Remember me?

It has been such a long time since I've blogged.  I am still around and still sewing.   It's been hard trying to balance blogging with real life responsibilities.  This summer was busy but in a good way.

We spent a week at the beach, played a ton of yard football, celebrated hubby's 40th birthday with a short trip to Miami and went to the pool a million times.  For real.  We crossed some things off of our family to do list:  my 6 year old learned how to swim without floaties, he also learned how to ride his bike without training wheels (that day was huge!!), my 3 year old is now a confident beginner swimmer and really enjoyed swimming with just floaties.

On the sewing front, I finished my citrus quilt and it's getting much love around here.  I was commissioned by the boys to make some spiderman pillowcases and bean bags.  I made a baby carrier, embellished some cloth diapers for my sister's baby shower and I'm in the process of finishing up a baby quilt for my brand new nephew and an I-spy quilt for my youngest's 4th birthday (which is right around the corner).  Pics (of quilts) to come soon.  I can't believe it's almost Christmas...wow.

Halloween 2012

Binding for my citrus quilt

Binding for my citrus quilt, a photo by Patrice @ Shrimp & Grits on Flickr.

I'm almost done with my citrus quilt. Yay!! The only thing left to do is attach the binding. I went with one of my favorite prints of all time, full moon polka dot in green (?, not sure if that's the exact color but you get the picture) and tangerine.

I was able to finish up the quilting while the hubby and kids cooked me a wonderful Mother's Day lasagna dinner. It was a great day! Stay tuned for pics of the finished product. Have a wonderful day.

My Citrus Quilt top is done!

Finally,  after much procrastinating my Citrus Quilt top is done!  I really, really love how it turned out.  The bright colors really pop against the white.  My favorite part is the scrappy border.   It measures about 64 inches wide and 75 inches long. The hubs is happy about it too because he can finally stretch out under a quilt without his toes peeking out at the bottom.

This is by far the biggest quilt I've made and I can't wait to quilt it.  I've started piecing the back using some of the scraps leftover from making the top and some other fabrics from my stash.

I'm linking this up over at Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Up Friday.  Have you finished anything this week?  It doesn't have to be a sewing project.  Have you been bit by the Spring cleaning bug?  If you have tell it to come bite me b/c I need some encouragement!   Have a great weekend!

Happy Belated Easter

Happy Belated Easter!  I hope everyone's Sunday was great.  After church, we had friends over for dinner, had an Easter egg hunt for the kiddos and played volleyball in my back yard.  We had so much fun!   I know it's Wednesday and all but since Easter is one of my FAVORITE holidays and I didn't think it would be right to leave it unacknowledged to my blog peeps.  

This was the first year the boys have had a part in the Easter program at church and I'm really glad I decided to make them do it.  (thanks Chantel for the extra push encouragement!)  I think they enjoyed it too.

I did get a little sewing done on the citrus quilt.  So far the top is complete and I'm piecing the back.  I love this quilt already and can't wait to finish it.  I promise to post some pics.  This has been a crazy week for us with J starting back school after Spring Break and work has been insane so I'm looking forward to a date with my sewing machine this weekend and will hopefully start quilting it.


The lovely stack of fabric below will become a baby shower gift soon.  I'm thinking of doing a stacked coin quilt with some neutral sashing in between the stacks, probably Kona Ash.  Stay tuned....

Works in Progress

Thanks for your sweet comments about the Citrus Quilt.  They lit a fire under me and encouraged me to work on getting it  finished.  I've attached the scrappy border and the only thing left to do on the quilt top is attach the white border.  I haven't taken any pics of it with the scrappy border but it really brings the design and colors together.  At the pace I'm going though I should be done with this quilt by the summer.  :-)

As you can see from the pics above, I'm also working on a half square triangle quilt using my scraps.  Some of the fabrics are novelty and some are just from past sewing projects.  This quilt is going to be a long term WIP.  I enjoy snatching a few minutes in between "mommy work" and piecing the units a little at a time.  Some of the fabric is not my favorite but I can't in good conscience waste fabric so I'm hoping when the quilt comes together it won't matter and they will all just blend in.

Still in progress
1.  I-spy for B--I got some great novelty squares from the ELQ charm swap and all that's left to do is piece this top

2.  Baby gift -haven't started yet, just have fabric picked out

This is a picture of my next door neighbor's daffodils.  I'm so excited that spring is finally here!

I'm sharing this over at Freshly Pieced.  What good things are you working on?

Spectrum Mini Quilt

I have always loved rainbow quilts.  It's something about the progression of colors that appeals to me.  I got motivated to try a spectrum quilt when Jennifer of Ellison Lane Quilts started the Modern Mini Challenge.  

The hardest part of this quilt was deciding on how to quilt it.  I didn't want to stipple the colored bars because I thought it would take away from the simplicity of the colors, but the empty white space needed some umph!  I bought some variegated thread thinking that I could do straight lines across the quilt horizontally but when I started doing it I didn't like how every little imperfection showed on the white background.  So....I decided to make clouds using a pebble quilting technique and FMQ some raindrops. This is my first try at pebble quilting and they are very uneven organic. I really like how it turned out though.  This is my first time doing applique too.  I used a fabric glue stick and just stitched around the edge.   I had a lot of fun making this quilt.

(Did you get my interpretation of the pot of gold and leprechaun at the end of the rainbow?)  

Gettin' Scrappy with it

Do you remember that song by Will Smith, "Gettin' Jiggy with it" that came out a while back?   I couldn't help but think of that song when I typed this post title.   If you don't know it google it, it's a very catchy song.  

Anyway, this post is really not about a song.  It's about scraps.  I have officially caught scrap fever!  I follow a lot of blogs and many of them are focusing on using scraps.  I am totally inspired by what I'm seeing and am officially jumping on the scrap bandwagon.  I think making my first log cabin block started the ball rolling.    This is another scrappy log cabin block and I think I like it better than the first.  It uses more pieces and I like the colors more.  I added the black and white stripe piece to give the block some contrast.  I liked how it looked so much that I added a strip to the first block.  These blocks are going to be perfect for a scrappy log cabin quilt.

I also started cutting out some half square triangles to use in my HST quilt that's on my bucket list.  This quilt is going to be scrappy too.  Since my scrap pile is pretty small and doesn't contain a lot of color variance  I'll be pulling from my stash for some of the colors I haven't used yet in a quilt (purples, brown, black, blue).  I tend to gravitate toward pink, orange, yellow, white and red because they're my faves.  I'm using my Accuquilt Go Baby to cut out the triangles and the squares are coming together nicely.  I'm enjoying working on this project a little at a time.

Mini quilt challenge

Jennifer at Ellison Lane Quilts is hosting a mini quilt challenge and I've got to join in on the fun.  The prizes are fantastic and I've really never done a "mini quilt".  I've done a couple of mug rugs but I want to do something a little different.  I'm excited!!

I'm not sure what fabrics I'm going to use, but I'm leaning toward blues and greens as the main color.  Stay tuned....

Stashbuilding

Last week was a GREAT mail day!  The mailman brought me some yummy fabric goodness.  I haven't really bought fabric since before the holidays, so I was way overdue. :-)

 Fly A Kite by October Afternoon for Riley Blake Designs 

Aren't those flowers just the cutest?  The colors are very pretty and subtle too.

Pezzy Print by American Jane for Moda Fabrics

I have been waiting for Pezzy Print to be released since I first saw some "old" pez fabric on Flickr last year.  Being a new quilter I of course missed out on the first release of the pez fabric ( I don't know when it was but I know I missed it) so I wasn't going to miss it this time around.  I got the fat quarter bundle but I'm going to have to get some yardage of some of the colors.  I don't have a great variety of blues in my stash (mostly aqua) and this line has a great baby blue, navy blue and a pretty teal color.

I found both of these lines here:   The Fat Quarter Shop and Fabricworm

Is it really 2012?

Happy New Year!  I can't believe I haven't posted anything here in over a month.  Wow!  I haven't sewed a stitch since that improv log cabin and I'm itching to get back in the swing of things.  I hope to quilt more in 2012.  I've already got a couple of ideas for quilts  swimming around in my head and it's just the first week in January.

One of my goals for 2012 is to use more fabrics out of my stash and limit the number of precut fabrics that I purchase.  I've had a small love affair with precuts and it's time to end it!  I bought myself an Accuquilt Go Baby fabric cutter and I love it.  I picked up the 5 inch square die, 2.5 inch strip die and a HST die.  Now I can make my own charm squares and not buy them.  Yay for me!

Some of my goals for 2012:
1. finish citrus quilt
2. I Spy quilt for B
3. quilt for my sister
4. patchwork quilt for my brother
5. HST mini quilt for my sewing corner
6. baby quilt
7. a totally improvised quilt

This picture has nothing to do with quilting.  I know.  I just thought I'd share a pic of my two sweet boys.  And besides you can't have a post without a picture.  That would be boring.