"...for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make" ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Pillow Talk Swap 3 {Sent and Received}!

Another Pillow Talk Swap, another AMAZING pillow!! I received this today from Rachel...

PTS3 {Received}!!
What a lovely sunflower! I don't know if you know this about me, but I *LOVE* sunflowers :)

PTS3 {Received}!
She sent along some goodies too- some vintage sheet pieces and a lovely hand crocheted dishcloth!

PTS2 And PTS3
Now I have a lovely flower garden (without any bees!) right on my couch!

And on the sent side of things...

PTS3 Done!
I sent this pillow to Joan of Wishes, True and Kind! She did a lovely blog post about it, which you can read here!

I think she likes it :)

I can't wait for round 4 to start... this is one of the best swaps in the world :)

Monday, June 28, 2010

Happy Fun Time!

That's what this past week has been, really. Well, except for the DAILY t-storms and ungodly hot and humid weather. Our air conditioner has been getting a good workout!

The Last Thingy :)
I finished the set up in my new sewing room (or my "girl cave" as Hubby calls it!!). Hubby put hooks into the wall for my rulers. They are SO handy, right behind my cutting table. Just turn around and grab!

Modern Siggy Swap 2
I finished up and mailed my Modern Siggy Swap 2 blocks. They were fun to make!

Quilting Crack :)

Fun By The Dozen :)
At the lock-in Saturday night I started making asterisk blocks. I'm not really doing the quilt along per se, but I thought the blocks were cute and I wanted to make enough for a wall hanging. Well, let me tell you- these blocks are more fun than should be allowed by law! They are addicting. So, if you don't want to spend every spare second making asterisk blocks, I suggest you don't start at all :)

Double Duty :)
And finally I designed a quilt for the lovely new "Spa" fabrics by Rosemarie Levin. I pressed and cut the fabrics yesterday. My new shelves double as fabric racks- how cool is that!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

A Productive Day!

Today was the first time I was really able to sew in my new digs. And I have to tell you, I'm LOVING them! Everything works very well, I only found a couple of things that need to be tweaked :)

I also finished a couple projects up today!

PTS3 Done!
My offering for the Pillow Talk Swap... I hope my secret partner likes it!

Finished!
And a cover for my embroidery machine!

Tomorrow I'm heading up to see my daddy for Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to all of you dads out there!!

Friday, June 18, 2010

A New Space

This spring Hubby and I have been reorganizing. Almost every room in the house has been changed around in some way!

One MAJOR change was the moving of my sewing room from a space near the kitchen to the smallest bedroom. We've referred to this room as "the room of doom" because it was pretty much a storage room. A very disorganized storage room!

After 4 full days of cleaning (I filled SIX big garbage bags with trash, not to mention the recycle and garage sale stuff that came out of there!) it was ready for occupancy!

 New Sewing Space
There was a nice big old desk in there, so I left it in and am now using it for my sewing table. It's so nice and sturdy!

New Sewing Space
There are oodles of shelves too! The whole wall is lined with shelves and there are 2 units underneath the cutting and ironing tables. It was a bit of a puzzle at first but this arrangement works very, very nicely!

New Sewing Space!
This is what I see when I turn around in my chair. When I sit at my machine my back is to the rest of the room. But this was better than having my back to the door, which was the only other way things could have been arranged :)

New Sewing Space!
We moved the embroidery machine in this morning. My sewing room is now complete! And it's also very, very cosy. I think I can safely say there is no wasted space anywhere :)

I'm excited to spend tomorrow actually working on projects in there!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

It's Party Time!!

That's right! Heather over at A La Mode Fabric is celebrating her birthday with a whole month of giveaways!! I brought her some presents to give away...

Lovin' MoMo!!
Charm packs of every MoMo line from Moda!! One person will get all three of these delicious charm packs :)

You need to go to THIS POST over at Heather's blog to enter to win! Don't comment here (unless you want to just say hi or something ♥)!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Chaos Theory

" {the} chaos theory is... about finding the underlying order in apparently random data"- imho.com

Last night I was cleaning up my cutting table and came across a little pile of 1.5" squares. They were leftovers from piecing a bee block. I was about to start sorting them into my scrap bins, but then I stopped. And pulled out the bolt of Moda Bella white. And went to town!

Chaos Theory- Help Wanted!!
I sashed all those little squares with white, then trimmed them on an angle to 4.5". There were 49 squares- how perfect was that? 7 rows of 7 squares each! I put the top together and basted it (I ♥ Sulky KK 2000 spray basting- makes my life SO much easier!). Then I debated- do I quilt it with wavy lines or straight lines? I put the question out to my Flickr friends, and they TOTALLY came through for me :)

Quiltedoma (Andrea) suggested straight lines 1/4" from the seams. Threekitchenfairies (Paloma) suggested random straight lines. Then I had a "lightbulb moment" and combined the two!

Chaos Theory
Chaos Theory is quilted with random, 1/4" spaced straight lines! I pulled out my roll of 1/4" wide masking tape and marked lines randomly, then quilted on either side of the tape.

The binding is sewn to the front. I'll do the hand sewing at a lock-in I'm attending on Saturday. Right now I need to finish Pillow talk Swap 3 and Modern Siggy Swap 2 and get them mailed out :)

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Fabric For Sale

My amazingly talented hubby made a website for me to sell the fabric and books I no longer want!

You can check it out here! I am so excited to be able to do this and I hope that the stuff I don't want anymore will be able to find a good home :)

There is LOTS more stuff to go on here, it will be updated every day. So if you don't see anything you want now, keep checking!


Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Bee Blocks: May 2010

I finished up my May bee blocks yesterday... nothing like waiting till the last minute :)

May 2010: The Block Swap 2
For Mary in The Block Swap 2: she sent muslin foundations and the lovely greens and browns for this block. I attempted to make 2 for her, but I made a stupid cutting mistake. I'm sending the partially finished one to her too, so she can finish it.

May 2010: Scraptastic Bee
For Kelly in the Scraptastic Bee: Kelly send the background and black and white print and asked us to use scraps to make wonky houses! This one's pretty darn wonky, I have to admit. Wonky stuff is not my favorite. It's good that I have to do it in my bees occasionally, just to get me out of my box a little :)

Buzz Cuts: May
For Adrienne in the Buzz Cuts 2 bee: she sent the white and asked us to use blue and green scraps to make this block! This one is closer to what I like- intricate with lots of pieces :) I had fun making this one. It was hard to mail it off! I have leftovers and am thinking of making another block just like it and finishing it into a mini quilt :)

June is my month to send fabric for the Scraptastic Bee and Buzz Cuts 2, and I can't wait to see what I get back from my talented bee friends :) I have fabric for A Piece Of Work B, and am waiting for fabric for The Block Swap 2 and Bee White Black. I hope I get them by Friday, since I'd like to use Saturday to get them done!