Blogger's Quilt Festival

The Blogger's Quilt Festival is kicking off today at Amy's Creative Side.  This is my 3rd time participating, and it's always so much fun to see so many wonderful quilts in one place.  I chose one of my recent finishes - It's my Diamond Chains Quilt from a Quilt Along that we just barely completed 2 weeks ago. (The weather is still rainy and dreary, so I'm afraid I only have indoor pictures for you).

Front

Back

Here's an up close look at the Swan Star (prior to piecing the front together):

And.....I got goodies from Melinda this week for participating in the Quilt Along.  Who doesn't love getting fabric in the mail?!....I mean, seriously - I confess though that the adorable little bag it came in was my favorite part.  Thanks, Melinda!!

Blocks A Plenty

1- Here's my Bloggers BOM for October:

 2- Skill Builder: I had 2 blocks to do to catch up.  The first one was #14- Crazy Quilt Block: My favorite part of doing this block was trying out a lot of cool stitches on my machine.  I think this would be a really cool technique (sewing onto a fabric base) to make a t-shirt quilt or for baby clothing.  I think I may venture out with this later on with my kid's clothing......I just need to get a little braver first.

 

The second block was #15- Diamond Dash: Well, let me give you a little background.  I have always been super scared about paper piecing quilts - I've never done it.  Then this block shows up that uses paper piecing.  I consider putting it off....

Meanwhile, I decide I want to be apart of the '12 Days of Christmas' Sampler Quilt Along.  I've been really excited about making a Christmas quilt, and then.....I see the first block - a paper pieced truck.  Seriously?!  I'm not going to lie - my heart sank.  I knew that if I'm going to try the Christmas stuff that I'm going to have to suck it up and do the SBS #15. 

 Eh....I made a stupid mistake - I was thinking the seem allowance was there for the triangles not the actual block, so my triangles weren't big enough.  Oops.  The block still came together, but it wasn't the greatest.  I'm glad I tried paper piecing, but it didn't give me the confidence boost I needed to paper piece the truck.  We'll see.  I'm still debating what I'll do.

3- I made a Ticker Tape Doll Quilt for my niece (blogged about here).

4- I pulled out an old project (it's actually one of the very first things I started working on 3 years ago).  When I showed my husband what I was going to work on, he said, "Hallelujah!  I never thought I'd see this day!"  He's been trying to get me to finish some of my old projects (without much success - I might add) for a long time.  My mom wanted a Christmas table runner, but at the time I didn't even know how to make one.  I've made a couple now, so I'm going to finally get this done before Christmas.

 I kind of cringe to see some of the seams not lining up, but it's kind of nice to see how far I've come in the last 3 years of quilting.  I sewed the 3 blocks together this week, and now I need to get it layered together and quilted this week.

Stats for the Week:

New projects - 1
Completed projects - 1
Projects In Progress - 3
Projects on Hold- 2

Check out the other WIP at Freshly Pieced!

Doll Quilt

I'm usually not very good about birthday gifts, but my niece is turning 4 in a month, and I thought it would be the perfect excuse to make a doll quilt. 

Can I just say I love the quilting community?  I started searching online for possible ideas for the quilt, and I found so many tutorials.  The one that really caught my eye was a Tiny Ticker Tape Quilt from Sew, Mama, Sew.  It's such an awesome way to use scraps, and so different from your average quilt. 

 The back looks fun even without a patterned fabric.

So, my only irritation is my stitching for the binding.  I'm a hand-stitching girl when it comes to the binding, but I thought since this was such a little project that I would experiment with a machine binding.  I was all over the place (as you can see above), but since it's my first time doing it I shouldn't be so particular.  I had a lot of fun putting together this little doll quilt though.  I already want to make another. :)

Modern Day Miracles

We've been challenged by our Stake President (regional ecclesiastic leader of my church) to attend the Columbus temple 5 times in 5 weeks.  Joel and I typically try to go once a month, so this has really stretched us (mostly because the challenge came right during one of Joel's worst rotations at the hospital, so we've had to be creative when we can go).

The last time I drove to New York it was pure wretchedness.  Let's just say there was a lot of uncontrollable screaming and crying.  By the time I got home I never wanted to make that trip again, but call me insane- my family talked me into coming to visit. Yep- last week I traveled to New York with 2 young kiddos, and um - by myself.  I can't tell you how seriously worried and scared I was about the 9 hour car trip. 

What does this have to do with going to the temple?  Well, the night before I left I was scheduled to attend the temple.  I had a million things to do and I was starting to second guess my choice to go to the temple.  In the end I decided to just go.  While I was sitting in the temple, I had the distinct impression that because I was trying to be faithful and fulfill the Stake President's challenge that I would be blessed- that everything would be alright during my travels.  I was relieved. 

I have to tell you that Emma didn't cry at all the entire trip up to New York, and was completely fine on the trip home until the very last 5 minutes.  Are you kidding me?!  I was shocked.  Everything went smoothly, and both of my children were wonderful.  The chord of the DVD player stopped working on the ride home, and Nathan didn't even care.  If you had experienced what I had with them a mere 3 months earlier, you would know how incredibly miraculous this was.  We actually had a good time while traveling.  Is that even possible?!

I suppose a pleasant road trip seems like not much of a blessing, but it was what I needed when I needed it, so I have a real testimony that we are blessed when we are obedient.  I also know that Heavenly Father knows us and our needs, and is so willing to bless us.  Yes, I believe in miracles, because I had one occur to me. 

A Few Finishes

I'm slightly cheating for WIP this week, because my major accomplishments are actually finishes since I was out of town and away from my sewing machine.  First- I finished the Diamond Chains quilt (see here for pictures), and then last night I finished my Baby Boy Farm quilt. 

 (front and back)

I've been trying to break out of my super safe quilting habits, so I did free-style wavy lines down the quilt.  They really show up on the black.  It was actually kind of fun.  I may just get the hang of it yet. 



I still need to make my Skill Builder block #14.  For some reason I'm a little intimidated by this one.  I haven't touched my Halloween wall hanging (I should probably try to finish it before Halloween, don't you think?)

Stats for the Week:

New projects - 0
Completed projects - 2
In Progress - 5

Check out the other WIP at Freshly Pieced!

Diamonds Complete!

I'm currently in Upstate New York where the weather has decidedly turned cold and windy.  Because of the rain, I didn't get any pictures of the quilt outside, but I wanted to show you how it turned out.  After fabric issues and such, I have finally completed the Diamond Chains quilt, and I have to say it's one of my favorites so far.  I'm extremely happy I did this quilt along.  What do you think?

Go and check out the other quilts from the  quilt along.  We each actually did a different design with the diamond chains block. 

Flying Fairies

This past week at Activity Days we took this....

And made these.....


Aren't they cute?!  I can't take credit for it.  A friend gave me the idea, but they're a quick and easy project.  You just need fake flowers, cross stitching floss, a bead, and 4 colored pipe cleaners. Easy peesy!

 You could never accuse them of not having any personality. ;)

Progress, Progress

Another week has flown by......Here's what I've been doing:

1- SBS #13- String Block: It's my first time using paper foundation.  I really had fun with this one.  Next time I'm going to make the sections thinner, but it's kind of cool that it's asymmetrical.

2- Diamond Chains Quilt:  Well, it was supposed to be done yesterday, but luckily, Melinda was nice enough to extend the date.  The former deadline scared me into action and I quilted it.  I really felt like I wanted the quilting to be as scarce as possible and let the design shine through, so I outlined the star and did a lot of diagonal lines connecting the diamonds.

Front

Back - I don't know how well you can see it

3-  Country Threads Quilt along: Here's the front and back -

You'll notice the black is a bunch of Treble Clefs.  I chose this fabric, because my Grad adviser recently had a little boy (I have a Masters in Music Education).  It's my little way of personalizing the quilt.

Stats for the Week:

New projects - 0
Completed projects - 0
In Progress - 4
Other projects with no progress- 3 (same as before)

Check out the other WIP at Freshly Pieced!

Chained Together

I'm so happy that I finally figured everything out with my Diamond Chains Quilt Along quilt.  Melinda was sweet enough to come up with a couple of ideas for finishing the center of my quilt (since the purple fabric I needed has disappeared off the face of the buyer's market).  Here are 2 different ideas she gave me:

I loved them both.  I took in consideration what fabric I had left and this is what I came up with.....

I really love how it turned out- I actually like it even better with the inner-border.  Here's the back:  I used some of the extra triangle pieces to make a row of pinwheels.  That's my favorite part (even the picture doesn't show them very well).  The purple is one of the purchases I made that is very similar but not the same as the front, so it worked perfectly for the back.

Hopefully I can get this layered and pinned together this weekend.  Yay! 

Progress Report

The happiest quilting moment for me this week was when my husband came home from work with this picture for me:

Most of you know that my husband is a pediatric resident and I asked him to give my quilt for 100 quilts to a cancer patient at the hospital.  I can't give you any personal info about this sweet girl because of HIPAA laws, but let's just say I think the match was inspired, because it came at the perfect time.  Doesn't your heart just melt when you see this picture?  It made me cry- mostly happy tears.

Meanwhile, the 2nd try at matching fabric by mail did not work, so Melinda was wonderful enough to give me some other ideas to salvage my Diamond Chains  quilt.  I should have this quilt top finally put together in the next day or so (I'll give ya the full view when it's done), but here's a look at what I doing with the center of it....

I also started a little boy quilt that is also a part of another quilt along I'm doing from this book:  You'll notice that my choice of fabrics is not exactly country, but they're barn animals, so that's close, right?  It's almost pieced together and then the borders will be a quick add to finish off this quilt top.

Stats for the Week:

 

New projects - 1

Completed projects - 0

In Progress - 4
UFOs with no progress this past week- 3 (same as before)

Check out the other WIP at Freshly Pieced!

Three Cups of Tea

A group of friends from church started a Book Club, and this month is Stones and Schools by Greg Mortenson.  It's the sequel to Three Cups of Tea, so I decided I wanted to read the first book to get the background before reading the actual book for the month.
This book gives a fascinating look into the world of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the years leading up to 9/11 and the aftermath in these war-torn countries.  These countries are so little understood that is was so fascinating to get a look into this part of the world from someone who knows it intimately, and cares more about the people than politics.  I was immediately drawn in by Greg Mortenson's description of these remote villages and their dire poverty.  I don't think I pictured Pakistan quite so destitute.  It is his story of trying to build a school for a remote village that took him in when he got lost and failed to complete his hike of K2.

This book gives you a sense of how much difference one person can make in the world without painting him as a saint or untouchable as a human being.  They were very open about some of his flaws and struggles, but that's what made the book more believable.  I know that there is some controversy about whether everything in the book is true, but for the most part I think the complaints are irrelevant, because it doesn't change what Greg was trying to accomplish and the insider look at these countries and how they operate.     
I really enjoyed this book and feel like I learned a lot.  It has given me a lot to think about in terms of what I thought of these countries and our involvement as a nation over there.  Now my only problem is that I've got to get the sequel read by Tuesday....