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.

Not a Finish Friday, But There's Eye Candy!

Howdy y'all! No finish here today, but I have some progress and some eye candy! First off, I finished some of the improv squares for my Supernova quilt. After working on this for a couple of days, I'm more confident with my fabric. It's looking better now that it's coming together I feel like! I think I might be a quarter to a third of the way done now, but I'm not sure. The instructions are upstairs and I'm too tired to trek up there to double check. *hides under lazy quilt*

I'm having fun with this stitch and flip technique! It's so fun to just put fabric together and sew, not worrying about precision or rules. I just make sure I have the right colors in the right corners and let 'er rip! Once I got into a groove, I had a little assembly line going for my squares. :)

And onto the eye candy! A squishy bag of happiness arrived in the mail today and I literally squealed for joy when my husband threw it at me. I don't buy much fabric online, usually because of prices and because I'm still not too confident in matching colors on a screen. But Connecting Threads has a nice sale section and I might have fallen in love with the mermaid fabric. I immediately knew it needed to be made into a quilt for a little girl ASAP. Granted, I don't have a little girl to make a quilt for, but I knew it would find a home if I made it. :) So into my cart went the mermaids, narwhals, and seahorses, joined by that yellow print that reminds me of sand dollars.

How could I say no to the cutest little duo ever?

Then I found the Cotton and Steel. I've never actually bought Cotton and Steel fabric before, but I've been crushing on it so hard, I couldn't resist. The third fabric over (the navy with multi-colored fronds) isn't C+S, but I tossed it in there anyway. I like the print and it was dirt cheap on a really good sale. I'm behind the party with the arrow fabric, but better late than never, right? Hahaha. I also tossed some of the little critters in there too, aren't they darling?

I just want to squeeze their little cheeks!

I've never been one to save selvages, but Jenn over at A Quarter Inch From the Edge is a selvage saver and has made some cool stuff with them! So I snapped a quick pic of the ones that were actually cool. I love the C+S one about leaping. :)

Have an awesome weekend y'all, thanks for stopping by!

Linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday

WIP Wednesday: One Lonely Arrow

After finishing up my quilt last week, I had to accept a sad fact...I don't have enough fabric to make a complete quilt anymore. However, my birthday fell on Sunday, so I got some money from my lovely Dad for my own shenanigans. So I'm hoping for a trip to Jo Ann's come Saturday! Until then, a smaller project would have to hold me over. :)

I took a gander at my overstuffed Pinterest boards (it's truly an abomination how much time I spend on there. Hahaha!), trying to decide what seemed fun to make. I love the look of scrappy feathers, but since I don't have a printer and wasn't feeling up to drafting up my own pattern pieces before my weekend kennel shift, I decided on an arrow instead! I stumbled across this tutorial and figured I would give it a whirl! It seemed simple enough, so I drug out my fabric and got started.

Tip #1 for myself if I, or you, do this in the future: Don't be stingy with your fabric! I tried to make a shorter pieced section to cut from and, of course, it turned up too short and I had to start over. Thankfully, I had enough fabric to retry without having to substitute anything, so no harm, no foul. :) Also, between both tries, I have a lovely little stack of scraps to work with!

This was my first time making flying geese (is it a flying goose if it's only one??). I didn't have time to look up proper techniques, so I just sort of winged it. I feel like I do that far too often, but it seemed to work out well this time! I'm hoping to add to this some and turn it into a pillow, which is something I've actually not done before. So what do you guys make when you need to/have to make a smaller project? I'd love to hear about it! Happy Hump Day y'all!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced! 

Can One Person Make a Difference?

Happy Monday y'all! I worked the weekend, so today is technically the beginning of my weekend which is why I'm so peppy! My goal was to not get too wordy on this blog, but this post required a little story time for me to get to my point, so please bear with me.

Back in February when my neck of the woods was being pummeled by snow, I was snuggled up in bed in our spare bedroom. I was nice and toasty, most likely with a full belly, watching the snow fall. I remember being so glad that I wasn't outside again; I had stayed outside after getting off work one night to shovel our cars out of the snow drifts. And then I got thinking about the people who didn't have a warm bed to snuggle into like I did. Or a roof over their head to protect them from the below-zero temperatures and blizzards. I felt enormously thankful, but also, kind of sad. And then I wondered if I could do anything to change that?

Little Black Cat was in a photobombing mood today, so all of the pictures have him in it. :)

Since graduating from college, I've been plagued by the thought of I'm just one person, what can I do to change anything? I laid there a little bit, rolling all this around in my head. I couldn't shake the nagging feeling in my mind or my heart that I couldn't just let the issue drop. And that's when it hit me. Maybe I could make a little difference? And so I jumped out of bed and scrambled for the computer, researching (aka Pinterest-surfing) and came to my answer. I could craft a difference!

Just a few of the scarves I have ready to donate.

So I started that night. I made baby hats for the NICU and started a scarf that would hopefully keep somebody less fortunate warm in the blistering cold. I made a goal to make things all year long to go towards different charitable causes because, let's be honest, my yarn stash is *deep breath* too big. I try to make at least 1 baby hat a week, but if I'm settled in for the evening, I can crank out a few depending on what size I make! I've been using this free pattern. After I make quite a few, I'm planning to give them to one of the hospitals in my area if they will accept them. If not, there are organizations I can mail them to. So no matter what, I can do some sort of good and make a small difference hopefully. :)


What about y'all? Do you craft for charities? If so, what do craft and for who? I would love to hear about it!

-Jennifer

Work in Progress Wednesday

HUMP DAAAYYYY! (Yes, I'm one of those people!) Hope your Wednesday finds you well! On my design wall this week is a project you will probably see on more than one WIP Wednesday. After seeing so many beautiful orange peel quilts, with the kicker being the bold colors on low volume version at Crazy Mom Quilts, I decided to give it a whirl. I started this a while back (think January), but it's a nice project to have on hand when I have an appointment to go to or I just want to snuggle into the couch and not venture upstairs into my sewing space.

I'm not much for hand sewing. I just don't have the patience for it, but I love the look of hand sewn orange peels. So I looked up the freezer paper method and pulled different techniques from several sources before embarking on what is sure to be a looooooooong project. As you can see, these peels are far from perfect, but I am proud of the progress I can see as I make more of them. Most of these fabrics are fat quarters I picked up at Jo Ann's (I got into the habit of picking up one or two fat quarters nearly every time I visited, so I accumulated enough to start this project without much fuss.)

I'm not sure how big I will make this. At times, I want it to be enormous! And other times, I'm fed up with it and debate on making it a pillow. Hahaha. We'll just see where the fabric leads me. :)
Linking up with Freshly Pieced!

-Jennifer