Urban home goods swap

Going to make a market bag out of these...

Dresden

I'm making 2 of these for my vintage sheet bee.



Still need to appliqué it down & add the center.

This is a new block for me. I like it!

Friday night cartoons

And quilts

It's Friday!

Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.



Yum!

A Note to My Urban Home Goods Swap Partner

You're probably stalking me right now.  That's my favorite part!

Firstly, thanks in advance for the fun we're about to have with this swap.  It's my favorite one.  I just got back from the fabric shop and bought some nice orange fabrics for my partner.  Getting ready to try making something I've never done before.

I want to get some pictures of the room (the kids' "office") that I'm trying to spruce up, but I need to tidy it up a bit first...  To tide you over, here are a couple pictures of my sweet sons doing their "work" in their "office"...

Wyatt will be 4 in April.

Owen will be 3 in May

A little background about me:  I was a 1st grade teacher for several years before becoming a stay at home mom.  I have LOTS of educational toys and activities that the boys could be playing with, but our house is filled with toys that I'm constantly tripping over.  I hate to add more toys to the pile.  My solution is this:  Educational toys will stay in their office.  Other toys can be scattered throughout the house.  The educational toys we have to play with will (mostly) stay up out of reach.  I can take down a toy or two at a time to work with and then I'll put these toys back up when we've finished working on them.  Maybe this way, we'll have less mess, more guided activities, more learning and less gray hair for mom.

Keep an eye on my blog.  I'll write you again soon, partner!

Sorting scraps

I have 3 laundry baskets full of scraps of all sizes. Today is the day to get serious & get organized because my scrap heap isn't getting any smaller...

Before (boxes labeled by color):







During:






After:
















I still have 1/2 laundry basket of very small pieces. Might just sew those together improvisationally.

We will see. For now, I'm going to focus on purples & cut them into strips. I want to make a couple stripped pieced quilts. Am toying with the idea of making 15" blocks using one color per block. Could be really colorful, don't you think?

I was pretty surprised to realize that I had a lot of purple and green.  By far, the color I have the most of is blue (my favorite color) and pink is a close second.  I'm pretty rich with yellow and the orange pile was not too shabby, either.  Guess I should get busy making some scrappy quilts.

Don't worry, I still have a big stash. :)

Future Dresden Plates

Batiks for me & vintage sheets for my bee



I haven't tried these before. Thought I'd better practice on my own block first...

Another picnic quilt

Why not?

That Girl, That Quilt Along

That girl, that quilt along, originally uploaded by nkiblueeyes.

This one's for Owen. His big boy bed. He turns 3 in late May, so I think I'll try to finish it in time for the festivities. Currently, he's in a toddler bed. His bed converts. It's a black bed and I think this quilt will look really nice with it. I ordered a red print from this line that's FLANNEL for the backing. It gets so cold here in Kansas. The backing was even on sale (SCORE!) so I am tickled. Sent Angela an email last night about quilting it. Now I must assemble the top!  I'm way behind on this quilt along.  Go check out That Girl, That Quilt's blog!

I brought my sewing machine down to the living room and I'm getting lots done!

Kate's Shower

My littlest sister, Katie at her baby shower.  She is due to have a little girl in May.  Her name will be Iris. Since everyone was back home for Christmas, we threw her a baby shower.  Was great to see family and friends that I don't see often.

Here are a couple pictures of me and my two sisters.  Laura's on the left, Katie in the middle and I'm on the right.

Baby Natasha

Here's a picture of one of my latest quilts in action:

Batik Picnic Quilt

This quilt is almost finished.  It just needs to be bound, now.  I finished tying it tonight.  Just a couple sessions of sitting and focusing provided me with some serious progress!  I'm trying very hard to finish up projects that have been hanging over my head and this is one of them.  Will post a picture after it's bound and washed.  Since I have two sons, I've decided to make another one of these quilts and I've even started it already.  Just sewing squares together here and there.  I have quite a few strips now...

No picnics for us anytime soon.  8 inches of snow should arrive tomorrow.

I think I want to focus on sandwiching a couple small quilts in the next couple days.

Also need to finish cutting the outer border for some square in a square blocks for That Girl, That Quilt Along.  I'm very behind, but it's coming along.  I'm probably two sewing sessions away from being ready to sew the blocks to each other to assemble the top.  Not going to quilt this one myself.  It'll be too big.  It's going to be a big boy quilt for Owen's bed.  Right now he is using a toddler bed (his crib is a conversion type bed).  For his 3rd birthday in May, I'm thinking of getting him a full sized box spring and mattress.  It'd be very nice to have a couple quilts finished for him.  Stay tuned, people.

2 finishes!

Today I made so much progress on my to do list.

I finished cutting 200 red 4" squares for a swap.

ALSO, I finished my kcmqg no solids allowed Kaufman challenge. It's one of those times where it looks like I'd pictured. It's all I can do to not post it, but I want it to be a surprise at the march meeting.

But if you come to my house, you can see it... I'm planning on using it right away.

So excited.

Color wheel charm square exchange

I chose red.  I wish I hadn't signed up for this swap because they require you to pre-wash fabric.  I hate that.  Unless it's a batik, I never pre-wash.  But against my better judgement, I did today.  So frustrinting to deal with all the tangles and string, not to mention how you lose part of what you bought when it unravels.

Enough complaining.

I've got three 1/4 yards cut... Seven more to go.  I'll end up with 200 different 4 inch squares when I get back my swapped fabric.

This is why

I don't pre-wash fabrics...







A tangled & unravelled mess.

Kc scrappy bee blocks for Angela

These fabrics were SO nice to work with!

Urban home goods swap, etc.

I'm so wishy washy. I couldn't pass up some new swaps.

The 3rd round of the urban home goods swap is starting up on flickr. I couldn't pass it up.

Also, there are 2 charm square swaps I'm doing. Both are 4 inch squares. I prefer 5 inch, but I'll get 200 different prints! And it only takes 1/4 yards to cut up 20 squares... Will do ispy & a color wheel one. I think these may be good for ticker tape quilts...

And I signed up for a soggy swap.

Plus I need to finish my solids challenge item for kcmqg.

I decided to pass on the monochromatic challenge for the modern qg challenge. I already have a red monochomatic king sized quilt going.

So I need to get busy!


But I've been busy doing this...









And this...






And this:

Angela Walters, My Favorite Quilter

HERE is her blog.

She was our program last night at kcmqg...

She gave us advice on tops we brought in...








And she showed us other quilts she's quilted, explaining her thought process.
























HERE is a link to her post about this quilt...
and HERE is a link to the Flickr gallery that shows all the other entries (including mine).

For Jessica in the kc scrappy

Jessica requested Christmas blocks.

Deb

When I was an ESL teacher, Debbie was my aide. She & I have kept in touch over the years. She is fairly new to quilting and was having issues with a quilt she is making for her daughter. Turns out she wasn't pinning when sewing her rows together. I taught her how to pin, press & fudge when things want to pucker.

















So excited to see her feeling successful about quilting. I'm sure her daughter will be tickled, too!