I was held hostage! By boxes!

So, ummm....hi! I wish I had a really great story about being held captive in Mexico by a swarm of sexy pool boys. Alas, that would be a lie. Shortly after I posted last we closed on our house. We had 2 weeks to pack and move. The Hubs wouldn't let me pack before we closed. Something about being superstitious. *Cough* load of crap *cough* Of course every wall and ceiling in the whole house was a buttery yellow beige. It was like Paula Deen exploded. Except the bathroom. It had to be the ugliest shade of forest green known to man. Home buying has been an adventure to say the least.

Now that we have an extra bedroom I get my own sewing room! It's a teeny bedroom and this time of year stays quite chilly, but damnit its mine! ALL MINE!!

Here is the sewing table with various mugrugs from swaps. The cathedral window is actually a pillow case but its so pretty I kinda don't want anyone to put their butt near it.

Here is what was previously my cupboard. The top row are the fabrics I got put on comic book boards. Seriously, it is amazing! I love the way you can see it all and pull from it like a book in a library. I need a few more packages and I will get them all settled in. Oh, how I love to organize!

Now I can have a design wall. This is just 2 scrap pieces of batting tacked up, but only because I ran out of full pieces. I LOVE having this! It makes layouts so much easier! This is the latest WIP I've got going on. Its a simple pattern I thought up, but I'm sure someone else already has. It comes together super quick and would be great for a first time quilt. This one will end up being a baby quilt. I'm thinking a thin sashing between the blocks, but can't decide what color. The first thing to pop into my head was a dark gray, but that seems too dark for a baby. I think a good polka dot would be great if I could find the right color. I know the back will be a light gray.

Now that the moving and holidays are good and done, I'm hoping to be able to sew more.

Now that she's back for the new year as well, I'll be linking up with the other wonder quilters at Freshly Pieced.

Resolving an issue

When working on my Fat Quarterly quilt I bought a jelly roll. A few of the pieces were a bit off the grain. No biggie. I made it work. Besides, I cut the strip lengths all crazy too. I'm 4 rows from being done. I'll post pictures of that soon. Cross my heart and kiss my elbow.

I bought a layer cake of Ruby by Bonnie and Camille. Loooved the colors. Plus it had my name on it. Silly, but whatevs :) I had intended to do this pattern.

 From www.fortworthfabricstudio.com

It's the project sheet from Little Apples. Love this layout. Then I opened it and that idea went straight out the window.

For the Little Apples layout I need all 42 squares. Ummm, obviously not happening. I did some math and could do the Sugar Pop n Change from Moda Bakeshop. Nope. Can't do that either. Most of the squares weren't a full 10 inches. A bunch were too short by 1/4 an inch.

I contacted the online shop I bought it from, along with emailing United Notion's customer service. With both I included pictures of what I got. I'm really bummed. I don't have much money to spend on fabric and now I've got this big glob of scraps.

Maybe it's a sign I shouldn't start yet ANOTHER project.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I'm linking up over at Amy's Creative Side for Blogger Quilt Festival. There are some really stellar quilters out there! I mean, whoa damn. You guys have skills! Let me share with you my journey getting there.

This quilt was an adventure. I found this great bundle of fabric and fell in love with a layout. I added in a few more, bought some solids and away I sewed!

It all started out well and good. A few corners weren't matching up as well as I had planned. I knew this would live on my bed so I wasn't all that concerned.

Then this happened. WTF!?! How in the world do you get so off track that you mess up this many rows?! I had 2 options. 1 - unpick the many wrong pieces and try again, or 2 - say well crap and fix what I thought was right in the first place. Path of least resistance you say? I'm sold!

The back didn't go so well either. (Why would it?)

There are puckers galore. I got in the zone of doing some quilting (while my little guide thing went all over the place) and didn't bother to look at the back.

ALWAYS CHECK YOUR BACKS!

I can giggle at it now, but at the time many a bad words were said.

I love it though. Is it the best, most perfect thing ever? Nope. Does it make me proud to say I pulled through and didn't set it a fire in a fit or rage quit? You betcha.

Plus, it makes the Hubs, aka quilt holder, look like the Chancellor from Star Wars.

Stupid camera is stupid

I LOVE to take pictures. Before I started quilting I had really wanted to get into photography. Once upon a time I wanted to be a photojournalist and travel the world. Now? Not so much. But my love of taking and editing pictures remains. Small problems though. 1 - my camera crapped out on me and 2 - so did my photoshop.

I am lazy as a cat when it comes to uploading. I try to break out my real camera when it comes to my finishes because they are worth the extra effort. (Not that its THAT much effort, I'm just THAT lazy.) For whatever reason all my pictures kept coming out soft. I finally reset the stupid thing and it shoots much better. Did I mention I did this AFTER I had already begged and pleaded with my husband to hold these? I love the natural light outside but my neighbors already think we are weird.

With out further ado, and decent pictures, I give you my recent finishes!

This is the first quilt I have labeled. I was going to put it on before the quilting, but something shiny distracted me. I used some heat n bond and then hand sewed around the edges. Not sure if that's the way to do it, but I think it looks quite spiffy. What's that you hear? Me tooting my own horn? Ya daaaaaaaaamn right.

When do I start packing?

Our offer was accepted, we got it inspected and we're on our way with all the other mortgage paper work crap! Woop woop! After signing so many papers I was starting to spell my name wrong. Hubs dared me to put a smiley face in with it. A tiny one is on the bottom of a page about hazard insurance.

Meow what?! (Just a little Super Trooper humor)

Do I have good pictures of things I've finished? Nope. Some stupid battlefield game came out and my husband's inner 13 yr old boy played that non stop. 0_o I've become a Playstation widow.

I am also an official member of the Ft Worth Modern Quilt Guild! It was a pretty small group. I actually got up for show and tell. I can talk to people all day but when I get in front of a group? Fear strikes! I didn't go with the intent of show and tell. I had a finished quilt with me because I knew I would need to do this.

All the ladies were super nice and I didn't throw up on my shoes, so I consider it a success.

I also went to a Halloween party last weekend. I go out about once a year and party pretty hard. I don't know how people do that every weekend. I'm getting too old for that crap.

I wasn't super drunk here, I just blinked. I had to make the hat and the sign. The sign was printed out and taped to the cardboard that comes in the bottom of a bottled water case. The dowel is left over from the ghetto clothes wrack I used a few months back. The hat came together pretty quick. If anyone is interested, email me and I'll tell you how I did it. All in all, I thought it pretty darn cute. I'll wear it again on Halloween at work.

After finishing 2 projects I started 2 new ones. A whirligig and another fat quarterly one.

Here is the template I made so I could plan it out instead of hit or miss with fabrics. I some how miss calculated and need something to go around the edges. I'm not sure if I should cut more out of the fabric I'm using or try to do a border.

I had pulled a whole different set of fabrics. After reading the Art of Choosing I changed my mind and am MUCH happier with this set. Its some Darjeeling, I think a Tula Pink, Alexander Miller, a couple of Joann's prints, and I have no idea what the others are. (I don't keep track of all of that. I only remember those because it was printed on the selvage)

I bought a jelly roll of Terrain from Missouri Quilt Co deal a day. I'd never bought one and I am in LOVE with this line. Especially the purples. Honestly, I'm not diggin the jelly roll. I love that you get the whole line, but it felt like I had a lot of issues with it not being cut with the grain.

I will admit I jacked this up hard core when cutting strip length. I think because I tried to cut too many together at once. All the finished blocks are supposed to be 6.5" square. I went back and trimmed them all down to 6.25" squares. Each block with be sashed in white. Immediately after looking at this picture I switched around a few blocks. Standing back and taking a picture helps me so much. Maybe the change of perspective?

Wow, this seems really wordy. Thanks for listening? reading my rambling. Word vomit is good for the soul :)

WWP - Wine While Posting

Great googly moogly!

Might I start off with a bit of annoyance at HGTV. After watching House Hunters for years I was led to believe that looking at houses would be fun.

Nope. Not at all.

It's time consuming and frustrating and some people must have no idea their houses stink.

We have been a bit crazy. We have lived a year somewhere and then moved for the last 5 years. It sounds crazy, and it kind of is. In all fairness, there were valid reasons for each move. When looking for a rental its no big deal. Stay there a year or two and something always comes up and we move. Once we buy we are there for a good long while. Not going to lie, kind of freaking out a little. Housing commitment issues?! BUT we drew up papers to put an offer in on a house, our 3rd house to try, so hopefully we hear back soon.

I think my son is also finally getting the last of his teeth in. Or he is a cranky cannibal trying to eat his own hands. See title above.

Amidst this chaos I have finally buckled down and finished two quilts! One is Oh Franson's New Wave and the other is FITF Rectangle Squared.

There it is in all its crinkly glory! Once its not windy I'll take a good picture outside with something other than my phone. Here it is draped across my kitchen chairs to make a tunnel. It's a great size for a toddler bed. Or tunnels/caves/houses/hiding.

This is the fabric I finally went with for the binding. I was going to do a lighter gray Kona but I stumbled across this in my stash. It has all the colors and a few extras. Its wobbly as all get out on the back. I don't know what is going on that I can NOT get a straight machine binding. Well, I know part of the reason...

I took apart the feed dog/bobbin area of my machine. This is what came out. I swear it wasn't that long ago that I did that! It was so bad under the plate around the feed dogs. I think that is why I've been having so many issues with it pulling to one side. Maybe now I can free motion quilt with out all the asshattery.

Tomorrow is the first time I'll be going to a quilt guild meeting! Ft Worth Modern Quilt Guild is super new. There's been one in Dallas for a bit, but that's too far for me to drive. The Ft Worth one meets about 3 miles from my mom's house and is much easier to get to. I stumbled across a Sewing Saturday while I was on vacation. Saw a girl with the logo on her shirt so I asked her about it. I'm kind of nervous. Do I bring something?? What goes on? Does everyone bring a show and tell??

Since it is Wednesday, I will link up with the ever sweet Lee of Freshly Pieced. Show some comment love on the lovelies being made :)

WIP Wednesday actually ON a Wednesday

I actually managed to find time in the craziness of today to find time to blog! Suuhweeet!

The house I was lusting after got a bid in and accepted a day before our. I wish them a plague of pubic crabs nothing but the best. I will be optimistic and think that the universe has something better in store. There is one house we looked at today that has lots of potential. It needs a good bit of work on it, but the question would be how much and the cost efficiency of buying and fixing vs getting something in better shape. We shall see...

Ever since I saw the Rectangle Squared pattern on FITF I wanted to make it. This week I got out a FQ set and went to it! I took out most of the pinks and all the animal prints. I think they would be perfect for a baby quilt later on. For me? Not much of a Pink Lady in that sense. More like Frenchie but I didn't drop out of beauty school.

I draped this on my ironing board while I was working on the back. My son promptly crawled under and declared it his cave. Of course I had to allow it. Everything I make he says" OOOO! I like it. You make one for me??" I knew this one would be for me so I wasn't super precise about everything. Ok, maybe not precise at all. You could say this quilt top is half ass chic.

This was the first time I had ever tried spray basting. Shit works! Smells to high heaven and god knows what is stuck to the bottom of my feet, but it was so quick! I think I am sold. The main reason I tried it was because I had every intention of doing the free motion thing. I've never really done it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

This was the front. My plans were to do loopy doos in all the gray areas. Though not perfect, I thought it looked pretty nifty.

WTF!? See those dots? Yea, that is the thread from the top. This is with the tension all the way up. I have tweaked and fiddled with all kinds of stuff on the damn machine and this keeps happening. I want to use 2 color threads! You hear me?!!Looks like I will have to send this off to the machine doctor to find out what is happening. Or I go all Office Space a la copier on it.

Might I just say that free motion is THE hardest stuff to rip out. Lesson learned: free motion quilting is like tattooing your quilts.

The lovely Laura of Needles, Pins and Baking Tins received her goodies! She was the one who got the rainbow mug rug. I was sooooo relieved she liked it.

Since this is actually on the right day, I'll be linking up with the linky ladies at Freshly Pieced. Check 'em out and show some love :)