Watery Zoo : Finished quilt

I loved working with all these deeper colors.

I was forced into them a bit when Leigh and I were working on getting 5 quilts done without buying any fabric.  I was getting really low on same-lot whites, so I had to pull out other plans and neutrals to get quilts done.

So glad I did!

The solid pluses are made with hand dyed fabrics from Cherrywood Fabrics.  They have a great depth, and I thought they looked a bit like the sea, hence the Watery part of the Zoo.



I was super happy after laying out that back - one of those where you pull out the bits leftover and add in a couple other pieces to make it all fit together.

This was an attempt to hang a quilt on the wall in the basement to photograph straight on. Not the best lighting! Upstairs the problem is that all my walls are either windows or occupied by furniture. Maybe I just need to clear a room out specifically for quilt photos. The oldest could be off to college in 3.5yrs - maybe that's a good plan for his room. It gets fabulous light all afternoon. Ha!



I actually made friends with sashing on this quilt, if you recall back here.  I did all kinds of stuff I normally don't do with this one - sashing, dark neutral, straight line quilting (still not a fan in-process but love the finished look here).

A fun little quilt. I listed it in my shop.

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i spy......

I have a fun little giveaway planned and want to try out Rafflecopter.

It seems to easy and cute - and they have an adorable little helicopter mascot that needs naming right now. There's a link below to enter to give him a name - a free Kindle Fire if they pick it! Seemed like a fun thing to do this evening.

I have a couple more bits to gather before I do my giveaway. But it goes along with a WHOLE bunch of modern i-spy fabric I've been pulling from my stash.



(HELP Leigh........ I already bought more fabric this month!)

It's Beautiful

I checked the date - it's JANUARY 6.  We are outside with just light jackets.  

We live in Chicago.  Very very strange, but I'll take it.  

Then Becket ran for the camera.  

He took about 40 pictures.  It just kept getting better.

It's beautiful Mom!

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State of the Stash : 2012

The past two years I have been both tracking and trying to use my stash. I feel like I have a lifetime's worth of fabric, but there is always that NEW line that you're sure you NEED.

Tracking both amounts in and amount used for every project has been a fabulous exercise.

In 2010 I added nearly 117 yards, and actually used MORE - at 120 yards. Hurray for me.

Last year I added 107 yards, using about 94 yards - for a balance of 13 xtra yards which will be carried into 2012. I'll chalk that up to last year's Christmas fun at the Fabric Shack when I bought 30 yards. I completed more quilts this year, but a bunch of them were actually started in 2010.

I'm still working on getting them all blogged, as I finished a whole bunch up at once. Leigh and I had a 5-quilt-finished pact that was a HUGE help in both finishing lingering WIPs as well as not buying new fabric.

For 2012, I started it once again with a Christmas outing to The Fabric Shack.  Honestly, it is a must when your in-laws live only 20 minutes from the shop.  But I was much more controlled this year - after two years of tracking everything in and out, you seriously think about every thing In and decided if it is truly needed.

I plan on continuing using my stash.  It's a fabulous feeling when you make a quilt without pushing some buttons or running to the LQS.

One big lesson learned from the quilt exercise with Leigh is that I use way more whites/neutrals than I would guess.  It was challenging to finish fronts and piece backs without going out to buy more white!  I expect that most stash additions this year will be background fabrics.  Anything outside of that will be added mindfully.  I'm really getting a better feel for the kinds of fabrics I search my stash for every time I start a new quilt.

Here's the accounting of the first fabric additions for 2012:

I literally spend hours searching The Fabric Shack for treasures.  My first stop is their scrap cart - and lucky me they had TWO overflowing when I visited the day before Christmas.  Anything on the cart is $3.98/yard - you buy the whole piece.  I pull pretty much every Kona solid I find, and came up with white, blue and pick this year.  The pink and blue pieces on the left really caught my eye, and then I think I squealed a little bit when I found 1.25yd of those letters!  I bought a FQ last year and had been carefully using every last bit of it.

The next place I park myself is at their FQs - any that are already cut are only $1.95 each.  I found five favorites.

There is also a little drawer of fat eighths and I couldn't pass up these.  I think I pulled/returned them three of four times before finally deciding to keep them.

Anybody have a good use for a fat eighth?!   The prints in this line are so awesome together that I think I would like to use them as a group.

Finally, a small group of FQs that I had them cut from yardage.  You should have seen these bolts on the shelf - there is no way you could pass them up!

That's it for a while I hope.  Now off to sew!

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Finished Greek Cross and a confused Gnome

Wait, what month is it?  Mr. Gnome isn't one to complain but he's a little disoriented - what with January nearly upon us and no winter in sight.

I am super happy about this weirdly mild weather - my numerous friends with ice rinks filling their back yards, no so much.  So, I can't shout my excitement too loudly.

Modern Quilt Blogger dream weather is what I will label this weirdness.  I have a boat load of finished quilts that are screaming for their photo shoots - and lucky enough to have my personal slaves children home to help hold quilts up.

Greek Cross in Red, Blue, and Goldfish

This is one of my mom's favorites, and I agree.  I pulled a bunch of fabulous reds, gathered my clear blues, and tossed in a few of Heather Ross's adorable swimming fish.

The Greek Cross is a fun one to make - it goes together so nicely, then the fun quartered squares show up in between when you line them all up.

Most of my quilts have a pieced back of some sort, but this time I went with a solid piece of pretty, blue linen.  Combined with the stipple it gives the quilt a wonderful drape.  I also made friends with my spray basting issues and things went perfectly with the wiggly linen here.

I had a comment left when I was lamenting the stiff issues of spray basting and was given the image of spraying a light coat of Pam on a pan.  I also noticed that it seems to kind of set up after just a bit.  So if you stick down your quilt top and wait just a bit, it's stickier then peeling it up right away.

Thank you to the sunny weather, I have listed this quilt in my etsy shop.

I did it!

I have been wanting to open an etsy shop for more than a year. I finally did it and stuck a link over there on the right!

I used the Holiday Bazaar as a hard deadline for getting a bunch of stuff done at once, planning on listing things that didn't sell. A major reason I've been putting off the shop is that I didn't want to open it with just a couple of things.

Then I had to actually FILL and OPEN the shop.

Wise words from my friend Stephanie - There's a lot to learn, just jump right in and learn along the way.

So I did last night. And woke to find my first sale! May be my only one, but it's very exciting.

I'll be photographing, listing, and more making this weekend. And some Christmas fun along the way!

 

Another good quilty friend mentioned a Flickr app to get photos from my phone uploaded.  It was super easy - I don't know how I had missed knowing about that app.  So I was able to upload the Crate and Barrel tree I mentioned in my last post.  It was super cute at the Bazaar with all the zipper pouches hanging like ornaments. 

Have a very Merry Christmas!  

I'll be off for the next week or so, then back with a year end stash report.  Even though I haven't been reporting weekly as I did last year, I have been tracking just as carefully.



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I love Scraps

Becket caught eye of the scraps next to my cutting table and HAD to start stifing through them.  He wanted to make sure I wouldn't toss them out before he got home from school. 

He grabbed a couple and ran up to put them in his room, "I love Scraps!".  Can't blame him, the little pile tried to lure me in as well, but I stepped away as I really don't need any more scraps :)

The Holiday Bazaar went really well.  It was a fast and fun couple of hours.  It started right after mass at 10 and ended about noon.

I sold 3 of the 6 covered notebooks from the last post, several crayon wallets, and a whole BUNCH of earbud pouches.  I had noticed that they were also the perfect size for a rosary - tucked one in and that's what went over so well with the moms at our school.  I was excited that they thought they are as fun as I do for holding a rosary.

I would show you the cute Crate and Barrel tree I found to display the pouches at the Bazaar, but my phone is not being helpful and refuses to send the photo.  Any easy way to get photos off your phone and onto the computer for use besides email?!  It's driving me up the wall.

So, that's what is on my cutting table right now.

Covered Composition Notebooks

The Holiday show, that I'm going to have a table at, is tomorrow.  Eeeek!

I've been stitching like crazy trying to get ready.  I have six quilts to bring.  I know, quilts never sell at shows.



But my main goal has been to have a chance to show my stuff to others, and then put it out there in an etsy shop.  The shop keeps getting put off for other things.  When the call for vendors went out at the Home and School Holiday Brunch and Bazaar I jumped on it as a good deadline for myself.

Figuring I should bring along something that has a possibility of selling, I've made a bunch of fun crafty things to go along with the quilts.  I make as many as I feel like and what strikes me as fun for the day.



This is a set of six covered composition notebooks.  Very fun to make.

The worst part is the anxiety that I'll be showing all these school moms my stuff - I'll see them again after tomorrow and what if they think it's all lame!  The teen-years-horror!

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Tree Block

Lee is going to make an awesome quilt of trees - and she asked our bee to make blocks for it.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do, then totally changed my mind when I pulled out her fabrics.  I'm in the middle of planning a Ninja Training party for Becket's birthday party this weekend - so I ended up making a kind of paper pieced Bonsai tree.



Or maybe it's a tall rain forest canopy tree - perhaps Dr. Seuss.  Not sure.  But it was fun!

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Lemon Lime - Quilt parade...

Float one in the quilt parade.

I have a ton of finished quilts that just haven't had the chance to be photographed and blogged. Lemon Lime gets to kick off the parade.

One huge shoo fly - it's about 40" square. Not sure what it is about the shoo fly, but it's a favorite block of mine.



I went with a yellow binding and am quite happy with it.



There was much debate in my head for how to quilt this one. I've wanted to do more pebbles for a while, but they take so much thread and time that I wanted a smaller space. The lemons seemed like the perfect spot for them. So then the middle got a square spiral and I just did parallel lines along each corner. Overall, so much time with pebbles and lines, but I love the way it turned out.



Finished off with some fun, random stripes in green - hence the lime half of Lemon Lime!



Go visit all the other fun completed over Thanksgiving!


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Even MORE WIPs.....

It's getting a little NUTS. I have so many things going....but that's the benefit of having a hard deadline sometimes.

Stuff I've been wanting to do as well as lingering WIPs make their way to the finish line.



I have a couple quilts nearing the end of their binding.



And I was able to quilt up two more yesterday - ready to hand stitch tomorrow as we watch football and eat all day.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday I think.



I also have a stack of covered notebooks nearing completion and a bunch of lanyards ready to stitch.

It will all have to sit for a bit as I cook and clean today! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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Two Quilt Tops Done

A ton has been getting done around here.

Including this red and blue Greek Cross baby quilt top.



And the Churn Dash I started just a bit ago.



Quick photos of the two tops, as this is the kind of help I usually get around here.



Off to make backs and quilt these up! Hopefully I can get that done before Thursday. Busy hands stitching binding can't eat TOO many yummy appetizers.


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Four Pillows Plumping.....

Finished up my four Christmas Tree Pillows.



I was really happy with how my zippers turned out.

And then stuffed with down pillow forms from Crate and Barrel. At only $12 for the 20" inserts, they're a great deal - and very nice!



I try to stay out of the Crate and Barrel Outlet so close to my house. I can't always resist the treasures one can find there.



Amazingly, I didn't buy one thing off that wall of Marimekko.  But I know where I'm going to my next quilt back!

W.I.P. Big Time!

I'm actually going to link up - first time. 

Because I have a TON of W.I.P.s going right now. Getting ready for a little craft fair.



Making Coloring Wallets - fabulous pattern by JCasa.



And ran out to Target today to find some hair bands and came across this huge Ball-o-Bands.

Almost too pretty to unwind!




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I Knew I was Doing the Right Thing!

At mass yesterday my ears perked up during the first reading.

It said that a wife should buy yarn and fabric and sew lots of awesome stuff!  I knew it - and I already have a ton of yarn!



My husband wasn't so sure my understanding was correct....and even if I insisted in taking only small snippets here and there of the passage, that the 'finding' refers specifically to FREE yarn and fabric you happen to find. 

A good wife who can find?  She is far more precious than jewels.
She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands.
Her children rise up and call her blessed;
   her husband also, and he praises her.
Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.

Proverbs 31:10, 13, 28, 31

Pebbles

I love pebble quilting's texture.

And I have a project that is small enough that I won't need 17 bobbins of thread to complete.



But, I may need to revisit the spray baste thing.  After much testing I never did find any differences between the Dritz and the 505.

But I'm not so sure I like it as well as I had hoped.  The basting part is MUCH more pleasant.  And nary a wrinkle or pucker is to be found. 

But the quilting - with a spray basted quilt - is not that great.  And I LOVE the quilting part.  The problem is that the basting makes the quilt a little stiff.  And am finding that the quilting process is much more difficult without any drape to your quilt.  I have to wrestle it and stop to pull/move as much as if I was stopping to undo a pin.

Maybe I'll try spraying on the back and pinning the front? 

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