Reconnecting & Giveaway Winner!

We meet again old friend...

 

 

It was surprisingly good to reconnect with my seam ripper this weekend.  I've been tasking myself with more accurate piecing lately.  The way I figure, the more confident I get in my piecing, the more difficult patterns I'll try.

I was jokingly thinking of naming my seam ripper.  We spend so much time together, it just seemed fitting.  Do you name any of your tools?  Jack the Ripper was an obvious choice, but I didn't want it to have a complex.  Thoughts?

Special thanks for all of the comments on the giveaway post! The set of 143+ hexagons goes to: Comment No. 11 or Lynne Pusscat!

And for an extra special treat, I cut into more fabric this weekend and it resulted in a few additional hexagons.  These are going to winner no. 2 (comment 17): Tammy!

I'll shoot you both an email!  Be sure to thank the random number generator!  Hope everyone is having a great week.

Hexies - WIP Update & Scrap Stash Give-Away

Giveaway closed.  Thanks everyone!

This weekend I worked on my Tula Pink hexagon project.  Yay, I'm finally at the point where I'm stitching together the hexagons!

While working on this project, I thought of a great way to celebrate 10,000+ page views: more hexagons!

Last night I went through my scraps, put in a disc of Psych, and started cutting. 

For one lucky person I have 143+, 2.5" squares for some hexagon fun.  My diverse scraps include all types of quilting cottons, including some from my early days (slightly cheaper) to some of my latest projects (Kate Spain, Denyse Schmidt, Moda, Kona & Bella solids).  A great addition to an on-going hexie quilt, or to start a new one :)

Just leave me a comment :)  If you are a no-reply blogger, please leave your email. 

I'll use, the ever-so-trusty, random.org to help me pick the winner.  Give away closes Monday, July 29th at 11:59PM PST.

Linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday.

Happy Go Lucky - Bead Quilt WIP

Hope you all are enjoying your weekend!  

We've been enjoying some unusual weather here in Arizona.  Monsoon season hit early and today we hit 108 degrees Fahrenheit with 30 percent humidity and tomorrow we'll drop to 93 degrees (typically we're at 118-120).

In happier news, I cut into a bit of Bonnie & Camille's Happy Go Lucky yesterday!  The collection totally describes my preferred color scheme.  I don't like all of the patterns, but most of them speak right to my soul.  I grabbed five fat quarters of my favorites and two yards of my absolute favorite for the border and backing.  It will be the perfect amount for a nice baby quilt :)

I'm assembling squares and hour-glass blocks to create a "beaded" look.  I'm sure there is a name for this pattern, but it escapes me now.  It kind of reminds me of a necklace I had when I was girl!

To help keep track of pinning the correct fabric together, I pinned one set and put it on the wall where it "belonged."  I repeated until I had all of the hour glass blocks accounted for and in the correct direction.  Worked like a charm :)

Wish you all a wonderful and safe weekend!

Attempt at Improv - QAYG

Monday night I had a need, a need for mindless sewing.

Like so many of you, quilting is a stress reliever for me.  Usually my current quilt project will do the trick, but Monday night I received "too many" phone calls from work and NEEDED some mindless sewing.

I had been wanting to try some improv sewing and the quilt as you go (QAYG) method seemed enticing and simple enough.  I did some research (scanned through Pinterest) and found some great tutorials that I had forgotten about. Too many pins, so little time, right?

Stitched in Color offers a great look at doing a Log Cabin QAYG.   With a little more freedom, I attempted a "wonky" Log Cabin. 

Here are my results:

(sorry - low light iPad picture)

Overall, not too bad for my first time.  I was feeling extra adventurous and choose a light gray thread for the top stitching.  I'm not happy with that I ended up a with more darks at the top than the bottom.  However, I was "improv-ing" and was trying not to pay attention to how things were looking.  The other problem was using fusible fleece.  Can you say "OOOPS" and face-palm?  Small pieces + glue on fusible fleece = gunk on the iron.  The iron did not like that at all and I'm having to take a magic eraser to it tomorrow.  Next time, just use cotton batting ok?

So now, what do I do with it?  Make more in different color schemes? Turn it into a bag?  Or leave it with the other WIPs until inspiration comes?

What do you do with your QAYG blocks?

Also, side note, recently reached 10,000 page views on the blog (yes, I realize that some of that was spam).  So a celebration is in order.  More details to come!

Linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday!

Triple Zip Pouch Swap - Finished

For the first time ever, I decided to join an online quilt/sewing swap.  So far my experience has been a bit nerve racking as I picked out fabric for another person.  If I get nervous with my own fabric selections, how could I possibly do it for another person?

 

Luckily, my secret partner had a whole selection of favorite fabrics on her Pinterest board.  I picked the Cassettes in Gray from Riley Blakes' Geekly Chic line and chose the blue, Timeless Treasure's Rain Basin in Aqua.  The black is from my stash and I've forgotten who it's from...

 

 

People suggested using different colored zippers, but I felt like the black worked so well, I didn't want to jinx it.  What do think?  I almost bought fluorescent colors like the yellow, blue and green, but then felt it would be an overwhelming shout of 80s!

 

Oh wait, what are we making?  Stephanie over at Quarter Incher is hosting the Triple Zip Pouch from A Quilter's Table.  It's a really great tutorial and fairly easy to follow.  The only trouble I had was near the end when you sew the sides together.  Still not completely sure if I did it right... However, with great instructions, I was able to complete it in one evening!

 

Here is the finished product.  I'm keeping the goodies secret, as I already feel like a rule breaker showing it here :)  If you're interested in checking out other pouches, the flickr group is located here.

 

 

So totally awesome, right?  Like, totally, gag me with a spoon! (Insert other random 80's sayings here - did I even use the last one correctly?).

Kentucky Derby Progress - WIP

Do you remember this oops from a few months ago?  It's taken me some time to get up the courage to tackle it again.

The fabrics are from a purchase I made almost 10 years ago (eeek! has it really been that long?) when one of my favorite quilt shops was closing.  I was in high school at the time and very low on experience in picking out fabric.  You may notice that two of the fabrics are the same print but different colors. 

The colors are more traditional than my current tastes, but all in all, I am pleased with how things are progressing.  Plus, I love the opportunity to use my "stash" and have it work out well.  Anyone else have the tendency to buy a favorite fabric, hoard it, and then realize you don't have anything to go with it?  Happens to me ALL THE TIME.  It's a wonderful bad habit that gives me an excuse to buy more fabric.

Also, who couldn't use more practice piecing HSTs?  I know I could!

Linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday here.

A Few Ramblings

Returned last weekend from an incredible five days in the North East wilderness of Arizona.  Myself and a collection of other adult leaders took a large group teenage girls tent camping.  We were very fortunate to be far away from the tragedy happening to the West of us near Prescott. 

The above picture shows us stopping at a store just before we hit the dirt trail.  See how nice and clean we are?!?!  It's an inside joke, but we were given specific instructions to NOT buy anything in the store.  We were just using their restrooms.  See what a great adult leader I am?  Yep, broke a rule on the first day. My mother always taught me that if you use someone's restroom, it was polite to buy something, even if it was small drink.

Also, while I was gone, someone borrowed and "took care" of my sewing machine.  I felt comfortable leaving it with such an experienced quilter and was happy to have it returned Wednesday.  I jumped on it yesterday for a while and will share pictures with you later.

Happy belated 4th of July!  As I sit here typing I am overcome with gratitude for this nation and those who are serving and have served our country, especially our military and emergency responders.  Hope you had a wonderful Fourth!