Sunday Sewing

Welcome to June, y’all.  I may or may not have been sewing in my sports bra today.  New Jersey definitely skipped right over Spring and landed squarely in desert.  This weekend has been extremely productive and I’m excited to show some semi-completed projects.  While the walking foot is still out there making it’s journey home to me, I am determined to get as many quilt tops ready to go before it’s arrival.  I want to make sure it feels right at home when it meets me!

First up, I ironed all of those Hey, Honey, Honey rows that I have been procrastinating forever.  Having this quilt top done is such a relief!  I can’t wait to finish this just in time for the Kate Spain blog hop over at Blossom Hearts Quilts.

Have I mentioned how much I love Kate Spain?

A little while back, I thought this quilt top was finished.  However, this weekend, I decided to step it up and add a border to finish it off.  It’s going to my best friend who recently moved to another country with her husband who is in the military, and the border just reminds me of a hug.  Basically, she should think I am hugging her at all times when she’s under it.  Which won’t make her claustrophobic at all…

The hubs and I were acting a bit ridiculous in public taking these pictures.  Reason #4,567 I love him.  This quilt, Charming Chevrons, is based on Christa’s Quilts tutorial and quilt along.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, her tutorial is awesome!  Make this quilt – she has so many variations and it comes together easily!

I also put together the quilt back and I am in love.  Seriously.  In love.  It’s the Totem print by Anna Maria Horner in Grapefruit with some Love dots by Amy Butler.  I mean, what’s not to love about those two designers.  In fact, now I kind of want to keep this quilt…. good thing she’s my best friend and I’ll get to see it again!

So now I’m ready for a basting party over at my friend Melanie’s house on Thursday!    How awesome to have quilty friends who help you out when you can’t baste anything larger than a baby quilt in your own home.  Blasted carpets and beds.  Everything is ready to go, folded, and packed in my quilting bag.  For Thursday.  Can you tell I’m excited?!

Just wait until you see the binding.  This quilt just screams happiness, right?

So, with all this productivity in the sewing room this weekend, my house is a disaster.  The dishwasher is unloaded, but I haven’t reloaded dishes, my laundry isn’t done, the living room is a hot mess, and I’m completely ill-prepared for tomorrow.

Good thing I found this:

What a gem.

I’m linking up with Let’s Get Acquainted Monday over at Life’s Rich Pattern.  I’m also super stoked to be participating in the New Blogger Blog Hop this week  hosted by Beth at Plum and June!- I’ve already started brainstorming my post!

Charming Chevron

The charming chevron quilt top is finished!  (Well, I might add some white borders because it’s smaller than I imagined it’d be, but that’s manageable.)  I don’t know how it happened, but I messed up the order of some of the blocks.  I literally did them row by row, and looked at an image of the quilt while I was working and I still managed to get off.  Mistakes happen and my friends are really nice so I should be good.  And, if you don’t get too close all the points match!  Woohoo.  Victory.

I would have been finished sooner, but this happened on our way to lunch.  (Bagels.  Duh.)

Reason 722 that I love my town.

Street Fairs.  With funnel cakes.

That is all.

Here she is:

Again, I was the weird quilt lady stopping traffic.

The hubs was also creative director placing the quilt and smoothing out corners.

He just makes me love him more…

I do have a plan for quilting this sucker, but I have to take another FMQ class.

And practice for hours.

Soon it will be heading across the ocean!  And hopefully I will follow it for a visit.

Linking up with Plum and June’s Let’s Get Acquainted – check out the other works!

Spring Cleaning (the Design Wall)

This Saturday started with a bang.  Construction right.outside.my.house.  No.  No, siree, this is Saturday.  Luckily I have earplugs on hand, a fan, window unit, and an app for white noise.  Don’t mess with teachers’ day to sleep in.

Then I spent a lot of time sewing this quilt together:

(Don’t worry, Renee, I have fixed those reds/pinks 🙂 )

I think this one has taken me so long to finish because it already looks done on the design wall.  So. not. true.  This joker is a time suck.  So many points to match up, ironing each.step.of. the.way. 

But, I’m proud to say that I’ve made some progress:

(I need to empty out my trash…)

Four rows are completely sewn together:

Hopefully I can finish this one up tonight so that I can start piecing together my next quilt.  This is why I needed to clean off my design wall:

I don’t know who this one belongs to yet, but I’m sure it will come to me.

Now I’m off to a dinner with my husband and his coworkers.  I realized 25 minutes ago that the pants I was going to wear are dirty.  So, now I’m blogging and praying that an outfit becomes magically ready.  I am so smart sometimes.

Happy Saturday, y’all!

 

Charming Chevrons

A while ago I was searching through quilts on Google Images and I came across this simple, but stunning quilt by Christa Quilts! called Charming Chevron.  She has a very detailed tutorial and the quilting she did on her quilt is beautiful.  I had lofty dreams of copying her quilting when I made my own, but I’m going to have to practice FMQ muccccchhhhhhhh more to achieve the pebbles!

Now I’ve finally turned all of these beauties:

Into way too many half-square triangles:

That needed to be trimmed to size.  (Have I mentioned I hate cutting fabric?)

Slowly, my own Charming chevron has grown, and transformed on the design wall…

As I tried to find a layout that I liked, with colors as evenly spread out as I could make them, I realized that it was harder than I imagined. Until today, when I completed this final layout…  So, what do you think? 

Is it ready to sew together?

WiP Wednesday

Finally, Spring has sprung! 

With the return of warmer weather I could not stop smiling yesterday.  There is simply nothing better than the warmth of the sun on your skin.  Yesterday screamed ice cream and walk.  So, I listened.

No onto some more good stuff.  It’s Work in Progress Wednesday!

Four months into my Sister’s Ten BOMs and I’m behind.

I just straight up skipped March.

So of course I started April’s block first.  That makes sense… not.

I kind of tweaked this block a little (rule breaker, I know!).

I’m not really sure how I’m feeling about my fabric choice for this quilt.  I’m wondering if I chose a line I loved without thinking about how it’d look in this quilt?  Maybe it’s just because I can’t see the whole quilt yet… maybe it would help if I finished the April blocks …and the March ones…  Here are the blocks I have so far.

Finally, I’ve laid out the first half of my Charming Chevron quilt.

I am loving this colorful burst of crazy.

The other half is ironed, ready to be cut (stab me in the eyes), and then it’s onto piecing this bad boy together.  I can’t wait!  It’s funny, as I’m making quilts they become someone’s.  They take on a life of their own, even if I intended them for someone else.  This one said me.  Thank you.

Happy Wednesday and Happy quilting, y’all!

Holding it Together (Barely)

I promise I’m alive.

I haven’t dropped off the face of the planet.

I did, however, spend 3.5 days like this:

I always joke and say, “I wish I could just spend the day in bed.”

That was not what I meant.

It turns out that there are not enough tv shows to keep me entertained for 84 hours in bed.

So, quilting has been slow going.

It’s been a lot of this:

Trimming half square triangles to 4.5 inches.

Guys, these suckers were already 4.555555559994422 inches.

Trimming was a joke.

More like praying not to screw it up.

But, the quilt’s coming together:

At least something is put together around here…

Because clearly I’m not!