Quilt Geek Celebration

I reached the core of my first 40 yard roll of 90" Warm and White.

Ocean Whirligiggles - Top done!

I'm moving along on the pair of ocean-theme full quilts I'm working on. And I finished up the top of my dolphin whirlygiggles.



It feels huge! About 84"x92" right now.

I had to push the legos aside and layer the blocks a bit when I planed the layout in my family room.



But the big blocks are so awesome for showing off the graphic prints. And even in the small sets of four I randomly placed around, there's plenty of fabric room.

This Heather Ross print is so perfect for the dolphin-loving little boy!



I placed the paper pieced dolphin block so that it will not be covered by pillows at the top of his bed, nor hanging over the edge.

Smack top and center for him to enjoy! Plus his most favorite print is right below it. I waited for the organic Storyboek 2 line to ship for these wonderful bubbles, turtles, and octopi.



Another print in that Storyboek 2 line has a larger scale underwater kelp forest that is super cool.

All the fabrics in this quilt were so fun to work with. Glad I'm using them all again in a coordinating improv-pieced quilt for their other little boy.

All the boys are in school now! The two older ones started on the 15th, and Becket's first day of 1st grade was Tuesday.

Hurray ;)

I've been super busy - Instagram Update

Things have been nuts, with the summer wrapping up.

I only need to survive 24 more hours, only 24 more hours....the older two start school on Wednesday.




I've been waiting on this pretty little Organic bundle.

Ok, I only needed the bottom two Storyboek II prints...but I couldn't pass adding in the adorable Scamper.



I got a few blue and then green hexagons joined during the Olympics.



So Fast!

In my wait for the organic prints for my custom order, I started and finished piecing a Sparkling Cider 64x64 quilt top.



Our blackberry bush is WAY overflowing. Becket and I picked over 10 cups of berries Saturday night!!!

I made freezer jam, a cobbler, and froze the last couple cups for smoothies.



A non-instagram photo...I got the borders added to this quilt my sister in-law asked me to make.

I am super happy with how flat and square it all seems.



And finally, a fun new adventure for me. My first paying job since I left Motorola when Kenton was born in 1998.   (Not counting commission quilts I guess....I actually had to fill out a form for Homeland Security and an application.  Boy has it been a long time!)

I'm working at a super cute local quilt shop called Gentler Times Stitching in Naperville (by the Fox Valley mall for any local people). You can read a little about Brenda, the owner, if you click my link.

They have a fun collection of fabrics AND yarn, plus a good selection of other fiber crafty stuff, and they are a Bernina dealer. Right now I'm learning the store - eventually my official position will be an in-house Bernina tech.  I'll get to learn all the machines really well, along with going to an official Bernina tech training class.  Not sure how it all will go, but it's going to be fun!

Dolphin Summer

I have two custom quilts in the works for a pair of little boys.

One of them loves dolphins.



A pattern by Paper Panache with what felt like a billion tiny pieces - but that's why it turns out so awesome.

They're extra tiny because I needed to reduce the size by 15% to get it to fit with the other blocks in the quilt.

I'm going to be sad to see them swim away when the quilt is done.

Olympic Quilting

Opening ceremony tonight!

I LOVE the Olympics. (and I'm thinking about my quilty anglophile friends, all of whom must be super excited today)



I'm trying to decide if I should work on some of my hexagons, or set up a table in the family room and move my machine.

The boys' computers are also on a desk right next to my sewing space, and my cable package allows me to log onto the all-Olympics-all the time, real time web broadcasts. So I may watch and sew that way as well.

How are you going to do the Olympics and sew at the same time?

Perfect Points

You know when you were little, or even today :) and you get to have a surprise trip to the ice cream shop?

And you're so giddy you could bust?



That's the feeling when I open seams and get rows and rows of perfect points.

The teen boys in the house were not appropriately impressed, so I had to post them.

Definitely loving my new Horizon!

Wristlet Pattern Testing

I was lucky enough to be a pattern tester for Caroline at Trillium Design.



Her Cell Phone Wristlet was super fun to make! And I finished just in time to take it to a water park birthday party.

Once I got the pieces cut and ready, it took me almost exactly 2 hours start to finish.



Love that it has a spot for some money and credit cards.



Even that pocket is lined! And the zipper bit is quite easy, if you're new to that kind of thing.



That's the back open - look at all those Park Slope pebbles.

 I'm getting tot he end of my pieces of it. I was so brave to cut into it!



My little camera also fits inside.

 So lots of uses for this in the summer when I don't want to carry much with me.



One last look at the fun hardware and pretty Park Slope.  Pre-disaster.

I'm super bummed. I was using it when making a stop at an ice cream shop. They were having a bad day I think....the double dark chocolate cone I got was kind of mushy and blopped right over on me when she handed it across the counter. I instinctively tried to catch the ice cream ball, which ended up mushing into the zipper and all over my little wristlet.

My Park Slope!!

I gave it a soak and wash and it seemed like the chocolate came out. But it's still stained in the zipper. Also, didn't want to dry it and make it all lumpy, so I set it out to air dry. That led to the teal print lining bleeding to the front over the pebbles. I should have known how dangerous it is to leave wet fabric touching each other.

So, besides the fabric bleeding caution, I have a dream sewing machine buying cautionary tale to add in a couple of days.  

Fabric Stash

Addition

Well, addition seems a little bit of an understatement. I gained a wonderful rainbow.



Some more low volume blues.



A few more.



Grays for my Ghastlies quilt.



Neutral prints and Essex.



Some random fun stuff!



Especially this fun one - not sure what I'll do with it but I love it!

And finally, 8 yards of Kona snow to go with this awesome Munki Munki print.



I have a custom order for two awesome, ocean blue, full size bed quilts.

This is the stack I've gathered for them so far! See, I needed a lot of fabric :)

EEeeee!!!!!!

A Horizon 7700 in the back of my van! Well, actually, in my sewing space now.

Just a tad excited.

New Whirlygiggles

A little late, but I worked on a 4th of July table runner this weekend.

I cut a bunch of whirlygiggles in large and small sizes. I wanted to test out my quilt math - I have two full size commission quilts to make.

(I may have gone on a bit of a fabric binge, getting just the right prints for those quilts. Fabric mail arrival to confess/document this week.)



I use this blank, bound book to record all my quilt plans and designs.

To get my quilt to end up as close to a traditional full size, without any borders or sashing, I had to adjust my whirlygiggle to about 13.75" square.

I thought a quick table runner for myself would be a good way to make sure my numbers were perfect.



Ooops - I was off by 1/4" across the joining of the four small whirlygiggles. Just an 1/8th on each end, so not a big deal for my table runner. But I'll adjust those for the large quilt. Glad I did a test run!



I was really happy with myself and thought I had an awesome plan to quickly back and bind this. Not so much! An anguished scream was heard when I cut the edge right along my quilting, as I always do, instead of 1" out for a quick turned binding.

I need to recover from it for a couple more days before I post the end result.



In the meantime, I'm finishing up the diamond quilt being made for my sister inlaw. I wanted to make sure she was good with how all the fabrics were playing together. So we took an overhead photo using two synced bounce flashes and my aqua painted ladder. It was fun!



This is what the floor next to my sewing table looks like. I swipe the trimmed bits right off the edge as I go through all 52 of my diamonds.



Finally, Becket bought me a new sewing machine this weekend.

It's even aqua with red gingham!



Kirby's Yarn is a super cute Wii game if you haven't seen it yet.

The little yarn guy has adventures in sewing notions and patchwork or knit worlds.

IKEA cinnamon rolls and MDF - mmmmm!

The smell in the furniture pull warehouse, before you check out at IKEA - their cinnamon rolls mixed with MDF.  It just makes me happy for some reason.

They have some really pretty new fabrics in the textile section.  The colors are a little harsh here, as the display was shaded, outside.  But this soft, happy floral is only 3.99/yd, and would make great table runners and napkins.



And I somehow kept myself from buying all the napkins, plates, and trays in this new line.



Had to tour around the mini apartments.  Becket took off his shoes and wanted to move into the bunk house.



He loved the fabric panels and chair in the bathroom and wanted his picture taken with them :)

It's always a happy day at IKEA.

Fun Quilty Mail

Nothing better than happy mail arriving! Found this pair of really fun prints.

My pre-order of Angela Walter's book arrived last week.



Summer Flight!

Instagram Target!

Have you seen the new stuff at Target? What an awesome quilt tray!



Super cool mugs as well.

 I had to come home with the one on the right.



Hope you're having summer fun. Water balloon fight!!!