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!

While watching football..

I love football, and growing up in Virginia my team is the skins. So while watching my skins play Dallas, I was able to really work on Santa's House. I am loving it! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Blessed New Year. I will keep you updated on my stitching progress as I go. Ttys

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In Light of Events...

In Light of all the events of the past couple of weeks. I wanted to share my favorite part from my favorite Christmas movie.



I have been holding my girls very close to me for the past couple of days, and shedding tears for families I have never met.  If you want to help send a hug,  friends of mine...the Swirly Girl Designs have  a friend who is requesting quilt hugs. Here is the information on that...Quilt Hugs for Newtown, CT.

On a happier note. I believe that I will be setting up a pinterest board of sewing items that I would like to accomplish in 2013. Hop over and take a look. I pray blessings upon you and your families this Christmas season. I hope you can find peace and joy in all that we are blessed with daily!

Merry Christmas to you and Yours!

Santa's Village (Part 1)

This is my start on Santa's House, which is part of the Santa's Village BOM by Country Cottage Needleworks. 

I am enjoying working on some needlework again.  I am using 28ct. Irish tea-dyed linen and Sullivan's floss.  The house is done in Week's floss. I decided to stitch each block separately and I am pondering a quilt or a new tress skirt.  We will see as we go...

In some sewing news, I have been working on some clothes for my girls, doll clothes, and fun christmas presents. I hope to be able to share soon.  

Right now I am in the middle of Christmas Musical week at Church, late nights, long rehearsals, and work on top. I just hope I survive at this point. Wish me luck.... 

What are you all working on right now?

Recent Revelations!

Contrary to popular belief I am still around and thoroughly enjoying sewing a crafting as much as I can. I started a new BOM at my LQS that I love. I will have pics of this to come soon.  I have worked on my beautiful rainbow baby jane, and started hand quilting a baby quilt for my cousin with Perle cotton. I will definitely be sharing these two projects in the near future.In my personal life:  The last couple of months have been strange. I have been sick with pneumonia, and schooling my 5 year old in kindergarten (yes I also work full-time, crazy yes! but so worth while!).

I also came to the realization that I need to change jobs. This has been a hard decision for me. I have been with my current job for almost 9 years, and even though I love the folks I get to work with, I DO NOT love the company anymore. Some changes are occurring and the stress is more than any 10 people should handle. So I have been job searching which is no easy task in this economy. I am not sure if I want to stay in my field, but I do know that a change would be scary but good for me right now. Do you ever have on of those moments of revelation that just kinda slap ya in the face???

 Well, they have not just been in my personal life, I have even had revelations in my sewing life too. This little block was a tough one. It belongs to my rainbow baby Jane quilt that I started hand piecing back in July. I started working on it so energized, it was my first triangle block, and then I quickly hit a wall. None of the pieces seemed to make sense, they wanted to move around on me, I just could not seem to get this one right. I was contemplating having to machine piece the triangular blocks, (oh! I really did not want to do that, but this one was throwing me for a loop!)

So, I put the whole project away for a few weeks, I got so frustrated with myself that I could not even stand to think of the project.  Then my wonderful pinterest friends started posting new blocks and rows of their rainbow Baby Jane quilts , and the bug returned. I think I might blame some of it on the fight with pneumonia I was having this week and I wanted to feel that I accomplished something.... 

So i looked at it, slapped myself on the head, not too hard I promise, and screamed BASTING STITCHES! (Yes, I did concern my husband with the scream, but he already thinks I have lost it by hand piecing these little blocks!) So if you look closely in the photo a few my basting stitches are still there...and I got the block completed!

Do the happy dance! Then that led to these two beauties. 

  

Please do not adjust your computers for this block. The melons are two different sizes. I am so tempted to redo this block, but at the moment I am going to leave it and try to take Brenda's stance that Done is better than perfect! It is also a block I completed while battling pneumonia this week. We may call it the pneumonia, drug affected block.

  

And I finish with some current quilt look.

  

I am really proud of it and I enjoy piecing these blocks, even if I do seem crazy.  

So have any of you had revelations recently? What have projects have you been working on? I would love to hear from you all! I will share more real soon....after good ole pneumonia goes away!

My summer Take-A-Long project!

Hello everyone,

 I cannot begin to tell you how hard I have found it to quilt with a 4 year old and a 2 year old in my house. I got to thinking about this, and we are so much on the go anymore...(Did I mention I drive over an hour to get the girls to the sitter and for me to get to work, morning and evening!) It has been worth the time to see my girls flourish in a christian support system. 

So I was thinking that I needed a take-a-long project to keep with me and to sew a few stitches when I can in my travel with the girls.  I have been looking at my Dear Jane book again. I had paper pieced 2 blocks previously by machine and they turned out okay, but I knew I could do better. So I decided to make my Baby Jane by hand, as much as I can.  I will be learning some new skills with this goal, but it also brings me back to my roots in quilting. I can fondly remember sitting at my grandparents house during the summer and hand stitching nine patch blocks while my grandmother hand quilted quilts.  

So here are the fruits of my labor so far. (A-1, A-2, A-4, A-5, A-6, A-8) I am truly enjoying the bright colors. I am using moda white and hand dyed fabrics from my LQS. I had signed up awhile back at Twiddletails for their Dear Jane BOM to help with some of the construction I was not certain of. My hats off to Anina at twiddletails. She is super helpful and her instructions are super easy to follow.  I also liked the flexibility in her opitions! Yall should check her out! 

I am now trying to decide if I want to make rows, or triangles, sash as I go, possibly hand quilt.... This has got my interest jumping! 6 down lots more to go, I am off to try an hand applique!

Have you Swooned Lately?

I have been swooning alot lately as you will see in a second. It has been a  busy month and a half. A car purchase, work, birthday parties, dress sales, early warm weather, and I got some sewing done :-)

I have several projects to share with you all. I made some pajamas for my cousin's girls in soft flannel, these were supposed to be Christmas presents, they just came in early February...oops....

 some cute baby blankets because my cousin's little boy needed more :-)!













I made another swoon for my secret recipient's quilt!

 I love the vintage fabrics in this block! My husband and I finally got a New car, so I made some car seat organizers for the girls to enjoy. I will show you a pic of them this weekend after I make a minor adjustment and I will share the the great blog I found that a tutorial for them on as well.

  I finally broke down and made two blocks for my Swoon quilt. I am using Heirloom by Joel Dewberry and coordinating fabrics from my stash.

I am trying not to make them so matchy matchy (or coordinating) in the blocks but make the entire quilt coordinate when I  piece the whole top.  The pattern is from Thimble Blossoms. It is a fun block to make, but cutting one block and piecing it can take about 2.5-3 hours.

So I have to really pick when I make these. if you want to want to see more and even a contest to make an ugly one (I have not seen an ugly block yet!) Check out the flickr group! I bought two more of Camille's patterns and already have plans to make those as well. I can not wait.

I really want to finish the two swoons and a couple of UFO's before I start another project. I am in the hang up stages with my UFO's. I have lots of tops completed and need to get them quilted. I do not like my designs when I quilt things, and It is quite pricey to send them to a long arm quilter. So I am unsure what to do at the moment. I have thought about trying my hand at QAYG (quilt as you go) with the secret swoon quilt, but still have not decided if this is the direction I want to head in....any thoughts?? How do you break through these plateaus? I am excited to be sewing again, it truly gives me great joy even if I have to rip out a seam or two!! Enjoy your weekend, and I hope all of my friends in the Monument Avenue 10K tomorrow enjoy the nice weather and get personal best times!

Love Angie