Hundreds of Blog Posts - in my head

Hi - remember me? 

Its been months, LOTs of months actually since I have sat down and blogged, more like a year and a half.  Lots of time has passed and I have probably ''written' hundreds of blog posts in my head but never got around to writing them down here. 

I'm tired of beating myself up for not posting things (or doing a ton of stuff in general!) but I feel like I need an outlet for my creative voice (and my various "other" voices) to come out and talk - so here I am.  I feel like I have reached a point where I need to get back to ME, I need to get back to doing some things that give me Joy rather than feeling like everything is a Job.    I know I can't lay on a beach and eat bon-bons all day, as much as I would love to, but I can get myself refocused on what I enjoy doing and maybe share some of that with you all. 

With that, I hear two little ones starting to bicker upstairs so its back to my most important role I go, time to be Mom.  Hopefully this afternoon I can get a quick bit of sewing done and be able to share it with you all. 

Thanks for stopping by,
Kari 

I've finally got my Mojo Back!!!

Its been a while - and when I say a while I mean MONTHS but I think I finally have my sewing mojo back!  Its always been hanging around a little bit, but I haven't felt that burning desire to get upstairs to my sewing room and create something for a while.  I think a combination of summer holidays - the kids and I have spent almost 60 nights up at our trailer since May, and still have a few more nights to go before school starts back up again - and just being away from the chaos of my house has left me wanting to go back upstairs and work on something.  They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and I think that is totally whats happening with me, when I was at the trailer I couldn't quilt because I didn't ahve my machine with me!  Now that I'm at home I have actually got a an entire crib sized quilt done in a few nights!  Too bad I can't show it since its going to be a gift in a few weeks but after the baby shower I'll be sure to post lots of pictures of it.

I CAN however post some pictures from our Calgary Modern Quilt Guild meeting from tonight.  We have some amazingly talented members and I am always inspired when I see what everyone else is working on.

This quilt is a charity quilt for Flood Victims of the Calgary 2013 Flood:

 

Another charity quilt for the Calgary Flood Victims:

One more Charity Quilt!

One of our members Katrina made this with a Quick Curve Ruler, I MUST get one of those rulers!

Katrinas wonderful Tula Pink Blocks

Another quilt of Katrinas - she is my hero!  I have no idea how she produces so many quilts and projects but I want some of her mojo!

I LOVE this quilt that Rebecca did - its so happy and fun.

A super fun quilt from another Rebecca in our guild.  The yellows are amazing!

Probably my favourite quilt of the night, I adore the Constellation fabric line and love it even more now that I have seen it in person.

Lastly we did a potholder exchange and this is what I came home with!  I am super happy with it and almost don't want to use it since its so awesome!

And because I am so AWESOME - I totally forgot to take a picture of the potholder that I made for the swap!  It was pretty cool and totally not something that I normally would have made, that being said I am looking forward to making a few more one of these days!

Thank you so much for sticking with me while I took my hiatus, hopefully I'll be back soon!

Festival Of Quilts - Heritage Park

I spent some time this weekend at the Heritage Park Festival of Quilts - our guild had a booth there (for the first time!) and I spent Sunday afternoon telling anyone that would listen all about the Calgary Modern Quilt Guild.

5 members of our guild brought quilts to display and it looked fabulous!!!

My two quilts are the scrappy trip on the bottom right and the black and white mini quilt (that I just finished and need to blog about - its VERY neat!).   I was so honoured that my quilts were displayed along side some beautiful quilts and didn't look like something out of a Home Ec class - I'm getting better!!!

I spent the majority of my time at the booth but I did manage to sneak out and take a quick look around but I totally forgot to take lots of pictures! That being said two quilts really stood out and I had to break out the ol' iPhone to show you all.

I found this yo yo quilt at one of the guild booths, they said a 92 year old lady makes these quilts:

It looked like such a happy quilt to snuggle up under or to put up on display.

This Gargoyle quilt was displayed across from our guild booth.  After kind of starting at it for at least two hours I had to get up and take a closer look, it was all machine appliqued with  an insane amount of machine stitching all over the entire thing.  It was incredible!

Sadly thats all the pictures I took - next year hopefully I'll have a quilt or two in the show and I'll bring my big camera and can do the festival justice by taking some pictures of it to share.

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon.

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!

Friday Night Stitching

I feel like I have taken a bit of a leave from sewing the past little bit and filled my time with embroidery/stitching. I'm enjoying the portability of stitching and loving the fact that I am learning something new (and in addition to my step sister that got me started I found out that my step-sister-in-law also stitches and now my Sister as bought a bunch of embroidery stuff to start out on!!!!) so it seems like I have a pretty awesome little crew to stitch with (virtually in Sherrys case since she lives a few provinces away).

I started another unicorn tonight for a mini quilt. Maybe for a niece or maybe I will try to sell it at a craft show. I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm enjoying being crafty again even if its not with a sewing machine at the moment.

Horrible iPhone pic - sorry!!!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!

Crochet Epic Fail - Take 2

A while ago (holy cow that was back in May of 2011) I posted about my Crochet Epic Fail, it was a very simple dishcloth that went horribly wrong.....!  It was long and wonky and pretty much a perfect example of how horrible my crochet skills are.

Fast forward to February 2013 and for some reason I feel the need to add Crochet onto my list of never ending stuff on my plate: 3 kids, quilting, embroidery and now crochet.  I purchased a fantastic Craftsy Class called "Crochet Lab" and got to work.....

Its not nearly as epicly horrible as my original attempt at crochet but still more than a little wonky.  Its just a few rows of single crochet and then a few rows of double crochet (I think...!) but I somehow managed to drop some rows and all that good stuff - oh well - I can only get better I figure!  

Now I'll get back to work on my newest stitching project while watching Fringe on Netflix with my husband!  I would say that sounds like a fabulous way to spend a Wednesday night.  

Thanks for stopping by - See you soon! 

Stitchy Squirrel - a Mini Quilt FINISH!!!

After taking a bit of a bloggy break for the last almost month I feel like I can bounce back into the Blogging world, take it one day at a time and share what I've been working on with everyone.

A few months ago my awesome Step-Sister Sherry sent me an embroidery 'starter kit' and I've actually been really enjoying sitting on the couch and making some little things for the girls.   Miss S is completely in love with her little stuffed animal 'Special Kitty' and asked me to make a blanket for her a few weeks ago.  I thought that would be the perfect time to try out a combination of Stitching and quilting and then I even used some of my fancy stitches on my sewing machine to quilt the top of the quilt. 

Here is a little bit of a close up on the stitches and the quilting.  The quilt is 9.5 inches wide by 11 inches long - perfect for a beanie baby!

Would you believe I haven't taken a single picture of Kitty with her blanket but this was a picture that my daughter wanted me to take before we got started on the quilt.

Its my first real 'finish' of 2013 - its not a big finish but its a finish none the less!!  Next up I need to get back to work on my scrappy trip quilt and then we are starting a new BOM quilt at my guild next month.  So I do have some stuff to blog about and it will help get me out of the funk a little more!  

Thank you so much for stopping by - See you soon!

I feel like I'm in a Blogging Funk

Ever have one of those days (or couple of weeks) when you are blogging that you just think to yourself why am I doing this?  Thats been me the past two weeks which is why I haven't blogged about anything.  Sometimes I feel that all I post is stuff in progress and very rarely have an actual Finish to blog about and that must be boring for all of you to read about.

Maybe its just cabin fever getting me down but I just can't shake the blogging funk lately.  Maybe I need to give up on the long blog posts and keep them short and simple for the next little bit....and hopefully that will break up the funk.

I'll post my stitchy squirrel mini-quilt tomorrow or Sunday and hopefully that will get the bloggy roll going again.

Stitchy Squirrel

My step sister has got me hooked on stitching (embroidery) and after a few test designs I thought I could move onto something a little bigger.

I got some new Sublime stitching patterns at a local yarn store the other day and as soon as Miss S saw the squirrel she asked for one. I had no idea what I was going to do with it but when my 5 year old looks at me with those gorgeous brown eyes and says please make me something I just melt!

After I started on the squirrel Miss S asked if the squirrel could be a blanket for her stuffed kitty. Then I had a fabulous idea!!! I'm going to turn it into a mini quilt/wonky log cabin block fit for a stuffed animal. I can practice a new technique and Miss S can have a little quilt for her favourite stuffed animal.

I have the stitching done on the Squirrel, now I just need to figure out the sizing of the block and I can get to work!

Scrappy Trip Along - Night 4 Progress

I am LOVING this Scrappy Trip Along quilt.  I love the colors, I love how neat it looks and I really love seeing how much better my piecing has come along with this quilt.  I am super happy with how it looks so far.

I was always planning on doing 20 blocks but I think if I just do one more row it will throw off the symmetry of the quilt since I already have 5 diamonds.  If I only do one more row I'll have 6 diamonds and two top half's and I think that might look off (and if I did two extra rows that would make the quilt bigger than I wanted it to be (and extra 24 inches long is too long).  I would like this quilt to be a little bigger but I don't want it to turn into a great big square.  I might do some funky piecing as a boarder but focus more on the top and bottom (maybe a few extra rows) to give the quilt more of a rectangle rather than a square shape.  

I think I need to sleep on it for a night or two - and maybe have Mr. Quiltapotamus take a look and give his very non-quilting-expert opinion too.  Speaking of sleep its late and I'm so very tired.  Time to go to sleep. 

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!

Scrappy Trip Along - Night 3 Progress

Last night I was able to get another 6 blocks done on my Scrappy Trip Along quilt, its coming along really really well.  I have 14 blocks so far and am planning on making 20 for the quilt top.

Right before I went to bed I tried out two different layouts.  The first one was Diamonds:

The second was a Zig Zag pattern:

I think my vote is for the diamond pattern!!  I really like it over the zig zags for this quilt but I wont make a final decision until after all the blocks are competed and squared up.

Tonight is my guild meeting (thank you to my amazing Sister for watching the kids so I can go tonight - hubby is away) so I don't think I will get any piecing done tonight.  I'm going to bring my Eye Spy and Party Monster quilts to the meeting tonight for show and tell.  Neither of them are 100% finished, I am having issues with my binding and I'm hoping that some of the fabulous ladies there can give me a few tips to make it easier.  I have no idea why joining the end tails of binding is such a problem for me, but it really does (I've already messed up on the Party Monster binding three and a half times - it had to be put away for a few nights!).  There has to be hope for me of 'getting it' soon.

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!