Saturday, November 24, 2012

Blueberries and Chocolate

I made this for my mom for Christmas. Shhh, don't tell her, it's a surprise.

I call it Blueberries and Chocolate - moms favorite colors are blues, tans and browns. Hope this one fits the bill!


Thursday, August 9, 2012

Shades of Green






This is the only good photo I have of my Grandmothers gift.  Green is her favorite color and I wanted to do something to surprise her.

This one is only 3 fabrics and 3 different shades of green. I wanted to call it the Kermit quilt but my husband wouldn't let me.

Nana likes it and that's all that matters.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Frugal Christmas Ideas

Yep, can you believe it? We're at the halfway point in 2012! I can't believe it, and I've been crafting and quilting all year long for the family. It's almost that time of year again! Only 6 more months to go. Lets get creative! :)

I wanted to share some of my ideas with you all. Maybe you can save some money too.

Packages, Boxes, Mailing:
I mail to my family all over the world, and I mail early. I hate standing in line at the post office (a necessary evil, but still).

By nature, I love to recycle and re-purpose. By reusing I'm giving Mother Earth a Christmas gift too. I reuse mailing containers and supplies. I cover up labels with construction paper and a typed address packing taped onto the construction paper. Use kids scissors or scrapbooking scissors to cut the construction paper into zig-zags, waves or other designs. type out all your addresses on the computer, print them off and center them on the construction paper. Then just use clear packing tape to tape your label to the box (over the old label is fine!)

I've been known to wrap gifts in cereal boxes. If you've got something small or flexible, it can most likely fit into a cereal box. Why go out and buy boxes when you've probably got tons in your house already?

If you're looking for a creative way to wrap a gift, try unusual containers. A few years ago I made a quilt for one of my friends, invited her over for pizza and a movie, and had the quilt in a (never used) pizza box from our local pizzeria. I purchased the box from the pizzeria for $1 and it fit a twin size quilt.

I just wanted to share some of my ideas with you - hope they can help! :)

Monday, June 11, 2012

Progress on Mom's Christmas Gift

Making some progress on my mom's Christmas gift.  I figured that if I started it early enough it might actually be done by Christmas.

So, while Netflix was on and I had Magnum PI on, I pressed all the seams open on the back of these blocks.

Moms favorite colors are blues and browns.  Found the pattern in one of the "Easy Quilt" magazines - will look for the specific edition later.


Saturday, May 12, 2012

A Donating I Will Go

Made these gorgeous quilts for a raffle. All proceeds go to a scholarship for needy students.Hope they get well received.
 
It's about 50"x50".  I had such fun quilting it and making it.

 

And a close up of the quilting.  In the center points there's a ships wheel, and the stars each have an anchor. I quilted a couple other motifs in the cream squares.

 

This other quilt was so quick and easy to make. Plus, I think it shows off the fabrics pretty well.  I didn't do any fancy stitching in it, just some stippling.


**Edited - one of my students won this one!! :) ** She loves it!



A huge thank you to Mary Quilts for the free pattern for the strippie quilt. Very fun, very easy.



Sunday, April 8, 2012

Baby Shower Gift - Complete and Ready to Gift

So one of my friends is having her very first baby in a month and the shower's coming up soon.  I let her pick the pattern and colors and I made her a quilt.

Since the little girl is not yet named because the parents are still deciding on names, on the label I just put a generic Baby XXXXX.

All completed on my tiny Brother sewing machine. This was the machine that I got when my Singer went on the fritz and I needed a backup for my backup.  So it's not the best quilting job in the world, but when you're attempting to quilt something this large in such a small throat space, I think it turned out all right.

Measures 52"x52".  So not only is it a good size for a newborn, but also for a toddler to drag around.




Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Having a "Crumby" time..

Well, not really. I'm not in a bad mood or anything! While blog hopping again, I found Bonnie Hunter's awesome tutorial on crumb blocks again.  Naturally, I just *had* to try them again.

I think at one point I started making crumb blocks, but they got put to the side, and the scraps just went into a Rubbermaid bin. And I kept making bigger things, and the scraps kept adding up. So I went digging into the pile and started randomly sewing pieces together.

Instead of trimming the blocks at 4" (because that's way too small for me!) I made mine 6.5" unfinished - the size of one of my most used rulers.

Because I'm super geeky, I'm putting a little sticky tab on the back of each block with the row it should go in, and the total number of pieces used. I'm hoping to embroider the number on the label when I finally get the quilt done. It'll be my big work in progress, but I'll get there eventually.


Sunday, January 22, 2012

Week 4, Jan 22-28, 2012

Phew. Last week was so busy. I'm *almost* done with the quilt top that I started with princesses. I'll have to post it later.

Anyway, this weeks theme is "Little Bits." Yep, just Little Bits. Interpret it as you wish.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Jan 15-21 - Week 3, 2012

Here we go again! New week, new theme. This weeks theme is PRINCESSES/PRINCES.

My DD received the movie Tangled for Christmas, and she has been seeing the commercials for the 3D version of Beauty and the Beast on TV. I told her that if she could watch Beauty and the Beast (DVD version, non 3D) with me, and actually sit through it and not get super scared that DH and I would take her to the movies to see it in theaters. Her first ever movie in theaters.

By the way - Tangled is such a cute movie. If you've never seen it, you should.

She's so obsessed with Princesses that I thought I could do a miniature for her wall for after we actually go and see the Beauty and the Beast.

Paper Pieced Mini Doll Quilt

Here's a small paper pieced miniature quilt I made for a swap.

The pattern is from It's Raining Cats and Dogs. What a cute book! Very easy patterns to follow.

For this one, I wanted to go with the seasons - cats of the seasons.  My partner loves cats.

Autumn Cat

 

Spring Cat

 

Winter Cat

 

Summer Cat

 

And this is the full miniature quilt. I'm not sure why it's sideways - but you get the idea.

Cat Season

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Week 2: Jan 8-14, 2012

Here we go again! Are you getting back into the swing of things?

This weeks theme is scrappy. :) Now go forth and have fun and create!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Star - BOM - January 2012

I'm participating in a BOM (Block of Month). January's block is the BrassTown Star from Quilters Cache.

I've not done this block before, somehow I missed it - and it's GREAT!! So awesome to have fussy cuts in the diamonds! I'm using a fabric I got about 2 years ago, and I'm so happy to have a use for it!

Anyway, here's my BrassTown Star.


What do you think?

Friday, January 6, 2012

Mystery Quilt - BOM - Month 1 - January 2012

There's a Mystery Quilt on one of the forums I belong to. It's set up as a Block of the Month (BOM). I can do this in steps. :) Great news huh? This mystery will finish up at about 40"x40". I'm super excited for it, especially since I've never done a Mystery Quilt before - hope I love the final results.

If I want the quilt bigger, I can add borders, so I know it'll fit into whatever size I want it to be.

So, I picked my 3 fabrics. Dug around in my stash for a few hours and tried to decide on what I wanted to do, when I found these three all in a Ziploc baggie. How's that for ready to go?!

These are the fabrics that I just picked. I'll post photos of what I did when I make my first cuts - hopefully tomorrow.

Let me know what you think!

Week 1: Challenge Complete! Blue and White

Phew.. pulled this one under the wire. Here's the completed top for Week 1, 2012: Blue and White.

Please ignore the wrinkle in it - it really is straight. It's 16"x16". I'll post it again when it's quilted.

I'm planning on waiting until I get a snow day and then I'll quilt them and bind. But, no snow yet.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

New Mini Quilt Challenge - Jan 1-7, 2012

Ok.. I'm slightly late with posting this one, whoopsie, but the holidays got the best of me!

Anyway - this weeks challenge is to use BLUE and WHITE. Anything goes. :)

Lets see something with BLUE and WHITE. (Of course, other colors are allowed!)