3 quilt finishes, the beach and a random deep moment.

Wow, it's been a while.

The past few weeks have been a crazy whirlwind of finishing up school, scurrying to get quilts finished for gifts (two graduation and one baby!), making end-of-the-year teacher gifts, waiting for my brother-in-law to return from Europe with my camera, a little bit of medical drama, packing, and heading to the beach for one (long, long) week of family time (30 people in one house from 2 countries and 3 states). Sheesh.

It's all over now and I can officially say it's SUMMER (I wish someone would have made me this sign) and we're home and ready for it!

Remember these plans?

They became reality just in time!

(I hand-sewed the binding in the car on the way down to the beach!)

I warned Sarah and Abi that I was totally about to be that person who gives you a gift and is then like "HOLD ON! I have to take a picture of you holding it!". I wish I could have been able to get some more pics of the awesome quilting (can you believe that a friend quilted those two quilts and the baby quilt below and only charged me... wait for it... $40?! Insane!).

The 3rd quilt I finished at the beach is for a dear friend that I met in embroidery class. After having a terrible time getting pregnant, losing babies, debating IVF, and finally turning to accupuncture, she is expecting their first child:

I made this one using the Moda Bake Shop recipe for "Random Reflections", but only made one row of blocks, and the rest white. The fabric is from that random Robert Kauffman jelly roll that I just couldn't figure out and the font for the name is Smiley Monster.

and in the spirit of tradition, I obviously had to take a pic on the porch at the beach house.

Though I am ecstatic to be home, we did have a lot of fun at the beach. Noah is getting to be so much fun and it just blabbering on and on to anyone who will listen. His new favorite thing is telling everyone "hey" all the time. He's been saying it for a while now, but it's just funny to watch him walk into a room and wave and scream "HAAAY!".
Man. I sure love that kid.

It's becoming more and more clear to me that God sent Noah to us for a reason. After a terrible pregnancy with him (and no luck with subsequent pregnancies so far), Noah's sweet spirit and loving heart comfort me when I'm fretting about the future. He has always been the easiest baby and the happiest kid and I know that God entrusted us with his care because we would need that sweetness and love to get us through times of heartache and uncertainty.

I find it hilarious and ironic that Noah's name means "rest" (if you've ever been around him, you know why), but that reminds me of a verse about peace that I cling to when nothing makes sense:

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.

Not as the world gives, do I give to you.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

1 John 14:27

That verse is helping me out a lot lately, and I hope that you're finding at least a little peace in your life as well!

I'm linking up to Fabric Tuesday- check out all the awesome projects!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

(or "Didn't She Just Write This Post?")

Amy's Creative Side is once again hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival and I'm entering Noah's Doggy Park Quilt in it! So, I'm sorry that this is basically a repeat of my excited post a couple weeks ago when I just finished it!

This is the first quilt I have made for my son, Noah. I've only been quilting about a year, and have managed to make multiple baby quilts, a twin sized quilt and tons of table toppers/runners, yet nothing for my boy! This quilt is a modified Hexigon park, the sashing is Kona white, the back is brown minky (drool...) and I bound it (binded it?) with Robert Kauffman's quilter's linen in chocolate which is so lovely.

I quilted it 1/4" inside each white sashing strip and through each hexigon which made an awesome argyle-ish effect (which is super cute on the back). The finished quilt is about 50" x 60"- perfect for Noah to sleep with or for me to steal and snuggle with on the couch.

Just sayin'....

mmm... chocolate (Homer Simpson voice)
early morning pictures before school = akward shadows, sorry.

Here's the label and a peek at the snuggly back.

This quilt is so special to me because it's for Noah. I know that sounds cliche, but there's a reason- the whole time I was cutting, sewing, quilting and binding it, I was thinking about and praying for Noah (ok, so I was watching a movie while I was binding it, but still, the little Beans was on my mind!). I know most of us pray for our children on a regular basis, but once you get past the intial "please watch over him, protect him, help him to grow in Your word", etc. you start really thinking about his future. At one point I found myself praying for his education and future wife- someone who may not even be born yet! My parents have always told my brothers and I that they have prayed for our spouses since birth, but it's weird when you actually do it for your own baby!

As far as sewing/quilting go, I learned that minky isn't nearly as hard to deal with as I thought. I had ZERO puckering on the back and only a couple tucks on the front (but I blame that on taking the pins out after I quilted all the left-to-right diagonals- I probably should have left them in until I came to them quilting right-to left). Also, I learned that hexagons (especially half-hexagons) aren't scary at all! I also learned that I am in love with quilter's linen. It's so pretty!

That's about it! If you're stopping by from the BQF, thanks for dropping in!

I've got a plan...

Which is good, because my goal is to have these quilt tops finished by next week, since they have to be quilted (not by me, thank goodness), bound and ready to give as gifts on June 4th.
I can do that... right?
Right?!

Oh, and if you've ever wondered what teachers do during their lunch, this is one possible answer. Draw and color little shapes with colored pencils.

Lookie there! I'm on gen X quilters today!

If you're coming over from gen X quilters today- hi! I looove that blog - Annemarie is so awesome! I just got my fat quarters in the mail from the Kona Your World swap and love them. I can't imagine how much work that was, so thanks, Annemarie!

In other news, I have 16 and 2 half days of school left (SCORE!)

.... & I finally finished Noah's quilt!

It's a modified Hexigon park, the sashing is Kona white, the back is brown minky (drool...) and I bound it (binded it?) with Robert Kauffman's quilter's linen in chocolate.
I quilted it 1/4" inside each white sashing strip and through each hexigon which made an awesome argyle-ish effect (which is super cute on the back). The finished quilt is about 50" x 60"- perfect for Noah to sleep with or for me to steal and snuggle with on the couch.

Just sayin'....

mmm... chocolate (Homer Simpson voice)
early morning pictures before school = akward shadows, sorry.


It also equals running out the door as soon as you upload the pics, so I didn't get a pic of my favorite part- the label on the back! It's a hexigon and I did a smidgen of hand stitching around the edges with embroidery floss. (I'll have Joe email me a pic to upload!)

ta-daaaa! Here's the label and a peek at the snuggly back.

So what do you think?

Ok, someone hold my hand...

I'm about to pick fabric from my stash and make not one but TWO quilts from it. EEEK! I'm completely out of my element here. I usually order precuts or bundles from the same line- I don't trust my eye + brain enough. These quilts are for two sisters- one graduating from college and one graduating from high school. After looking and looking online, I never saw anything I wanted, Joe said "Shouldn't you have at least SOMETHING here you could use?" (with the understood "because you buy frickin' everything!"). So here's what I came up with so far for the older sister: (excuse the crappy pics, it was late and I had to use the flash- I'm terrible at that white-balance stuff!) I love love love these together, but I feel like it's not enough- do I need to pull a green out from that navy Amy Butler print? I tried to put some blue with it but it was bad. I don't think I'd do red, through because of the pink... right? My second pile, for the younger sister, is a huge fail. Even looking at it the first time I wrinkled up my nose at it.

All of those colors are in the zigzag print but it just doesn't flow and 1 FQ of that zigzag print ain't gonna get me far!

So I regrouped and went through my scraps and came up with this:

I know there's no yellow in the bird print, but that's ok right? A friend mentioned that I should pull out more of the fuschia- would it replace the yellow or is the yellow ok because it's still in the citrus-y family?

Oh dear... I don't trust myself - I may just order some Modern Meadow and Aviary 2 and call it a day! :)

(I'm linking up at Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday!)

current project (for someone else)

(please excuse the cell phone pics- someone has hidden the battery charger for the camera. I have my suspicions that it's a short, bald, handsome fellow. )

When I went back to working full time (while still working my 15/hr a week part time job), I decided I was not going to sew/embroider for people anymore.

The only thing is, I seriously SUCK at saying "no"... which is actually a good thing in this case!

I am so honored to be doing this awesome project for Mary Catherine, a sorority sister of mine from "back in the day". She contacted me, in oh January, and told me she has a bunch of aprons that belonged to her grandmother that she has had sitting around since she passed away in 2004- I immedately got excited. I got into quilting soley for the purpose of finishing my great-grandmother's unfinished quilt tops- I LOVE family things like this!

Mary Catherine asked if I could make 3 mini-quilts (about 24" x 36") for her and she is planning to frame them and give one to her mother, one to her aunt, and keep one for herself for Mother's Day.

So precious. How could I say no?!

After a lot of back-and-forth about the details/design, we decided on a simple half-square triangle design with Kona white. I think these are going to be awesome! The prints are all so different (to quote Mary Catherine: "some of these are really ugly"), but I think that's what makes it so great- I'm sure that each of these patterns hold a memory or two of her sweet Grandmama.

I can't wait to finish these up and send them to her!

Collin's quilt

My sewing club (no really, we'll have a cooler name soon!) is about to do a 3 week quilting "class" using the Charm Square Baby Quilt tutorial from Oh Fransson!. Well, I jumped the gun a bit and made this a week early! I had this Half Moon charm pack and had no clue what I was going to do with it- I just loved the black and white- and some Kona Peacock seemed the perfect compliment for the son of a surfer and a girly girl!

Seriously, how cute are these goons?

As it turns out, my BFF (yup, that's right. bee-eff-eff) since 10th grade, Stea, and her husband (who happened to be my other BFF in high school long before they even started dating!), Paul, had a baby shower this past Sunday for their first little guy, Collin! This is the perfect quilt pattern for something like this- pieced in about an hour (and hour!!) and basted, quilted and bound the next afternoon!

I feel like I barely quilted this one (just two straight lines on either side of the pieced strips and then 1/4" inside each black square and half-square)- unlike Brady's look-a-like quilt, which I quilted til I was blue in the face! However, I do love how fluffy it made it- especially with the big black and white flannel on the back. I didn't take a pic of the finished back, but it had a 4"x4" peacock square label on the back declaring my love for the little shnookums...

SQUEE! I can't wait for Collin to get here so I can snuggle him!!

the one where she babbles on about fabric and zigzags.

I recently (well, technically in January, thankyouverymuch) bought a Marine fat quarter bundle. Have you seen Marine by Dan Stiles?

It's fantastic.

It's also organic which means almost $15/yard- EEKGADS! Luckily, a girl of modest means such as myself can snap up a fat quarter bundle for a reasonable price and still feel like I'm getting a good taste of the fabric.

I was the loser who signed up to receive an email notification the moment this line was made available... and completely geeked out upon recieving said email.... and bought the FQ bundle approximately 32 seconds after getting that email.

This fabric is going to be a quilt for Noah. I don't think I want to go twin sized and make this his "big boy bed" quilt (I just can't commit to that small of a color spectrum for his future room), so I'm trying to think of a way I can use this fabric for a lap quilt for him. I wanted to keep the fabric pieces large enough that he can see the birds, submarines, whales, etc.

I thought of this one (I did get the book with that pattern in it for Christmas, afterall!) However, I keep coming back to zigzag quilts.

sigh.

I love zigzag quilts. Did you realize there is an entire flickr group of zigzag quilts?

Yup. Goodbye, 1 hour of my life. I'll never miss you.

A Quilt is Nice's zig zag

Cluck Cluck Sew's zigzag

Are those not to die for? Maybe I'm just a freak, but something about the angles, and the crispness of the lines... I am in love.

So the question is: do I try to figure out how to make a zigzag quilt out of my beloved Marine fabric? Is it worth the headache to get the prints to flow directionally? Any advice from quilters out there? Am I insane? Help a sister out.

tricks up my sleeve

In the short time that I've been quilting (and more importantly, reading quilting blogs), I have learned a few tricks that have help make the binding process easy. So easy, in fact, that tonight I realized that this just may be my favorite part of making a quilt!

Trick #1

(are you tired of looking at this stupid quilt yet? I sure am!)

Serge the quilt sandwich before binding- genius!

I can't rember where I read this first (Cluck Cluck Sew, maybe?) but it's so smart!

I have a tendency to leave much more than the recommended 2-3" of batting and backing on while I'm quilting a sandwich and it was always sort of a pain to lay it out and trim all that when I was done quilting (oh, and it made me nervous that I was somehow going to cut my quilt in half. No really, I'm a spaz like that.).

Serging the edges kills two birds with one stone- it cuts off all the excess batting/backing AND holds the edges together so neatly for you to sew your binding on!

See? The 6.5% of myself that is a perfectionist loves that.

I almost don't want to bind it.

Almost.

Trick #2:

(source: Know What I Love?)

The second trick I got from Know What I Love? who said she got the idea from The Sometimes Crafter (I couldn't find her mention of it though!). When I iron the binding in half, I roll it up as I go. When I'm finished and the binding is ready to go, I slip a measuring tape (oh so stylish!) through the center and there you have it- a way to keep your binding on hand without it all strewn about!

Tomorrow night will be a rarity: Joe and I have NOTHING planned (the only night from December 5th until December 22nd where that is the case!), so we're going to make fish and chips, turn on the fire and watch a movie while I bind my quilt! Fun!

first day of "school"

Noah had his first day of school today.

He made me this:

Ok, so it's not really school. It's just Parents' Morning Out- but it is 3 days a week from 9am-11:45am so that's gotta count for something! It's on the same campus as my office, so on Mondays I plan to do office work and Wednesdays and Thursdays will be for running errands and... erm... sewing.

...and possibly napping.

Speaking of napping- I think Noah enjoyed PMO.

I know for a fact that he had fun and was busy- here's the proof once I pulled into the garage:

Man, he's sweet.

On the sewing end of the spectrum, I've been pretty busy. I have three (yes, THREE!) baby showers this week! All the babies are 2nd children, so I went with a more personal gift rather than something off a registry.

One is for a sweet baby girl to be named Lilah.
(the other parts ofthe gift are monogrammed onesies)
One is for a little guy to be named named Tanner:
(his gift also consists of more- a monogrammed onesie and some USC-themed burp cloths)


and last is a little guy who has no name yet. :)

Words can not describe how much I LOVE that "Transportation" fabric. I wish I could do Noah's entire big boy room of just that fabric. Alas, that would be a little overwhelming... and a lot expensive.

Meanwhile, this beast is still lurking in the corner of my sewing room:

I have one more round to go and I'm calling it a day on that quilt! I'm just sort of chipping away at it a little bit at a time. I would love to have the whole quilt finished by Noah's birthday party.

Hey, we all need goals, right?

(even if they're not realistic)

Speaking of Noah's birthday, it's about 2 weeks away. Go ahead, ask me have I even sent out invitations. Nope. I have done nothing yet but plan it all in my head.

In my defense, I TRIED to make his invitation but couldn't get a decent shot of him to put on it. I guess I'll have to work on that soon... maybe tonight!