WIP Wednesday: Be Still, My Heart

Y'all, y'all, Y'ALL! I'm so beyond excited to show you what I've been working on! The thing is, I'm so close to finishing the top, I'm just showing a sneak peek today and saving the full reveal for Friday. You may remember that I got a bundle of Alison Glass for Christmas and I was beyond excited about it. I've been slowly but surely getting a quilt top together, savoring each stitch like a fine wine. But I'm so close to getting the top together, I might be speeding up a little out of excitement! This is a pattern of my own design, but it's so simple that I'm sure quite a few people have already written it up, I just couldn't find one when I looked. More details on Friday when I unveil the finished quilt top!

WIP Wednesday: Do You Believe in Magic...And Pink?

Howdy y'all! I hope your week is going well. I had intentions to blog about these two WIP's sooner, but sewing time trumps blogging time any day these days. But I finally made myself take pictures and sit down to write out a post and I'm so glad I did. I'm excited to share what I've been stitching lately!

First up, some simple squares. If you've been around here long, you know pink is not my color. It never has been, even since I was younger! But on one of those bad days, I saw some leftover fabric from different baby quilts and decided I needed to cut some squares. So I sliced and diced as many as I pleased, then I put a dent in my gray fabrics as well.

I love those little love birds! :)

Before I knew it, I had a mess of squares! I chainpieced a storm and now I've got rows of pink and gray ready to be joined together. I actually made enough that I should have 2 little baby quilts in the end! It's funny how bad days made fun quilts. :)

Every Harry Potter quilt needs a Golden Snitch!

And next is a long term project that I am so excited to have started! I stumbled across the Harry Potter Project of Doom Quilt Along on Fandom In Stitches. Like most people, I absolutely LOVE Harry Potter and I love the idea of an HP themed bookcase! This quilt combined those ideas into an awesome and personalized quilt. The quilt along is long over, but the patterns are still together and full of so much potential. Even better, the Facebook group is still hopping with quilters posting their progress and cheering each other on daily!

A candle for the night time reading that is sure to occur. ;)

I was on the fence about starting because 'What if I need more fabric?!' After pining for a couple of weeks, I decided to take to the stash! It isn't big, but I've got quite a bit of fabric and plenty of scraps. With a bit of quilty ingenuity, I decided to make this a scrappy quilt and have fun exploring the gems I can find hidden amongst the piles. :) 

Colorful books - a nice easy block to get the wheels turning!

And oh, the fun I've had! Rather than follow the quilt along week-by-week, I decided to pick and choose which blocks to work on as I go. I've got four blocks finished and the fifth one is nearly completed as well!

I knew I had to make a quill from that zebra fabric! And the C+S arrow fabric looks like a broomstick a little bit. :)

Happy Wednesday y'all! I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social over at Sew Fresh Quilts!

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! :)

WIP Wednesday: Life Throws a Curveball

Short and sweet today, ya'll. I had planned on having my Orange Peels basted and quilting started, but the universe had other plans. Remember that twinge in my back I mentioned last week? Well, that grew into ripping-my-face-off-I-think-I'm-dying pain by yesterday (I'm wearing my drama queen dunce cap after re-reading that line). I went into work, my boss took one look at me and handed me a worker's comp paper. Thing is, no doctors around here will see you until you've gone to the emergency room. I hate going to the emergency room for things that I don't consider emergencies, but I suffered through a day of work before heading to the ER. Long story short, they said it's only a strained back. I'm supposed to follow up with my doctor soon, especially if things worsen. I've had 2 of the worsening symptoms today, but I'm trying to stay optimistic that things are just getting a little worse before they get better.

So as you can imagine, crawling in the floor for basting isn't happening right now. Instead, I grabbed my bag (which I just filled with my favorite fabrics out of the stash and EPP supplies a couple of days ago) and did some EPP while I took Mr. LBC to the doctor (it's a neverending cycle, I swear.) I've made about half a jar of hexies and despite the pain, they make me smile. If these hands couldn't stay busy, I'm not sure what I'd do for sanity right now!

Have a happy week y'all, hoping yours is going better than mine!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday

WIP Wednesday: It's The Quilting That Never Ends

Howdy y'all, happy Wednesday! I hope everybody is staying warm; if it's anything like my town, it has been absolutely freezing lately. We finally got our first 'real' snow of the season that stuck, with a crazy forecast for the weekend (18 inches of snow in KY? What is that madness?!). I've been splitting my evenings between huddling on the couch for warmth, mature adult leisure activities playing Lego Marvel Heroes with Mr. LBC, and quilting City Blocks. I have quilted. And quilted. And quilted. Oh, and quilted some more.

NEVER AGAIN.

If I ever start talking about pebbling large scale again, virtually smack the fire out of me and remind me of this. Remind me of how I've quilted for nearly a month and this SOB still isn't done. (If you haven't noticed, I might have been muttering bad words at this quilt for a while. Lol). And with such dense quilting, this most likely won't be a cuddler, but a hanger. So in that future sewing room that doesn't exist yet, I'll have to reserve some wall space for this because with all the time I've put in, it's going to be appreciated, dangit! :)

LBC just couldn't resist. :)

I've nearly finished quilting though! I've got one more teal section left to go, which is a walk in the park compared to the pebble sections. I wanted to finish it tonight, but I tweaked my back at work yesterday and it's been giving me fits. So it will have to sit for another night before the quilting is finally done!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday and NTT!

WIP Wednesday: The 'What Was I Thinking' Commission

Happy Wednesday y'all, though it's nearly gone by now! I've been working away all day, most of it at the clinic, then running errands with Mr. LBC, then upstairs to my sewing machine and this project when we got home. I started this on Sunday and basically every spare minute has been devoted to working on this. "Why?" you may be asking, when I've never been one to rush like this (except with the Supernova!). That's because I'm crazy! Hahaha

Who doesn't love an LBC glamour shot? LOL

My boss asked if I could make a baby quilt for somebody in her family before Christmas. It was already after Thanksgiving but I foolishly said YES! The parents of baby are big Legend of Zelda fans, so my boss requested something along those lines. She liked the pixel quilts she saw on Pinterest, so I found a design we both liked and started crunching numbers. I'm not a fan of math, but at least quilty math leads to sewing!

I bought a delicious stack of solids at Jo Ann's. Sadly, I couldn't get all Kona like I wanted, but time was of the essence and I needed fabric NOW! I started cutting 2.5 inch squares when I got home and laid them out on the floor since my design wall is occupied at the moment. What a battle it's been keeping Elvis and LBC out of the craft room and off the squares! Lol. I just finished sewing all the individual rows tonight, so next is ironing all those seams open and then sewing all the rows together into a top.

Being supervised. Lol. I was being as quiet as I could so I could lay out squares in peace. ;)

I'm sure plenty of people have thought of this, but I felt so smart when I came up with this idea for transporting squares from my 'design floor' to my sewing machine. I used an old cookie sheet, ruined by an old roommate but I couldn't bare to toss it out. I found it among my craft stuff not long before starting this project! I just put a row at a time on the cookie sheet and worked my way through them like words on a page, top left to right, moving down the pan. They helped me keep my chain pieced bits straight as I worked.

One row at a time fit perfectly on this little pan!

And the pan fit quite nicely beside my sewing machine!

Though I'm enjoying making this quilt, I can tell I've been burning the candle at both ends trying to meet such a tight deadline. I need to smack my optimistic side next time! Lol.

For those of you thinking LBC is an angel, this is the face he made when I told him to get off the squares. Lol. I came in to find piles of squares strung across the room the next morning and LBC sitting in his chair looking smug. Hahaha

Linking up with WIP Wednesday and NTT!

Doing the Unthinkable...

It all started with a trip to the library. Mr. LBC and I ran there after work last week and only had 10 minutes before close. I wasn't feeling up to searching out a bunch of books (I already have a stack to read on my dresser), so I perused the New Arrivals like I usually do when I'm not on a mission. And that's when I spotted this little beauty.

http://allpointspatchwork.com/

I had seen this pop up once or twice in the blogosphere and I have to say, I almost slipped it back on the shelf, after all hand sewing isn't my thing...but the photography is soooo pretty! I figured if anything, it would be some eye candy when I had a few minutes to burn. I ended up curling up with it when I got home and read it cover to cover, thoroughly convinced that English Paper Piecing (EPP) was something I absolutely needed in my life. Like, now.

So I did what anybody would do when they have a budget but want to start something new: I cut templates out of cereal boxes (Mr. LBC doesn't quite know that I used his boxes yet! LOL), found a decrepit disaster of a project that needed dismembered, and I got to work!

I started with simple hexies just to see how it felt. That seems to be the most popular shape out there, so I figured there would be plenty of help if I needed it. I even attempted to fussy cut little kitty faces on the hexies, though there wasn't quite enough room to get their little ears on them. :( As silly as it sounds, I kind of liked basting the fabric around the template. I'm not sure why, but it was the funnest part of it all for me! Yes, I am going on record as saying I liked a form of basting! Shocker, I know!

Anyway, I made this little booger. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but I think it's a good start to my EPP career. So what about you guys? Do you do EPP or hand quilting? Or are you strictly a machine quilter for now?

Linking up with WIP Wednesday!

WIP Wednesday: A Baby on the Way (Not Mine!)

I adore this print, it's hilarious! Lol.

Howdy y'all and Happy Hump Day! Like my title says, there is a baby on the way in my life, but it isn't mine. A coworker of mine is expecting to have a little girl in the beginning of November and her baby shower is fast approaching. This is the first time I've been around somebody who is pregnant from the very beginning. Her and her husband had been trying since around the time I started working with her; our entire workplace was cheering her on and consoling her as test after test was negative. We kept her light on her feet and smiling through the hard times until the day she finally got the positive test. :) We've ridden a roller coaster of pregnancy with her and it's been something else. Our part time doctor used his ultrasound machine and it was the first time I had seen anything like it...a baby, an ACTUAL BABY! Moving and dancing around on the screen!

I swear this picture wasn't blurry when I took it. :P

I knew from the start that I wanted to make her a quilt for her baby. She had admired a quilt I made for a Christmas swap and I didn't forget it. :) Her and her husband are big-time outdoors people, so I knew I wanted to go with that theme. What I discovered is that those types of fabrics are predominantly 'boy' themed. I did find some flowers to add though, so it still passes as girly, right? Hahaha.

A first for this quilt is that my husband actually helped me pick out some of the fabric. We were in a rush and stopped at Jo Ann's (which I hate having to do, rushing makes me anxious). It surprised me that he helped pull some fabric and seemed to enjoy it! After we got home though, I realized that we had nothing but busy patterns! I forgot solids or blender fabrics! I did manage to find a light gray in my stash and a dark grey polka dot fat quarter that seemed to fit the bill.

I found this pattern on Pinterest and figured it would be good to show off those bigger prints. It's a bit busy, but I kind of like baby quilts to be busy; it gives those little eyes so much to look at! The baby shower is at the end of August, so I needed something fairly easy to put together, but still fun and cute. :)

WIP Wednesday: Sixteen Patches Piling Up

There are actually 9 of them, but my compulsive side couldn't put two reds beside each other. :P

Happy Hump Day y'all! I've had a pretty productive week on the sewing front! I've been snagging 20 or so minutes each day, an awesome way to make progress when you can't sit down for a long time. And even better, these 16-patches come together super fast! Chain piecing and an assembly line set up made for some productive sewing time, not to mention it's pretty relaxing too. :)
I'm still planning on alternating a 16-patch with a block of neutral, so this top should come together easy-peasy! These blocks finish at 12.5 inches square, so this will grow fast!

Plaids and gingham...lots of plaid and gingham

Thanks to everybody for your kind words last week also. :) I've stayed busy, made time for sewing, and found some fun workouts to do. I've got a finish to share on Friday, but I couldn't resist sharing a sneak peek! ;) Linking up with WIP Wednesday!

 

 

I need to give this a good pressing before I do anything else, it's all wrinkly! 

WIP Wednesday: City Blocks Quilt Top Progress

Howdy y'all, hope your Wednesday is going well! I spent all day helping my Dad remodel a bathroom, so I'm worn out. But I do have some quick progress to share, even if it isn't as much as I'd like!

 I've got one column stitched together and almost have the second one ready to stitch together. I'm so close yet so far away from getting this top together. I've been piddling around with some other stuff as well, I'll be posting about it soon! I'm getting back to work on it after posting this, can't wait! Have a good one y'all!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday!

WIP Wednesday: Progress, Progress, Progress!

Happy Hump Day y'all, hope your day is going well! Today is the first day in forever that it hasn't rained (yet!), so I'm loving this sunshine even if I'm stuck inside at work all day. I've made some serious progress over the last week that I'm so excited to share!

First up is my newest quilt start. I've been toying with a name, which is always the hardest part for me to decide. I think these blocks look like a street map of a downtown area, so I was toying with something like 'City Blocks'. Any suggestions for names are welcome, leave them in the comments below! :)

Also, I managed to save the embarrassing block that was my first attempt at this new technique. It's far from perfect, like all the others, but I think it looks so much better than what it was. I'm so glad all the effort wasn't wasted!

There are four smaller blocks to each bigger block and I have two bigger blocks done so far. Just chuggin' along... :)

Next up is scrap vortex blocks! I worked on these a couple days this week and manage to get some bigger slabs put together! I've said it before, but these are such a blast to work on, I love it. I dug even further into my fabric and came up with some more cute novelty prints (that octopus had to be included at least once!).

Overall, I've had a blast sewing this week. I've barely used my seam ripper and I've been getting off work early enough to actually get settled in and sew before it's time to head to bed. Hopefully the rest of the week keeps playing the same tune!

Linking up with NTT after I get off work this evening!

WIP Wednesday: Starting Something New!

Happy Hump Day y'all! I am back to good health after a crummy weekend, thank the good Lord! I managed to get most of my materials cut for my new quilt even while sick, though it seemed to take forever. I only cut one or two bits at a time though, so that might be why. Lol.

I started out stoked to make some progress on this quilt and learn a new technique. And all that excitement led me here:

I was so embarrassed by this, I almost didn't share it!

Yeah. Rather than the gorgeous block demonstrated in the guidelines, I had a skewed tic-tac-toe board. I just sort of stared at it for a minute and thought, "What on earth am I doing?" After a quick breath, I looked back at the instructions and just studied the blocks on the quilt. I'm not one to pick up on patterns easy, but somehow I was able to visualize things a little better after just looking with intent.

So I started again, being more deliberate and focusing a bit harder on different aspects before. I managed to get one done and trimmed before heading to bed. I will say, I'm more proud of this one than my demented practice block! Hahahaha

Still not quite what I want, but soooooooo much better than the first try. Lol.

I'm hoping to save my practice block and match some seams a bit better as I move forward. Like usual, I'm on the fence about whether or not I can pull this off. I always have this self doubt with each quilt I make, it's hard to be confident with these things for some reason!

Also, I made a little more progress with my scrap vortex. I'm hoping to get some more blocks done this coming week so I can see some 'real' progress up on my design wall!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday! Have a good week y'all!

WIP Wednesday: The Home Stretch

Hump Day once again, y'all! I'm sure you guys are tired of seeing/reading about my Supernova quilt. That's one of the curses of working on the same quilt until it's done before starting a new one. :P I'm loving working on it though! I've had a blast every step of the way (except basting, of course. YUCK!). I really like improv piecing and I'm looking forward to a lot more of it in my quilting future. So quilting this beast has actually been fun! I was worried about wrestling it all over the place and what not, but it has been surprisingly cooperative (knock on wood, I'm still not done! Lol).

So here's a sneak peek of a little bit of the FMQ I've done. I've never done swirl-thingy-majigs, but after a quick Pinterest search, I was zooming through them! You can tell when my hands got shaky, especially on the blue parts, but overall, I'm happy with the results. :)

I did sort of start a new quilt this week though! I've jumped on the bandwagon for the Scrap Vortex along over at Crazy Mom Quilts. I wasn't feeling the best the other day, but I reallllllllly wanted to sew some. I didn't feel like I had the energy or the focus to quilt on the Supernova, so I just started grabbing scraps out of my bins and sewing them together. I made a nice little pile in no time at all! I don't have enough scraps to make a whole quilt (at least I don't think I do), but I can make it a work in progress and keep adding as I make more scraps. :)

Linking up with WIP Wednesday!

WIP Wedneday: Supah-Nova

LBC wasn't too thrilled that I woke him up while snapping this pic on my lunch today

Howdy y'all, hope your week is going well. Mine is being particularly tiring, but I'm hanging on for Friday! I managed to get a backing and batting on Monday, so basting is in process. I think I like just about every aspect of making a quilt...but I absolutely LOATHE basting. My husband was watching me as I was basically rolling around the living room floor, muttering at my quilt over how much I hated basting it. And to make that hatred even stronger, I got around halfway done and checked the back. Guess what I found?? A big, dumb crease. Right. Smack. In. The. MIDDLE! *deep breath* I had to undo a huge section of pins and re-pin it again. I'm about 2/3rds of the way done, so hopefully my back and neck can hang on long enough for me to finish it up tonight so I can get back to the sewing machine!

Btw, has anybody dropped by Crazy Mom Quilts and seen that she's hosting a Scrap Vortex-along?! I don't have enough scraps to make a whole quilt, but I think I'm going to go along for the ride and see what I can do. What about you guys??

Linking up with WIP Wednesday!

WIP Wednesday: Supernova Progress!

 Hump Day once again, y'all! I'm so happy to announce that all the Supernova blocks have been pieced! I don't know how it happened, but I was finding little snippets everyday where I could sneak off to my sewing space for a while and piece...and piece...and piece some more! By the time this gets posted, the top should already be partially done and will hopefully be finished by the end of the week.*ETA: I actually got a few columns sewn together before I took progress pictures, so you get a teeny-tiny sneak peek if you can overlook my filthy floor. :P

I had all the squares stacked up so nice and pretty, everything organized just right...then I started piecing the top and it looks like a hurricane blew through and knocked them everywhere! I barely tidied them up before snapping this picture, but I wish I had vacuumed all those stray threads and scraps out of the floor! Lol.Even my seat cushion ended up in the floor, though I'm not entirely sure how...

Thanks for stopping by y'all, have a great week! Linking up with WIP Wednesday.

WIP Wednesday: Not A Lot of Work...Not A Lot of Progress

Happy Hump Day y'all, hope your week is as nice as you are pretty! So on Friday, I was so stoked to have time off to be able to sew and do what I want over the weekend...guess how that turned out? Life got in the way, of course, and suddenly everybody needed me to go here or there, run errands, and do everything besides what I had planned. So is life, right? I did manage to cut ten billion (okay, not really but it felt like that many) squares for my newest quilt.

I saw the Supernova quilt in the book, Quilting Modern. The book has some awesome techniques in it and some really cool quilt designs. I've actually rented this book 3 times from the library in anticipation of getting to start this quilt!

I'm still not 100% sold on my fabric choices if I'm honest. Some people can pick fabric out almost effortlessly and have great taste. I am NOT one of those people. I struggle with fabric matching and coordinating like no other. My pictures aren't showing the true colors (the lightest yellow really washed out and some of the blues are showing up super dark), but I wish Jo Ann's had a wider selection of blue fabrics. On the plus side, I finally purchased some Kona solids! :) I can't remember what the gray background is, but the blue is Riviera I believe, and the yellow is Corn. Thank goodness for sales and coupons!

So here's to hoping I actually get some sewing done now! Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Linking up with Work In Progress Wednesday

WIP Wednesday: Trying out Quilt As You Go

Happy Hump Day y'all! The beginning of my week has been busy at work, so my feet and knees are already sore. Luckily, I got Wednesday off, so I get to have a little fun today. On Monday and Tuesday, I worked on this little QAYG (Quilt as you go) slab using this tutorial from Svetlana at S.o.t.a.k Handmade. It's a great tutorial, you should definitely check it out! I've never tried QAYG and was able to make this slab without any problems. Then, much to my delight, Svetlana also posted a tutorial on how to turn that slab into a pouch. If you've seen her pouches, you can understand my excitement! They are gorgeous and, no matter how many you look at, when you see one of hers, you know it's hers. It has a sort of...distinction?

My favorite part of the slab is this wee fox! :)

I couldn't resist sliding a little shark in too! He's from a quilt I made my cousin for Christmas. :)

Anywho, back to my slab! I've got it made, but I didn't have a zipper to start making a pouch. :P Thankfully, I'm having a shopping trip, armed with Jo Ann's coupons, so I should be coming home filled to the brim with crafty goodies. Yay!! See you back here Friday with a finished pouch (hopefully!)!

Linking up with Freshly Pieced!