My Sewing Room

Well that might not be the right title for this post because my sewing room has never been clean enough to post a picture of ... and still isn't...but here is the block I made for the And Sew On final BOM block this month.  It has been great participating in this one and can't wait to have theses hanging in my sewing room in a completed project.

If you have missed this wonderful block of the month you can see all the blocks we have been making each month over at Quiet Play ...Kristy has us link them up for a chance at some fabulous prizes from her sponsors.  Next month we are suppose to put them all together in a finished project.  Kristy has hers all done to inspire us on.  I always need inspiration and drive to complete the project.  Lots of WIPs over here.  Next year I think I will have to commit to finishing some of these lovely BOMs that I am doing this year and are starting to pile up everywhere!  I will need to come up with an action plan for these quickly. Until then...
Keep Stitchin'

Oh Happy Day

Today we finally had Brayden's baby shower and I finally gave my daughter the quilts I had made for him.  The first was the Word quilt that I started before we knew it was a boy or girl and had to wait forever for a name for the baby to be finalized before being able to finish it.  Brayden's quilt was worth all the time and effort though as it was all I could hope for it to be and more. I am very pleased with the final result as you can see by my big smile.

The pattern for all the letters in the words are from the pattern Just My Type in lowercase from Kristy at Quiet Play that I had the honor to pattern test for her a few months back.  You can find the pattern available for her letters and her other paper piecing patterns at her Crafty Store site.

 This next quilt I gave to her when Brayden was born.  My daughter and her husband are big on woodland animals and I thought they would like the deer.  The stag reminds me so much of Bambi's father.  These patterns are from Joanna at Shape Moth .

I did have one surprise for my daughter that I just finished last night in time to give to her today. It was a total shock and surprise to her and that was the best part ( at least for me )... for her she just loved getting it at all.  Months ago she saw a similar blanket available on Etsy but the cost was something she didn't want to incur.  Lucky for her, she has a mom that can try to accomodate her requests for something special that catches her eye in the quilt department.  But in this case we had a problem.  The fabric was from a Robert Kauffman line that was from 2011 and 2012 and although adorable it proved impossible to find.  I had found  the girl fabric panel featuring lots of pink at a store in our town but once an ultrasound showed she was expecting a boy I knew that pink would never do.  We started searching for the boy panel but it seemed to be an impossible task to find it.  After spending hours searching for it online, I turned the task over to my daughter to search for it.  She didn't have any better luck so we were pretty sure we just wouldn't be able to find it.  You can only search online for so many hours before giving up hope.  About a month or more went by and I decided one night to try looking again.  Within 15 minutes, I found it at one and only one store.  Half a world away, in Australia, I found it!!!  The store wouldn't send it to me until I confirmed I would agree to the shipping costs but I already knew I wanted that flannel panel regardless of shipping costs!

Look at the surprise on her face when she opened her present today.  I wrapped the quilt with the backing to the outside so she would have no idea what was on the inside until she opened the quilt up.

It didn't take much of a peek for her to catch on what she was looking at.  She had fallen in love with the border the girl at Etsy had paired up with the flannel panel.  It was a camo and orange pieced border.  Although, I thought it was lunacy, I must admit, it paired up nicely with the fabric and turned out adorable.

I had to share this photo even though my DH captured it with a bit of a blur ( at least it was captured ).
You can't see it thru Mia but she is giving me a high five...she was so EXCITED and still had not seen the whole quilt yet.  That's the good stuff right there.

Here is the resulting quilt, it definitely was worth all the time it took me to find the fabric and wait for the package to arrive from a place so far away. I know I've said it before but the internet is an incredibly life changing tool.  To think a generation ago my parents could never have dreamed of being able to do something like this for me and yet I can do it for my daughter with...relative ease :)

While to someone like me a flannel panel isn't exactly what I think of when I think of starting a quilt project for someone, you can tell my daughter was overjoyed at receiving the blanket she had dreamed of having when she found out she was expecting a special little fellow to light up her days.

I have to admit that after outlining each of the animals and all the leaves in the quilting process and adding the pieced border that it did indeed turn out to be a beautiful finished blankie.

We welcomed the new member of the family this weekend.  He arrived Saturday morning and mommy and him are doing great.  Brayden James weighed in at a hefty 8 lbs 12 oz. and  was 20 and a half inches long.
I am still working on getting his blanket done ( I am so close just the binding to go) but I quickly made a little minky blankie for him because his mommy wanted one that matched his diaper bag (orange and camo).  I couldn't find the real tree camo she wanted so I did the best I could.  I will have to find it online and order it soon. 

He was wide awake and bushy tailed ... checking me out as much as I was checking him out.

When his older sister arrived she held him and checked him over real good, too.

Her look when she looked up was PRICELESS

I think she was pretty tickled pink with the newest member of the family.

 Don't you agree???

Her youngest sister kissed the new baby but I suspect she may be a harder sell on how great he is. We, on the other hand couldn't agree with Kiara more, Brayden puts a huge smile on our faces, too!

Warm fuzzy feelings are happening over here and wishing you and yours the very best!

And Sew On...

And sew on...seems to be the story of my life right now as I continue to try and catch up.  I did get my July rotary cutter And Sew On block done.  My rotary cutter certainly gets a good workout so it is only right to feature it in one of the blocks.  I am glad that Kristy found just the way to do that in one of the patterns.

With little time to spare, I got back to work on my word quilt for Brayden and completed the top.  I got it all pin basted and hope to be able to FMQ it this week so it will be done for Brayden's arrival on Saturday.  He just has to keep cooking in the oven a little while longer so nana can 'Get er Done'. 

For the most part, I think I will just be following the grid when quilting it so it should be rather easy to quilt.
That's the plan anyway.

In doing a little blog reading this weekend , I saw that Sharon over at Lilabelle Lane is asking for help to make an eye spy meets polaroid quilt for a special little boy who is going through some tough medical issues right now.  I told her I would make a couple of these blocks and get them off to her but they are so additive I made four.  Oh, well I am sending them all and if she gets too many she can decide what else to do with them. I just need to pick up a postcard to send with it so Blake and his family can see where they came from and pop them in the mail so they can travel half way around the world to reach Sharon and become part her little love gift to this little guy to warm his heart and bring a smile to him with all of our good wishes.

I made the Gorilla, which turned out super cute, an Elephant, monkeys---just too fun to resist, and then I saw the deer and thought it was perfect since these blocks are being sent to Blake with love from the Pacific Northwest.
Keep Stitchin'

Progress report

While I have probably only completed half of the tasks I set before myself , I am gaining ground (if you overlook that a new month of BOM's has just begun) hee hee he.

I completed a baby quilt for Brayden.  None too soon as he is set to arrive next Saturday, the 7th of September by C-section.  He will be by daughter's third to arrive that way and our first grandson!!!
I found these two adorable deer patterns over at Shape Moth and got to work on making a very simple quilt for our little dear.  I love love Joanna's patterns!!!

I got three of my Pile 'O Fabric Skillbuilder blocks done :

 'Broken Arrow'

'Diamond Carat'

'Pixelate'

I set to work on my July and August castle blocks that I am doing from Ula Lenz's castle BOM.  I started with the Princess castle and hated one of the colors I used.  Man I hate that!!!  

I had originally thought to use the light cream again that is on the left where the frogs are above the princesses in the tower but was afraid it might be too washed out so I went with the darker purple.  I really regretted that I opt to do that as it just didn't appear to be right.  I hate ripping it immediately apart so I set to work on the gnome castle instead.  I always like how it works out so I made the August block for it also.  Here is how it turned out.

I could tell from this castle that I was right that the dark purple of the princess castle needed replaced for sure so I set to ripping it apart, salvaging what I could and remaking the parts I needed to change.  Here is the corrected castle as it is today.

 Although it slowed down progress...it was worth the necessary time it took to switch the colors.  I couldn't convince the same frogs to move into the castle so now some dragons live precariously close to the princesses in the lower towers.  I believe they look rather jolly so I think the ladies shall having nothing to fear.

This brings my to do list to look like this now:

1. Pile O Fabric Skillbuilder blocks

• Phoenix
• Pixelate
• Saturn
• Candyland
• Broken Arrow
• Diamond Carat

    2.  July Castle Blocks

• Gnome Castle
• Surprise Castle
• re-do Fairy Princess Castle

    3.   August Castle Blocks

• Gnome Castle
• Surprise Castle
• Fairy Princess Castle

     4.   I need to finish my Forest QAL quilt binding and post it here prior
           to August 31st. 

     5.   Finish my Deer baby quilt by Sept 5th  baby due Sept 7th...cutting
           it close I know

     6.   Finish Brayden's name quilt that I started way before he had a name
           and have yet to complete.
Of course, I haven't got the courage to add my Sept BOM's to the list right yet as I want to just believe I am making progress for a while longer.  I know I can only fool myself for so long but hey it is only Sept 1st so I will bask in my ignorance a while longer.

In the meantime, a friend from work let me borrow her Go Baby for a while and will be using it to cut up some fabrics into an array of shapes and sizes.  She had about 12 dies to go with it and I can not say enough good things about how easy it is to use.

 Oh, yes that Hexagon block die is fantastic!!! It makes 2",3",and 5" hexagons quick as a wink.  I stacked my fabric 4 layers thick but I think it can do 6 or 7.  One of the dies is for 2" squares, I sure could have used it to cut my pixelate blocks , but will be able to get some of my squares for the Phoenix block cut with it.  I also have tons of fabrics that I want to use in a watercolor someday and can't wait to chop them into 2" squares. One of the dies makes 5" charm squares and another is for 3 1/2" squares.  She had dies for parellelgrams, chisels, and triangles...oh my I am having fun.  In just the few minutes I played with it on Friday night I cut out all this lickety split:

This was just a few minutes play time and no I am not getting paid to say any of this.  This is just me borrowing a friend's toy and loving it.  Santa may be getting me one of these for Christmas this year.  I have a Sixxix machine for die cutting paper and it really takes some work to get the lever to come down and put pressure on the die to cut the shape out.  Not so with the GO Baby!  It just cranks through the opening with no effort.  It took me longer to choose fabrics than to cut them out.  For me, the hardest part of starting a new project is cutting all the pieces.....
Dear Santa ,
I have been a very good girl this year!!!