Oh my, I have been gone way too long!

I cannot believe it has been so long since I have written. No I did not fall off the face of the earth, and thank you to all who emailed me with concerns. I was given a new task at work dealing with a massive grant and it has drained me of energy and time.
           Then last fall the hubs and I found out that we are expecting! Now this was a surprise. Things have been going great with the pregnancy other than huge amounts of morning sickness. We did find out it is a boy much to my hubs pleasure and I know I have never been so sick with a pregnancy in all my life. So needless to say there was not much sewing going on in my life.
             Until now, I am not 100% certain where the motivation and energy have come from, but I will take it.we have a little over two months this before baby boy comes and I wanted him and my youngest daughter to have quilts. My youngest daughter's quilt has been in the mind works for over 2 years now. I know bad mommy moment. So over the past week I got busy. I had to pace myself because of working full-time and swelling in my lower legs, but things got accomplished. I had won (a very long time ago) a small set of Flea Market Fancy charm squares from Heather @ alamodefabric. I had since picked up a few more pieces of the line. They were just screaming at me to make a boy quilt. Then I was reading some of my favorite blogs and saw a lovely quilt on Blueelephantstitches, sized down from Camille Roskelley's "Playful" quilt in her book "Simply Retro". What!?! I own that book!

...bam it hit me. I want to make that quilt with my Flea Market Fancy squares! So I got to working... This suddenly appeared.

Then this was sitting in front of me...

 

and finally I had made this in what felt like record time!

But it didn't stop there...I kept cutting and now I have this lovely pile of fabric sitting on my table for my youngest daughter's big girl quilt.   
I hope to get these lovelies sewn this week.  Thanks to all of you for the continued encouragement, and if I keep this current pace up, I will have more to share real soon! Happy Easter! 

I'm back!

I am so sorry to have been away so long. That was not my intentions at all....however, this year seems to be speeding faster than the speed of light. I blink and it is May! Where did the beginning of the year go? Although I may have been quiet here, I have not been quiet in my creativity. Let me try and catch you all up on my sewing bits. I will have lots of pictures, so forgive me for that.  In January, I finished my Santa's House,

 

and started working on the second block, Poinsettia Place. Both of these are part of a 12 part series called Santa's Village by Country Cottage Needleworks.  Then I was given a chance to do my first ever commission quilt (sorta....) My mother-in-law wanted to give her oldest granddaughter a quilt for her great-grandson that had owls on it. She found a set at Babies-R-us that she liked, but when she got it home and pulled out the blanket, she was upset there was no tree. So I got on the manufacturers website and found a tree with the owl, freehand drew it and then quilted it into this great quilt.... 

 

yes that is the mommy-to-be in the background with my oldest daughter. Mommy-to-be loved the quilt which made me relax since she is an Art major (there was no pressure in that phrase...LOL) I also made her some mommy essentials, burp cloths and fleece blankets...they were so useful with my girls. 

 

It was fun to actually do some sewing for a boy! :-) I need a boy in my life to help me enjoy blues, greens, and oranges! Then only a few days after the baby shower, we headed on a surprise vacation to.... 

 

none other than Disneyworld...what a fun fast paced princess filled week. In case you are wondering, I did make that Rapuzel Princess dress for my daughter. It was her Halloween costume in 2011. I intentionally made it a size larger so she could enjoy it as a play dress, and boy has it seen it's share of wear! We came home to the cold springtime here in Virginia, and I got so busy with work that I was unable to complete a UFO for March (my LQS is holding a 6 months of making UFO's into CEO's {completely executed projects!}, I flat ran out of time with a 3 year old birthday party, Easter Musical at church, and Easter services. I was thankful to just touch fabric that month. 

Then came April and on top of a BOM at my LQS ( I know I need to get pictures of these taken,) I was able to finish my oldest daughter's quilt, "Hearts, hearts, Hearts!" by KariePatch Designs that I am sorry to say had been a UFO for over 2 years. 

 

But here it is! I am pleased with it. I did all the quilting and sewed down the binding by machine. I was a little frustrated with my free motion quilting, but I did enjoy quilting with the walking foot. I have learned I need to get a few tools to help ease my free motion, and I know I need practice...but after a wash, it is beautiful and my daughter barely let me use it to take a quick picture of it! My hubs was also helpful enough to hold it for me. I love how soft and romantic this quilt turned out!

 I also got another baby blanket started that my mom commissioned for her co-worker, I will have pics of that to come soon as I finish quilting it. I do not want to ruin the surprise for that now new mommy! Baby N came a little early! :-)

 But so far May has been my most productive month. I ordered Tula Pink's City Sampler Quilt and fell in love with the rainbow of fruit flavor inside (oh wait, we are not talking about skittles!) I could not wait to get started on this quilt and pulling from my stash, I was able to cut and piece 6 blocks this weekend.

  

Each block finishes at 6.5" and they are so much fun to make. I can only hope that my quilt will turn out as great at Tula Pink's herself! 

So if you made to the end of this post, I should really give you a medal....but I hope to enjoyed seeing the first part of my year in a quick flash. Now it is on to grading papers, as homeschooling my oldest is winding down, and hopefully I can plan a few more City Sampler blocks. Thanks for reading and I hope that you have been blessed with some creativity so far this year. 

P.S. I promise I will post sooner than 5 months from now!