Please Make it end Already!

You know when you start a project and you have so much enthusiasm and energy for it and it all seems so great and fun? But then it just drags on and on and becomes like a weight around your neck and you wish that it was finished so you can move onto something else? That's where I am right now. And I'm sad to say, it's because of Super Mario.
I had to speed up my pace on this QAL to try and finish the quilt by 9/28 as that is the recipient's birthday. Because of that, I've been working on nothing but this quilt for the last 2 weeks or so and am becoming thoroughly sick of it. I thought I was very near the end on Thursday, as I had finished piecing the backing and was putting the sashing on the front.

That's the backing above. I knew I would need to add a bit of a border to the back to make it large enough for the front. As it turns out, it is quite a bit shorter than the front. I'm not sure if you can tell by looking at them separately, but here's the front.

So, instead of getting ready to sandwich on Friday, it was back to the machine for more blocks. Blocks made of tiny squares. Urgh! I decided to make 3 coin blocks to go across the top of the backing.

2 are done, 1 to go, and then I shall make it all fit. And hopefully still get this quilt finished by Friday! I really like how the quilt is turning out, I'm just tired of working on it. Now, grumble time is over, back to my machine....

Time to Reveal the Back of the Super Mario Quilt

And here it is, sans borders. This image is of Super Mario from Super Mario Kart. I used a crosstitch pattern I found on here and just used fabric instead of thread.

And here was my last block for the front.

I've started sashing the blocks and things are looking good for my 9/28 deadline!

Sunday Stash #35

This week I took advantage of some sales at Pink Castle Fabrics on Kokka and at a shop that is new to me called The Little Fabric Shop where they actually still have some Alexander Henry Farmdale prints in stock. Prints I hadn't even known about!
First my little bundle of Kokka. After seeing the whole cloth quilt by Bijou Lovely Designs made from Nursery Versery I decided I may want to try that some day, too. Soo....

The ballerina prints and the Nursery Versery patchwork are my pieces to try that. Little Red and some mice made their way into my cart too.
My next little bundle is the one from The Little Fabric Shop. In here I've got the Timeless Treasures Scribble Butterflies in all 4 colorways. They had been sitting in the back of my mind for awhile, and since they were finally all in one shop I went for it. Next are two tiny houndstooth prints from the Sophie Collection by Moda. Then Farmdale Curio and some Chocolate Pearl Bracelets.

After I finish the Super Mario quilt, which is for one of my daughter's friends, I shall make a different friend a super hero quilt. So I've started stocking up on prints for that. The other pile of Star Wars fabrics will be another quilt for the daughter. She seems to get a lot of my quilts...:)

And, because they are on clearance now and I cannot resist! A bit more of DS Quilts from Joann's. There were bolts and bolts of prints marked down to $6/yd, but I only got a bit of the ones I liked best. For now. When they go to $3/yd I might not be able to say no.

Schnibbles times two has made it's way into my stash. I've got some layer cakes that I don't have specific plans for and this might help.

Linking up with Sunday Stash at Finding Fifth Come show your stash!

Oh Would You Like to Swing on a Star...

A Super Mario invincibility star that is. Mine is now finished...

...as well as my 1-up Mushroom.

And now back to my Koopa shell, which is 3/8th of the way done!

Shy Guy and a 'Shroom

I'm on a roll now with my Super Mario blocks and have these two guys to prove it. Funny thing, I never knew this character's name until this QAL. It's Shy Guy and I don't know why I never heard it mentioned before.

And then we have the red mushroom.

Today I'll begin sewing the star and that will leave the green mushroom and the koopa shell block for the front. Linking up with

Sunday Stash #34

I've only this one little bundle to add to my stash this week. I actually mentioned it last Sunday but did not have it in hand yet, so there wasn't a picture. Here it is, Poseidon by Robert Kaufman.

Always with my fabric buying I am drawn to all of the pretty prints and not thinking much about solids. So now I am trying to build up my stash of solids and these little bundles are a fun way to do it. Mine came from the Craftsy.com deals section. At a significant savings from what I've seen in online quilt shops.
Now I just need one in yellows/oranges and some bluesy blues, not greenish blues.
Linking up with Sunday Stash @Finding Fifth. Come show off your stash additions!

Blocks Blocks Blocks

Just a bit of block progress for some of my QALs. I may not be making great strides in the quilt making department, I'm doing more of the "slow and steady" wins the race type of making. To that end, here are a few of the blocks I finished this week.
For the How Far Will You Go? QAL I made the second of my Jack in the Box blocks. Again, with Terrain and Good Fortune.

Next I needed 3 of the Windblown Square blocks for the same QAL. At this point I reluctantly decided that I would not be able to get away with using just my purples and teals from the Terrain and Good Fortune lines. I would have to branch out to other colors since I don't want to purchase more fabric for this project. With that being said, here are my 3 Windblown Squares using the Oranges/Pinks/Greens of Terrain.

I'm trying to get ahead of the game in the Super Mario QAL as I really would like to get this sent off to the recipient soon. I've done the pipe block(please excuse the lumpiness of it, it needs a bit more pressing) and am halfway through Shy Guy. Then it will only be 2 mushrooms, a star and a shell, plus my backing.

I'm sorry to say I've been neglecting my Vintage Holiday QAL blocks and have not started on my Totally Groovy QAL quilt. :(

What I did Yesterday and a Winner!

I'll post the winner info first so that no one has to be in suspense. It is Mom C who loves Log Cabin blocks! Congrats to you and thanks to all who entered and shared their favorites with me. Now I have many suggestions to check out!

Since I've mostly been working on QALs and things like that, I haven't had many finishes lately. Yesterday I wanted some instant gratification and decided to try my hand at a purse. I've done a market bag, tote bag, wallet and zipper pouch, but this was my first purse.
I chose bag A (top right) from Butterick B5109.

It looked to be a simple enough introduction as there wasn't any special hardware, pleating, ruching or whatnot. There was a gusset, but it wasn't too bad. I used a print that I had purchased from Joann Fabrics specifically to make a purse someday. I didn't get a picture of the inside, but it's a combo of solid teal and more of the outside print.

All in all it turned out okay. I probably wouldn't make this bag again using this pattern. I thought some parts, like the strap, were unnecessarily complicated. But I did use the bag when I went out shopping earlier!

Sunday Stash #33

The Craftsy Deals struck again! I have now unsubscribed myself from their mailing list to keep myself from more temptation. I've actually unsubscribed from a lot of fabric lists. What I don't know about I can't buy, right??
Anyway, my final splurge at Craftsy included 5 bundles, only 4 of which have arrived so far. 3 are solids and one has dots and circle elements. The one I'm waiting for is Robert Kaufmann Poseidon. The set below is Robert Kaufmann Purple People Eaters and Greener Pastures, Free Spirit Essentials Solids in Soft and Free Spirit Essentials Spot.

I also gave in to the Riley Blake small chevrons bundle. This one is from Pink Castle fabrics using their 20% off coupon. I'm so glad they finally added a purple shade to the line; I couldn't figure out why they wouldn't have had one in the first place.

And, JAQS fabrics have/had their Mystery FQ bundles back in stock. Last time I tried a cool tones bundle and was very happy. This time I went with a warm tones bundle. Out of the 12 prints, I only really care for 3 of them. Not to mention the price went up $3 from the last time. :( So the first picture is of the ones I like, one of which I already have...

The next couple of pictures are the ones I don't really desire. I'm willing to trade these for quality, 100% cotton solids in yellows, oranges, pinks and probably many prints that I'm unaware of. If anyone is interested, send me an email and we'll talk.

And that's all I've got for this week. Linking up with Finding Fifth Sunday Stash

Thrift Store Finds Saturday and a Sale!

I haven't actually been to the thrift store much lately. The only way to stop myself from stashing more sheets than I can handle is to simply not go.

I did pop in the other day and came out without any sheets, but I did pick up a couple of odds and ends.
Vintage Dish (tea?) Towel with tag still attached.

A set of 4 napkins, designer unknown, but quite pretty. Each one is a bit different from the others.

A Vera Neumann Scarf.

And that is all my finds of late.
In honor of this being Labor Day weekend here in the USA, I'm having a sale in my Etsy shop for 20% savings on all currently stocked items. The code for the sale is LABOR20. I've been adding quite a few items from my personal stash of pillowcases that I'm just not going to get around to using, plus I'll be adding more destash items as I find time. The sale will run through September 7th.

Sunday Stash: Meet Marguerite and Friends

Lots of goodies (at least I think so) to share this Sunday. First up, the one that I like the best out of this week's additions is Marguerite by Stitch Studios for Riley Blake. Sometimes there is a lot of hoopla surrounding a fabric line release making one desirous of the fabric well before it actually arrives. I may have missed it, but I don't recall any advertising about this line, yet I find it is so sweet and pretty.

My bundle (which I purchased from Sprightly Fabrics) is complete except for the 3 solid prints. Sorry my pictures are so poor, but that one print on the top left that sort of looks lavender is actually grey.

Next, I have Chicopee by Denyse Schmidt. This is another of her lines that have many dark and more masculine colors, like Richmond. I did end up getting them all (The Intrepid Thread) any way as I can always de-stash sale/trade if I don't use them.

And, I've come a little late to the party with some A Walk in the Woods. When this first came out I didn't see a need for me to have it, though I did like the birdies and mushrooms. I saw a quilt the other day that used some of the bows fabric and I really liked the look so I finally decided to get a bit of the 3 prints I liked the most(Moona Fabrics). The chevron on the end is the missing print I needed to complete my Madrona Road collection(Five Monkeys Fabrics).

And not to leave my local Joann's Fabrics out, I found something that reminds me of Liberty prints, and at pretty reasonable price. They only had a few of these packed florals, but perhaps they will get some more along this line. The grey circle is a nice blender print and the yellow floral was a remnant piece. The cute hedgies are a destash pick up from 1/4" mark blog.

And there was my midweek showing of the Spoonflower $1 fat quarter here.
And finally, my last two items are only temporary additions as they are on loan from the library! Again, I saw some posts by other bloggers about things they are making that involved these two books, so I wanted to check them out.

The one on the left is by the mother of Lizzy House I believe, and the one on the right is the quite popular Oh, Fransson!. There are some really wonderful projects to be seen; more items for my quilt bucket list.

And that, my friends, is the end of Sunday Stash. As ever, I'm linking of with Fiona's Sunday Stash

And just a reminder, you can enter my blog hop giveaway going on through September 3rd, here.

This Weekend...

I have taken a break from working on all of my different QAL blocks to whip a a little quilt for the granddaughter of a co-worker.
The little girl in question just turned 3 the other day and I thought she might like to have a little quilt.
I didn't have as many kid type prints in my stash as I thought I did, at least not little, little kid.
I decided to go with these mostly Michael Miller prints, with a few others thrown in for variety.

The pattern (free) I am using is called Lemon Squares from Fresh Lemon Quilts. I've only made mind 5 blocks x 5 blocks, something a little one should be able to drag around without too much difficulty.

I really like the Lemon Squares pattern and hope to make it again some day using some of my sheet fabrics.

Blog Hop Party with Giveaways!

Who doesn't love a giveaway? Follow the link above to a whole list of wonderful blogs that will be giving away bunches of prizes over the next week.

At the time I purchased my layer cake of Sew Stitchy by Aneela Hoey I actually bought 2. I fully intended to have a giveaway with one cake and keep one for myself. And this hop has presented the perfect opportunity.

All you have to do for a chance to win the Sew Stitchy layer cake is leave a comment below telling me the name of your favorite book on Quilting or other fabric crafts. If you don't have a favorite book, then how about your favorite block to make.
ETA: You really must leave a comment answering one of the questions to actually be entered. If you only click on the rafflecopter entry without a comment your entry won't be valid.
One entry per person please. International entries are welcome, as I will ship anywhere.

Giveaway is open until September 3, 2012. Thanks for stopping by and good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway

My Spoonflower $1 Fat Quarter

I'm not sure if this deal is still going on, but check this link at Fabric Donkey where the details on how to get a Spoonflower FQ for only shipping cost is posted.

I chose a Tardis print for my daughter. She loves Dr. Who and will want to have something fun made out of this fabric.

WIP Wednesday

Over the weekend I was able to get my Great Granny QAL top finished. 12 12.5in blocks in Vintage Modern, Ruby and Marmalade with Kona Snow as the background and sashing fabric. I think the backing should be something along the plain and simple lines, but since I used Snow on the front I don't think white would be an option.

I also made block 3 of the Fat Quarter Shop's 2012 Vintage Modern Mystery BOM. It is a Weathervane block which turned out much better than the one I needed to make for the How Far Will You Go? QAL.

And the St. Louis Star for the How Far Will You Go QAL. This was a paper pieced block, and while the execution of it was fine, I didn't do my colors right, so now they alternate instead of the points being all one print.

Linking up with

Sunday Stash

I wasn't too bad this week. I only picked up a couple of things...
From The Intrepid Thread I received the almost complete Madrona Road collection. There is one print that Julie was out of, the zig zag in blues, but I'm sure I can find it somewhere.

I just love the sprout and haystack prints.

And from the Deals page at Craftsy I found this FQ bundle of Gypsy Girl from Lily Ashbury. There are some really sweet plaids in this bundle. That deals page does have some pretty good offers from time to time.

Sorry I haven't unbundled this one for better pictures, but these really are lovely with florals, plaids and a few sketch type ala Summersville.

Linking up with Finding Fifth Sunday Stash. Head on over and check out some fabrics and add your own!