Two Great Giveaways at Jaybird Quilts and Poppyseed Fabrics

There is a super awesome giveaway for a brand spankin' new fabric bundle from Robert Kaufman and a quilting pattern courtesy of Jaybird Quilts.  Go enter now!  You have until Thursday midnight.

  

The fabric looks sweet!  I love the blue and red!

And, I love this blue and red bundle that's the prize in a great giveaway at Poppyseed Fabrics.  This color combo sure is popular!

Quilt Drive For Japan

I saw information for a quilt drive over at Poppyseed Fabrics to send any size quilt to people in need in Japan.  Here's a  close-up of part of a girl's quilt that I'm sending:

No matter how I rotate the photo in my pictures it still turns out on its side in blogger...argggghhh!

Quilts can be shipped to:

Seven Islands, Inc.

"Quilt Drive for Japan"

2444 W. 205th St.

Suite A-1

Torrance, CA  90501

Did I buy enough fabric? And, Bambi is Basted

 I love an online store called Connecting Threads.  I have purchased fabric and quilt kits there in the past and this time I even added some thread to my cart.  I'll let you know how it works out.  I bought both polyester and cotton thread, on spools and in cones.  I also got a layer cake and then a TON of 1/2 yards and more of fabric.  The fabric was on clearance and was only $2.48 a yard, so I got enough for backings in a few colors, too.  The box that came was HEAVY!!!  My husband saw the box, but he didn't pick it up thank goodness or he would have wondered what in the world I bought:)  I was able to get it upstairs in my sewing room without alerting him to the magnitude of my latest fabric addition.

I was also able to get my daughter's Bambi quilt basted on Friday morning before everyone woke up.  Bambi was rereleased by Disney this year and Thomas Kinkade designed a line of fabric to coincide with its release.  Now, don't tell my sister or my daughter, but Thomas Kinkade artwork makes me want to gag.  Sorry if I've offended anyone, but his style is just not to my taste.  When his fabric was available last fall, I had to buy it for Bea since Bambi is her favorite movie.  I finished up the quilt top in January and was hoping to have it as a gift for her birthday party in March, but I didn't get around to basting it until now.  I am going to get it quilted and maybe even bind it this weekend since it's raining outside like the dickens.  I don't generally allow the kids to watch tv/movies often, but it looks like a movie weekend;)  The fabric panel was designed as a book, but I just made them quilt blocks.  Now I've just got to get the sewing room and my daughters' room switched out so Bea can move into a twin sized bed and use the quilt!

For the backing I used clearance fabric from Joann's.

I went with pink and brown and plan to free motion quilt green leaves over the pink and brown.  We'll see how that goes.  I made a little practice quilt sandwich.  Recently I did some stars and they turned out great.  Here's hoping the leaves work out!

And I've been dutifully working on all the snowballs for my "Snowballs in Paradise" quilt for my bedroom.

I am hoping to post a tutorial by the end of the month for this quilt.  I've been doing a lot of creating my own patterns for the past couple of quilts I've made, and I've been thinking about getting EQ7.  I even have it in my shopping bag online:) 

Quilt Washing Anxiety

When I wanted to learn to quilt, I took a course at the only LQS around.  I didn't even really know much about sewing--I had just completed a Parks and Rec beginner sewing class.  We were making a front porch quilt, and one of the ladies in the class, who I later found out works part-time there, made fun of me interminably about my inability to chain sew without using pins to hold my two fabrics together.  Well, excuse me, it was my first quilt!!!  I went to the first two classes, but I didn't go back, and now I mostly shop at the other two LQS within driving distance from the rural area I live in.  Needless to say, I didn't finish that quilt and when I went to sew together each of my rows, each one ended up longer than the next until the edge looked like steps.  I cried and then threw the whole thing in the garbage.  If I only knew that I could have ripped the seams out and actually pinned together each of the seam intersections, the quilt could have been salvaged.

Fast forward about 2 months...I decided to give quilt making another try and enlisted the help of my friend Dreena to show me how to join the rows.  It was a real eye-opener to me how easily I could have fixed the other one I threw away.  Here is that first quilt made with two of Erin Michaels's sock monkey fabric lines:

I think it turned out pretty durn cute for a first quilt.  It's full size and machine quilted by me.

It was a steep learning curve since all the blocks are on point.  I had to fussy cut a lot of the monkeys and I can't tell you how many times I forgot to put the ruler on an angle!

Last week, for reasons unmentionable:), it needed to be washed.  I was soooooooo  nervous!  I have heard of seams popping and all sorts of mishaps, and since this was my first quilt, I was sure it wouldn't survive the washing machine.  But it did!  It looks as great as ever.  I'm sure that probably has more to do with using quality fabrics rather than my sewing ability:)

 On another note, my daughter Bea has been practicing sewing by making these stars.  She works on them pretty much off and on all day long, especially in the car or when we go somewhere and she needs to sit still for a while.  A friend gave her a pack of stars and she's almost through all of them!  I guess we'll be heading to Michaels for more soon!

Happy Spring!

I finally finished putting the binding on the two tablerunners I made for a friend:

I like the beachy colors I used this time and I'm getting a little better at machine binding.  I hate, hate, hate sewing on the binding by hand.  It just takes too long for a mother of 3.

And here's a cute key fob I made for spring.  I bought one for myself several months ago on Etsy and love it.  It's so easy to just slip on my wrist when I'm walking out from the grocery store with 3 kids in tow and keep track of my keys so I can actually open the minivan without bending over and seaching through my bag.  The strawberry fabric is a Japanese print that I ordered online.  I just love aqua and red together.  It seems like a popular color combo this spring. 

The light glinting on the hardware makes it look like there's a bend in it, but it's really straight and unbent.  My husband used a pair of pliers and a pair of jeans to put the hardware on without scratching it.  I might invest the in $12.99 clear rubber tipped pliers to do it more professionally because I plan on giving these babies away as Christmas presents for friends and family this year. 

iPad Sleeve

About two weeks ago I made a friend a Kindle Sleeve.  I don't have a Kindle myself, so I just followed an online tutorial and luckily it turns out the measurements were right on.  For Christmas, my husband totally surprised me with an iPad, so I thought I'd try to design a nice little sleeve for it (although he bought me a case for it already).  With this quilted sleeve there will be a little more padding and cushion, so I can just tuck the whole thing in my gi-nor-mus mom bag and just go!  I had some American Jane Punctuation charm squares that I had no immediate plan for, so I made what I think is an appropriate iPad case for a former English teacher:)   I guess it doesn't really have a front or back, but I think of the front as the little squares and the back as the zig-zags:

And, it tastes pretty good, too: