Lay out

It only took me about a month...and then some... to buy another packet of my quilt fabric and cut them out. I had then washed and ironed for about 2 weeks and I just kept putting it off to do other things. Then mom yelled at me for having them lying around, so I just sat down and cut them out. {Plus it saved me from having to endure anymore really bad football!}

I FINALLY took the time to plan it out last night. I didn't want any block to be diagonal or be next to the same block. Took a little creative juices, but I got it done.

Now it goes pretty far up and down the bed, so I'm confident it will be plenty big.

The sides don't go very far, but I will still be putting a 10 inch border of purple around the entire quilt. {The blocks are 9 1/2 inch by 9 1/2 inches}



i.e. this purple:

 By the way this is what I got the idea and what I am following. They call for bigger blocks and less because of it, but I wanted the detail and colors of having more, so I'm slightly following this idea.

Now I just have to sit my pretty behind down and get to sewing. I have the lay out for each row stacked and numbered on my chest just waiting for me to piece them together. It will probably be another month before anything happens... because I'm just special like that!

Book lover short of space!

Ever since I joined Crafter's Choice I have WAY more books than I know what to do with. (which is never a good sign when living in someone elses house) I needed to find a better place for them. I orginally had them on my desk shelves, but I was worried that they wouldn't be able to take the weight. I have a small bookshelf that I put in my room when we moved my stuff into the house. The rest of my stuff is in the storage room in boxes and taking up a very LARGE section of the storage room. (I seriously LOVE my parents for letting me come home until things pick up for me)
Anyway this bookshelf has been over piled with books because I am a big book lover. Another carry over from my mother, who reads even more than me. I have like 30 books full of books and maybe 10 storage bins of big books. I took the books that I don't really want to have in the room, got another storage box for them, and moved them downstairs with the rest. I left 8 books that I want to read and have up here for right now. I also had a few tins on the shelves, so I left those too.

I have gotten most everything else organized. I have all my printed patterns and ideas in binders and labeled. All my magazines are filed and sorted as well. Those are on top of the bookshelf. Along with my flower petal ball I made.

I received a few more in the mail today, so this is what made me notice I need to get this under control space wise. I have a new order in, but that won't get here for a while, thankfully.

 I thought Simple Knitting had a lot of stitches, well these have WAY more. I keep finding new and interesting things, hence the rather large collection.

I wanted to file these by type of project, but turns out the shelving became an issue. The top shelf had to be dropped, so I dropped the second one too, but the second one wasn't able to drop as far. This meant I had to have one shelf of books on their side, which is fine, but it also meant I had to mix up those book subjects. Actually for the most part that worked out to be ok with me because the subjects were close to each other. I had to put my card making, scrapbooking, and thift craft books together and my sewing and cross stitch books. At least I was able to make two piles. Actually looks kind of cool that way.

I was even able (for now) to have my collection tins mixed in. They are serving as seperators up top. The Spool tin is new and it works perfectly. Found that this morning.

My jewerly books are on the left side of the top shelf. Then my quilting books in the middle, and finally my knitting books on the right of the top shelf. The very bottom shelf is my books I want to finish reading and my monopoly tin.
I think it worked out pretty well. I have all my information in one place now. YAY!

Quilting project, found border

I think i found what I want to do the border in:

Don't you think it will be a nice contrast to these:

I found the shade of green I want to do the back fabric in, and it will also be the edging for the front.

I think over all it will help complete it and allow the 8 squares to really stand out. I'm happy with it. What do you think?

vibrant quilt project update

With the help of my mother and her quilting supplies, I was able to get MOST of the squares cut out.

I had wanted to do 10inch squares, but since the fabric shrunk a lot more than we thought, I ended up with 9 inch squares. (Well I cut out 9 1/2 inch on each side to allow for sewing.)

I had to cut down two sides to get straight edges and that limited me even more. Sometimes it was just a tiny bit, but other times one side would be so streched out that I lost alot in order to get a straight edge.

The cutting wasn't too bad until the last 7 or so. Then it was a back challenge. I said I cut out MOST of my squares. I calculated it and I need 12 down (to go from top of the bed to the bottom) and 8 across (side to side, not including the border which will make it the length I want on both sides), so that means I need 96. I was able to get 64 from what I had.

There were 8 strips of fabric in each package and I had 4 packages. I now need to get 2 more packages, wash them, iron them, and then cut them out. This is the part of quilting that is NOT so fun for me. Time consuming for me.
The bunch does look so good together. I can't wait to start getting it all together.

I need to hurry up and get the next two packages because they were on clearance when I got them. I found the perfect border fabric too. I will have to try and get a shot of it today and upload it. Oh and this is the blue I originally forgot to picture.

I love the detail on this one.

Anyway I have to get ready for work now. I can't wait for another day off to get some work done on this!

vibrant quilt project

I will be starting a new quilt project. I wanted something vintage, but also something that would look cottage/country. I think I found the perfect combo in a precut package I found at work.

 

 

There is another print in light blue, but I forgot to take a picture of it. I will have to do that later. I'm happy that they all work so well together. I might make the border either a purple or a light green. I'm leaning more towards purple since it would be more contrasting. Any ideas?

It will have 10 inch squares and a border about 7inches wide. The backside will be one solid color (I think... haven't desided if I also want to do the backside.) The colors are very vibrant, but have a soothing cottage country feel. I think it will turn out pretty good when I get done. I don't know how to do all the super fancy detail quilting work, so I might just skip that part and do ribbon ties to secure the quilt and batting together.

Anyway I washed and pressed the fabric being used, so I need to do the cutting and sewing. I haven't gotten the border fabric yet, but I know what I am going to use. I just want to be sure of the size before I get it.

I thought you might want to take a look. I got the idea from a magazine called Perfect for Precuts from Better Home and Gardens Special Interest Publications.  It one of the several ones I picked up from Border's going out of business sale.  (40% off of Magazines is too much to pass up!) The article is called "Sew Easy" from designer Anna Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.

 Well I'm off to get cutting! Let me know what you think!



Quilt project idea

I had planned to start working on decorating my bathroom before I lost my job. However, I still want to do the project I had in mind before everything happened. I wanted to do a garden theme in my bathroom. My shower curtain is actually what inspired it.

All the pastels reminded me of Spring and new life. Then I found these bird pictures at the ARC store and it started to all come together.

So I want to make a 4x4 square quilt and frame it, or just back it and hang it. (Haven't decided for sure yet)

I won't make it very big, but that's the lay out I want to do.

Fabric number 1 is

Fabric 2 is

Fabric 3 is

Fabric 4 is

Fabric 5 the center is

Fabric 6 is going to be the surrounding color. I haven't decided if I will use the right side (it has glitter on it) or the wrong side, as I actually like how the wrong side looks. Which would you choose?

It should be pretty quick and easy to put together once I get the squares all cut out. And like I said it won't be very big overall, so the individual squares will need to be relatively small.

This is the general lay out. Obviously the corners and sides will repeat, but that's the idea. I think it should be pretty when its all put together.

The upside was that JoAnne had a large sale on fabric and so two of the fabrics were 40% off and the rest was 30% off, and the glitter fabric was actually 70% off. Pays to wait for sales. I also had a 50% off coupon, which I used on a fabric pencil.

I will update when its done.