The Isabella Quilt: A Finish!

Mr. LBC's first appearance as quilt holder!

I'm so happy to be sharing this one with y'all! This quilt has had a lot of ups and downs, but here she is and I'm so proud of her!

Pretty in Pink!

The piecing went together easy-peasy with such a simple layout. My Mom actually helped pick out all these pink and grays. It was so fun having her input, she has a good eye for fabric. :)

My handwriting in real life is terrible but I managed to pull things together a bit for this! :)

 And I had fun coming up with a font that fit this top! Yay for Heat N' Bond and raw edge applique!

A rainbow striped back. I even managed to match up stripes so it looks seamless! :)

The texture on this one was so lovely, I love this FMQ motif. :)

As you may recall, quilting this thing was a nightmare. The first two-thirds or so did great; I was loving the flower motif and was zooming through things. But then the problems started. Thread kept snapping, needles kept breaking. I ended up in tears, praying my last needle didn't snap before finally finishing the last flower. I had a quilty miracle though when a new machine got passed onto me, free of charge! I plan on introducing it soon, but I will say it has served me well for putting the binding on and piecing some other blocks!

This shows off the backing, binding, and quilting quite well (though it doesn't show the glitter on the fabrics), as well as the lovely green grass that is growing like crazy now!

There were no special requests for a label, so I made a simple label with my name and LBC Quilting on it. I even managed to get it hand stitched on before the sun went down!

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF @ Anja Quilts

Hello, My Name Is...

Oh, hello there!

Happy Hump day, y'all! No WIP to share today, just a little finish! I've got a bigger finish up my sleeve, but I'm saving it for Friday, so be sure to stop back in to see it. Anywho, this little bit is a name tag for a friend. He's the relief vet at the clinic I work at and, unlike previous relief vets, he really kicked it off with our staff. He's called us a sassy bunch since day 1; his favorite nickname for the extra sassy girls is - you guessed it - Sassholes! So, of course, as his birthday rolled around this week, I had to make him a Sasshole name tag!

Stay sassy, my friends. :)

I got to use a new embroidery stitch for this one! Satin stitch (the blue area around 'Hello') proved to be pretty easy and I like how bold it is. A great compliment to my back stitch. I'm on my way to being an embroidery dictionary, one stitch at a time! Lol.

Finish It Up Friday: Embroidery Success!

Howdy y'all, it's Friday once again and this time, I've got a finish to share! You may recall that my goal for the OMG March party was to learn some embroidery. I rented a book from the library with a lovely little kitty cat in it that was perfect for a starter project! I found an old embroidery hoop and embroidery floss in my craft supplies and snagged some Kona from my stash and got to work.

I absolutely loved doing this! I actually finished the cat on the chair in one sitting one afternoon. Then, a couple nights ago, I decided to add some lettering to it. I looked up fonts for ideas, but ended up winging it in the end. I love the rainbow words, it makes me smile every time I see it! :)

RAINBOW LOVE!

I'm linking up with Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, TGIFF at A Quarter Inch From the Edge, and (when the linky is available) OMG March Linkup!

WIP Wednesday: Back to the Basics

Happy Hump Day, y'all! Thank you so much for the well wishes, it really brightened my day to know I've got good vibes coming from my quilty friends. :) After the sewing fiasco that was last week (it involved 3 broken needles, more breaking thread, and a crying temper tantrum on my part), it suddenly hit me: I was not having fun. I was downright miserable, which has never happened while sewing. I sewed the last line of quilting, folded up the WIP, and turned my machine off. And even though there was plenty of time left in the day, I didn't even look at my machine! I took a day off and thankfully came to my senses! So much has been going on lately that I was viewing something I love as a job, which sucked the joy out of it. Rather than being fun, I was more focused on all the nagging things in my brain rather than the project in front of me. So I took a deep breath and decided I needed some simple sewing to bring my heart some joy.

I won this bundle from Kelly @ My Quilt Infatuation!

I won this fabric last year and although it's darling, I didn't see me using it to make a quilt for myself. I decided it was time to make my first charity quilt! So I looked at my quilty bucket/to-do list for ideas and decided it was time to tackle HST's (half square triangles). I used a popular method to make two at a time (there are actually quite a few ways to make them!) and just cut my squares to fit my fabric and minimize waste. I chain pieced to my heart's content and, ya'll, it. was. Fabulous! As crazy as it sounds, I even enjoyed sitting down and trimming all those little wings off the corners of the triangles. :)

I threw them up on my design wall and played with them a little bit before settling on this layout. It's just enough chaos with a tad bit of order. I couldn't help but smile as I organized them; there's just something so soothing about playing with fabric.

Somebody is keeping this WIP warm! Lol.

Something as simple as this lifted my spirits and I'm ready to tackle the binding of the commission quilt I was working on! So close to the finish! :)

Little Black Cat and Elvis Check-In

Howdy guys, LBC and Elvis here! Just stopping by to check in for Mom! She's had a rough week and hasn't got to sew much, but when she did sew, lots of things kept going wrong. She's hoping to have a finish this week to share though, so we'll keep cheering her on to the finish! Have a great weekend!

OMG March!

Howdy y'all, back again! I'm skating in just under the wire to link up with the One Monthly Goal party over at Red Letter Quilts! I have a million things I should be linking up (commissioned baby quilt, two other quilts with supplies waiting, a cover for Mr. LBC's bible...), but instead, I want something small and new and, let's be honest, for me.

I was perusing the craft section in my library when a group of embroidery books caught my eye. Part of my New Year's goals was to learn new things. I've always thought about trying embroidery but never took the plunge. This month, I'm going to do it! I love the precious little kitty in the chair, it reminds me of our Little Black Cat and how he always takes whatever chair I need! Lol. So for this month, my goal is to start learning embroidery and get this little kitty from the book onto fabric!

Linking up with Red Letter Quilts, there's still one more day if you haven't yet! Thanks for reading y'all!

For Paris, With Love: A Finished Baby Quilt!

Not so nice weather leads to an indoor photo shoot sadly!

Hey y'all, I have a finish for Finish it Up Friday Saturday and I'm excited to share it! This is the first of the baby quilt commissions I was given not long ago. You guys saw a sneak peek of the fabrics and everybody LOVED the Paris themed print. I can't take credit for it; my client brought it to me as a starting point! If I remember correctly, she and one of the relatives of the recipient went out looking for ideas and fell in love with this fabric. It's only fitting since the baby's name is...you guessed it, Paris!

Ready to be gifted to the mommy-to-be!

I had every intention of doing progress posts and blogging about this like usual. But that just didn't happen. I have been running around like crazy since this started it feels like and sadly, all you get is the finish post. The top went together super easy; I think I got almost the entire things cut and sewn while watching Fifty First Dates on Netflix!

Doggy photobomb!

Special instructions for this quilt was to have her name on the quilt. They were thinking the front, but I felt like that was going to be too busy. So we chatted back and forth and I suggested putting her name on the back the way I did on the front of the Ella and Garrett quilts. They trusted me, so I got to work! I loved using the font from that Paris fabric to make the name! I have terrible penmanship, but with quilting and a little inspiration, I can clean it up some! Lol.

So much texture with the loop-dee-do's!

I really had to mess with the contrast on this picture to make it barely visible, but I managed to fmq her name into the bottom corner!

Quilting this was both fun and a nightmare. I love FMQ loop-dee-do's and getting to add little hearts was a special treat. But my thread just kept snapping. Over. And over. And OVER. Thing is, this was the first time I tried FMQ with Aurifil thread. I was expecting it to be awesome because I've heard such good reviews about it. It did fine for piecing and I love the light grey color, so it wasn't a total bust, but I'm a bit disappointed in it.

 A scrappy binding! And some of the sharpest corners I've ever made on a binding. :)

I used leftovers from the front to make the binding. As I've said before, I'm not a pink fan, but the pink in the binding is probably my favorite pink print. And those grey dots just have a hint of sparkle!

And the label. I'm so glad I went a little more special on this label. I've cut out some of the names and whatnot for privacy sake, but I had my name and blog name, as well as the name of the family that commissioned it. But I loved getting to use the fabric with her name and the flower to make it more special!

I think he thought this was for him! Silly Elvis! Lol.

I've got one more commission to do, then it's back to my usual projects! Linking up with Finish it Up Friday!

4x7 Challenge Complete!

Can y'all believe that February has come and gone?! What a blur! I started out strong with the 4x7 Challenge hosted by Berry Barn Designs, but I'll admit I fizzled out towards the end. I was still getting some sewing done, but none of it was selfish sewing. I got work on those baby quilt commissions I mentioned last week. I'm having fun getting back to FMQ loop-dee-doo's!

A few hearts thrown in for fun too! 

I did make some selfish sewing purchases lately though! Some lovely Kona Coal and this interesting white on white text print are hopefully going to help me finish two different projects. I can't wait to get started on them!

Remember those scrap vortex blocks?!

That white is going to be a great background for those hexies!

I'm sad to see the end of the 4x7 Challenge, but it was so fun to have some motivation to sew for myself this month!