New Year, New Blog Post

On Painting...
So waaay back in the Summer(How I miss the Summer) I got brave and entered two paintings in a local art show. I wasn't expecting to win anything so I wasn't surprised when I didn't. However, I wasn't expecting to SELL a painting either so I was totally surprised and overly excited when I went to pick up my paintings and instead of two paintings, I picked up a check and one painting!

This was the first time I'd sold a painting to someone whom I did not know personally and it felt GREAT! :)

The painting that sold, Fox's Forest, is pictured here.

There was a mix up at the gallery so my painting titled "Mama and Owlets" was listed as "Not for Sale",  but I l think if they had marked it with my asking price, it would have sold too. That's what I like to tell myself anyway. It's currently hanging on my living room wall.

I'm currently working on teaching myself to use watercolors and I'm having so much fun with it! I love how quickly I can finish a painting and how they look pretty good, even though I don't really have the techniques down yet. Here are a couple samples.:

From an online tutorial

Tiger Lily from Disney's Peter Pan...and that's my version of Ariel in the background. 

On Cooking...
I'm currently obsessed with this recipe from Plain Chicken. I've made it three times already and I just finished up a steaming bowl of this chicken chili concoction. It's so delicious and perfect for this ridiculously cold January in Kentucky.  Seriously, grab your crock pot and make a batch!

On Quilting...
I'm quilting again! YAAAAY! It's been forever, but I  pulled out a quilt top I started maybe 6 years ago(?) and I'm using it to practice free motion quilting. My stippling is still a hot mess, but by the time I got to the fourth block, my paisleys looked all right. If you are looking to learn FMQ, I highly recommend Leah Day's courses on Craftsy.com.

Whew, that was a lot! But it feels good to blog after so long an absence. I just may do it again soon!

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?

And She Can't Make a Decision Either!

I need help!

I've signed up for an Independent Block of the Month class/group coming up at the local quilt shop. Rather than follow a set pattern, we're getting to choose our own project and set our own goals for finishing it, but we will be sharing our projects monthly in a group setting. Brilliant idea!

For my project, I've decided to do a pinwheel sampler quilt and I'll be using the Pinwheel Sampler Quilt-a-Long posted over on P.S. I Quilt. Lots of examples of this quilt/blocks here. There are a few blocks I may change up and I'd like to add cornerstones(maybe) but the finished product will most definitely be a pinwheel sampler. They're my favorite, along with log cabins.

And now for the decision that I'd like your help with. I have three stacks of fabrics and I cannot make a choice. So maybe you can offer some opinions? Please excuse my crappy lighting situation and know these are all much nicer in person. SO, do I go with...

Hello Betty for a fun retro look? I love these fabrics. Seriously.

Spirit by Lila Tueller for a modern version?

Or my new stash of Jay McCarrol's Garden Friends for a kooky-mod quilt? 

Note to self: There's enough of this for a Turning Twenty quilt.

And then there's the sashing. I love love love a quilt with lots of white, so I'm thinking white or a soft creamy white would work for each.

What to do? What to do?

I'd love your input.

Fabric Postcards!

Back in December, I took a class on how to make fabric postcards at my local quilt shop. It was something I'd been wanting to do for a while. I had a good time and enjoyed the chance to learn something new.

Now that nearly a month has passed, I'm finally starting to use some of what I learned. I've joined two fabric postcard swap groups! The first was Trading Fabric Postcards on Yahoo groups, and  I've also recently joined Fabric Postcard Swap on Flickr.  I'm really looking forward to swapping and learning some techniques and getting inspiration for making these mini fabric art cards.

I got my first swap card in the mail this week from Katina in the Yahoo group. The theme was middle initials. She made this card representing my middle initial.  So stinkin' adorable!

"An Anteater Ate Ants All August"

This is the card that I made to represent my partner's middle initial. This is only my third attempt at making one of these cards, but I think it turned out OK for someone w/o much experience at it. Note to self...square up the card before sewing the edges next time. sheesh.

"Mystic Mermaid"

These are my first two attempts. I made the snow couple card in class and started the second one in class as well. The instructor was nice enough to give us extra fabric, backing pieces so we could finish the cards we started and make a couple more. The snow couple is simply a fussy cut piece of fabric that I embelished w/some glitter paint and an extra fussy cut bird/holly. I love the print, but I prefer the pieced & appliqued snowman card. For whatever reason, I didn't mail these out w/my Christmas cards, I should have, huh?

"Snow in Love"

"Good Tidings to You"

I smell yet another addiction!

Free Fabric Giveaway

Hoping that you had a wonderful Christmas filled with family and fun! I certainly did!

I'll get back to regular blogging soon but today has been dubbed Kitchen Cabinet Cleanup Day. I have to have a place to put those new small appliances and the gorgeous polka dot ovenware set I got for Christmas, right?! And I'm really tired of being beat to near death by plastic storage containers that fall from my kitchen cabinets every time I open a door.

Still...I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share this fabulous fabric giveaway that's going on over at Dawn's Quilt Corner. She's generously giving away 7 yards of Robert Kaufman's Cat in the Hat & Celebrate Seuss fabric!

Photo from Dawn's Quilt Corner Giveaway

I just discovered Dawn's blog through a friend, and I'm so glad I did. I love finding others who inspire me. Go check it out & enter the giveaway....and of course if you don't have a need for 7 yards of Dr. Seuss fabric, you can always send it my way!

Now, I'm off to tackle some Tupperware.

Triton's Delight...or...I Crush Everything

Is it wrong that I am totally, completely, 100% in love with this quilt? Because I am.

I know I took the Process Pledge, but  I started this quilt long before I decided to pay more attention to the process. I'm ashamed to admit that it's been hiding in a closet(for fear of cat hair and dog slober) but tonight it's out of the closet and I will find a home for it somewhere, whether it's folded on a bench, resting on a bed, or hanging on the wall.

In a nutshell, here's the lowdown on the process:

I used a Turning Twenty pattern. Sort of.  Instead of using 20 fat quarters, I used ten half yards of fabric. I also laid the blocks out in a design pleasing to me, rather than following the T20 pattern. Basically, I used the pattern as a guideline on how to cut the FQs and put together the block. I guess you could say this is my own design, inspired by the Turning Twenty.

The fabric is Mendocino from Heather Ross. Y'all, it's like buttah'!  The mottled gold is the only non-Mendocino fabric in the quilt. I can't remember why I didn't have ten of those prints---maybe there weren't any more available in the brown/aqua/colorway? Regardless, I dig it.

After spending so much time and money on the top, no way was I going to try and quilt it on my home machine and with my lack of machine quilting skill. The gal who quilted it let me go through her designs(computer aided) until I found something that I thought would work. The pattern I chose had a seaweed kind of feel. She did a great job with it!

After it was quilted, I went back to Etsy.com to find more Mendocino to bind it with. I didn't realize the line had been discontinued and the prices had skyrocketed. Still, I snagged a half yard for about 7 bucks. Normally I would never pay that for fabric, but I am soooo glad I did. I love how the addition of a second gold fabric frames the quilt.

As for the name, I'm not completely satisfied with Triton's Delight. I think it works, I think it's fun...Triton would certainly approve of sea creatures, mermaids, and little swimming girls. But I secretly call it I Crush Everything, because the giant squid swimming around on it make me think of this song by Jonathan Coulton:






Working on other projects that I hope to post about this week!

First Sewing Project of 2010

SO my sister and her husband were over for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day(we had a great time with them). We were happily lunching on our sloppy barbecue beef sandwiches and fries when I realized I had run out of napkins and paper towels. Not that we were above eating without napkins, mind you. But barbecue is notoriously messy and a napkin would have been nice.

Sitting there wiping my mouth on my sleeve(yep, I'm that sophisticated) I thought "Hmmm...all that fabric in the back closet...perhaps I could put some to good use and make a few napkins"

After digging through my fat quarter basket, I decided on some fruit and veggie fabrics that had been in that basket for at least two years. They were too cheap to pass up at the time I bought them, but when I got them home I remember thinking "What in the world am I going to do with broccoli fabric?" I'm glad to have finally found a use for them! And of course you realize this is just the beginning of my napkin collection! I will be requiring more of these fruit/veggie fabrics...Etsy, here I come!

Let's do Lunch...Bag.

A while back, I decided to make a new lunch bag. It turned out to be big enough to hold a small apple and perhaps a very thin slice of cheese. It's blogged here.

On Wednesday, my sister came up and we had a girls sewing day. Besides having a great time hanging out with my sis, I managed to make another bag using the leftover fabrics from that teeny tiny Friendship Bag. This one is actually big enough for a sandwich and chips and I had plenty of fabric left to make a cute little matching napkin. I enjoyed this one because it gave me a little quilting practice to boot! I even tried some free motion quilting(don't look at it, it's weird) on the bottom portion.I'm not finished with lunch bags yet, though. I definitely want to make one using these fabrics.My sister used this FQ bundle to make hers and it was adorable. Besides, I still haven't perfected this lunch bag thing...the size is never quite right...and the lining??? HOW do you keep from having floppy linings? Stiff interfacing?Because Jackie and I sew in the kitchen when she comes over, I managed to get my sewing corner organized before I brought the machine back in. I love when it doesn't look like the fabric and craft store threw up! And I said I organized the corner...I never said I swept the floor!
That's it for now...ok, where did I leave that Swiffer?

And She Quilts (well, sorta)

I came across the Block Party! blog just the other day and I immediately knew I had to join in! The gals over at the Block Party are starting a very free-to-go-with-the-flow-do-your-own-thing quilt along. They're posting quarterly blocks and variations on those blocks. Those playing along post their interpretation of these blocks in the Block Party Flickr page. It's going to be fun to follow along and I love how relaxed the whole thing is! The first block is a friendship star, and there's plenty of time for you to jump in. So jump already!

While I was on the Block Party Flickr page I discovered there was a quilting bee going on as well, so I've signed up for that! The brave hostess of this (plus another) quilting bee resides here...be sure and check out her adorable Four Square Bag tutorial.

Speaking of quilting, I'm also still plugging along in the swap I joined here. I never heard back from my Oct. partner, so I guess she was less than thrilled with her log cabin blocks. Or perhaps she just has a gazillion other things going on and quilt blocks are the least of her worries. This is from my Nov. partner and it is really cool, so it kinda makes up for not getting a block in Oct.
And this is the block I made for my December partner. She requested blue, purple and green batiks. I could find no FQs that fit the bill locally, so I decided on one piece of batik that had each of those colors in it. I think it turned out quite nicely. I hope she liked it.

I think the combination of these three groups may just be the push I need in the creativity/quilty direction! I miss being crafty and regret starting to quilt, slacking off, restarting and slacking off once more. I needed this little kick in the pants! Bring it on!

Whew! October Swap Blocks Done!

And not a moment too soon. My deadline was....TODAY! Finished them up last night.

Given my procrastinate-y nature, it came as no surprise that I finshed these the night before the deadline. However, in my defense, I was a bit scared to get going, because:

• My partner asked for log cabin type blocks and I'd never tried one before.
  
• She requested a combination of florals and solids and I didn't have much of either.

So I made up two very different floral and solid blocks using the log cabin style pattern and ended up w/these.OK, so the brown/pink combo didn't look at all like a log cabin, even though I used a log cabin tutorial to go by . Still, I thought it was funky and cute and had decided to send it anyway. Or so I thought...

When I opened my email to get her mailing info, I discovered that I had misread it. My partner requested any print(not specifically floral) w/solids and she likes red, green, purple and yellow. Oops. SO, back to the drawing board for me.

These were the final finished blocks. The colors aren't showing true at all here due to crappy lighting conditions...however, I am pretty satisfied w/the way they came out and was happy that I was able to incorporate all four colors into one block. I hope my partner will be happy with them.This (above) is actually a dark purple, not navy, solid with a lavender/dark purple print. The gray looking dot print, is really a nice soft vintagey green.
Best thing...I've got this log cabin block down...I see a log cabin quilt in my future.

The aftermath of quilt block making.

***5 min. after typing this, I had a thought***

UMMM......ARE these log cabins? I mean, I put them together following a log cabin pattern I found here....but should they have been dark side/light side and if so, are these courthouse steps...I think they are! CRAP.

Zippy Pouches Finished for Friday!

It's been a while since I've done much sewing. Just seems like I've had everything else in the world to do and yet I haven't accomplished much(except GREASE) this summer. Spinning my wheels, maybe.

Despite that, I did finish up some zippy pouches that were meant to be used for PIF & FB chain craft gifts this week. I threw away at least two of these while they were in progress...zippers are hard for me, y'all! I also got bent out of shape over the fact that my pouches weren't coming out perfectly...but then I realized that if I try to make the perfect zippy pouch, the recipients will get zilch from me because 1. nothing handmade is ever going to be perfect and 2. even if they were perfect I'm waaay critical of myself and so they still wouldn't be perfect. I think I need therapy.

Here they are...excuse the crappy photography. I hope the recipients enjoy their less than perfect but made with love anyway zippy pouches!





...this last one is my favorite...I love that bird print.

Turning Twenty Progress

I'm making progress on the Turning Twenty Quilt! Here's a look at what I've managed to complete thus far. Spending Saturday at the flea market, so I'm not sure how much I'll get done this weekend. Despite some cutting snafus, it's been fairly simple and quick.

Turning Twenty Quilt

These are examples of a Turning Twenty Quilt.
1. Joel Dewberry Aqua Chocolate Quilt full, 2. Turning Twenty Spring, 3. Verena's SW Turning Twenty, 4. quilt -- finally done!, 5. 171, 6. Turning Twenty quilt top, 7. turning twenty baby quilt, 8. quilt, 9. amy butler doing turning 20, plus some, 10. Turning Twenty Quilt, 11. Elissa's Quilt - Finished, 12. Turning 16 Rocks

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

I've been obsessed with making one for some time now. Following this pattern, I'll have a nice big quilt that really showcases my fabrics and uses just 20(or 12, or 16) fat quarters to their full potential...nearly no waste at all the way the FQ are cut. And I love that it uses large cuts of the fabric to really show off a print. I'm so excited to try it!

I've been waiting a month for the pattern to come in at my local quilt shop. Yeah, I could have ordered it online and received it within a week, but I really do want to support the shop as much as I can, so I waited.

Now that the pattern has arrived, I'll be using some fabulous Heather Ross fabrics called Mendocino to make this quilt. I bought these from this Etsy seller(the local shop doesn't carry them). I am in love love love with this pattern and the way these fabrics feel. Rather than 20 different fabrics, I'm using 10 half yards that I'll cut down into FQs, so I'll have a repeat. I wanted to use as much of this fabric as possible in the quilt...the gold & solid orange are the only fabrics that aren't part of the line....debating which of those to use...If this quilt turns out well....and I have high hopes that it will...I would really like to have it professionally quilted.

I'll continue to post as it progresses!

Quiltspiration

If I spend as much time quilting as I have surfing flickr for photos of quilts and googling for Scotty Dog and Robot quilt block patterns, I might actually have a quilty year.

Still, these are the kinds of quilts I'm sort of drawn to and would like to make. I've already made known my love of 30's fabrics, but I also am drawn to modern styles. I have thing for log cabins and pinwheels and someday I will make a quilt using those.

And I must make a Scotty dog, a robot, and a sunbonnet sue quilt as well...


1. Henry Quilt Finished, 2. Emma's Baby Quilt, 3. completed turning 20 quilt, 4. heather bailey rag quilt2, 5. Birds & Blooms baby quilt, 6. scrap 9 patch, 7. sunbonnetsuequilt, 8. Spots quilt top, 9. mini quilt, 10. Baby quilt , 11. Exotic, 12. Whirlygiggles Quilt Top, 13. scottie quilt from threadheads, 14. bird quilt, 15. hourglass quilt, 16. Hanging Quilt, 17. Pinwheel Quilt II, 18. Finished Cherry Quilt, 19. DQS5, 20. For Zeke

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

A quilty year?

I had big quilting plans for 2008. After all, in October of 07' I made this quilt to my satisfaction and without much difficultly.

(my first quilt)

I got very excited at the idea of becoming a quilter and really thought that a year and a few months later I'd have some real quilting experience, not to mention some finished quilts, under my belt.

Um. Nope.

But I DID make three small lap quilts for Christmas 08...

(Scott & Jackie w/their quilts) (Shea's quilt)

and I ALSO completed the quilt top that I started in a Nov. 07' class...

And there was that block of the month group that I joined but only half way participated in.

So I accomplished a little here and there but overall, 2008 was not a very quilty year for me.

So I'm calling it here and now. 2009 will be my quilty year.

I have plenty of books and magazines to get me going. I have a box of fat quarters and stack of fabric waiting to be made into a quilt. I even have about six blocks started for a scrap quilt. I am ahead of the game, right?

I've come across a few blogs that I can turn to for inspiration in my year of quiltiness. Many of these blogs feature other crafty goodness as well. Blogs such as:

• Happy Zombie
• Crazy Mom Quilts
• Melly & Me
• Tallgrass Prairie Studios
• Bad Gal Quilts
• Anyone Can Quilt

I'm sure there are many more out there to be discovered. I'd love to hear about them!

See? I've got a good start. In addition to the bloggy inspiration, I've joined Block of the Month again. This time, I got wise and chose the 1930's fabrics that I kicked myself for not going with last year. Not only have I completed the first block waaaay ahead of the deadline, I've finished my entire set of setting blocks for the first quarter. WooHoo!

I think the reason I never got into BOTM last year was that I SO disliked the civil war repros that I used. Which is weird because I loved using them in Shea's quilt(pictured above) but surrounded with off white fabrics, they made me want to strangle myself. THIS(though the colors appear washed out by my flash) makes me much happier!
Having Mom and Jackie join me for BOTM this year has also upped the enthusiasm. The three of us go to BOTM together, head out for a late breakfast/early lunch after and head to my house to work on our blocks together. Fun!

OK, I'm ready to get my quilt on!