A Quilt to Crown a Royal: A Finished Commission!

Guess which side my 5'4" mom was on and which side my 6'3" dad was on. Poor mom was stretching as tall as she could and still couldn't get it straight! LOL

Howdy y'all! I can't tell you how excited I am to finally be able to say 'Look at this finish!'. I've been working on this commission for what feels like forever, but the end has finally arrived! This quilt was a commission for a coworker's boyfriend. He gave me a bag full of Crown Royal bags and said to have fun. The only guideline was that is needed to be king sized.

My parents' poor bed was dwarfed by this king-sized monster!

I didn't reinvent the wheel with this design, but I did draw it up on paper and audition different layouts before settling on this one. It really made me feel like a designer when I was coloring in my little notebook! :)

I learned a lot with this quilt. For example: No more king size quilts! Lol. To the ladies and gents that make quilts this large on a regular basis, you are super heroes! I was exhausted after lugging this monster around. I also got my fill of log cabin blocks to last me for a long while, I'm sure.

I did loop-dee-do quilting in the yellow areas and did some minimal straight line quilting around some seams in the purple areas. In the borders, I alternated some purple and white straight lines around the seam lines.

Now that this one has been delivered, I can finally take a breath it feels like! It's so good to have this one off my shoulders, I'm proud I finished it! :)

Linking up with Finish it Up Friday and Needle and Thread Thursday!

Finish It Up Friday: A Finish is a Finish, No Matter How Small!

Yikes, y'all! It feels like I blinked and February was gone! It zoomed by in a fun-filled blur, so I can't complain.
The crew and I enjoyed some very unseasonal warmth, catching some rays on the back porch.

It's back to cold and rainy now, but these days were ah-mazing!

We even made a new friend!

This is my new cousin! :)

I've been enjoying myself more than I have in a long time, and guys, it has felt so good. :)


And of course, part of that fun has been at my sewing machine! I finally got around to making a pixie basket! This tutorial was uber popular a while back, but I just never got around to making one back then. I use two layers of batting rather than batting and muslin, so mine is a little squishy, but it is still wonderful and I love it!

PUG LIFE!

It's so cute and tiny!

I also made myself a little magnetic pin dish! I'm bad for dropping pins or keeping them in my mouth when I sew because I don't want to look at my pin cushion when I'm focused on sewing straight seams. I figured this may help since I just have to set it in the dish and the magnet will do the rest! This cost less than $5 to make (yay for coupons and sales at Hobby Lobby!) and most of the construction time was me dancing around waiting for the glue gun to heat up. Lol. I've used this and I love it so far!

Alsoooooo, I've been quilting the heck out of the Crown Royal quilt. I was terrified to start quilting this king sized monster, but besides some tension issues in the beginning, it's actually been really good. My machine has been amazing! I'm down to quilting the borders, then it will be time to bind and deliver! :D

So all in all, a very busy, very happy month! By mid-March, I may have some cool news to share, so keep your fingers crossed! Happy stitching, y'all!

The Commission That Made Me Laugh

Howdy y'all! Hope your week is looking a bit more bearable now that we've hit the hump! As promised, I have some progress to share with you.

A while back, a coworker of mine said her boyfriend wanted to pay me to make a quilt. Thing is, he didn't want a typical quilt. He wanted a Crown Royal quilt. I'm no connoisseur of alcohol, but I'm pretty sure Crown Royal is rum, right? Regardless, the bottles come wrapped in these nifty little purple and gold bags. And this guy didn't have a few of these bags. Oh no, he had an entire garbage bag full of them - I'm talking more than a hundred of them! Apparently he's been saving them for years just for a project like this! I was rolling with laughter when she told me about it, but I agreed to do it. Who doesn't love a good challenge?!

Purple and gold for dayyyyyssss!

Anywho, he gave me free reign to do whatever I please, he just wanted the bags involved. He ended up deciding he wanted a king sized quilt (YIKES!), but thankfully has no deadline set for finishing and simply said to ask whenever I needed money for supplies and whatnot.

I had hand cramps for days after cutting all the logos off the bags and squaring them up, though I know I've got a few more bags squirreled away somewhere if I need them. And I've been making slow progress piecing blocks. I didn't want anything too difficult, but I wasn't feeling anything overly simple either. In the end, one of my doodles of some log cabin blocks grabbed me and I ran with it!

My sewing table stays in organized chaos anymore, especially with this project in full swing! I'm hoping to get at least another round on the in progress blocks on top tonight! 

I laid all my blocks together a little while back and I'm absolutely loving how things are shaping up so far! I'm hoping to be finished piecing blocks soon-ish so I can get the top together and share the full effect with y'all. I'm absolutely dreading basting this bad boy and, being totally honest, the thought of quilting it on the First Born has me shivering in my boots! But I'm ready to tackle it and make something I'm proud of! :)

Happy Hump Day, y'all! I'll be back on Saturday to share a finish!