Nana's gift!

Gracie is IN LOVE with the present my mom gave her for Christmas.  (Yes, I realize she's a cat..)  Gracie didn't know it was Christmas, but I think it's fair to say that believes she is deserving of presents at all times...

It's a ledge for the windowsill!

It's the one for two cats, because my poor baby is quite overweight, and she didn't fall within the weight requirements of the single-cat version...

"Thank you, Nana," says Gracie!

(Again, I promise I know she's a cat, and not a person...)

Another baby quilt!

I've been playing around with Instagram, and trying to post things there.  What I like is that my camera still backs up the picture to Dropbox, but it doesn't keep the Instagram-iness, i.e. the changes in tone and color.  Oh, well...it's still fun.  

I've been working on a quilt for a friend who's having a baby and it's going well, I think!  I found the tutorial for the blocks on Pinterest on the blog Little Bluebell for a Stargazer quilt, and it led me to this great blog, Happy Zombie, home of the original block.  I'm not going to do borders around each block -- just the blocks up next to each other.  I'm loving how they're turning out.  They're so fast!  I have some directional prints, but I've decided that I don't care for them to stay going the same direction, and the randomness is super cute, too.  Below is a blue and yellow stripe with gray star points...I'll show the quilt once I've given it to the baby's Mommy and that way it will stay a surprise.

The shower is in a couple weeks -- hopefully I'll get it done before then!  HA!  That's always the challenge, isn't it?

Cat toys...

I spent yesterday making a few last minute gifts -- for my cat and for my mom's cat.  They are both cat toys I found tutorials for on Pinterest, and they came out super cute!!

Here they are!

 A mouse and an octopus, full of yummy catnip.

Gracie approves of her toys.

Today I'm trying to figure out Photoshop Elements 12, a Christmas gift since my old copy didn't work with Windows 8.  Wish me luck...

And then there was 28...

Somehow I ended up making 28 of my snowflake blocks...I thought that a 7 by 4 block quilt might look funny.  Electric Quilt confirmed it:

Yes, I have an old, old version of EQ.  Don't judge me.  I didn't like the upgrade way back when, so I went back to EQ4 because it makes sense to me.

So, as I still have an embarrassingly tall pile of snow fabric, I'm making more blocks...

Luckily, as this is a SNOW fabric quilt, and not a CHRISTMAS fabric quilt, I don't feel any pressure to get it done anytime soon.  I think as long as it's finished before Thursday, March 20, 2014, I'll be ok.  (That's the first day of spring, FYI.  In the land where it is really dark and rains a ton, I keep track of things like that...)

This is where I belong...clearly...

This is my spot.  Obviously.  The serger and I are old pals, even though it sounds like a vacuum machine.
So, you know, I just sit here and hang out with my friend.  

Last minute gifts

I know I'm not the only one who does this to myself...but these last minute gifts are killing me...One done...

yup, it's another tree skirt...I'm addicted to my own pattern...

One to go...

and it's 60" x 80".  Sigh.  I have no idea how it got that big...

OK, I'm off to buy more batting.

Christmas cards

No sewing today, as we're working on addressing and stamping and mailing our Christmas Cards, and going to a family party...

But I love how our family pictures came out! :)  Grace sort of cooperated.  She was weird-ed out to be outside, poor thing...And we're showing out Seahawk pride!  I'm pretty sure my mom will roll her eyes at this...

Get Organized!

Today, I realized that my sewing table looks like this:

What a hot mess.  And, for the record, that's a tin full of Danish Butter Cookies, just in case I need a snack, I won't have to walk the frightfully long way downstairs to the kitchen.

I think I need to get cleaned up.  There's barely any table left!!  How can any one work like this?  It's a little ridiculous.  And I need to write down some "assignments" on a calendar, because OMG it's already 11 days until Christmas!!  ACK!  (That's a word, right??  Yes, it must be -- Cathy the cartoon says it all the time...) 

OK, here I go to put some stuff away!

Busy Week!

Why is the last week of the quarter always so busy?  All those 'pesky' grades to get turned in for students... No, just kidding -- geesh, I hope my boss doesn't see this.  Grades are important, but arduous to be sure.

But now that's done, and today I taught a quilting class!  So much fun!  5 wonderful ladies and I made my Quick & Easy, Comfy Cozy Tree Skirt pattern in a last-minute rush to decorate for Christmas.  We weren't quite done with it after 4 hours, so I didn't get pictures of their completed tops, but they promised to email them.

This is Loris' -- she works at the quilt shop and made it using my pattern -- isn't it gorgeous???

And of course, since I feel like a better teacher demo-ing how to do things instead of trying to find words to describe what I'm doing, I made one, too.

 I cut all the pieces before class so if I wanted to show a step in the process they'd be RIGHT THERE for me to use to demonstrate.  Hmmm, blue, green and white --  I wonder who I should give this to for Christmas?? ;)

Happy last minute sewing!

When cats attack, or something...

Gracie always likes to "help" me, but she usually ends up A) attacking my projects or B) getting in the way...

Today she's walking across my keyboard.  She must be hitting F12 a lot, because code keeps appearing on the screen...


Sigh...I'm giving in to the cuteness I think.

Today, I was meant to be her lap.  :)  I mean, how do I say no to that dorky little face??

LOOK! I made it happen!!

I updated my tree skirt pattern!

And it's on my etsy site, in two formats, and in limited availability at Ruby Street Quiltworks.




I say "limited" cuz it keeps selling out!  :)  

I'm also going to teach a class on it!!  OMG, this is so exciting!!

So, needless to say, I'm writing more quilt patterns.  HA!!

Man, these are fun...

I may have created a monster by starting these Lil Twister blocks...I have just a few started...

look how tall that pile is!!  

and that doesn't count the ones I've got finished...

and the ones I need to add borders to and then cut out.

I hope to make a quilt PLUS some Christmas gifts out of them.





I already have my labels for the back ready.

"Sew" much fun!  I'm a cheese-ball, I realize this...

I'm probably behind and out of fashion, but I'm doing it anyway...

After, like, more than 12 years of working in fabric stores in my teens and twenties, I haven't worked in one for a while now.  Hence, I'm out of fashion.  There's no better way to stay on-trend in the quilting world then working at a quilt shop, and being there on days the product reps come to sell their new stuff...So, I was at a quilt shop, and found this little ruler called a Lil Twister.  Have you seen this?  It's freakin' awesome, and the sales lady demo'ed how easy it was in the store.  I've had it for a while, and haven't tried it yet -- so this weekend, I DID it!  I didn't trust that I'd 1) remember how to use it, or 2) that it would be as easy to use as advertised...but holy cow, IT WAS!!!

For years I've been inexplicably collecting fabrics with snow and other snow-related items -- snowmen, snow angels, snow scenes...the pile was getting embarrassing large, especially considering I didn't have a CLUE what I was collecting them for.  I mean, how much snow fabric can one woman have?  I was trying to answer that question apparently...The finished little blocks with this ruler looked a little like snowflakes to me, so when I saw the ruler, this is what I planned to use it on -- hack up some snow fabric, and make it seem like I had a plan all along.  HA-HA!  Triumph!

OK, so, first I made 5" square four patches, with a border around the outside.  I had a bunch of different sized white/light solid scraps, so I'm using those up.  The 2.5" strips were a little narrow for this, but the 3" strips are working out better.

Then, I laid the Lil Twister on the blocks I made, lining up its lines, and started to cut around it.

It's important to keep the blocks in order.  This was sort of the hardest part -- sometimes I'm good at organization, and sometimes I'm not.  Saturday, when I was doing this = not so much.  So I had to be really aware...

After a while, your quilt block starts to look like Swiss cheese...When you line up the squares, they start to make this little twist, see it? Then I just sewed them together into a twisty little 9 patch...

Here is my finished block:  

Seriously, I had three blocks in about 20 minutes.  In fact, I made a whole stack of 4 patches, and I plan to keep going...as I said, I have lots of fabric that I didn't have a plan for...Of course, NOW, I have a huge stack of these quilt blocks that I don't have a plan for...well, I'm deciding that that's a better pickle to be in than just fabric.  HA-HA!  Another TRIUMPH!  

I'm telling you -- super easy...and totally from the "I wish I'd thought that up" file...coolest ruler I've seen in a while.

Blue Quilt Tutorial

I had fun this summer making this really fast and super cute baby quilt!  Here is how I did it!

First, I went through my scraps, and cut 5 inch squares of lots of different blues and then lights (or fabrics that read light).  Well, actually, I had my mom cut them.  She was down visiting, and needed a project.  I was afraid if I didn't giver her a project, like cutting  these squares, then she'd find HER OWN project, and rearrange my kitchen or something...this was a good project, because then we got to chat while we played with fabric -- perfect!  

Anyways, then I paired up a light with a dark, and on the back of the light, I marked a line from corner to corner.  I sewed 1/4" to each side of that line.

 I had some leftover triangles from another project, and I used those, too -- I overlapped them just a smidgen along the line that I'd drawn on the back of the light square, and then stitched them, too!

 Then, I cut them down the drawn line, making a whole stack of a bunch of half-square triangles, which I then pressed really good.
 Then I began the somewhat long process of squaring them up.  This is the beauty of making HST this way, I think -- I can square them up and make the perfect.  I squared them up to 4.5 inches...

 Then, I put them up on my design wall.  I LOVED the stars that were created in this arrangement, but it was still kind of small, I felt, and I wanted to it be a good baby quilt size.

  

So, I just happened to have some blue fabric in my stash that went pretty well with all the scrappy HST, so I put that in between as sashing to see if I'd like it.  I did -- but I decided to do only in one direction, so I still had these long strips of triangles.  

But of course I only had enough of the sashing blue for the sashing, and not for the top and bottom borders, so I found ANOTHER piece from my stash for the top and bottom borders. Murphy's law, right?  This is what comes of not having a real pattern and just making stuff up on the fly...

 I like it so well, I made a pink version, too -- just to keep with those traditional baby colors, you know...apparently I'm all about perpetuating stereotypes...but it's a fun, FAST quilt, and a great way to use up scraps.  I plan to do more in other colors -- when I'll do, I'll post pictures here.