FINALLY!

YES! Finally, the house in Myrtle Beach is officially finished and completely ours! This journey has taken 22 months from contract to completion and has been fraught with so many frustrations but we’ve finally crossed the finish line! **cue huge sigh of relief**

The final hours of negotiation were so stressful and at times I thought we would have to get lawyers involved (*cue gagging) but eventually everyone acted like adults and we came to a settlement. We were so relieved to have it all behind us, we only captured these two pictures before leaving

We’ve already ordered the window blinds and if we’re lucky they’ll be ready for install when we go back down for Thanksgiving… I’ll be sure to capture room by room shots on that visit! The house is beautiful and we’re very happy with the results however, it’ll take some time for us to get over the bitterness of how long this process took…but we’ll get there.

We haven’t landed on an exact moving date yet – it will probably be some time in January.

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Because of all that stress, I’ve spent very little time in my sewing room…which is the exact opposite of what I should be doing!! Sewing & quilting relaxes me so I really need to carve out more time for that!

I did get a few stitches accomplished this week, first I completed two charity blocks for Carol at From My Carolina Home I plan to make a few more and then send them to her to put into a quilt.

I also did a little work on a commission baby quilt for my husband’s cousin. She messaged me several weeks ago and wanted a gray owl quilt to give to her newest grand daughter for Christmas. I found this cute pink & gray owl fabric for the front and a gray dot flannel for the back. This is a whole cloth quilt so now that I have it basted I just need to get it quilted and bound.

That’s about all for now…if you don’t hear from me for a while just know that I’ll be packing & moving…UGH!

Have a great rest of your weekend 🙂

 

 

Big News!

I’ve got lots to share quilting wise but the biggest, bestest news is: I’m a Great Aunt!!!

My niece gave birth to a 5lb 11oz, 18″ long little girl on Friday, Nov 10. Her name is Campbell Elizabeth and she’s perfect!! She came about 2.5 weeks early and they’re keeping an eye on her but she’s doing really well 😀

I’m just so tickled…my niece has been trying to have a baby for many, many years so this is such a blessing. I’ll be traveling to Maryland later this month to spend a week with them, helping out in any way they need me to – squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

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A few weeks ago I mentioned that I made some seasonal table toppers for a friend who lives near Seattle…and here they are! She saw me post about my own Pumpkin topper and asked for one, as well as a Christmas topper.

I used decorative stitching on the tree to mimic garland…I love it! Now I need to make myself one 😀

I added to my Honeypot Bee collection with this October block…every time I make one I get all giddy because I still love that Blueberry Park fabric!! Can’t wait to put all these blocks together 😉

As I usually do, when I’m knee deep in a big project I just have to pull out some fabric and start a new project :-s I had a charm pack of Batiks and I was feeling the seasonal change so I added a brown background fabric and made up this little baby top. It’s sitting patiently in my ‘tops’ box until I get back around to it.

I also finished the Quilt for Vegas and put that in the mail this week. I used fabric from a half-yard bundle of Mini Bracelets I’ve been hoarding for a few years. I did straight line quilting to mimic the block pattern and used text fabric for the backing.

 

Last but not least…I F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. finished the Memorial quilt. This one really challenged me because of all the different clothing fabric – velvet, satin, crepe, and rhinestones – wow! The customer picked it up yesterday and she was thrilled which makes all the hard work worthwhile 😉

I did double straight line quilting in each row…used Kona Navy for the back and binding. It measures 67″ square.

Now that I’ve finished these big projects, I think I’ll spend a few days cleaning up my sewing room before I dive into anything else…yeah, that sounds good – let’s see if I can do it 😉

ttfn…

 

 

Friday Finish

Technically, I finished late last night so I’m gonna take liberties and call it a Friday Finish.

I’ve had a baby blanket topper sitting around since March; I even pieced the back and had them all rolled up together waiting for the inspiration/motivation to finish it. I went to the ‘Owner’s class’ at the sewing machine store yesterday and learned a ton about using my new machine…it’s really cool what it can do! I also got some inspiration from some of the quilts hanging there and the lovely lady who was my instructor. She’s an extremely experienced sewer/quilter and she showed me how to use some of the decorative stitches as the quilting stitches which made me want to run home and try it…hence I pulled out the quilt top from March.

For some reason I’m just not in love with this blanket…I like the fabrics on their own but I think it’s the layout that just makes me think ‘eh’. And the galaxy fabric on the back is really, really cool…I even tried to find more of it back in March so I could cover the whole back but no luck (I found it in the remnants bin at Hobby Lobby). I think the other reason I’m not in love is because of the drastic difference between the top & back…BUT…it’s done now and I can move on!

I did few different things on this quilt:

1. The batting is polyester…jury is still out whether I’ll use it again. I really like the loft and it doesn’t add any additional weight to the blanket. What I don’t like is the feel…it just feels kind of ‘cheap’.
2. I used a decorative stitch to quilt the top…it’s not anything intricate, just a wavy line, but I like that I didn’t have to move the quilt around…just run it through the machine. It also makes the quilt look almost commercial…jury is out on using that stitch again.
3. I used the alphabet stitches on my new machine to make the label…and you guessed it, jury is out on that too. Obviously I didn’t do a stellar job on lining everything up so that may factor into it.

Linking up with:

Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

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Heading out today on a mission: I’m going to IKEA to buy a table topper to use with some bookcases I ordered to make an official cutting table! I found the idea online and have FINALLY talked my husband into helping me do it – yay!  While I’m out I plan to swing by Mary Jo’s and pick up more backing fabric for the pumpkin table runners…I’ll buy extra this time

ttfn…

Baby animals quilt top

I no sooner get the Crossword Puzzle quilt completed and delivered to my Mom (she LOVED it), and I just had to start on a new top. The remnants and clearance fabrics I bought last week were calling me so I jumped right in when we got back from Maryland and I have a new quilt top, it’s currently 33 1/4 x 39 3/4.

I cut the baby animals remnant into 5.5″ blocks and then decided to border them with the red plaid clearance fabric. I realized too late the plaid was probably not the best choice as the material was quite wavy and it makes the top look all wonky…but it’s done now. I still need to square it up and decide what I’m going to do for a border. I need to go back for more fabric because I really don’t have anything that will match – I was thinking a light/medium green (to hopefully offset all that red), all ideas are appreciated!

I also started playing with ideas for making a quilt for my niece. Her last name starts with M so I was trying to figure out how I could make a big M for the middle and then use her favorite colors for the rest of the quilt. I created a foundation paper piece block and did a trial run with some Walmart clearance fabric…good thing because I still need to tweak it a little bit, this sample is almost 6 x 6 (the right side looks all wavy but it’s really not, it must be bad lighting or bad photography!).

My next project

I’ve ordered the yarn and according to Fedex it will be here today!  Making this for my grandson, it looks so cool and sounds pretty easy!

Free pattern at Lion Brand

FO, Baby booties

The mate is complete…yay!

My first baby bootie

I still need to make the mate but I just couldn’t wait to post a pic

FO finally

I had planned to finish this blanket several weeks ago, but its finally done now.

Tavian Andrew – grandson born 9/28/12

Just one of the many pictures we’ll be buying…He is the cutest baby ever…not that I’m biased or anything!

Working on the baby projects

I’ve been working on finishing the baby blanket but I made the mistake of starting a baby hat with the same yarn and now I need to finish the hat before I can use that skein to finish the blanket…what was I thinking !?!?!?!  I also wanted to make matching baby booties but that’s not going to happen…at least not for this first visit.

I’m following this pattern to make the hat…it should turn out really cute!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTn9LpjDvdo&feature=plcp