Long overdue

Ok, I know it's been well over a month since my last post. I know I keep saying but seriously, where does the time go!

Thank you all so much for your votes and wonderful compliments on my quilt. I'm saddened to say I didn't make the top 3, I guess I just don't know enough people! It's all good though because in the end I have really fun quilt that I totally would have procrastinated quilting for years if I hadn't had a deadline.

I have been really, really busy this fall. Here's a smidgeon of what I've been up to.
I put together the scraps left over from this quilt:

to make this:

I was going to make another wall hanging, but Pattie suggested making a pillow, which is a fantastic idea. I like the longer pillows on a couch. Now I have to quilt it and make a pillow out of it!

I got these fantastic Chicago watercolor prints from old United Airlines travel books from the Megan Morrison store closing sale. One is from 1948, the other from 1952 (I think it's a 2).

They cost me $1 each! Don't ask how much the framing cost. I completely love them. The inner matting is a really dark navy blue. I tried all manner of greys and blacks, but nothing was working for me. The girl at the Michael's framing counter suggested navy, and by jove, that was it! The people in the Buckingham Fountain print all have hats and 40's clothes. It's fabulous. And the one of the river is not a view of Chicago that you find very often, so I really like it as well.

I got a cute make-your-own white board kit at JoAnn's in the clearance aisle for $3. I added the gorgeous Tanya Whelan paisley fabric to the frame. It took me an hour and 35 mins because of the amount of time I agonized over which fabric to commit to. It took an hour and half do decide, and then 5 minutes to make. Pathetic, huh?

 So now I have a place to list the projects with due dates. And the list is LARGE. 13 to be exact. Most are commissions though, which is good since I just recently discovered that coming in January is Rouenneries Deux!!

I know, be still my heart right?.

I lost my camera for a month, but found it last night in a pile of quilts of all places, go figure. Some more of what I've been up to that I haven't photographed yet:

A ginourmous t-shirt quilt.

Designing and making a yoga bag

Emily's baby quilt (there's a glimpse of it below)

and several other things that are totally escaping me at the moment!

Posts w/pretty pictures to follow. I promise.

Oh, and I have to totally do a shout out the White Wizard! I got my sewing machine oiled and it got on a couple of bags I made, and the only thing that got the stains out was the White Wizard. It seriously was magical in it's stain removal! It didn't harm or discolor the fabric in any way either.

I got it on a whim when it was on clearance at Restoration Hardware last summer, so I have no clue who else carries it. I'm sure the wonder of the internet can find it though!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We've had snow and really cold weather already, so I'm all ready for Christmas! Another sign it's Christmas?

Frostie's Retro Blue Cream Soda!!!

Aren't the pretty?

Cream Soda, and Blue! Life is so good. I was smart this year, I bought extra cases and sent them home with Binding Guru Karen for safe keeping so that we wouldn't drink them before Christmas. Ashley and Ju, there will be some blue soda for you on Christmas this year!

We had our Sew Mod Christmas party last Friday. I love these ladies. They are the best and totally inspiring. Lorrie assembled gingerbread houses for us then had all the accouterments that you could possible want to decorate them. This will come as no surprise to those who know me, but I was covered in frosting by the end of the night. The dogs kept licking my pants when I got home.

This is Kelly's house. She made a dog run on the side.

Let's take a closer look at that dog, shall we?

We were calling him the alien dog. Considering what she had to work with, I think she did a pretty good job. He cracks me up w/those ginormous red eyes. You can see action shots at Lorrie and Paige's Sew Mod blog and at our Sew Mod Flickr group. We had a gift exchange. I got Pattie in the drawing and she loves the Rouenneries line as much as I do, so I had a good idea where to start. I found this table runner/wall hanging on a store's blog, but I can't remember which. I'll update when I find it again. I loved it, and I hope Pattie did too.

Close up:

The middle is the linen/cotton blend and the applique is wool. I used by Sizzix die cutting machine for the leaves and berries and free cut the vines. I quilted around all the motifs in the toile.

I liked it so much, I'm making myself one. That's not wrong, is it?

Shelley (Elsie's Girl) made me a totally fabulous pillow that I have on my couch. I'll take a picture asap, because you don't want to miss this one.

Another sign that Christmas is upon us, the always fabulous Christmas tree that Tammy and cohorts put up at the store:

I love this tree at night too:

It's a little fuzzy since I took it with my camera phone, but isn't it awsome?

I love the Lakehouse flower ornaments that she made. And the ric rac garland is beyond too cute.  Tammy bedazzled and decked out the snowflake at the too. It was just a plain snowflake before she got her hands on it. It makes me want to run out and get a white tree.

Well, that's all for now. I have a couple of more Christmas projects to finish up, then I can take the time to take photographs and blog some more. And have a Hot Toddy. I love that word. Say it with me, "Hot Toddy." There, isn't it fun?

 

The first of many

I'm so excited! My Rouenneries Stone Soup wall hanging is done! Thanks so much to all of my quilting and non-quilting friends for their border help. I went with the red, obviously. But then Shelleybean left the idea of a red flange with the tan block print (option 3) after I had the top all done. I thought that was a GREAT idea, because as many of you know, I love a flange!!!! If you don't know what a flange is, this is a great explanation (and it looks like they have some fabulous quilting how to's).

Binding Guru Karen dropped it off Tuesday night and I promptly washed it to get it all wrinkled and quilty. I was a little concerned about how the linen blend would wash, but it turned out nicely. I think the linen gives it a nice texture. I have at least 4 quilts I want to make with this fabric.  

I quilted straight lines through the light colored squares, which I think makes it look like the dark squares are more complicatedly (is that even a word?) pieced, like they are really a sqaure in a square instead of just blocks. I used my water soluble interfacing technique to quilt the feathers in the setting squares and the outer border.

The backing is from an old Moda 3 Sister's line called 'Wuthering Heights' that I had in my stash. 

Now I just need to find the right place to hang it! It will have to be somewhere where I see it often.

I also whipped up this cutie patooty bag. I don't think it's possible to not smile when you see Girl Scout cookies. The fabric is from Kaufman's 'Girl Scouts' collection. I couldn't resist it, having been a girl scout myself. I made the bag for my friend's daughter, who, it goes without saying, is a girl scout! I'm also going to make one out of the pink cookie material for her to give as a prize to the cookie salesgirl who sells the most cookies in her troop. And I have the green cookies to make myself a little something. I made the pattern up as went along to try to highlight the fabric. I'll have to make the little racoon badge stand out on my bag. I loved that badge as a child.

And even though I do not do the whole Valentine's Day thing because of my V-Day curse, the hubby suprised me with these gorgeous hot pink roses and sushi for dinner. Wasn't that nice of him?

I won!!!

Well now, this is exciting! I received an email on Monday informing me that I am the lucky recipient of a Rouenneries charm pack! (For those non-quilters, that's a little packet of 5" squares, one each of  all of the fabrics in the line. We quilters totally love them.)
Why did I get this fabulous prize? It was a blog give away by the Etsy store, 44th Street Fabric . Thanks so much Bev!!!!

I'm not normally a reproductions kind of girl, but this line is GORGEOUS!!!! And it has linens with it. How fabulous is that? It was designed by Kaari Meng, the owner of the  French General store in California, and is based on antique French fabrics.

Winning this packet of gorgeousness is especially exciting for me because I have been stalking this line of fabric since I first saw it in the blog photos from Spring Market.
I know, I'm a total quilting geek. I can't help it. As Pitti-Pat's daughter said about her quilting dorkiness, 'at least your friends appreciate it.' Or something similar.

On another total geek front, can I just say how excited I am that they are doing a new V on ABC? I loved the original with Marc Singer back in the 80's. Now there's 3 whole tv shows that I watch, Psych, Castle and V! Maybe with 3 whole hours to hand stitch I'll get the first block of my Halloween Baltimore done before the end of the year. Or not.