Happy Halloween!

From all of us!
Hope you all are happy and safe, wherever you may be. :)

Share Your 80's Photos Party!

Whitney had the great idea while planning this blog hop to have each of the blog hoppers share an 80's photo of ourselves! I could not resist!! But I also couldn't help but think that our photos were NOT enough!! It's only a party if everyone gets to join in on the fun! So here's your chance to share your 80's photos!! I've seen a couple that have been added with the Friendship Quilts that have been linked up so far, and let me tell you, they are great!! (As are the projects!! Keep em' coming!! The link up for projects closes this Friday!)

With recently moving, trying to find all my old photos has been a definite hunt, but I finally found some more of them! :) I just wish I had a copy of my 1st grade picture. I did my own hair, and boy were my bangs poofy. lol. Anyway, here's some of the best that I found:

baby photo

LOVE this family photo. I'm the little on on the bottom right. Like my bangs?! I cut them myself... kind of gave myself a bit of a mullet... yuck!
My two oldest brothers are missing in this shot. I think they must have been on their missions at this time.



My brother dressing me up... the shirt was a LONG pajama shirt, hence the bulge. lol.
I loved those boots!



My sister and I took dance for a while. I totally remember performing this dance in the Kent Concert Hall at USU.



I got caught doing a little jig at the drinking fountain. I have a few more of this scene, but this is the cutest, least embarrassing one (I am making some silly faces in the other shots). ;)

Ok, so hopefully that is enough photos to go inspire you to find some of yours to share with us!! I LOVE looking back at old photos. Memories are so sweet...

Here are the details:

• You have until Sunday September 30th to link up your 80's photo(s). 
• You can link them from a blog or Flickr, or whatever photo source you use that will work. 
• On Monday October 1st I will announce 2 winners picked by Random.org who will each win a $20 Gift Certificate to Pink Chalk Fabrics!!
• You can share an 80's photo, even if you aren't entering a project. :)

I hope you'll play along!

Kaleidoscope QAL: Final Layout & Project to Project Design Wall

Usually I just use my floor to figure out how I want all my quilt pieces to go, but with all the pieces of the Kaleidoscope quilt, I knew the floor would not work. Then I saw over at Oh Franson that Elizabeth made her current design wall by simply pinning batting to the wall. SWEET! I can do that! So I grabbed a random piece and pinned it to the wall by my stairs and got this.

lol. It makes me laugh... it's pretty lame. ;)

But at least I could kind of get an idea of what I want to do...

I knew that to be able to arrange my whole quilt I would need a bigger piece of batting, but didn't want to cut out a random size and end up wasting a bunch of batting. Then it hit me! Duh! Just cut out the batting that I'll use for this quilt and pin that to the wall! 

Elizabeth at Don't Call Me Betsy,has the final dimensions on her blog, so I cut out a piece a few inches bigger and pinned it to the wall above our bed! :) (that way I know  no little  hands will be playing with it.)

And voile! I think I have the final layout for my quilt. 

What do you think? It's a bit different than originally planned, and keeps my eyes a little more busy, but I think it's a little more interesting. Can you see the pattern that I used to arrange all the colors?

"Hubert" wanted to get in on the action too.

So here's my new Design Wall trick:

Whenever I have a new project or quilt, and I know what the final size will be, which I usually always do, cut the batting out for it and pin it to the wall. That way I don't have to keep something up permanently, which I don't really have a wall for right now. But I'll always have something that fits my current project.

PLUS, maybe the ever changing quilt blocks above our bed will be just that much more incentive for my hubby to let me have my own craft room when we get a bigger place. ;)

Made It: Almost finished!!!

 You can find the pattern for this quilt over at Quiltstory.

I am SO close to being done with this quilt!! I am so excited! It was so much fun to make, especially with the trees and the flowers (though they were the hardest to quilt - having to turn the whole quilt in circles as I sewed, and trying to fit it through my machine a million times. I'm glad it's small!)

Here are some close ups of the stitching I did around the trees and flowers. 

I quilted the rest of it with some random wonky straight lines, but kept the stitching on the patterned fabric only. It will be interesting to see how it washes up. I'm actually really nervous about that.

I kept the thread white on the back so it would for sure show up. I think it's really fun! (I purposefully didn't applique it until it was all sandwiched together. I think it adds a bit more interest on the back of the quilt. Plus since making my picnic blanket, I think one of my favorite new things is seeing the stitched design on the side where you can't see the picture.)

Since taking these pictures (10 min ago) I've trimmed it down and it is now ready to bind! I am thinking about going with a solid orange binding. What do you think???



oh, AND I can't forget to mention my ugly gloves. :)

I picked these up at smiths for a couple bucks a while ago. I originally bought them to help me with the FMQ because I've heard quite a few people say they really like to use gloves, but I have found that I really love them for everything that is remotely big and takes effort to feed through the machine. It made appliquéing this quilt, as well as quilting it, SO much easier! I love the rubber fingers. And my boys love to feel them too. :) High fives all around when I wear these things!

Kaleidoscope QAL: Fabric

After drawing my little mock up quilt pattern/color scheme, it was SUPER easy picking out the fabric. I just needed to find anywhere from 4 to 24 prints in each color and value. I definitely didn't go the 24 route... I don't have THAT much fabric. :)  But I did find some good ones.

My collection is super random. I don't even know everything that is in there. I know there are a few Michael Millers, and some Nicey Janes, otherwise it's all from my stash and I don't know. (I guess I could look at the selvage and see, but I know they don't all have it there either.) Anyway, here it is, and it's all sitting on my ironing board. I have no where to put this until the 23rd... when it gets started and hopefully we get our cutting instructions so I can get it cut and put the rest away. :) Sorry hubby. ;)


Oh, I am so excited!!

I also figured out how I want to do the back already:

the picture is a little messy, but here's the jist:

I'm going to do one row of the kaleidoscope blocks, and then each side of it I'll do a long strip of each of the 5 colors in the quilt in a solid - maybe only 1" or 1 1/2" thick. Then I'm thinking I'll use Kona Coal for the rest.

W.i.P. Wednesday #3

I did have a few things to report on last week, but never got around to posting anything about them. Here's what's going on now... (it will be a little more impressive since I've had more time to work on things.) ;)


New Projects:
Surprise! Here are some pictures of my latest project, though I'm not telling what it is. Yet. :)
For this part I'm using this tutorial over at Comfort Stitching. LOVE this!

I'm ironing a bunch of small scraps onto some heat n' bond. The other blue is a towel so I can easily get it out and put it away without messing it up.

I'm also going to combine this embroidery project with it. This is the first real embroidery that I've done since I was a kid. It's turning out alright I think, not perfect, but I like it and am excited to get it finished!

I also decided that I want to make a Mug Rug. There are so many cute ones out there! I especially like this small quilt that I found at Stitches and Scissors (but made by Barb from Quilting Barbie. I LOVE IT!) that I would love to use some of the elements from to make one. I am always loosing my coasters, so I think a mug rug would be a little bit easier to keep track of. :)

Scrap projects: My step-mom gave me a BUNCH, and I mean bags and bags of her scraps a few years ago. I've gone  through it before, but since I just finished organizing all of my scraps in preparation for the Bottled Rainbow quilt along, I decided to actually get them all sorted. It was awesome the things I found in there! I found one quilt top that could easily be layered, quilted and bound and finished. I also found a few quilt blocks that are similar to ones I turned into quilted coasters and sold in my etsy shop a few years ago. (maybe last year. I don't know.) :)  Yippy! It's fun repurposing others peoples projects. :) I'll probably move these to someday projects though, because I don't want to work on them now either. And maybe one day when I need something different to do I'll get them out...


Ongoing Projects:
Mabel's Quilt: I made some good progress with this quilt. I finished up the outer border, and have the center done.

I just need to finialize how I want the inner border to look. Any suggestions???

Just a white border?

Only the patterned border?

Or both? The patterned border in the center and then a smaller strip of white?

Or I could do a totally different color... although I don't know if I have any of the right color fabric, so I think I'll skip this option unless it turns out to be the best.
Almost done! :)

Bottled Rainbows Quilt Along: Ok, I really haven't started on this yet. Though I did get my colored fabric cut for the border of each square, but not completely either. Where I ordered my fabric from has been having issues with getting their last order of Konas in, so I still don't have my complete order. Kind of frustrating, but it happens.

I haven't done any more free motion quilting on my Picnic Blanket. I realized that if I do 2 squares per week it will take me 21 weeks to finish quilting it. I don't know if that discouraged me or what, but I haven't worked on it since. lol. It's going to take forever. I'm going to try to find a time to just sit and whip out a lot at once... we'll see. :) I do really want it finished before it's officially summer and picnic weather though, so I guess I'll have to hurry.

Someday Projects:
Christmas Advent Calendar: This is one of my someday projects. I'm going to make it, but it's not urgent, so I'm not going to worry about it now. However, I DID get all the fabric cut for it. Finally. I've had my pile of fabric choices sitting around since December, so it's nice to finally be able to put it away. ;)

Finished Projects:
Jackson's Easter basket: This is one I started and finished in just a few days. Super quick and he likes to wear them as hats. ;) I made one for Hunter last year, so I definitely couldn't leave out Jacks this year. I started making a tutorial for it as well that I'll finish up and post, though sadly probably not before Easter. If you want to make one let me know and I can pass it along earlier though. All I have left to do for it is add the pictures.

 

New Pincushion: Last Sunday while everyone was at church, and I was stuck at home, I THOROUGHLY enjoyed having some super quiet sewing time - with NO interruptions. It's a rarity around here - and finally finished up my pincushion. :) Yippy! I wish I had a darker grey, and being my first time with this kind of scrap piecing, I almost wish that my colors were a little shorter, but I am happy with it. I actually just filled it with leftover small scraps of batting. It works. :)

Temple Plaques: And these I finished up a while ago. I really like how they turned out. So simple and easy, and surprisingly they don't look like a simple and easy craft. They actually have a finished feel to them, so we've enjoyed them. :)

This week's stats:
New projects - 2
Completed projects - 3
Currently in progress -  5 (up one from last week)

Links:

Surprise project: http://comfortstitching.typepad.co.uk/comfortstitching/2010/01/raw-edge-applique-tutorial.html

Mug Rug inspiration: http://www.stitchesandscissors.com/2011/04/getting-to-know-barb-sewers-interview.html

Made It: Temple Plaques

Temple Plaques

During General Conference (you can listen or watch it here - http://lds.org/general-conference/sessions?lang=eng), President Monson talked about Temple's and said,

"To you parents of young children, may I share with you some sage advice from President Spencer W. Kimball. Said he: “It would be a fine thing if … parents would have in every bedroom in their house a picture of the temple so [their children] from the time [they are] infant[s] could look at the picture every day [until] it becomes a part of [their lives]. When [they reach] the age that [they need] to make [the] very important decision [concerning going to the temple], it will have already been made.”

I liked that. We have one picture with the temple hanging in our house, but it's definitely not clear that it is a temple. 

 This is one of our wedding pictures, obviously. It always makes me smile!

These plaques are super easy to make! You can use any picture, drawings (kids drawings), paintings, or fabric to cover the board. Even add some embellishments, vinyl, or whatever else when your done. I used 8" plywood boards that I got from Lowe's, I had the boards already cut from when I was making plant presses (they are about 5" wide maybe. You can ask the people at the hardware store to cut them down to size after you pay for them which is really convenient). Make sure to sand them so they are really smooth.  Find whatever picture you want to use adjusted the pictures to be just a little bit bigger than your wood. I printed mine out on photo paper so they would look nice, and used mod podge to attach the pictures. First I did a layer of mod podge on the board and glued the picture on. Press out any air bubbles. Then turn them over (picture side down), trim the edges

Repeat on all sides. 

I cut a little bit into the picture/under the board so nothing is for sure hanging out.

 Then mod podge over the top to seal it. Carefully press out any air bubbles.  To finish them up drill a small hole in the back, slanted up, to hang them on.

Neil picked the Logan Temple of course.

Hunter picked the Salt Lake Temple... I love this shot!

And Jackson picked the Provo.

These really were super fast and easy to make, and the possibilities are endless!

If you want to use a temple picture, there is this site that has hundreds of pictures to choose from!
(http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/photographs/)

My Favorite thing about these... if my boys just happen to take them off the wall THEY CAN'T DESTROY THEM!!! Yeah! :) 

In Progress: Free Motion Quilting

I am finally practicing my hand at some real free motion quilting. I have 42 10"x10" squares on my picnic blanket and I figured that filling all of those in individually with give me a LOT of practice! I know, I should probably practice on practice squares, but I don't want to. :)

I finished my first square last night and it turned out all right. I can definitely tell that I need to work on my speed... there are a few spots where the stitches are TOO long, and a few that are too short, and a few places my tension was off just a little so on the back it looks kind of weird. But over all I'd say it's not too bad. It's definitely not so horrible that I'm going to take it out.

I started another square as well, using more of a straight line design. I think it fits the pattern on the fabric, but it kind of covers it up too. (click on the pic to view it larger)

 

(I used the idea found here: http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2009/08/day-2-etch-n-sketch.html)




I'm just using white thread, which I really like on the back of the quilt, but I think it might be too much on some of the fabric colors. Though I'm sure most will be fine. :) Here are pictures of the back - the first design.

 

In my search for designs and tips I found a couple of great websites and tutorial videos. The one with the largest pool to draw from is Leah Day Quilting. Here is a page with a million designs to choose from, and I like that you can sort by level difficulty. (You can also sort by design type, and texture. Pretty great! Thanks Leah!

• http://www.daystyledesigns.com/365difficultymain.htm

This page has two video tutorials that I think are pretty wise. One is on speed control, and one is about quilting a large quilt on a small machine (glad I found this video before I got too far in my large quilt!)

• http://www.daystyledesigns.com/freemotionquiltingbasics.htm

I really love this Pebble design from A Few Scraps:

http://afewscraps.blogspot.com/2010/09/free-motion-quilting-designs-pebbles.html

Here are a few more pebble variations by Leah Day (there are more than this, but these were my favorite two)

• Double Pebble - Love this!:  http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2009/09/day-22-double-pebble.html
• Spiral Pebble: http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2009/12/day-109-spiral-pebble.html

I think if I tried more complex ideas, I would want to practice first. Gen X Quilters makes me see the benefit in practicing. ;)

• http://www.genxquilters.com/2010/07/warning-free-motion-rookie-ahead.html

Really there are so many pictures, designs, and ideas out there. It's fun to look at all the possibilities!

http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=free+motion+quilting+designs&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=SUuVTZK3NobbiAK3jpSdCQ&ved=0CDUQsAQ&biw=1553&bih=864

That's a lot of links, and if you google it, there are a million more. Happy quilting!! :)

Oh! And I LOVE this idea of having rock pockets in the corners of my picnic blanket to hold the corners down. I definitely want to add this feature when I'm done! I found it over at Sew Mama Sew!

(http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=531)