Another week passes.....

It's been another week, and I have no idea where the time has gone! Last weekend Scott and I went up North to get some of our wedding details sorted out. And then of course our apartment was a mess, so it took a little while to get that back to the status quo.
This week we've been preparing for next week's work. Scott is going out to Washington D.C. for a conference and we have a work dinner out there, and so I'll get to sight see a bit.

I haven't done much in the way of sewing/quilting this week, except for a notebook cover. I had some scraps of Sunkissed fabric (1 inch by 3 inches) left over from my Single Girl quilt (that I still haven't been able to completely assemble). I always liked the dandelion silhouette, and thought it'd be cute to put on a notebook cover. A sentiment of spring. Nothing says spring like the first weeds popping out in the lawn! :)

Would you like a tutorial on the notebook cover? If you're interested, leave a comment and let me know! I've been using the notebook cover Jen gave me for Christmas as a template to make this one, and so I'd strike up a conversation with her if there's interest in a tutorial! It's pretty easy and it makes your notebook fun and interesting to carry around with you.

Here it is all folded up with a notebook snuggled inside...


This is it stretched out...


I raw edge appliqued the little dandelion "poofs" and I LOVE them!


It's a medium sized notebook, but it holds post-it's and your pens and everything you need for a meeting!

Odds and ends....

My maid of honor informed me that I need to get blogging...it's been a week and she's had nothing new to read! :) This week I did more reading than quilting. Okay, I'll blog about that too!

In the last seven days I've read 4 books, yes, FOUR! And each one was fantastic! If you get the chance you should read them! They are:
1. The Hunger Games
2. Catching Fire
3. Mockingjay
4. Red Riding Hood

The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay are a trilogy of books by Suzanne Collins. They. Are. Awesome. End of story. And to top it off the Hunger Games movie is coming out in 2012.

Red Riding Hood is the book to the movie that's coming out soon. It's a great book, except that the last chapter is online. Don't start reading the book, unless you have access to the internet. You'll need it.

Here's what I've been up to in the last week....I made a little pacifier clippy. There's velcro on the left end, and a suspender clip on the right side so you can put the pacifier on the velcro, and then clip the whole thing to baby's shirt so if his pacifier falls out of his/her mouth, it won't get dirty!


And this thing I just whipped up with dimensions that I thought would work.... It's a changing pad for baby with a pocket for wipeys and diapers!!! I even have a lion that matches the quilt I made for Xander! This is it folded up....


And this is it unfolded. It's a little bit big to put in a diaper bag, but it'd be perfect for out in the living room or for going to Grandpa and Grandma's house! :)


The New Wave quilt I finished finally was bound and labeled. I used my labels that I made on Spoonflower.com! They match my blog header! :) I love it!

Just One Star - A selfless act

Two questions:
1. Do you know anyone that has served or is serving overseas?
2. Do you know how to follow directions for a quilt block?

How long does it take to make one quilt block? Just one. An eight pointed star to be exact. Maybe 20 minutes? 30 minutes at most? How many times in a week do I waste 20-30 minutes surfing the internet, watching TV, or running silly errands? Too many. This week I'm going to do something different with my free time.

I'm going to help the Marines. Well, maybe not by ending the war, or by anything dramatic like that, but by making a quilt block. Just one, but probably more. A star. My grandpa was/is in the Marines (once a Marine, always a Marine) and I think he would be proud that people serving overseas are going to be shipped some good old "Made in the USA" quilts!

Moda created this project so that quilters from across the country (and even the world) are making and mailing star blocks back to the good people at Moda made from a particular pattern. Click here to get it. All the blocks they receive will be put together into quilts and then mailed overseas to Marines in the line of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is a great project to use up some of your red, blue and cream scraps!!! It won't take you long, and it will mean the world to someone else. If you know someone that served overseas you know that any comfort to remind them of home means alot. Dig through your scraps and donate a little time to help remind Americans serving overseas of home.

The stars will then be put together in to this quilt.....


The deadline for star blocks is May 1, 2011 so that they can meet their quilt deadline
by Flag Day, June 14, 2011.

They need 1800 star blocks to reach their goal.
Please take a few minutes to piece Just One Star block (click here for block pattern) using a medium red or blue and a cream background. Better yet, invite your small group or even your entire guild to make Just One Star block. Sign each block with your name and state.

Then we can truly say....the hands of a grateful nation comfort our soldiers!

We will coordinate the donation of the 100 quilts thru the Semper Fi Fund, a cause

that is near and dear to designers, Polly Minick and Laurie Simpson.

Thank you for your help!

Send untrimmed blocks to:

United Notions/Moda Fabrics
Attn: Just One Star Project
13800 Hutton
Dallas, TX 75234

It was GREEN!

Being a quilter means knowing different colors and shades, hues and intensity. Is it a chartreuse, a plum, or shamrock green? I think I know these things, and then something happens that rocks my color pallette.

Yesterday my cousin and I went to Chicago and it's the Saturday before St. Patty's Day, so they dye the Chicago River green! There was a boat with 3 guys sprinkling this rust colored powder into the river and it looked like highlighter yellow in the wake, but then it spread and turned the whole river green...



Happy early St. Patty's Day everyone! :) Enjoy the different shades of green!

Giveaway time!!!

It's giveaway time! There's a sponsored giveaway over at Jaybird Quilts!!! Head on over there to check it out and enter for your chance to win a kit (including a Modern Workshop jelly roll) for Julie's new quilt pattern Hugs and Kisses!!!

It's SALE time!!!

Hi Everyone,
If you haven't had time to check out my etsy store, now's the time. I'm having a 10% off sale on your order! Just enter "takeoff" when you check out! I've uploaded some patterns, and there's lots of fabric to come!!! So check back in the next couple of days!

In about 24 hours, this is what I did....

I worked at my LQS Wednesday night, and then ended up getting home and began to cut from the blue/gray fabric that I had recently received. I started quilting at about 10:00 and then I finally finished the top last night at 11:30. I also squeezed in sleeping and working at my day job in there!


Scott was a huge help in picking out border colors, the strip and he's even helping me pick out a flange to put just inside the binding. He actually has really good color taste! :)

I used the New Wave quilt tutorial by Oh, Fransson! If you want to use the pattern, check out her .pdf file for the quilt!


What are your thoughts? I have the medium gray (on the bottom of this last photo) and then I was going to bind it in the same color. I'd like to use the denim blue or the light ash gray (the two that I used as solid strips) as the flange. The light ash would make it stand out, but is the quilt too busy? Should I use the blue and calm it down a little?

What I've been up to lately.

The last few days I've done more sewing than blogging. I think that's a good thing. This past weekend one of my friends came down from Northern Wisconsin and brought some fabric to make cloth napkins! I think they turned out really well! And I pulled some red out of my stash and we used it for the backing of one set. Those are my favorite! We used the "French Seam" method. You first put wrong sides together, yes, wrong sides together, sew around the outer edge with your 1/4" seam, leaving about a 4-5" section un-sewn so that you can turn it right sides out. Then turn, poke your corners, and iron. Iron the edge with the hole so that the raw edges are folded inward and match the rest of the napkin. Then adjust your machine to a 1/8" seam and sew around the entire napkin. Voila!



I've also put some of my finished photos on facebook, and my sister commented on the purse I made....so I had to make her one too! Even the purses look like sisters! :) The bottom one is the original, and the one on the top is her "copy"! I just inverted the colors. She's a purple fiend!


The other day I thought about summer up North and laying on the lawn after swimming in our lake....and how good it would feel to lay on a quilt! Since I'm making (well...it's on stand-by at the moment) the Single Girl quilt with the solid gray, I realized that I like gray! And I thought a darker color would soak up the sun so the quilt would be nice and warm by the time I laid on it. I found the fat quarter bundle on the Fabric Quarter website and I had to buy them! The only thing is, I got a half yard bundle of 7 different prints, and when I measured them out they were 18" exactly at the fold, and about 17 3/4" at the selvage edges. So if you were planning on cutting two 9" squares out of the width, that wouldn't work. The solids I pulled from my stash.



The pattern I'm going to use for the gray quilt is from Oh, Fransson! You can find the tutorial and pattern here if you'd like to try it! I'm also going to try her mosaic floor pillow one of these days also! I'm just waiting to get the right amount of scraps....

Head on over to this Oh, Frannson! webpage for more great free downloadable quilt patterns! Enjoy!