It's been a LONG time!

I know, what in the world have I been doing? Sheesh? Or may be I'm the only one that was thinking that. HA!

I took a break from quilting for basically the entire summer. And then part of fall, too. But the holidays are coming and I needed to get my butt back in gear. And I'm so happy I did! 

I finished the 'Big Wonky Pinwheels' quilt this past weekend. I like now so much more than I did at first. 

Meatball likes it too.

I also made a baby quilt for a dear friend in Germany...

I stippled it, and I think I'm getting better...

And the back.... I'm liking white right now.

That's it for now. Hubby is trying to watch more 'Pacific' and I'm holding up the showing... More later!

Continued...

I chose all of the fabric for the quilt - a lot of the blue and green fabric and cut four 5.5 inch squares out of each one. After putting them up on the design wall, moving them from straight rows to diagonal rows and adding a few extra squares I have this:

What a fun looking quilt so far! I'm sure I'll move some prints around but I like where this is going.

The Process

Ok, so I got sick and basically stopped quilting all together for a few weeks but tonight it hit me that I N.E.E.D.E.D. to quilt again! Like, right now.

There is a friend that recently had a birthday and I want to make her a quilt because I know she will love it. I found out from her boyfriend that her fav colors are blue and green. Check. She's not a fan of pink at all. Double check.

I sorted through my stash and picked out some nice shades of blue and green. The greens are more lime-greenish but I think they will work out. I don't want to spend any money to buy more fabric right now (need to save for vacation in July) so they will have to do. A couple of the prints have both colors in them, too.

So now I have to figure out the pattern. I always think New Wave quilt first these days, followed by patchwork. I don't really want to do New Wave because of the white sashing and I don't have enough fabric of another color to swap for the white. Unless I use one of the lime-greenish ones? I'm not sure.

(Short pause to check this out...brb)

Hmm, yeah I have enough but I don't think it will look right. Maybe I can make a New Wave but nix the sashing? I'm not convincing myself very well. I'd rather test that brilliant plan on something I'm not planning to give away.

Maybe a brick path quilt? Yeah, I don't think that is right either. I think the simple patchwork of 5 inch squares is the way I'm going to go. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I'm still here!

Sorry for the long pause, but little ol' me got PNEUMONIA! I can't believe it, except that I feel horrible so it must be true. I'm on the up swing now, thank goodness. so I'll be back to being crafty and quilting soon enough.

Last weekend I made a couple more patchwork pillows for a friend. Her 15 m.o. has been carrying them everywhere he goes, so I'm gonna say they are a hit!

I hope everyone has a great 3 (or more) day weekend if you're in the U.S. I'm gonna spend mine sleeping if all goes as planned!!

Patchwork Pillows

Aren't they lovely?

Here they are in the (gray) sunlight I was able to catch when I got home today. 

They are similar, but not alike. Both of them have the same blue back.

I reinforced the patchwork-side of the covers with interfacing like Elizabeth from Oh Fransson! did here. I'm hoping it will help them look this nice for a while.

Training Days and Rain

This week is going to take FOR-EV-ER. I'm in a training course for a certification I want to get for my job and boy is this thing boring. Luckily I like the content. That's the only good thing I can say about it. And it gets me out of going into the office for 5 days. (which can be good or bad)

It's pouring buckets here today so being locked in (I'm joking) a basement room in the middle of the city doesn't seem as bad as it would if it were sunny out. Hopefully the weather will break so I can walk around during our lunch breaks. Here's for hoping!

This past weekend I finished two pillows for the living room. I'll post pics when I get home. They were supoer quick and easy to do and they look fantastic. I need to decide what to do to the larger ones still. I'm thinking big and bold.

I think this is the first weekend this year that I didn't start or finish a quilt. GASP. It seems wrong to say that now. It's ok, I still love you quilting. We will be back in full swing this weekend I promise.

Wonky Pinwheels in Progress & completely non-quilt related banter...

You know what's funny? The fact that I assumed I would start this blog and talk less about quilting and more about random stuff. Like, we recently watched the Butterfly Effect 3 (who knew there where 3 of them) and it was not that good except for one this joke:

"What do you get when you cross a brown chicken and a brown cow? - Brownchicken browncooow" (said like that bad 70's porn music sound)

(This still makes me laugh out loud, btw)

Or that I really enjoyed Avatar even though I couldn't believe any of the hype and ditto about Twilight. Wow, this sounds a whole like like a movie blog right about now. You can tell what I do when I'm sewing on bindings can't you?

But I guess I always started this as a quilt outlet for me. A way to participate in the list of quilt blogs I read every-single-day. Thank goodness they all exist. They have made my journey through quilt discovery and learning a lot better since there is always someone answering a question I have, or showing me a new creation I can't wait to try myself.

ANYWAY, enough ramblings, back to the quilt-ness.

So I finished sewing together the top of the huge wonky pinwheels quilt today, created a pretty backing for it, pinned it all together then realized I didn't have enough thread to quilt it. Sigh. It was a good reason to by more thread, including clear this time, blades for my rotary blade and more ruler templates. I'll finish it next weekend.

Yesterday I went shopping with my friend Jane and picked up some pillow forms. Sean has been asking me to make pillows for weeks (months?) now. They were on sale this time (40% off!) so I bought two 18in. and two 16in. squares. I think I'll make the fronts small square patchworks for the 16in. ones and who-knows-what for the bigger ones. I'm sorta happy to work on them since I know I can finish at least two of them in one sitting.  Gotta love speedy projects right?