W.i.P. Wednesday {5/30/2012}

I almost forgot that it's Wednesday! This may be my last wip post for a while because for the next few weeks I don't think I'll be working on too much... but hopefully I'm wrong. :) Warning, this post is a bit scatter-brained. ;)


I've been working on my key fob for the RATZ swap! I actually finished it and will be posting about it tomorrow. :)

I took some instagram pictures along the way...

I love Summersville! :) It is perfect for hand stitching and embellishing!

Because I still have some "MUST FINISH today" projects, I of course made something totally random!

This 12.5" x 12.5" block is all Little Apples fabrics by Aneela Hoey. 

I love it! :) Now what to do with it??

I finished up two bee blocks for the Moody Blues 2 bee.

For Susan. I used this tutorial.
I really love this design! Such a great use of HST's!

For Lisa. This is a block from 99 Modern Blocks called Escalator. 

In case you missed it, I finished my Giant Granny Square quilt! I think I'm about ready to let this one go and drop the price in my Etsy shop. If you want it, give me an offer and it just might be yours. lol. (I priced it really high because I originally made it to sell it, but I didn't want to actually give it to anyone. I did lower the price from what I originally priced it at, but it's still probably a little high. We'll see.) ;) Maybe I'll keep it and use it as a portfolio sample for Iowa (I secretly would love to teach sewing/quilting classes out there! I already have one request for art lessons! FUN!!) :)

From my last WiP post I did finish up my pillow I posted about.

I need to finish up my pillow like this for my MSMS partner. That's what I'm working on tonight until it's done! :) This pattern is so fun! I think I have the pattern for it figured out and hopefully I can get that posted in my Craftsy shop before we move!


I am just about done with the do.Good stitches quilt as well! All it needs now is the binding!! Yes!!! :) That will definitely be finished before we move!!


I was going to say that mostly we've been busy with moving stuff, but this actually seems like a lot of stuff. lol. :)

I hope you are having a wonderful week!!

I am of course linking up over at Freshly Pieced!

Thanks Lee for giving us something to look forward to during our mid-week meltdown. ;)

W.i.P. Wednesday {4/25/2012}

Ahhh! The month is almost over and I don't know if I've finished much of anything I've wanted to finish this month. Isn't that always how the story goes?! ;) lol.

I did finish all my bee blocks! Wahoo! You can see them all here. Plus this Granny Square I mailed of yesterday.

This was my first small granny square, and now I can see why they are so addicting. They are fun! :)

I also finished up my first official pattern! It's for my [4x5] Bee blocks.

You can read more about it here. :)

I have been playing around with ideas for the Modern She Made Swap. What do you think?

The colors are super muted here. I do want to use more natural and light grey colors, but maybe some more splashes of color. Or more grey than the natural color to fill inside the circles. I don't know... what do you think partner? Do you read my blog? lol. ;)

I originally thought of paper piecing all of these, but I think it will be easy enough to make up template pieces instead, and then just sew them together and not have to worry about the paper. Which I think will save a lot of time and fabric waste anyway. Basically I need a break from paper piecing right now. ;)

This is the main thing I'm working on right now. Plus my secret project. If you regularly read my blog, this is probably a boring recap of everything I've posted this week. ;) But I think it helps me to kind of touch base on where I'm really at... so ;p j/k. ;D 

linking up at Freshly Pieced. :)

Bee Blocks. LOTS of bee blocks.

I have made so many bee blocks. It's crazy!! I keep waiting to finish them all so I can share them with you all at once. But then there's always more and I just need to share them before this post becomes 100 blocks long! lol. :)

I'll go by Bee.

First is the [4x5] Modern Bee Qtr 1, Hive 5.

I joined the Paper Pieced group. Which I love paper piecing. Maybe more than anything. BUT I had the HARDEST time figuring out what block to make for my fellow members! I sketched so many ideas, looked through so many blocks and couldn't decide on anything. I even made up one block, but I didn't love it, so I didn't really want to send it out.

So after a few more ideas, came up with this...

Am I crazy? This was 5 days before they were due. But alas. I am a bit crazy. And a bit "I want to make sure to send out good stuff and not junk stuff", so I drove the Mr. a little crazy and took on this project! (and unfortunately was a little late sending them out. Sorry group!) Here are my finished blocks:

for me

for mpfox223

for Mama Missa

for Bijoux Baby

scrappy rainbow for jmcbroom

for JenJohnston

here's what I received! Aren't they gorgeous?!

I love them all!!! :) and I'm so happy with the colors I picked this round.

Next is my Moody Blues2 Bee Group:


This is a 6 month bee group where there are 2 people per month. They each send out their fabric to everyone else, tell us what block they want, we make it, and send it back. Holy molly does this build up your quilt fast! Kind of nice! :)

Here are the blocks I've made so far:

January

Sunkissed Squares, tutorial (go check this out so you can see what these look like!) for Franswimmer

design based off this quilt, for Annaliese

February

for Linda, I forget what these are called. She sent the directions with the fabric, which were fantastic!

also my month, here's what I received:

don't these look awesome?! I took this picture before I received the last two. I'll have to get another picture soon.

March

wonky star for Melissa, it measures 14" by 14" unfinished.

Dutchman's puzzle, tutorial, for Moody Blues 2 block for Sabrina

April

Antique Tile, tutorial, for Five Baht Elephants

I still need to finish my granny square for Tiffany. and then only 2 more months! Crazy how this has flown by!


do.Good Stitches:


I can't remember if I shared my January blocks. I guess I will, just because I want to set a record of the most bee blocks in one blog post. lol.

January stars for Leigh -

February was my month - here's all the blocks that came in

I need to get my blocks made for this. ;)

March hearts for Melissa -

and that is the end of that. :( It was such an awesome group with amazing people!! I really loved it. But now it's time for something different. I will post my quilts once I get them finished and sent off! :)



Well, I think that about covers it for now. I was going to have some more blocks to share... but I got out of those bees. Kind of a weird feeling, but it's good. :) It's nice to finally get those all blogged about. Now off to finish some UFO's so I can get onto to other awesome projects! :)

W.i.P. Wednesday {3/28/12}

Hi! :) Yep, I'm still around. Last week was so exciting, I feel like I kind of out did myself. I don't know what to blog about that could be any better than last week! So I just haven't. lol. That and last Friday my hubby and I were talking about the weekend plans:

Hubby, "Let's do something fun this weekend!"
me, "Ok!"
Hubby, "That means NO SEWING!!!"
me, "oh. I think sewings fun."

Anyway, he won out and I didn't sew on Saturday, or Sunday, or Monday, or Tuesday... so I guess I don't really have anything new going on anyway. ;) Though I still have lots of stuff sitting around that needs to be shared. But I'll save that for another day!

On another note, whoever said that March could go by so fast??? Hello! ONLY 3 days left until April! What is that about? I did have goals to finish 4 quilt tops, as well as do like 10 other projects this month! I guess that won't happen. oops.

I do have everything laid out and ready for a few other projects that need to be finished asap.

First are my do.Good Stitches blocks for this month. Melissa asked us to do heart blocks in varying sizes. Here are the two I've had finished since the first of the month. I'll post all of them when I finish up the rest.

I also made up these blocks for my Moody Blues Bee. These are for Linda. I LOVE this style of block! I've never made them before, but they were a lot of fun, and came together really quick! (I let her square them up since she has the perfect sized ruler for it. I did not want to mess these up!!) (did I share these already? I can't remember.) Anyway, I sent them back earlier this month. I still have one block to make up for Sabrina. It's my first, un-paper pieced flying geese block, and it's not as easy as I thought it would be.

I also still have two blocks to make for Tiffany as well, as part of our Bee a {modern} Swapper bee group. She is making a picnic blanket and I think her inspiration mosaic is to die for! This is going to be the cutest quilt ever!!!


I have my pattern for the DQS12 all ready! The templates are printed and taped and I'm ready to sew... just need to pick out the rest of the fabrics. Here's what it will look like (but the warm colors will be prints, so it will be a little bit different than this.) Crossing my fingers it will turn out well!

It will finish at about 18" by 18". I'm excited for it!

I did work on my Granny Square quilt the other night - so I guess I did do some sewing. But I had to unpick it all. It was my first bad experience with bias sewing. I mean my first HORRIBLE experience. I kind of didn't trim up my sashing strips to the right length and was just going to trim off the long edges after I had it all sewn together. It was SO wavy. Yikes! I'm hoping I can get it to work, otherwise the quilt just might end up 10" smaller than I had planned. :) I can roll with it. I'm cool like that. lol.

I also have loads of packages to send out in the mail today... so get ready all you giveaway winners!! :) Fabric packages are just about on their way! :)


On a non-sewing related topic. I have decided to start doing "learning time", aka preschool, with my boys. I need some more structure in our lives, and I think if I can get a set schedule with set activities, then it will be good for all of us! I would love to send my big guy off to preschool, but it's not something we can do right now. and I know he would love to dive into learning and games and hands on activities! I've been trying to find all the ideas and info I can, so I can pick the things that will be best for both of them. Crossing my fingers I can get a good system going for us. It's just a tad bit overwhelming. ;) ...update: I did find some awesome blogs with tons of free printables and info! The top three that I'm using stuff from are: Confessions of a Slacker Mom (an LDS themed schedule), Confessions of a Homeschooler (she has more Bible related stuff, but also a ton of non-religious material), and 1+1+1=1 (I really love her Tot School program. I know Jacks will love some of the things she has. There is A LOT of resources on her site!) Going through it all (no I haven't actually printed anything off yet) almost makes me think that I could homeschool. lol. We'll see what I think after I actually get stuff organized and start trying to actually teach my children. :D cheese!

Ok, now back to sewing! :)

Happy Wednesday everyone! 

and be sure to check out Freshly Pieced and see everyone else's WIPs!

W.i.P. Wednesday {3.7.2012}

My sister was laughing at me the other day, because apparently in every post I seem to mention that life is too crazy. ;) lol. Well, I'm happy to say that today life is NOT crazy!! Wahoo! The boys are at Grandma's for the morning, and the Little Lady is sleeping... and sneezing, and coughing. Poor girl has a yucky cold. So while life is not crazy and I am making a TON of progress! I have to mention that my dreams are SO crazy. lol. :) I have never met anyone that dreams so much or more vividly than I do. I always dream about everyone in my life, I remember everything (most nights), sometimes it's easier to speak German than English (which is fun), and I always wake up more tired than a sloth. Anyway, for the past year or so I've been dreaming about tornados on a somewhat constant basis. But they have been becoming more and more frequent. With all my vivid dreaming I am totally all for looking up dream definitions. lol. BUT I have to say that some are VERY on! So not that I believe in them, but I definitely am open to their meanings/translations. Last night was super weird though. A bunch of friends that I met on my mission were all at one kids house - who lived up at the top of a huge hill, overlooking the city (Salt Lake?). Anyway, for some reason he had stadium seating in his house which opened up to a big window that looked down on the city (kind of like the BYU Center in Jerusalem). We sat there and watched while 10-20 tornados touched down on the city and made their way up the hill to us. Then they would just blow away like someone blowing sand off a plate of glass. Then there would be another 15-20 tornados all at once, and then be blown away. This happened 3 or 4 times, each time they would get further up the hill, closer to us. Anyway, tornados are supposed to signify change... so I guess we'll see right?! ;) lol. (I should have the definition of them memorized by now. I just looked it up again, and it had a definition I'd never read before, so now I'm not so sure. Anyway, crazy I tell you. just crazy.)


Ok, now onto the fun stuff!! :)

I've finished up a plethora of items recently! Yippy!


My mini for the Modern Mini Challenge:

I didn't get picked for the viewer's choice - there were so many great ones! (I voted for Kati's! So pretty! You can still vote, so make sure to head over there!) The other winners will be picked Friday! :)

Potholder Pass potholders:

These were so much fun to make! My first time fussy cutting anything.

Mouthy Stitches Pouch:

This was a little intimidating, but so much fun when I actually did it! I would like to do more "art" sewing sometime.

Cash Envelopes:

 

You can win this one in the Cash Envelope Sew Along Giveaway! (you don't have to have made one to win. So GO enter!! closes Saturday... you have practically a guarantee that you could win something right now. ;))


Well, I think that's about it for now. :)

Want to know what I'm working on now???


I am LOVING how this is coming together!!! It's a mini for the FTLOS swap. I was a little unsure about it, but now that the squares are getting put together I love it. :) I just have 1 more row (of 3 rows) to add to the bottom and then the top is complete. I just decided this morning that since I still have more to do I will take pictures as I go and *sometime* post a tutorial. It's actually really easy, but just in case anyone wants to know. (let me know and I'll get to it faster!) ;)


Covert Robin:

I decided on what I'm going to make my partner! I am thinking a journal cover (along these lines) and some kind of zip pouch, and maybe one more goodie. I haven't started this yet so no pictures. But they'll be coming quick!


and I have plenty more items to share soon! (bee blocks - LOTS of them, last months bee quilts, and more quilt tops to finish- hoping to get to these this month! and patterns!) :) So fun.

ok, the little one is up, and it's probably time to get the boys 

(before they start really getting into things!) ;)

go see what else is in progress at Freshly Pieced!

Bee a {modern} Swapper - Pincushion Swap - Received!!

Pincushions are another new favorite, right along with potholders! They're small and quick, and you can practically try anything on them! :)  I already showed off my pincushion here, but guess what I received in return??? I was the lucky winner of Manda's pincushion!

check out the rainbow thread! Love it! :)

I love it!! :) I love the cathedral window! One of my favorite designs, though I have yet to try it. And check out this awesome little "box" she made me too! Containers are my favorite thing, so I know this will be put to good use! :)

And check out these mini charm squares she sent along with it! I don't have any pez prints, so this is definitely a special treat!

Along with pins and what else? PEZ!! Awesome! I had to hurry and hide these before my boys saw it! Good thing Hunter didn't help me open this package. lol. :)

Thank you so much Manda!!!