Sewing Machine Cover

I finished my Sewing Machine Cover and just LOVE the way it turned out!

 

 

 

Paper Pieced BOM

I joinded the And Sew On Block of the month.  It's a cute sewing themed block of the month.  I like to paper piece so I thought it would be fun.  I had trouble finding the tape measure fabric for January's block.  The block turned out ok, but I'm not sure if the color scheme is really going to work as we move on to the other blocks.  I have to go fabric shopping for some sewing themed fabric before next month.

WIP Wednesday: 1/2/2013

This week, now that the Christmas quilting is done, I worked on my Shoo Fly quilt.  I got my inspiration here.  I am really excited about this one.


 

I am also finally working on a quilted sewing machine cover.  I found this one that I loved, and had to try.
 

 

 

I'm linking up:

WIP Wednesday; Plugging along

I have all the Christmas mini quilt tops done.  I hope to work on basting them together tonight so I can get them quilted this week.
 

 

I did take a little break from them to get the last quilt top I have from my guild's retreats basted together, as well as my littlest guys I spy quilt.  He's been asking for it on a regular basis.  Since his birthday is coming up on the 22nd I figured it would make a great birthday present.  I have it about a third of the way quilted now.  I'm just doing a simple loopy design on it. 

 

I've attended my guild retreat for 3 years, and each year I piece a new quilt.  Then the tops get added to the WIP list.  I decided they would be finished before the next retreat.  I have two done, which I need to write a post about at some point.  I'm not sure how I'll quilt this retreat quilt, but I love the grey backing I found for it.
 

 

 

 

I'm linking up:

Progress

I've made a little progress with my Christmas mini quilts that I will be giving as Christmas presents this year.  I found the cute Tree Study quilt idea here, one of them is staying with me.  Six down, two to go!  Then it's time to quilt them all.

 

WIP Wednesday; Christmas Mini Quilts

I'd like to say I have more complete on these then I do since Christmas is coming rather quickly.  I need to make 6 to 8 of these.  I have three tops done now.  I'm using the same fabric in all of them, just trying to come up with different ways to use them in the quilts.

 

 

I also got my jelly roll quilt top done.  I'm not sure I love it, but I figure at least I used the Jelly Roll rather then just let it lay around for ever. Thanks to my little helper for doing his best to hold the quilt top up. 

 

 

I'm linking up:

 

 

The Day I got distracted again.

In the midst of the Christmas projects I am working on I saw this quilt http://sotakhandmade.blogspot.com/2012/09/shoo-fly-block-tutorial.html and had to get started on it.  So I'm allowing myself to make a block for it in between work on the projects I need to be doing.  Sort of a rewards system I guess.

But then I reorganized my sewing stuff because I bought this piece of furniture for more storage space.  In the process of organizing I found a jelly roll I won.  I jumped online to find a way to use it as it is just collecting dust.  So I found the jelly roll race quilt and figured it looked like a quick way to use up the jelly roll.

I'll get back to the Christmas presents someday right??

Baby Quilt

My friend is having a baby in December.  Being the slacker that I am I waited til the weekend of the shower to make her gift.  It's not like I had plenty of warning to get the quilt made.  I mean seriously, I knew before she was pregnant that she was trying to have a baby.  So Friday afternoon I went to the fabric store and picked out some gender nuetral fabrics in bright primary colors. 

Cut all the fabric Friday night, made and quilted the quilt Saturday, and hand sewed the binding Sunday before leaving for the shower.  I love how it turned out. 

 

 

 

It felt good to make something, haven't had the time to fire up the sewing machine since back in the spring.  Hopefully I'll be able to stick with updating the blog and doing some quilting through the winter.  When Spring comes again and it's calving season, and planting season all bets are off again.

The one with the endless half square triangles...

I wanted to make something in black and white.  I was a little obsessed with all the chevron quilts I was seeing on blogs, so it seemed a perfect fit.  I think I'll be making black and white half square triangles forever since I decided making this quilt for my bed would be a great idea.

It's been a long time

I haven't been on a blog or flickr for 6 or 7 months.  Life got a little out of control and I just wasn't able to get online for these things for so long.  It's been crazy.   I haven't touched my poor sewing machine in forever, it probably forgets how to work.

Making progress, and a win!

Progress continues!  Binding is ready for the hourglass quilt I just quilted.

I'm not a lucky person, I can count on my fingers the number times I've won giveaways.  The other day was my lucky day!  I won Aurofil thread on the Sew Fantastic blog.  I LOVE Aurifil.

Started work on my April MiniQT Swap quilt.  This month is ticker tape quilts.  I hope my partner will like it.  Here is just a tiny glimpse.

WIP Wednesday

It's hard to believe but I finished quilting and binding the pinwheel quilt I was working on.  (Pictures later this week, just haven't had the time.)  While I was on this "get them done kick" I decided to grab another one and get to quilting.  I basted it together at my mom's on Saturday because I don't have a large enough floor space to do it.  I'm about 1/2 done.  Hopefully it'll be totally complete by the weekend.  That will leave one more quilt to go, three years of quilt retreat projects almost complete!

Apparently my dog is a big fan, he plopped right down on it when I laid it out just to see how the quilting was working out.

March/April S.T.U.D. mini quilt received

After taking a year off from swapping I decided I missed doing it and the fun packages that come in the mail.  I jumped back into the STUD (swap til you drop) swap on Flickr.  Last week I got this beautiful mini quilt in the mail from CASharp.  The packaging was beautiful, so I got really excited from the start.

And the quilt surely was more then I expected.  So beautiful!

And she included so many goodies along with the quilt, I feel so spoiled. 

 (sadly blogger wont upload the picture for some reason)

I have her quilt all done except the binding.  I plan to finish that up this week and get it sent off. I do love swapping, glad to be back at it.

I'm trying to machine quilt. 

I'm not sure it's very successful, but I must keep trying because my WIP need finished...

Of course the desire to finish things didn't keep me from dreaming about new projects.  Black and white is on my brain.  I didn't only dream I shopped.

And a little color never hurt anyone either.

I feel a rainbow quilt of some type is in my future.

And I'm sewing

I decided it was probably not a wise idea to start a fresh project.  I really wanted to, but in the end I opted to work on some of my WIP's.  I participated in two I Spy swaps last year, and just never did anything with them.  I am happy to say one little boy's I Spy top is done.  The other is well on it's way.  As soon as they are done I will cut into my new pretty fabrics.  Not that there aren't other projects to be finished first.

This time I mean it...

I am feeling creative again.  Honestly I have not used my sewing machine in months.  Now that the boys are back in school I have time on my hands and the desire to sew.  My mom, sister, and I went to Joann Fabrics to get some fabric because the first project on my list is fabric shopping bags.  I didn't have any fabric that I really wanted to use for this project.  I usually don't have much luck finding fabric I like there, but this time I found more then what I actually needed. 

I'm also working on a sewing area.  To this point I have just been using the kitchen table to sew, and honestly it's a real pain because I constantly have to put it away to use the table.  Now with the boys in school, I am taking over a corner of the playroom to use as a sewing area.  It's not a beautiful sewing room like many people have, but at least it's an area where I can leave my sewing stuff set up. 

I'm going to go get started on a project now.

I'm working on this bali briefcase pattern.

These strips and this project

are making me slightly nutty.

I'm finally sewing again

I've been way too busy with the cattle to do very much sewing all summer long, but finally with the shows over until January and two mornings a week with no kids at home, I can sew. I haven't been able to follow any of my quilting friends blogs recently, but will have to get caught up. Last night I started I Spy quilts for the boys. I had participated in two I spy swaps but just didn't have time to do anything with the blocks. I am going to make 9 patches and then sash them with a yet to be determined fabric. I'm excited to be able to sew and be a little creative again.

Zig Zag Mini Quilt

Yesterday I received my April STUD (Swap til you drop) Mini Swap Quilt. It was made for me by QuiltyBee. I just LOVE it!

I joined a few of these swaps on flickr and am having a blast with them! I'm trying to figure out where/how I want to display these adorable little quilts. I can't quite decide if I want to put them all on one wall or sprinkle them throughout the house. I couldn't contain myself this month and signed up to make 4 of them. The good thing is they really don't take long to do since they have to be under 15X15 inches. I also know that May is probably the last month until school starts again that I can really spend the time doing them.

Little pincushions

A while ago I had found a tutorial about making little tiny pincushions from plastic lids. I can't find it right now, but will update the post with a link when I can. Here are two that I made. They are so simple, probably took about 5 minutes to make the pair. I need to save lids so I can make a bunch more. I think they would make great little gifts.