Aloha!

Hi there! Boy have I missed blogging here!...and sewing and Flickr and reading blogs. Today I finally had to just "mark all read" in my blog reader to start fresh.

We are getting to the home stretch in unpacking thankfully! Here are a few sneak peeks of our new home.
Every time I think I'm getting down to the last few boxes more seem to appear!


This is the small third bedroom that will be the office/sewing room. I have all my fabric and sewing things unpacked but there are still a bunch of boxes with office stuff that are in my way. I wish they would magically  disappear so I can get to sewing!

*can I just say how disoriented I am with the new Flickr right now? Ugh!*

Oh and my hubby and I went to Hawaii for a week to celebrate our 10th anniversary early! We had enough AA miles but had to use them in May (our anniversary is actually in June) but hey, it was fine with me!

It was absolute paradise! We stayed on the northern coast of the big island which I highly recommend!

We also drove up Mauna Kea, the mountain where all the observatories are. At 13,800 feet it's not the tallest mountain ever but it sure feels like it when you're starting up it from sea level! It felt like we were on top of the world.


The waters were crystal clear for snorkling, the beach we stayed on was amazing, the sand was so soft and we had a wonderful time! What more could you ask for?

It was just what we needed to relax and unwind. Back to reality [and unpacking] now. :)

another Optimism quilt

Well hello! I'm so excited to say that we have been in our new home for a week! The week before we moved in I spent painting every room of the house except for the bathrooms. Unfortunately, I hated my choice for the kitchen and living rooms so while unpacking this week I've also been repainting. Needless to say I am still up to my ears in boxes! So hopefully that explains the loooong absence! I hate being away from sewing/blogging/reading blogs/flickr for so long and I'm afraid it will be a bit longer before we're totally settled in.

This evening was so nice out and as I was unpacking the office/sewing room I found this quilt that I finished up the week before closing on the house.
I needed something simple and mindless so I turned to my own pattern, Optimism. I don't normally gravitate to these super earthy colors but the fabrics all came together, just like that. :)

There's a little bit of everything in this quilt, Amy Butler, Joel Dewberry, Anna Maria Horner, Lotta Jansdotter and Essex Yarn-dyed Linen.


Those Joel Dewberry trees make a great backing!

I can't wait to get back to my sewing machine and catch up on my blog reading. I feel so out of the loop!
Have a great week everyone!

that feeling

Sometimes you just know when a quilt is going to be a winner.

An idea came to me while writing the post for my Friday's Quilt tutorial about making a version with a "low volume" background. That very afternoon it hit me that Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee would be perfect for it. 

Yesterday I cut and sewed.

Today, I cut some more!

And the most fun part for me, arranging the blocks.

I think I'm gonna love it!

Happy weekend to everyone!

Friday's Quilt ~ a tutorial

This quilt could not be simpler or more fun to make! It employs the technique of sewing up a block then cutting it up to make smaller blocks (like you do for Disappearing Nine Patch blocks). I'm calling this Friday's Quilt because you can whip it out by Friday. :)



This tutorial gives specifics to make a baby sized quilt (40" by 52") but you can easily adjust to make any size you want.

Fabrics and Cutting
To start, you'll need 12 prints and about 1.5 yards of a solid for the background.

From the prints, cut 12 9"x9" squares (1 square from each fabric if you're using 12 fabrics).

From the background fabric, cut 19 2.5-inch wide strips (2.5" x width of fabric).
- Subcut 6 of the strips into 9" lengths to make 24 2.5"x9" pieces.
- Subcut 8 of the strips into 13" lengths to make 24 2.5"x13" pieces.



Sewing
Sew the short and long strips to your squares like so. Chain piecing makes this go fast!

You should then have 12 of these blocks measuring 13" square.

Now, the fun part! Cut your square into quarters so that you have 4 6.5" square blocks.


Arrange them alternating the orientation, 6 blocks wide by 8 blocks tall.

Piece the blocks together row by row.
Finally, add the remaining full length strips to make a border around the whole quilt.
Quilt and bind as desired!



Here's a larger lap size I originally made a year or so ago. I love how the squares look like they are floating. The next version I make I would love to use a collection of "low volume" prints as the background, how fun would that be!


I hope the instructions were clear but please don't hesitate to contact me with questions! As always, you are welcome to use this tutorial to make and sell the finished product on a home-based scale giving credit to this site. Thanks!

Life Update

Wow, sorry to just drop off the face of the earth like that but good news, we're in the process of buying a house! Seven {long} months ago we sold our house thinking it would take a month or so to find something that would be right for us, ha! My dad graciously let us move in with him so that we could save our money and not have to rent. Who knew that the market in our area would change from a buyer's market to a seller's market making it hard to find what we wanted and home prices going up.
What we were wanting was to downsize a bit, get a smaller, more affordable house (not that our 2,000 sq.ft. house was a mansion or anything!) because the cost of our medical bills/insurance. We wanted to continue to stay out of debt (thank you Dave Ramsey!) and moving to a more affordable house was the only place to cut our monthly costs. My husband and I were at total peace with it all and knew that God would take care of us no matter what. And although it hasn't been easy living with family it has all worked out just fine. I cannot tell you how excited I am to finally move to our own space and make it ours! It's not final yet but soon!

So anyway, with all that personal stuff out of the way I can show you what I've been working on. Though the blog has been quiet, my sewing machine has been working up a sweat!

I'm excited to say that some of my things will now be for sale in a local brick and mortar shop selling handmade/vintage goods and is opening today! The ladies that started our local Etsy Denton group have rebranded to be called DIME (Denton Independent Makers Exchange) and are opening The DIME Store where they are selling goods from local Etsy crafters. I got a sneak peek at it the other day and it's going to be awesome!

Some iPad covers:


Some table runners. This plus one inspired by this quilt.

This triangles one inspired by this quilt. My favorite!


Baby plus quilt inspired by Heather's quilt.


I'm calling this quilt Friday's Quilt (because it's so easy you can have a finished quilt by Friday LOL!) and I'll be posting a tutorial/pattern for it soon! I made a large throw sized version of this quilt you can see here.


There were some zipper pouches, bookmarks and other things that I just didn't get pictures of but I'll snap of few of them at the store when I go!
I promise I won't be so much of a stranger. I really have so much I've been working on and want to share but all I've been thinking about lately is what colors to paint the house and how I'm going to decorate it! :)
Have a lovely weekend!

Native Quilt

Meet my new favorite quilt! The best name I could come up with for this quilt was Native. I started out wanting to make a Feather Bed Quilt with the Chicopee fabric line. Then I discovered how time consuming it was to make each feather (I'm not good with templates).

So, the idea evolved into this multi-component quilt that included feathers, some different arrows and patterns all with a low volume background.

It's funny but my main inspiration came from the carpet at Great Wolf Lodge.

Lot's of Denyse Schmidt fabrics in there!

I started out by making all the different components and then putting them together like a puzzle. It was pretty tricky and I really took my time with it.

This top left corner of the quilt is my favorite. I just love how it came together.

The back is nice and simple using just three fabrics: two Field Study prints and the feathers!

I could not be happier with how it came out!

loose ends

I forgot to show you the loot I came away with from QuiltCon!
It's so nice to see fabrics in real life sometimes (as opposed to ordering online all the time). I knew I would want to splurge on some goodies so it's all good but people, I seriously need to go on a fabric diet! I'm really going to try to restrain myself for a while (until the new Heather Ross collection comes out, that I will be buying!).

Those solids on the right are Oakshot Cottons, so gorgeous in real life! And it seemed to me that Architextures was the big "thing" at QuiltCon....it was EVERYWHERE (at EVERY shop booth and in tons of the quilts). It's a cool collection for sure but it makes me feel like part of the crowd. I'm fine with that though. :)


#20 Churn Dash for my Farmer's Wife Sampler. Plugging away.


Lastly, a sneak peek of my finished feather/improv quilt that I have yet to come up with a good name for. I need to get some better pictures, soon!

Happy Wednesday everyone!