Birthday Sale in my Etsy Store

Now through December 31 I'm having 23% off in my Etsy, shop! I have lots of vintage sheets, pillow cases and a few Denyse Schmidt prints you can save money on!

Use code BIRTHDAY2011 for 23% savings.

Working On...

I started cutting out this quilt on Sunday. I was actually looking for a pattern I had used for the other Christmas quilt I made this year when I came across this Moda All Wrapped Up aka Flurry quilt pattern, and I was smitten.

When finished this will make a cute little lap sized quilt, which hopefully I will be able to hold onto. I sold the other one to my daughter for cost because she needed a gift for her boss's gift basket.

If you're interested in this free pattern, you can find it here

Penny Black Christmas Cards

It's time to show a few more of the Christmas cards I had made for my co-workers. These two cards feature images by Penny Black and were colored with my Promarkers.
The mouse and bird card uses digital papers by Carina Gardner for Jessica Sprague and Simple Joys from Nitwit Papers.
The Merry Christmas ribbon is from Michaels and the sentiment is also Penny Black.
I'm entering this card in the following challenges:
Y is for Yippee at ABC Christmas Challenge Blog



These other cards feature Penny Black's caroling penguin trio and have been colored with the Promarkers.
The DP is the DCWV 2011 Christmas stack. Martha Stewart snowflake corner punch and some stickles.
I'm entering the penguins in the following challenge:
Challenge #96 Blue & White at I heart Promarkers

Happier Quilt Finished

In the past few days I've managed to finish up a couple of quilts, get some cards made and rearrange the living room so there will be room for the Christmas tree.

Here is the first of the quilts I finished. This one is for my 8yr old grand niece. It is made from one charm pack of Happier by Riley Blake. The hot pink sashing is from a bed sheet, and the polka dotted backing is also a bed sheet. The binding is another Riley Blake print, Sweet Nothings. I decided to do some simple wavy line quilting on it; my compromise between straight line and practicing my free form. This little quilt measures about 47x47.

Christmas Card #2

Here's another of the Christmas cards I made this past weekend. This one I CASEd from Sankari Sunshine blog. Her card is quite beautiful! I did the best I could with what I had, but it's not near as pretty.

Christmas Card Cram Weekend

This weekend I had to put away all my sewing stuff and get out all of my card making things. I designated this weekend as the one to make all the Christmas & December birthday cards I would need for my co-workers. I need 14 cards total by Tuesday. The good news is I have 11 finished! I think I will be able to make my deadline.
The not so good news is, I had to do this without the use of my Cricut or my new Cameo! I only had the few punches and shapers that I purchased before I bought paper cutting machines. The blade on my Cameo is defective, so that was a no go; and I like to use the MTC software with my Cricut, but I must have updated my software at some point as it was not working with the Cricut, even though I hadn't used it since last Christmas time.
Anyway here are two of the cards. To make this a bit faster and easier I made two of each design. And, since I'm making cards, I'll enter them into a challenge or two along the way.

This is the Bugaboo stamp JJ Christmas Cheers
She looks like she's having quite a merry Christmas!
I colored with my Promarkers, without trying to blend and shade, no time for that!
The papers are SEI from a few years ago.
The green trim is from AC Moore.
The sentiment is Studio G


I'm entering this in the "Santa Baby" card challenge at Catch the Bug Challenge Blog.

W.I.P Wednesday

I've been working on a small quilt for my 8yr old grandniece using up a Riley Blake Happier charm pack that I've had for awhile. I'm using a free pattern from Made-by-Rae.com called Story Time Squares.
For the life of me, and despite using a 1/4in. sewing foot, I can't seem t sew a consistent 1/4in seam so I had to add a little piece to one of my blue squares. Maybe I will try that tape on the plate trick.

I've got another go around of print squares followed by another pink border and then that will finish the top.

Christmas Quilt Finished

I have finally finished my first Christmas quilt. I believe it finished up at about 52x72. I went ahead and just did some straight line quilting on it, nothing fancy at all. Now I just have to decide whether I'm keeping it, or sending it off to my sister and her family...

My Black Friday Sale

No W.I.P. to share today, just some promoting for my Etsy shop Black Friday Sale.

Sunday Stash #02

Daisy Mae, the new line from Denyse Schmidt, is in at Joann's and one of my locations had 15 of the 19 prints. I got some of each, but never thought to check reviews about the fabric before I purchased. Apparently this line may be pretty flawed. I checked my pieces after getting home and 1 print was defective the whole way through and a couple of others had white streaks here and there. If you're going to buy some, check it carefully first! Here are the ones I was able to get. The top print in the first stack is the one that had to go back to the store.

W.I.P Wednesday

I've been working on several projects during the week; trying to divide my time fairly.

First I have started my second Christmas quilt. It has a star block and a 16 patch block. All the pieces have been cut and I'm just taking my time making the blocks.



I've also been working on this apron (Butterick)using Alexander Henry's Farmdale prints. This is my first apron and I did not realize (i.e. didn't read the pattern first!)that I was going to need tons of piping and rick rack. Luckily I had the rick rack. I found how to make some piping online, and I made some, but I didn't like how that turned out, so I'm using all rick rack. I still have to put the waistband and ties on. Here's my husband modeling it for my picture.


And here's my fist Christmas quilt. All pinned and ready to be quilted. I'm just undecided on how I want to do it. I'm a bit tempted to give FMQ another go, but I'm not 100% sure that I want to go that way.

Sunday Stash #01

It's not too often that I come across items with my name on them, so when I saw this new line by Creative Thursday I had to scoop it up! This is Meet the Gang and I bought the full 21 print fat quarter bundle from The Intrepid Thread on Etsy.

My First Christmas Quilt

I've had some Christmas fabric for several years now. I'm not sure what I planned to do with it since I don't recall ever wanting to make a Christmas quilt. That changed last weekend when I came across this quilt at Jaybird Quilts.
Initially I wanted to use my stack of grey and citron fabrics but my daughter talked me out of it. That's when I remembered the Christmas fabrics and so my first Christmas quilt was born. Here are the first three rows with a total of seven to complete it.

Desk Chair Makeover

I picked this chair up at the thrift store for $9.00. It's a very sturdy chair, made in '81 or '91, the date was a bit blurred. Besides the fabric being unattractive it also seemed a bit skeevy so I thought a freshening up was in order. For about $20 of upholstery fabric I've made most of it look bright and cheery. I was planning on spray painting the metal parts but decided I'd already spent enough on it. Maybe I'll change my mind in the future...

New Fabrics

New fabrics for my stash, which I realized the other day is bigger than I remembered it to be...

These are from Joann Fabric and actually have a pretty nice hand as several are from their premium collection.

This first batch is a very popular colorway right now, Citron and Grey. I haven't seen a quilt pattern that I'd like to use these for yet.


This next batch is a mix of Dena Designs and Heidi Grace. I'm hoping to make these into a Cathedral block quilt.


These last two stacks are from the Quilter's Showcase line, which admittedly, has been really crappy and thin fabric for the most part. They must have shaken things up in that department because these new prints are more tightly woven and attractive!

Pickle Penguin and Milton Bear Toppers

I bought some new stamps a few months ago intending to get a jump on my Christmas cards. I found these adorable stamps by Milton & Co. Stamps featuring Pickle Penguin and Milton the bear and some of the new Penny Black Mimi Christmas Stamps. I was really excited and sat right down to color, and color and color, but no card making inspiration... :(

Red and White Pinwheel Quilt

This is my current quilting project, a red and white pinwheel quilt for my Nephew. I have this sort of goal to make everyone in the family a quilt and this one is for him. Earlier this year I had made a blue and white pinwheel quilt that used only one print. It turned out nice enough, but since there was only one print there was no definition of the pinwheels. I really wanted to try the pinwheel again, and this seemed like a good design for a guy. I used about 12 different prints for this, and while I have a bit more definition, I'm still not completely happy, so I think I will be trying this again in the future.

I also did not mean for this to end up with the patriotic red, white and blue colors. I had intended to use some Kona Ash for parts that are blue, but my store did not have any and I was too impatient to order some.

The backing is a blue and white gingham sheet that I had from my thrifted sheet collection. I like to use whole sheets when possible simply for their simplicity.

Here's a glimpse at the completed top.

Update on the Delilah Heart Quilt

Last time I posted I was working on a quilt for my Mom's birthday in May. I have made progress on that quilt, but it still isn't complete. I really ran into some snags trying to design my own blocks. Namely they didn't end up being uniformly sized. This probably would be a problem for a veteran quilter, but I'm still a newbie. Also, I tried free motion quilting for the first time with this quilt. That went so-so, and I still have a bunch more to do, but I think I prefer in the ditch quilting. So, here's what it looks like as of a few months ago when I last worked on it. Hopefully I'll be motivated to finish up before too long.

On the Road to Spring

Here's a better look at my On the Road to Spring quilt. I followed the quilt along from I Have to Say... blog. I wasn't really thinking about spring when I decided to make this quilt. You may think from the colors that I was thinking about Christmas! No, I just liked the look of the greens and reds I had on hand and decided to use them. I initially wanted to throw a third color in the mix but couldn't decide on which one, so I left it alone.

The binding for this quilt is actually some wide ribbon I had on hand. I'm not sure how it will hold up to repeated washings, but so far so good. The quilt back is made from the patterned part of a thrifted king sized bed dust ruffle. I had to sew about 4 strips together to make the back and I like the way it turned out.

If you look down in the left hand corner, you'll see Miss Parker, she loves to "supervise" all my projects.