and I think I'm going to try one. This is something I REALLY want to master! If you are unfamiliar with Craftsy, they have many free classes too that are wonderful, if you would like to try before you buy :) There's a link on my side bar to the free classes as well.

Best-selling Craftsy classes are on sale for one week only! Save up to 50% off on Sewing, Quilting & Knitting classes taught by some of the world's best instructors. Once you purchase a class, it's yours to enjoy forever. Every class comes with a money-back satisfaction guarantee!

Happy sewing!

9/08/2014

Indian Summer


Have you ever started something that you thought would be one of your easiest and fastest projects... to have it take forever?  That's kinda what happened here. I bought this Indian Summer by Sarah Watson for Art Gallery Fabrics from Vintage Fairytale over a year ago. The minute I saw them they reminded me of my sister, so I bought some fat quarters. It was supposed to be for her birthday last year, and then this year. It's a couple weeks late...but it's done :) 


I used this simple tutorial from John Adams aka Quilt Dad, you can find it here. I thought the design was a good fit for the southwestern fabrics. I did make one change from the tutorial. I only trimmed my half square triangles to 8 inches instead of the 7 it called for. It seemed like a waste of fabric so my quilt ended up bigger than the tutorial. I believe mine finished at 60 x 75.


This took much longer than it should have, mainly because I just wasn't feeling well again. Then I got to the back and nothing went as planned either. I did not have enough Pure Elements Snow left to do what I wanted. Sooo, I had to piece more than I wanted to. I used every last scrap of the white I had left except one small rectangle. I purchased the circle print from The Intrepid Thread for part of the backing. The back looked funny and I wasn't liking it at all. There was a big empty space at the top. I have been wanting to try making my own labels for a more personal touch on gift quilts, so I did! 


And I stuck it right up there in that dead space. Who says labels have to go on the bottom corner?! I always love Kelly's labels and this is what I based mine off of. I did learn to make sure you leave plenty of space between your writing and your label border, or it will look bad, like mine does.


It was a lot harder to write on the fabric than I thought it would be, so mine's kind of sloppy but it was my last piece of white and I knew my sister wouldn't mind :) I used the Pigma Micron 01 and I think I may like a little bit bigger tip as well. This pen is great though, even after ironing over it, it never changed the ink a bit. I definitely recommend it! And I tried something new, yay for me!


Binding is one of my favorite parts of making a quilt, it comes easy for me. This is probably one of my worst binding jobs as far as stitching the last side down. It got a bit too far from the edge. My vision goes out the window when I'm not feeling well, so it took me way too long to finish this part too. But again, I knew she would not mind my imperfections :) I planned to do all diagonal straight lines in the direction of the arrows but my eyes weren't having that either! So I just quilted it wherever I saw fit and called it good.
I'm just glad this is done and I can get it in the mail finally. The colors in this fabric are so pretty, I really love them!


Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation, Fabric Frenzy Friday at Fort Worth Fabric Studio and Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

8/23/2014

Are You Aware?

I have been meaning to do this post for awhile now. After even more frustration in my email boxes, it is time. I haven't seen many bloggers talking about this, which surprises me.
Some time ago I mentioned I was not getting email notification of some comments on my blog. Susan from The Bored Zombie kindly offered to help. I am not very tech savy, thank you Susan! She attempted to explain and I got most of it but will not even try to convey her wisdom :)
What it boils down to is this. I use yahoo mail, and I am not getting any notifications of comments on my blog that are from another yahoo user. Also, when I comment on any of your blogs and you are a yahoo user, you aren't seeing my comments either. This is SO frustrating because replying to comments is very important to me! Yes, we can comment directly on the post, but how many people ever go back to check if you replied?
Another blogger commented about this on Facebook asking for help. She is a hotmail user. I told her to check if the problem was from other hotmail users. Sure enough it was! I don't know if this is happening with all email servers or not.
I really have no words of wisdom or what to do about this. I just wanted you all to be aware that you may not be getting notification of all your comments. And others may not realize you have left them a comment. If anyone else has this problem or an answer, please share with us! I am curious as well to know if this is happening in gmail?? I bet if some of you check your emails for delivery failure notices (some go in my spam too), that you will discover the same problem. When I get a comment from a yahoo user, I do not even get it in spam. The only way to see these comments is if I am browsing through my posts. So you will not realize they are there unless you are at your post. I only get delivery failure notices of comments I leave on a blog that uses yahoo as well.
Now the past few weeks, all of my emails from blogs that I subscribe to by email are going to spam. Every.Single.One. Anything quilt related goes straight to spam, ACK! So I have to make sure I sort out all my spam every day too. Even if I mark them as not spam, they still continue to fall into my spam folder. I'm really fed up with yahoo. I've had the same email for eons and I don't want the hassle of changing everything that is attached to it, but I'm getting real close to that point!
I would love it if anyone that has gmail would chime in on this post and let me know if they are experiencing this also. I'm curious if comment notifications from one gmail user to another are being received.
Thanks and keep your eyes open for comments you don't know are there!

8/18/2014

Vintage Frogs

My floral/Briar Rose baby quilt is done and I LOVE it!


Light colored quilts are hard for me to photograph. I'm wishing I would have gotten the Canon Rebel, but I chickened out on spending so much on a camera, oh well!


I was ready for another simple squares quilt, they are my favorite. I have been collecting florals as I find them on sale. Mostly from my love of the quilts at Pretty Little Quilts and Quilting In The Rain
I bought some from Quilt Fabric Closeouts, they are the Shabby prints. Some came from one of my trips to SAS fabrics in Phoenix. There are three darker prints in there that I got at Fort Worth Fabric Studio, they matched with the Briar Rose backing so well.

 
I had originally bought the lilac bee print for binding to go with the Frog Pond backing but it just didn't work with the front of this quilt. Instead, I used a print called Pristine from Robert Kaufman. This is my favorite floral print that I had saved, it is SO pretty and soft. I found that at The Quilted Castle. Sorry for all the links but I've had readers thank me for including shop links :)


 I thought the Frog Pond print from the Briar Rose by Heather Ross for Windham Fabrics was so cute. The other prints I wasn't sold on (even though they're all cute), so I just purchased a piece for a baby quilt backing at The Intrepid Thread awhile back when Julie had a sale. I was nervous about pairing it with the florals but in my opinion, it worked! 


I just love the cute little frogs, Heather Ross prints are just so darn irresistible!


This quilt is made up of squares finishing at 3 inches and laid out in a 13 x 14 pattern. It measures 38.5 x 41. I don't often name my quilts but I thought Vintage Frogs was a cute fit for this one! 


 I suppose if you don't care for flowery fabrics, you don't love this quilt as much as I do but this is one of my very favorites so far!
Thanks for dropping by, have a good week everyone :)
Linking up to:
 Needle And Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
Fabric Frenzy Friday at Fort Worth Fabric Studio 
Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts