Postpartum quilting

I'm getting to quilt for the first time since having our baby girls. :) More details to come. 

Rearranging

A VERY long time ago I made this quilt top. In fact this was the first thing I ever sewed...and I was overwhelmed by the task of quilting it so I set it aside.

My intention for this quilt was to make a queen sized bed quilt for our master bedroom. I fell in love with Wonderland by MoMo and snagged a jelly roll and charm pack and got to work. I saw this log cabin configuration on the internet and thought, 'I could do that.' I set to work with a rotary cuter I bought....and a small cutting board....and no straight edge or ruler. I pieced my jaggedly cut fabric together on a very old sewing machine, one with HORRIBLE tension, and then I arranged the blocks into this configuration.

Being new to sewing I thought my jelly roll and charm pack would be enough for a queen size quilt...oh how naive I was! So another trip to my local quilt shop and I purchased additional yardage of MoMo's Pepper Chai to make a boarder around the log cabin, as well as some yardage for the back of the quilt. I was smart enough at that time to ask for help in getting the yardage I would need, and asked for a layout of how to cut it. :) I'm sure Roxanne got a good laugh when I left. Especially when she saw the stitching and piecing!

Well once I finally got the whole quilt top finished I laid it on our bed and HATED it! So it got folded and put in a closet for a later day. That day has come and I have been busy cutting apart (the stitches were way too tight to get a seam ripper in there!) the blocks.

With our basement finished and our bedroom downstairs now I had this quilt top in mind for our new room. Of course the piecing is horrible, and it is WAY too busy, so I have been dissecting and rearranging my pieces. The new quilt is going to be perfect. I found another charm pack awhile back and snagged it up before it was too late.

Now I'm in the process of making 462 five inch squares for this new quilt. I'm excited to have some blocks up on my design wall, but I know it is going to take some a LONG time. Unfortunately my husband isn't a fan of the fabric line...but once I finish the new quilt top and tone down the 'busy'ness (or as he calls it the 'Grandma' fabrics) I think he will learn to love it too.

Vroom, Vroom

Beep, beep...heading to the kitchen floor to be basted. Nearly ready for quilting!

Running Circles

That's how I feel lately, like I'm running circles all over the place! I haven't had much time for quilting, which involves many circles as I pebble quilt my quilting bee quilt, however I am excited to announce a new quilt in the works! 

My coworker is expecting a new baby at the end of the year (which means an upcoming baby quilt) and she has asked me to make her son the quilt for his new twin sized bed! We've had many brainstorming sessions and I've spent many evenings sketching plans for the fabric she wanted to use. Finally a quilt layout was chosen, calculations were made and she ordered the fabric, which arrived today! Tomorrow I get to go pick out some coordinating prints to go with it for a special paper pieced train panel, there is a transportation theme because this 21 month old loves "Cho-CHOOOOs!" I am so excited, this is my first BIG TIME quilt project. :)

I promised to get it done before Lee and I head to Hawaii next month, which is when they plan to re-decorate his bedroom/the baby's room. All this will be done while we work on mudding and painting our new basement bathroom, plus I am organizing Lincoln's second annual Bark For Life which is next weekend. All these things on my to-do list are making me want to go for a run to handle the stress of it all. At least my half marathon I've been training for all summer is over, I did not do so well! Needless to say blogging may not get done for a while, sorry friends.

It's About Time

...this quilt is getting quilted!

Quilt Food

I've been busy in the kitchen today; the quilt "kitchen" that is. 

Cooked and ready to serve I have on the menu:

a quilt wrap...

and a quilt sandwich....

Who's hungry? :)

Stay-Cation

At my new job we rent our classroom space from one of our local churches. Just like most churches this one holds a week of vacation bible school every summer. Since our school has no religious affiliation the teachers that teach during the summer get a week off  so the church can use our classrooms. :) So I must ask, what better way is there to start a week of work off than to visit local fabric stores!?

Can you tell what the theme of this future quilt is going to be?

I also visited Joann's to get a few staples and use my coupons. While I was there I couldn't pass up these yummy Denise Schmidt prints:

I'm going to use them for a scrap quilt I have in mind. You see as I was going through my scraps I came across A LOT of tiny strips and scraps of fabric that I don't have the heart to throw away. My grandma was a big hoarder and I clearly inherited some of that trait when it comes to craft materials (crafting was also passed on to me via my grandma Lil).

Unlike my grandma I have organized my hoarding. Here we have usable strips for a future scrappy spiderweb quilt, or colorful strip block quilt, or BOTH. :)

And here we have the teeny tiny, pretty much useless scraps that I don't have the heart to throw away. This is where those Denise Schmidt prints come into play, these will be made into a quilt, a ticker tape quilt, inspired my Amanda Jean's and Penny's.

I cut some 12 1/2" squares of white Kona cotton and I plan to sew these little bitty strips and scraps to the white blocks. As I work on planned and normally pieced quilts throughout the year I will toss the crumbs into this box then work on adding them to these squares in my free time, or as I need a break from working on other quilts. As I slowly move away from a beginning quilter and into a more seasoned one I am developing quilter's ADD...I have 4 quilts going at once right now, not including this new project.

It is going to take awhile but when I have enough of these ticker tape blocks the result is going to be a pretty and scrappy quilt full of my favorite prints, the pieces that I can't stand to put into the trash.

*Disclaimer, this is not all of my unusable scraps. I have a separate bag of really tiny strips that I am going to use for greeting cards. :) I may have a problem!!!

Scrap Sorting

Going through my scrap bin. I've got Netflix in the background and high hopes for enough scraps to get a small quilt done. :)

Just like riding a bicycle

It has been SEVERAL months since I attached my free motion foot to the sewing machine. I thought I would have a hard time getting a good rhythm but, just like riding a bicycle, you never forget! :)

Keeping Busy...

I'm still here. Quilting came to a sudden halt after I finished my Ghastlies (which is still being used even though Halloween stuff is tucked away until next October).

Much of my time from October until December was spent finishing my undergrad degree, and studying for the GRE. I applied to Grad school and was accepted into the Educational Psychology program. So, although I graduated in December, I am still in school. Along with studying, I managed to get a few crafts done though. I can thank pinterest for keeping my creative juices flowing. Here is a picture of one of my wind chimes I made (I am obsessed with wind chimes!). I have gotten a lot of small craft projects done throughout the house, just not much quilting.

Until lately...there are more babies being born, so more quilts have been getting done. The quilting bug has bitten me once again. Here is a peek at a baby quilt I did for a co-worker.

Plus... I have finally put together my quilting bee top and back! I have one quilt in line to be quilted for a baby shower this weekend, then this guy is getting basted and on the quilting table.

I am going to try to get back into blogging. For the few of you that actually care. :) The next few weeks may be busy though, I do my first 1/2 marathon on the 5th! Hopefully mother nature will get the memo that spring started before then. It has been VERY cold this month, my run last night was in the wind and 30 degree weather. Last year we were wearing shorts in March. This year I will be lucky if I am not wearing my winter running gear at the start of the marathon. I will share some of my projects with you soon! 

Tension Headache!!

As I quilt my Ghastiles Quilt, I think I have spent more time with my seam ripper than doing the actual quilting. Any clue why my machine keeps doing this to me? Ugh!

Positively Ghastly!

My blog title today is intended for many different reasons...
#1 ...it has been a ridiculously long amount of time since I have blogged! I am so sorry to all of you, I know you have been on the edge of your seats to see what is going on in my crafty little corner of the world. :)
#2 ...I am finishing up my final semester for my undergrad degree...and meeting with advisers on which route to take for my Master's degree. Why am I doing this? I think I am a little bit mad, wanting to put myself through even more school after this has taken me nearly 10 years to finish. I am weighing my options: Early Childhood Special Education, Counseling/School Psychology or maybe Cognition, Learning, and Development. This last one is most interesting to me. Recently in my preschool classroom I have had a few students that have expressed some sad feelings, unhappiness, stress etc. I would love to get an understanding of education and child psychology...someday work with families to help troubled children/naughty behaviors. Let's face it the "naughty kids" are the most rewarding to work with.

#3...my Ghastlies Quilt is FINALLY being quilted. It WILL be done and on my couch by October 1st!

I am experimenting with my straight line quilting. Here I used a walking foot, which I do not have the patience for. Plus it is too hard to turn with this bulky quilt.
So I have tried free motion straight line quilting. Here is the first square I did. These are not "straight" lines. I think this block of quilting will have a date with my seam ripper soon.

I did a bit better on this block, the sideways lines are the hardest to keep straight and an even distance apart. I think I like this method of free motion straight line quilting is better. It is much faster, and a little wonky, like my blocks on the quilt.

I can't wait to finish this guy up. The back of my quilt is great, I love it and really want to show you how awesome it is. It took some careful calculations to work with what little fabric I had on hand, and a lot of help from my very smart husband. Stay tuned. I promise I will report back soon. :)

Up and Running Again

This weekend my husband and I participated in our first 5k. The first of many to come I am sure, I loved it! I set a goal to finish in under 30 minutes and succeeded. Lee runs faster than me, but was kind enough to stay at my pace and push me along. I never told him what my goal was, which incidentally enough was his goal as well. He encouraged me to run faster, when I really didn't want to run any longer. The thing that kept me going was running with others around me, and running for a purpose. The 5k raised money for our local Relay For Life, as well as money to help out a local teacher whose cancer has returned.
Here we are after the race, hot and sweaty. :)

My post title has to do with more than running. My cousin came by this week to have me help her make a towel wrap for her new sorority "baby" in Alpha Phi at UNL. She and I made a trip to JoAnn's for materials and put together this fun little wrap for the incoming freshman to use.

I loved picking out the colors and materials and spending time with my little cousin. This towel wrap took very little time, although it was not so kind to my machine when it came time to add the Velcro (I broke 2 needles!).
Spending time at the sewing machine has released my creative juices once again and I am working on another new project. Which means I have way to many things  started and not being finished. Isn't that a true quilter though, WIPs always outweigh finished quilts. :) So this girl is up and running once again. I'm excited to get back into quilting and to prepare for the Color Run I'm doing this July in Omaha.

*sorry for the bad photo quality, one was taken with a phone, the other at 11pm

Have Quilt, Will Travel

Remember my cousins quilt, the one with her shirts from cheerleading and dance. You know the one I've been working on for over a year. Well I'm hand quilting it...and it is much harder than I thought it would be! 
I think our ancestors who quilted for generations would cringe at my stitches and technique. I'm not using a thimble, which hurts! And I am only just finishing my first block...of twelve needing to be quilted. I'm thinking straight line stitching this with my free motion foot on the machine would have been better. I will not give up though, so I'm going to push through. Wish me luck!

I'm Still Here

Wow, time is flying by so quickly! This semester has kept me very busy, and with limited time to be creative. Classes have sucked up a lot of my free time, and exercise has taken up most of the rest. Not to mention we basically skipped winter/spring in Southeastern Nebraska and have quickly jumped into summer...in March! My last post of Lee and I making the snowman in the front of the house, well that was the end of our winter. Needless to say I have been enjoying the weather on walks/runs with Penny and riding my bike to and from class/work.
It has taken me 27 years but I am finally in love with exercise! In the last six months I have lost 35 pounds and am the most healthy I have been my whole life. The most use my sewing machine has gotten lately is to take in my clothes, none of my old wardrobe fits anymore! For those of you that hate exercise but want to loose weight, give it a try. Try new things, join a gym with group exercise classes and try a few out, you may surprise yourself. The Y has great exercise classes that keep you motivated and that allow you to challenge yourself at your own pace. I absolutely love kickboxing, I get out all my stress and aggression by punching heavy bags 2 days a week. I also love running now, something I NEVER thought would happen! Working out for an hour 6 days a week has been great for my stress and energy levels and I have such a happier outlook on life, gotta love the endorphins! For those of you that don't already, try getting in a bit of "me time" by doing exercise, once you start the habit, you will never give it up. :)

As I said, I haven't had much time for crafts and quilting. I slowly managed to finish my cousins T-Shirt quilt top and back, with a bit of a measurement issue along the way. I was off by a small fraction of an inch on my squares I cut for the pieced blocks on the cheerleading side of her quilt. This fraction of an inch caused the blocks to be 1/2" too big. Rather than taking all the blocks apart and piecing them back together I just trimmed them down...the squares along the outside of these blocks are smaller than those in the middle, but I know Nicolette won't mind. I am a prefectionist, so this flaw is testing my urge to start over, it has also made me realize not everything can be perfect.
Today I am basting her quilt. I decided I am going to hand quilt this one. I have an idea for the quilting and it is going to be way too much work to do it by machine. Since I pieced both the back and front of this quilt I have to try and line the blocks up while basting. Rather than start pinning in the middle and moving outwards I am starting on one end and smoothing and pulling it in line as I go. Hopefully this works, everything is a learning process.
Speaking of learning....I signed up for my last semester in my undergrad program this week! It has taken ten years, but I will finally have a bachelor's degree next December! Then it is on to my master's. :) There is no rest for this girl!

How have all of you been? Hopefully everyone is enjoying beautiful weather like those of us in the mid-west, yesterday it was 91 degrees! I hope to get in more quilting and blogging time, but the semester is coming to an end, luckily I have the whole summer to quilt. Happy Spring everyone!

The Sound of Winter

We got a little snow this weekend in Eastern Nebraska....over 11 inches in 24 hours! It was beautiful and much needed after our 70 degree weather we had last week (I'm not complaining, but a girl needs seasons!).
I was ready for the sights and sounds of winter to come back, including:

Laughter as we built a snowman....

Barking as Penny caught snowballs...

 The hum of my sewing machine as I continued to work on my cousins t-shirt quilt...

I have enjoyed warm cups of coffee, playing Kinect on the Xbox with my husband, and sewing as I look out at the beautiful white snow on this wintery weekend.

 I finished the dance side of her quilt last weekend. The "white" squares are either white t-shirt squares or a rectangle of bumblebee fabric randomly placed inside the 13 inch square of white "buzz" fabric. For the cheerleader side I am doing scrappy patchwork squares in the alternate squares from the t-shirts. I have 6 pieced squares finished, 6 more to go.

T-Shirt Quilt

Last spring my cousin graduated high school. Nicolette was a cheerleader for two years, and on her school dance team for the other two, so naturally she acquired a lot of t-shirts. For a graduation gift I offered to turn those shirts into a t-shirt quilt, and I am finally getting around to it.

 

For months I have had a very large stack of t-shirts under my quilting table, with two yards of fabric I planned to use for it as well. Yesterday I got stabilizer on all the shirts and cut them to size. This quilt will be a lap size, approximately 60 inches square, when finished and double sided. One side will be cheer-leading from her freshman and sophomore years, the other side will be from her junior and senior years as a 'Shirette'. I have a plan for pieced blocks to put together for the squares that won't have t-shirts, I hope it turns out as good as it looks in my mind. My goal is to finish the 'Shirette' side today (and finish a paper). Wish me luck!

Piecing Along

I'm just about finished with piecing my blocks together. Can you tell that some of these blocks have had a little "plastic surgery."I had to go out and get a few more fabrics for a little more variety. It was really hard finding oranges that were not too bright. Next up: finish adding a border or two onto a couple blocks, then adding grey fabric to all the blocks and squaring them up, then sewing them together! I just might get this done by next Sunday, just in time to decorate the house. :)

Halfway There

I haven't had much time for quilting this last week. Work and school have taken up a ton of time, not to mention I have been doing a great job of going to the gym lately too. :) I discovered that I love spinning classes, although they don't feel so great on the bum. If you enjoy bike riding, check one out at your local Y (or any other gym), it is a great challenge.

Here are the other 6 blocks for my Ghastlies quilt I have completed, just 10 more to go. I may be adding another square around some of these blocks, which will make my end quilt a bit bigger than originally planned, but I think it will add to the quilt nicely.
Still unsure if I will use grey or white for the sashing...

 

I had a question about where I got the black and white number fabric. I bought it at a local quilt shop, and I was just there today so I checked the bolt to find out the maker. It is from Makower UK fabrics. I did find a listing for it on etsy here, which is much cheaper than my quilt shop sells it for. 
Well it is back to writing a paper for my Addictions and Families class, it is a really fun class, but I would rather be quilting. Hopefully everyone is enjoying the beginning of fall, my favorite season! It is really gloomy in Lincoln today; I am sure the Washington players, here to take on the Huskers, are feeling right at home.

I Did It . . .

...I made that first cut, and then several more. Over this past week I have made 4 blocks for my Ghastlies quilt, and 2 more that are almost finished. I love the quilts Anna over at Thimbleanna made with her Ghastlies fabric from Alexander Henry, so her quilts are the inspiration for mine. I am so excited about this quilt (can you tell), Halloween is my favorite holiday! Only (roughly) 14 blocks to go.

Here are the four blocks I have finished so far:

 I love the invisible dog he is walking!

 Not sure about how thick I made this bat fabric square around the house...oh well.

 Doesn't she look like one evil witch! (or substitute the w for a b)

This guy makes me think of Bill Compton from True Blood, 

maybe right when he was turned and was angry about being a vampire. :)

For my Ghastlies quilt, I wanted to get away from using bright "Halloween orange" and go for more of a dull burnt orange, with greys and black. I think I am going to use white, rather than grey, as the sashing fabric, to help with contrast to the muted colors. Not to mention the vignettes in the middle of the blocks are on grey fabric, well all but a few. I had to by some of the new "Ghastlie Night" that came out this year, so a few vignettes on the quilt will be from the new line which I ordered in natural.What do you all think....white or a light grey for the sashing? (for my friends that don't quilt, sashing is the fabric between the blocks that make  them appear to be floating.)