Creativity helps cure the blahs.

As you could probably tell from my post yesterday, I've been a bit blah. 

Today I fixed it (at least temporarily) by finishing my Pillow Talk {Swap} pillows! Finished that's right! I quilted one with a free motion stipple, I'm not entirely sure I'm in love with the way the stipple distracts from the stars, but I do LOVE the texture it lends. So for the second one I did a strait line quilt just at the edge of each square border. I may need to hand stitch a stitch or so in the middle to keep it perfect (batting is ok for quilting up to 10" apart, this area is 13" ... I think). I like both so much!!!

I decided to add interfacing to the back sides of the back pieces, mostly to cover the seam allowances from the piecing I did back there. It added a bit more sturdiness and durability to it. I'm very very pleased with the pink / yellow pattern-y stripe for that little bound edge!

I finished a quilt today...

but it doesn't come close to canceling out the rest of the crappy day. I'm not sure about you, but not being pregnant sucks. I'm going to get that out there right now. And on top of that trying to get pregnant for a year and a half sucks even more. And on top of that having one's landlord revoke use of the laundry facilities (for an unknown reason, by way of note on our doorstep - wuss!) sucks even more.

Now I have to go talk to the landlord tomorrow. Who knows what the issue is, but it's surely not easy getting laundry done as is - with a curious two year old - and a basement that has power tools laying around (the basement where the laundry is). It's certainly not going to be easier to have to PAY for laundry, AND leave the house for hours at a time to do it! Ack! Makes me wish we still had a lease.

Maybe the sun will be out tomorrow so I can show you the finished quilt.

Fabric Tuesday!!!

 Some of you may recognise some blocks from this quilt -- since you made them! That's right, Rosemarie's Cancer Killing Quilt and Katee's matching one are very nearly finished!!! I was on a major time crunch to finish Katee's (it was just a strip of blocks and an idea a week ago), since she and I will be working on hand stitching the bindings down on these two this week at Thanksgiving! All I need to do before we leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow is sew on that binding to Katee's quilt! I hadn't been worying too much about getting Katee's done too, but then my mom (who watches Katee while her parents are away with Rosemarie for her treatments) mentioned that Katee's really excited to see her quilt! I couldn't let that sweet 10 year old down!

Stopping in for the first time and don't understand what I'm talking about? Here's the first post and all the others. The short end of the story is that my four year old niece has cancer. She's been battling for three years and it makes me crazy that there's nothing I can do to make it better. We've rallied the forces and people from all over the world (I think like 6 countries... though I'd have to go back and count) have sent me pink and purple quilt blocks to make her and her older sister (Katee) quilts (since of course you can't make something for one sister and not the other). This project has warmed my soul in ways I can't describe. You all are amazing!

 Here are those raw edges, soon to be covered over with binding! It looks great doesn't it? The bindings (and back of Katee's quilt) are very scrappy. I used up almost all of everything that people had so very generously sent along with the blocks. These quilts are going to make AWESOME Christmas gifts! :)

Don't forget to head over to Quiltstory to see all the other goodies linked up for fabric Tuesday!

Pouches...

I need to make more of these. Here are some tutorials gathered up from other people!

Gathered Clutch from Noodlehead
Little Zippered Pouch also from Noodlehead
Fully Lined Zippered Box Pouch from It's a Pretty Modern Life (I made two of these a couple weeks ago and LOVE it. My sis requested another, bigger one for all her toiletries.)
Zippered Dopp Kit by the Purl Bee (this might just be the size the sister is looking for, but I don't think it'd be as sturdy or as cool as the box pouch. It's all a matter of whether or not I want to try to enlarge measurements for a tutorial. It probably wouldn't be too hard right?)

Oh and napkins. I need to make a set of these for a wedding gift!

Mitered Cloth Napkins by Heather Bailey

Dreaming...

of sewing with this sweet fabric.

Yep. I have that very fat quarter stack I just can't decide what type of quilt I want to make with it. I'd really like to use lots of Kona Ash with it, and probably some Kona Coal. I've contemplated using a single irish chain like this one

 

Only in a larger size (as this was a large doll quilt). 

Here are some other options.

Right now I'm really leaning toward either # 5, 6, or 12. Why does having a great selection of coordinating fabrics that I love make me so petrified to cut them? I want to play with the fabric, but I really want to use it for a full sized quilt, not broken up into a million little projects. I'm afraid if I use it for any little projects I'll not have enough to make a quilt from it. I'm cheep - it was a big thing for me to buy myself this fabric in the first place! 

 Either way, I have to finish quilting Katee's quilt first... (which means I have to finish piecing the back!). And I need to get that done by thanksgiving. I also need (want) to finish assembling my pillow talk swap pillow(s). But I really can't keep this fabric out of my mind! :)

A little home decorating.

 

Here's a sweet display in front of my cutting table in the sewing room. A pic of the baby, some finger painting, an unfinished little quilt top, and some ric-rac garland!

 Today, a need to clean/organize the house turned into an opportunity to hang some quilts for decoration! Above is a pic of my the gorgeous DQS9 quilt that I received - now hanging on my sewing room wall.

 

Here is a little display in Allie's room. I plan to add a couple little girlie doll quilts here too, once I make them. The word cloud is from www.wordle.com (you have to download a tool that will take a screen shot of your wordle, then print it in color. The frame is a vinyl decal I got for $2 at Target, I'm kicking myself for not buying the other pack of them!

Finally here's a quilt I've been wanting to post about. No, I didn't make it. This was made for DH when he was born, by a friend of his grandmother. I believe it was machine pieced and definitely hand quilted (impeccably!). It has spent it's first 27 years in a box in a closet (maybe in the attic?). So the dilemma is, is it worse to hang it and risk a bit of damage over the years, or to hide it away in a closet for the rest of it's existence? I think it's too beautiful to hide. It was never ever used since my mother-in-law was afraid to mess it up. I think the first time my husband ever recalled seeing it was when I pulled it out of the closet!

Two Christmas presents done!

Today I finished the quilted Mod Bento Block pillow for a Christmas gift! I'm not sure if the person who will recieve this reads my blog regularly. So I'm not going to mention who it's for. :) Hehe... I like how it turned out, even though I had a couple problems with the assembly. One of which was running out of that generic yellow thread that I quilted it with (which came in a bin from my grandma)! I ended up finishing the rest of it with the bobbin, then adding a bit more quilting with brown on the one edge. I don't think it looks bad... but that was very frustrating. 

Another thing, when doing free motion quilting, always be sure to pull your bobbin thread up after replacing the bobbin. I somehow forgot this, and ended up punching several holes through my feed dog cover! Now that's a powerful machine! I'll have to take some pictures of it tomorrow. It looks like it got into a shoot-out!

Then after completing this I decided to move on to the next present. I don't think my brother reads this at all, so I think I'm safe to tell you all that I made him a "transformer's" pillowcase. Several months ago my brother went to a toga party, and bought several yards of cheep transformer's fabric to wear as a toga... after the party he passed the fabric to me knowing that I sew. lol. Well he's getting more than just the pillowcase, but I think he'll like it anyway. :)

As always, linking up to Fabric Tuesday on Quiltstory