Wordless Wednesday

Okay, so it's not Wednesday.  And it's not wordless.  I'll be more on the ball next time.  But I've been seein' a lot of people do this lately and I thought it might be a good motivator for me.  I might feel like I have nothing to blog about, but I can sure take a picture of something every once in awhile and stick it on here, right?  I might as well show a little bit of the process, rather than just the product.  What with school and everything (Parent Teacher Conferences are NEXT WEEK!!! GAH!!), I don't get a lot of sewing done, but I am ALWAYS in the middle of somethin'.  Can you guess what this is gonna be????

Blog Make-Over

I was reading THIS post today and I realized I haven't publicly thanked Madame Samm for the super nice thing she did for someone she has never even met before!  She gave my blog a makeover!  Isn't that nice?
I wasn't even planning on making my blog public for a little while longer, but she emailed me after I commented on one of her posts, telling me that she couldn't access my blog and wanted to see it.  That was the nudge I needed to put myself out there.  When she DID see my blog, she decided it needed a few changes.  So she offered to fix it up for me.  How generous, right?  I figured she would just move things around and add a new gadget or change the background.  But instead she did all that AND made me a new header!  Isn't it great?  I thought it was an especially nice thing for her to do since I am still a brand new no-name blogger with no fan base at all :) Somebody is sure lookin out for the little guys! 
Thanks Madame Samm!  I love it!

It's time!

I've decided to go ahead and make this little blog public, rather than just for my own personal enjoyment! I'm not sure how often I will be able to post, but I'm going to give it a try!  I really admire the people who are part of the quilt blogging world.  They are all so kind and generous.  And talented!  Yay! I have another blog, but I would like to focus it more on my family, you know? This will be my creative outlet, for those who are interested.  Should be lots of fun!  After all... I'm always sewin' SOMETHIN!

Angry Birds!

I saw this great tutorial on Obsessively Stitching and I just HAD to try it.  I mentioned it to the Hubbie (who is also and angry birds fan) and he chuckled a little but NEVER said he thought they would be dumb.  I think he might even like them.  I am going to stick them in his stocking.  :)

I accidentally sewed the pigs ears on backwards.  However, I wasn't about to go and redo it all at 10:00 at night.  So I just left them.  That's just the way it goes. :)

Snowman!

I just made this for my mom!  She keeps saying that she wants something handmade that won't break when little kids play with it.  Hopefully this won't break!
As for how I made it - well, I sort of just made it up as I went along.
However, the idea was jumpstarted by this tutorial, and I made the little flower on the Santa hat using this tutorial.

A baby shower and a few holiday items...

Here are some pictures of things I have made recently:

This is a blanket I made for my old roommate Katie.  I had to take pictures of it in the morning before I left for school, so the colors don't come through very well...

I made these little pumpkins around Halloween.  I wanted something cute to put up on this shelf.

I also wanted to try my hand a few new quilting techniques, so I made this little table runner.

It was time for a new tree skirt - since we have never had one...
I designed this and made it all by myself.  I almost don't want to put presents under the tree because that would cover it up!  Jeremy picked out the blue fabric. 

A close up.  If you look REALLY closely at the stitching in the blue fabric (which I did with blue thread - sorry) you can see that I quilted in a few snowflakes.  That was fun.

And here it is with our tree.  I have been putting off taking pictures of it all, since I never seem to be home when the sun is shining so any pictures I take turn out dark.  However, my one chance to take pictures in good lighting was Sunday, and I forgot.  So these aren't the best of picture.  What can you do.

Birthday Stuff

I have sort of been sewing up a storm recently.
I made my first big quilt top, and this is the best picture I have of it.  All the other ones are pretty bad.  It isn't finished yet because I have to quilt it and I'm a little nervous about that.

But I HAVE made a few other things.
For Shannan's birthday, Kimberly made this little crosstitch and I turned it into a pillow.  I even designed the hearts all by myself!

Then, for Angie's birthday, I decided at the very last minute that I wanted to make her a bookcase quilt.  When I first saw a picture of something like this I figured it would be PERFECT for my book loving, editing graduate sister.  SO I worked long and hard on it and had it ready... a few weeks after her birthday.  I hope Pal likes it.  There are MANY flaws in it, especially since I am still learning how to quilt.  Hopefully nobody looks too closely at the stitching on the back of the quilt.  And if you notice something odd about the design, I'll just go ahead and point it out to you.  The two slanted books on the top shelf are FLOATING.  I forgot that I needed to have both books touch the bottom of the shelf.  Ah well.  You wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't pointed it out, right?

And there you have it.  Just a few things I have been doing in my spare time.