Fabric Postcards, Finished Project, and a Decision Made!

Thanks to a couple snow days, I've been able to get several projects done and/or started! Hooray for snow days! I don't like long winded posts any more than the next person, so I'll try and make these updates quick.

First off...Fabric Postcards. These are going to be mailed to my Valentines in the Flickr Fabric Postcard Swap group. I'll say it again...these are so much fun (and addicting) to make! 

"Puppy Love"

"WHOOOO Loves You?"

"Young Love"

Next up, the BBP mini quilt is finished. Thank. The. Lord. I never did figure out the problem with the chicken feet(for lack of a better description) on the back of this. I gave up after the sixth or seventh time un-quilting it and decided it would be a practice piece for getting in the groove of free motion. And as long as no one studies the back of it, it's fine!  On a side note, I did free motion work on two of the postcards pictured above and there were NO problems at all...the back looks fine on those. Weird.

And finally, I made a decision on the fabrics to use in my Independent BOTM group! Thanks to everyone who gave input! I was all set to go with the Hello Betty fabrics. I took them to JoAnn's to get a coordinating solid. I picked out a lovely soft white...

...and then I saw a bolt of butter yellow. I like yellow, but it's not something I'd normally choose as the main fabric for a quilt. However, it just so happened that I had the Spirit fabrics with me too--you know, just in case. I figured it couldn't hurt to try them out together. That yellow sang next to the Spirit fabrics!  My lighting is not the best so the fabrics are merely humming in these photos. Trust me, it's a lovely combination even though it is not at all what I had in mind for this quilt!  

The colors are a bit off here. Thanks, Crappy Lighting!

This is closer to the actual shade of yellow. 

If you missed the original post, these blocks are part of a pinwheel sampler that I'll be working on in my BOTM group. I'll make one set of blocks at a time, one month at a time, until December. It's going to be really hard not to make these up in advance. I might have already made the March blocks, just sayin'.

What projects have you been working on this weekend?

Bloggers Quilt Festival!

Hello to those of you who are taking part in the Blogger's Quilt Festival! I'm so glad you are taking the time to stop by! I'm Kellie...I haven't been quilting for very long...maybe 3 years. Three years sounds like a long time, but for me it's been three years of sporadic quilting at best.

As of late, however, I've become more and more enamored with this pastime! I've joined an online quilting bee, which I'm really enjoying and I've even joined the local quilt guild and am going to try my darnedest to complete two quilts for the club sponsored Quilt Show at our local Fine Arts Center.

The quilt I'm sharing with you is one that I've blogged about it before, but it's my best quilt to date and the one I'm most proud of so far, so I hope you don't mind a little repetition.

I made a couple months ago for a gal at work having her first child( a sweet baby girl named Zoey). I'm a sucker for a pinwheel quilt, so the choice of what quilt to make was pretty simple once I saw the tutorial at the Moda Bake Shop. This is Miss Zoey's quilt.

One thing you should know about me is that I have a tendency to be an all or nothing type of gal. If I can't do it right, why bother doing it? And for someone who isn't an experienced quilter...and I suspect for someone who is...perfection is just not possible. Being only my second attempt at machine quilting(and I haven't really pieced that many quilts, either), this quilt reminded me that I need to take that perfectionist mentality of mine and toss it out the window.

While it was not an easy thing to do, I had to go with the flow. I eventually realized there aren't quilt police who are going to come and haul me away for committing crimes against quilting. I had to simply accept the wonky seams, the weird stops and starts on the back, and the not-even-close-to-straight quilting lines and live with them.

A few random thoughts I had while making this quilt:

• Slow Down!
• "Straight", for me, is a relative term.
• I should have taken the bindings class I took two days after sewing the binding on this, before I sewed the binding on this.
• Longer stitches look better than teensy ones.
• I ♥ the walking foot.
  
• How in the blankety-blank am I supposed to stop and start a line of stitching and keep from getting knots on the back OR the thread from pulling out?
  
• Aaaargh!
  
• Why is it that I am nearly finished before I finally start to figure things out?
• I hate basting.
  
• The quilt police aren't really going to come after me. After all, the fashion police have yet to find me and I've been committing crimes against fashion for years!

In the end, those mistakes I mentioned earlier didn't amount to much. The quilt got plenty of "oohs" and "aahs" at the baby shower and more importantly, the Mom-to-be absolutely loved it. And really, that's what mattered.

Thanks so much for stopping by my little corner of the blogosphere! I hope you'll become a follower or at the very least stop by and visit again sometime. I've been taking somewhat of a vacation from blogging lately, but now that it's summertime and I have two months off work, I'm feeling the need to get those creative juices flowing again!

Now, I'm off to check out the quilty goodness that is the Bloggers Quilt Festival!