Squeezing In a Finish...Sort Of

Well, Christmas has past us by and I didn't finish my Christmas quilt (again), but I did manage to finish the quilt top today, and I'm pretty excited to at least have that much done.  At this rate I may even have it finished by next Christmas.  Eh...don't quote me on that though.  :)

The Post Where Choirs of Angels are Singing

Ok- maybe that's a little dramatic, but that's what I heard when I saw my last Christmas gift.  Joel and his family got me a new sewing machine!  Yep- it was all stealth and brought out after all of the presents had been opened.  I freely admit to crying. 

Not only did they get me a sewing machine, but it's a complete upgrade from my last sewing machine, so there is lots of joy in this household again.  :)

My first project involved making my December block for do.Good Stitches.  It's a fun paper-pieced block (Starry Nights) from Fresh Lemons.  The request was for super girlie - mostly pink. 

Merry Christmas

I love this time of year, because I feel like people are just a little kinder, a little more thoughtful, a little more giving, and a little more loving.  I thought I would share a new song from one of my favorite, current composers.  It's nice to have a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas once in a while.  I hope everyone enjoys their holiday.

Christmas Quilt Progress

Last Fall I made a bunch of blocks for a Christmas quilt.  I kind of picked and chose blocks from two different quilt alongs going on at the time.  It got put to the side when I needed to get Christmas gifts done, and then it just didn't feel right working on a Christmas quilt in January, so it quickly went in the unfinished bin, and remained there until a week ago.  I finished up two last blocks, and worked on the sashing this weekend.  I just have to finish the sashing down the sides, decide what I want to do for the border, and then I've got myself a Christmas quilt top!  Wahoo!

This is the only quasi-decent picture I could get of it before my daughter decided she wanted to be part of the action.  I'm a day late linking up to the UFO fun over at Leah's, but better late than never.  :)

Wish Circle

I can't believe it, but our quilt from the Wish Circle was the winner of Best of 2012 for do.Good Stitches.  How exciting!  You can see the whole post over at Stitched in Color.

Source

I've really enjoyed being a part of the Wish Circle.  It's fun getting to know the other girls and I love that we donate our quilts to Project Linus (for seriously ill children).

Cookie Exchange

Every year I do a mini-cookie exchange with a few friends.  We make 2 dozen cookies or bring our favorite treat.  I always do a hot chocolate station with some fun accoutrements.  I kept it a little smaller this year, because I didn't want too many kids running around while Little Man was doing therapy, but it worked out perfectly.  One of Little Man's friends went in and did therapy with him the majority of the time.  It was pretty cute.

Meanwhile, I chose to try 2 new recipes, and I ended up liking both of them:
1- Holiday Shortbread Cookies:  Made with white chocolate, cranberries, and pistachios. 
2- Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Cookies: These have a fun surprise of cream cheese in the middle.

It was a fun morning full of laughter and eating goodies. Linkin' up to Tuesday at the Table. 

Wahoo! WIP

My husband being at a conference in Atlanta for a week meant a lot of sewing time for me at night after the kiddos went to bed.

I finished my Blogger's BOM quilt...

 Made fleece pillows for both of my children...

And got the last two blocks (#15 & 16) of my Christmas quilt done:

I may even be an overachiever and put together the Christmas quilt top BEFORE Christmas.  I know, I know, I'm pretty amazing.  (I won't tell you that I started making Christmas blocks over a year ago).  My husband equates my finally working on the Christmas blocks to a Christmas miracle.  :)

Other projects
Quiet Book - Ugh.  No progress.
Do.Good Stitches - need to do December blocks


Stats for the Week:
New projects - 2
Completed projects - 3
WIP- 3 (that's the lowest this number has been in over 2 years- thus, the WAHOO!!)

Applique Issues

Well, machine issues would be a better description of the situation.  I stitched around my Christmas tree, and then I noticed that on the first side I sewed, the machine skipped stitches all over the place.  They should be all zig zags:

You can see from the punched holes in the fabric that the needle went where it was supposed to, but the thread had other ideas.  This is the first time I've ever had this happen.  Does anyone happen to have any idea why?!  The even weirder part is that the 2nd and 3rd sides of the tree stitched perfectly.

It's seriously annoying, but at least the block still looks decent.  I hadn't appliqued anything since Skill Builder, so it was fun to put together this block. 

A Bright Finish

I'm so excited to finish my Blogger's BOM quilt.  It's my first time using all brights for a quilt, and I love it.  It just makes you happy when the colors are so vivid.

I did something a little different with the binding this time.  I cut off the extra around the back of the quilt, added a little green and used it as my binding.  The majority of the back is made with comfy flannel to keep ya warm in the Winter.

I'm giving this quilt to my Aunt Cindy.  She's one of my favorite people.  For some reason my Aunt Cindy has had roadblock after roadblock in her life and yet she is still one of the kindest and most loving people I know.  A lot of people would have become bitter or given up, but not my Aunt.  She is seriously one of the strongest and most dedicated single moms I've ever known.

I lived in her basement apartment right after graduating from BYU while I worked several jobs.  It was so much fun living under her family.  I moved when I left Utah to start Grad School at Penn State, but I have so many fond memories of my time in American Fork. 

Linking up to TGIFF, BOMs Away & 2012 Finish A-Long (original goals for quarter here).

FMQ: The Slacker Edition

The amount that I can sew has recently been greatly reduced and so the quilt buster theme for this past month has been perfect.  I have a couple of things that I really need to get done before Christmas.  One of those would be the Blogger's BOM quilt.  It's been hanging over my head for a while now and I want to be done with it. 

I had 2 designs that I still wanted to try and I knew I could finish up the quilting with them.  I started with the Matrix around the edges leftover in the center of the quilt.  I like this design a lot and plan to use it again, but I quickly found out why it's better to use this on the edge of the quilt and not the way I did it.  I have SO many threads to hide now and I didn't even close the grid.  I did one set of wiggly lines all the way around about 2" apart from each other and decided to just keep it that way.  I liked the way it looked and to be honest I was running out of time. 

Today I quilted the Spiral Ornaments.  Leah quilted hers close together, but I left space between them.  While I'm confessing things I may as well tell you I knew it would take less time if I didn't sit them on top of each other.  I know, I know - I was being lazy, but I really had such a short time to quilt.  I wanted to make sure I could get it done, and as luck would have it, I like how it looks.  It reminds me of spiral garland.

I'm hoping to get the binding on the quilt tomorrow, and finish it up quickly.   

Silly Worrying

I realized it had been a month since I had quilted anything.  It's crazy how time flies.  I finally started quilting my Blogger's BOM quilt.  I started with Flower Power in the center of the quilt.  Well, it's slightly off-center (I realized that fact 3/4 of the way through with the flower), and I was irritated that one side of the flower looked stumpy compared to the rest.  It's ridiculous, but last night I went to sleep thinking of the easiest way to fix the one side without tearing the whole thing apart.  I woke up determined to fix it, and then reason finally found me.  I thought, "For the love, Becky!  You're not even keeping this quilt.  It's not that big of a deal.  Leave it alone!"  I mean seriously, is the person going to see the flower and say they don't want the gift because the flower isn't symmetrical?!

Luckily, I saw the Invasion of the Pods post and realized I could easily make my flower the center pod and echo around it.  It worked beautifully and it's really hard to even tell which side was shorter than the others.  Perfect? No, but I'm happy with the effect.  It also takes up the majority of the quilt, so that was really nice as well.  It feels good to be quilting again.

A Few Firsts

I completed the November blocks for do.Good Stitches this past weekend.  This was my first time making the Simply Woven block.  It seems deceptively easy, but you have to be really careful with how and where you rotate and cut this block, because it's really easy to cut it in the wrong place and have to start over.  A couple of girls in the sewing circle had this issue, so I was forewarned and paid close attention, so that I didn't cut it at the wrong spots.

I also finished up a bib made from an old shirt.  This was my first time sewing velcro, and it was surprisingly painless.  This is from the charity sewing circle at church.  It's part of boxes were forming for mothers in need.  The boxes contain pretty much the baby's first year of needs in terms of lightly used clothes and a few extras like bibs, blankets, books, and toys.  It's called a Loved Twice Box.  We're trying to put together a box for a boy and a box for a girl. 

 Linkin' up to BOMs Away.  Happy Monday! 

Blanket Woes

As part of the charity sewing circle, I was given an already made blanket, and asked to add a flannel border layering it under the entire blanket.  This is supposed to make it a little bigger and little more cuddly.  I thought, "How hard can it be?" - Famous last words.

Oof.  I way underestimated the amount of stretching the blanket would do as I sewed a blanket stitch on it.  The flannel does not lay flat at all.  I was so irritated that I had to walk away after sewing 2 sides.  I came back the next day and just finished it, so that it would be done.  I tried pinning it tons, but it didn't really help.  Yarn doesn't pin well.  I don't particularly like how it turned out, but it was a good experiment.  

The back doesn't lay very flat either, but since it's going to someone in need I'm not going to whine too much about it.  I'm sure they'll be happy to have a blanket for their baby.

A Little Bit of Progress

It's been several weeks since I've bothered doing a WIP Wednesday, because I haven't really been doing much sewing.  I'm finally getting my mojo back. 

I finished the Blogger's BOM quilt top last night.  I think the border totally makes this quilt.  I did a modified version of Jackie's tutorial. 

Meanwhile, I've got to get this bib finished up for Thursday morning.  A few ladies at church start a charity sewing circle.  We've been putting together boxes for children.  We needed some bibs, so we're using an old shirt and using it to make bibs.  It's kind of a cool idea.  I just need to sew it up and add velcro.

Other projects
Quiet Book - Ugh.  No progress.
Christmas blocks - No progress-  Oh man, is it seriously almost Christmas again?!!
Do.Good Stitches - need to do November blocks


Stats for the Week:
New projects - 1
Completed projects - 0
WIP- 5

On Point

I'm finally getting around to framing my Blogger's BOM blocks.  This is the first time I've put my blocks on point and I think it changes things up a bit, but it is also a tad more work.

Now I need to add the border.  It's a scrappy border using some of the fabrics used in the blocks, so it's a little time intensive.  I only hope I have enough fabric for the border.  I was using scraps as it was to make the blocks. 

Linking up to BOMs Away

The Winter Sea

source

This past month's book for book club was The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley.  After several months of "heavy" reading, mostly about World War II, we decided on a lighter read.  Here's a brief description:

"It is 2008 and Carrie McClelland can't hit the right note for her next novel, but an unplanned detour in Scotland, and a stop at the castle that inspired Count Dracula, sets her on a different path; a path that took her back in time exactly 300 years, to that same castle, and to a rebellion doomed to failure. Alternating between the contemporary setting and the past, The Winter Sea takes us at every turn into little known worlds; historical footnotes writ large, a history of Scotland and the Jacobite rebellion of 1708 and the possibility of genetic memory."

The first thing I have to say is that if you're a romantic at heart, then you will absolutely love this book.  It is romance and historical fiction at its best.  I absolutely devoured this book.  The history is intriguing, and there's not 1 but 2 romance threads throughout the book.  I appreciated that it was a clean romance, and also that it was based on real events in history.  My only word of caution is that the first 100 pages are a lot of set up and history, so don't get too discouraged, because it takes off like crazy after that.  I had a hard time putting it down.  All of the fabulous one-liners have be to my collective "favorite part" of this book.

I really enjoyed Susanna's Kearsley's writing style, so I was curious to see if I would like her other books.  They all tend to be historical fiction with a connection to modern day with some sort of romantic interest.  So far I have read 2 of her other books, The Rose Garden and Mariana, and I definitely like The Winter Sea by far the best, but they are still good reads.

Finishing It Up

Things have been a little crazy around here.  My poor Little Lady had croup this weekend.  It scared me half to death, but she got a dose of steroids and she's doing amazingly well now, so we're all doing a lot better.

Now that life is decidedly more calm and manageable I'm turning my attention to the last step of quilting.  I promised to give some information on how to bind a quilt for the ladies who have been attending my beginner's quilt classes.  I was going to do my own tutorial, but I've seen so many wonderful ones out there that I feel a little like it would be re-inventing the wheel.  So instead, I'm going to share with you a couple of different options and provide links for you, so you can decide what works best for you.

I personally like to hand bind my quilts and machine bind smaller projects such as table runners and doll quilts, but it's all a matter of personal preference.  A good beginner's guide on how to determine how much fabric you'll need and such can be found here. 

I like to change up what I do on a regular basis.  It keeps things interesting for me, but here are a couple of ideas when choosing fabric for your quilt:

When I make a baby quilt that has an inner border, I often match the binding with the inner border.

Sometimes, I like to use multiple fabrics that I used within the quilt itself.  I feel like this works particularly well with solids, but I've done it with patterned fabrics as well.

If it's a scrappy quilt I often like to make my binding scrappy as well:

A couple of other things to toss out there.  Think about whether or not you want your binding to stick out.  For example, sometimes I want my binding to blend in with the quilt, because it would take away the effect of the quilt, and sometimes it needs that bold framing to make the quilt fit together.  Here is an example of both:

If you like the idea of your binding blending in and matching the colors of your quilt, you should check out Debbie's really cool tutorial on lining up the fabrics to match.  Go here. 

A machine bound table runner

I typically cut my strips 2.5" wide when hand binding and 2.25" when machine binding, but that's also just personal preference.  There's a really good tutorial for hand binding that I recently saw on another friend's blog here and here's a couple of great machine binding tutorials here and here.  Just remember that there are so many different ways to bind, so if one doesn't seem to make sense to you, Google it and I'm sure you'll find another way that works for you.

An important reminder:  If you are hand binding your quilt, you will initially sew on the binding from the top of the quilt.  It is the exact opposite when machine quilting.  You attach the binding from the back of the quilt, so that when you fold it over your final machine stitch is on the front of the quilt.

One last great tutorial:  Amy gives great tips on getting the perfect corners when hand binding.  Go here for the tutorial.

I hope this is slightly helpful in getting your wheels turning and initial thoughts on binding your quilts.  If you have any questions please let me know.

Non-Edible Cupcakes

I finished up a cute, little baby quilt this morning.  I originally made it for a beginner's quilt class I taught, and then I used it to practice some FMQ, so I thought I should finish it up, because you never know who's going to be needing a baby quilt.

The Autumn light plays all kinds of tricks leaving long shadows on my quilt, but I kind of like it.  Here's a view of the back:  You can see the FMQ a lot better on this side. 

It feels nice to get yet another UFO off the list.  I'm making slow but sure progress.
Linkin' up to TGIFF and 2012 Finish-A-Long (original goals post here).

Jagged Lines

This week's design was Jagged Lines.  I used it in the outer border of the quilt.  After quilting it I have to say that I don't think it looks quite as good lengthwise down the border (the way I did it).

Straight lines are by their nature less forgiving than wavy lines, but I still liked the variation.  However, I quickly learned that I needed to pivot more definitively.  My corners weren't quite as sharp as I would have liked them.  Oh well - Practice, practice.  :)

I ran out of thread on the last border right before I could echo the last line.  So close and yet so far away!  I've been trying to avoid venturing out into the storm as much as possible, but a girl's got to have thread, so I may just have to brave it.

Catching Up

Life got crazy, and quilting was the first thing to take a back seat for a while.  I finally pulled it together enough to get back on the machine yesterday.  I finished my last block for 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee, and did 2 weeks worth of the Free Motion Quilt Along. 

Requested colors: Orange & Aqua w/ Kona White Background

Since I needed to do both Goldilocks & Trapped Paisley, I combined the two on a quilt top.  I traded off rows back and forth between the designs.  Here's a view from the back of the quilt since the pink thread shows up nicely against the brown:

It's a baby quilt, so I spread out the lines, so that the quilt wouldn't be too stiff.  

Coming and Going

I finished 2 more blocks to send out for the 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee.  It's been fun making the blocks in the requested colors:

Requested any shades of purple & gray with gray or black background

Requested Yellow, Turquoise, & Gray with Kona White background

Meanwhile, I got a package in the mail that made my day!  You'll remember that I made a sewing machine cover for a swap within our Wish Circle, and today I got my goodies!  She did such an awesome job! Excuse the crummy pictures; the weather wasn't cooperating for outdoor pictures. 

 Isn't this the cutest purse?!  I love it!  And it's blue- my favorite!

 The bag is fabulous and the most exciting part is that it's filled with yellow and orange scraps.

At a Snail's Pace

I confess I barely touched my sewing machine this week.  The only thing I did manage to get done was 2 of my blocks for the 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee.  I'm using Faith's Butterfly Strands Block (see here for tutorial).  They're fun to make, because they look different every time depending on where you cut your 45 degree angle on the background fabric. 

I haven't done the Free Motion Quilt Along for this past week yet, and I didn't touch anything else, so here are the ugly stats for the week:

Other projects
Quiet Book - pages need to be put together
Cupcake Quilt Top - ready to be quilted
Christmas blocks - no progress

Do.Good Stitches - up to date
Bloggers BOM - all blocks completed - need to be put together


Stats for the Week:
New projects - 1
Completed projects - 0
WIP- 6

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

Despicably Yummy

Have you seen the movie Despicable Me?   Actually, I just saw that #2 is coming out this Summer.  Here's a little sneak peak.  I take absolutely no credit for this dessert.  My neighbor had a birthday and brought over some cupcakes for the kiddos.  Aren't they cute?!  This may be the best use of the Twinkie I've ever seen.

I'm Linkin' up to Tuesday at the Table.  Have a lovely Tuesday!

Between Shades of Gray

source

No, this is not the trashy novel that's so popular these days.  This book is quite the opposite.  Here's a description of Between Shades of Gray:

"In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina is preparing for art school, first dates, and all that summer has to offer. But one night, the Soviet secret police barge violently into her home, deporting her along with her mother and younger brother. They are being sent to Siberia. Lina's father has been separated from the family and sentenced to death in a prison camp. All is lost.
Lina fights for her life, fearless, vowing that if she survives she will honor her family, and the thousands like hers, by documenting their experience in her art and writing. She risks everything to use her art as messages, hoping they will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive.
It is a long and harrowing journey, and it is only their incredible strength, love, and hope that pull Lina and her family through each day. But will love be enough to keep them alive?"

This book was heart-wrenchingly, wonderful.  I've read tons of books that take place during World War II (in fact, my husband teases that we often only ever read about WWII at book club), but this is the first book I have ever read about what took place in countries seized by the Soviets under Stalin's rule.  I feel like this particular part of the war is very hidden in comparison to the plethora of information we have about Hilter and the Nazis.   I learned a lot more about the War just by reading this book. 

I felt a particular connection with the mother in this story and I confess that I had a hard time putting down the book, because I simply had to know what would happen to the family.  I won't ruin the end for you, but I freely admit to shedding quite a few tears while reading it.

The author gives an account of how she came to write this book.  The small video clip made me love her even more.  Go here to watch the video.  It's definitely worth a watch.

Finally Crossed Off the List

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted.  Two years ago I started putting together something for Halloween.  I think I was thinking table runner at the time, but it ended up being way too big for a table runner and I really didn't know what to do with it.  I couldn't decide how to quilt it, got mad at it, proclaimed my extreme dislike for it, and shoved it in the bottom of my UFO bin.  It remained there untouched for over 2 years. 


This is was the UFO of all UFOs for me.  Prior to making this, I was a one-project-at-a-time girl.  I made one quilt and finished it and then started a new project until it was finished.  But...when I put this in the bottom of my bin it all of a sudden became easy to not finish a lot of projects.  The UFOs (and excuses why I wanted to start something new without finishing the previous project) began to pile up.  Then a couple of weeks ago I saw Leah's post about re-evaluating your UFOs and deciding if they're worth keeping.  The first thing I thought of what that stinkin' Halloween thing that was plaguing me from the back of my closet.

I decided that even if I hated it I could at least practice FMQ on it.  I found 2 Halloween designs and went to work.  I almost liked the thing once I finished the quilting...almost.  I put the binding on right away before I could talk myself out of finishing it again.  I played with a decorative stitch for the binding to amuse myself and completed the entire thing that day.  You'll notice it's currently clipped to a hanger, because it's not stiff enough to lay flat with the ribbon I attached to it for hanging.  If I decide to keep it up much longer I may need to put a sleeve on the back and add a pole.

It's hanging in my front entryway not because I love it, but because I'm thrilled with what it represents.  It feels like a huge accomplishment and after 2 years my husband finally can't say "What about that Halloween thing you never finished?" every time I talk about a new project.  :)  I'm not going to lie, he was probably more thrilled than I was when I actually finished it.

Linking up to TGIFF & UFO Sundays and 2012 Finish Along - original goal post here.