A Few Goals

I didn't quite meet my goal for last month's ALYOF link up, or the Finish Along Q1 link up.  I was SOOOO close, though!  My goal was to finish quilting my After the Storm quilt, and I had a few setbacks (Etsy orders, ripping out lots of quilting), but I won't go into that now.  Luckily, this should make my April goal easy because this quilt is still at the very top of my list.

For April, my plan is to FINISH "After the Storm."  Yay!

Also, it's time to share my goals for the Finish Along, Quarter 2.  I know I am not going to reach all of these goals, but I want to have all my current projects out there, even though most of them are just fabric stacks (with a plan) at the moment.  Here they are:

1.  Finish "After the Storm."  I don't want to give too much away before the big reveal (hopefully in a few weeks), but here are some sneak peaks at the quilting (obviously no cleaning fairies were disturbed in the taking of these pictures...):

2. Finish "Deck the Halls."  The top is finished, and the back has been started.

3.  Make my twin toddler bed quilts.  I'm using "Cruizer Blvd" and I'm planning to make one Jungle Path quilt and one Broken Herringbone quilt.

4.  Building Fun quilt.  I bought THIS pattern on sale from Geta Grama (check it out, it's SO cute!) a few weeks ago and after much debate, I finally settled on this stack of fabric from my stash (actually, I won this in a giveaway.  Thanks, LethargicLass!).  I've been wanting to make this quilt FOREVER, so I'm excited.  I think I'll probably list it in my shop when it's finished.

5.  Secret project for one of my family members.  I don't want to give anything away, but here's a hint:

6.  I'm not sure, but I think I want to make another Hello Sun set for my MIL.  We'll see what happens.

7.  I got these charm packs for Christmas and I intend to turn them into another Puff Quilt, probably for the shop if nobody around me has a baby girl anytime soon.  :)

8.  I think I might turn these charms into a raggy puff quilt too.  Or maybe I'll make one from the chevron flannels.

9.  My Etsy shop is in need of a few more bib sets and I plan to use some of these fabrics to make a few more.

10.  I'm also planning on making a Letters Quiet book.  I've got it all planned out, the patterns, printed, and a pile of supplies.  I don't have a picture of it, but here's one of my Shapes book in progress:

11.  I also got this Jelly Roll for Christmas and it needs to become a quilt.  I'm thinking something with stacked coins, maybe.  

Edited 4/9/14:
12.  I highly doubt that I will finish this one before the quarter is over, but I'm going to add it to the list so I don't forget about it.
I've been wanting to make a sampler quilt for a long time now.  We just scored a new King sized bed and I'm thinking we need a new quilt for it!  I'm thinking of using some of my stash of Oakshotts:

Or maybe mix in a few of these Simple Color cuts I picked up on sale the other day:

The hubby doesn't want any girly colors, and he also doesn't seem to like bright rainbow colors like I do.  I'm thinking lots of blue and green will keep him happy (with a pop of something else, just for fun).  I'm thinking I'll probably do Faith's Solstice Stars, or Lee's Summer Sampler.  I'll pair them with lots and lots of negative space, probably in Gray.



Whew!  That's all I can think of for now.  Here's to a productive quarter!

Cruiser Blvd: The Beginnings of Two Toddler Quilts

Well, it's almost time.  At some point in the next several months (hopefully not too soon) my boys will be ready to graduate from the crib and move to toddler beds.  This means they will need new quilts for their brand new beds!  Yay! 

 I spent some time during our Christmas break looking for ideas.  I decided it was time to try making something with a Jelly roll so I pinned tons of jelly roll quilts on my Pinterest board.  Then I picked 7 or 8 and mocked up generic versions in Excel and let the Hubby pick two.  Sometimes he complains that I ask for his advice but never actually use it (this doesn't ever happen to you, does it?), so I am sticking to the ones he chose - and I'm super excited about it!  He picked Jungle Path and Broken Herringbone:

THIS IS NOT MY PHOTO.  CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO VISIT MODA BAKE SHOP

THIS IS NOT MY PHOTO.  CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO VISIT MOLLI SPARKLES

And then I got to pick out fabric!  I decided I wanted to make two quilts using different patterns, but the same fabric line.  Matching, but not matching, you know?  That's the way we do it around here with our twins.  :)  Once again, I found 6 or 7 lines that I liked and left it up to Hubby to choose.  He chose Cruiser Blvd by Sheri McCulley for Riley Blake, which is perfect!  The Hubby is a transportation engineer, so he loves all the road signs and stuff.

And the best part is, I found this FULL FQ bundle on clearance at Fabric Fly Shop.  Since I would have needed three jelly rolls to have enough fabric for both quilts, and this bundle cost about the same as one jelly roll (don't hate me...), I jumped on it.  So I'll be making two jelly roll quilts with fat quarters.  It's all good.

I was SO excited to get this package in the mail!  (I have never bought an entire line of fabric before.  Usually I buy only what I need for a specific project.)  When it arrived, I didn't even wait to open it and spread it all out on my kitchen table to admire it.  :)  And then I put it all back together and took some nice pictures of it...

 

I've decided to do one mostly green quilt and one mostly blue quilt.  As of right now, these are my fabric groupings.  The green one will be Broken Herringbone and the blue one will be Jungle Path.  I'm going to use the little hexies and the stripes for binding (the two yellow prints are leftovers). 

What do you think?  I'm still a little unsure.  Is the pop of red in the green stack too much?  Should I switch it for one of the yellows?

On another note, the other day when I was working on bee blocks, one of my boys came in to "play" with me.  We'd been struggling quite a bit with nap time and I kept ending up with two toddlers taking naps at DIFFERENT times (NO FUN).  So one day while Jaxson was napping, I brought Bronx in to sew with me.  I sat him on my lap and chain pieced a bunch of blocks while he watched.  Then while I was ironing them, he went through one of my fabric drawers and brought over a pile of fabric to "sew" (don't worry - I took the needle out as soon as I realized what he was doing and of course the machine was turned off).  At first he put a piece of fabric up on the extension table and waited for something to happen.  It was so cute.  When the fabric refused to move by itself, he reached up and started pushing it through like I did (hence the big pile of fabric on the other side).  He would also wiggle the presser foot with his fingers because he knew it was supposed to go up and down while the fabric moved through.  I think he's a cute kid.  Boots in the house and all.

Linking up:

WIP: Taking Stock

I've learned over the past few years that I'm not the kind of girl who likes to work on a whole bunch of projects at once.  I hate leaving things unfinished, so I'd rather finish one project before moving on to the next one.  However, these past few weeks I have been trying to balance several different types of projects - sewing for ME and sewing for my brand new ETSY SHOP.  I think it's time to take stock of what's in the works!

First of all, I got sucked into Jen's One Block Wonder quilt-along.  It's been a good in-between project while I wait for new fabric to come in the mail.  :)  Read about my beginnings HERE.  I'm almost finished with my second set of hexies and then it's layout time!  I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with this quilt, but I needed to sew something just for fun.  This is going to turn out really cool.  And the finished product photos will probably be about a million times better than these...

I recently listed custom quilted growth charts in my shop and I'm so happy to have my first order!!!
I'm making a BYU themed growth chart that's going to look awesome when it's finished (GO COUGARS).  I'm just waiting for more fabric to come in the mail.

I'm also making a blue/green/gray growth chart for a little boy who will be arriving soon!  It seems like I need to go fabric shopping again... oh darn.  ;)

But seriously, these are going to be super cute.  I'll keep you posted.

A few months ago (ACK!) I was lucky enough to win a giveaway from Sew Lux Fabric (through Blossom Heart Quilts' Kate Spain blog hop).  (Great service at Sew Lux, BTW.  Super fast shipping too!)  Geez, I think I have a love hate relationship with gift cards!  They are the best kinds of giveaways to win, because you get to choose whatever you want with them, but I sat on my gift card for like three months before I finally decided what to use it on!

I'm thinking about making a puff quilt from these to list in my shop.  But who knows.  Maybe I'll change my mind.  Maybe I'll make a few more bibs/burp cloths for the shop.

I've already got a girly car seat canopy listed in the shop, so I've decided to make a boy version.  I'm thinking of using this fabric with brown minky, mostly because I have SO MUCH of it:

Most of my time lately has been spent on Quiet Books.  I've decided to list a few in the shop and I'm working on samples.  I'm planning to do four different books.  I've got about 1 1/2 in the works right now with the other two in planning stages.

I picked up these flannel chevrons awhile back - I'm thinking more baby items.  Maybe these will be part of a giveaway soon?

And of course, my poor neglected Storm at Sea quilt.  It has been a WIP for a LOOOONG time.  Which is kind of sad, because it's going to turn out AMAZING.  Maybe I'm just nervous about quilting it.  Either way, I've set myself a deadline for this quilt, but it's still pretty far away.  I've designated this my "Sunday" project, so that I'm not tempted to stress over Etsy stuff on Sundays when I should be resting. ;)  I'm about halfway finished with my Snail Trail blocks.  I can't wait to show you what they will look like all together! 

Well, I guess this turned out being a post mainly about fabric.  And my Etsy Shop, which I'm sure you're tired of hearing about.  Yeah, sorry about that.  I promise my next post will be all about quilting!  I better go sew some fabric together!

The Beginnings of a One Block Wonder

Have you heard about the One Block Wonder quilt along happening over at Quilter in the Closet?

When I first saw Jen's quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, I was floored!  The whole thing is made from ONE cut of fabric!   Seriously, you should check it out.  It's amazing.  Luckily, Jen got such a big response to her One Block Wonder quilt, that she decided to host a quilt-along!

I was pretty excited about it at first, but then realized that I might not be able to participate right now due to my current fabric diet.  This quilt requires a large amount of one single fabric.  Finally, I decided to go through my stash and see what I had that was at least a half yard and fit the design requirements.  This is what I came up with:

In the end, I let the Hubby pick for me and he picked the masks:

From that, I cut groups of 6 triangles from exactly the same spot in the print and started putting them together.  It works!  My cutting isn't perfect - I don't have the fancy ruler or pins called for in the book, but I think it's fine.  :)

All 14 hexies are ready for me to decide where to put them in my layout. Cool, huh?  And these all started out as one big cut of the same fabric.

Here's the thing - 14 hexies isn't really enough for a quilt.  Maybe a big pillow.  I'm thinking about making another set of hexies using the other African fabric from my first photo and mixing them in.  What do you think?

A Lovely Year of Finishes February Goal

My goodness!  It seems like I have been posting a lot lately.  I guess that's what happens when I make lots of little things instead of one big huge thing.

I was too late to jump on the Lovely Year of Finishes bandwagon last month, but I figured I might as well join in this month.  I have a few goals for February, but of course since I had to narrow it down to just one for this link-up, I am picking the one that needs an extra boost of motivation!

Way back in 2011 I won this African Spirit fabric from Sew We Quilt.  At first glance, the Hubby told me I should make a skirt out of it.  I've been planning to ever since.  Maybe a knee length skirt using the blue or orange florals?  Or possibly the Tiki Masks if I am feeling adventurous?

Well, there you have it.  I am committed.  Among my other current projects (which feels a little strange to me - I'm not one to have several WIPs going at the same time), I am going to make myself a skirt.  Something that is definitely out of my comfort zone.  Wish me luck!

Check out what everyone else is working on this month here:

Some of my current favorite fabrics...

I've been playing with different ideas for baby items lately.  I have so many favorite fabrics right now!  Mostly anything by Anne Kelle:

 I just LOVE these little cars/planes/trains/helicopters!

And these are my favorite animal prints:

Also, "All Star 2 from My Minds Eye":

Here are a bunch of other cute things I found:

Have you guessed yet?  Yep - the doctor thinks we are having two BOYS!  It's still pretty early, but my doctor seemed pretty confident.  I'm excited to start making things with boy fabric!  Yay!