Hell Yeah!

Excuse my language, but this is exciting!  I had made great stride in not only Rachel's baby quilt, but at being a quilter in general.

First, I finished cutting all 108 stash patterned pieces:

Instead of then cutting all of the off white fabric, I decided to cut about 15 or so and see if I was actually capable of putting one of these, uh, let's call them 'blocks' together.  It turns out, hell yes I am!  I mean, seriously, this is hard stuff and I actually managed to put it together without it looking terrible. 

Sure, this kid may have a doctorate by the time I finish this quilt, but I actually feel like I'm off to a very good start and am excited to continue.  The baby shower is in March...  I better get moving!!

Once Upon a Time...

I think I've let it slip a couple of times on blog that I'm a Disney fan, but that's not completely accurate.  I'm a Disney fanatic.  Okay okay, I guess "obsession" is a better word when describing how I feel about Disney.  In fact, for my 30th Birthday I will be traveling to Disney World with a handful of friends and my parents.  And, since I'm a Disney pro, I go all out- I've replaced a zipper of a Figment backpack from my childhood and then decided that I need a Disney themed wallet for the trip.  Why buy when you can make?  So, I grabbed the book Easy Japanese Quilt Style (a Christmas gift from my friends Shelagh and Doug) and loosely went off a pattern for wallets- I made two: Disney 'Once Upon a Time' themed, and one from the left over fabric from Courtney's Thank You quilt.

The idea for these wallets is really cute, but the directions are not the clearest ever, so I had to sort of loosely follow the instructions and sort of go with my gut on how to put it together.  Courtney's was easier than my Disney wallet, simply because all of the fabric already coordinated, while I had to decide which of my Disney fabric I was actually going to use.  I have a lot, but not a ton of options- no Mickey and Minnie (bummer), but two different Disney Princess themed, a little bit of left over Ariel from pot holders I made Courtney for her Birthday, a fair amount of Winnie-The-Pooh, and, of course, the Alexander Henry fabric that I'm convinced looks exactly like "It's a Small World."  I settled, however, on staying with the Disney Princesses.  Combining all of the fabric on such a small project looked a little messy and disjointed.

The thing that I really loved about this project is, now that I know the basic way to put a wallet together, I feel like I could make my own pattern and make it more functional and a better size.  If I do, I am going to attempt to write my own pattern.  Hopefully I will be more clear enough for people to understand me. This project also made me really appreciate Elizabeth Hartman.  Her instructions are so clear and easy to follow.  I hope she writes a million more books!

I can't wait to get to Disney World, so I can use this little guy!

I Must Be Crazy

My childhood best friend's sister Rachel, and her husband Ami, are expecting their first child about a month after my 30th Birthday.  Of course I'm making them a baby blanket, but decided that instead of doing the simple little ones I normally do, I'd do something creative, fun, modern, gender neutral, detailed, and stash busting and, evidently, super hard!

I'm not sure what possessed me to think that my skill level is up for this adorable pattern from Fresh Quilts, but I'm determined to do my best!  I've begun cutting the 100s of pieces that will go into this quilt- it is, by far, the most detailed I have ever attempted- in piecing as well as in quilting.

The cutting of the cute pieces of fabric has been a lot of fun.  The center pieces are an Olivia fabric I picked up at Fabric Shack.  The rest of the pieces are from my stash or fat quarters I just picked up while on my "vacation" in Ohio.  I have also ordered some off white fabric for the back ground and some fun dots for the back and binding.  Just cutting this is going to take forever and I have actually lay awake in bed thinking about how to actually piece this together, but I am determined.  You will all be impressed if this is ever when this is done.  Impressed.  It'll be all worth it.

Thank You Quilt Top

Okay, so I decided that I like this quilt a lot better today.  Seeing the top come together made me feel a lot better about the work I've put into it- also, knowing how excited Courtney is to get her quilt definitely makes it worth it.  I hope she doesn't mind that all of the lines don't line up perfectly, but that's what you get with handmade!  We're still deciding how to quilt it and if we're adding a boarder, but I have the fabric for the back and the binding.  In about a week or so I think I'll dive into the quilting portion.  I've gotta say, I'm pretty pleased with this, fingers crossed Courtney feels the same.

The top minus the sashing

Thank You Quilts

If you can remember back to the fall, you'll remember that I was in Ohio for about 2 months designing a play.  I was there for a week with no car (because why would I own a car, being a NYC resident?).  If you've ever been in Central Ohio without a car, you know how hard it is!  Thankfully, I have some very wonderful cousins who picked me up (a half hour out of their way) and drove me around, helped clean up the apartment I was put in, and drove me all the way to Cincinnati to get a car- needless to say, I'm not sure how I could have made it there without them.  As a thank you, they are each getting a quilt since they were both in the market and couldn't find any that they liked/could afford.  While I'm still waiting for Caitlin to tell me what she wants, I have been getting a lot of work done on Courtney's recently.

She found a quilt in a magazine that she really wanted and I did a little research and found the pattern online (above).  It's made with a jelly roll, which I've never worked with before.  To be honest, I'm sorta hating it.  There are lots of long straight lines, etc.  While I guess having the fabric pre-cut into strips is very convenient, it sort of feels like it takes the creativity out of making a quilt.  I've worked with patterns before, but you still get to pick off of your own fabric, etc which makes it feel like your own.  And, while we picked a jelly roll that is different than the one they suggest, it still feels more like work than like creating.  I hope that this changes once it's pieced together a little more.

Brown Bag Quilt

So, I don't know if I've mentioned this on my blog yet, but I have the best brown bag quilt partner, Leona over at Leona's Quilting Adventure.  Not only did she send me some lovely fabric when the contest started, but she also sent me a bonus holiday fat quarter that's part of the collection she originally sent me!

The reason I love the brown bag quilt is because I probably wouldn't have noticed or bought this fabric in a store, but now that I have it I absolutely love it and may look at fabric differently while shopping.  I am going to use a pattern from my new book The Practical Guide to Patchwork.  It's not terribly detailed, but the fabric is so lovely and has such large patterns on it that I wanted to make sure that the quilt I made was a showpiece for the fabric.  I've cut all of the pattern pieces thus far.

I am going to pair it with some solid light blue fabric that I have.  I'm not as happy with this pairing as I'd like to be, but seeing as I've only see quilting for 6 months or so, I don't have quite the stash I would like to have for projects like this.  A few more trips to Fabric Shack and I'm sure I'll catch up!

My goal is to finish piecing all of the blocks this week, so stay tuned for progress.

And on a side note, since it's the last week of regular season NFL football, I just wanted to say that there is nothing that I love to do more on a Sunday than spend the day quilting while watching football.  I'm going to miss this when the season is over...

New Year, New Projects, New Look

With the new year, comes a whole new list of projects to dive into.  (And a new look for blog!)  Here are the projects that I have to complete before I turn 30 that I will blog about...






1. Rachel's Baby Blanket
2. Brown Bag Quilt
3. Courtney's "thank you" Quilt
4. 1-3 Custom Ordered T-Shirt Quilt(s)
5. Disney Themed surprises for my crew on my Birthday trip
6. Various Pot Holders by request and also just to put on Etsy

I have a Bengal's quilt on my year to-do, but I certainly don't anticipate that happening soon.

Looks like I'm gonna be super busy until April!