A Couple of Quilted Hot Pads and some Bee Blocks

Last week I got to go to a bridal shower for my cousin.  Now that I have learned to make things, I love going to bridal/baby showers.  I love having the excuse to work on a fun, small project.  I couldn't decide between oven mitts and hot pads, so I compromised and made these hot pads with pockets.  I love how they turned out, even though they took quite a bit longer than I planned..

I did some research and found out that the bride's wedding colors are going to be mint green and silver (how gorgeous is that going to be, BTW?).  I immediately thought of this Lizzy house Pearl Bracelets print and since I didn't have anything remotely close to "mint green" in my stash, I went shopping!  I was super excited to find this Lotta Jansdotter Bella print that matched so well. 

The binding is from my stash - it's a little more mint blue, but I think it works.  And as luck would have it, the bride told me that these are her favorite colors, AND she loves polka dots!  I KNEW the Lizzy House print was the best choice.

I decided that I hated the original print I had used for the lining of the hot pads, so in the end I added the green/gray prints to the inside - that's why they aren't quilted like everything else.  Trust me, it looks TONS better!

I quilted one hot pad with pebbles and the other hot pad with echoes around the letter W (for their last name) and the big flower.

I didn't have quite enough fabric for binding, so I got to include a little pop of lighter gray in the corners and I like how modern it looks.  I stitched it down by hand because I really wanted it to look nice.  OUCHIE!  My fingers were sore after stitching through all of those thick layers!

I even remembered to add a loop for hanging!  Go me!

In other news, I have finished all of February's bee blocks!  Brittney asked for Ribbon Star Blocks in warm and cool colors.  Here are my two blocks:

I decided that I didn't like my original warm block.  I used some fabric from my stash for the background and I think it was a cotton/poly blend because it didn't sew very well and got SUPER wrinkly when I ironed it.  Sheesh.  No more cheap fabric for me!

Anyway, I felt bad for sending her a crappy block, so I made a new one - this one entirely from scraps.  Even the center is leftover from my Hello Sun blocks.   I like this one TONS better!

Also, I've been going to a new guild in my area.  I'm so excited that the Nebo Modern Quilt Guild has been formed!  It is SO much closer and more convenient for me to attend than some of the other modern quilt guilds I have considered.  I love it, even though I am obviously the youngest one there and there aren't a ton of ladies in my age range.  :p  It's all good though, we still have something in common and that's that we love to make quilts.  We have started a BOM for 2014 and here are my first two blocks.  The flower was done using needle turn applique - a completely new technique for me.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and I might do it again, but I do love the ease and quickness of raw edge applique!  ;)  I'm using a couple of charm packs of Joel Dewberry's True Colors line that I won HERE.  It was an awesome win and I'm excited to work with the colors. 

The End.


Linking up:

ALYOF: After the Storm progress

Okay, so this is going to be a boring post (particularly for those who are tired of hearing about my After the Storm quilt), sorry about that.  But I've got to share with you that I finished piecing the LAST block for my After the Storm quilt!  Now all that's left is to sew the borders up, baste, and quilt!  Oh, and bind (obviously).  The end is in sight - no more paper piecing on this bad baby.  So far I have paper pieced 381 units.  Holy cow, that sounds like a lot.  Thank heavens for chain piecing.  :)

 

Anyway.  My ALYOF goal for February was to finish all of these blocks, and I did!  I've even started putting the borders together.  (!!!)

Before

After

To keep this thing moving along, my goal for March is to have all of the 9 sections quilted (since it's going to be king sized, I'm using a sort of quilt-as-you-go method).  (Hopefully that counts as only one goal.)  It's a lofty goal, but I'm going to do my best to reach it.
 In case you are new here, you can get a glimpse of what the quilt will look like HERE.

My February goal setting post is HERE.  My entry was #63.

In other news, I've been making bee blocks and bridal shower gifts (more on those later) and I'm working on a few new quiet books for my shop.  I'm almost done with those too, so hopefully I can share them (and finally LIST them) soon!  Oh, and I've been happily plugging away on my Quilty Stitches Sampler Along, I'm on block three now.  :)

Linking up with Lee:

And Shanna/Melissa:

Stitching Along

Have you heard of the Quilty Stitches Sampler-Along happening at Little Miss Shabby?  Every two weeks, Corey introduces a new quilt block inspired crosstitch pattern to us.  They are SO cute (and tiny)!  She has introduced two blocks so far, but there is plenty of time to jump in!  Crosstitching was my first love and it just so happened that the timing for this stitch-along was PERFECT for me and I have been wanting to stitch a sampler for awhile.  YAY! 

Here is my first block, Swoon:

I raided my embroidery floss stash (which, apparently isn't as neat as some of the lovely ones shared in the Flickr group), and pulled out some blues, purples, greens, and oranges.  Some of these are only small pieces because they are leftover from kits, but I think I'll probably have enough.  I'm excited to make something bright and cheery!

I'm a little bit behind because I somehow got it into my head that I needed to stitch all of my sashing FIRST, so that I could have an outline for placing my "blocks."  And it took FOREVER.  Ah well.  I'm using a scrap piece of Aida and I wanted to make sure it was big enough for all of the blocks.  Unfortunately, as I sat down to write this post, I realized that the stitch-along is only going to have 16 blocks and I somehow managed to make 24 spots in my layout!  Geez.  I think I'll go through and take out the bottom two rows so that I have 18.  Then I'll either make up two more or repeat two of my favorites.  

My Aida fabric looks white, but it's actually a cream color. 

You should check out the Flickr group!  There are some fun color combinations happening over there.  I'm really liking the ones with the dark backgrounds and the ones with the backgrounds left unstitched.  But NO, I am NOT going to unpick all of that white stitching and start over...

In other crosstitchy news, I don't think I've ever shared this with you!

 

I made this for my sister and brother-in-law for Christmas.  It's about a year and a half late, but oh well.  I tried to match the colors to their wedding colors - lime green and silver.  I love this cute pattern.

 Also, I blogged about this Christmas scene already, but I wanted to show it to you one more time.  You can read more about it and see more pictures of it HERE.