Okay, things are slow around this blog…

But I do have an excuse, I swear!

I got a huge emotional hang over after the wedding was done. I walked around this week in a bit of a black cloud. Even my sleeping schedule has been completely messed up, which is only adding to the depression, I’m sure…

I am working on my quilt today. I just went and got he rest of the backing material I needed.

We are shifting the house around as well, moving bedrooms and moving a roommate out as well. So things are a bit up in the air and I’ve barely had time to breathe, let alone blog, so take that into consideration before you give up on me…lol.

More later (I hope) and a finished quilt soon.

R and A quilt…non-update, day 6…

I’ve reached the end of my patience. My house looks like a Tasmanian devil came in and whirled through every room. There’s no bread, eggs, cheese or anything normal, because I haven’t had two seconds to go to the store, and the only reason we have any clean clothes left to wear is because we’ve been throwing a load in the wash in the morning, switching it to the dryer in the evening, and throwing the clean clothes on the couch when we are tired of digging through the dryer to look for something to wear.

My OWN wedding wasn’t this hard on me!

It’s over tomorrow. In less than 24 hours I’ll be able to breathe easily again and get back to living my life, not this crazybusystressful one I’ve had the past week.

The quilt is the only thing I’m still excited about, lol. I’m too tired of wedding and white and cake and vows to care much about anything else!

I will be back soon, very soon, I am counting down the hours now!!!

R and A Quilt Update Day 5.

There’s no point in trying to make something up.

The truth is that I am too tired to even want to look at my toothbrush, let alone my sewing machine. At this point I really wish the quilt was done though so I could snuggle up in it. I need pampering and comfort in the worst way! A hot shower and my microfleece blankie and my hubby will have to suffice, but it’s just not the same thing as a handmade quilt, you know?

PS – just a note for anyone else caught in traffic jams and six hours worth of shopping with two toddlers – do NOT wear semi-uncomfortable boots. Wear slippers. With lots of padding in them.

Red and Aqua Quilt Update #4

Okay, here’s the truth.

I stink stink STINK at doing what I say I’m gonna do. So I kinda set myself up for failure when I said I was going to make a block for this quilt every single day. I didn’t do one yesterday. There was too much chaos, not to mention last minute changes in hugely important things like which wedding dress will be worn at the ceremony, and that change instituted a whole bunch of other ones and even a late night WalMart run. So I never got the chance to sit down and sew yesterday.

HOWEVER…

This morning I was feeling so guilty about missing yesterday, that I got up and got started right away. I finished planning the blocks (turns out I may have just enough fabric after all, without adding any other fabrics) and I chain stitched thirteen pairs of squares together as the bases for the next set of blocks. I even started finishing the blocks off before it was time to go run wedding errands. I feel sort of accomplished but still a bit of a failure from yesterday, but what can ya do?

Off to rethread the bobbin and get some work done before it’s time to go running off again…pics later!

Red and Aqua Quilt Update #3

This quilt needs a name. I am already tired of typing “red and aqua” lol.

Tonight was even better than last night as far as quilting goes. I came up with a new (for me, not for anyone else, lol) method of putting these blocks together: chain piecing. Instead of just one or even two blocks, tonight I was able to complete a whopping six whole blocks! The chain piecing was awesome and cut the work in half, seriously. I chain pieced the small squares together, two at a time, then went back and added one more square to each pair. When that was done, I sewed three strips of three sewn squares to each other, to come up with one nine patch block. Then I cut each block in half length wise and again across the width and used the chain piecing method to sew them all back together in random order.

It sounds confusing, but that’s for two reasons. One is that you’re not able to see what I’m talking about, since I don’t have pictures of the process, and two, I can’t explain things or give good directions to save my hide. If there’s any interest I can take a video of how I do this. I may do that anyway, since video would be better than these horrid pictures I keep ending up with…speaking of which, it is now time to reveal tonight’s pictures.

Horrible lighting, not so great layout, but wonderful blocks!

There’s another shot in the gallery down below. (WordPress and I are having a fight right now. It’s winning. So you have to use the link, sorry about that.)

Anyway, that’s the news on the quilt front!

PS – the pan full of cake scraps on the table is NOT my dinner, I promise. It’s gonna feed the birds in the yard in the morning. Yes, I’m still working on the wedding cake…lol.

Off to finish wedding stuff, I’ll be back later.

Horrible lighting, not so great layout, but wonderful blocks!

My favorite is the upper right one!

Red and Aqua Quilt Update #2, Wedding Update #1

It’s been such a rewarding day! First, the quilt news…

I finished not one, but two whole blocks tonight. I even fixed my sewing machine all by myself when it decided to throw a tantrum. I’m so proud! If you were just going on the pictures alone, they don’t look so hot. I PROMISE I will take them outside tomorrow and take some shots that do them justice. I’ll also see about researching how to take better indoor pictures, because these really are terrible.

The other photos are a little better. They are slightly more important too.

My littlest sister is getting married (sniff* sniff*) this weekend at my dad’s. I’m the unpaid planner, decorator, photographer, wedding cake artist and also, hair stylist. Luckily she’s got fabulous hair and I have great taste, so everything should be fine. Tonight we did a practice run through on her hair. She fell in love with it and I took a bunch of pictures to commemorate the occasion. We were missing a whole bunch of things we need to get a real updo, such as a small curling iron and bobby pins, but the main thing we were doing was making sure we could make it work. And we can. Again, this is not the finished project, so judge nicely…or not at all, you could just enjoy! lol

Well I am tired so I’m just going to post the gallery and let you click through. Later gators.

PS – I hate how these pictures look, I will edit this post soon and make it look better, promise.

Red and Aqua Quilt #1

This is block #1 and post #1 on this super fun quilt (I decided that the previous post, my inspiration pictures, didn’t really count as the first post in this quilt update since it wasn’t about my particular quilt.)

The following pictures suck for two reasons. One, I took them at 12:30 in the morning, and there is no natural light to be found in my kitchen at any time, let alone in the middle of the night, since I live in California and not Alaska. Two, I am too tired to open Photoshop and touch them up, so this is what ya get for the moment. I’m so proud of actually finishing an entire block that I couldn’t wait another second to post!

One other note – I am not done choosing or cutting fabric for this quilt. If you count carefully, you can see five different fabrics; for a true Disappearing Nine Patch pattern you need nine separate patterns. I know one of the remaining four will be white flannel. And that I need more red, and a little more contrast in print size. Other than that, I have no idea which fabrics I’ll be buying, but I just couldn’t wait one more day to piece part of this and get a start on it. I am seriously having dreams about this baby, lol.

Okay, enough rambling…here we go!

The first nine patch, all laid out

After you sew it up, you cut it up, and rearrange it, and resew it. Sounds crazy. Looks great.

It’s hanging in the kitchen

AWESOME new site and giveaway!

To all my fellow fabric lovers – go check this out and take the links to enter to win!  The site is beautiful, worthy of many hours spent sighing over all the choices and combinations…I know ’cause I just did that…lol. 

Sew Fantastic is hosting a great giveaway. So is the site she is letting us all know about, Hawthorne Threads.com. I don’t know which one I’m in love with more, but next time I’m looking to buy fabric online, it will for sure be at Hawthorne Threads.com.

So go, have fun, shop for me and have a great time!

Just a teaser

Thought I’d show you guys what’s inspired me to start on my newest quilt. But first, just a random little side story: I’ve never once made anything that’s just been, from start to finish, for me. Or, for my husband, for that matter. I’ve started a project (a green patchwork quilt) that was supposed to be for our room, but since then I changed decorating directions and gone with blues and teals over greens, so it’s a lost cause. The point is, this is the first thing I’ve ever made just for me. And it didn’t start out being for me. I bought the fabric for a quick flannel baby blanket (a post on those coming soon) and when I got it home and put it up on my work in progress shelf, I just couldn’t keep my eyes off it. I woke up dreaming about the quilt I could make myself out of it. And that’s when it was decided, it would be mine.

On to the teasing…

First, a gorgeous in process shot of an awesome inspirational piece:

Second, showing what white can bring to the board:

Third, just because it’s great:

And lastly, the inspiration behind the pattern I think I’m going to use to arrange the quilt blocks in:

I love the idea of using the Disappearing Nine Patch because the reality is that so far, I only have one red fabric picked out. However, I have tons of red scraps that can be used in 4×4 squares, and by using the Nine Patch method, it won’t be as obvious that very few of the patterns are repeated. Probably considered cheating, I realize, but I am desperately trying to use up what’s in my fabric stash. I no longer have a sewing room (sniff*sniff) and so my crafting bins just float from room to room. It’s driving me crazy and I am determined to cut back on the amount of fabric I am storing, by using it all.

The other reason I like this pattern is that I’m tired of doing random patchwork quilt tops, and the stacked coin quilt top I did is ugly and I detest it. So I needed a new method. This one seems just eclectic enough to suit me and not so rigid that I will be setting myself up for failure by trying it, lol.

Okay, enough rambling. I just want to add that I’ve already cut out over 150 squares for this project and am super excited!

I may need to

divide this one blog into two instead of one massive chaotic over spill of crafts, anxiety diary entries, and just plain writing. Maybe three? lol.

Today I am taking the day off from cleaning, social networking and school work, until I have sewn at least an hour or so.

Selfish? Maybe. But with all of this from SewMamaSew for inspiration, how can you NOT be selfish? I need a new quilt for the winter…new curtains for the living room window…a door snake to keep out drafts…a book cover for my mother…three presents for our Winter Gift Exchange…covers for my tall book shelves in my room…and some peace and quiet to recover from all the drama around here (more on that later, I promise.) So I am off to vent to my sewing machine and recuperate with my fabric collection. Also, I finally remembered batteries for my camera, so there may even be pictures of this miraculous eventful hour in my life!

Later gators!