Hemming Diamonds - A New'ish WIP

ISometimes I feel like the worlds biggest scatterbrain when it comes to my fabric choices. Some days I love crazy bright prints and others I yearn for the softness of a more traditional print. 

I got the fabric for the Hemming Diamonds quilt for my friends fabric sale last year and have been dying to make a quilt from it I just haven't gotten around to doing much with it yet. I did cut the fabric into half square triangles and then after pressing I put them away for a later time. 

That later time came this evening. I am SO in love with this quilt so far and I'm nowhere near done!  

I still have 10 more rows of 10 blocks but I think it's going to look spectacular when it's done!  

It's really too bad that blocks don't square themselves!  That would save me a LOT of time but I am enjoying the process on this quilt a lot.  

I can't wait until I get to the machine quilting stage on this quit - my new machine is going to be so much easier to use and produce much better results. 

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!!!  

Whats Up on my Design Wall - and Possible Sewing Machine News!

I love seeing what everyone has up on their design wall and I thought it would be fun to share what I have on the go on Mondays (or whatever day I can get around to taking a picture of my wall!).  

Right now its a total mix of a bunch of stuff that I have going on.  The top left is an orphan block that I did for a color theory lesson at our Modern Quilt Guild meeting.  The random funky blocks are my Modern Monday (or Manic Monday as I think I will call the quilt) blocks the large purple block was me playing with pinwheels a few years ago and I just found the blocks the other day and the bottom two white blocks are just stitching projects in different phases of completion.

I may have some big news tomorrow - I might be getting a new sewing machine!!!  My Brother NX-650 has been a fantastic little machine as I learned how and got into quilting.  Now that I am getting a little better and want to improve my quilting skills I've decided it might be time to get a new machine.  My Brother pieces really well, I cannot get it to give me decent stitches when I machine quilt.  I don't do anything fancy (yet) but even when doing long straight stitches my tension was horrible and my machine kept skipping stitches.  I know part of this is operator issues, but I also know that the small throat plate doesn't help when I'm trying to smush a medium sized quilt through!

If I do wind up biting the bullet at the store today I'll do a few posts on getting to know my new machine!

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!

Monthly Quilting Plan - May

I must admit, I've always been a big planner/deadline lover except for when it comes to my quilting.  I've always taken on a 'it will get done when it gets done' attitude and that has pretty much resulted in not a lot of finishes and a TON of WIPs.  Now that I have finished a few quilts in a row I'm loving having something to show for all that work - an actual finished project!

Last month I sat down and wrote out all the WIPs I could think of that I had on the go and attempted to organize them into manageable 'piles'.

I had it organized into Almost done, On the Go, Need to Quilt, Want to Start, and Will take Forever columns.   Thankfully I have already managed to cross off the Eye Spy quilt (I need to do a blog post on that one!!) and my Scrappy Trip!  Two down, only a zillion more WIPs to go!  ;)

I only have to do the binding on the Party Monster Quilt so that shouldn't take too long - I just have to hunker down and put a few hours of hand stitching in.  Then I also have some binding to do on the Tumbling Rubies quilt.  An amazing lady from my quilt guild offered to do the FMQ on that quilt and from the pictures she took its incredible!!  I am so happy and I can't wait to get the binding done and have another finished quilt.

Aside from the binding on those two quilts  pretty much everything else is in the piecing stages.  I really want to get the Crazy Cat quilt done for my Mom (its only taken me almost three years), and I also want to get the girls quilts done but I am waiting on fabric to come up from the states.  I ordered it a few weeks ago so hopefully it should show up sometime in the next week or so.

I have a few 'extra' quilts that I have started but I'm not sure what I want to do with them so they aren't high on my list of priorities but I would love to get a few of them done.

Lastly I have my Dirty Thirties quilt that I wanted to have done by my 31st birthday (I'll be 33 in September) that is the epitome of meticulous and after calculating how many individual cuts I would have to make I got horribly discouraged and vowed to take it out much later.  I know that I have gotten so much better with my piecing over the past few years that it won't be so bad now but I just have to make some time to get to work on it and I'm sure it wont seem like such a daunting task.

My deadline of June 1st is approaching, and without a machine its a little hard to tackle my WIP list (its still in the shop), but I can do the hand binding on one quilt and get the binding ready for another so all is not lost!  Hopefully at the end of May I will have a bunch of quilts off my WIP list and maybe a new one or two added.  ;)

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon. 

Scrappy Trip - Complete!!!

Huzza!!  I may have been silent for over a month but I've actually been getting a lot of stuff accomplished which is kind of a shocker coming from me.

I finished my Scrappy Trip quilt a few weeks ago and I absolutely LOVE it!!!

I pieced the back with a few different fabrics and I love how the blue rectangle pops in the middle of all the pink and purples of the quilt.

Its sad that it took me four (4) months to complete this quilt and that is by far the fastest I have EVER started, pieced, sandwiched, quilted and did the binding on a quilt - ever?

Since moving my sewing room upstairs a few months ago,  I find I am getting into my sewing room more and more lately and am actually REALLY enjoying myself.  I love being able to create something from scratch and knowing that its either going to go to my kids, a friends baby, my Mom (I'll get the crazy cat quilt done eventually!).  We have a big recliner in the corner of the bonus room and I love how Miss S will come up and either read or play on the ipad or just hang out with me while I press or cut or when I'm sewing.   Once I give the sewing room/bonus room a good once over clean I'll share some pictures with you all.

Thanks so much for stopping by - See you soon!  

Shes Growing Up - And I'm holding on for dear life!

Spring is starting to slowly make its appearance around here lately, the other day it was +20C and the past two days we have had snow on the ground.  Thankfully the snow melts by lunch time and its almost nice enough for the kids to go out to play in the backyard or on their bikes/scooters.

Just after lunch a school friend of Miss S' came to the door and asked if she could come out and ride her bike with him.  Part of me wanted to shout 'NO you are my baby and I can't let you outside alone, without me - EVER! ' But then part of me knew that she is so desperate to have friends her age to play with.  So as hard as it was I said she could go outside and I have been camped out by the front door mostly watching this:

Its just the sidewalk/road in front of my house, but every minute or two I happen to see this:

A streak of purple jacket, pink helmet and a SUPER happy smile.  Shes having so much fun out there and while I'm not one of those parents that can let my 5 year old play outside 'unattended' for long, I definitely am hovering by every single window that looks out on the front I'm glad that she is out having fun with her friend. 

I have no idea who told her that she could grow up so fast - every once in a while it hits me that I have a 5 (FIVE) year old and I wonder where the past five and a half years have gone - they have flown by.  

I'm trying to find the little things lately, the little things that make me smile, the little things that I need to hold onto and remember because its the little things that get forgotten in the daily rush of life.  Its the awesomeness of Miss S coming in from riding her bike/scooter and wanting to snuggle with me on the couch before we have to pick up Miss L from preschool.   Life is good.  

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon.

Stitching Tuesday

Its Tuesday again - time for another installment of Stitching Tuesday! 

The girls have been loving their little doll quilts that I made for them.  I finished Miss S's Squirrel Quilt and Miss L seemed pretty hurt that I hadn't finished her quilt yet.  It took one night of machine embroidery and one night of hand binding and the quilt is done and Miss L couldn't be happier!

I started on yet another quilt today - just something easy, simple and the fabric makes me super happy - I'll share that with you soon!

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!

First Ever Quilt Label

I started an Eye Spy quilt for my kids when I was pregnant with Mr. C - that was over 18 months ago!  My goodness does time ever go by quick.  I started back to work on this quilt a few months ago but then loathed the quilting I did on top and put it away for a few more months.  My girls saw it while I was organizing my sewing room on the weekend and they had a ton of fun playing eye spy with the quilt even though its not done.  That spurred me into action and in a few days I had the label done, the binding cut and partially hand sewn on.  One of these days I am going to seriously have to figure out the whole machine sewn binding, until then its hand binding for me!

I used a blanket stitch to add the label and since I didn't think of doing this until AFTER I had the full quilt sewn together you can see the blanket stitch on the front of the quilt.  You can see the blanket stitch on the front of the quilt but thankfully its on a really light eye spy square, it blends it rather well.  I wont do it that way again but it worked for this quilt.

I still have to finish 3/4 of the binding but its coming along nicely - hopefully I will have a 2013 finish soon that is bigger than a doll quilt!  ;)

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!

I'm back!

I have NOT been posting at all lately - I've been finding it much easier to post stuff on Instagram rather than post a full blog post, (you can follow me on Instagram, my username is purplequiltapotamus) but I have been missing the actual art of blogging lately.

I have finished a few things lately and I have a few more things on the go - I promise that I will share those in the next few days.  That being said I am working on my Scrappy Trip quilt tonight and hopefully will be able to post some progress tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon!

Modern Quilt - Planning Process

Our guild has decided to do a group Quilt Along to 42 Quilts Modern Monday Quilt that Jennifer did as a QAL last year on her blog.  Its 64 modern/improv blocks all based off of traditional blocks.  Part of me is beyond excited and a huge part of me is terrified - improv means to wing it - I wing it lots but I usually have a clear plan of what I'm doing while I'm winging it! (its more of a controlled winging)  I think this will be a great project to help bust me out of my rut along with push me to try some totally new and very different techniques that I am NOT used to doing.  Its time to step outside the comfort zone and get it done!

I pulled some fabric from my stash and am about to get to work!

I'm thinking about calling this Quilt - Manic Monday but I might change the name as I go along.  Wish me luck!  This improv thing should be interesting.

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!  

Stitching Tuesdays

I'm back!  Its been a really great few weeks off and I'm looking forward to sharing my latest work that I have on the go.

My Step-Sister Sherry of BS Crafts and I have decided to start a Stitching Tuesday weekly post about what stitching/embroidery projects that we are working on (even though we are three provinces away from each other!).  I'm still starting out but I am really looking forward to working on some cute pillow cases and kitchen towels to give as gifts for friends and family at Christmas.

I haven't been able to work on too much lately but after making Miss S her Stitchy Squirrel mini quilt for her Kitty (or any small stuffed animal) Miss L rapidly began requesting a blankie for her dolls (or just for when she steals Miss S's kitty).  I found a cute Unicorn transfer and have started to make Miss L's Unicorn Quilt:

I thought since it was a unicorn (and it has some ADORABLE rainbow fabric on the back that I forgot to take a picture of) that I could attempt to do a rainbow'esque boarder around the Unicorn.  Its my first attempt at a long cabin type block and even though I didn't measure anything - just did the sew and slash method - it turned out really well.  I still have to finish one row of hearts then put the binding on but progress is progress and I'll take it!  ;)

I did some machine embroidery on Miss S' Squirrel quilt so I thought I could so something similar on this Unicorn quilt.  After doing the first round with a random zig zag pattern I decided to outline each boarder with the heart stitch from my machine.  It really girlies up the rainbow quilt and Miss L loves it!

Stitching Tuesday is in the books for this week - hopefully I will have more to show you next week.  

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!