I'm itching to sew. And now I have a reason and something to sew. I should be more specific. I want to sew a quilt. Not just anything. I have not sewn for a good while now and I think its time to start browsing for material. You see, I just found out we are expecting a baby boy to join our family around June. And now that I am more experienced in making quilts and realize its not as hard as it looks I want this baby to have a nice looking quilt. I would make one for my other son who has an e-z made quilt-ish. But my Mom made it for him. Not that its a big deal if I did one, but he JUST started using it. It has been available to him for a whole year and he JUST started using it. He was very attached to his other blankie. It took a bit of convincing to get him to use it. He move to a big boy bed and so therefore has to use a "big boy" blanket. In about a year I think I will make him a new one a bit more fancy. But in the mean time, I have about 18 weeks (comfortably) to produce a nice blanket for this new baby. My first gift to him. I also have to make a new diaper bag (my old one is hanging by threads). So hopefully soon you can be looking forward to maybe some instructions for a new quilt!

Therapy

Sewing is a therapy for me. I love it. It is so relaxing to me to sit and put something together. Then I feel so accomplished when it is done. I used to sew a lot at night when my little girl was a little smaller than she is now. She would have a new dress almost every Sunday for church. I would sew it Saturday night after she went to bed. Then came my little guy that's not so little anymore and I was still able to sew after bedtime. Now I have a smaller little guy that is becoming not so small anymore either and when night time comes I just want to sit and do nothing at all. So my sewing has had to move to the daylight hours and the kids know not to touch anything I an sewing. However, that does not stop them from taking as many scraps as they can and string them all over the house. But I don't mind that so much. They know I love to sew.

So when I moved I forgot a vital piece of quilting equipment at my parents house. Actually 2 things. My cutting mat and ruler. I bought a new mat because mine was getting pretty beat up anyway. But I couldn't bring myself to buy the rulers to cut next to (you the kind I mean) because I have not one BUT 2!! And I left them both! So I finally got around to borrowing one from someone at church that sews and quilts as well. (Sigh) The kindness of friends. So I was able to get some material cut and somewhat finish my quilt i started at my parents house. It took me 2 months to get around to doing a 15 min. job. Oh well. Its done now and I just couldn't wait to finish it before I show you. So yes it is not done. I just have to add batting, backing and machine quilt it (still torn between trying it myself or sending it somewhere else) and then the binding and this baby will be up for SALE!! As for the price I am not sure yet. I have to take into consideration how much the materials cost along with all my time and energy making it. And depending on if I machine quilt it myself or not will go into the price as well.So without further delay...

My heart quilt! Isn't it lovely. I wish I could take credit for the design but I can't. I saw one on etsy and decided I wanted to make one. I had to draw everything out and do all the measurements. It really was quite the process. But now that its almost done it was all so worth it. Maybe I will have to keep it for my own. Who knows. But if anyone is interested let me know. I am not sure yet how I am going to go about selling this, maybe a local quilt shop or I just might have to open something up on etsy. Who knows.

Should I name my quilts??

I know I promised a quilt along for August. The thing is, life happened. We moved about 2 months ago so I am no longer living with my parents. We have been spending those 2 months with a Daddy that hasn't started school yet. And I am homeschooling this year for the very first time. And still trying to adjust to all of the above. Oh and not to mention we are a bit poor. Therefore hubby thinks I can just make any old quilt from my preexisting stash of fabric. I CAN'T!!! I need fabric that matches and color coordinating! Not to mention good quality, at least better. And of the material I do have it was bought mainly for dresses or skirts or some other project i just haven't gotten around to. So really I need to just do those projects. But I do have a great idea of what I want to do for my quilt along. Well, really I have 2 ideas. But it will need to be put off. In the mean time I will be finishing my other quilt soon and I will post a picture of it. I do plan to sell it. So if you know anyone interested send then my way!!

Quilt Along with ME!

I think in August I will be starting a quilt along. But because I like things to go fast it will be a weekly quilt along. So start gearing up for colors as I figure out what I am to be doing on the blog and what blocks we will be doing. I have a few in mind. Since this will be my first I am just a bit nervous. So get out those coupons and go look for some cute fabric!!

The Scoop

So here's whats happening (in other words why I have been away)...
* Just did Girls Camp last week, that was exhausting.
* Had Family here before that, they stayed and extra week or so, it was great!!
* Schools out now.
* Hubby is done with his school now (so less me time).

Now I am packing and getting ready to move this weekend. It shouldn't seem like so much because I live with my parents. The only real places that need to be packed are my room and the kids room. Everything else is already packed from our move here in the first place. I guess it just seems like it is taking me so long is because i don't want to take trash with me too. So I am in a way De-junking and organizing as I pack. Not to mention we have no truck to put it all in yet and I have kids that want to "help" and that can really slow a person down.

So onto why I am posting!! My Mom and I took that lovely sunflower quilt to a quilt shop. Sounds like a good plan right? Well, here is what I have learned.
*Just because someone has a shop open does not mean that are the best at quilting.
*Look at the work hanging in the shop. Are there freehand pieces done or are they all automatic patterns the machine does?
*Get a solid price BEFORE you leave your work of art in someones care!
*Find out before hand what steps are taken if you do not like the work that was done.
*Have a number that you can be reached at all times if the quilter decides to change something.

We took our quilt in with the confidence that the quilter knew what she was doing. We were so wrong. She turned that lovely art work to trash. We were so sad and disappointed. There were places where changes what was supposed to be done and we did not like it. She had problems with her machine and got that fixed but then changed the color of the thread so that was not matching all over. Her stitches were uneven, x's off center because she doesn't like the uniformity or something like that, it was just and all over not so good of job. We took it back and talked about how to fix the situation. She even admitted she should not have tried it freehand. I really like the lady so I knew I was not really having hard feelings toward here, I was just disappointed. Well, in the end she gave us a refund and bought the quilt from us for the price of the fabric. Later we realized she gave us even more than that. We lucked out I think, that she was very compassionate about it and wanted to make sure her costumers were happy.

So beware when you entrust someone else with your quilt. I will go to here again but with something not so precious to me and make sure she is not doing it freehand.

I do have a piece that is a work in progress, but will not get finished until after I move. But I will post a picture later of one that some teenage girls helped make that we gave to someone. It might take a few days to get that posted because like I said I am working on moving at the moment and this has been a long break for me. Back to work I go.

Happy quilting. Feel free to ask any questions and I will answer as best I can.

Sunflower

This is a quilt that I first wanted to do I just didn't know what exactly I wanted to do. So then my Mom wanted to do This particular quilt with me. So she took the initiative to decide on a pattern and design on the quilt. I did all the measurements and math for ALL the little pieces that needed to be cut out. Our dear friend and fellow quilter has a whole room (no literally a whole room) full of material (she used to own a quilt shop) and lets us come over to pick out material for this quilt.

The main reason for this post is to show you a little of the process to do sashings. Once you have your blocks put together into block form and have all the sashing pieces cut out it is vitally important to lay out the quilt and figure out how you are going to put it all together because there are a variety of methods, one of which I show you here.

So here we are laying out all the pieces.

Now it is all sewn together.

Be sure to measure both sides to get the correct measurement for the border.

Can't say I'm never in the pictures.... that's my arm!!

Do you have little on lookers? Well a good pass time for them could be play dough.

Disappearing 9 Patch

This is the first "real" quilt I made. I say "real" because I have made other blankets that I just took one big piece of material, batting, and backing and rolled the edges for binding. There was no patchwork to them whatsoever. I have made many of those.

The magic to the disappearing 9 patch is it looks like a lot more work than it really was. I love that about this quilt. It was way easy for a beginner. If you want to start off with a little more than the traditional 9 patch this is the one to do. You will not be disappointed. This was one of the reasons I got hooked on quilting. I am sure you will be surprised to hear I just made this one back in August last year. That's how long I have been quilting. A mere 8 months. Not very long. That is one of the reasons I started this blog. So we could learn together how easy this is!

No I did not make this quilt a tutorial. I had already made this quilt before I ever considered a quilting blog. Maybe one day I will do another similar to this and show you just how easy it is. Plus I thought if I did all tutorials it might get a little boring. But I do plan to show you a lot of good ideas.

Shortly after moving in with my parents (that's where I am living at the moment) I was helping my Mom organize her craft room. It was in shambles with the preparation of me and my 3 kids moving in (different story alltogether, another time). In the process of the organizing we got to go through her material. She was real big into making really cute pillow cases and collecting material for that (which has come to a halt for a while...maybe I will show it to you someday). But in her stash of many magnificent materials I stumbled across these wonderful fabrics that all went so well together. This was of course after my Mom introduced me to the idea of quilts and the disappearing 9 patch. It just looked so easy to do. And my daughter already has a lady bug pillow pet! It just worked. So I did a little arm twisting and she said I could use the fabric. YEA!! So after many a nights and days cutting and sewing (it really didn't take long for that at all) I produced my first patchwork quilt top. The embroidery work on it is a whole other story! That did take a while. My little girl opened this up on Christmas morning. She was THRILLED!! I had been telling her it was going to be my quilt when I was done. And many times she asked if I would make her one when I was done with mine. I love making things for my kids!! So with out further delay...

I hand stitched flowers in white thread with black circle centers on all the ladybug squares. That is what took the longest!

By the way... SPRING IS HERE!!!! LOVE IT!!