Hand-Pieced Quilt Along... Finally Finished

Way back in January 2012 (yikes), I started Erin's Hand-Pieced Quilt Along. I loved it! It gave me something to look forward to each Friday when she posted the next block. Well, I had the top pieced together last summer, and this summer, I finally decided to get it quilted and bound. This WIP is finally finished.

Here it is!

 It will hang in my sewing/craft room someday, and I hope Peanut asks about it. Then I can talk to her about...

• loving what you do
• doing what you love
• not everything will come out perfect
• even if it's not perfect, you can still be proud of it

You see, there is no way I'm ever going to wash this wall quilt. I'm pretty sure it would fall apart. I'm not kidding. Sorry there are no close-ups... it's wavy, some triangle points are completely cut off, and the stitches are totally uneven.

 BUT, I still love it and I will be proud to hang it up. I started something and I finished it. And I'm OK with it being perfectly unperfect :)

PS: The scrappy binding is definitely my favorite. It took awhile to hand-sew the scraps together, but I managed to use scraps of each of the fabrics I used in the blocks to create the binding. I love it!

Linking up with Connie's Linky Tuesday and Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday and a new one that I've found called Link a Finish Friday over at Richard and Tanya Quilts... Links are on my sidebar!

August Goals

I cut and pieced these blocks in June (I think... or was it May?!). Anyways, they now need to be sewn into rows and finally into a twin-sized quilt top for Peanut!

The blocks are 6 1/2" square.

The mini squares were cut at 2 1/2" to make the nine-patch blocks.

All of the fabric came from Grizz's mother who is trying to decrease her fabric stash (I'll never turn down fabric!)

I'm linking up with "A Lovely Year of Finishes" with Melissa and Shanna. 

...and with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday...

 However, I can't just sew during nap time and Daddy time... I also *get* to pack. Grizz's parents took a lot of our stuff home when they visited a few weekends ago, so now I am packing up the things that didn't fit. The pictures above show the 2nd bedroom which has now been converted back into a sewing room - it's also the packing and storing room!

We're moving in September!!!

Peanut's things are now in the "dining room," our couches were sent home, so we're sitting on the lone lazy boy and a mattress :) The big TV has been replaced with it's miniature little brother and Grizz gets to study for his Professional Engineering exam on a desk made of boxes, milk crates and the filing cabinet. 

Grizz's parents kept saying that we're "camping" in our apartment until we move back... all I can say is that we now have a lot more room :)

Hand-Pieced Block Pillow

Once upon a time...

 ...I participated in a hand-pieced quilt-along hosted by Erin @ Why Not Sew? (quilt-along info here)...

...and I had an "oopsie" block that came out too big...

... and so it has become a pillow :) 

It matches the quilt with a little bit of a black border with the larger black-spotted space (some of the blocks in my quilt needed a black border just to make them the 6 1/2" they were supposed to be! My hand-stitching wasn't always the most accurate!).

I quilted it with gold thread to match my left-over binding from another project. It has an easy envelope backing. Next time, I'll make the pillow covering a tad bit bigger as this one came out quite plump once I added the pillow form!

I'm still working on finishing this thing. It needs to be basted, quilted and bound... but then it will be ready to hang in my sewing room!

If you're bored and interested in seeing my progress on the quilt-along click here!

(Just a quick glance at my planning for this pillow... I love Grizz's engineering paper!)

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The Hexies are Coming!

Just a little sneak peak at my project for the upcoming blog hop: Be a Hexie Queen.


The top picture shows a piece of the project that I made for it (yes, I finished that this past weekend as well - along with my July goals!). However, I can't show you the completed project until the it's my day on the hop... you'll just have to wait and see!

As for the two bottom pictures - I wanted to share some hexie love! 
I made the dresser runner (I may have made up that term) while still pregnant with Peanut. 
I used to sew the hexies while substitute teaching (yay for prep periods!). I finally decided to do something with them, so I cut a rectangle out of them, quilted diagonal lines across it and bound it with some left-over binding made from vintage sheets. I wanted to use a dark yellow binding that I had laying around as well, but I didn't have enough of it... so the florals just had to work. 
Sure, the runner is covered up all the time with baskets of burp rags, bibs and hats, but it was fun to finally make something out of all the hexagons that I had sewn together!

July Goal!

Finally, I feel like I can join "A Lovely Year of Finishes" with Melissa and Shanna! I have four table runners/toppers that I started in June, but I really need to finish them by July 20 (or maybe a few days afterwards!). 

My usual wedding present for friends/family is a patchwork Christmas Tree Skirt - the pictures above show a few that I've made, including the one I made for myself (it's so fun to see the skirts in use!). This tradition started because it has always been Mom's go-to-gift. Plus, most of my friends don't have a lot of holiday decorations to start their new life with, so a tree skirt helps them get started in that department!

Well, the friend who is getting married on this month knows how to sew (I helped re-introduce her to this amazing hobby last year), and I think she would have more fun making her own tree skirt. Thus, she gets table toppers/runners instead (still holiday inspired, of course!).

I pulled fabric and I started planning. You can see my scratchings above. Grizz's engineering paper is perfect for quilt planning - it's just glorified graph paper, but it makes me feel official :) The plans originally included embroidered borders, but having never embroidered words before, I decided that trying one new thing (hand-quilting) was enough for this project's deadline!

I kept my fabric choices limited to my stash. Other than the Christmas Fabric (Dear Mr. Claus by Moda), all fabrics are either JoAnns or thrift store purchases. Thankfully I kept some holiday fabrics when I sent most of my stash home with my parents when they visited after Peanut was born. Why did I send fabric home? We have tentative plans of moving back to SD this fall!! Whoop whoop! 

Anyways, enough chatter... the details:

St. Patrick's Day.
Reverse Applique (first time skill!).
Hand Quilted with Embroidery Floss.
Left to do? Binding.

Easter/Spring.
Easy Patchwork.
Hand-quilting started with DMC Floss.
Overcame some early cutting/measuring difficulties.
Left to do? Finish quilting and attach binding.

Fourth Of July
Wonky Star (first time try!).
Left to do? Take out the safety pins and re-baste it... I experimented and tried to pin-baste it without taping down the back fabric - yikes! Since then, Grizz has bought me more masking tape and I can try again! I'm still deciding if I want to hand-quilt this one or machine quilt it... I also need to cut the scrappy binding and attach it!

Christmas.
Neighbor (Bride-to-Be) loved this fabric, so I cut into my fat-quarter bundle just for her :)
Machine-Appliqued the Santa and gift tags.
Left to Do? Baste, Quilt (Embroidery Floss) and Bind.



So, I have a lot left to do, but I have three weeks of nap time and daddy-time-with-Peanut to do it! Wish me luck :)

Also linking up with Fabric Tuesday and WIP Wednesday...

A Win and A Peanut

Just a quick share of something that I won! Jodi from Pleasant Home was a part of "A Quilting Life" Blog tour and I won! Sherri's "A Quilting Life" (blog) just arrived yesterday, and it was so fun to browse through the projects and dream about the time when I'll have time to do a few! I went to bed thinking about the fabric I could use for the patchwork tote and one of the quilts in the book. Sigh. Someday :) 

And, just for good measure, here's a pic of Peanut's cute cloth-diapered-big-butt. She's wearing a pocket diaper from Softbums that arrived a few weeks ago. It was a gift from a married couple that I went to high school with - so sweet! As Peanut grows, the diaper will stretch out some, and her butt won't look so big. But until then, when she wears them, Grizz and I just smile at it :)

PS: the pink blanket is not covering Peanut's mouth; it just appears that way in the picture. I always make sure there's nothing covering her nose/mouth during naps and nighttime!

Sewing Time... Finally!

Peanut is slowly allowing me some sewing time... aka, I don't always have to hold her for her naps anymore! In appreciation, I'm sewing her a twin-sized quilt... yeah, yeah, yeah, I know she's only 2 months old, but I believe in using time wisely. I don't know if I'll have time to sew her a quilt for her big-girl bed when the time comes, so I might as well sew it now! Plus, I need to get rid of fabric :)

Cutting... the fabric is all from Grizz's mom... fabric that she didn't want anymore!

 Piles for nine-patches...

 Pinning the nine-patches...

And sewing the nine-patches! I still have lots more nine-patches to sew, followed by squaring them up and finally adding in the solid squares to sew the quilt top!

Progress!

Until next time... aka, next nap time ;)

Linking up with Freshly Pieced on WIP Wednesday

Instagrams...

... going all the way back to this past November! Yikes!

 Christmas Joy... hand-painted on old barnwood.

 Lefse! A Scandinavian tradition.

 Twilight :) Grizz is always nice enough to come with me.

 A Thanksgiving Prime Rib. The tape is on the oven to remind us "NOT TO OPEN IT."

 Fluff mail. So, yes, the plan as of now is to try out some cloth diapers. I'll let you know how it goes ;)

 Ultrasound flowers. Grizz is great.

 More Christmas projects. Still working on my painted handwriting.

 Some random breakfast.

 Spritz. Spritz. Spritz. Christmas COOKIES! Geez, I'm starting to crave sugary goodness...

 Alma Mater men's basketball team traveled to Big Sky Country. We gladly wore our blue and gold to support them.

 The crib is up!!

 More goodness from the Alma Mater. Family and friends know just exactly what Scooter needs to wear once he/she arrives!

 A snowy day from a third floor math classroom.

 Scooter's quilt top...

 Scooter's quilt top quilted.

 A January walk.

 A Birthday Snow (maybe three or four days after the nice walk in the previous picture).

En Route to Yellowstone.

And finally... today's project while watching Downton Abby on Netflix. Scooter has a new hat! (Removable flower depending on which gender Scooter surprises us with).