A soiree to remember!

I found this little scrap bundle at the Etsy site of one of the bloggers that I follow. She was unloading some of her stash and I thought hrmmm... a $2 bundle of scraps... why not? It might have been silly at the time but in the end it turned out to be an AWESOME idea :) And I will tell you why...

I was not paying much attention when to the title and had no clue what line these fabrics were from. After receiving them and absolutely loving them, I realized they were from the Moda Soiree line. Check it out here... so cute!

However after some research I found out that this line was discontinued... so sad! After lots and lots of searching however I was able to find 2 honey buns (40 strip bundles of 1.5x44 inch pre-cut fabric) and then I found this awesome pattern here. I decided to do a larger version with 2 honey buns but it will look something like this (with the Soiree line of fabric ofcourse) when it is done.

Right now its just a pile of strips sewn in sets of 2 but eventually I will make some progress on it and have more pictures to show. Unfortunately I do have to work full-time and can't play full-time... no fair :-p

And a work in progress...

I found this Frolic by Moda panel online and thought it was soooo cute! Love the colors and the owl and basically everything about it :) So far this is just a quick layout of what I want to do with my triangles and the panel. Will keep you updated if I ever get back to this at some point this year. I have enough fabric and ideas for about 20 blankets so far so who knows what I will work on now that those other 2 are done :)

Singer is a fighter... watch out flannel!

On top of the other 2 quilts I completed for my friends, this 3rd one was in progress to get finished and delivered last weekend but had a fight with the sewing machine and lost. I tried to add some super cute flannel to the back and apparently my sewing machine eats flannel. I have since learned to use tissue paper on the back in order to avoid that problem but unfortunately that lesson was learned too late.

I will get pictures of the finished product (no flannel this time!) up soon... I was a good quilter and was able to salvage it in the end. It had a couple small holes in it from another fight with the seam ripper after the sewing machine attacked it so I could not convince myself to gift it but that is ok. It will be just fine for our kids some day and is still super cute :) Fortunately I still have time to make another one for that particular friend's baby so no sweat there. Would have been nice to give it to her in person but hey, we can't have everything I suppose.

Other than the sewing machine attack... I also realized the benefit of using quality fabric (ie that white was rather cheap and see through)... as well as the point of cutting off the selvage! Ooopss... haha. This was my first "non-practice" quilt I pieced and tried to quilt tho so hey, good lessons learned and a baby can still one day crawl and puke on this to its heart's content, haha.

First finished quilt and another happy friend yay!

Before I completed my Disappearing Ninepatch, I had another friend coming into town for a whole 24 hours, (woo hoo!) and wanted to get her quilt done to send back to Alaska with her. I have not seen her since my wedding 3 years ago so it was a really awesome visit regardless of being so incredibly short!

I used a great binding tutorial which can be found here and step by step I was able to make my first binding roll AND successfully get it attached! I realize this is no big deal for seasoned quilters but I was soooo excited to make this!

I had the finished quilt folded up all cute on her bed when we got back and as she was checking it out I let her know that it was hers. She was super surprised and seemed to like it a lot which made me super happy. It was another one of those instances where as I was making it, it reminded me of her and sealed its fate :)

Pretty successful in my opinion for my first finished quilt EVER and a great addition to a short but wonderful visit with another of my best friends!

Disappearing Nine Patch Complete!

On the 10 hour car ride to Michigan I finished hand sewing the binding on this lovely quilt. Sooooo excited to get my second quilt completed and I was even more excited to give it to my awesome friend who agreed to pose for me with it :) She totally loved it which makes all that time and effort and pain in the butt issues I had with this quilt... totally worth it!

I started making this quilt awhile ago, as you can see by the date of my last post, and as it was coming together the first thing I thought was WOW this totally reminds me of Crazy Carla. Its fun making things for myself but way more exciting knowing the whole time that what I am making is going to one of my best friends. That is probably what saved this quilt since I was ready to kill it after the edges started coming apart. Apparently when you cut a nine patch, the seams get cut (DUH!) and if you don't baste your quilt (which I dont!) and you play with it ten million times before actually quilting it together and finishing it (which I did!) it def starts to come apart. Yikes... that was a bad night haha.

All is well that ends well tho and this one ended very well. Yay to this beast being finished and yay to making my best friend smile :)

Charm Squares #1

Before I started any projects I fell in love with the charm squares by Moda and bought several different patterns. Although upon starting my practice projects I realized that I would like to work with larger squares, not having to cut out hundreds of squares makes these charm packs fabulous in my eyes, even if they are only 5x5 squares.

The first project I attempted with these Moda fabrics is the disappearing nine patch quilt. A great tutorial for making this pattern can be found here, until this crafter decides to remove their link, if ever.

I made it as far as steps 1 & 2 and wanted to share my progress because I think this quilt is so darn cute! I ran out of fabric and had to order another set of charm squares so this project is to be continued upon the arrival of more fabric:

Something new...

With the rest of some of my apple scraps I decided to try out this new pattern. I really have no idea what it is called, if anyone does please let me know! :)

My first thought was to use scraps of the cute apple pie fabric in the middle of each red strip which looked REALLY cute before it was sewn together:

However, I realized, when I tried to sew the strips together, that the apple picture became so small you could not tell what they were anymore when sewn together. What sad news for me! I decided just to make the smaller squares the same fabric as the bigger squares and it still turned out cute in my opinion. Definitely teaches me a lesson on sizing things right and allowing for a seam!

I later sewed this one using the stitch in the ditch method for more practice. As I'm sure you can tell, none of my practice quilts are perfectly aligned and there are small mistakes in each, but I guess that is why they are called "practice" quilts :) All in all the scrapbox practice sessions made for some cute samples which will eventually be finished when I learn to do binding. Now its on to my "real" projects!

Scrapbox Quilt #2

Once again, thanks to my mom's extensive scrapbox, I was able to make another cute practice blanket. This time I chose an apple theme which turned out to be rather cute, in my opinion. I am not really sure how useful an apple themed baby quilt is for gifting, but at least my future kids will one day have something to play on :) I have yet to learn how to do the binding but I was able to quilt this one using the "stitch in the ditch" method to practice.

Scrap box quilt top #1

Thanks to my mom's extensive scrap box from YEARS of projects for myself and my sisters, I was able to come up with the fabric for this first quilt top. Its a little random as far as the fabric, and the squares are not all 100% perfectly aligned, but its a good start for my first project. Eventually it will be quilted and then turned into a giant pillow, but for now I will practice a few more piecing projects before I attempt to learn to quilt them.

And so it begins...

I am graduating on Friday from my Master's program in German from the University of Delaware. After many long years my career as a student has come to the end. So have the late night and cram sessions and the constant stress (hopefully!).

Fortunately this new era which is beginning will be marked by one significant thing... MORE TIME! And I plan to spend that time with my husband and dog, reading, and doing something I haven't had much time for in a long time.... CRAFTS!
To ring in this new era my wonderful mother bought me this beautiful machine as my graduation present. What better way to start a new phase in my life than with a sewing machine?!

Expect lots of ideas about skirts, ruffle shirts, and above all... quilting! Hurrah for the sewing era, hurrah for crafts and most of all hurrah for awesome mom's who share wonderful skills and traditions.