Is it a finish? Or not…

Jun5

Oh – I can’t decide!!  I want to move on to my other projects, but I really think I want this extra border put in place to make it bigger.  What to do, what to do…  Flying geese don’t take that long… I guess I’ll see how many I can whip up tonight when I get home from work.

Here’s the completed (?) Swoon quilt top:

image

This iPad doesn’t take good pictures inside, at a close distance… but here is my aerial view:

image

And my center block with the newlywed embroidery (thanks again to Kristyne for the great font suggestion):

image

I need to do two months of Blogger Girls BOM and I already missed May AYOS.  I don’t want to miss out on June AYOS.  And then there’s my Robin’s Nest quilt that I am really wanting to get back to…  I love my problems!

Here are some updated pics of the new kitties.  The ‘shy’ one is doing better.

Bobbie (aka Sparkle)

Bobbie (aka Sparkle)

image

image

image

 

Have a wonderful evening!  Thanks as always for stopping by!

Jennifer

What’s new in our house?

Jun4

Well, as I mentioned in my earlier posts … we decided to foster a couple of kittens who will soon be up for adoption through a rescue group called Dori’s Darlings.  I met up with Dori yesterday after work and picked up my two cutie pies!

We all had fun watching them explore last night.  I haven’t been this tired since I had a newborn waking me up every few hours.  Well, maybe not that bad.  I did fall asleep in the McDonald drive-thru lane while waiting for my caffeinated Coke.  So, I am pretty tired.

On my way out the door – I decided to try and take a couple of pictures for you.  Here’s Possum … now, temporarily renamed “Jewelry”:

image

Dori called her a tortoise muted calico, or something like that.  Oliver says … ‘the one with the spot on her head’.  The kittens are about 8-9 weeks old, but they are very much underweight.  So our goal is to fatten them up so they can get their final immunizations and get spayed.  Once that is done, they can go up for adoption.

image

Cute – right?  Dori also mentioned something like … “It’s ok if you become a failed foster ….”.  I was thinking – hey – I just got them – give me a chance!!  But she meant, fosters who decide to adopt them for their own families… so, I get it.  And yes, that is a very big risk for us.  The kids didn’t touch the iPads all night!!  Bonus!

I would show you the other one, called Bobbie (because she has a bobbed tail).  Her name is temporarily “Sparkle”.  However, I couldn’t locate her as we were heading out the door – and unlike a baby newborn, I just left out enough food and yelled out ‘Bye Kitties!’ and didn’t worry too much about it.  She’s the one who slept under the couch last night.

Quilting… well, …. the good news is that my friend doesn’t even know I’m making the quilt for her – so she isn’t expecting it at any particular time.  I have to connect my last row of blocks to the first two rows and then I can add the border.  Almost there… almost there.  I will post a picture of my quilt top when it’s done before I send it off, and then an update when it gets back and certainly one with Beatriz (the newlywed).

Hope all is well with you today!  Thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer

Deadline – come and gone …

May31

Well, my self imposed deadline has come and gone.  I do have all the blocks done for my SWOON quilt (as of last night!), and the embroidery in the center square is also completed.  It turned out great!!  I’m thinking of adding a few flowers and such, but perhaps I should just get this thing done and off to LiMa Sews.

My friend was married this morning.  She’s officially a “MRS” now, and I think she is in bliss this afternoon.  I’ll get a chance to see her tomorrow at a reception they are hosting for friends (they only had a small, family wedding today).

My parents are visiting this weekend as well, and will spend the night – all very exciting for the grandchildren.  They love it when Nana and GrandDad spend the night!  For me, that means I’ll be doing more cleaning in the next 18 hours than I have done all month…

Finally – I have signed up my family to be FOSTER PARENTS!  Foster parents to rescued kittens!!  I shared this little secret with my 4 year old earlier this week, but she blabbed already.  I was going to surprise my husband and son with them on Sunday.  I have missed having kitties walking around, under my feet, in my bed, laying on my computer, etc… for four years.  It is time.  We are fostering for now, but we will certainly plan to adopt later in the year.  I’m helping out with a rescue group called Dori’s Darlings.  You can check out their website here.  If you live in the Houston area and wish to foster as well, they would be glad to have you I’m sure!

Picture

Aren’t these the cutest?

Picture

They also help with vet needs for their rescued animals and have saved many lives from pain and agony.Picture

Plan of action – add sashing and borders to quilt tonight/tomorrow.  Piece the backing.  Mail off to the quilter on Monday/Tuesday.  Play with kitties.

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer

Adding a personal touch

May26

Still piecing away, almost down to the last block.  Here are blocks 7 & 8, on the design wall in pieces, waiting to get assembled.  Again, where you see a solid color, it is really just a print of very small dots.

image

I should have the blocks done by tomorrow, then there’s the sashing (easy) and decision on the borders.  I would like to make it fit for a king size, something like 100×100.  I’ll need to add about a 10-12 inch border around the quilt for that.  Still thinking about utilizing the remaining fat quarters from my bundle of Happy Go Lucky that I didn’t use in the blocks to add in some flying geese units in the opposing corners.  Add a little more interest and personal touch.

Another personal touch I want to add is some embroidery in the center square of the center block.  Since I’m giving this as a wedding present, I thought putting their names and wedding date would be nice.  I was inspired from this post by Pretty by hand blogger, Kristyne Czepuryk, to download a font I like and use that as my template.  Take a peak at her post here, where she offers an Embroidered Signature Block tutorial.

My personal handwriting is, and has always been, terrible.  My hand actually starts to cramp now if I write more than a few paragraphs in long hand.  That’s how little I write anymore.  I learned how to type in high school, even won a couple of awards at UIL for speed – so there was never any struggle to transition to a computer world for me.  Every person in high school should learn how to type properly.  Invaluable.

I digress.  I am shamelessly stealing the same font idea from Kristyne and using Stalemate for the wedding block.  I’m not crazy about the “B” letter – I might play with it a bit before I commit to the ink.  The fonts are available as free downloads through this website – 1001 Fonts.  I had also downloaded Tangerine, Sacramento and Adine.  But Kristyne had the right selection already – Stalemate.

image

I went through my limited stash of embroidery thread.  Most of which I picked up in a clearance opportunity at my local quilt shop, but I also had ordered a range of colors by COSMOS floss.  None of which matched my fabric.  None of it.

Guess that means I have to go shopping.  I have to go.   I am forced to go shopping. Plus – I have a coupon for Joann Fabrics!  Love that!

Selected a variety of colors, in case I wanted to embellish a little in the block.  I’m likely to use the darkest navy color for the lettering.

image

While at Joann’s, I also found this book that I couldn’t pass up.

image

Not only did I have a coupon for 10% off everything … the quilt books were 40% off also!  I love looking at English Paper Piecing (EPP) projects and there was this one in the book that caught my eye in particular.  I still have near the top of my list to make a little tablecloth for my daughters kid-size table.  Something she could use for her tea parties.  I already have the perfect fabric, and I have some patterns that I have considered – but I might have to add in some EPP to make it even more special.   Those are little hexagon diamonds in between the butterflies.

image

So – that leaves me with one complete block to go, with embroidery.  Sashing, borders and piecing a quilt back.  I have asked Linh of Elvy Crafts blog and LiMa Sews to do my longarm quilting.  I have her on reserve for next week!  I can’t wait to see how it all comes together!  No more updates on this quilt until the BIG REVEAL!

Thanks for stopping by this weekend – I hope you are enjoying it wherever you are!

Jennifer

Still progressing

May22

Two more blocks done, and three more to go.  I’m one block behind on my schedule, so it may be a late night.  Here are my two recent completions:

The orange looks like a solid in these pictures, but it is actually covered in small white dots.

image

Finished this one last night.  I’m continued to be shocked at how crisp and clear the points come out in these blocks.  It helps that it is a really large block I guess.:

image

 

And, finally, the combo picture:

image

I have yet to lay them all out together on a bed or anything.  Holding off so I can ‘surprise’ myself with a reveal!

FQS has now gotten in the yardage for Happy Go Lucky, so I have already obtained my backing fabric.  Will need to piece it some since I plan to make this top 100×100 in size for a King size bed quilt.

Hopefully I can show you all 9 blocks by Friday night!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Jennifer

Swooning Along

May17

I think I can still pull this off.  I have until June 1st (ideally) to get this pieced and quilted.  My goal is to be done with the top and send it off to ‘someone’ by Saturday, May 25th.  I have seen several quilters advertising really fast turnaround times, and I don’t need custom quilting – so here’s hoping!

I have completed two more blocks and these bright, cheery colors are just enormous!  These blocks are soooo big!  Love it!

Really love this red check design in the pattern!

image

 

Ok , so I said “finished”, but this one is still in three separate rows.  Pratically done – right? 

image

Here is the new combination, selected by my lovely assistant Nora:

image

And a final, last picture of the two blocks together:

image

Four blocks done, only five more to go!

Good news for me… we decided to postpone the Mother-in-Law visit from Memorial Day weekend.  Now I will have all three days at home to play!  I know, it sounds like I don’t want to drive 3 hours with two small kids, sleep on an airbed and constantly worry that the dog will pee on our stuff.  But – when we do visit, it will be warm enough to swim as a family and there are a lot of nice kids parks.

Hope you have great expectations for a weekend and time to do what you love!

Jennifer

I can’t resist Collections!

May16

From an early age, I have always been attracted to collecting things.  Groups of things.  Books in a series (hard cover Stephen King books), figurines from a particular maker (Crinkle Claus figurines), movies/sequels on DVD, etc… 

Now, with my obsession with fabric these past few years, I have a huge opportunity to exploit and run with my little ‘personality quirk’!

I have my favorite designers whom I know I will buy yardage and bundles of fabric with each release.  Those include Fig Tree, Bonnie & Camille, and (most of the time) French General and 3 Sisters.  I’m pretty mainstream I guess.  Although I have now accumulated quite a bit of vintage Lori Holt fabric as well, and plan to add to it with Bake Sale that was just released.

Even within each fabric group, there are certain collections which I find it hard to pass up buying (and hoarding) deals on fabric cuts.  Some of these collections include Peace on Earth by 3 Sisters, Allspice Tapestry and Patisserie by Fig Tree Quilts, Rounneries ( & Deux) by French General, and I could go on and on and on.

Is this just me?

My latest fascination is Collection for a Cause that is put out by Howard Marcus Dunn for Moda fabrics.  COLLECTION is even in the title of each release!  How perfect is that! 

This endeavor started several years ago, so in my effort to try and figure out what I was missing – I found that it was hard to locate somewhere that told me exactly all the collections, in addition to pictures.  I finally found the spot on the United Notions website (in my own opinion, not very easy to navigate around).  In case anyone else had this same question or curious about all the colletions in one place … here you go!

Here is the website link if you want to browse the materials for yourself:  http://www.unitednotions.com/un_main.nsf/fabric-collections.  Then type “Collection” in the search menu.

I am NOT an expert blogger or webmaster.  I made this in Excel, then copied it into Microsoft Paint so I could save it as a jpg image and load it here.

Col for Cause

Every one of these came out with a pattern/kit of some sort.  I have all but 3 of the oldest, and I will probably wait a bit to buy the most recent release (Mill Book Series).  Have I made any of the quilts yet?  Nope.  Do I care?  Nope.  I have ‘collected’ them.  My favorite so far though is the “Hope” kit.  Beautiful!  That will probably be the first one I do.  I have never done a Lemoyne star quilt, so this would be a great example.

If anyone out there has the kit for Charity, Alliance or Legacy – would love to discuss that with you!

All the best and thanks for stopping by today.

Jennifer

Why didn’t anyone tell me?

May11

I am LOVING this Swoon pattern.  I should have made one a long time ago.  When other people comment on how big these blocks are, they aren’t kidding.  It’s very striking to complete a block and it takes up half of the design wall area.

I am making my first Swoon out of Happy Go Lucky prints by Bonnie & Camille.  Here’s my first block:

image

That gray/white check print gives it some real interest when you see it in person.

Here are the combinations I am planning for the other blocks (9 total for a King Size):

image

I had my daughter pick out the next combination to construct.  She was severely disappointed that there was no PINK to be found, but she did end up picking one.  I was able to complete the second block last night:

image

And, here’s a picture of both of them on my design wall.  Which can now, no longer fit anything else at the moment.

imageNo wonder this pattern has like thousands of pictures on Flickr.  It is just one of those that appeal for the sake of size, contrast, design, looks complex – but isn’t, etc…

I am giving myself the next two weeks to finish this quilt top so I can give it as a wedding gift to an extremely nice and deserving woman at work.  She is getting married for the first time, in her early 50s, and she is trying her best to keep it small.  We, at work, are trying our best to blow it up!  So, likely the next two weeks of posts will be consumed with this project.

 

Thanks for stopping by today!

Jennifer

Hmmm … do paperwork or quilt?

May9

I took a semi-impromptu vacation day today.  My plan was to work on some needed claim paperwork and tax return items.  I started off by working in the early morning for my job (remotely), then getting the kids off to school, then going into the office to get some other tasks done that were ‘important’, then met up with Stewart for lunch and then … before you know it – it’s 2:30 in the afternoon!

Well, that wasn’t a great start to my plan for today.  So – did I buckle down and get into my files and folders?  Perhaps start a recycle and shred box and clear a space off the desk?  ….

Look at what I just opened up!  My FQ bundle of Happy Go Lucky!

image

With so many different colors in this collection, it feels like there is more than 40 fabrics in the pile.  They feel so great when they are new like this 🙂

I have  special person at work that is getting married at the end of the month – so I was thinking … what bundle do I have and what pattern could I use to make a quick quilt for their wedding gift?  I thought about the bundles I have in my stash and while I was at work, I asked her to tell me a preference between four pictures (the one where it shows all of the prints in a collection):

  • Happy Go Lucky
  • Avalon
  • Tapestry
  • Butterscotch & Roses

She was definitely into the bright fabrics and she chose Happy Go Lucky!  Yeah!  I get to make my first project with this fabric now.

I already knew the pattern I wanted to use … SWOON.  I took this picture randomly from an internet search for Swoon quilt images.

For full disclosure, it is from the following Flickr photostream…  http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenniferworthen/with/7238325288/.  Again – just picked a random image out of the first hundred that came up and I liked the contrast in her blocks…

Swoon Quilt

Everyone else has already made this quilt (some even more than once), but I haven’t completed my destiny yet.  And I had already bought the pattern, right?  Right?  RIGHT?  Crap.

I can’t find it.  I know it’s here.  I also know I can plunk down $10 again to get a PDF sent to me which I can print in black and white on my little home printer.  But I already OWN it.  Crap.

Wait!  I know!  I had bought the CRAFTSY class “Pre-Cut Piecing Made Simple” by Camille Roskelley (author of the Swoon pattern).  One of the projects in that online class is the Swoon quilt, so I was able to just go online and download the instructions from there!  I had only made it half way through the class, so I had not gotten that far already.  Meant to be.  Meant to be.

Hopefully I can get it cut and pieced in a week or two, so I can have it quilted and present it to her at a little gathering she is having on June 1st.  I shall try my best.  Stay tuned.

Oh – one last picture of my completed Robin’s Nest Block 1.  This one is all connected now and ready for the next stage.  I think, for the most part, the star tips came out great.  Maybe a couple are cut off, but I’m happy overall.

image

Thanks for stopping by today!

Jennifer

Building the Nest

May8

A few progress pictures to share today.  I made it through Block 1 of the Robin’s Nest quilt by Karen Styles of Somerset Patchwork (in Australia – very exotic!).  In her latest post, there is SERIOUS EYE CANDY if you love hexagons or fussy cutting or kaleidoscope blocks or beautiful fabric.  GO and look at it now.  I will wait.  Go.  Now.  Link is above.  I have now officially added a Ring of Roses quilt to my bucket list in a red/white colorway.

Continuing …

I obtained my pattern and templates from Somerset, but opted to get the monthly fabric delivery for this quilt from Homestead Hearth (postage costs and such).  I think I just received Block 6 last week, so you could say I’m a bit behind!  I don’t see Robins Nest on their site right now, so I don’t know if they sold out or what.  However, if you do go and browse – take a look at the Merrimack quilt that is coming this summer.  It is another pattern by Karen Styles that they are offering.  Love it too!

I finished the ring of blue stars that will encircle the center medallion of the hexagon applique and six red stars that I showcased in this blog post.

RM Blue Star Ring

Here’s a couple of closeups of the blue stars:

RN Blue Stars Closeup 2

And another:

RN Blue Stars Closeup

For the 3 1/2″ finished stars, I used the Mini Fit to Be Geese tool by Monique Dillard of Open Gate Quilts.  Although the matrix of instructions didn’t specifically give me cutting instructions for a 2 1/2″ x 1 1/4″ unit, I winged it by cutting my background into 2″ squares, and cutting diagonally once.  And then cutting my blue fabric into 1 3/4″ squares and cutting them diagonally once as well.  Then paired them up like any other unit with this tool and there were guide lines there to make them perfect.  Much easier for me than cutting the exact template shape for each fabric piece.

Here’s a picture of the pattern cover for Block #1.  Karen produces top notch, quality patterns with clear steps:

RB Block 1 Pattern Pic

And here are my two pieces, overlaid for now on my design wall in this picture:

RN Block 1 Overlay 2

 

It’s really getting me excited to see it take shape.  After I took the pictures last night for this blog post, I couldn’t help but stay up late enough to sew these two pieces together – so I’m DONE WITH BLOCK 1!!  My own little rehab success.

The next step, for Block 2, is to applique this to a large square of background fabric and then fussy cut this scallop print fabric such that I applique it around the square to form a larger block.  I will do some show and tell on that block next time.

Thanks for stopping in today! 

Jennifer