New Year New Beginnings

It's been a while, but it's time for a new beginning. I've done a few things already this year that I hadn't done for a while or had never done and I hope to continue doing.

First, I sewed a few articles of clothing. I had tried this a few times in the past with mixed results. I kept seeing things in stores that I thought (hearing my mom's voice in my head) "I could make that myself!" So I picked out a few easy patterns and got some inexpensive fabric at Joann's to try it out.

I ended up making a blouse and a sundress. The blouse turned out well although next time I would make some slight alterations like using a lighter weight fabric and making the back ties longer. The sundress turned out really well, but looks a bit like a muu muu. I couldn't resist the pattern since it has pockets - I can't resist a dress with pockets! I'll probably wear it lots during the summer - AT HOME!

The second thing I hadn't done in a while was start an exercise regiment! I joined a "biggest loser"-type contest at work and I've had to get down to business in the last week or so. I've been doing alright so far, but boy is it hard to get into a new routine when your routine for a LONG time has been eating whatever you want and doing a lot of sitting around.

The third thing is going snowshoeing! I've never done that before and this weekend dh and I decided to try something new. We had about 6 inches or so of snow this past week and the temperatures were above freezing this weekend, so it was perfect weather for it. We got some snow shoes and took them out for a spin near the Skokie Lagoons. We had fun and got a great workout.

I'm looking forward to a great year full of more new and exciting things!

Snow Day Sewing

We had a rare snow day (two, in fact!) a few weeks ago. I spent the mornings shoveling a LOT of snow and the afternoons sewing a scrappy log cabin quilt for a charity event. I'll let the pictures do all the talking here..

Disorganization and Mondo Birds

Had to rearrange the sewing/crafting area. Again. It seems it never can settle and stay one configuration for long before something happens and it has to move again.

This time it was the arrival of some new bedroom furniture. Don't get me wrong, I love the new furniture, but having my crafty space cramped and unusable once again is frustrating. And so I'm sneaking off to sew amid the messiness of the room I am supposed to be putting back together!

I'm working on the free pieced study group blocks. My partner and I settled on aqua, red, and white as our color scheme. I've already had trouble sticking to just those colors since I typically use lots of colors together. And this is not a combo I frequently use, so I'm having some difficulties seeing what really works well and what really constitues the color "aqua".

For the month of January, we have two blocks to make - a "Mondo bird" and a log cabin house. Here are my versions of the "Mondo bird". Sarah named them that after the Project Runway designer since she always gives her birds fun black and white patterned legs. (If you watched last season of PR, you'll get it!) I gave my birds orange stockings.

Next will be wonky log cabin houses! Yippee!

New Year, New Projects

I've agreed to join an online free-piecing tutorial groups sponsored in part by my friend, krommama (Sarah). She and her friend Molly will be posting a tutorial once a month for a different free pieced block for us to make (bird, girl, gnome, house, star, etc...).
I've partnered with a gal in Australia and we will be swapping every few months or so, so keep your eyes peeled for some wonky sewing! Here's some examples of previous free-piecing I have done...

Once again.. it's been way too long!

I've done lots this year and taken lots of pictures, but never seem to have the time or energy left to download all these pictures and upload them here! I just downloaded over 700 pictures I had taken since August of this year. What a pain. I must remember to download more often so it's not so painful!

Here are some pictures from our Wisconsin trip this year. We stayed on Plum Lake again, one of our favorite lakes in the area. It was a nice place despite the bed falling apart in the middle of the night. I was able to lug my sewing supplies up and set up shop on the kitchen table for the week. I got a lot done on a baby quilt for my new friend Max.

We went boating, ate out at some of our favorite resturants, visited a beautiful waterfall in the U.P. (I need to figure out the name of that one - it was amazing!), and of course did a lot of relaxing. As much as I claim to be a southern gal at heart, I really do love spending time in the northwoods. Maybe it's just that I get to spend some quality time with nature. I don't get enough of that living in the city.

DQS8

Wow! It's been way longer than I thought since I last blogged! Lots has happened, but I mostly wanted to show pictures of my amazing new quilt from Mama Urchin. She had me as her swapee during our latest round of the doll quilt swap - DQS8.She made an amazing scrappy log cabin with some beautiful fabrics.

She also sent me a fabulous stack of charm squares with some really great fabrics in there!

Here is another close up. I am in love with this doll quilt! She did such an amazing job!

Fine Art of Fiber Show at the Chicago Botanic Gardens

Got to see some amazing fabric work this weekend at the Chicago Botanic Gardens Fine Art of Fiber show. It didn't hurt that it was a gorgeous weekend here, so hanging out at the gardens was nice. So nice in fact, that we went Saturday for the show and then went back again on Sunday just to enjoy the weather! Here's some pictures...

Working on Green Bed Quilt

Here's some photos of a green quilt in progress right now. It's partially laid out on the floor of the spare bedroom and partially on the sewing table downstairs.

The floor of the bedroom is the only place I have large enough to see all the blocks laid out, so I have to carefully transport them downstairs so they can be sewn correctly. I've developed a number pinning system that seems to be working so far.

My only problem has been that even after lots of calculating, the top is turning out to be wider than the backing. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, but this means I'm either going to have to shorten the width of the top or add some border panels to the backing. Which is the lesser of two evils? Probably narrowing the top. I think I've used up all the green backing fabric that I had and I have no idea where I got that shade of green. oh well.

Little Stitches

I got this new Amy Butler book a few weeks ago and have yet to make anything from it. I love all the ideas, but haven't tackled any of the projects because most of them look a bit complex to me. Or perhaps I'm hesitant to make "baby" stuff.

Babies scare me. They are small and fragile and so far they have always belonged to someone else. (thank goodness!)

What I really want to do is make an adult version of those kimono-style pj's on the front cover for myself. so cute! I think the thing I'll make first, though, are the fabric building blocks. Those look super fun and it would be easy to include a free-pieced letter on them, too.

Collaborative Quilting

So I volunteered my sewing services to my school for a charity auction and then realized I had so many other projects going on that I would never get anything done. So what is my solution? Recruit unsuspecting victims to help me out!

Mwahh haa haa haa! (evil laugh)

So I convince my work friends Kristie and Lynn (both fairly new to sewing) that we should start a "Stitch-n-Bitch" sewing club and have some fun crafty time together outside of work. They agree, but of course... little do they know what they have just agreed to!

I wrangle them over to my place and pitch them the idea. That together we create a wall hanging quilt to donate to the school's charity auction the next month. It was to benefit our school library which will be undergoing a very large overhaul this coming summer.

To my surprise, they agree. So I decide rather than tempt fate by bossing them around even more, I let them pick a pattern, a theme and some fabrics. They chose to create a "calendar quilt" since that meant that we would only have to make 12 blocks. We each picked a month or two to start on and dove right in.

Bless her little heart, Lynn, we found out, had never sewn a thing before this. Kristie had only started sewing last summer and claimed to be deathly afraid of quilting, but she is a whiz with figuring out patterns and the mechanics of most sewing machines. We started slowly, but as they got the hang of it, we quickly created a fabulous quilt.

I was really happy - as were they - with the final product. We each made some of the blocks and then I quilted and bound it. In the auction it sold for 175 dollars! Wowwza!

Next month, a full bedroom set! (just kidding)