Finished Blocks + Pillow

I did it! I achieved my goal of finishing the rest of my scrappy trip blocks yesterday! I was super tired by the end of it, though. Mostly because I decided to do Insanity (again- I did it once last summer) and as this is my first week, I am SO SORE. But! I can still keep up and even do almost as many push-ups as the super fit people in the videos, so I'm pretty please with myself :) But that made for really sore arms during my sewing fest. My obsession was such that I gritted my teeth through the pain and now I have 36 pretty, scrappy blocks. Please excuse the crappy phone picture. I didn't remember to get out my nice camera while I had the blocks all laid out... and I really don't want to move the furniture and do it again!

I can't wait to get it all sewn together! Then I just have to put together some sort of backing and quilt! Question: if you were me, what color thread would you use for quilting? I feel like white would stick out too much, but there are so many colors, I just can't decide. There is more blue than anything else, probably, so I was thinking maybe a lighter blue. Or light grey, maybe? Hmmm. Help??

Also! In between the scrappy madness, I managed to finish another Sister's Ten pillow:

For this one, I just did straight line quilting. I couldn't decide what else to do and I didn't want the quilting to distract too much from the block itself, which I am really quite fond of. I love it so much! I need to redecorate my living room to match my new pillows, I think.

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts!

A Little Break...

I took a little break from the scrappy trip madness today to make this:

I turned one of my Sister's Ten BOM blocks into a pretty little pillow :) I decided to try a loopy FMQ pattern on this one. It's a bit inconsistent as far as spacing goes. But that's what practice is for, right? I really love how it turned out! I had put these blocks away because I could decide what color to use as borders for the pillows... I thought I would use a neutral, but I didn't like any of the ones I held up to the block, so into a bin they went to wait. Then today I decided I needed a little break from scrappy tripping- I'm up to 11 blocks! And now I need to cut more strips. Which I really didn't feel like doing. It was quite by chance that I settled on this green for the borders. It was laying on my cutting table waiting to have a strip cut from it for my scrappy trip and they just looked so perfect together! I cut a couple more strips and a little while later I had a pretty finished pillow. The back is a simple envelop closure in the same green as the border. The other block is waiting to be quilted and will join its sister as a pillow hopefully this weekend. Yay!

I also finished my bee block for the month.

Isn't it pretty? I don't think I would have picked these colors, but I really love how it looks now that it's all together! It will be making its way to Virginia tomorrow morning :)

Okay. So I didn't achieve my goal for the week, which was to knock out all my BOM blocks. My scrappy trip quilt is still totally distracting me... and covering my sewing table! There is a fabric explosion in here and I really don't feel like cleaning it up to make a couple of blocks and then have to get it all out again. So I'm probably going to fall behind in the BOM department. But for my scrappy trip quilt... that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make!

Now I can't decide if I should finish my pillow this afternoon or make a few more scrappy trip blocks... Decisions.

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts!

Finished Pillow + Table Runner Fabrics

Another not-so-crafty weekend. But there were many friends and fun things going and even some homework, so I don't feel too guilty.

Kirby was taken to his new home. I hope he will be well loved.

I finished the pillow. I was going to take a picture with the nice camera, but I gave it away before I could. So here it the crappy cell phone picture.

It is a little over stuffed in this picture. I unstuffed it just a little before I gave it away. I didn't take a picture of the back, but it is made out of the cute pink heart fabric you can see at the bottom right corner of the pillow. It's just a simple envelope back- I would like to learn how to add invisible zippers, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Still, I like the envelope backs. They're easy :)

My next project is to make a new table runner for our living room coffee table. It currently has a pretty boring bamboo affair on it that came from Ross 3 years ago. I liked it then, but now I just think it's awful. I want something bright and happy! So I bought a selection of prints from the Frippery collection by Thomas Knauer. I don't go in much for seasonal decoration. I like bright colors and I will decorate with them all year round! Here they are, all laying on my craft table just waiting to be cut up and sewn into something pretty...

I love them! Especially the peacocks.

Anyway, I am looking forward to getting started on this. But I have a few other obligations to take care of first... Maybe by next weekend they will be a pretty quilted table runner :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Pillow + Amigurumi

Good morning!

Well, I didn't do a lot of crafty things over the weekend. Barbecue and beer with good friends won out over my sewing machine. But I have no regrets!

I did get this little pillow top finished.

It was quick to sew up and I like the way it turned out. I had some tension problems with my machine for a while before I was actually able to sew it, though. Apparently (according to the internets) the Brother XL-3750 often has tension problems and it has something to do with the bobbin case. So I opened it up and treated it like I would an old Nintendo- I jiggled it around and blew on it til it worked. And you know what? It did. Maybe I should start calling my machine NES.

Speaking of Nintendo, I also made this little guy for a friend's birthday. He just needs a mouth, but I couldn't decide what to do for the mouth. I have no embroidery skills (though I would like to learn) so I'm just sewing little felt face pieces on. Maybe I'll just do a little dot for the mouth. Kirby at rest. I made Kirby using this pattern.

I saw a quilt I absolutely want to make. It's from Quilts from the House of Tula Pink and it's houndstooth! O.O I have wanted to make a houndstooth quilt since I started putting together my first quilt top. The only problem? I don't have the book. But I want it. That's going on my birthday/Christmas wishlist. Houndstooth! I'm so glad houndstooth is suddenly fashionable. It used to be that I could only find it in thrift stores in the form of pant and skirt suits (usually with shoulder pads, too- UGH). But now it's everywhere! I need to stock up before it goes out of style again :D 

Well, that's all for today. See you around!

Inaugural Post

Hello there. It seems you have stumbled across the little space I have carved out for myself in the internets. Welcome!

Lately I have been into crafting. A lot. I would be sewing up a pretty pillow right now if my arm weren't sore. But instead I am looking at old pictures while the new ones are copying onto my computers, feeling nostalgic remembering all the silly, fun times. It is nice to realize I have had a lot of silly, fun times. And I have a lot of pictures that make me smile to show for it :)

But on to craftier topics...

I have been avidly reading all sorts of crafty blogs- mostly to do with sewing, quilting, and crochet- and they have been nothing but inspiring. I love seeing regular everyday people like me creating wonderful things! And if they can do it, why can't I, right? So...

This is my first ever quilt top! :D It is far from perfect. I set it aside well over a year ago because the rows weren't lining up perfectly and I really didn't want to go back and do it all over again. But then I got a sudden inspiration to finish it, flaws be damned. This inspiration likely came because of a powerful need to put off doing homework... But I finished it! It hasn't been quilted yet- I have been practicing my quilting skills on a much smaller scale before I tackle the whole quilt top. But I want to get it all done this winter. Maybe even before the new year! That would be lovely.

In the mean time, to hone my skills, I have decided to make pillows. Why pillows? My couch is pretty much made of (ugly) pillows already. But I figure pillows are good, cute little projects to help me practice patchwork and quilting.

Pillow number 1! I was so proud of myself for finishing it! I am less proud of this picture. I don't know how I turned on that ugly date stamp. It will have to go next time. I wish I could work on another one right now! But alas, it is not meant to be tonight. 

Well. Thank you for stopping by! I plan to make this a regular thing, so come back sometime soon! In the mean time, I will be reading, reading, reading about quilting until my arm feels better. See you around!