Quilt Market - Cowboy Quilt

A couple months ago I was sent some fabrics by Windham Fabrics -- with the goal in mind to make a mini quilt for their booth at quilt market. Well, when I signed up I wasn't quite expecting the fabrics I recieved. Cowboy fabric is not exactly my favorite thing. But I'd agreed to do the project (and on a tight pre-market timeline I couldn't leave them hanging)... so I made a mini. 

My quilt uses the Weather-vane quilt block (inspiration here). When I sat down to make the quilt, without feeling initially inspired by the cowboy themed fabric, I went to my "Quilt blocks to try" pinterest board. I always find that helpful. At least I tried a new block. 

I quilted it with a stretched meander and sent it on it's way. This quilt was hung with the other mini's in the Windham Fabrics booth at Quilt Market. I know I've seen pictures of it there, but I can't seem to find any of them online. So rather than make you see the blurry "screenshot from instagram" pics, these are all my own pics. 

Finished size: 18" x 18"

Jaybird Quilts Sew Along!

I almost forgot! Head on over to Sara's blog to see my stop on the Jaybird Quilts Sew Along! I made the Mini Disco quilt! This little guy measures in at just 12.5" x 15.5" and it was a lot of fun to make!

Doll Quilt Swap 14 - and new traditions.

It's 8:00 on Friday morning. Friday. One of my only days to sleep in. Well, those days are over I guess. Allie and I have started a new tradition. Friday morning I wake up BEFORE her (ugh). And once she's up I make breakfast and coffee. She sits next to me watching cartoons (It's The Magic School Bus today), and I sit next to her and catch up on email stuff - for just a few minutes. So far it's working and she's happier. I guess maybe Friday's can be my one morning to write a blog post? 

I'm still working hard at work and working hard at home to find a couple nights a week to dive into my sewing. It's not an easy thing - I miss my 3am sewing sessions! 

The past few weeks I've been pushing myself to finish my Doll Quilt Swap mini. Today is the due date for it and I just finished on Weds!! My swap partner had very simple requests (one sentence). After a bit of stalking her flickr I realized that her style is pretty similar to mine. She likes Anna Maria Horner and Tula Pink, she likes saturated colors and low volume texty backgrounds. With that I got started sketching. 

My sketches were all over the place but ultimately I went with this layout because I wanted to sew these blocks. I've been looking for an excuse to try these arrows. 

I used some favorite fabrics and I'm a little surprised that I managed to use so much of that Sweetwater newsprint fabric (it's OOP and I love it). I knew my partner would love it too though, so it's worth it!

Now for the details. The cross stitch blocks were made following Alyssa / Pile O' Fabric's tutorial. They finished at 2". The arrows were pieced freely (no pattern, just playing around) they finished at 3.5" x 16". The total quilt measures 16" x 21". 

I'm mailing this little quilt to my partner today and I sure hope she loves it!!

Hello old friend...

Today I had a day off. 

(I've been so behind on blogging recently that you all don't even know that I'm working full time again now. No more 2.5 days a week. :( but on the plus side that means we have an easier time making our bills!) 

Part of my new sewing area! Bigger table, tiny stash shelf, drawers of notions. I also kept my old wardrobe for big storage.

I shouldn't blame the lack of sewing / blogging on the increase in work hours... but I guess that contributed. 

Sewing table! My new table is so much bigger -- that's an 18" x 26" mat. Whew!

Also - we moved! Whew - I'll be glad if I don't have to do that again anytime soon!

Today while Allie was at school (a new, fabulous, awesome school -- the major reason we moved)... I finally sorted out my sewing space. It's a shared space with our bedroom - which luckily is a nice big room with lots of sunlight!

Jelly Belly's help with FMQing!

So. I sewed today. 

I grabbed a "project bag" of scraps that I'd sorted by color palate way back before the move, and I set off to make a doll quilt. No sense in trying to tackle any huge project right off -- it had been more than two weeks since I'd sewn, and never before in this house -- so simple and non-thinking seemed about right.

I really wished I had had more of the Moda Bella Strawberry, but those little bits were literally the last bits I had on hand! Other than that I love how this turned out. I used only what was in the project bag, and those were tiny scraps! 

I managed to finish the quilt with enough time to take pictures before Allie got home from school! This little one finished at about 11" x 15" 

Hopefully this is the start back to quilting several times a week, and blogging just as often! :) Thanks for bearing with me while I got my stuff together!

Sweet tiny mini quilts!

I've been spending the past week or two working little by little one some tiny quilts. I finished two of them up last night. 

First up I have a tiny string quilt - the blocks measure just 2.5" square. These blocks were the practice blocks for my Doll Quilt Swap 11 quilt which I had sent to Maria. I had set these blocks aside in an envelope marked "make a doll quilt for myself like Maria's DQS." I finally did it. Of course I didn't have the same amount of blocks, or the fancy teeny NY Beauty for the back like the one I made for Maria did, but it's still pretty fun. 

The blocks are floating in a border of natural linen, backed with orange solid and bound with a fabulously bossy Anna Maria Horner print. I'm really pretty happy with this little guy. The quilting could have gone a bit smoother. I used a thicker batting than normal (some sample that I had, I'm not sure what it was), that and the linen paired with the fact that I don't have a working walking foot meant I had a little bit of stretching happen. Nothing too bad, and it has relaxed a bit today and is less noticeable, but it's annoying. 

The second mini has been pieced and quilted for a couple weeks now. I've been trying to get a minute to bind it, and that finally happened last night! This one is a tiny baby quilt - for my college friend. I'll do the full reveal later this week since it has a deeper story.