June 25, 2009

Tuesday was Regan and Ryan's first day of camp. They attended the 'Under The Sea' camp at our local gym. They had a pirate/mermaid theme and played games, swam and did crafts. The camp lasts three days with today being their last day. As you can see from the picture above Ryan is completely wiped out by the time camp is over. Doesn't he look comfy?

This afternoon I'm dropping the kids off at camp and heading over to Julianna's house to do some sewing. I STILL need to get the binding sewn on to Danyelle's birthday quilt. I have the binding cut and sewn together so it should only talk a little bit to get it finished. *crossing my fingers*

January 4, 2009

One of my resolutions for the new year is to do more sewing. I have so many ideas floating around in my head that I really want to work on. So today I set my sewing machine up on the dining room table and brought out a few projects.

The fabric squares in the front of the picture are going to be a lap sized rag quilt for my nephew Kyle. His birthday is later this month.

The quilt in the back is Ryans. I still need to finish stippling it but my machine is acting odd and doesn't want to cooperate. Do a straight stitch its just fine but when I change my foot to the free motion foot the thread on the back makes giant loops. Does anyone know how to fix that?

If you look closely between those two fabric groups you can see a little of the fabric I'm using to make some notebook covers. Skip To My Lou sells a really cute pattern using Steno notebooks.

Have I ever introduced you to my new baby? I bought her in June from a wonderful lady I found through Craigslist.

This is a Baby Lock Quilters Choice. It came with 14 extra feet, an extra wide quilting table, more stitches than I will ever use AND the instruction manual. She also included the original receipt and records from every time she had it serviced.

I have had SO much fun with this machine! I just love it and all the fancy little things it does.

Picture from Quilt Taffy

I recently ordered this table runner from Quilt Taffy. I just love the simplicity of it. I have it ready to quilt and hope to get it done this week. I also ordered six fat quarters from the Ava Rose collection. It is a lot frilly-er than any fabric I've used before.

Any ideas on what I should do with it? I was thinking of making a baby blanket and backing in with minkee.

I had planned on taking the month of August to get our home and family ready for the upcoming school year. I had a long list of things I wanted to accomplish. School shopping, decluttering, rearranging furniture, planning menus, updating my household notebook...the list was intense. But guess what happened. I'll give you a hint. Two words.

Michael Phelps.

Oh my word! Talk about an intense week! I was staying up way too late to watch him go for gold. Then getting up early with the kids. My energy level suffered and therefore my to do list but it was worth it to see Michael (we're on a first name basis now) get every gold medal he competed for.

But now its time to get things done. I've pretty much done all the school shopping I needed to do and completed three more quilt tops. I've got the kids signed up for soccer & I ordered our 1/2 pig and1/4 beef. Now I need to buy a freezer to put it in. I have appointment for everyone to get haircuts next week and I've signed up for my very first quilt club.

Devon's curriculum is supposed to be shipped next week so hopefully I'll have time to get that ready before Sept. 2. Thats the day Regan and Ryan start their 1/2 days at Evergreen Academy so I'd like it to be Devons first day as well.

I'm still here! So sorry (once again) for the long absence but I have been a-quilting away! I have a few pictures to show you. Most are just the tops but one is completely finished.

This first quilt is Paytons. I used extra pieces from a quilt I'm making for myself. It's the only quilt that's done.

Here is a horrible shot of the quilt I am making for myself. I used the Cheaper by the Dozen pattern but six patterns instead of the usual twelve. I used this fabric.

I made this top using a basic tumbler pattern and used reproduction fabric.

This will be for Devon. I used two charm packs and some reproduction fabric (for the large squares). The charm packs were Friends and Flowers a Mary Engelbreit collection for Moda. I have another one almost exactly like it for Regan. the only difference is Regan has a different fabric for her large squares.

I have four more tops that are in various stages of assembly. When I make some progress on them I'll post some more pictures.

Sunday

Sunday afternoon we headed over to Jake and Octavia's house so I could work on some quilts and Michael could help Jake assemble a gazebo. Every summer Octavia has a quilting week where she, her Mom and her sister get together and get some major sewing done. When I was there Sunday they had completed 8 tops and had the pieces cut out to make three more. Before we headed out I cut fabric for three quilt tops and two projects that just needed the binding tacked down. I was able to finish two tops and the binding on my table runner. WooHoo! Thats a lot more than I would have accomplished at home. I'll get some pictures of the tops as soon as I can.