June 22, 2013

Summer Sprouts ~ A pillow experiment

Wooden Spoon made this AMAZING pillow for the latest round of Pillow Talk Swap:

PTS10 Scrappy Spring Sprouts... finished

I'm doing a swap with some friends and I thought something like this would be perfect for one of them... so here is my attempt:


I always tend to like the originals better when I recreate something that another sewer has made, but I still like mine and look forward to hopefully finishing it up this weekend. Not sure yet how I will finish it up ~ border, binding, quilting, etc. but I'll figure that out once I trim up the leaf blocks and attach them all together tomorrow. 

We'll see if my friend decides she likes it for our Swappers Anonymous swap. If not, I'm super happy to let this cheerful pillow live on my couch! 

Feeling pretty lousy this weekend but at least I got to spend some quality time piecing on Yeti ~ can't complain too much about that! Looking forward to trying her out on some quilting with I get that far on this pillow. 

June 14, 2013

Good luck come in threes!

Have you ever heard the saying that good things come in threes? Well I've heard it, and never paid much attention to it, but it sure did smack me in the face this past month.

I try to keep long personal narratives out of this blog and keep it more about craftiness, but right now it is time to share. To summarize all the back story, suffice it to say that after months and months of major stress and worry, especially right up until the last possible moment... some really awesome things happened for our family.

The biggest thing was that my husband got a new job! An AMAZING new job to be frank. We couldn't be more shocked, overjoyed, and filled with gratitude!

Next, we were able to find a new place to live when our current apartment lease expires. We have a huge fuzzy monster of a dog, which makes it really hard to find a decent apartment or any type of rental really. Again, shocked that it worked out at the very last possible minute and sooooo happy that it did!

Apparently this time tho, big shocking awesome news decided to travel in threes because all of a sudden, this beauty now lives in my craft room:


Who is that, you may ask? Her name is "The Yeti" ~ because she is white and I still can't believe she exists, in MY Sewing room!

More formally, she is called the Janome New Home 7700 ~ a rebrand and recolor of the Horizon 7700. Yes... you got it... my dream machine I was drooling over last year! She may not be red and named Roxanne (see last year's Horizon post), but the Yeti is everything I could have ever hoped for and wanted in a machine! :)

How did she end up in my sewing room, you may also be asking yourself? I ask myself that almost daily; I am seriously shocked when I walk by my sewing room and see her sitting there, begging for me to come sew on her!

Well to answer that question, my awesome thoughtful father bought her for me :) The same weekend we found out about the job and the new apartment, he happened to be visiting and out of the blue he started talking about sewing machines, the Horizon, blah blah blah. I was a little slow on the pick up, and then mostly just in shock that he was really truly offering to get her for me!! I'm not very good at accepting large gifts, especially something of this magnitude.... but I was screaming and jumping for joy on the inside and still am!

Not only is it awesome to have this amazing machine as mine mine mine all mine!, but it is awesome too that it comes from my dad. He reads my crafty blogs, comments on things I make, and follows along with my hobby. That alone makes me smile and warms my heart ... but to have him remember the machine I was obsessing about and offer to get her for me, knowing how much it would mean to me.... yea, just awesome and more amazingly generous and nice than I can express gratitude for in a million years!

So there she is... The Yeti... hanging out in her new table, courtesy of my husband... pinch me, I'm still pretty sure I am dreaming.... especially because I have had NO time to sew on her! I know I know, skip work and play right? Haha I wish. I started classes the day after all this awesomeness happened, so I've been run ragged trying to manage life, work, and homework these past couple of weeks.... hence this super delayed post. I assure you tho, you will get more pictures once I clean up my sewing room, constant reviews of how she handles my upcoming projects, how my "learn your machine" classes go, etc.

I am so grateful for a kind and loving Heavenly Father who brought about the huge blessings for our family of a new job and a new place to live, and so very grateful for my loving Dad who brought about the huge blessing of enabling me to own this amazing sewing machine that I couldn't have afforded for years still!
Big ol' hug to my Dad... should he happen to be reading this... you are awesome for so many reasons and the Yeti is just one daily reminder of that and the fact that you love me and care about my silly hobbies :).

June 7, 2013

PTS received and I'm in love!

I can't even begin to express how excited I was to see that Kelly from Scrap Studio sent me a package and THIS is what was inside ~ PTS10 ~ I got the best one!!!!!!

Front - Joel Dewberry + Farmer's Wife blocks = awesome!

Back with the cutest fox EVER and a great little fabric bundle

Happy new pillow on my couch :)
I was super overjoyed to unwrap these goodies yesterday and I will cherish this pillow cover forever... or until I snuggle it to death lol. I shouldn't play favorites, but this is definitely fighting for first spot from all my swaps ... loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :)