On the wings of a butterfly

What. A. Hectic. Week. I went from being cozy at home to extensive dog-sitting this week and these animals are giving me a run for my money! But the nice people told me I could set up shop on the dining room table, and I'm loving all the space (even if I clutter it up pretty fast). It's also niiice and quiet around here. I decided to use all the time I had to chip away at this lovely FQ bundle I bought... The way too pretty collection called Winged by Bonnie Christine for Art Gallery Fabrics. I love Art Gallery, we are having a love affair. I don't care what anyone thinks!!

I am using this tutorial by Hyacinth Quilt Designs to make Garden Fence Blocks. For some reason it's taking me forever, I think it's all of the little white pieces that get me frustrated. So after the first few (more like ten) practice blocks, I did mostly cutting today so I can start and stop whenever I have time. 

This stack grew quite a bit since I took this picture. These colors are so stunning in real life, I don't know if the pictures do it justice. And only 14 more stacks to make! I'm doing 56 blocks all together. 

I started out fussy cutting the butterflies for the center, but soon lost interest in that and would run out of pretty butterflies. They make my heart sing and flutter. And yes, another butterfly quilt. 

xoxoxoxoxo linking up to needle and thread thursday <3

Every last bit

If you have ever been unfortunate enough to be in a sewing situation with me, you would know that I hate throwing out scraps. I usually keep everything, even the impossibly small pieces of precious fabric. So when I was trimming the flying geese from this quilt here, I couldn't throw them out. That quilt has some of my favorite fabrics ever and I was not about to put those in the trash. So after sitting in a container for a few months, I made a few half square triangles... I think it was about 230? Something like that.

Then I put them together into 9 patch blocks and squared them up into 9.5" blocks unfinished. The HSTs actually came from two different projects that just so happened to be the same size, lucky duck.

I decided that the quilt would be too small if I didn't add sashing and I ran out of HSTs. I hate cutting into my small (but hopefully growing) Amy Butler stash. Those are my two favorite prints, I use them a lot.

Maybe I will add another section of sashing to the top and bottom, right now it's around a 50" square. I love how colorful and scrappy it is though, delicious. Linking up to scraptastic tuesday and fabric tuesday :) xoxoxoxoxo

.::Fare Thee Well 2014::.

Ah, the sappy new year's posts are saturating the blogosphere with the mosaics of quilty finishes, but I'll just share a few thoughts here. I've been too lazy lately and I made way too many little things this year that I never photographed. I lost my laptop for the last month, so there is no proof of my marathon sewing for the HO HO holidays. But believe me, it happened. My Juki and I powered through it, as always.

But it's over now, thank the heavens, and I can go back to my steady and sometimes frantic sewing for myself. I would like to start selling my creations in the new year. It's hard to know where to start sometimes... Etsy? Blogging? Craft shows? All of the above? It can be stressful to think about when you just have the end of the dream in your mind. But how do you get there? 

I've learned so much about my sewing style in the past year. I bought my Juki in 2013, but this year I've been using it to its potential with playing with free motion quilting and I feel like I've made some great leaps. Just doing a whole quilt without issue makes me so happy! 

Even if I didn't explore it too much, I made a few garments! Well, a costume for the Renaissance Faire, but still. I made the cape and vest (grommets ugh) and now a whole new world of possibilities for my nerdities has opened up! Can't really see it but I didn't take a lot of pictures. Next season's costume is going to be crazy. 

So that's all really have to say so goodbye, happy new year! :) 

A finished Arizona pencil pouch

A few months ago, I entered a contest and actually won! Woo! I am in the process of making a Japanese x and plus quilt with a gorgeous fat quarter bundle of Arizona by April Rhodes for Art Gallery Fabrics. Can I just say... AGF=heaven. But anyways, I have things cut up for that quilt, and decided to use some of the scraps for a pencil case. You never know when you're going to need your colored pencils in college. ;)

I made a simple quilt-as-you-go panel, squared it up, attached the zipper, and stitched up the sides. These are always quick and gratifying projects! And it only took about a half hour.

My lovely friend Khrystine and I (if you're reading this, hey girl!) had a sewing night at my house with tea, giggles, and of course stitchin' and bitchin'. I made this, and she made a beautiful pouch too with her scraps. Sometimes I have so many ideas in my head, it's a relief to have someone to tell them to.

This fabric line is so bold and pretty, I cannot wait to finish the quilt. Now if I could only buy the right amount of fabric when I go to the shop...

                                      xoxoxooxoxoxo

The Alchemist: A Finished Quilt

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, alchemy is a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination. I love this fabric line from Amy Butler. The dandelions are a Moda fabric. I wanted to keep this quilt basic and the pieces of fabric big, so I used this tutorial here from Stitched in Color. 

I didn't really plan where the different "bricks" would go, I just made sure that there weren't huge clusters of the same print in a section. I quilted straight lines in the white spaces.

I took this one for a bit of a photo shoot around the quarries by my house, which provided this lovely slate wall for me. ;) Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of good pictures because I got nervous and hopped on my bike when I heard other people. Stupid, but true.

Teddy likes to nap on this one, so I'm going to leave folded on my chair for awhile. He's so cute. <3

Royal Butterflies: A Finished Quilt

 Lately I've been working on finishing old WIPs. Makes me feel good, ya know? Done and done.

I saw this butterfly fabric at Joann's and had to have it, no surprise there if you know me. I believe my sister said, "another butterfly quilt? Really?" Yes, really. It's a problem that I will never deal with.

I used an 'X and O' tutorial and added the stripey border when I ran out of fabric. I quilted loops all over. I was having problems with thread breakage in the beginning. I switched to a bigger needle and of course, that fixed everything.

Love those butterflies! :)

This will probably end up on my bed like the rest of them. Hey, winter is coming. I don't want to freeze after all...

Mission Accomplished

Spiderwebs: A finished quilt/longest WIP. Ever.

Hey, this one only took me a year and a few months to finish. I win! I started this one on the ol' singer before it broke and then promptly started to hate it. I posted about it here on my flickr in April 2013. Yikes. I liked the design, but not so much my cheap fabric choices. But then I got sick of looking at the quilt top after a few months...

I didn't really know much about sewing quilt tops together when I started this, so there are a lot of really wonky seams. I like the over-all graphic effect this one has though, very POW POW ZING! The colors pop nicely against this mystery gray fabric.

This is a twin sized quilt. I quilted along various seams, nothing too crazy. This one was too insane to do any intense free motioning. Simple is best sometimes (when you don't know what to do).

Teddy the Jungle Cat approves of this one even if I don't. ;)