new quilt in the works

And, so.  What happens when you've missed church for oh- let's say about a month or so - and then decide to go back?  On a holiday?  Um, they switch the time on you and you show up an hour late, at the END!  bah.  That's what happened on Easter.  My own fault for skipping out.  You know what, though?  I thinks it's okay.  I had a little devotional beforehand while I was having my coffee.  I had printed out this prayer from Beth Moore and felt compelled to pray it.  Sometimes I feel like I do pretty well with my own prayers, other times I feel that it helps to have another's perspective.

So, what else happened on Easter?  Since I finished Irma's quilt I was going to start on a new one, a hammock quilt.  I washed up all the fabrics.  And, then decided to work on another one in my to do list.  It makes me feel too scattered to have too many projects hanging out in the wind.  So, I borrowed some inspiration from this post from Blue is Bleu.  I am altering it quite a bit.  The large stars are my deer panels with the bear paws.  And then I'm switching some of the other stars to pine trees, and some to flying geese.  The finished blocks are going to be about 18" square so I think the final product will be about twin sized.  I have finished 8 star squares and 4 deer/bear paws.  Here's a peek:


As always I have all of the fabrics in my stash, either from Mom or picked up by me along the way. As I've mentioned before the panels I bought when we first moved here, like 9-10 years ago! I also had leftover fabric from making the owl pillows for Jan.  I have some brown plaid flannel that I think I'm going to do the backing with.  Nice and cozy.

little project relief

Since I finished my "big" project I thought it would be fun to do a nice small project - instant gratification!  So, a gal I work with, Vikkie, received a Kindle last weekend for her anniversary present.  Of course, I asked if she'd like a pouch for it.  She said she'd like fairies, butterflies, or dragonflies.  I took in each of the fabrics falling into that catagory from my stash and she liked all of them!  The wheels started creaking in my head and this is what I came up with:

Back view:

I'll take it in on Monday for her, hopefully she'll like it!  I've been wanting to try out zig zags for awhile now.  I'm wondering if there is a way to cut down on the bulk in the intersection seams??  eh.  Anyhow, I like the way it turned out.  The little half square triangles turned out so teeny tiny that unfortunately only the really small prints are distinguishable.  Today, I am washing up fabric to start my hammock quilt.  I'm thinking: sunny, bright, and maybe pinwheels? 
SO I have a little confession.  I haven't been to church in well over a month.  I've just been so sleepy and wanting to make sure that I got Irma's quilt done.....but also a little bit avoiding people.  eeeek.  You might as well know that I am not much of a small talker.  Therefore, if there's a situation where I might need to awkwardly try and talk to people I avoid.  This past week I have felt a little convicted about avoiding church because of that.....therefore I'm going to make myself go tomorrow.  And what better day than Easter Sunday, right?  I might show up a teensy bit late since I also don't sing out loud.....LOL!
Hmmm, what else?  I also finished up a book - finally!  Geez.  So, Jan's daughter said if I liked the Percy Jackson series (which I did) then I'd like the Artemis Fowl series.  Yes, I am taking book advice from a 10 year old.  Anywhoo I borrowed the book from the library and just couldn't quite get into it.  I think I figured out this morning it could be because Artemis is the "bad" guy with very few moments of regret or conscience.  But, I did finish it and I'm glad!  Mostly a good storyline.  I'm relieved to have finished so I can start the book I've really been wanting to read but wouldn't let myself until I finished the first one I started: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan.  I like his writing style, very easy to read.  He's the author who wrote the Percy Jackson series and from the first few pages I think I'll like it.  I haven't read the ending yet, but I'm sure I will :)

Friday finish

And, so I finished the quilt today!  Well, mostly.  I still have some threads to clip.....but otherwise it is donezo!  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  I'm glad I went with the red binding.  Not sure I had mentioned it before, but the pattern I went with was actually a baby quilt pattern from the Moda Bake Shop.  I did add two extra borders and an extra row of squares to make it bigger, more of a throw size than a baby quilt sized.
Here's the back view.  I'm glad sometimes that I don't always quite have enough of a certain fabric so that I have to improvise!
This square here, the pink one is probably my favorite one :)
Here's a close up of the binding.  For the binding, I tried something new!  I had read somewhere on the web that bias binding is the way to go for bigger projects and ones that will get more use.  I had not heard that before....but I don't really have much experience other than what I read on other people's blogs, and frankly that's not really something that is a huge topic of conversation!  But, I tucked it away and thought, I've got to try it.  I stumbled across this tutorial from a google search and thought it made sense but even with the pictures, I couldn't picture it?  Not sure why.  But, she references this tutorial, and for some reason seeing just plain lines and measurements clicked for me.  So, that's the tute I followed for the binding I used.  I will say that matching up the lines with the parallelogram thing was trick-y!  I'm not even kidding when I say I ripped my seam out at least 4 times!!!!  5th time, I said "you know what who cares!  It doesn't have to be perfect!"  and I sort of fudged it a little bit, and it worked so no biggie :)  The measurements were spot on, so I really appreciated that.  All in all good stuff.

flipside

So, here is what I'm doing with the back side of the quilt.  Sorry the picture is sort of dark.  I didn't have *quite* enough of any one certain fabric, and let's face it - I'm cheap!  So I thought why not make it work with what I have?  And this is the result.  I'm pretty happy with it so far.  The top fabric I have had since we lived in Tennessee which means I've had it over 11 years!  I made a skirt out of it and had like 2.5 yards left and have had it in my stash just waiting for the right project.

(You can click on the pictures to make them bigger and see more detail)

So today I dropped into my fav thrift, the Hospice thrift store.  I snagged the wreath for .75 cents!  I've been digging the yarn wrapped wreaths lately and this goes for at least $2.99 at the regular store!  Bonus.  And, then I couldn't leave the pink fabric behind!  It's got cute little blue kittens!!!  It is actually really thin fabric so I'm not too sure what I'll actuall do with it but for .75 cents it was coming home with me :)

wonkiness = nervousness

Okay so I must admit that I am extraordinarily late in making my last block for the Vintage Sheet Quilting Bee!!!! I could give you a bunch of excuses (that would be really good, too) of why I am late, but the bottom line is I am late. I think mostly that the wonkiness of the square made me very nervous - and also (and I know this is lame so I apologize ahead of time) I was having trouble picking my color! Good news is that I finished it up last night! February (eek, so late!) Janice from Sew Girly asked for blocks from a specific tutorial, and asked us to pick a couple of colors to stick to. She is having a baby girl and is going to make our blocks into a quilt for her new baby. Naturally, I wanted to go with pink....and at first I didn't think I had enough variety in the pink department. I think I did okay though! Here's my finished square:

Also, I would like to wish my Mom a HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  In case you haven't picked up on it, my Mom is super supportive and my #1 fan.  I grew up thinking that's just how moms are, right?  Apparently not - I got lucky!  So, this is a thank you and a happy birthday!  I think you're pretty fab, too!

quilting progress

I'm pretty sure I am going to be finishing the quilt top today. All I have left to do is add the final border. I have been staring at it for awhile trying to decide which color to go with. I'm thinking the darker brown. I was on the fence because the lady I'm making it for specified beige and so I was thinking she might like that better. BUT, I think the darker brown lets all the colors pop a little more.

Yesterday was a pretty busy day. Jan's daughter had her first volleyball game, so I went to that. They won all three games! And, it was also her birthday so there was a birthday party after that at the bowling alley (I didn't bowl) and pizza and cake afterwards at their house. I stayed up late sewing since I didn't get much sewing time during the day.

a little break from seam ripping....

I'm so glad that I soaked up the warmth from last weekend, because holy cow! It snowed twice this week...and while the snow is partly melted it's still super cold! You can never tell what the weather will do here! So, I've been quilting!

This is what I have so far.  A lady at work asked me to make a quilt for her mom who likes burgundy, beige, brown and florals.  Other than that she said she would like squares in the pattern.  I'm really hoping she'll like what my Mom and I have come up with!  Mom sent me a ton of fabric to use for this quilt and it meshed really well with what I already had.  It looks wonky in this picture because I started sewing the rows together and whoops!  they weren't lining up so I seam ripped them all apart and decided to take a break.  Sometimes I just get a little too anxious.
In other news, I'm kind of excited/nervous about something.  So, you know how we have bible study every Monday night and it's the same group of ladies that we've been meeting together for about 2 years or so.  Well, one lady is going to be out of state for a couple months and one is coaching her daughter's volleyball team.  I was kind of worried that everyone would say we should take a break until everyone can meet together again.  I mean, not that breaks aren't good sometimes, but let's face it: I need all the God I can get!  So last week something cool came up - a new bible study starting at church on Monday nights at the exact time that we already were meeting at.  Coolio, huh?  I think it will be a good "break", a new venue and subject matter.  I think we're all dedicated to our little group so I don't think it will implode during this little detour.
So, nothing else new except I can't wait for actual Spring to arrive!  Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

cheery Friday

Are you ready for this?  It's 69 degrees y'all!!!!! Ya-hoo!  It's practically 70 degrees out today and sunny and beautiful!  I'm lovin it. 
Today has been pretty productive so far.  I had my teeth cleaned at the dentist and made a cover for my bible.  And the exciting thing today was that I had 3 packages of fabric fabulousness on my porch!  3!  So, a big THANK YOU to my Mom!  Needless to say, I've got some new favorites in there and a ton of ideas!  I think I might need a hammock quilt ;)


I was inspired by my friend Kristin to finally make a cover for my bible.  This week bible study was at her house and I was being nosy noticed that she was working on something crafty on her dining room table, and it happened to be super cute bible covers.  I've been meaning to make a cover for my bible for ages, so this morning I set to it.  I picked out some of my favorite fabrics right now and pieced them together, did a little curlique quilting et voila!  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, I might try and figure out a zipper enclosed thing next time?  Eh.


So I've started a new quilt. Which is what one of the boxes of fabric contained - fabric to work into that quilt.  I also resumed work on a quilt that I started prolly 8-9 years ago before I really knew anything about quilting.  I had bought some panel fabric and was just going to do solid squares around them, but didn't really ever start.  So it's been packed away for alllll this time.  I saw in a magazine where they had taken panel fabric and did some fun piecing around each panel and I thought - bingo! I'll do that with my panels!  Here's a sneak peek:

I have 4 panels of deer that I've added the bear claw piecing to so far.  In the backround you can see the other quilt top that really is practically done.  I just really loved that middle fabric and had just added solid squares all around.  That, also, was folded up in a tub for 8-9 years waiting for me to figure out what in the world to do with.  I'm just going to leave that one and add a couple more rows of squares and quilt it.
And, finally, since it is the first of the month - here is my scripture memory verse:
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior--from violent men you save me.
2 Samuel 22:3