We’re having a cupcake party for Valentines. I made this tablerunner over the weekend for the special occasion.
It measures 54” x 14”.
I found these cute red glitter buttons at Joanns on Friday (along with a few choice cuts of Aunt Edna…).
Then I did a practice run of baking the cupcakes for the party.
Lookin’ good! The backing fabric features even more sweet treats.
Most of the fabrics used are Heidi Grace from Joanns. I loved making this and the kids love it even more!
Over the weekend I finished up a wall hanging to enter into the Tangerine Tango Challenge. Along the way, I did lots of new things:
1. I used fabric choices that were definitely not something I would have ever chosen on my own. Orange is not a color I am particularly drawn to, and my palette was limited by the fabrics available in my very small local quilt shop.
2. I took a class! I signed up for Cathedral Windows by Machine just to get myself out of the house. Getting out more is one of my New Year’s Resolutions. BTW, there were three other people in the class and the median age was 68. I only know this because they were discussing social security…for like a half hour…really. Another of my New Year’s Resolutions is to start a local Modern Quilt Guild here in southern Maryland. I’ve already recruited a handful of quilters and I can’t wait to meet more people in real life without having to fly to Utah or London. I want to do those things too, but with a baby it’s just not really possible for a few years.
3. I did mitered corners. I followed an online tutorial that I can’t seem to find now, and it worked like a charm.
4. I added corners to the back of the quilt for hanging via a dowel. I saw this method somewhere a while back on another person’s blog and it worked like a charm, too! This photo is before I added the binding. The binding covers up the raw edges perfectly and then later I can slide a dowel into the two corner pockets for hanging.
5. I quilted this with different color threads. I have used other colors besides cream or white, but this is the first time I’ve ever used such bright colors and had the lines stand out so much.
I am linking this up to Melissa’s Trying New Things Thursday.
I finished up my entry for the Tangerine Tango Challenge over the weekend. The weather is rainy and misty in Maryland today, so I only took two photos but I had to because I am too excited to wait to share this. It is a wallhanging and the first thing I’ve ever made that I really, truly LOVE!
This week I got my January blocks in the mail to Sunni of Love Affair with My Brother for the Stash Bee. She requested a tree block and a signature block, so here’s what I sent her way:
 |  |
I added some white borders to the blocks I’ve received so far as part of Beejeebers. I also requested tree blocks—or house blocks—to make a quilt called “Wonky Town.”
I received three more blocks this week and plan to add the white borders to them this weekend.
And I made some more progress with my Farmer’s Wife Sampler Blocks. Here are my blocks laid out with the same blocks I made for Sunny in her fabric choices.
Finally, I completed this quilt for my first finish of 2012.
 |  |
 |  |
I am linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday for my bee blocks and my first quilt finished for 2012. Hope you got some projects finished up this week, too!
I finally got around to taking photos of the first UFO quilt I have completed this year. You may recognize it from the Charmed Prints Quilt Along from December. I finished the quilt top and had it basted, but I just didn’t get around to quilting it until the hecticness of the holidays wore off.
Esther really liked the heart fabric I used in one of the featured blocks on the front, so I used the remainder to make a strip of hearts across the back and put two extra blocks on it, too.
I framed another one of my Spoonflower labels for the back.
This is the first time I’ve done “organic straight line quilting” and I am extremely pleased with how it turned out. I used a mid-loft polyester batting which I pretty much detest, but it was pretty easy to do the straight line quilting without getting many tucks or wrinkles.
After washing and drying it, Esther and Veronica had a birthday party for their stuffed animals on it.
On account of trying straight line quilting for the first time, I am linking up to Happy Quilting’s Trying New Things Thursday.
I completed block(s) 97 for the Farmer’s Wife Sampler over the weekend. Boy was it a toughie! I ended up with two, not so perfect, blocks. The second one is wrinkly because it was shy of 6 1/2 inches, so I experimented with sizing spray after making the block to give it a boost. Now it’s a tad too big and wrinkly! But I’m still gonna use it!!!!
They are [maybe] mirror images—I’m not sure! The first one I made is on the left. I used freezer paper. First I printed the templates and then traced them. I adhered the freezer paper to the right side of the fabric and cut. But when I put the pieces together, it was backwards. So, I threw away the interior pieces and traced the templates again (the same way) and this time ironed them to the wrong side of the fabric. When I cut, the block was backwards AGAIN! That’s the wrinkly block on the right.
At this point I realized I had used solids for the interior of the first block and went ahead and pulled them out of the waste bin. I just flipped them over and put it together and this time it was not backwards. What gives???? I know some of the instructions in the Yahoo Group advise you to reverse the templates before you print, but I printed in EQ7 and I adhered the freezer paper to both sides.
At this point I should tell you that I am pretty good at math. I graduated from the Naval Academy about 15 years ago and I spent a few very long months learning ship engineering and everything you ever wanted to know about the steam cycle. I affectionately called that class “Death By Pipes.” Once I understood exactly why some engines used high octane fuel. I have no idea why now. The truth is, I am not very inventive or original when it comes to math. If someone explains it, I understand, but I don’t do well figuring things out on my own.
So someone, please throw me a bone!
Here are most of the blocks I’ve finished so far. There are a couple that are going to go on the back not in this picture (they didn’t make the first string team!).
Well, the stomach bug took me by storm. I always welcome it because I know I’ll get it at least once in the winter and might as well get it over with, and it guarantees a few pounds easy weight loss that I don’t have to work for!
Earlier this week I finished up my first UFO for the new year—the Charmed Prints quilt—but I haven’t had a chance to photograph it. I have a hard time getting pictures taken with the kids outside. Our holly trees have dropped a billion berries on the ground and Veronica is as fast as lightening trying to eat them. I did snap a photo of all the Farmer’s Wife blocks I have finished so far:
I had to take the photo on our bed because as I was laying them out, Ronnie would pick one up in each hand and high-tail it out of the bedroom, so I had to put them somewhere she couldn’t reach. (Yes, I have cat flannel sheets and they are super soft and comfy!!!)
I also received my first block in the mail for Beejeebers. Lindsay from For the Love of Cotton sent me this adorable sock monkey in his house block
and an amazingly generous pile of “scraps” for the wonky log cabin blocks. I hesitate to call them scraps because there are some really big pieces and some beautiful charms!!! Thank you so much, Lindsay!!!
On a personal note, Bea turned 6 on Wednesday. It is hard to believe my baby is already six years old! (And has already lost 2 baby teeth!)
My sister sent her some Shrinky Dinks for her birthday, which she absolutely loved.
Have a great weekend!!!
I finished up my first two blocks for Sew Happy Geeks’s Sew Happy Quilt Along. I am pretty psyched about this quilt. It will be the first all-solid quilt I’ve ever made. Here is SHG’s mock up of the quilt:
The first two blocks are the woven block and the snowball block.
Woven:
Snowball:
These were both super easy to make. How much difference a year of sewing experience makes! I remember when I first joined a swap and had to make and remake a block several times to get something even remotely square with points.
I am linking up my blocks to Quilt Story’s Fabric Tuesday.
I haven’t been able to sew much lately because I had a breast infection (from breastfeeding) that was a real bear. It is my third one in the 5+ years I’ve been breastfeeding, and definitely the worst of them. In times like this, I am so thankful for the miracle of antibiotics. And eye doctors. When I got my first pair of glasses, I walked out of the office and saw the leaves on the trees in the parking lot. I had forgotten that trees even had leaves and weren’t just some fuzzy blob on a trunk. If I had lived in prehistoric times, I would have already been eaten by a saber-toothed tiger that I couldn’t see hiding in the bush.
So, the good news is that I am on the mend and got some sewing done today. Sunni, from Love Affair With My Brother, is running the Stash Bee (one of the 2 bees I am participating in this year) and is making a quilt called the Tree of Life. I got busy this morning. The first I made was just a log cabin tree with a fussy cut bird in the middle.
Most of the fabrics are Riley Blake Summer Song and Rainy Days & Mondays, but the cute flower/bee print is one called “Girl Friday.” I love it of course for the bees.
The second tree I used some of the leaves I have made for my Little Leaves quilt (a pattern from Elizabeth Hartman’s Practical Guide to Patchwork). The fabric is mostly Domestic Bliss with a few others thrown in for a good mix.
I did a zig zag stitch around all the applique, and I am digging this block, too. I freehanded the trunk onto the Heat n Bond in the spirit of this tree I saw on Needle Little Balance.
Hope Sunni likes both of these!
I accidentally joined two online bees this year. I meant to join one, but somehow I found myself as the January block person for a different bee too! I thought they were the same bee, but in fact, they are hosted by two different people on two different blogs. How did I let that happen? Children, I’m sure. Not being able to focus for more than a few seconds before somebody needs me! Anyway, this should be interesting!
So I was really sweatin’ my fabric choices for January since this is my first bee and I’m the first to pick. Then, this beautiful quilt came across in my reader and I was smitten! It is made by Melissa Burt and posted on the Connecting Threads blog, Notions. The quilt is called “Wonkytown.”
I went ahead and bought some fabric for the border and back since it was still technically 2011 (for 2012, I have resolved to spend less time looking at fabric online—and buying it—and more time sewing).
 |  |
The fabric is by Anthology. I think it’s called Woodlands.
I made three tree/house blocks just to see how easy/difficult it was and give better guidance in my preferences for the block. It was a bit of a challenge to make the blocks, but I am pretty happy with how they turned out. I did my first ever embroidery (if you can even call it that) on the sun’s rays in this block:
When I showed it to my husband, he said, “Isn’t it a little asymmetrical?” Ha ha, men just don’t understand!
Then I tried another tree block, and this time made it night.
The fox sleeping in the bush isn’t quite what I envisioned. The two snow-ball corners of the bush got cut off in the seam allowance, but overall it is an acceptable block. I plan to put it in a pieced back.
Then I made a house block:
This one turned out pretty good I think. I tried to make it on a hill and that’s how it looks to me.
I can’t wait to see what my other bee members come up with! Melissa, who made the original quilt, hung it on the wall in her daughter’s bedroom. I was thinking that might be a nice thing to do with this quilt as well since Bea and Esther are moving to a new bedroom this year. It is much bigger than their old one.
On a personal note…I have been having unbelievable urges to have another baby! I joke about it all the time, but there is literally a jumbled pile of exersaucers, bumbos, boppies, and a swing at the bottom of our stairs by the front door ready for me to pass on to another person…and it’s been sitting there at least 2 months! I guess I am not ready to call it quits yet. The only problem is that I have been having trouble sleeping lately and now take a prescription to sleep. In November my husband went on a business trip and was gone about a week. I literally did not sleep for almost 4 days and had to go to urgent care when he returned to get medical intervention!!!! It turns out that I was taking real Sudafed for a cold, and whatever the active ingredient is, it was making me jittery and unable to sleep. So, since then I’ve been taking Ambien. A few nights I haven’t, but usually I am so nervous when I go to bed that I won’t be able to fall asleep that I can’t fall asleep unless I take the prescription. It is such a dumb problem, but I certainly don’t know how to get around this.
I counted, and I have 7 quilt tops finished that have not been basted or quilted yet. I am going to see how many I can get finished in January. I am not going to start any new quilts until they are all completed. They are: Greek cross, charmed prints, Chinese coins, Valentine’s quilt, my dad’s flannel quilt, my mom’s denim quilt, and a new one I have almost completed, Little Leaves. Oh, and I just remembered, I have a flannel quilt I made for Bea two or three years ago that I never got around to finishing. This quilt is huge! I think it will need to be tied instead of quilted. So, that makes 8 quilts to finish up first!
Here’s to a happy new year!
