Sketch!!

Check out what I finally cut into!!! :) I chopped a 2" strip off of nearly all my Sketch FQ's! You'll see this in action soon! I'm proud of myself. I was really nervous cutting into it! Aren't they lovely??? I think the top and bottom are my favorite (the deep blue, and the lipstick pink).

DO you have some things to finish?

We're always WIP WIP WIP here... I'm a finisher; I love the thrill of finishing things (and the cuddling in the new quilts). Yet I've got so many random things that are not close to the finish line. So naturally I need you all to encourage me.

I'm going to make next week a great big "finish it up week." Who's with me? If I knew how to do a linky party I would, but I'm too lazy to go figure it out (and let's face it it'd cut into my sewing time tonight). So if you're in just leave me a comment and go blog about it. Tell us what you're going to finish - it can be one item or a ton of them! :) 

As for me, I'd like to finish my Bella Parade Quilt, assemble my bee quilt top, finish my My Precious QAL quilt. I'm sure there are a zillion other finishes on my list too. I just want to finish them! 

ps  Feel free to grab the picture up there, or from flickr here. I tried to post a box with the code... but my brain hurts too much for that!

Also a little reminder that you can post your progress etc in my flickr group if you're into that sort of thing.

RATZ June swap received, and other odds and ends.

Here's the lovely little swap package I recieved from Kris for the June RATZ (Rapid, Tiny, Zakka, swap)! They are so cute and perfect, and they came all the way from Germany! Pretty awesome aren't they? Kris totally had me pegged with the tiny piecing and the Heirloom fabrics! :) I'm really glad that they're mine!

Here you can see them lined up on my white-board in my sewing room. Yes those are the ones to be sent out to my partner below them. I didn't find the time to make a whole set of tiny, so I do hope my partner enjoys the button ones. I'll be sending the HST one too. :) I can't believe June is nearly over now! 

I haven't had a lot of designated sewing time recently. It's hard since I used to sew (or nap) during Allie's school day (about 3 hrs a day). Now not only do I not get that time, but I am also working more hours over the summer which means I'm exhausted more often than not! I'm hoping to get some good sewing time this weekend though!

Here's something I did manage to make. Earlier this week my work friend Mary came to sew, and so did Emily-- they finally met! :) I again didn't get a lot done when they were over, but I did manage to check over my old Singer machine (Wilma) so that a friend could borrow her. She's working well, although she's a little loud and slow (compared to my Juki!). I felt the need to give her a good test run, since I haven't sewn on that machine in a long time - so I made a couple tissue holders. One of them is going with the machine to my friend Martha - who's going to be sewing some wedding related things! :) The tag says "Something Blue" hehe. Doesn't everyone cry at weddings? Tissues are a must!

WIP Wednesday!

Practice run of binding seams for Bella Parade Quilt. It's going to work!!

Have I ever told you guys how much I love http://printablechecklist.org/ lol. I'm not a crazy OCD person, but I do love checking things off my lists! I make these lists up all the time... more often then I actually check them off.

My WIP list this week is a screen shot of my checklist. Maybe it'll help me get some stuff done this week! I'd like to see a couple of them checked - at least by completing the next step in the project. Yes, I just noticed that there are 12 items on this list (and I forgot one!). Haha. Always a lot of projects going on here. :) I need a sewing day where Wally takes Allie out for the day and lets me sew for hours at a time! That's what I need. 

This magical box arrived at my door yesterday -- the contents will be used in at least three of my WIP's! Do you love that I took a picture of the giant Pellon box? I couldn't help myself!

Linked up to WIP Wednesday!

Chicago Modern Quilt Guild

Yesterday's Chicago Modern Quilt Guild meeting marked the beginning of a new challenge. We're calling it the "Modern Art Challenge" and while the art choice doesn't need to be classified as modern art, we're encouraging a modern quilting take on various forms of art.

My CMQG Modern Art Challenge inspiration pic and fabrics.

Each participant brought a postcard sized image of the art of their choice, some personal details (likes, dislikes etc), and a FQ of fabric that represents their style. We had everyone sign in and choose a bag other than the one they brought - and we're off! We'll have the next two months to finish a doll size quilt inspired by the art their partner chose! I'm really excited about this (which is good because myself and the other Emily are leading it!).

Emily guiding the sign-in process. We were very thorough.
Hopefully that pays off and we'll have a smooth running swap!

Above is a picture of my art and fabrics. I really didn't intentionally pick a hard work of art... it's just the first thing that struck me as my favorite work of art. It's Bernini's Baldacchino (inside St. Pete's Basilica in Rome), and I love the texture and details. I by no means want a literal representation of it - but rather think that a lot of that texture and design could be translated into quilting and piecing - fabulously! :) Well that will be up to Sarah who drew my bag!

Natalie's art inspiration

I drew Natalie's bag, and I'm really inspired by it... in a weird way. I know that she loves Jacquie's style, and she has an open mind about this project, so I have TONS of ideas. I'm thinking of doing a random pixelization to mimic the dots (art people what do we call this type of painting?) using lots of solids and a few prints. I'll be doing some sketching here soon!

Blocks trimmed, fabrics on top are auditioning for the binding!

Other notes about the meeting, I got a lot of work done--- er. I got some work done. :) It was a sew-in day which pretty much means bring something to work on but be prepared to just chat the whole meeting away! I trimmed my Bella Solids quilted pieces - using Ebony's 20" square ruler (thanks Ebony!!). Man is it so much easier to square up big blocks with a HUGE ruler! :) The blocks are trimmed at 17" square and they're going to look great!

All that trimming left me with this! A lovely pile of scraps to be put into a doggy bed - made for shelter dogs!

Happy Father's Day!! ....yeah I know, I'm a week late!

I'd started this post last week -- then whatever happened it didn't get published. So there you have it, we're all human. 

Last weekend I was lucky enough to have my dad, mom, sister, and nieces in town for a visit. Really they were here to help out after my surgery since I wasn't allowed to lift Allie for a while after. (I'm pretty well healed up now by the way) The awesome thing though, is that this surgery went a zillion times better than the previous two, likely due to the fact that the anesthesiologist looked at my allergy info - who knew those drugs were full of propylene glycol --- I didn't! So my recovery has been much less gross and annoying. 

I didn't expect to be able to take my dad out on father's day! Here he is with the deli portion of his father's day gift -- there was a whole box full of the "hot counter" part too! :) We took him to this awesome little Italian deli nearby and he LOVED it! 

I had planned ahead for Wally's gift - Allie and I painted coffee mugs for him weeks before (and she may or may not have told him about the painting part)... either way the mugs turned out cute - dishwasher safe (as if we had a dishwasher), and useable. I wish I would have been able to find the paint pens (the ones I bought were all dried out), but the tubes of paint worked well enough and Allie enjoyed herself! She even painted the inside! lol. 

How to win 10 yards of Bella Solids!

Welcome guys to another episode of "How to win 10 yards of Bella Solids"

Here's what we had tutorials for in the past 5 weeks

 In Week # 1, Jane taught us how to make a cheat pillow or cushion cover!

Week # 2 had Kelly teaching us how to make this Chevron Rug

In Week # 3, Bryanna gave a wonderful demonstration of how to make this beautiful All Buttoned up Pouch

Week # 4, Elizabeth gave this wonderful tute to make a Chevron Laptop Sleeve

And in the last week, Shay showed us how to make this gorgeous Apron!

Now here's how you can win one HALF YARD bundle of the Bella Solids 2012.

You have to make something based on one of these 5 tutorials. It could be exactly like the ones shown here or it could be your own version of the tutorial.

You have to write a blog post ON YOUR OWN BLOG.

Fill this form to leave a link.

Last date of entries  July 01, 2012.

Winner will be announced on July 07, 2012.

Good luck!

FQS Bella Parade : Season 2 : Competition Entry Form

Please include as many details as possible. You can enter as many entries as you want. One form per entry.

* Required

Name *

Email *

What item did you make? *

•  Jane's Cheat Pillow Cover
•  Kelly's Chevron Rug
•  Bryanna's All Buttoned up Pouch
•  Elizabeth's Chevron Laptop Sleeve
•  Shay's Apron

Link to your blog post *

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