Tag Archive | Yoyoville

Catching up on … everything

Dec2

Oh my – it was a busy week.  I didn’t mention it before, but my family (including parents and brother) spent the entire Thanksgiving week in Disney World and just got back yesterday.  So, I am catching up on mail, blogs, TV, sleep, laundry, healthy meals, etc…

It was a magical experience and Oliver celebrated his 7th birthday while we were there.  I’ll pull out some good pictures to show you on the next post.  This is a quick update to get me back on a roll.

I appreciate the comments that you guys sent in about my neutral border addition for Nantucket.  I completed the other side today and was able to get some pictures taken just before the sun went down tonight.

Nantucket Progress 12-01-2013

Still liking it?  Yes.

Nantucket Sides

Just need top and bottom done now…

Nantucket Left Border

It will be a race to get it done for Christmas.  My Dad turns 71 on Christmas Day and I really want to have the top done for it.

But, returning a bit to our trip to Walt Disney World (WDW) … I am not a fan of flying.  I spent years traveling as a software consultant and flew about 3 out of 4 weeks each month for work all over the country.  Sometimes in big planes.  Connecting flights.  Most of the time it started with ‘puddle jumpers’ between a small regional airport to DFW airport.  I was even a Platinum member with American Airlines a couple of years.  First class upgrades at no cost – that kind of stuff.  But after the birth of my first child – I no longer wanted to step on an airplane.  I have, in fact, not flown in just over 7 years now.  I have driven from the Carolinas to Texas multiple times and back, and now we have driven from Texas to WDW Florida and back this past week.

All of that is to ramp up to the photos of my travel sewing project … Yoyoville by Bunny Hill Designs!

WDW Travel Kit

I thought I had plenty of squares cut up and inside my little box – but I found out by the time we arrived in Florida – that I could have completed all of my blocks if I had been more optimistic of my goals.

As it turned out, what I thought was a LOT of squares, was only 35.

WDW YoYo Progress

Got those done with no problem at all.  I need to count all of my blocks now to see how many I have left to do for the main portion of the quilt.

Don’t they look great though?  Tapestry fabric collection for the yo yo circles and a fabric from the most recent Honeysweet for the background (both by Fig Tree Quilts).

WDW Yo Yo Completed

It was already dusk outside when I took my pictures.  So they look a little darker than they are.

I am also happy to announce that we are finally homeowners once again!  We closed on our house two days before we left for our trip.  We have been renting our home for over 3 years and we now own it.  We love the location and are looking forward to getting some professional renovation designs drawn up.  The house is over 70 years old and has a few items to fix – but we love that it is our family home and – like a great quilt – we will make it our own!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  I’m enjoying catching up on my blog reading.  You guys have been busy!

Take care,

Jennifer

 

 

Yoyoville revisited

Oct7

Welcome Fall!  This was a beautiful weekend in central Texas.  We visited my MIL and on Saturday, I could really feel the weather break into a true Fall breeze and temperatures.  It was absolutely wonderful!  Can’t wait for it to reach down a little further south, to Houston this week.

Since we were on a road trip for a couple of days, I quickly got some handwork pulled together for my idle time.  I had already been thinking about visiting Yoyoville again (pattern by Bunny Hill Designs).  I already had the yo yos completed in the Tapestry collection by Fig Tree quilts… now I needed to applique them all to 3 1/2″ squares of background fabric.  I had a rare chance to visit my LQS in Humble, TX (shout out to It’s A Stitch).  They have the Honeysweet fabric already in, but not on the shelves yet.  They were generous enough to open up the first bolt and cut me off three yards of what I thought would be a great choice to go along with the Tapestry yo yos.

Here’s my little sewing kit getting unpacked:

Temple Sewing Kit 10-06-2013

And here’s a picture of the threads and background squares I have cut up to work with:

Temple Sewing Kit 2

Again, the squares are from Honeysweet and are little dot hexagons in a soft olive green.

I had a pile done by Saturday afternoon … finished on the right, glued down on the left:

Temple squares WIP

I STILL love that Tapestry collection!  And the Honeysweet neutral went great with it.

After coming home tonight, I wanted to preview the layout of the quilt center.  I wasn’t sure if that background would be a bit too much through-out.

But first – I had to make up some four-patch units to alternate with the yo yo squares.  I cut off a 2″ strip from my background and then opened up a mini charm pack of Honeysweet and sewed it along the length of that strip:

Strip Piecing 4 Strip Piecing 3 Strip Piecing 2
I trimmed them all down to 2″ x 3 1/2″ and then combined units together to get the 3 1/2″ squares.

Here’s a sample up on my design wall.

Yoyoville Auditions 2

I wasn’t thrilled.  I wanted to be thrilled, but I wasn’t.  The background from Honeysweet didn’t seem like it would be directional, but turns out it is – and it clearly shows up that way in this layout.  …  SO … I decided to just use the vanilla solid fabric from Honeysweet instead for the four patch units and see how that would look:

Yoyoville Alt Audition 1

MUCH better!  I like that base of solid vanilla in those squares.  Here’s another look from a bit more of a distance:

Yoyoville Alt Audition 2

By the way, the poppy print (seen in the 1st, 2nd, and 4th units) is my very favorite – in all the colors.  I will have to buy yards of that I know already.

Since I don’t have any of the Honeysweet vanilla solid yardage yet, I pulled out the two squares from one of my layer cakes and now I can make a few more four-patch units to play around with.  I’m so excited to be working with this collection now.

This weekend, I also received my yardage of small, light gray polka dot fabric from the Vintage Modern group (Bonnie & Camille).  That will be my setting fabric for the Birdie Stitches quilt.

I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures of my fast growing kitten clan.  Jewelry and Rosy.

Jewelry 10-06-2013

Jewelry

 

Rosy 10-06-2013

Rosy

Have a great start to the week!  See you soon!

Jennifer

One lone yo-yo …

Jan9

I finished all of my yo-yos last night!  Problem is, now I have to find a new traveling project for our temporary stay in the hotel.  When all were done, I counted them out.  199!  !@#%$!@9??  Ok… there is some lone yo-yo laying around somewhere, probably under my sewing table.  I will NOT be able to move on with this odd number.  It just isn’t in my DNA.  I’ll be on a hunt for that lone yo-yo.

Here’s what 199 yo-yos look like though.  Beautiful array of Tapestry fabric by Fig Tree Quilts.  Sorry about the poor lighting – I don’t get great lighting, even in the day time, inside the hotel room. 

199 YoYos 2

I made each one using the large Clover yo-yo maker.  I finished them off by pulling the needle to the back and taking several overlapping small stitches.  I love how the dark plum color really pops in this group!

199 YoYos

I also got a sweet surprise in my mail yesterday!  My first bundle of Robin’s Nest fabric from Homestead Hearth!  They are doing this quilt as a BOM in reproduction type fabrics, not all from one collection – so it will be kind of scrappy too.  The burgundy gingham/check is their paper sack – in case that isn’t obvious in the picture.  I ordered the templates and patterns from Somerset Patchword in Australia, and was able to find the fabric BOM program here (afterwards noticing that they had both the fabric and patterns as a BOM option).  Take a look at both of their websites – lots of great eye candy.  Don’t be afraid to order from Australia either – they were so great to work with and if you can just wait for the shipping time, why not?  (Tip – use Skype to call super cheap internationally.  My 15 minute call to Somerset Patchwork cost me only 24 cents).  Can’t wait to get started on this one!

 

Robins Nest Block 1 Fabric

 

I think I’ll bring my tools and La Belle Fleur fabric back to the hotel and do some cutting for the  Blogger Girl’s BOM.  We should be back home tomorrow or Friday at the latest, so I can just get the sewing done this weekend.  Looking up!  AFTER I find that lone yo-yo…

All the best,

Jennifer

Weight Loss through Quilting!

Oct10

Or, at least offset some of the weight I’m likely to gain by sitting at a machine for too long!

I gathered up my Yo Yo supplies and found a neat stackable set of bins that was perfect.  I can fit my full size scissors and lay my charm squares flat inside.  Got this during Joann’s sale last week at almost no cost given the discount and coupons I had for the sale!

Stacker Trays

So, my weight loss tip is to pack a lunch and eat at my desk instead of going out for fast food or really anything that would be obtained in a restaurant.  Come to think of it … Quilting helps me save MONEY too!!  You can NOT beat that!

Here’s my progress on the Yo Yos in Tapestry that I’m making for the Yoyoville quilt (pattern by Bunny Hill Designs).

Yo Yo Progress 10-10-2012

I love these colors!!  And finally, a shot of the trays all stacked and snapped together:

Cute, huh?  Will be perfect for any hexagon project I may want to tackle later, after the Yo Yos are done.

Also wanted to show a few gratuitous pictures of the kids from last weekend when we went to a combination pumpkin patch, petting farm, etc… ranch here in Houston (Halter, Inc.).  They are open each weekend during October.  They also have a playground area for kids, haunted trail, pony rides, pony cart rides, face painting available and sell home made goods along with snacks, drinks and hot dogs/hamburgers.

Oliver with Goat

Nora with Goat

You can really tell better from this picture in the pumpkin patch that is was quite warm on this Saturday (probably in the upper 90s).  And of course we were there in the middle of the afternoon.  Luckily, fall weater rolled through the next day and it has been really beautiful lately!

Pumpkin Patch

Also received my backing fabric yesterday for my MIL Stars and Stripes quilt.  It will be just right!  But, I think I need to finish the baby quilt I made for a friend, since the baby is now two months old!  How fast time flies when you have to work, cook, clean, bathe, take care of family, maybe sleep, commute, eat, ….

 Happy Quilting!

Jennifer

Well, hell-yo there!

Sep27

Sorry, pretty corny I know.  Not a long post right now…  I’m at work but wanted to share a picture of my growing yo yo collection.  I have around 29 made so far out of my first charm pack of Tapestry.  I’ll be cutting up my layer cake next to get the rest of them started.  I have two nagging concerns with this process… the seamingly wastefullness of the scraps that I have to cut off to make the circle from the 5″ square and the thread that isn’t quite long enough to make it around the circle again.  I’m saving the scraps for the possible use in the applique portion of the quilt (little houses on the outside border), but I haven’t decided to be frugal enough to save the thread for other projects.  Maybe I should.  I wonder if others would save series of 12″ long thread pieces…

Anyway – here is the snap of my little quilt tin with my finished yo yos and the remaining charm pack and Clover Large Yo Yo tool.

Yo Yo ‘Kit To Go’

And here is my favorite yo yo so far.  The Tapestry fabric collection is so beautiful.  I’m having a hard time deciding which fabric to use for backing because I really love looking at so many of them!  Guess I’ll just have to make a lot of quilts with the fabric so I can get them all in…

Favorite Yo Yo – Tapestry

I did finish the center portion of my MIL stars and stripes quilt.  Now I’m deciding whether to try and quilt it in sections (as described by Marti Michell in her book, Machine Quilting in Sections) or adding on the borders and doing it traditionally.  Not sure yet.  Also still thinking about the quilt design to use on it.  Whether to quilt in the negative space or quilt on the ‘flag’ sections.  I’ll post again with the picture tomorrow and see if I get any feedback.

Have a wonderful day – it’s almost Friday!!

Jennifer

Manic mode this week

Sep20

I think the changing seasons is getting me into a manic hyper drive mode.  I have lots of projects I want to start and finish and I find that I enjoy having several going at the same time on my tables.  Variety is always good and I can easily pick up something and get a few minutes done until ‘they’ discover I’m gone from their immediate vicinity.  “They” being my 4 and 5 year olds.

So – what’s new?  Well,… thanks to Sinta and her blog post from yesterday … I went on a hunt for a pattern called Yoyoville by Bunny Hill Designs.  Sinta is making hers from Whimsy fabric (Fig Tree).  I love the picture in the photo on the pattern (made with Simple Abundance by Bonnie & Camille)

… but I thought it would look great in Tapestry!  So … I have never made a yoyo before and the pattern strongly suggests that you get the Clover large yoyo tool.  So, with a coupon and a few dollars in hand, I picked one up on the way home yesterday from Jo Ann’s fabric store.  My only reservation is that I hate to see that extra corner fabric fall away and know I can’t really use it.  But the tool is perfect for charm packs, which I happen to have one of Tapestry already.  I’ll probaby bring in some Mill House and Patiesserie to make it extra scrappy.  First I’ll see if I can get all of these made before I buy the pattern and coordinating fabric (although I’m sure I can find some already in my house).  These little gems shrink down to 1 3/4″ in diameter when you are done.  The pattern calls for about 120 of them.

While I was at Jo Ann’s, I thought – … I wonder if I can crochet?  There is a Fusion Crochet thing happening on some blogs and I thought that it would be interesting to try one or two blocks to see how I like it.  I figured that it would be easy to do, but I haven’t learned that craft before.  I had a crochet needle, just needed some yarn, … and a book.  You can see my attempt to practice the single crochet and slip stitch on my little sample in the picture below.

I’m not sure I’m ready to start this yet.  I may have to do something like 3×3 charm blocks and join those larger ones together with crochet instead of the individual 5″ blocks.  To be determined…

Finally, a progress report on my Away From Home BOM, using Mill Girls fabric.  Still on the first block and finally got the main factory building done.  It was reverse applique to make the fabric appear like windows in the building.  That took me a VERY long time I think, compared to traditional piecing.  I had not really tried needle turn applique before and I’ll probably try converting to machine applique before I’m done with this block.  But – I’m proud of my results so far and ready to finish the factory building and do the sun and moon shape.

So – there you have it for this week.  Working on Birdie Stitches #11 (November/Thanksgiving theme) and worked a little more on the MIL stars and stripes quilt.  Really looking forward to a weekend at home with no duties or places to go.  Wish everyone a wonderful Thursday!

Jennifer