A Day at the Beach

I got picked to be the theme picker for Swap Til You Drop this month. I picked the theme "Summer Lovin'" and couldn't not sign up! :) My partner, abxkris (another Kristin/Kristen!), loves going to the beach among other things, so I made her a little bit of the beach to remember when winter inevitably comes.



I love the label since I had some Michael Miller monkeys that also seemed really summery. Kristin also mentioned she loves swimming with her kids.



I also sent some spices from Penzey's Spices. I love their salad dressing mixes. They're good by themselves with olive oil on just about everything or made into dressing. I'm especially in love with their Buttermilk Ranch and Salsa Salad Dressing.

A quirky quilt for May STUD

I've been saving this post until my partner, A Piece of Me (aka Sandi), received the quilt. I got an email from her today that she received it! She mentioned that she laughed out loud when she opened it, which I take to be a great sign since it is rather silly.


The theme was Alphabet Mania and I got the letter "Q" and needed to incorporate that in any way I wanted into the mini quilt (15" square). I made a "Quartet of Quizzically Quacking Quails".. it's a bit of a quirky quilt, but I'm really happy with it. It's the first quilt that I finished on my own from start to finish. Not only was it my first complete quilt, but also
-first appliques
-first free motion quilting
-first binding
-first label





I have been loving Anita at Bloomin' Workshop and Kajsa at Skyo's sketchy stitching and decided the I would try my hand at it with the quails. I bought a charm pack (5" squares) of Moda's Wonderland line and followed Anita's great tutorial. I had never tried to free-motion quilt before and I was nervous at first to lower the feed dogs. What's great about the sketchy stitching is that it's not supposed to be smooth or perfect. Here were the test quails, before I did the ones that ended up on the quiltie.



I'm really proud of the corners on the binding! I used Oh, Fransson's tutorial from her quilt along, and ladder stitched the back. It went perfectly!


Don't look too close at the back... those quacks left all kind of knots and whatnot on the back since I did it with the machine. I probably should've done it by hand, but you live and learn, right?


Here's the label. I don't enjoy hand sewing that much, so I actually just ironed this one on. I'm having second thoughts about it now... but it's in the mail, so there's nothing I can do. Next time, I'll tack down the edges too.


And if you want to see more pictures, click on any of the photos in this post to get rerouted to flickr where I have more posted.

Swaps galore!

As you may have noticed on my side bar, I've joined a virtual quilting bee. Ours is called Snip.Sew.Send.

The way this works is that 12 people commit for a whole year to make quilts together. Each month one quilter sends fabric to the other 11, who make a block for that quilter and send it back. The quilter then assembles them all into a quilt. My month isn't until February, thank goodness since I don't have my mind wrapped around what I want to do. It'll also give me a chance to see what other people send out and get some ideas.

---------------------

I've also joined another quilting bee, but this ones is just for kid-themed quilts. It's called Sew Kid at Heart and it's over on flickr. Although I don't have kids and am not planning on having any before I finish up grad school (which will be a while), I love kid fabrics and often the designs are so whimsical, so needless to say I'm excited. For this one, everyone is sending fabric at the same time (in June) and each quilter works on a block of their choice each month and all of the quilts will be complete by the end of the year.

I found a pattern I'm pretty excited about with "bug critters". They're super cute and I think they can allow for a bit of fun and creativity for my fellow quilters. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to put the group of them together, but this quilt by ...dotty... on flickr has me inspired. It has similar bugs and a great colorway. Don't you love it??


I bought these green fabrics for the bugs and I think I'm going to buy a black solid for the background. Once I get all the pieces I'll see how I want to sash the little buggers, but I'll probably end up doing something in really bright colors.


---------------------

Finally, I finished my mini quilt for my Swap Til You Drop partner. Here's a little preview.

I'll post more about after my partner gets it since I don't want to ruin the surprise. I'll just tell you that I tried out all kinds of new techniques and I'm ridiculously proud of myself for finishing my first quilt on my own!!

...and I'm back!

I'm back from my sister's wedding and it was a smashing success! I had a great time and my sister looked beautiful.



She also asked me to turn this absolutely beautiful dress into something. We're thinking that it would make a beautiful quilt since she doesn't want to hold on to it as a dress. Any of you have experience or ideas of what to do with this great fabric?



My mom also offered that we can use her wedding dress (that my sister and I have NO way of fitting into, and haven't since we were teens) as part of the quilt too. It's a very intimidating project, but one that I think is a great way to save and cherish the dresses rather than have them sit in closets.

Since I've been home this weekend, I actually finished a project. I've been wanting a kitchen apron for a while and when I saw the pattern for the Emmeline apron, I knew that was what I wanted. I learned a bunch making this pattern, like how to gather and make bias tape. I really like how it turned out and since it's reversible, it was two-for-one. I can't decide which side I like better!
One side has forks and spoons...


and the other side has plates with a couple small forks and knives. :)


Finally, I got my STUD (Swap Til Your Drop) partner and I'm really excited about starting that project. The theme this month is alphabet mania and I got assigned the letter Q. My mini quilt has to incorporate that letter however I want. After perusing crosswordsolver.com, I have some good ideas that I think my partner will like. We'll see how that goes...

Holding Pattern

I didn't forget about my blog, but rather, my projects are all in a holding pattern. The pink and green baby quilt is waiting on a new presser foot (I should get it this weekend) and the Bots and Rockets quilt is waiting on having time to finish getting fabric. But I'm excited about what I have so far. I'm thinking that I'll add a lighter blue solid, a green solid and a yellow solid.


I joined a mini quilt swap on flickr (Swap Til You Drop) for May and I'm excited about the theme: alphabet mania. We'll see what letter I end up with. It will definitely be a fun project since it has to be smaller than 15" square.

I also got some fabulous new Michael Miller fabric that I'm thinking will turn out to be a new bag. I love the colors!


I was out of town last weekend visiting Jon's dad and I'm headed to Minnesota for my sister's wedding this weekend (which I'm really excited for), but I am itching to get going on these projects.