2012 Finishes

2012 has definitely been a productive year for me. I managed to finish Dave's quilt, which was actually my first finished quilt!

I also finished a tree skirt for my Christmas tree (useless this year since I had to move back in with my parents) but I also finished one for Dave's tree at his apartment.

Both used this pattern - the Speedy Spiral Tree Skirt.  It's super easy to make, and super cute!

 

I finished 2 UFO's that have been hanging around for a while.  My disappearing 9 patch that I started last November

 

And also my Pennsylvania Pavement quilt using fabric I bought on my study abroad trip in Africa.

 

Not a bad year for me considering I haven't finished anything before!

I'm interested to see how much I can get done in 2013. I have MANY projects that I've been buying fabric for but haven't even started yet.  Not to mention the 4 Judy Niemeyer patterns I bought! Haha, it will be a busy year if I can stay on top of things :)

My first FINISHED quilt!

This is my first finished quilt! It's actually the third one that I started, but first done :) It was a present for Dave :) He worked really hard this year for his new job and I figured he deserved a bit of handmade love :)

It is a pattern called Opposites Attract by Anka's Treasures. You use 2.5" strips and a 60degree triangle ruler.

Picking fabric was really hard for this. I wanted blues and greens (his favorite colors) but no flowers or anything girly.

I even found him fabric that had fish on because he loves to fish!

I wanted a simple pattern for the quilting because my machine isn't really set up for quilting (mainly because I don't have a walking foot...) I did a hexagon shape inside the outer hexagon and a triangle inside the inner hexagon. Here it is from the front:

And also from the back:

The tricky part was the binding! Honestly there wasn't one single right angle on this entire thing. I am also not a fan of inner corners now! Not what you should try the first time you have to put binding on.

The hand stitching may not be the best, but for my first time hand stitching it should hold up pretty good. The night before I gave it to him I spent 7 hours hand stitching the binding to make sure that I got it done. My hand was definitely cramping by the end of those 7 hours. But now I know to not procrastinate for the next one! All in all I was really happy with how it turned out. Frustrating along the way at times, but I think he really liked it :) I'm proud of my work! :) And I am super proud of Dave and his accomplishments and I know he deserved this special gift :)

Etsy is a new obsession

Hey another thing I can blame my mom for... Because without her saying something I never would have thought to look on Etsy to find fabric! The only Black Friday shopping I did this year was to buy a Terrain jelly roll. And mainly because I've recently realized that once stores sell out of their fabric the companies aren't going to reprint the stuff. I have no intentions of making anything soon with this fabric, but if I didn't buy it now then I wouldn't get to make anything! Isn't it pretty!?

I got it from So Fun Fabric's Etsy shop because it was the best price around! The owner is super awesome because she mailed it out right away for me too. I bought it at like 1am Black Friday and before noon I got an email that it was shipped out. Awesome!

Since then I've found even more reason to love Etsy. There is an awesome line of fabric called Bon Vivant which has Paris-themed fabric. Can only find it on Etsy. I found an awesome London-themed fabric (from a British company!) that again is only affordable off Etsy. Srsly, I am totally hooked now!

I love winning things :)

Really I do love it. I mean, what isn't awesome about free stuff!? I managed to win some fabric from the August Fab Shop Hop. Fab Shop Hop is interesting because you get to visit a ton of different quilt stores online and look for a little bunny icon. If you collect so many you get entered in to different levels for prizes. I won 4 yards of fabric in various shades of white! These pictures are not the best at all since my camera doesn't like white on white, but you get the idea of what I won.
At least some of this fabric I think I'm going to use to finish my Christmas quilt using Kate Spain's Flurry fabric. I needed white fabric anyways and the one at least looks like it fits in good!

The second thing I won recently came from Quilt Dad's blog. He had a contest as part of the Modern Mix blog tour. Quilt dad had a contest and I won a fat quarter bundle of Kingdom, designed by Jessica Levitt (who also wrote Modern Mix.) And it was super easy to win because all I had to do was pick out a lie from a little game of 2 Truths and a Lie! How freaking easy is that!? I just picked a random statement and after Quilt Dad did his little magical pick of the correct answers I was a winner :) This fabric is so me! I love the purples, blues and greens! I still have no idea what I want to make with it. I'm so bad at picking out patterns for things. I have a ton of lines of fabric that I want to get, but no clue what I would make with any of it. Although, I really do like this pattern It's called Carnival and was designed by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts. I like that one but I think I need to find a book that has patterns for FQ bundles. Just so I can get some more ideas of what I could make with it!

I am super thankful that I won these things :) I mean, AC doesn't pay anything really so it's hard for me to get any fabric to make projects with. (Like the fabric for the Christmas presents I'm making may have come from the super reduced clearance section at Jo-Anns... but they're still designs I know people will like!) So being broke doesn't match well with the cost of fabric these days. So anything I can get for free helps - so thanks Fab Shop Hop and Quilt Dad! :)

Oh hey little blog....

I am really a bad blogger... So much has happened since I last posted!

I now live in Pittsburgh again! Yay for moving home after 6 years in Ohio! I have a new AmeriCorps position here. The non-profit takes donated (and still useful) medical supplies from local hospitals to send to Latin America and the Caribbean. I get to work with volunteers to pack the supplies to get shipped out. This AC year I thought would be better than the last, but I'm still frustrated with how things are going. I swear I can't catch a break :(

Dave is in the middle of a big application process for a new job. And it's a real job - no more of this part time BS with Walmart. It's an awesome opportunity and has great benefits. I would get into more details but with the nature of the job I'm not sure how much I can say about it. I just don't want him to get in any trouble. The only thing that sucks is he will probably get moved out of Pittsburgh :( So we'll be back to a long distance relationship again. :(

As for my crafty aspirations - I haven't really accomplished anything since I last posted. My sewing machine has been broken since August and I just got it back Friday from getting fixed. Apparently they don't make a part anymore that it needs so it's questionable if I can wind bobbins on it. But it does sew things. I made Dave a Penn State pillow case as a much-belated going back to school present. Thankfully he didn't think it was too cheesy because he wants a matching one made now :) I still need to finish quilting and binding my Africa quilt. My machine is not made for quilting so it's a pain to do and I'm just avoiding it anymore... But I got my Flurry pieces all laid out for my disappearing 9 patch Christmas lap quilt. I just have to start sewing them this week since I have my machine again!

I blame my mom

No, this is not one of those "Arg my mom is evil and ruining my life!" posts. No, it's more my mom is an awesome crafty person and has got me completely hooked on another one of her passions....quilting.

I always thought quilting was kind of cool because you got to make something that you could use everyday (like a quilt) or hang something pretty in your house (like the Bargello quilt she made for my Grandma that I have LOVED since the mid-90s.) I always thought it was cool that other people could do it. And then I started quilting too. I am by no means a good quilter. I'm a beginner. But I am still TOTALLY hooked on it.

That quilt show in June that we went to, I think that was my tipping point. I tried to be good and only buy fabric for what I was currently working on (the Africa quilt) or my next project (the penguin applique quilt.) I was careful with what I bought but I kept getting these awesome ideas for things I wanted to work on (most importantly a Christmas quilt!)

And then I went to camp the other week and the theme was Rethink Christmas. Basically, getting to the true meaning of Christmas when you don't have all the materialism going on. I had taken a sewing class as one of my craft classes and I kept thinking how awesome it would be if I just had a Christmas quilt that I could work on.

I looked through some of mom's old quilt books and I've been looking online for a Christmas pattern that I liked and I haven't found a lot that really struck me. I wanted either a quilt I could make or a cool tree skirt design that I could make. Then Friday I found this at Half Price Books:
It has quilt patterns, table runners, stockings, wall hangings and a tree skirt! Runs the gamut from secular to religious too :)

And then last night... It first started off with me becoming slightly obsessed with Kate Spain and Moda. I LOVE this fabric!
And then I noticed that Fab Shop Hop bunny.... I visited more freaking fabric/quilting/sewing websites last night than I ever have. I have so many ideas for things I want to do now and fabric I want to buy!

I called my mom today and told her about this. She laughed for a good solid minute at me. She is thrilled that her daughters are following in her footsteps. But finds it hilarious how much time I spent online looking at fabric last night. (No more 2am nights for me....) She happened to be on her way to the quilt store in Finleyville and promised to buy me 2 of the Flurry charm packs so I could make this disappearing 9 patch quilt!
The instructions are here from the Moda Bake Shop. And you can thank Rachel at p.s. I quilt for it's awesomeness. I can't wait to get home to get the fabric from mom and make it :)

Red Rooster Quilts

Do you ever have one of those moments when you walk into a place and you're awestruck but what you see? Usually this happens to me on vacations when we go to cool museums. Today this happened when I walked into Red Rooster Quilts in Dublin, Ohio. I was not expecting to see that much freaking fabric!

I was in heaven. Pure bliss. Pure awesomeness. I went trying to find fabric for my penguin quilt. Most of the quilt you can basically use scraps for but I wanted to make sure all my penguin bodies matched. I think I spent an hour and a half in there... That's a long time for me. I kept wanting to buy Christmas fabric because I want to make a Christmas quilt and a tree skirt for my tree. But I've vowed not to buy any fabric ever again unless I have a pattern in mind. Plus I can't work on several projects at once...

I probably had 20 fabrics that I picked out that I wanted to buy though. Being a good girl I put most of them back since I plan on raiding mom's scrap fabric when I'm home next weekend. I did buy the black and white fabric for the penguins and a blue/white fabric that I can use in the one ice skating scene. It's days like today that make me wish I was rich so that I could buy everything!

NQA Quilt Show

I've been wanting to make a blog for some time now but wasn't really sure what all to write about or how to start it. I figure what better way to start than to write about going to the NQA Quilt show!

My mom has always been a super crafty person and I've dabbled in things here and there with her. When I was in Africa in 2009 I bought some fabric not having a clue what I wanted to do with it but knowing that mom would help me with whatever I wanted to make. What I ended up making was a full size quilt using an adapted Pennsylvania Pavement pattern.


The Botswana fabric is this brown and white fabric:


So I headed to the NQA show today looking for some extra fabric for the backing (I'm using the rest of the Botswana brown for part of it) and some fabric for the binding. I didn't really find anything I liked for the backing but I found a cool fabric for the binding:


I also managed to find an awesome penguin quilt that I want to make.


It will end up a bit different that this pattern. One reason is that I have new penguin fabric to go with it :)


And some cute snowflake fabric to use in the background of the patches


In addition to this all I found some other cool fabrics. These two I'm saving for a Christmas quilt I want to make




And this one (from Indonesia!) I'm sure quite what I want to do with it. But for only $1 I couldn't pass up an awesome foreign fabric




My sisters both came to show too. We recently found out that we're 4th generation quilters. I knew mom quilted but I had NO idea that my Grandma Birkel or my Great-Grandma quilted. It's kind of awesome to say that we're all quilters now :) Kelly wants to work on a giraffe quilt. She spent most of the time not really finding anything she liked but almost at the end she found a cool pattern that she can do applique giraffes with and then found fabric that looked like giraffe skin! I'm pretty excited to see how her quilt turns out :) Allison found a pattern for a dragon quilt and started buying fabric for that. My mom had a list of fabric to buy so she could finish a few projects. She got some Civil War reprints that she wanted but nothing else on her list. Pretty sure I get my procrastination for finishing projects from my mom haha :)