WIP Wednesday, vol.3

Well, it seems like I was busy sewing all week, but I really don't have much exciting to show.

 Let's start with the finish:

I actually never talked about this project on any previous WIP lists, but I started this dishmat about three months ago and I just decided to finish it this weekend. To read more about it go here.

Another success for the week was getting all my charms cut for the two swaps I'm in. They aren't due for a while, but I want to get them in as soon as possible so I can get them off my mind. They are my first swaps and I'm nervous that I'm going to screw it up somehow. 

Now for the real Works in Progress report:

Like soldiers on the battlefield, ready to wage war on puckers and poor quilting.

320 pins later, the anniversary quilt is now officially basted. After being aggravated with my basting skills on my previous quilts, I was very careful with this one. I made sure everything was carefully smoothed and taut, and used smaller safety pins, with one every 4 inches.  Now to just figure out how I want to quilt it. Any suggestions? I'm thinking of going along the seams in a zigzag across the quilt, but I'm not sure I want to wrangle it quite that much. Hopefully I can get some kid-free time this weekend to work on it.

A little progress was made on the kaleidoscope quilt. Three blocks are complete and most of the rest are in quarter-blocks. I was a little dumb on a few and for some reason sewed the brown piece onto the wrong side of the print so I'll have to do a bit of ripping. I think it will go pretty quickly after that.

I'm considering joining the Across the Sea Quilt-Along with Ellison Lane Quilts and FairyFace Designs, but I would really love to get one of these done first, or I may go insane with three quilts in progress.

So that's the lowdown over here, now go check out the other great projects linked up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Fabric Swapping

I have been having so much fun lately in this crazy online quilting world. I have met so many new people from all over the globe, and am really amazed at everyone's kindness and enthusiasm. I'm about one month into this blogging thing and am so glad I started.

One of the most fun things I have gotten into in this last month is swapping fabrics. Do many of you do this? I think it will be a great way to get a little sample of fabrics before I commit to yardage and super-fun because they will already be cut. I am NOT a fan of cutting fabric! 

The first swap I entered is being led by Kati who blogs at From the Blue Chair. It is a Color Wheel charm swap, so everyone was assigned two colors, and everyone will get back 56 charms in various colors along the spectrum. Mine were orange and red-orange.

Close enough? I was kind of hoping the top fabric was a bit more vibrant, but I still love it. It is Sheherazade in Orange from 1001 Peeps by Lizzy House. The bottom one is definitely the color I see when I picture "orange". Being a Tennessee girl, I'm a little picky about my oranges. It is Monaluna's Mingle Squares in Tangerine for Robert Kaufman.

The second swap I'm doing is the Feeling Fussy Charm Swap which was started by Amy at Stitchery, Dickory Dock. This time we are only swapping 10 fussy cut charms. I didn't immediately sign up for this one like I did the first, because I really wasn't sure that I had enough fussy-cuttable (totally a word) fabric in my stash, and I wasn't going to shop for new fabric. After looking through my modest stash, I was surprised to find several fabrics that could be deemed fussy. So here's what I came up with:

Apparently I am a fan of kitchen-themed fabrics... Hopefully these are cute enough for the other swappers. 

So if any of you ever see an invitation to join a swap, and want to join but second-guess yourself...Don't! Just jump in and do it. I'm sure you'll be glad you did.

{Sew} Modern Monday, vol. 2

Back again, baby!

This week's finish is a small one, but it has taken about three months to finish. I started this dish mat as a quick project to jazz up my kitchen a little bit, but it got pushed to the side several times so I could work on other things. I finally got tired of moving it out of the way so I decided the other day to just go ahead and get it done already.

I usually just put a dish towel on the counter to put wet dishes on, either that came out of the dishwasher or that I hand-wash, but that's kinda boring. One day I saw a tutorial for a quilted dishmat on Darby's blog,  Fly Through Our Window. While I didn't really use her tutorial to make this mat, it was my inspiration.

I used a dish towel from Target that I've had for a little while. It has been washed several times, so hopefully there's no more shrinking. All I did was cut the edges off and start making my patchwork top to be roughly the same size. I actually started off with a different design in mind but didn't like it. I wanted to still use those pieces, though, so I came up with this top.

I was originally going to practice my free motion quilting on this, but I backed out on that, so I just mimicked the rectangles and quilted around them, inside and out.

It may be silly, but it really does make it a little less boring doing dishes if I can have fun things like this to help brighten up the kitchen. 

Now go check out what other cool things people are making and linking up to at Canoe Ridge Creation's
fabulous {Sew} Modern Monday.

Have You SeenThis??

Just a quick post this morning to share something I found last night. Have you seen this?

It is the International Quilt Study Center & Museum website where you can see thousands of quilts and find their origins, date made, materials used, etc. There is a neat slideshow feature under the "Quilt Explorer" tab in the "Collections" sidebar where you can scroll through pictures of quilts. It is so cool! 

You can even create your own "collection" of quilt sets, and search the database by date, pattern, fabrics, region and other keywords. So interesting!

Here are just a couple that I found:

Blazing Star

Dutchman's Reel

Flying Geese

 All images courtesy of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum.

There are loads of other interesting things on this website, so I have much more exploring to do. You can also sign up for a "Quilt of the Month" where each month they email you a picture and information about a historic quilt.

 So, if you have some free time one of these days, you may want to go check it out!

A Very Good Day

I don't know what kind of cosmic forces aligned themselves, but today was a great day. Good kids, long naps, and a very productive mama!

Wyatt was such a great helper this morning. He was apparently in cleaning mode, because as I was feeding Max his breakfast and eating my own, Wyatt was cleaning the high chair and then moved onto the bookshelves. Later he helped me clean the bathroom and carried laundry to the laundry room. Our back room/laundry room has gotten very messy lately with shoes everywhere, ball gloves and other toys strewn about, and the grass clippings...the bane of my existence...grass clippings dragged in while still damp with dew and consequently glued to everything. So that room got a major cleaning as well. Several loads of laundry done AND put away. (That never happens on the same day...) And you guys, that was all before lunch!! Insanity!

On to the sewing..while the boys were sleeping I finally got done with a quilted dishmat that I have been slowly working on for, oh, about two months now. After that finish, the momentum was high so I decided to tackle the Kaleidoscope.

This isn't the definite layout, I was just kinda throwing them up on the wall at this point. I am really liking how this looks so far though. I decided to go ahead and put one block together to make sure I wasn't going to completely wreck it. The block went together much faster than I expected it to. I'm not saying I expect this to be a quick project, but I think if I can get some uninterrupted time with my machine, I can probably knock out a pretty good chunk of it.

I know it isn't perfect, but it is really so much better than I expected. I am getting pretty excited about how this quilt is going to turn out. Hopefully this one wasn't just beginner's luck!

And just to show you an example of the crazy stuff that goes on around here...The older boys were out playing and Wyatt came in to tell me that Carson needed help with his shoe. I asked why and he said that they were playing tag and Wyatt might have knocked him down and his shoe came off. So I told Wyatt to go help Carson get his shoe back on and keep playing. About ten minutes later, Carson shows up at the door, with his shoe completely stuck around his ankle. I couldn't get it to budge, so I set him up on the counter and tried running water over it, thinking maybe it would help slide off.

No luck. His poor toes were starting to swell, so I asked if it would be OK if I just cut it off. I really thought he would get upset, but he told me to get a knife. I got scissors instead. I hated to do it because I love these shoes, but there was no other way.

RIP, frog shoe. RIP.

This guy seems to be taking it well.

WIP Wednesday, vol. 2

I was actually very productive this week...finished one quilt, made progress on another, and started a third.

First, the finish:

The strip quilt is done! More details are here.

In progress:

I finished the back of the green/yellow plus quilt for my husband. Now to just get it together and pick out a binding. Hopefully this will be finished in the next week, but more than likely not. Good thing our anniversary isn't until September.

Just getting started:

I started cutting the fabrics for a Kaleidoscope quilt. I'm not sure yet if this was the best idea. I have all the prints cut and over half of the solids. I plan on making the larger size, possibly as a gift for my best friend, whose birthday is sometime in September. (Isn't that awful? We both know about when the other's birthday is, but we never get it right. I think it's the 16th. Or the 20th) But, her anniversary is in October, so I could always fall back on that date if I don't get it done.

Anyway, not sure if I have the necessary skills for this baby. I'm not known for my accuracy in cutting, and I'm guessing that is pretty important here. So I may get frustrated and throw it in a drawer. But, I absolutely love the fabrics. Mostly Heirloom, with a Grand Bazaar, and possibly a Lace Elements. I actually didn't use the Modern Meadow that is shown in the first picture. Even if I give up on the quilt I will definitely make something else with these fabrics, possibly a table runner for our dining room. 

And now for the question of the day...I'm narrowing down our options for a little trip in a few weeks and am trying to choose between Wisconsin or Michigan, or going south to Alabama/Florida. Any opinions? I'm stumped. 

After you play travel guide, head over to Freshly Pieced and check out the other lovely WIPs.

It's funny how things are connected...

I was just browsing around a little on Pinterest, checking some things out, when I started thinking about vacations. See, my husband gets a little break from work in a couple weeks and wants to take a trip. I have no idea where we will go, probably stick with the Midwest, but just for fun I browsed around Pinterest's Travel section and came upon a picture of Montana.

Oh, how I love Montana! Have you ever been there? We went for our honeymoon, and I think it was the perfect time of year. Early September, so warm during the day but chilly at night. Loved it.

 

Look at these pictures:

 

Source: Sunset via Toni Lovelady on Pinterest

Source: Beautiful Places via Toni Lovelady on Pinterest

Source: Flickr via Toni Lovelady on Pinterest

Source: Flickr  via Toni Lovelady on Pinterest

Isn't it dreamy? I can't wait until we can go back. 

So anyway, this wasn't meant to be a post on my love for Montana. Not completely anyway.

Another fun thing I saw while searching for "Montana" was this cool quilt:

 

"Montana Cartwheel"

Source: Wee Bee Quilting via Toni Lovelady on Pinterest

But, what I was really excited about was this beautiful fabric:

 

Source:  Spoonflower via Toni Lovelady on Pinterest

I thought it looked a little familiar, so I looked at her other fabrics on Spoonflower, and I realized who the designer was. (Then, I read it in the sidebar... but still! ) "Chamomile" on Spoonflower is Katie Daisy of the wheatfield on Etsy. Have you seen the beautiful prints she makes?

 

 Source: Etsy

I have two of them at my house, just waiting to be framed and put on my wall. And I want 80 more! Seriously love her style.

So, yeah... Montana. Was that the most rambling post ever?

Back to the original topic...anyone have a good vacation destination?