Yikes!

Did you know that the month of April only has 30 days ... not 31?  For some odd reason, I was sure that I had until Wednesday to finish this month's AYOS project, but nope - I only have tomorrow to finish.  Yikes!  I just  finished piecing the top this afternoon ....

(Sorry - cell phone picture!!)

.... and I'm hoping to make some major progress on the quilting after little man's bedtime tonight!  Hopefully it'll all go as planned and I'll be back tomorrow with finished pictures to share!  I'm releasing another pattern tomorrow too, so please stop by!

BTW - did you see that Carrie Nelson on how to "pop" seams while making four patches - a trick that is SERIOUSLY useful with this pattern.  Swing on by her blog to check it out!

It's a Lazy Monday ...

... since I'm just now getting around to my first post for the week!  Teething and a weekend of beautiful sunny weather means yet another week of hardly any time spent at the sewing machine.  I did manage to start my April AYOS project.  This month's project is Summer Day:

Photo Courtesy of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.

I'm doing my version. in pretty pastel shades of yellow and I've managed to finish all my cutting, but I only have four blocks assembled right now.  I was going to post a picture of my progress ... but the blocks resemble a certain geometric shape popular with the Third Reich ... so we'll just have to wait until I have another round of blocks attached before I can offer a sneak peak.  Luckily these blocks go together so quickly!

BTW - super exciting news from Miss Rosie this week - all of her more recent Schnibbles patterns are now available for purchase in .pdf form through her new store!  Hooray for quilty instant gratification!

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Last week was the Northern California Quilt Rush.  Hubby took the day off for some manly bonding time with Aiden so that Mom and I could jet away for the day.  We managed to hit four different shops on the list!

A: Cornerstone Quilt Shoppe in Fairfield, B: A Quilted Heart in Vacaville, C: Cloth Carousel in Winters, E: Sew So Shop in Yuba City.

We had a great time visiting some great shops that we've never had the opportunity to visit before.  I totally made out like a bandit!

I love just about any line that both 3 Sisters and Sandy Gervais put out, so I picked an Etchings layer cake and two Late Bloomers charm packs.

Even though I don't know of anyone having a baby girl anytime soon, but this little bit called "Blank Quilting Feathered Friends" by Tricia Santry caught my eye and I just had to bring it home to add to the stash.

I managed to find this next collection of fabric over three stores.  I love, love, love the turquoise colors.  I'm fairly certain that this group is destined to be a quilt-sized version of my Southern Belle pattern.  Can't wait to start that one!!

And, since it's been over a month since any reporting, here's my stash standings for the year thus far:

Stash Update: 2/13/12 - 4/23/12

• Purchased:  26.3  yards including all the goodies pictured above, an alternate color scheme for my quilt-sized Southern Belle, and several backing and binding sets for projects that are almost there!!
• Used: 9.2 yards including two Swoon Blocks, February's and March's AYOS projects, plus Aiden's Easter Quilt and Elijah's Scrap Metal Stars

YTD: + 35.06

Luckily, I have one quilt that just needs binding, two more quilts that just need some quick quilting, and April's Schnibbles projects, so maybe next month's stash report will see some movement in the negative direction.  Fingers crossed!!

AYOS - March!

Wow!  I can't believe how quickly the month of March flew by and that it's already time to post this month's Another Year of Schnibbles project!

March's Schnibbles pattern was Bibelot by Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.

Photo Courtesy of Miss Rosies Quilt Co.

I know that a lot of people, especially Thelma over at Cupcakes and Daisies, see the letter "T" when they look at this pattern.  Me?  For some reason, I've always seen little T-Shirts.  When I first heard that this was the pattern of the month, I had envisioned little onesie-shirts in baby prints, but when I actually sat down to start working, all I could see were little Hawaiian shirts!

I have absolutely no Hawaiian or even tropical-esque prints in my stash, and was starting to do a little online shopping when I remembered that we had just cleaned out our closets last month ... and in the bag full of donation clothes was a Hawaiian shirt that my hubby had bought for the luau we went to on our first wedding anniversary in Maui.  Perfect!  The shirt was fairly easy to pull apart and provided more than enough fabric for a nice little wall-hanging.

I think I'll call it Tiki Time. :)

Be sure to stop by Pink Pincushion and A Quilting Life tomorrow to check out all of the other fabulous projects!

February AYOS finish

This month's AYOS project was I.S.T.H. aka "Insert Snappy Title Here":

photo courtesy of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.

Apparently, there's something about this quilt pattern that renders it un-namable, since I couldn't come up with a name either!  So here's my "project":

I had such a hard time getting started this month that I gave up on the idea of making a full quilt, and just made a table runner instead.  I opted to use four interior stars, rather than three, just to give it some extra length.

Because the runner is so skinny, I felt like there wasn't a ton of room at either end for a checkerboard pattern, so I went for solid borders, and used my light tonal prints for checkerboard setting and corner triangles.

I finished the runner with some echo quilting around the stars.  I really wish I had planned this part better, though - when I started quilting, I didn't realize that the outer star tips would be touching, and as my hubby so sweetly pointed out, not all the tips match up.  Thanks honey.  It's not off enough that you could notice it from a galloping horse, as one of the gals in my quilting group says, so I'm not going to rip it out and re-sew it ... yet.  We'll see if it {still} bothers me in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to swing by A Quilting Life and Pink Pincushion to see the rest of the parade!

OH! And I almost forgot - I didn't share Mom's AYOS picture today ... because she started her own blog!  You can visit her at http://quiltingnona.blogspot.com/.

Happy Sewing!

Fun Stuff for a Thursday morning!

The Another Year of Schnibbles parade over at Sherri's and Sinta's blogs from yesterday were great.  I'm always amazed how we can all take the same pattern and put our own individual spins on them to come up with totally unique projects!

February's Schnibbles project is I.S.T.H:

Photo Courtesy of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co

Usually when I see a pattern, I can almost immediately see what fabric line I want to use and what my finished project will look like.  For some reason, I'm having a really hard time with this one, though.  What fabric line are all you other participants using?

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If you're looking for a fun diversion this morning, hop on over to the Moda Bake Shop!  They just announced yesterday that they'll be hosting their own fabric-y version of Chopped!

Check out the rules, requirements, and mystery box "ingredients" for audition project:

The Challenge? All audition submissions must be some sort of Office/Studio Accessory. 
It can be anything that would be used on or at an Office or Studio setting.

Sewing Basket of Mystery Items:

• Fabrics used must feature at least one type of Moda precut. Additional Moda fabrics may be used to complete your project.
• Project must use at least one type of buckle. This can be any size, shape or color.
• Project must also include Quilt Batting somewhere in or on the project.

All projects are due by 2/29/12 and the actual competition begins in March!  Prizes will be announced on 2/14/12.  We have a busy couple of weeks here on our homefront, so I don't think I'll be participating, but I can't wait to see all of the crafty submissions!  Will you bet joining in?

Full House - January's AYOS Project

Happy end of the month!  While the month of January really seemed like it flew by, I was actually finished with my project two weeks ago!  Here's my finish!

This month's pattern, called Full House, is a Schnibbles pattern by Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.

Photo courtesy of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.

Here's my version! It uses prints from Sandy Gervais's last two fall fabric lines: Awesome and Grand Finale.  I'm proud to say that 100% of the fabric, including the backing, came from my stash!

I'm calling it Fall House - I know SUPER LAME play on the title, but it's the best I could come up with!

I still think that my favorite block is my "Italiano" block.  It reminds me of a great line of serving bowls from Crate and Barrel from years ago.  I'm still wishing that I had bought them ...

And, as a little side project, I saved up all the trimmings from my roof blocks ...

... and made a little mug rug with all the leftovers!

I bullied my mom, Rene, into joining the Schnibbles group too!  She made her project into a sweet 16" x 16" pillow:

She used a charm pack from Deb Strain's Makin New Friends line, along with some pieces from her stash.  The embroidered part reads "All hearts come home for Christmas."  Awesome job, Mom!

Be sure to check out all of the other participants' photos starting tomorrow!  They're at Sinta Renee's Pink Pincushion and Sherri's A Quilting Life.  Can't wait to see everyone's finishes and find out what pattern we're doing next month!

Oh!  Almost forgot!  Check out some other great Works in Progress over at the Freshly Pieced WIP-Wednesday link party!

Waste not, want not ...

... or how to use every last scrap of fabric while making your Full House quilt for the January Schnibbles project.

I don't know about you, but I'm one of those quilters who absolutely hates to throw any scrap of fabric away unless it's less than 1/2" wide or is damaged somehow.  I know that sometimes, especially when trying to tailor block construction to be charm-square friendly, scraps are inevitable ... so what to do with the leftovers?  And once you've finished a quilt, do you really want to go through and sew together a million little triangles left over from those flying geese blocks to actually make something, or are you much happier just saving those bits for a rainy day that might never come?

So ... why not make two projects at once?  Thus ... the "Lumber Scraps" mug rug was born out of the scraps of my Full House quilt!

When I was constructing my flying geese blocks, I drew two lines on the back of my "sky" square.  The first (in blue below) was from corner to corner and was the line I sewed along per the construction instructions.  The second line (in red below) was drawn 1/4" away from the blue line.  I stitched a seam a 1/4" away from the far side of the line.

After sewing both seams, I cut the block along the red line ....

... and then pressed the blocks open before repeating for the second side.

That way, once I was done with all of my flying geese blocks, I had 36 - 2" half square triangles already assembled!  I laid them out in a pinwheel pattern ....

... sewed the blocks into columns, and then sewed the columns together and ended up with a 9.5" mini-quilt.

After a little bit of straight-line quilting ...

... and some binding ....

... I had made myself a little mug rug!  I suppose you could also hang it on your wall as a little mini-quilt, or use it as a little place mat for when you eat your lunch at your desk ... or you could even use it as a little Barbie doll quilt!

The best part was that because I had pre-assembled the little half square triangles as I was working on my Schnibbles quilt, I was able to finish this little project in one nap-time, and I;ll be able to add 1/4 yard to my list of busted fabrics for the week!  It's a good thing too, since that might be my only bust of the week!

Happy Sewing. :)

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Just popping in ...

... during nap time to share a photo of my favorite Full House block thus far.

I went shopping in my stash and decided to use scraps from Sandy Gervais's Awesome and Grand Finale lines.  I really love the purple and turquoise colorways in Grand Finale, and love how well the two lines incorporate with one another so well.

I've got six more houses to make and then I'm on to the checkerboard pattern.  If my little man cooperates, I'll probably be able to pull of a finish this week ... which will be great for my Stash Update since I forgot that I did a bunch of online shopping last week, and have several packages of fabric showing up on my porch this week!

Happy Sewing!!


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I did it ...

I signed up for "Another Year of Schnibbles" with Sherri @ A Quilting Life and Sinta Renee @ Pink Pincushion.

For those of you not familiar with the club, each month these ladies pick out a fabulous Schnibbles pattern by Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co..  You can make the pattern with any fabric you like, and some people even turn their quilts into table runners, or pillows, etc.  Then, you just need to email them pictures of your finished project (or at least finished quilt top) by the end of the month, and then check back for a parade of all the finished projects the following day.

This month's project is "Full House" ...

I'm not sure why, but I'm seeing fall colors for my version.  I'm off to go shopping in my stash!

Oh! And speaking of stashes, I'm re-instating my weekly(-ish) stash update!  Here are this week's numbers:

Stash Update: 1/1/12 - 1/8/12

• Purchased:  8.05 yards for a new pattern and some more on my favorite polka dot background fabric (I seem to be using this in almost all of my new quilts!)
• Used: 0.00 yards since I'm only counting fabric as busted once it has either been given away, sold, or used in a COMPLETED project.  Now, if I can only I get the quilting done on two quilts this week, I'll actually have a negative number for next week!!

YTD: + 8.05 yards