TLC Stitches

Down but not out

2011-10-24T22:23:00.001-07:00

I have a sewing room now! The down side is I can’t do any sewing in it yet. Let me back up a month and tell you what is going on. We sold our house and partway through packing I hurt my already bad back much worse. It was the most excruciating pain I have ever been in and I have had two babies! I think it didn’t help that it lasted a whole lot longer than both my labors combined. My very sweet husband worked from home and took care of me, my wonderful friends from church stepped in and brought dinners for my family and helped pack my house. They were amazing!

We are now moved into my parent’s house with them while we are having a house built. My very generous mom cleared space for me to have a sewing area. She has these great Ikea storage cabinets and is letting me use half of them to store most of my quilting supplies and fabric.

It is still a bit messy because I am still recovering and can’t get in there to organize or do any quilting. It is killing me not to be able to spend hours in there ever day creating.

I have been doing some knitting while I lay in my back chair so that helps me pass the time and I am enjoying it. And it helps to have all ten seasons of Friends on DVD.

I have an appointment to go see an acupuncturist, one of the few things I haven’t tried these last ten years dealing with my back. I also have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon so I can hopefully get an MRI and see if anything has changed and if I am finally open to talking about surgery and if it would even help.

In the meantime I am so happy my parents moved up here to Washington and that we have this time with them. We are having a lot of fun with them and I am so happy for my kids to have this time with them too.

Countdown to Christmas

2011-09-23T13:32:00.001-07:00

Have you started feeling that way yet? That Christmas is right around the corner and the countdown has begun?

Have you started working on Christmas projects yet?

I made this cute Christmas quilt out of the fabric line Countdown to Christmas by Sweetwater. I used the Schnibbles pattern George.

It takes two charm packs and some yardage. This fabric line is so cute! I love how Sweetwater has words, letters, and/or numbers in all their fabric lines.

If you love this quilt and want to make one of your own then head over to The Quilted B.com and pick up a kit of your own.

Good news! We sold our house! Hooray! So I have been busy packing and getting ready for our move. So I don’t know that I will get a lot of sewing done for the next few weeks but I will have a sewing room real soon!!

Christmas?

2011-09-05T13:12:00.001-07:00

It really is never too early to work on Christmas projects. Especially since I usually start them after Thanksgiving and then there isn’t enough time to finish everything on my list. The nice thing is that Barb from The Quilted B asked me to make this. I always do better on someone else’s schedule!

The poinsettias are fused on and stitched around by machine.

I made the binding on the bias to give it that wonderful barber pole look. I love the cute little button backing.

My next project is another Christmas one and I get to play with Sweetwater’s Countdown to Christmas. So cute!

See you again soon!

DQS11

2011-08-26T16:53:00.001-07:00

I just can’t seem to resist signing up for the Doll Quilt Swap on Flickr. It is such a great swap and so much fun. It is a secret swap where stalking your partner is encouraged. Who knew stalking could be so fun! (scary!) The person you give to and the person you receive a quilt from are two different people. My partner was the famous Terrie Sandelin who has a published book called Miniatures in Minutes. She likes the designer Aneela Hoey and I happened to have some Sherbet Pips so I designed a fun little quilt using some Sherbet Pips and coordinating stash. Here is what I sent off to Terrie along with some civil war reproduction fabric since she is a fan…

I got a thank you note from Terrie and she loves it! Hooray!!

Can you believe that was my first attempt at wonky maverick stars? Yep, and they are really fun too! Someday I would love to make a bigger quilt with them.

A few days after I sent my quilt off I received a little surprise in the mail for me!

Isn’t it cute! I love the colors and the cute design. Jeanette (scrapnchick on flickr) sent me this and I love it. It is temporarily living in my daughter’s room on her dresser because it matches her room perfectly. We needed something to sit on her dresser to look nice while we have the house for sale and it works beautifully. Jeanette sent me some fun goodies. Lots of trim, a flower pin to dress up a sweater or blouse, a magnetic pin to hold my needle when I am hand sewing, and the tiniest little block I have ever seen. Fun!

Teacups and Pumpkins

2011-08-03T08:33:00.001-07:00

What in the world do those two have to do with each other? They are two projects that I recently finished for Barb from The Quilted B.

First is this pretty quilt. The fabric in this quilt is Penelope by Lakehouse and it is so beautiful.

The border on this quilt was the trickiest I have ever done. I had to match the gingham on all four sides! It was not easy but so worth the effort in the result that it gives.

I pieced the back because well…I just can’t help myself! Something about a pieced back finishes off the quilt better and is more satisfying. It’s like as the quilt hangs on the wall it has a secret and only I know what it is.

When I get this one back I think it will hang in my future dining room. (still staying positive over here that my house will sell)

I also made this cute little runner. Isn’t it so perfect for fall?

As always, Barb has these both in kit form if you would like to make one of your own. Just look on her website or send her an e-mail.

Summer Stitching

2011-07-23T17:17:00.001-07:00

Well that ended up being an very long unintended blog break. I have had lots of ~~excuses~~ reasons but we don’t need to go into all of them. I have been busy with lots of things and sewing and knitting too! I am glad I have things to share.

My kids are home, and it is summer (kind of) here in the Pacific Northwest, and both of those make me so happy. Someone asked me if we were going to go get the kids’ school supplies soon and I thought no way, we have loads of time. But we don’t and that makes me sad. This is my daughter’s last year at middle school and my son’s first. I am glad they will have one year there together.

My dad retired earlier this year and my mom and dad moved to the Seattle area from California (where I grew up) to live near my sisters and I. It is so fun to have them here and to get to see them so often. Fun for my kids to have a grandma and grandpa nearby. They are having a new house built and it will be done in the next week or so and they can move in! Very exciting!

Like I said, I have been busy sewing for Gail from The Quilted Gypsy. She has a knack for putting fabric together and I have a lot of fun working on her samples.

Tori Q

(what a cute little hand that wanted to get in the picture)

Garden View

Lotus Purse

I got to make two versions of this fun pattern. When my daughter saw these she fell in love and asked me to make her one. So I am hoping to do just that in time for her upcoming birthday.

I meet my knitting friends at the library every week and we have all been knitting the same shawl. It has been so fun to see how everyone’s shawl turns out. I just have the border left on mine and I have decided to add beads to it. I have always wanted to try adding beads to my knitting and I am excited to have found a good project to try it out on. My daughter, the jewelry making expert, helped me pick out the beads and my friend, Betsy, showed me how to put them on as I knit. It is easy and fun and hopefully I will have a finished shawl to show you soon!

-Insert clever title here-

2011-06-13T11:40:00.001-07:00

I finished this quilt top recently for my friend Gail, The Quilted Gypsy. I sew for her and really enjoy it. She has such an eye for putting fabric together. Lots of times they are bold and fun like this quilt.

This pattern is called The Big EZ and is quite popular right now around my quilt guild. It shows off big prints beautifully and is lots of fun to make. If you ever see anything you like that I make for Gail, you can contact her and order one for yourself!

At the beginning of this month I was supposed to have these Jagged socks done from my self imposed sock club. It was during my ‘woe is me’ faze of trying to quilt and have my house on the market and for some reason that spilled over into not knitting. So it looks like these are going to take me a little longer.

I did pick up the needles again recently to knit myself some dishcloths since mine are all worn out and need thrown away. I love this dishcloth pattern. It is really fun to knit and very pretty when it is done. But it does use more yarn than a normal dishcloth so I don’t know if I will have enough. I might just close it up wherever I finish or add in a sliver of another color. We will see!

I also started a shawl called 198 yards of Heaven, but that name won’t work for mine since I am using a fingering weight yarn instead of a worsted weight yarn so it will be more like 398 yards of Heaven.

I had a lot of questions about my design wall and I wanted to tell you more about it. I did do a post about it when I got it and raved about it then and there was a link to where I bought it two posts ago but some of you didn’t catch it. I bought it online at Vanishing Design Wall.com (that’s a link you can click and it will take you there).

I bought mine with the honey finish. I absolutely love it. My blocks stick to it with no pinning necessary. It works like a shade. You give it a little tug and it retracts back up into a roll under the shelf, with your blocks still on there!! It’s especially nice when you don’t have a sewing room. You can put it above a closet or high on a wall. So there are all the details so you can get one for yourself if you like!

Solid Doors

2011-06-10T11:35:00.001-07:00

I wanted to show you a little more of my quilt from the quilt show. I am totally crazy for this quilt and love that every inch of it is Kona solids, my favorite. The pattern for this quilt is from American Patchwork & Quilting magazine April 2010 issue.

I made the top back at a retreat last year and I set it aside, not sure how I wanted to quilt it and fearing that I would ruin it.

I got up the nerve to quilt it after trying out the technique on the mini version that I made and sent off to New Zealand for the Doll Quilt Swap.

For the back I used one from every color I used on the front (except the teal sashing) to make a rainbow. They are varying heights but they are all the same width. I sat down and sketched out my design on paper, figured out some measurements, and then went for it. I love how it turned out.

I wished there was some way to have the back showing at the quilt show.

I love how the quilting looks on the back too.

I knew this quilt needed a wow binding so I used my Faux Piped Binding Tutorial to give the binding this pop of color. Because the quilt is big, I wanted that pop of color to really show so I cut my accent strips 2” wide instead of 1 3/4” like it states in the tutorial.

I have been so happily surprised to the overwhelming response to my Faux Piped Binding tutorial. I love hearing about how it has worked for you and seeing the beautiful quilts you have made using the technique. I am more than happy for you to continue to share it with your friends and to link to my tutorial on your blogs.

Thanks for letting me share my latest favorite finished quilt with you!

Design Wall

2011-06-06T10:13:00.001-07:00

I absolutely love my design wall and can’t believe I did without one for so long. As you know I don’t have a sewing room and I sew at the dining room table AND my house is on the market so I need to be able to do a quick clean up. This design wall retracts up under the shelf even with all my blocks still on it! Awesome!

So today my design wall looks like this…

This is a sample for my friend, Barb owner of The Quilted B. Isn’t is so cute! The fabric is Lakehouse Penelope. Just wait until I get the borders on, quilt it, and bind it. It is going to be gorgeous! I can’t wait!

Quilt Show! (part deux)

2011-05-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful Featured Artist from our guild for the show. This is Barb Frazier and she is a talented quilter and a funny lady. Her wonderful booth was so cozy with so much eye candy.

She had some antique quilts that her two grandmothers had made. Those two women were so important in her life and taught her to quilt. I’m so sad I didn’t get a picture of her display of their quilts and their pictures.

Barb is known for being a scrap quilter. She makes wonderful scrap quilts. Here is a quilt she entered in the show made from blocks we all made for her as a thank you for being a wonderful president of our guild years ago. I love how she set all those little kitty blocks.

Here is another quilt Barb had in the show. It is from a pattern called Fire Escape.

And this fun one Barb made is called Kitty City.

Here are the rest of the quilts that I took pictures of from the show.

I hope you enjoyed seeing all these wonderful quilts and that they have inspired you.

Quilt Show!

2011-05-27T11:37:00.001-07:00

Thanks for all your nice comments and ideas to make my quilting life a little easier while we are trying to sell our house. I have put all my must have notions in a box. And made project boxes so all I have to carry in from the garage is a couple boxes. I slipped my cutting board and ruler under my couch and left my sewing machine on a chair in the corner of my dining room. So no more excuses or whining. It is time to make it work!

My guild, Evergreen Piecemakers, had a quilt show last weekend and it was wonderful. Such a nice variety of quilting styles, there was something for everybody. The week before I was free-motion quilting like mad to finish one of my entries into the show. I had the top done a year ago. I will have to do a post on just this quilt but for now here are some pics.

This is the largest quilt I have ever free-motion quilted. And I used a Faux Piped Binding on this quilt and it was the perfect touch.

I also entered this one…

And this one…

Enough about me. I want to show you all the gorgeous quilts my friends have made.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more!

Dropped the ball

2011-05-15T14:41:00.001-07:00

I have seriously felt lately like I have dropped the ball in regards to my blog and my two loves, quilting and knitting. We put our house on the market and to make the house more appealing we had to move my beautiful sewing center out to the garage to open up the dining room more. So instead of having everything at my fingertips in the dining room where I have always sewn, it is put away. I do love how clean and spacious my dining room is now but my quilting has taken a serious hit. If I want to sew now I have to take a dozen trips out to the garage to bring my supplies inside to the kitchen table. And if I get a call that someone wants to see the house I have to pack it up quickly so everything looks perfect again. So most days even though I would love to sew, I don’t have the energy to get all set up for it. It is really bumming me out that I am not quilting every day and that has also spilled over into my knitting too, which shouldn’t be affected by it because I can knit anywhere and it takes no set up. Even though it makes no sense and I can tell myself reasons why I shouldn’t let my circumstances stop me, I am not making it work very well. I think mentally I have already moved and have my own sewing room where I can steal away for a few minutes with a current project that I didn’t have to clean up so we could eat dinner. I think because of that, I am less satisfied with what I am currently dealing with. I just keep telling myself that with the way houses aren’t selling right now, I need to figure out how to make my situation work now. I even said to my 12 year old daughter and 10 year old son, “Wouldn’t you love to share a room with each other?” In which my daughter replied, “I really don’t think that’s appropriate, Mom.” Oh well, it was worth a try. Maybe someday I will have a sewing room and it won’t be because I stole it from one of my kids.

I did promise you some pictures from the retreat I felt so lucky to be able to go to. I think I enjoyed it more than usual because I got to sew all weekend. It was heaven! One of the projects I worked on was this quilt designed by Anita called Bloomin’ Pinwheels. This is an almost an all stash quilt. I need to put another border on it and then it will be ready for quilting.

One of the things I love about retreats is getting to know the women in my guild and being inspired by them and the projects they are working on. I sat across the table from Roseann and really enjoyed talking with her and seeing what she was working on. She was working on a quilt that absolutely fascinated me. She took this fabric…

Cut it up within the repeat of the pattern, sewed it back together and got this…

It was a class she had taken and I just love the concept and look of it.

Here is another quilt that Roseann worked on that weekend…

Cindy made this fun quilt…

Lucy played with some black and white fabric. I love how she added the pop of color.

Ruth made this fun kid’s quilt.

Here’s Barb modeling one of her wallet purses that she makes. She cracks me up!

Barb made this very cool quilt. I think she said it was called Chinese Puzzle.

Isn’t it pretty? I love how she quilted it.

By the way… Barb is the Featured Artist at our quilt show coming up this weekend. So if you live in the Seattle area come meet Barb and see some incredible quilts (and mine too, haha) at the Kent Commons in Kent, Washington on Saturday May 21st and Sunday May 22nd. You won’t want to miss it!

Island Baby Quilt

2011-05-02T08:25:00.001-07:00

I finished a baby quilt for my very good friend, Nia. She is having a baby boy and they are going to name him Toa. She is Samoan and I just love the meaning behind the name they have chosen for their son. Toa means strong/warrior.

I finished this quilt up at a quilting retreat I was lucky enough to attend. I wasn’t signed up for this one but a friend, Irene, offered me her spot when she realized that she wouldn’t be able to go. I was so excited. I love retreats for not only the hours and hours of uninterrupted sewing time I get but also that I get to know the other women in my guild so much better. I just couldn’t resist the gorgeous grounds to take pictures of the finished quilt.

Years ago I won these island prints from a giveaway that Jodi over at Pleasant Home was hosting. I have saved them and when I found out Nia was pregnant I knew I wanted to use these fabrics for a quilt for her baby. The blue is Kona Candy Blue and I used a wonderfully soft flannel for the back.

I wasn’t sure how the quilting would go with flannel since I haven’t every quilted with a flannel backing before. It went well, although I was going to just keep it really simple with some straight line sewing. But my friend, Barb, suggested free motion quilting a motif along the columns of island fabrics. She drew a few ideas for me and I settled on these half hearts. I love how it turned out.

I’ll post more retreat pictures soon!

Washington D.C.

2011-04-21T09:10:00.001-07:00

We took a trip to our nation’s capitol for Spring Break this year. My husband and I spent three days there the first year we were married. We were so excited to take our kids and spend more time exploring than we did 14 years ago. We unknowingly planned our trip to Washington D.C. during the Cherry Blossom Festival. Although we didn’t take part in any of the festivities, we did enjoy the beautiful cherry trees in bloom.

United States Capitol

At 12 and 10 years old my kids are the perfect age for a trip through history. They loved every minute of it as much as we did. We took some time to learn ahead of time about the places we were going to see. I think that made everything even more exciting for them.

Washington Monument

My kids favorite was the Lincoln Memorial.

It is awesome how big this statue is.

The Lincoln Memorial

We learned some funny things too. My son was especially excited to see the Jefferson Memorial because he thought it was hilarious that it is nicknamed the Jefferson muffin.

Jefferson Memorial

We toured the Supreme Court building and sat in the courtroom learning about how everything works and interesting facts. Like that on the floor above the court room there is a basketball court in what used to be a storage area. So I guess the supreme court isn’t the highest court in the land. (yep, stole that joke from our tour guide)

The Supreme Court

We spent a day at Arlington Cemetery. It was emotional for me. You can’t visit and not feel sad and proud all at the same time for those who have fought to keep us free.

Arlington Cemetery

We watched the changing of the guards. It is done with such ceremony and respect. Everyone is completely silent as they watch. It was very moving.

The changing of the guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier.

You recognize this right? Did you realize that it is that big? That was most surprising to me.

Iwo Jima Memorial

We got to tour the White House. You get to see a number of rooms and they were cool, but I was hoping for more. Especially because they stuck me in a holding pen for almost an hour because one of the numbers in my birth date was wrong on their paper. Yeah, it is serious stuff. My kids like it but were disappointed they didn’t get to see the Obama’s dog. haha But overall it was cool that we got to be in the White House.

The White House

We were excited to go see the temple and they have a beautiful Visitor Center there that we spent some time in.

Washington D.C. LDS Temple

We spent a lot of time at the different Smithsonian museums. At the Natural History Museum was this creative display of yarn, knit or crocheted to look like coral.

It was massive and very cool. I laughed when a dad was taking pictures of his kids in front of it and after he took the picture he walked closer and realized it wasn’t coral at all. He was very disappointed that it wasn’t real coral. haha

Someone said it would be touring around the country so maybe you will get to see it at a place near you!

We also toured the Capitol building, saw money made at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, got really good at using the metro, visited the various war memorials, did some geocaching, swam at our hotel pool, and enjoyed being together as a family. It was a wonderful trip. If you have never been, I highly recommend it! If you have been hopefully these pictures brought back some great memories for you.

Wow!

2011-04-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

I feel like I won the lottery!! I got a package in the mail and I knew it was the doll quilt that my partner made for me. It felt like Christmas morning. I carefully opened it and I saw bright, solid fabric and hand stitching in bright thread. That’s when the squealing started. Oh yeah, I am not ashamed to admit it.

You know you would have too. Just look at this gorgeous quilt. I can’t believe it’s mine.

Isn’t is awesome! I am crazy for Kona solids so this quilt is SO me.

I love the label on the back. Isn’t it so cute? And I love the backing fabric. So perfect for this quilt.

Thanks Bryanna! I love it!! And thanks for the fabric bundle too. I will have fun cutting into it.

Sent and Received! Hooray!

2011-04-08T15:33:00.001-07:00

I finished my doll quilt for the DQS10 swap!

I used my Faux Piped Binding Tutorial for the binding on this little quilt. It seemed to be the perfect quilt for it.

I had fun stalking my partner and finding out what she likes. I did find out that she wanted a certain ruler that could make it easier for her to make the New Wave quilt from OhFransson! and that thread where she lives is expensive so I made sure to help her out in those areas.

I sent it to New Zealand and I can’t believe how fast it got there! I got a wonderful thank you note on Flickr from Viv and it made my day! Nothing makes all that work more worth it than a very sweet and sincere thank you from its recipient. Now I get to have the fun anticipation of waiting for a little quilt to arrive in the mail for me!

Diagonal Lace Socks

2011-03-27T16:20:00.001-07:00

I finished my socks a few days ago and I’m just getting the chance now to post about them. I love them! They are soft and the colors are beautiful. I knit the leg nice and long like I like my hand knit socks to be.

The pattern was simple and the chart was easy to memorize. I really like the yarn. It is Cascade Heritage sock yarn and my first time to use it even though I have a few skeins in my stash that I have bought over the years.

I was excited to find out that there is a Ravelry group that is knitting all the socks in Socks from the Toe Up, but then discovered that it has been going on for over a year and they only have one or two left. Bummer. I am glad I have my knit along with you and Anita.

Pattern: Diagonal Lace Socks from Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy Johnson

Needles: size 1 (2.25mm)

Yarn: Cascade Heritage Paints

For April and May we are knitting Jagged by Through the Loops. Isn’t it a cool looking sock? Reminds me of zig zag quilts, which I love.

I got lucky and won a giveaway from Fat Quarter Shop for Amy’s new book! There are a lot of fun quilts in the book and I look forward to making some of them!

Getting up the nerve

2011-03-18T22:27:00.001-07:00

The deadline is coming up to get the doll quilt I made for DQS10 out the door and on its way. I realized that I couldn’t put off quilting it any longer. I have known how I want to quilt it but I’ve been nervous about actually doing it.

So tonight I pieced the back, found a piece of batting the right size, sandwiched my quilt, and got it all pinned. Then I took a deep breath and went for it.

I quilted it with gray thread which I think looks nice with all the colors. I got the flow of it partway through. The thing I love most is that it all blends and you can’t see that I wasn’t confident in the beginning.

I never did quilt my big version. I wanted to do something very similar to this but I’ve kept putting it off not wanting to ruin it. Quilting this little mini version made me realize that I can do it and should do it soon.

I really like the back with the rainbow of colors across it.

It measures about 19”x22”. I just need to bind it and collect a few goodies to send with it. I really hope my partner likes it. Fingers crossed!

Diagonal Lace Socks KAL -Update

2011-03-06T09:54:00.001-08:00

I was really enjoying knitting socks again, especially these socks. That is until I got to the heel and realized it was a heel I had never knit before. Uh oh. After reading through what I was going to have to do I realized I had done similar heels before but the wrap and turn always makes me break into a sweat. I can never seem to see those little wraps when it comes time to pick them up! Luckily I had my knit group on Wednesday and there is always someone there that “has done it before”. Sure enough I got help from Cheryl and Dewey. Cheryl found my wraps for me and pointed them out and Dewey suggested using safety pins to mark my wraps.

What a great idea! So later that day when I did the heel on the second sock I used little safety pin stitch markers to mark my wraps. It took all the fear out of it for me and that second heel was complete in half the time it took to make the first one.

Now both heels are done and I am working my way up the leg. I really like the look of the heel turn and heel flap. It looks like the heel I always use when I make top down socks.

How are your socks coming along?

DQS10 & DLS

2011-02-22T15:14:00.001-08:00

I signed up to participate in another Doll Quilt Swap. It is round 10 and I have been participating since round 4. This is really the only swap I do anymore and it is the best. I really enjoy the secrecy of it. It is lots of fun to stalk my partner and learn what his/her likes are. I hope I got it right with this quilt I made.

It is a mini version of this quilt I made last year. I love the graphic simplicity of it and I got to play with solids which are a favorite of mine. I see a lot more quilts with solids in my future. I am still debating about how I am going to quilt it but when I figure it out I will make sure to show it to you when it is all done.

My socks are coming along wonderfully. I was going to have a little rule for myself that I would try to work on my Autumn Haze afghan if I sat down to knit at home and my socks when I am out and about. I threw that out the window as soon as I got into the groove of knitting this pattern. I can’t put them down!

It isn’t too late to join Anita and I for our little Sock of the Month club. Although I really should rename it to Sock of the Every Couple of Months club since we are making a pair every two months. A very reachable goal so if you want to join us it isn’t too late. We are working on these Diagonal Lace Socks until the end of March. For April/May we are knitting Jagged. And for June/July we are knitting Socks for His Nibs. Should be interesting trying to knit during the Summer since historically it doesn’t happen much but this might be the thing that keeps me knitting when it’s hot.

This is a fun and easy pattern and easy to memorize so I don’t have to look at the chart every 2 seconds. I am crazy loving this yarn. It is Heritage Paints in a beautiful red with bits of dark blue. I have a bit of Heritage in my stash but this is my first time knitting with it and I love it. I have always been a cuff down sock knitter because that is how I learned but buying this book got me comfortable knitting toe up socks and I really do love how you can make the most of your yarn when you knit toe up. It is a lot easier to gauge when you will run out of yarn and at that point you are somewhere on the leg and can be done. If that happens with cuff down socks you might not have enough yarn to get to the toe. More than anything I like to be comfortable with different methods so that I will have the skills to knit any pattern I wish. I am still working on collecting all those skills and enjoying the process!

Sock-of-the-Month Club

2011-02-07T11:15:00.001-08:00

If you have been reading my blog for a while you will remember that my favorite thing to knit is socks. I am crazy for them! They are fun, portable, and there are so many different patterns and ways to knit them you could never get bored. I have been itching to cast on a pair of socks lately. Especially with my Autumn Haze afghan getting too big to lug around.

Last year in January I had a great idea to match up some of my sock yarn stash with patterns that I wanted to knit. I could bag them up and they would be ready to go. My own sock-of-the-month club. Well, I never got around to actually bagging them up and I think that was my downfall.

I am getting a late start this year but I am excited about using my stash and knitting some of the patterns I have always wanted to. I meant to just start by bagging up 6 but I couldn’t stop. It was just too fun shopping out of my stash!

Anita is going to do it to and we would love anyone else who wants to, to join in! You can knit the sock pattern we are knitting or another one that you’ve been dying to knit. Sometimes Anita and I will be working on a different pattern. It is all about knitting what you want to.

We are starting with the Diagonal Lace Socks in the book Socks From The Toe Up by Wendy Johnson.

I am using this gorgeous Heritage Paints sock yarn by Cascade. It is red with bits of dark blue in it. I can’t wait to see it knit up.

Let me know if you want to join in and what sock pattern you are starting with. This is going to be fun!

5 days

2011-02-04T19:09:00.001-08:00

That’s how long it took me to get this quilt finished. Not bad! I could have had it done by day 4 but I decided not to push it since I didn’t have to. So I finished hand stitching the binding this morning.

I free motion quilted it in a stipple pattern and bound it in a fun red plaid.

How much do I love how this quilt turned out?

Enough to share way too many pictures of it with you!

Thanks for sticking around this week and cheering me on! It sure was fun but I hope I don’t have to do it again any time soon. LOL

Pinwheel Baby Quilt

2011-02-01T21:26:00.000-08:00

I’m impressed that some of you guessed that I am making Jodi’s adorable Pinwheel Baby Quilt from the Moda Bake Shop. Quite a few of you have made this quilt before and some more than once. I must confess it was Des’s version that convinced me that there was just no other quilt that would do. I literally had to catch my breath when I saw it made up in Dream On by Urban Chiks. I have wanted some of that fabric since it first came out. Back to the Pinwheel Baby Quilt…it is a great pattern and so sweet for a baby girl. What is it about prairie points that takes a quilt to a whole new level of cuteness?

I got the top finished this morning but haven’t had the chance to pin baste it yet. We had some guys here yesterday and today painting the ceiling over the kitchen, dining room, and living room. I need to mop the dining room floor before I lay the quilt on it for pin basting. I am hoping to do that tomorrow. If things go really well I will have it quilted too.

I may not even need all six days for this one!

Baby Quilt Update

2011-02-01T09:47:00.001-08:00

How can I fail when I have so many friends rooting for me! Thanks for all your great comments. The great thing about baby quilts is they are small, so you can work up a quilt top pretty fast. So here is how I am doing so far.

I took the above stack of fabric and cut it up into 5” squares and 2 1/2” squares.

I cut those 5” squares in half diagonally and paired them with a white triangle of the same size.

Gotta love those half square triangles!

And when you put those together you get pinwheels!

Today I am going to play with some of these…

Can you guess the baby quilt I am making? Hint: It is a free online tutorial.

On your mark, get set, go!

2011-01-30T08:38:00.001-08:00

I found out a day or so ago that my friend is having a baby shower. Her first girl! So I pulled some fabric from my stash and I have a sweet, girlie pattern all picked out.

I have six days. No problem. (at least I hope it won’t be)

More Blocks

2011-01-28T14:33:00.001-08:00

Here are the rest of the blocks for the Bloomin’ Pinwheels pattern I am testing for Anita.

I don’t often work with 12” blocks. I prefer to make quilts with smaller blocks but this has been fun and bigger blocks make a bigger quilt top much faster. There are definitely advantages.

I was so pleased when I put all the blocks on the design wall with how nice they all look together. I was kind of wondering how that would go as I pulled the fabrics from my stash for each block.

Next came the center which is a dresden plate block. In all the years I have been a quilter I have never made a dresden plate. That’s one of the things that keeps my interest in quilting. There is always something new to try and I love to stretch myself.

It ended up being a most of the day project but I just enjoyed the process.

I took my time and hand appliqued it onto my background square of Kona White. I knew if I rushed things and sewed it down by machine I would regret it.

I appliqued the circle by hand too and I am very pleased with the result (although the circle was a lot trickier than I thought it would be and didn’t turn out perfect). I love how it looks up on the design wall surrounded by the blocks.

I got a fun surprise in the mail. A Moda Bella solids color card! I won it playing Bingo over at The Quilt Shoppe blog before Christmas. I am a Kona girl but I am excited to try Bella solids and now I can pick just the right color to order.

I took the kids to the dollar movies today. (they had the day off school, yay!) We saw a 3D movie and now I am feeling a little nauseas. I know it didn’t have anything to do with the whole box of Red Vines that I ate. heehee

Keeping it in perspective

2011-01-17T11:51:00.001-08:00

I was so geared up for 2011. I started mentally making plans for the new year just as the last present was being unwrapped on Christmas. I’m not usually that excited but for some reason I had a lot that I wanted to accomplish in 2011.

I won’t bore you with the list, but just know that it was a long one. There were a lot of goals in regards to knitting and quilting and they were all about accomplishing a lot of both

A few days into January I started to realize that the only way I could accomplish all my crafty goals was to cut out that whole pesky sleep thing and ignore the fact that I am a wife and mother.

It was a good reality check. I had to realize that I am not superwoman and that finishing all my UFOs by the end of January probably wasn’t going to happen. (that was just an example, not a goal I actually set…ok, maybe I hoped for it a little)

I didn’t throw my goals out all together. I just pared them way down. I plan on doing all of the same things, just a lot less of them.

I’ve been knitting on my Autumn Haze Afghan and I am on the last repeat. I can’t wait to have it done so I can snuggle under it. I have been working on some projects for my sewing job. But I think the most crafty fun I have had so far has been testing a quilt pattern for a blog friend. Do you like the blocks I have made so far?

Looking Back on 2010

2010-12-31T21:41:00.000-08:00

It sure is rewarding to see pictures of all that I completed this year in one place. I was happily surprised to see that over half of them were made with love for someone else. In 2010 I started Charity Quilts for my Birthday and donated my first 2 quilts. Only 38 more to go! LOL I knit 5 pairs of socks, keeping one pair for myself. Knit my first lace shawl and enjoyed it so much that I knit another one. I wrote a tutorial that got way more hits than any of my other posts. I got my fabric all organized and have been more inspired because of it. I was offered a job to make store samples for a friend’s business. It has kept me busy and I am enjoying the extra income. I met some wonderful bloggers in real life and have made a life long friend through blogging.

It has been a great year! I want to say a big thank you to YOU my readers. It is so much more fun to post on here knowing that you read it. I love when you take the time to comment, it feels like we are having a conversation. I have enjoyed getting to know each of you. Happy New Year!!!

Give and Receive

2010-12-29T10:10:00.001-08:00

I hope you all had a nice Christmas. Ours was very relaxing and enjoyable. I wanted to show you a few gifts that I made for my sisters that live near me. Every Christmas we get together for dinner and gift exchanging. Some years it is on Christmas, some years it is on Christmas Eve, and this year we got together the day after Christmas. We all really enjoyed having the whole day on Christmas alone with our families and it made Christmas lasted longer celebrating together the next day.

I made this table runner for sister, Ann.

She has a beautiful dining set made with dark wood and chairs that have cushions that look like the dark blue fabric I used as a focus fabric. I can’t wait to see it on her table.

For my sister, Ellen, I made socks.

She dropped a lot of hints, which I love because then I know they will be loved and appreciated. They both really liked their gifts and I enjoyed seeing their faces as they opened them.

I also made some flannel pajama pants for my kids with my husband’s help. He pinned and cut out the pattern and I did the sewing. It was fun to work together. We made two pairs of pants for both kids and we bought them long sleeved t-shirts that match each pair of pants. The kids opened them on Christmas Eve, put them on right away, and didn’t take them off for longer than I would like to admit.

I think the gift I wanted most for Christmas was a Kona Cotton Solids Color Card. And I got one!!! I couldn’t stop looking at it. It is so beautiful. I have already ordered some fabric to make this pattern. Thanks to my Kona Color Card I was able to pick out the colors I want without having to guess if the colors online are accurate.

I got a wonderful surprise in the mail from a friend I have known since high school and reconnected with through Facebook. She’s crafty too and I read her crafty blog when she had one. Now she has moved on to making soaps and she has an etsy shop called Lavender and Olive. Isn’t that the greatest name! The soaps smell so good! She sent me a Sugar Plum soap and a White Tea and Ginger soap. I can’t stop smelling them! Thanks, Hirono!

Every year for Christmas my sister, Tina, sends me handmade cards. I love it!! I’d much rather send a handmade card than a store bought card and she keeps me stocked. Thanks, Tina!!

My husband gave me some Knit Picks City Tweed, which is a beautiful yarn. I got enough to make a sweater. I can’t wait to pick a sweater pattern to make with it. My sister-in-law, Tracy, sent me some blocking mats that fit together like a puzzle and you can change the shape with the way you put them together. They are awesome and will make blocking my hand knits so much easier. Thanks, Tracy!

That’s all the crafty gifts I gave and received for Christmas. What was your favorite crafty gift?

Little Tokyo

2010-12-28T14:42:00.001-08:00

Recently my friend, Amber, gave me a little quilt she made. It is a mini version of a quilt that Elizabeth Hartman of Oh, Fransson! has designed and invited all to quilt along with her. It is called Tokyo Subway Map and you can follow the link to make one of your own.

Amber is currently making the bigger version and she has all her little squares cut up and ready to go. It was fun to see them all stacked by color. It was some major quilter eye candy.

When she gave me this little quilt I was so excited. I could not stop smiling. I had wanted to quilt along with Elizabeth and make my own but didn’t think I had enough variety in my stash for it. Maybe I do, but I don’t have to wonder anymore because now I have my own little Tokyo Subway Map!

It has become my little sewing machine rug. Kind of like the mug rugs everyone is making all over blogland. It is the perfect size and the best part is that I get to enjoy looking at it every time I sew, which is pretty much every day. Thanks so much, Amber!! I love it!!

I’ll be back tomorrow to show you some Christmas gifts I made and a few crafty gifts that I received.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T17:22:00.001-08:00

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends! Merry Christmas!!

Some Christmas Knitting

2010-12-22T08:48:00.001-08:00

We get together every year to exchange presents with another family who we are really close to. She’s my best friend, he’s my husband’s best friend, and our kids are best friends. We consider each other family. Since we just had our annual Christmas dinner and gift exchange, I can show you what I made for her youngest girl. (my daughter modeled it for the pictures)

I made a poncho for her years ago and she still wears it. It is WAY too small for her to be wearing but she loves it. So I thought I better make her a new one so that she can pass the other one on to someone smaller than her to enjoy.

I made it a little on the big side because I knew that she would wear it for a long time like she did with the other one and I wanted it to last. Here it fits my daughter well and she is a few years older. My friend, Ginny, crocheted that wonderful flower for me. She didn’t even use a pattern. She just sat down and whipped one up. I don’t crochet, so I was pretty impressed and it adds so much to the cuteness of the poncho.

When my friend’s youngest girl opened the present she reacted like every knitter dreams of. She absolutely loved it and put it on and didn’t want to take it off. She even told everyone she was planning on wearing it to her baptism that will take place next year. I was so pleased to hear that! As they left late that night she wanted to wear it home and to bed. I call that a successful knitted gift!

Baby Quilts

2010-12-20T10:32:00.001-08:00

Before I show you the baby quilts I just finished and gave to two good friends, I wanted to show you how my Autumn Haze afghan is going. Shirley asked about it in a comment on my last post so I thought I would show you my progress. I forgot all about it since I haven’t been able to knit on it for a month or so because of Christmas gift making.

And guess what? Still not bored with it for one second. In fact it has been very hard to set it aside to get other things done.

This first baby quilt is for my friend Tammy from church. We’ve worked together at church for the last 3 years in the Primary which is where the kids 3-11 years old go. I have really enjoyed working with her and we have become good friends. I really went all out on this quilt for her baby girl.

It is pretty much all stash except for the binding which I went and bought after the quilt was all done and ready to be bound. I love the look of the double pinwheel block.

I used a lot of my favorite fabric in this quilt. It was so fun to stand in front of my shelves of fabric and put this color scheme together.

I free-motion quilted it and even wrote the baby’s name along one of the white sashing strips. It was a fun way to personalize it for her.

The next baby quilt was for another good friend from church. Tiffany had a boy 2 months ago and it took me this long to get it finished. Which is kind of lame since I had the top done quite a while ago because I made it for A Year of Schnibbles.

Tiffany dresses her boys in bow ties for church and it is the cutest thing. As I pieced this quilt I knew I would be giving it to her for her third little boy that would soon be born.

I bundled them both up and my husband and I went to visit both mommies yesterday after church. It feels so good to give a quilt and see the look on the recipient’s face.

They were both so happy to receive them and it put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

Missed ya!

2010-12-14T10:22:00.001-08:00

Have you missed me? I’ve missed you. I guess I took a bit of an unintended blog break. Sometimes you just need to do that. I just didn’t realize I did until I had already taken one. Thanks to those who have been asking when the heck I was going to blog again. I especially liked the one that said they were sick of looking at my blue scraps (my last post from over a month ago). Haha! That really made me laugh. I love you too, Jeannie! I think it really hit me that it had been a while when I got on Blogger and saw that I had 54 comments to moderate. Yikes! Most of them were for my Faux Binding Tutorial. If you haven’t checked it out, it is a great method to finish off your quilt.

Are you all in the thick of Christmas present making too? Doesn’t make for good blog posting since I can’t show anything for fear that the recipient will see it and know it is for them. But I can show you a few things that I have finished lately. I knit these socks for my best friend’s birthday. I don’t know how to say ‘I Love You’ more than knitting a pair of socks for someone. They just take that much time.

My camera broke. It still takes pictures but with a big dark spot in the corner. So I got a new camera and made a cute camera strap for it. I think my favorite setting on the camera so far is the sport setting. I got some great action shots of my son’s soccer games and my daughter’s volleyball games. Now I just need to read far enough in the book I bought to learn how to use it and figure out how to use it past the manual settings!

I made an apron for my daughter who was doing a presentation about cooking at a church activity.

This was one of the Schnibbles I did last year. I finished it up for a friend that was having a baby boy.

I have a few more baby quilts that I am finishing up in the next couple days that I can show you. So I will be back soon. Promise! And in the mean time, I would love to hear what you have been working on.

Blue

2010-11-10T08:06:00.001-08:00

I’ve been playing around with my scraps again…

It is just too much fun!

Sewing Scraps

2010-10-26T09:26:00.001-07:00

Jodi over at Pleasant Home is having a scrappy sew along and I am participating. This is huge for me because as much as I love the look of a scrappy quilt, I have yet to have made one. Yeah, I dig into my scraps now and then and include a piece or two in a quilt but I have never made a pure scrap quilt. I haven’t made one yet because I have been overwhelmed with how much more work I thought it would be, but it isn’t! (if it is then I am not noticing because I am having so much fun)

First she talked about organizing your scraps. Mine have been sorted by color for a long time but more recently have been put in the drawers of my sewing center for easier access. (even though until there hasn’t been much accessing)

Now that I am using them, I am loving having them right there. I did what Jodi said to do which was to sort through your scraps and pull out the squares that could start as your centers and then sort out some bigger pieces and strips. I actually started in the reds (my favorite color) thinking I would make a red and blue quilt but when I saw the deep burgundy colors I thought they would be beautiful paired with pink. So I pulled out all the burgundy scraps from the red drawer and then started pulling pinks that looked pretty with them.

I love that you just pair things up and sew. You don’t have to measure or be precise. You don’t have to make sure you sew the next piece on a certain side like a log cabin you just put it where it will fit. It is so fun!

I think the most exciting thing for me is that even though I don’t like most of my scraps, I love these pink blocks I made. It is like I gave my scraps a makeover. The blocks are all different sizes and I plan on bordering them all to the same size and sewing them together. I will probably need to make a few more but than I think this will make a cute baby quilt. I am thinking about hitting the blue scraps next!

Autumn Haze

2010-10-23T18:08:00.001-07:00

I had such a huge response to the afghan I started knitting. It seems you want to knit it too and who could blame you. It’s tempting, isn’t it?

Pattern: Autumn Haze (free pattern)

Yarn: Berroco Comfort

Mods: I did change one of the colors. I went with Iron Oxide instead of Filbert. I wanted a darker red/orange than the pattern called for.

I bought my yarn at Unraveled Yarns and they carry all the yarn to make the blanket. It says on their website that they will ship the yarn to you.

I am still plugging away at it and enjoying it very much. The only problem is that I don’t have the time to sit down with it as much as I want to. Let me know if you decide to make it!

Clapotis

2010-10-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the tag line of my blog I quilt and I knit and I love them both. Often one gets a little more attention than the other. My new job of making quilt samples has kept me quilting regularly but I haven’t worked much on my own projects. With the weather turning crisp and the leaves changing colors I have turned to my knitting with a fervor. There is something so cozy about working with wool when the weather cools. I can’t seem to get enough of it.

The first thing I did when I got the itch was to find the shawl I had started as a knit along project with my knitting group. They had all finished theirs and mine had gone into hibernation over the summer. I am happy to say it is done and it is gorgeous. I have enjoyed wearing it as a scarf and as a shawl.

It has a lovely drape and the yarn is part wool, part silk so it is very soft. I love the ocean blue color.

Pattern: Clapotis

Yarn: Knit Picks Gloss (fingering weight); 2 hanks and part of a 3rd

Needles: size 7

This pattern was so enjoyable to knit that I would love to make another one.

-------------------------------

I have jumped right into another knitting project. I fell in love with a sample I saw at my LYS. I wouldn’t normally take on an afghan because I worry that I would never finish it and I can make a quilt much faster but this one is so gorgeous and has so much going on that I knew I would not be bored.

And I am not bored at all, in fact I can’t seem to stop! I am so crazy about the colors and the yarn is so soft and smooshy. This picture was outdated right after I took it because I knit more on it right away. I hope I can finish it before fall is over but if not I am sure I will enjoy it all winter long.

My Round Robin

2010-10-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

I am so happy with how my round robin turned out! The ladies in my group did an awesome job. My block is the mariner’s compass in the middle with the striped border.

I passed it on to Susan who set my block on point and added those gorgeous corners that look just like my block. Then Dolores added that wonderful checkerboard border. Mary Ann was next and she did the flying geese border. I love flying geese and was so happy to see them included in the quilt. Ada finished it off with the colorful piano key border with the wonderful black with white polka dot fabric.

I love the look of it and haven’t decided if I want to add to it or not. It was really fun to see all of the other round robins revealed that night too. You might recognize the first four as they are ones I worked on and posted on here.

If you ever have the chance to do a round robin I encourage you to do so. They are lots of fun and they stretch you to be creative. And in the end it is so fun to see what everyone did with your quilt!

The Last Round

2010-10-13T20:08:00.001-07:00

I finished the last round on the last round robin quilt that was passed along to me. I had a lot of fun making pinwheels for my border addition. If you want to see what it looked like before my round was added go here. If you want to see all the round robin quilts I have worked on just click on the round robin label on the sidebar.

This round robin challenge has been so fun. I have really enjoyed the challenge of it. There is talk of maybe doing a row robin next. I think I will have to take part in that too! Come back soon to see how they all turned out, including mine!

A Year in Review – Schnibble Style

2010-09-21T07:06:00.001-07:00

A year ago Sherri and Sinta announced that they were starting A Year of Schnibbles. It was going to be a fun quilt-a-long of sorts where each month they would reveal a Schnibble pattern, designed by the very talented Carrie Nelson, that we were all going to make. Along the way their were lots chances to win prizes for finishing your quilts in the month’s time and a parade of all the quilts that were made that month.

I thought it would be fun to show you how my year went…

This first quilt is from the pattern Winter White and I made it in September of last year. One rule I gave myself was that I was going to try and have the quilts totally finished each month and that includes quilting and binding. I did really good with that…for a while.

October’s quilt pattern was Cindy Lou Who and I went patriotic on this one.

November’s quilt pattern was Picnic. I loved making the variety of baskets this pattern called for.

For December they went easy on us since they knew we were probably busy with last minute Christmas gifts so all we had to do was make a Tuffet, which is a Schnibbles pattern of pincushions. I ended up giving this one to my sister, Tina, for Christmas.

For January I switched things up a bit and made Madeline bigger and changed the orientation of the blocks. I made this one to hang above the couch in our family room. This is also the where I broke my “have the quilt totally done” rule.

February’s quilt was Sunday’s Best and was lots of fun to make. I love the little bow ties. This one is currently still a top but will soon be finished into a quilt for my friend that is having a baby boy.

March’s quilt was Roundabout and might me my favorite from the whole year because I got to play with color. It was a fun challenge to make the colors gradate across the quilt in a rainbow pattern using all stash fabrics. It wasn’t easy but so worth it!

April’s quilt pattern is called Tagalong and I actually didn’t finish the top for this one until last month. So out of the whole year I missed one month’s deadline and this was it.

For May the pattern was Two Bits and I made a table runner out of it. It was all left over Roman Holiday fabric from a previous project. I made it from start to finish at my Memorial Day retreat.

June’s pattern was State Fair and I went all out girly for this one. I had so much fun shopping out of my stash for a huge variety of fabrics for this one. I finished the top in June but got it all quilted and bound in time for my friend, Ginny’s, baby shower.

July was a newly released pattern called Joy Luck. I went with some Asian fabric because the pattern looks like Chinese lanterns.

For August we got to pick between two different patterns and I picked Short Story. I love these double hourglass blocks and have wanted to make a quilt in that pattern for a long time. I made it nice and big so I can snuggle under it. I’ve got to hurry and finish this one if there is going to be any snuggling.

As I look back on my year of Schnibbles I am pleased with the fact that just about every quilt was made from my stash. One of them I did have to buy the perfect binding fabric for it and another was made from a charm pack and I had to buy two coordinating prints so I would have enough fabric to make the quilt. Other than that, this was a great stash busting year thanks to being a part of A Year of Schnibbles.

Sherri and Sinta have cooked up another year of fun but this time it is called Le Petite – A Year of Small Projects. I would love to do this again but I have to opt out this year because I was recently asked to make quilt samples for a friend that owns an online quilt shop and is a vendor at quilt shows and festivals. I didn’t even have to think about it. Get paid to quilt? Umm..yes please! So that should keep me busy and I want to leave time for my long list of UFOs, WIPs, etc.

Thanks for visiting me and my parade of Schnibbles!

We have a winner...

2010-09-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

Did you forget about my birthday giveaway? Luckily I didn't! I have been putting some goodies together and have picked a winner. I did the random number generator thing and got #52. Congrats to AnnieO!! You are the winner! Go ahead and send me your snail mail address and I will get your prize off to you! (sorry no picture, the camera is MIA)

Retreat

2010-09-06T17:15:00.001-07:00

Thank you for your sympathy and kind words. I did end up going to my retreat. I rested all day on Friday and was able to go over Saturday morning. My back felt lots better but I only took light sewing with me and was very careful to not over do it all weekend.

I had ordered a kit from Nanette for one of her mixed bag patterns a while ago and took it with me to make. I really wanted a bag made with her unique fabric. My friends oohed and ahhed over it while I worked on it. I adore how it turned out!

She included a fabric covered button that you can see in the picture is so cute and red rick rack. I forgot to take a picture of the other side of the bag. It too is super cute. I lined it with the same fabric as the handles and used a Meadowsweet strawberries on yellow fabric I had in my stash for the pockets inside. It looks great with the rest of the bag. Nanette's pattern was so easy to understand and had lots of pictures.

The other project I finished while I was there was my doll quilt for the DQS9. I really want to keep this one! My partner likes linen and patchwork and modern quilts. I really had fun fulfilling her request. I used Flea Market Fancy for the binding since she really seems to like it and uses it in her projects.

I had fun quilting this with abstract lines. I love how the quilting turned out. It works well with the style of the quilt.

For the back of the quilt I used the same fabrics I used in the front to add a little color.

Here is my label for the back.

The rest of the time I worked on a quilt I am making with Patisserie by Fig Tree Quilts. I am using Moda Turnovers, Moda Charm Packs, and Kona Bone for the background fabric. For this quilt I have to make 480 flying geese. So far I have 101. So I have a ways to go. I took a picture with some of the flying geese I had finished so I could get an idea what the block would look like. I just lay it out. It isn’t sewn together.

I think it will be very pretty. Especially when I get more of the flying geese made and there is more of a color variety.

I will be back soon to show you what my friends made this weekend. It is always fun to see a mini quilt show, right?

There’s no place like quilt retreat

2010-09-03T10:18:00.001-07:00

But I am not there and I don’t know if I will be going. I am so disappointed I can’t even express it enough. It is all paid for, my friends are there, there is tons of sewing going on, there is an empty place at a table for me, and I am home laying in my back chair. Yes, I am having a pity party. Want to join me? I over did it on Monday and Tuesday trying to get my Schnibble quilt done in time. My back wasn’t doing great in the first place because of our cruise but then I went and made it worse. UGH!

Ok, now the good things. My husband had already planned to be home to take care of the kids and the to and from school thing. So I get to have him around to help me and to be sweet and cheer me up. The retreat is until Monday afternoon so there is a slight possibility that if I feel better I could go even for just a day. And of course things could always be worse, right.

Just wanted to end this depressing post on a good note!

August Schnibble (and a make up)

2010-08-31T17:20:00.000-07:00

It is rainy outside today. Doesn't feel much like summer. I am glad I wasn't tempted with a sunny day since I shackled myself to the sewing machine so I could finish my Schnibble by today's deadline. We had a choice this month between Plan C and Short Story, two of Carrie's cute Schnibble patterns. I went with Short Story since it is a pattern I have wanted to make for a long time. I wanted it to be big so I can snuggle under it. I used my new design wall A LOT for this project and it was so handy. I even used it to take pictures of the finished top since it is too wet outside for an outdoor photo shoot.

I had fun pulling fabric from my stash for this quilt. I pulled from the blue, yellow, orange, green, and brown stacks on my shelves. I am using a lot of my hoarded fabric and it really is more fun to put it in a quilt then to just pick it up and pet it now and then. The background fabric is Kona white.

I also recently finished a Schnibble that should have been finished months ago. I don't even remember which month it was but I know it must have been a busy one for me not to have finished the quilt. It is a nice baby quilt size and that is what it will probably end up being since I have so many friends expecting a baby right now.

This marks the end of A Year of Schnibbles and I had such a good time and won some awesome prizes! Rumor has it they are going to do it another year with some changes to the rules. I can't wait to see what Sherri and Sinta have cooked up for the upcoming year. If you have sat on the sidelines this past year I encourage you to jump in and participate. It is a lot of fun!

Birthday Giveaway

2010-08-28T23:08:00.001-07:00

Today is my birthday and I have made it a little tradition of having a giveaway on this day. So go ahead and leave me a comment and you will be entered to win some goodies. I haven’t finished putting them together yet but don’t worry, it will be good!

I am also excited that I got a head start on my Charity Quilts for My Birthday goal of 40 charity quilts by the time I turn 40 years old. Since I figured out that I needed to make 8 quilts every year for the next 5 years and I already have 2 made and donated, I would say that I am ahead of the game right now. You know who else is doing awesome on her goal is Em from Em’s Scrapbag. Great job, Em!

I also wanted to show you what my husband got me for my birthday because I am so excited about it. I have always wanted a design wall but we really don’t have the space for one. But now I do!

Now here is where the magic happens…

Isn’t that the coolest? It is called a Vanishing Design Wall and I saw it advertised in American Patchwork & Quilting magazine and pointed it out to my husband. The design wall is retractable and fits up inside the shelf. The best part is that you can leave your blocks on the design wall and they stay put when you roll up the wall. It is so handy!

The TLC Custom Quilt sign is a gift from my sister from years ago. I had an online custom baby/toddler bedding business with that name. I had to close it due to problems with my back and I couldn’t keep up with all the orders. My husband suggested putting it up there and I really like it. The little quilt on the design wall is my Doll Quilt Swap 9 quilt top. The deadline is fast approaching and I need to get it quilted and bound.

Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to leave me a comment if you want to be entered in the drawing for some goodies!

Cruisin'

2010-08-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

My husband and I recently got back from an Alaskan cruise. It was our first cruise and we had a wonderful time. We left out of Seattle which was very convenient since this is where we live.

The trip was celebratory for a few reasons. One reason was our 14th wedding anniversary. The other reason was that my husband finished the last of many grueling professional exams. I am so happy for him that he doesn't have that hanging over him anymore. I have two sisters that also live in Seattle and they each took our kids for half of the week. My kids had so much fun with their cousins!! My sisters spoiled them rotten and sent me texts and pictures of all the fun.

Being on a ship out on the water was so exciting and fun. The ship was so big and fun to explore. We stopped in four ports. Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, and Victoria B.C.

We didn't do any excursions on our trip. We felt like the cruise in itself was exciting enough. In each town we explored, geocached, went hiking, and hit the town's quilt shop.

Alaska is beautiful and we enjoyed the beautiful views. But above all we enjoyed a week long date together. It was so nice to be alone and to be able to give each other all our attention. We had so much fun.

We took dance lessons, ate yummy food, played ping pong, ate yummy food, watched movies under the stars, ate yummy food, enjoyed a comedy show, ate yummy food, watched a magic/illusionist show, ate yummy food... you get the picture.

They treat you like you are important people on the cruise and believe me, I could get used to that! One of the days in the middle of the week we cruised up Tracy Arm fjord and at the end is this incredible glacier. It is huge which you don't realize until you see the little boat in front of it. (click on the picture below to see the boat) I was amazed at the ice blue color of the glacier. It was breathtaking.

My favorite port was Ketchikan. I loved Creek Street with all the shops on stilts in the water.

And the rivers were so thick with fish you could have reached down and grabbed one.

I love this view of our ship towering above the buildings. It really shows how huge it was!

Like I said, at every port I found a quilt shop. My plan was to get a little fabric at each shop to make a quilt that would remind us of our trip. The fabric in every shop was very similar which made this easy.

At the first store I looked around and saw that all the fabric was very Alaskan wildlife, wilderness, etc. So I made a plan to do a bear paw quilt (there are lots of bears in Alaska) and I would feature lots of the Alaskan wildlife and colors of the water, trees, and rocks there. I have always wanted to make a quilt for my husband and told him that I wanted to make this especially for him and asked him to help me pick things out that he liked. It wasn't easy for him and he felt unqualified but I loved having him help design this quilt. He really wanted a fabric that showed the Northern Lights so we picked one out for the border. He also picked out a packet of native pictures on muslin and asked if I could put them on the back. I could have started singing, I was so excited that he was getting involved.

One other crafty thing is that I made myself a wrap around skirt for the trip. I really like how it turned out and it was fun to wear.

I am having a hard time getting back into life after being away. I feel blindsided that the kids are going back to school next week. I have been in denial and hoped that summer could last forever. It also doesn't help that I got my copy of Mockingjay and can't put it down. My birthday is tomorrow so watch for another post because I like to give stuff away on my birthday!

Round Robin

2010-08-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

I am really enjoying this round robin that I am participating in through my quilt guild. It has been challenging and fun. Remember this one that I had to have done by the end of July? Well, I didn’t add my part until a day before I had to pass it along. This is very much not my style so it was hard to get motivated and hard to come up with something that would go with the style.

I ended up adding a border with little blocks in the corners that look like wrapped Christmas presents. I love that block and was excited to get to make a few. I hope Mary Ann likes my addition to her quilt.

Here is my next and last round robin quilt to work on. This one is Susan’s and it is so beautiful. Susan started with a square of that pretty print in the middle. I love the little baskets and the appliqued border. I am thinking about doing a flying geese border. We will see.

In October (I think) will be the big reveal where we will get to see everyone’s quilt tops plus our own. I can’t wait!! And it won’t just be our group. I think there are about four or five other groups that are participating too. Mine started out like this…

I can’t wait to see what everyone has added to it. I will make sure and take my camera that night so you can see all the round robins too.

Secret Project Revealed

2010-08-12T12:42:00.001-07:00

I have had to keep quiet about this for over a year and I am so excited to finally get to share. Over a year ago Anne Ida of Quiltoholic contacted me and asked me if I would like to be part of a special project for Jennifer Chiaverini. Yep,the Jennifer Chiaverini, author of the Elm Creek Quilt novels and one of my favorite authors. I got to meet her in person at the Sister’s Quilt show years ago AND her publishing company picked my quilt to be in her Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler pattern book. That was a very exciting moment for me.

Anne Ida asked and I said YES. She asked some other quilters too. We were each asked to remake the cover of one of Jennifer’s books into a quilt block that ended up being about the size of a regular piece of paper. While we were secretly quilting, Jennifer was writing. We made the covers of the first 14 books in the Elm Creek Quilt series (currently there are 16). We all sent our blocks to Anne Ida in Norway and she pieced the top. Then Val in France did the long arm quilting and also ended up delivering the quilt to Jennifer while she was in the States recently. The quilt turned out so beautiful. I love how Anne Ida put our signature blocks in the border on the front of the quilt.

Here is the book cover I was assigned and my interpretation of it on the right.

I heard that Jennifer loved the quilt and even had a place in mind to hang it. In her office where she writes. Now how awesome is that!!

9 patches

2010-08-06T10:14:00.001-07:00

I joined a 9 patch swap over at Julie’s blog, JulieKQuilts.

We could choose to swap 6” blocks, 3” blocks, or both. I decided to go with the 3” blocks. The fabric requirement is Civil War Reproduction fabric, which I have none. Well, besides my Dear Jane fabric which is quarantined and only to be used for that quilt. So I had to go fabric shopping. I know, poor me. I went straight to the Civil War Repro section and after much consideration I decided to go with these two beauties. A blue paisley and a coordinating dark red. I think my 9 patches will be very pretty.

I am going to use a fun and fast method for making my 9 patches. I did a tutorial on this method a couple years ago here on my blog. I am going to repost that tutorial so you can try it too!

Originally posted May 30, 2008

I learned a different way of making nine patches from my friend, Nan, while I was at my retreat. It is a really fun way and I think this is how I will be doing them from now on. They seem to be more accurate and maybe even faster!

Ok, so start with two 4 1/2" squares. One light and one dark. (you will be making two nine patch blocks at the same time)

Put them right sides together and stitch a 1/4" seam on opposite sides of the squares. (no, I don't usually sew with bright orange thread. I just used it so you could see the stitches)

Now your going to cut your square into three equal pieces. Each piece should measure 1 1/2". (make sure your cuts are parallel with your stitches)

Take the two sides that are sewn and press the seams towards the dark fabric. Then lay your strips out like this.

Now sew your third strip to the other two. Make sure you are sewing a light, dark, light block and a dark, light, dark block.

This is what your two blocks should look like so far. Right now you have two rail fence blocks but we are going to keep going so we can have two nine patches.

Put your blocks right sides together making sure the strips are going the same way. Here is where the pay off comes for pressing your seams towards the dark fabric. You can fit those seams together like a puzzle. Now stitch your 1/4" seam on opposite sides of the block.

Just like before, you are going to cut your block in three equal parts,1 1/2" each.

Press your seams. Now your ready for the last step. Aren't you excited!

Sew that last strip onto your block with a 1/4" seam. Then press.

Ta-Da!! Two cute little nine patches that will measure 3 1/2". (3" finished)

Here's a view of the back of the blocks.

This is a great way to use up your scrap fabric. There are so many cute quilt designs you can make with nine patches. And you can use this method for any size nine patch you like. Let me know if you try this method and what you think of it.

Camping

2010-08-04T10:12:00.001-07:00

I love camping. It is one of my favorite things to do as a family. I love the smell of a campfire, cooking out in the open, hiking, and making smores. I love that we get to spend time together without all the distractions that seem to pop up at home. I love it all. We usually take one long camping trip every summer. This summer we went to the Olympic National Forest.

I loved being surrounded by all the gorgeous views. We took lots of hikes and saw many fun things. Like this deer that walked right by us and didn’t pay any attention to the fact that my kids were squealing about it. Or maybe it was me that was squealing, I don’t remember.

On the same hike we saw the deer we also saw this huge patch of snow. I love how it is shaped like a heart.

We also saw a black bear while we were driving up to Hurricane Ridge to go hiking. He ran across the road in front of our car. It was too quick to get a picture but it was so cool. We were all glad to have seen a bear from the car and not on a hike!

I think my favorite hike was Cape Flattery where we got to see views like this.

And for you Twilight fans, we camped about 30 miles from Forks (no we didn’t go there) and went on a hike through a forest near our campsite that looked like they could have filmed the movie there.

We also took some time to explore Port Angeles. We walked around and visited the shops there. I even found a quilt shop and bought myself some fabric. We came across this mural being painted.

My kids were in awe (both aspiring artists) and talked with some of the artists that were working on it. One of the artists asked my kids names and proceeded to paint their names into the mural. It was so cool! Both their names will forever be on a tree trunk of this mural. How fun!

It is always good to come back home even though there’s always a mountain of laundry to do after a camping trip. I hope my kids are forming good memories from these trips and that one day they will want to take their kids camping too.

Doll Quilt Swap

2010-08-02T08:30:00.001-07:00

My sister designed this button for the swap. Isn’t it cute?!

I feel very lucky to be in the Doll Quilt Swap this round. Especially because so many people wanted to be a part of it that they held a lottery to pick the participants. We all waited anxiously to see if we got in. I did a happy dance when I found out I got in. You should have seen it. It was awesome.

When you get your partner’s name for this secret swap, you start stalking right away. That is one of the best parts of the swap. You read their blog, stroll their Flickr photostream, and check out their favorites. Before I show you what I decided on for this round, I want to show you what I have made for past partners.

Click on the links to see the original post and more pictures of each quilt.

That was fun! Ok, so this round my partner seems to like patchwork and linen. So I took this fabric…

And I fussy cut it into these…

Then I looked through my stash and pulled coordinating brights (and then some) to make these…

Then I put them together and added some borders. So here is my quilt top for DQS9!

I want to mention that my inspiration came from this post over at Joan’s blog Wishes, True and Kind. She does a great little tutorial so you can make your own Bright Hopes blocks. Now I am deciding how I am going to piece the back. I will let you know when I decide. Thanks for taking a trip down memory lane with me!

July Schnibble

2010-07-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

The Schnibble for July is one of Carrie’s latest designs. It is called Joy Luck and it was a no brainer to go with Asian inspired fabrics for this. The design looks like stacks of paper lanterns and with a name like Joy Luck (have you read the Joy Luck Club?) I knew just what fabric from my stash I was going to use.

My grandma pointed out these fabric years ago when she was visiting me. She thought they were very pretty. So I surprised her with a little wall quilt made from these fabrics and she loved it. I used all that I had left to make this quilt and I thought about my grandma, who just turned 90, while I sewed.

As far as the pattern goes, it was tedious. All those little corners on the sixty lanterns about did me in. That is until after me commenting to my husband about how I wish there were two or three of me to work on this quilt. One of me could iron, while the other could trim, and I would sit behind the sewing machine. Next thing I know my husband is at the ironing board, my son snipping the chain pieced pieces apart, and my daughter was doing the trimming. Before I knew it all those little lanterns had their little white corners on and I was so grateful! My son kept saying, “this is so fun”. I could get used to having a quilting team!!

I think we probably only have a few months left since we started A Year of Schnibbles back in October. I have been very good about getting at least the top of the quilt done every month except one when I just couldn’t get to it. I need to get that one finished soon. It has been fun sewing a Schnibble every month and now I have a few of the tops in the going-to-become-a-baby-quilt pile. I have about eight friends that are pregnant right now and all except one so far are having boys. Just about every time I make a Schnibble now I try to keep that in mind because they end up being a great size for a baby quilt. Make sure to go over to Sherri’s and Sinta’s for the Schnibble Parade after August 1st. It is so fun to see the same quilt made in so many different fabric combos.

Charity Quilts for My Birthday

2010-07-22T10:15:00.001-07:00

If you are new to my blog and thinking, what in the world is Charity Quilts for My Birthday? You can read all about it here. In a nutshell I am making 40 charity quilts by the time I turn 40 years old, and I have invited you to play along with me.

Here are my official first two charity quilts that have been sent off in the mail to Quilts for Kids and I am not even 35 yet (give me a few more weeks and I won’t be able to say that anymore).

This one was a kit from Quilts for Kids that they sent me. You can do this too! Just go to there website and request a kit and they send it to you in the mail.

I made this one (New Wave quilt pattern from Oh Fransson!) to send along with the one I made up from the kit.

Aren’t they cute! I wish I could see the little faces that get these two bright, fun quilts.

If you would like to participate in Charity Quilts for My Birthday just grab the button and put it on your blog. Pick a goal that works for you. It could be one charity quilt by your next birthday. Whatever you want to do. If you write a post about your goal then link to it at the end of the original charity quilt post. If you don’t have a blog you can still play along. Just comment on this post about what your goal is going to be and then if you want to e-mail me picks of your finished quilts I would be happy to share them with everyone.

Speaking of quilters out there making quilts for Charity Quilts for My Birthday, go check out this post from Em who blogs over at Em’s Scrapbag. I love that you guys are making charity quilts along with me!!

And we have a winner…

2010-07-11T17:05:00.001-07:00

The winner for my giveaway of a fat quarter of Flea Market Fancy is Colleen who said, “Love your quilt! Such cheerful, summery colors :) Love your blog and follow all the time :)”.

Congrats, Colleen!! Please send your snail mail address to tlcstitches AT q DOT com. Thanks everyone for entering and you can count on more giveaways, just for you my readers, in the future. Have a nice rest of your day!

Yo-yo’s

2010-07-10T08:39:00.001-07:00

Last year my husband took my daughter on an overnight camping trip because she didn’t think it was fair that my son always got to be the one to go with him on scouting overnighters. (my husband was a scout leader through our church for a while) So she and my husband hiked-in 2 miles to their campsite with everything on their backs. She loved it! So this summer he set up camping trips with each of our kids. My daughter wanted a challenge and picked a place that is 5 miles to hike into. My son picked a 2 miler for his first hike-in campout with dad.

I love this because it warms my heart that they are getting bonding time with dad and that I get one on one time with the one that stays home. The boys left for their campout yesterday and my daughter and I left for the movies. We saw How to Train Your Dragon at our dollar movie theater and then went out for hamburgers. After dinner we tried to go to the library but it was closed. While we waited for our movie to start we had a little book club discussion about Island of the Blue Dolphins. We both just read it and loved it. It was so fun talking about it together. We need to pick our next book (that’s why we were headed to the library) so if you have any suggestions, we would love some ideas!

We ended up coming home and braving the heat (we don’t have air conditioning). My daughter has been admiring my hexagon project so I suggested she make yo-yo’s. I have a yo-yo maker and they are easy to do. She was really excited so we set up a table on our back deck where it was cooler and worked on our projects. She got the hang of it right away and we enjoyed stitching away while sipping raspberry lemonade, singing along to Taylor Swift songs, and chatting.

She got inspired by her yo-yo’s and started designing a little on graph paper. It was so fun to see her idea put on paper so I could see her vision. She knows exactly what she is making and who she is giving it to.

When it got dark we moved our table inside and watched a movie while we continued to stitch. I can’t wait to see her project come to life. I love seeing her creativity. I love the young woman she is turning out to be and I am so honored to be her mother.

Hexagons and a Road Trip

2010-07-08T11:13:00.001-07:00

Sunday night my husband says to me, “want to go on an 8 hour road trip tomorrow?” My first thought was, “What??” My second thought was, “But I haven’t received my hexagon paper pieces in the mail yet!”

I have seen hexagons all over blogland and wasn’t really tempted to make them myself, until I came across Texas Freckles and her Hexagon Charm Quilt Piece-Along. It wasn’t that I wanted to join the piece along, but more about the incredible pictures she takes of all her colorful hexagons. Plus she has great how to videos and you can even print off your own paper pieces to cut up and start making hexagons right away. That is what I did so that I could get ready for the road trip we were taking the next day. Another thing that I like about her method is that she uses 2 1/2” squares of fabric, which is so much easier than having to cut out hexagons. I had a little 2 1/2” precut strip pack that my friend gave me for my birthday a year or two ago so I just cut those into squares really quick.

After a quick stop at JoAnn Fabrics the next morning so I could pick up some needles and quilting thread, we were off. And I got started basting hexagons right away.

Soon I had the cutest little stack of hexies.

I couldn’t wait to sew them together. I also was the DVD coordinator, snack getter for the kids, and Ipod DJ for my husband and I.

We finally got to our destination which was Ape Cave down by Mount St. Helens. It is a long tunnel under ground that was formed by flowing lava.

You climb down the stairs to get to the entrance.

We were each armed with a flashlight because it is pitch black in the tunnel. Kinda creepy huh? It reminded me of this little adventure we had a couple summers ago.

Most of the pictures I tried to take were too dark. Here is a picture of where we got to the end where you can belly crawl for a while longer. The kids went a ways in and I snapped this picture. Most of the tunnel is big and open. By the time we came back out we had walked about a mile and a half. It was very cool.

The drive within the national forest was so beautiful. We got some peeks at Mount St. Helens through the trees.

And lots of other beautiful spots.

I continued to baste and sew my hexgons together on the drive home. Don’t they look pretty?

The other reason for the trip besides Ape Cave was to find a Geocache that sits at the midpoint of a triangle of geocaches we have found called The Triad. One of the caches is in Portland and is the first geocache ever, the second is called the Ape Cache (which actually has nothing to do with Ape Cave and is no where near it), and the third is the offices of Groundspeak in Seattle (which is the Geocaching headquarters). All we had left was to find is the midpoint cache and you get a really cool geocoin. It ended up being a wild goose chase on this crazy gravel road with big ruts. We saw a bear which was cool. It was quite an adventure! My husband is going to go back sometime with a friend of ours that geocaches and has a 4 wheel drive truck. I don’t mind not going on that crazy road again! :)

Faux Piped Binding Tutorial

2010-07-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

I learned a really cool binding method at a make it and take it night at my quilt guild last year and I wanted to share it with you. I used it on this doll quilt for Doll Quilt Swap #8. I decided to do a tutorial so you can make this cool binding too!

As you can see on my quilt I used a green polka dot for the binding and a yellow for the accent color. So we will start out by cutting our fabric into strips. You will cut the binding strips (green polka dot) 1 1/2” and the accent strips (yellow) 1 3/4”. Cut enough strips of the binding fabric to go all the way around your quilt plus about ten inches or more. Now cut the same amount of the accent fabric.

I like a bias seamed binding. I think it looks nicer and there is less bulk than a straight seam. So to do this you will place your binding strips right sides together end to end (at a right angle) and sew them together like you see in the picture below. I have three strips so I had to do this twice to make my binding into one long strip. Then do the same with your accent strips, sewing them end to end the same way.

Trim the seams and then open it up and press the seams to one side. Do the same with the accent strip. So far we have prepared the binding and accent strips separately.

Now we are going to put them together. Lay your binding strip and your accent strip right sides together. Here is one of the places where it will be good to have given yourself extra binding length. You want to offset the seams so they don’t hit at the same place. I left a couple inches in between to reduce bulk. Pinning your strips together to ensure that those seams don’t creep toward each other when you are sewing is a good idea.

Now that your binding strip is all pinned to your accent strip go ahead and trip the ends nice and neat.

Sew a 1/4” seam from one end to the other removing the pins before they get to the needle. Seriously leaving them there is dangerous. I speak from experience. Let’s just say I am lucky I wear glasses!

Ok here is where you have a choice. You can press the seam toward the accent fabric for a “stuffed” piping or you can press the seam toward the binding fabric for a “flat” piping. In the DQS8 quilt I did the “stuffed” piping and that is what I am doing for this quilt too.

Now fold your binding in half with wrong sides together and press it.

Now your binding is all ready to sew onto the quilt. We are going to sew the binding to the BACK of the quilt, binding fabric side down, raw edge of the binding lined up with the raw edge of the quilt. I like to start in the middle of the side of the quilt and make sure to leave about five or six inches of your binding strip unattached to the quilt (for now). Don’t forget to use a walking foot at this point. It will make it a lot easier.

When you get to the corner of the quilt stop stitching a 1/4” from the edge and take a couple back stitches.

You are going to want to take your quilt off of your machine for this part. Flip the binding up so that it looks just like the picture below.

Now you are going to fold it back down on itself.

Sew this side down continuing to use a 1/4” seam. Don’t forget to backstitch that corner. Continue around the quilt until you are approaching where you started. You will want to stop sewing the binding down about ten or twelve inches from where you started.

We are going to sew the two ends together on the bias so the seam is just like the seams that we used to sew the strips together in the beginning. Lay your binding tails down so that one end overlaps the other. Fold the overlapping end back on itself so you see your binding fabric. Make sure the bend of the side you folded back lines up with the other end of your binding. Using scissors you are going to cut the binding that is folding back on itself 2 1/2” away from the fold. Only cut the overlapping part NOT the binding that is resting against your quilt. You want to make sure you do all this at the midpoint between where your binding is stitched down so you have room to work.

Open up the binding and place the ends right sides together at a right angle just like we did in the beginning. It may be helpful to use pins to hold the ends together. This part can be tricky so you might want to use pins to act as your stitching just to test that you are sewing the ends the right way. I like to switch back to my normal 1/4” sewing foot for this part.

Trim the seam.

This is how it should look after you have sewn the ends together.

Switch back to your walking foot and sew the rest of the binding down to the quilt with a 1/4” seam.

Now the pay off for all your hard work! Fold the binding around to the front of the quilt and you get to see how great it looks.

This binding method is sewn down by machine by stitching in the ditch between the accent fabric and the binding fabric. Make sure you cover the stitching (from sewing the binding to the quilt) with your binding. You will notice that when the binding is stitched down the accent fabric looks like piping and you can pull it back, so you want to make sure you can’t see where you first sewed the binding to the back of the quilt.

Here is what it should look like all stitched down.

Here is how to fold and sew the corners.

Here is a picture of my quilt from the front.

And this is the back.

I hope this tutorial was helpful and not too long winded. :) If you try this method let me know. I would love to see it! If you have any questions I will try to answer them in the comments.

June Schnibble

2010-06-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

I want to start this post with a big thank you to all my readers. I really appreciate you taking the time to let me share with you, whether you comment or not. Although, I do really appreciate and love when you do. :) To show my appreciation I wanted to do a giveaway, but first here is my Schnibble quilt for June.

The pattern for June is called State Fair (I love that movie) and it was lots of fun to pick the fabric for. This is my first stash quilt since the reorganization and boy did I have fun picking out fabric!

I love how this quilt evolved. When I was choosing fabric I picked out some some darker and brighter fabric which I thought would add interest. But when I laid the blocks out I wasn’t sure about those dark/bright fabric randomly scattered around. So I did some rearranging and ended up with a secondary pattern. I love it!

Doesn’t this look like a good quilt for a baby girl?

Ok so now for the giveaway! I recently got my hands on some very sought after out of print fabric and I would like to share some with you. Want to see it?

Did you just scream or faint or anything? If not you must not be part of the Flea Market Fancy Freaks group. Seriously that is for real! Anyways, I am giving away a fat quarter of this fabric to one of my wonderful readers. Shh, don’t tell anyone. This is not a spread the word kind of giveaway. One comment per person and if you are a Follower make sure and mention it in your comment and you get another chance at winning. Good luck and thanks for stopping by!

Dear Jane

2010-06-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

My sister and I had a long overdue Dear Jane marathon. We do these marathons now and again where we set aside a couple days on the calendar to work on our Dear Jane quilts. This has been a project that has been going on for years for us and every once in a while we sit ourselves down and give ourselves a stern talking to. Not really, it is more like we get on the phone and talk about how we really need to make some progress. We are over a hundred blocks along by now (really it is over 200 if you are counting both our quilts) and there are one hundred and sixty nine blocks (4 1/2” finished) total. And that is just the middle. We aren’t even talking about the pieced triangle border yet because that just causes us to break out in a sweat. So here is what I accomplished over the last two days…

I-13, Sweet Harmony

K-8, Springbrook Park

D-1, Alison’s Guiding Light

At the beginning of our Dear Jane journey we split up all the blocks evenly. Now I am trying to strike a bargain with her that I will do some of her paper pieced blocks that have a bazillion pieces if she will do some of my teeny tiny applique blocks. I am not sure if she will go for it though. Maybe if I throw in picking out all the paper from the paper pieced blocks before handing them over to her. Think that will work?

Fabric Therapy (and I don’t mean buying more of it)

2010-06-24T11:17:00.001-07:00

I got together with a blog friend recently. Her name is Alexis and she blogs over at The Quilts of Mimi Park. She is super talented and I got to know who she was when she made a doll quilt for me for the Doll Quilt Swap #6. I got to meet her in person at Jaquie’s trunk show in Seattle. Just last week she came to my home for a day of sewing and I am sure she didn’t realize that when she accepted the invitation that she would become my fabric therapist. She was working on this great little scrappy quilt that she designed and I noticed it was great mix of fabrics. Some designer, some not and it was so rich and striking in color. When I took a closer look I noticed that a few of the fabrics were the type you have in your stash for a while but it added so much to the quilts color variety and richness. It was such an eye opener for me. It got us talking and I lamented about my stash and how I am not loving most of it. I keep it in my son’s closet in huge 18 gallon bins separated by color (two colors in each bin). I have been quilting for about 13 years and some of the fabric I have is about that old. When I started reading blogs I started noticing fabric wasn’t just fabric anymore. It had the designer’s name attached to it and that seemed to be really important. I got swept up in all that name dropping until I couldn’t look at my stash of no names without disappointment. Alexis breezed through my door with a reminder that I used to love to design quilts and peruse my stash for new and inventive fabric combinations. Also, that my own ideas used to flow and I would sketch them regularly.

She got me so fired up that I set to making my stash work for me right away. With lots of ideas from Alexis I attacked my stash. I knew I had to have it displayed in a way that I could see it all. The only place I could think of is a bookshelf in my bedroom. So I cleared all the books off and boxed some up and relocated others. I cleared out every storage bin of my stash and folded them in three different sizes depending on how much yardage each one was. And after a few days this is what I had.

It was such an eye opener for me to see it all stacked together and where I could see it all. It looked so pretty! What a revelation! I immediately was able to see fabrics that I would like to put together. I even put my quarantined designer fabric with the rest of my stash. I know, what a concept. I learned that I had a lot more blue than I thought. I learned that I have plenty of fabric and that it takes up a lot less room when it is folded neatly. I learned that when you hoard your favorites for too long then they aren’t your favorites anymore and that you should have used them when you loved them.

The next thing I learned is that I have a lot of little scraps and that I really should use them to make those quilts I love, you know scrap quilts, but have never really made one myself. So I put them where they can’t be ignored. These drawers used to hold my WIPs but now they hold my scraps and I am hoping that will make all the difference in them getting used.

I had high hopes that my son could actually have his closet back but that is not a reality at this time. I had to relocated my WIPs and UFOs there. I did eliminate two of the 18 gallon bins though which left a space in his closet that he has claimed as a great place to read with the doors closed and his book light handy. And the shelf that used to hold piles of fabric and projects now holds my quilt magazine collection. It looks a lot neater in there and we were reminded that those bins help my son to reach his clothes. So really they are there to help him. That’s what I tell myself.

It couldn’t have been more perfect timing when I read Em’s post about having a summer scrap challenge. It is the push I need to get organized for a leaders and enders scrap quilt. I love the idea of making a scrappy quilt while working on other projects. What a bonus! So I joined up. Thanks, Em! And a huge thank you to Alexis for a great therapy session. Let’s do it again soon!!

Bring on Summer

2010-06-16T10:49:00.001-07:00

My kids helping make dinner the other night.

No more homework! No more books! No more teacher’s dirty looks! Yay, today is the last day of school! I think I am more excited than the kids and let me tell you they are excited. I am looking forward to not being so scheduled or at least being scheduled the way we want to be. We are going to spend the summer camping, cooking (the kids have been begging me to give them cooking lessons), at the zoo, at the beach, at the library, playing games, reading, and whatever else we feel like doing. Now if it would just stop raining that would really be the icing on the cake.

Working Together

2010-06-15T07:43:00.001-07:00

He cut…

I cut…

He assembled…

I assembled…

He ended up with something beautiful…

And so did I…

Don’t you just love working together?

Kind of together?

Does it count if we were in the same room?

A New Tradition

2010-06-13T17:48:00.001-07:00

On Saturday was the Sound to Narrows 5K. My family walked it last year and had such a great time that we signed up to do it again this year. My husband and daughter signed up for the run and my son and I signed up to do the walk.

A few days before the event my sister asked if their family could join us. Of course! So her husband and son would run it and she and her daughter would walk it. They spent the night at our house (we live closer to where the event was held) so we could get out early the next morning. The cousins were so excited to be together and to ride the bus from where we parked the car to the race.

It is such a fun event and so well attended. Thousands of people show up to take part in the fun. They have a race for everyone in the family. They have the 12K, the 5K run, the 5K walk, the 2K, and a diaper dash that is about 200 yards for the really little kids. The 5K run started a half hour before the walk so we were able to see our family members who did the run cross the finish line right before we had to run over to start our race. My husband and daughter ran the whole thing without walking and crossed the finish line in 29 minutes. So awesome! It was fun to walk with my sister and a good thing too because my son wanted to run it instead of walk it so he took off (with my permission) and ended up being the first of the walkers to cross the finish line. He ran the entire 5K! My sister’s daughter skipped happily along almost the whole way and we had to walk fast (and sometimes jog) to keep up with her. We were able to walk it in about 45 minutes. So the goal for next year is to run the 5K with the rest of my family.

My new favorite quilt

2010-06-09T17:14:00.001-07:00

Here is the big reveal! This is what I did with all those gorgeous solids I showed you in the previous post…

I saw this quilt in my April 2010 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting and fell in love. I loved the bright colors and the modern design. I stalked Kona sales online for a couple weeks until finally ordering the whole lot from Fabric Depot. When my order arrived in the mail I found that some of the colors were a little too close to each other in shade. I supplemented from some Kona solids from JoAnns, just a few. I really need one of those Kona color cards!

The pattern calls for assorted bright solids so I just picked what I liked in a variety. When it came time to pair them up I laid out the stacks of colors and started putting them together starting with stack one and then all of stack two. That way there were no duplicates. The white is Kona Snow and the sashing and borders is Kona Teal Blue. The teal is the same color they used in the magazine and I thought it was so stunning that I decided to make it just like the quilt in the magazine.

I used a design wall at the retreat for block placement. Which was huge in being able to place blocks and step back and take a look. It was a little tricky as some of the blocks looks similar but in different shades. I didn’t want those too close together if I could help it. At the same time I was trying not to sweat it too much knowing that when it was all together it probably wouldn’t be too obvious.

The quilt measures about 76” x 89”. I will probably quilt it like they did in the magazine with a water ripple pattern in the blocks and a small stipple everywhere else. We will see if I change my mind.

I love how the blocks look like doors. And I put some colors together purposely to represent some of the people I love. Like my daughter’s door is in her school colors and so is my son’s. My husband’s door is in two shades of his favorite color and mine is in two shades of mine. The cool thing is that if our tastes or change or when school colors change we can more to a different door in the building. Do you see your door?

Retreat Review

2010-06-08T13:26:00.001-07:00

As you know from my previous post I was gone to a retreat for Memorial Day weekend. It has taken me until now to find the time to sit down and put a post together to show you what all my talented friends worked on. Sorry for the delay.

First I had to show you this gorgeous view. We get to sew at the most beautiful place. My husband and kids came by for a visit one day and we walked down to the water. The tide had gone out earlier in the day and was coming back in. We found lots of sand dollars and seashells and even saw some wildlife. It was a nice break from sitting at the sewing machine. I snapped this picture on the way down the trail.

Without further ado here is what my friends wowed me with this time…

Nan worked on this gorgeous quilt filled with Kaffe Fassett fabric. I just love it!

Here are two beautiful scrap quilts. The first one is Barb’s…

And this second one is Margot’s…

Shirley worked on these cute doggie placemats for an animal charity auction. They are all different and so cute with doggie themed fabric.

Shirley also made this vibrant quilt from fabric a friend had brought her back from Finland.

Darlene made this quilt from a kit that she had bought. It is pretty cool because the quilt takes 5 yards of fabric. One yard of five different fabrics.

Darlene’s grandson has become a cub scout so she made this cute pillowcase to take with him to summer camp.

Darlene used Bar Harbor charm packs to make this cute patriotic colored quilt.

Alice and I sat right next to each other at the retreat. She was so much fun. And so generous too because when I realized that I didn’t have enough of a line of fabric I was working with Alice checked her stash on a trip back home one day and brought me some. Here is a quilt she made…

She also bound a quilt, made little baby booties, and made this cute bag…

Melanie is participating in a row quilt exchange kind of like the Round Robin I am doing but with rows. She finished this one off with the top row that shows a sun peeking over the clouds. I love the creativity that each person took with their row.

After Melanie finished her row she switched over to working on this very large quilt top. Isn’t it beautiful!

We were all in love with this quilt top Rosie put together with some blocks I think she found or someone gave her. It is all scrappy with cowboy themed fabric. I love the secondary pattern the blocks make when joined together.

This next quilt is one of those one block wonders. All the blocks are made with one fabric. I wish I would have taken a picture of the fabric Marianne was using when she made this. Amazing!

This quilt was made by Joanne. I like how she placed the color in this quilt and I love the batiks.

Susan is always amazing me with what she can find at thrift stores. She shows up at guild meetings with the most beautiful yarns that she finds there. Well she found all the fabric and the panel to make this quilt at a thrift shop. Wow!

She also made this beautiful Storm at Sea quilt from a John Flynn laser cut quilt kit. I love all the blues.

Amber came by for a visit and stayed to work on a project and have dinner with us. She brought a mini trunk show with her of some of the quilts she had been working on. I thought you might want to see it too!

I took more pictures than that but unfortunately the rest are too blurry. I guess I was really excited to be there and couldn’t always keep still enough. :) You saw what I finished at retreat, but I also spent a lot of time working with this gorgeous stack of Kona solids.

And I cut them like this…

And you will find out what I did with them in my next post! Thanks for sticking around for this long post. I hope you found some inspiration from my very talented friends.

May Schnibble

2010-05-31T07:07:00.000-07:00

I am here at my annual Memorial Day quilting retreat and I thought I would share my first finish. I brought this project all cut up and ready to go and was able to piece it, quilt it, and bind it on my retreat. I finished hand sewing the binding yesterday and had to take advantage of the beautiful backdrop to take pictures.

This month we were given the chance to use any Schnibble pattern we wanted so I chose Two Bits. I made this quilt at a retreat a couple years ago and I used all the leftovers from the jelly roll (and some muslin) to piece this table runner.

I also pieced the back with every little scrap of the fabric from this line I had left. I love it so much more than if I would have had enough of one fabric for the back.

When I get home this little beauty will find a home in my living room on the trunk that serves as our coffee table. I will be back in a day or two to show you what my friends and I accomplished at our retreat.

Round Robin

2010-05-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

Back in January I joined a small group of quilters in my quilt guild to participate in a Round Robin. You start off by making a block of your own and then pass it on to the next person in the group. You will receive someone else's block and you add a border. The next block you get will have already been to another quilter and you are the second to add a border, and so on. We get two months for each round. It is such a fun challenge. You can catch up here on how it has gone up until now. (if you scroll all the way down on that link, you will start with the block I made)

This is the second quilt I have had the opportunity to add a border to. It is Dolores' quilt. I struggled with finding fabrics in my stash that matched this quilt.

I lucked out when I found a few fat quarters that I had been given at a retreat a year or two ago. They weren't exactly what I was looking for but they seemed like they might work if I used them in the right way. I also used a few of the fabrics that came along in the box that carried her quilt to tie it together. I am so pleased with how it turned out!

Here is the next one that I will be pondering for the coming month or two. It has a Christmas theme. The other quilters have really seem to keep nicely with the theme. I hope I can keep with the theme too as it is not really my style of quilt.

Now I need to get to cutting fabric for a baby quilt. I am teaching some of the teenage girls at church how to quilt. So they decided to make a baby quilt I hope it goes well and that we can get it made in an hour and a half. I guess whatever doesn't get finished I can take care of at home.

Blogger Quilt Festival

2010-05-24T13:23:00.001-07:00

A big thank you to Amy for bringing hundreds of quilters together online like nobody else can. I have been having the best time oohing and ahhing over all the wonderful quilts. I think it is so cool that The Blogger's Quilt Festival gives so many quilters with so many different styles a way to share their talents with each other.

For my quilt I chose one that I just finished (stitched the binding during the finale of LOST last night) and it happens to be my first finished quilt for Charity Quilts For My Birthday. Charity Quilts For My Birthday is a challenge I started for myself and for anyone else who wants to join me. You can read all about it here. I picked all the fabric from my stash and used the New Wave pattern from Oh Fransson!. I love this pattern!

I think the fabric makes it a great quilt for a young girl. This quilt is going to Quilts for Kids along with a couple more that I am currently finishing.

I didn't have enough of the blue flower fabric for the back so I cut it in half diagonally and added a wide strip of the white flower fabric. This is such a fun and easy way to increase the size of your backing.

It feels so good knowing this is going to a child who will really enjoy it. I hope it brings a big smile to her face.

If you would like to join me or spread the word about Charity Quilts For My Birthday go ahead and grab this button and put it on your blog...

Thanks for taking the time to stop by my blog! Enjoy the rest of the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Stash Manicure

2010-05-15T01:05:00.000-07:00

I'm guest blogging over at Stash Manicure today! Come take a look!

Charity Quilts

2010-05-05T16:53:00.000-07:00

I've thought a lot lately about quilting for charity. It is something I think about alot but it never goes much farther than that. I have done some charity quilting through my church and my quilt guild but nothing very regular. With how long I have been quilting I think that is pretty pathetic. So when I saw Jackie's post where she mentions making a quilt for Quilts for Kids, I knew it was the push I needed. You just hop online, they send you a kit, and they give you a deadline of 4-6weeks to send back the completed quilt. I work much better with a deadline. And it's not my fabric to begin with so I can't fall in love with it and keep it. Awesome!

So I sat down the other day to work on the kit they sent me. The fabric is so cute and bright. I was really enjoying myself. Which is good since I haven't sewn anything in over a month. Here is how it is coming along so far...

So I was happily quilting along when what pops in my head? "Trisha, you should make 40 quilts for charity by the time you turn 40 years old." What?! Where did that come from? That sounds like a lot! So I did the math... I turn 35 in August, so that gives me 5 years...so 8 quilts a year. Hmm... That doesn't sound so bad, and if I begin now with this quilt I can get a head start.

So...do you want to join me? I have decided to start Charity Quilts For My Birthday. My sister, Tina, made me a button using a picture of the beautiful cake quilt I received for DQS8 from Lisa.

For me this will be a 5 year commitment, unless I am amazing and get it done sooner. For you it can be however many quilts you want to donate, by whatever birthday you choose. And of course as you make your quilts, you decide the charity you want to donate to. Just think how fun this can be if we all do it together! And if you want to e-mail me pictures of your finished charity quilts, I will post updates of your finishes with pictures and a link to your blog. So what do you say? Are you with me? Just post on your blog what your goal is for Charity Quilts For My Birthday, and be sure to add the link to your post below in Mr. Linky. And don't forget to grab the button from my sidebar for your blog. Let the charity quilting begin!!

Edited to add: I have had some e-mails asking if you have to have a blog to participate. No you do not need to have a blog. I would hate for that to be the reason why charity quilts aren't made. So if you don't have a blog and want to participate, no problem. Just shoot me an e-mail at tlcstitches(AT)q(DOT)com and let me know your goal. As you finish your charity quilts send me pictures and you will be included in the charity quilt update posts.

Meeting Other Bloggers

2010-04-07T06:16:00.000-07:00

When I heard that Jacquie from Tallgrass Prairie Studio was coming to Fabric Crush in Seattle I was going to be there no matter what. I read her blog and love her quilting style. She has a style of quilting that I am drawn to but haven't tried a lot of. I asked my friend Ginny if she wanted to meet me there. I met Ginny through our blogs and we met in person earlier this year. We get together regularly now to knit or do a little quilt or yarn shop hopping. I have so much fun with her.

I also e-mailed Alexis who blogs at The Quilts of Mimi Park to tell her about Jacquie's trunk show. I was secretly hoping she could come and that I would get to meet her. She did! And it was so fun to chat with her in person.

I first new who Alexis was when she sent me this wonderful quilt because she had my name in the Doll Quilt Swap. I loved it and still do and it hangs right next to my bed over my bedside table. I am so glad I got to meet her!

Ginny and I snuck into a yarn shop right before heading into Fabric Crush to feel some fiber. Then we went next door to the quilt shop which is open and modern and a very cool space. If you are ever in Seattle you should check it out. Jacquie brought a variety of quilts that showed her quilting journey. I recognized just about every one and enjoyed seeing them in person. She talked about making a smaller version of a quilt first to try out your design before making the actual quilt. She says she usually ends up donating those. She also talked about the different quilting she does on her quilts. Her work is amazing and so artistic. It was fun to hear the stories behind her quilts, and she has one for every quilt. Lots of them very touching. I especially love the quilt below at the very bottom of the picture. She named it Proposal Moon and she is making it for her husband who proposed to her out in the cold, under the moon. It was the quilt I wanted to see most.

So here are Jacquie and I taking a nice picture in front of her famous selvage quilt...

...and here we are being silly because I made Ginny take the picture for the third time because I thought I blinked. It was so nice to meet Jacquie and talk to her in person.

Listening to Jacquie talk made me get excited about quilting. It gave me a shot in the arm that I have needed lately. I have been in a funk. I feel the weight of all the UFOs, all my stash that I am not crazy about but feel the guilt of it sitting there. Listening to Jacquie's excitement about quilting reminded me that it is supposed to be fun. I get caught in responsibility mode and I don't work on things I want to because there are things that I have to or should be working on. So then I don't quilt at all. I am realizing that if I let myself do what I want to do then the momentum of my enjoyment would probably spill over into wanting to work on the projects that I should be doing. I think it could be a win, win situation all the way around.

Thanks for a very fun evening Ginny, Alexis, and Jacquie! I am so glad I went and that I got to spend time with three very talented, very cool women that I met through blogging.

Rainbow Roundabout

2010-03-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

This is my Schnibble for the month of March. I had the idea to make it a rainbow that subtly changed colors diagonally across the quilt. It was a lot more of a challenge than I thought it would be to find the fabrics in my stash to make my idea work. And I am happy to say that the quilt is all stash. Feels good! There was a lot of trial and error. A lot of laying things out and stepping back to see if it flowed or if a color stuck out like a sore thumb. In the end I think I accomplished what I set out to do.

For the back I wanted to do another rainbow and having the color gradate in one line was a whole lot easier.

I decided to do what Jacquie calls organic quilting. About halfway through quilting this I was doubting. Not the look but for how long it was taking. I made it take longer by having some of my lines go in the other direction. But I love the finished look of it and in the end I am happy that I suffered through.

I chose a black and white check for the binding. This was a no brainer choice for this quilt. I knew I just had to do black and white. This fabric is great in small doses. When I laid it out to cut the binding strips it was making me dizzy!

Finished it off with a TLC Stitches label and it feels good to have another finished quilt.

I decided to add the Follower option on the right side of my blog. I really appreciate that you take the time to read my blog and comment. It makes my day and is so fun for me. I want to be able to do giveaways for my readers so I added that so that I know who you are. If you read my blog through google reader or bloglines (or any other method) make sure to sign up as a Follower too so that you can be included in some giveaways I am planning.

Round Robin

2010-03-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

Are you quilters sick of seeing my knitting yet? If so this post is for you...

The first round of our quilt guild's round robin is coming to a close. I am handing this off to Susan tonight. The center is Ada's block and she did a Dresden plate in 1930's reproduction fabrics. Luckily I have some of those in my stash. So I used the white and some of her '30s fabrics along with lots of my own.

I am excited about what I came up with for her quilt. I love all the scrappy 9 patches. And it was a really natural way to introduce a lot more fabric without it looking wrong. Putting them on point and making the border fit the block was tricky. Ada had stitched in black around the Dresden plate and I wanted to bring that black out so I put a half inch black border in between her block and my 9 patch strips. I think it adds a lot.

Ada's Dresden plate square is 16" and now with my border it is 25 1/2". Our borders are not supposed to be more than 6" which I didn't take into consideration until after I had finished it and was measuring. Whew! Mine are 5".

Round robins are fun, not only because you get to see what everyone has done along the way with each other's quilts, but you also get to see later what they did after your border. I am looking forward to seeing what everyone does with this quilt that frankly, I have become attached to.