Latest Project

I've been working on a new quilt lately - for some time really.  It's going to be a mini quilt - probably a wall hanging.  I'd like to share some pictures with you but I'm not going to  tell all about it until I get it finished.  That way it will be more of a surprise. :)

 

I saw this heart block on my Facebook feed one day.  It was posted by Aurifil thread.  I love Aurifil thread and have been using it for several months for just about all my sewing.  Anyhoo, they have a free patterns area on their website and that's where this heart block was located.  As soon as I saw it, I had to immediately drop what I was doing and start working on this patchwork block. 

 

Here's a red one:



 

 And a yellow one:

 Could there be more?  You bet!

Here are a couple of teaser pictures of the backing for the quilt.  One thing I discovered while piecing this together was that I really like improv piecing.  I think I might have to try that soon on a whole quilt.

 

 My pretty red tulips that I got for Mother's day.  I also got a box of Godiva chocolates, Dark Chocolate assortment which are delicious.  But I didn't take a picture of those.  My sweet hubby made me breakfast in bed - French toast.  Yum!

Next post is about why I love Modern quilting.  Stay tuned!

Nest Part 2

Look what's in that sweet little birds nest now:

 

I love spring.  What sweet babies.

Nest

Look what I found a few days ago.

 

 By accident.  I was just looking around the flower bed in the backyard and there it was.  So I looked around for the momma and saw her sitting on the fence waiting for me to leave.  So I did.
And back to her babies she flew.

So sweet. 

I LOVE spring and this warmer weather. 
I've been planting a few flowers in my empty pots.  I haven't felt like messing with that kind of stuff for a couple of years now.  So, this year I'm trying.
Here are some pretty dianthus for your viewing enjoyment :)  They are on my back porch.

My Birthday Weekend

My birthday was March 10th which was a Sunday and the first weekend of Spring Break for us.  I realize I'm late posting this, and I apologize, but I just had to share some of the weekend festivities with you.

We decided to go to Dallas for the weekend.  Mostly because they were having the Dallas Quilt Guild Quilt show which I had never been to but just couldn't pass up.  And also because we like going on mini vaca trips to Dallas.  We usually go several times a year sometimes to see a Rangers game or some other specific reason but mostly just to hang out.  It's only about 2 hours away from our house and for some reason, my son loves staying in hotels.

So here are some pics of our weekend.

My present opening.  (a very blurry picture of me and my new "jugs".) 
My husband and son each got me a Fiesta ware pitcher.  One was lime green and the other was turquoise.  My 2 favorite colors.  I've been wanting to start collecting them and now I have :)  I already had an orange one.   I also have 3 antique pitchers that are not Fiesta but I love them just the same.  We have a large Fiesta ware "collection".  And by collection, I mean we use them for our everyday dishes.  Have for years. 

My son took this picture.  He took about 6 of me and my hubby and they were all just as blurry.  Great.

Me and my son.

The Dallas Quilt Show was awesome.  Not as big as the Houston Quilt show of course but it was much larger than our local quilt show (which is growing every year btw).

 

 

 

I don't have the names of the people who made these quilts.  I just took pics of ones I liked.  There were so many and so many that I liked but of course my battery started going dead about half way through.
This one was in the modern quilting section and I thought it was sooo cool.

We had my bday dinner at this little funky restaurant on Greenville called Daddy Jacks.  I didn't want to go to a chain restaurant with their frozen crappy food that they just thaw and serve.  Daddy Jacks was wonderful.  The freshest seafood I have tasted this far inland.  I highly recommend it - but it's tiny so if you go, get a reservation.

Instead of a cake, we got cupcakes at Society Bakery also on Greenville.  Their "plain cupcakes" like chocolate was just okay.  Your regular old cupcake.  But where they excel is with their fun flavors.  My hubby bought Pecan Praline and let me have a bite.  I thought I would die, it was so good.  My son got Oreo but didn't let me have a bite.  And I got Italian crème which was as good as the Italian crème cake I make which is awesome.  We will definitely be going back.

 

We also went to the Krispy Kreme and bought a whole box of doughnuts which we ate for breakfast.  Calories you eat on your b-day don't count though - right?

We had a great time and I love my hubby and son for giving me such a fun birthday weekend. 

And now for pics of my quilt show loot.  Ahhh shopping, the best part.

Spring

Spring is slowly coming to East Texas.  Oh how I wish it would hurry up.  We had one nice week where the temps were in the high 70's but then it went back down to freezing at night and 50's during the day.  Plus it's WINDY.

My Redbud tree in the backyard.

 

I love this time of year because I love watching the flowers bloom, the trees bud and the azalea and butterfly bushes pop out.  But at the same time, cold weather is heck on someone with an autoimmune disease and fibromyalgia.  I'm so tired of feeling crummy.  I just want it to be summer already.

Sorry for the whine. 
Also, I would like to say that May 10 is Fibromyalgia awareness day and May 12 is Lupus awareness day.  If you know someone with either/both of these illnesses, please keep them in your thoughts.  I had no idea how much my life would change - it's been a year and a half since I got really sick and 5 months since I was diagnosed.  I'm still learning to live with it and every day is a struggle.

Here is a positive note.  Look at my baseball man.

Doesn't he look cute? 
He isn't very sports minded but it was totally his idea to play baseball the past 2 years.  This year he has really good coaches and he's learned a lot and has greatly improved.  Baseball season is almost over for his middle school.  Only 1 more week.

First Quilt - Finished!

It has happened.  I have completely finished my first ever real quilt.  And it didn't even take me years to complete - which is what I thought would happen.

I got the instructions for my quilt from the tutorials of Cluck Cluck Sew which is one of my favorite quilting blogs.  She calls it her Strip and Flip Quilt.  It caught my eye because I think it's clever, modern and cool.  Also, I knew I could sew strips together so I had a pretty good chance of being able to complete the quilt top.  ;)

I started it around the first of February and completed the quilting and binding last week - so that's about 7 weeks which I think is pretty good for a beginner especially since I quilted and did the binding myself.

I used Simply Color by V and Co. for Moda (in jelly roll format) to do the strips which made it even easier since I didn't have to cut all those strips myself.  I had also bought a layer cake of the same fabric because I loved this fabric so much.  It's modern and fun but also bright and happy.  So, when it came time to decide what to do for the backing, I decided to cut some of the layer cake squares in half (they come as 10 inch squares) and sew them into strips.  I used the same white fabric on the back as I used for the vertical white strips on the front which was Moda Bella Solids in white.  I love the way the back turned out and to be honest, I think I might like it better than the front.

This quilt is meant to be used and used well.  It's going on my sofa so it will be used by me and my son on a regular basis to snuggle up when we are watching TV.  That means it has to hold up to being washed in the washing machine regularly.  I knew I needed to quilt it well in order for it to be able to do it's job.  I wanted to do vertical stripes because I thought that would look so cool since the quilt has horizontal stripes.  But, it was harder than I thought it would be.

When I first started, I used a ruler and Frixion pen to mark straight lines that I could follow but that didn't last long.  Mostly because when you have this big wad of fabric in your lap and on your table and your trying to run it through the sewing machine in a straight line, it just doesn't work.  Or at least it didn't work for me since this was my first quilt and I wasn't really prepared for how physical the quilting process is even though I had read blog after blog that told me it was physical and exhausting.  Duh! 
So, I basically gave up on the straight line idea.  Instead, my lines are sorta straight but a little wonky.  I think it's charming (that's my story and I'm sticking with it).  If you look at the quilting up close, you can see that some of the lines stray off a bit.  Some are mostly straight and some aren't even close to straight.  I also gave up on the idea of my lines being the same width apart.  It looks a lot cooler for them to be more random - also it was easier ;)

For the binding, I had planned to have a scrappy binding using the layer cake fabric cut into 2.5 inch strips and sewn end to end.  My husband suggested the white binding because he felt the scrappy binding would be "too much" and would take away from the quilt instead of adding to it.  I think he was right, so I went ahead and used the white.
It blends so well with the backing fabric that it looks like part of it.

So that's it.  My first quilt.  I am in love with it.  It has gotten me even more excited about quilting.  Now, all I want to do is cut little pieces of fabric up and sew them back together.  I'll be taking this to my beginners quilting class that I am taking at my LQS for show and tell.  I really hope they like it.

My Lucky Day

A couple of weeks ago, The Cottage Home blog held a fat quarter giveaway in conjunction with Riley Blake Fabrics.  The prize was a fat quarter bundle from the fabric line Little Matryoshka by Carly Griffith. 

Well, I don't enter a lot of blog giveaways because sometimes it can be a lot of trouble but this fabric was just so cute that I had to.  And guess what?  I won.  Can you believe it?  It's like winning the lottery because so many people enter to win.

Any who, Riley Blake Designs contacted me promptly and sent me this lovely fabric. 

I dont' have a clue what I'm going to do with it but for now I just like looking at it.

I'd like to make something for my MIL because purple is her favorite color but she's not always receptive to gifts.
I couldn't get my lighting right when I took these pics so some of them make the fabric look washed out but it's not.  Some of the colors are soft such as lilac and pale aqua but others are very bright like the dark purple and orange.  It goes so well together and would look great in a quilt. 

So now I just have to decide what to make with it.  Any suggestions?

And a special THANK YOU to Lindsay at The Cottage Home and to Riley Blake Fabrics for sponsoring this give away.  You guys rock!