Epic FAIL!!

I have a confession, I am a crocheter wanna be....I've tried and tried and for some reason I just can't do the fine art of Crochet!  My SIL has tried to teach me multiple times but I tend to mess the tension up, drop stitches or invent new stitches....!  Its really impressive to screw up on something that bad while trying numerous times to get the hang of it.

After an evening of watching a few episodes of our current TV show on DVD series this is what I wound up with.....

Pretty sad thats what I got accomplished in like 3 hours - but in my defence the Wraith were bombarding Atlantis and I had to pay attention to the shows we were watching!  After a while I noticed that the few rows that I had been working on didn't look 'quite right' and figured I should attempt something new (I should have consulted youtube for some crochet tutorials but why do that when I can wing it instead?!?!) so I did some hook-loop-yarn through the loop-and repeat type thing and wound up with the stitches at the top of the rectangle.

Apparently the 'hook-loop-yarn through the loop-and repeat type thing' is an actual stitch!!!  My SIL verified that I had indeed did a real crochet stitch!

So I got a good start under my belt with my sad little rectangle that I promptly ripped apart after I took pictures of it because I had to destroy any hard physical evidence of my bad crocheting skills.  Time to keep practicing and maybe, just maybe I'll be able to make something somewhat worthwhile eventually! ;)

Placemats Done!!

Yes, I realize that its May but I finally finished my Christmas present for my MIL last week (hey, better late than never eh?!?!).  I had given her four out of the six placemats that I had made for Christmas but my poor fingers protested sewing the binding on two more placemats for a while.  Unfortunately my little break turned into a few - ok 4 month hiatus - BUT I did manage to finish the last two placemats over the last week while my MIL has been staying with me when my wonderful husband is working.

I found a tutorial for these placemats at A Quilting Life (Here), I can't figure out how to link the actual page to mine.  Sorry!  

I can't believe how much I LOVE these placemats....!!  They came out really well.  I used the Moda Oh Cherry Oh fabric for the patchwork and I'm not sure what I wound up using for the backing and binding but its super cute.

The backing!  The fantastic thing is you can use these place mats either side up depending on how busy you want your table to be.

Yet another thing off the WIP list and does it ever feel awesome!!  I've got a few more WIPs that I need to work on if I'm feeling ok, hopefully I can attack the Crazy Cat Quilt in stages and get that out the door before my Mom and her Husbands 1 year anniversary of being in their new house comes up in a few months!  

My Husband Rocks!!!

For the past few months (ok more like 7-8) I have been drooling over the Accuquilt GO fabric cutter and everything it can do. I tried to convince myself that I just needed the small one - the GO Baby - but after looking at them and researching and figuring out what kinds of projects I like to do I finally had to admit that the little one wouldn't work in the long run for me.  There are quite a few Dies that I want to try that I can't use at all on the little one.

My husband and I went out to look at it the other week but I just couldn't pull the trigger on it because of the cost. Its not a cheap but its soooo very cool!  Now that I have been put on rest by my doctor I just can't do the same rotary cutting that I was able to do before without getting cramps in my lower back and stomach and we want to say away from those as much as possible!!  

Last night my husband came home from work and surprised me with the GO - its sooo awesome. I wasn't able to play with it too much last night but thats my plan for today! I'm so excited! I have some leftover flannel that I want to try to make a tumbler quilt out of. I think its going to take a while but I can't wait - its going to be fantastic!!

Here it is in all its glory...!!!

The sides come down and you roll the Dies (template cutters) through the middle thingy.

Some of the Tumbler pieces I cut out - I have an idea for a cute flannel blanket for a super cute little birthday girl in the fall....

I was playing with the tumbler pattern last night and found some cute monster fabric to cut up - I LOVE the tumblers...!  

The Die that came with the Accuquilt is the Value Die and it does triangles and two different sizes of squares - no more hand doing triangles for me!!  Love it!

I forsee a super cute blanket with lots of piecing involved...(and no I didn't cut all the fabric today - it was a combination of last night and today!!!

Now if only I could sit down and cut and roll all my fabric through my Accuquilt all day, but alas I need to take it easy but at least I have something I can work on little by little over the next few months and years!  

Thanks again sweetie!  

INSPIRATION!!!

I have been put 1 step below complete bedrest by my doctor and my super awesome SIL brought over a basket overflowing with goodies to keep me occupied on the couch (and well fed in junk food!!) and a ton of new quilting magazines to keep me in the creative mood:

I REALLY want to try to make this wall hanging (sorry its sideways - still trying to figure out the whole picture importing thing) but I need to seriously hit an online fabric store and order some fabric that would work with this kind of pattern.  I don't think my hodgepodge of kiddy flannel, monster, bug, flower, and Christmas fabric would work well together with a wall hanging like this!!  Methinks some serious shopping needs to be undertaken over the next few weeks......bring it on.

I've got some good reading material, some serious time on my hands and a not totally maxed out credit card on my hands - who knows what will be created over the next 16 weeks!!!  ;)

My attempt at a Chenille Blanket

A few weeks ago I was browsing through my favourite blogs and came across a sweet blanket tutorial that outlined how to make a Chenille Blanket.  I had thought about running out to the fabric store to buy some cute boy fabric but I showed some restraint (shocking I know!!) and went though my fabric stash to see what I might be able to use to make a smaller blanket to try out the technique to see if I actually liked the blanket before I undertook larger one.

I found a race car fat quarter to use as the 'top' and then found some green swirly flannel, blue bear flannel and yellow swirly flannel to top the back of the blanket.  I can't really call it a baby blanket, its more of a doll blanket for the girls to play with.

I sat down and sewed and sewed and sewed and sewed line after line after line (61 lines I believe!!) to make the columns and then hand cut 1/4 of the channels before giving in and buying a chenille tool at Michaels!!  Sometimes its just easier to have the right tools!!

This is the final product!  I was so excited to have it finished that I didn't square it up or finish it 100% properly but I think the next blanket has some serious potential.

As soon as any blanket (or anything) that I am working on touches the ground - Little L pounces on it faster than you can say 'off!' ;).  I think its got her stamp of approval!!

The back of the blanket - I think I did the Chenilling a little too close together but for my first attempt I think it was an ok first go.

A close up of the Chenilling.  I've washed this blanket twice and apparently the more you wash it the pluffier it gets.

I might try to make a few smaller strips and use them as burp cloths for when our little one comes in the summer.  Its pretty soft and I think it would be catch most of whatever the guy can throw at us!

Thanks for stopping by!

Monster Blanket - COMPLETE!!!

In a little over two weeks I managed to buy fabric, cut, sew, piece, quilt sandwich, quilt and hand bind an entire quilt for my baby nephew J - and DAMN it looked good if I may say so myself!  ;)

Little J was born on April 1st and his shower was this past Easter weekend.  It took me a few days to figure out what pattern I wanted to do and what kind of fabric I wanted to use but once I found the fabric and convinced myself that it would actually look good together I got to work on it.  Of course I wound up misplacing my camera for a few weeks so I didn't get many good 'in progress' pictures of the blanket but I did manage to take a few towards the end of the whole process.

This is the quilt top without the backing or the binding on:

This is the finished creation the day before the baby Shower - I can honestly say that I was seriously tempted to keep it for myself - it was so cute!!!!

A close up of some of the monsters and my awesome (not!) stitching in the ditch quilting technique!  The thread that I used for this blanket messed with my machine and thats where the loaner machine from my SIL came in!  It worked awesome!

I actually really liked how the black boarder worked well with all the blue and orange fabric - plus the monsters were adorable too!!!

A close up of one of the 9 patches.

The back of the quilt - it was super cute green and blue bubble print.

A close up of the stitching detail on the back.

So there it is, a super cute Monster baby blanket done in approximately 24 hours in just over 2 weeks!!  Not bad if I do say so myself!!  

Thanks for stopping by - sorry for the delay in posting this, I've had some issues lately!  :)

 

Fun with PomPoms

What do you do when Mommy has a migraine but the kids want to play?!  You remember a post on a blog you found about making pompoms and send the girls off to play while you hide in the dark and wish the pain would go away!!!

Miss S was totally in love with her pompom!!

Little L could barely keep it still for me to take a picture of it (and yes she was still in her jammies late into the afternoon!).

Ok, I'll admit it - they were pretty weak pompoms but it was my first attempt ever at them.....

The pompom trifecta!

I'm sure I'll get better with time!

Stay tuned tomorrow for the big reveal of whats been keeping me so busy the past few weeks!!!  I'll give you a sneak peak:

Four to Six WEEKS!?!?!?!?

So my wonderful, amazing, super awesome sewing machine that I've had for four years decided that it was time to throw me a curve ball and crap out on me (with some serious things on the go too!).  So I called the place I got it from to see if I could get it in within the next few days and they put me on the WAITLIST (what are we in school now?!?!) and said someone will call me to tell me to bring my machine in sometime between four to six WEEKS from now.....!  Apparently I am in the wrong profession, sounds like I could make a killing as a sewing machine repair-woman when people are needing to wait that long to get their machines serviced.

Super lucky for me my awesome SIL told me that her sewing machine was sitting idle and that I'd be welcome to use it until mine is fixed (which was sooooo freaking awesome BTW!).  MB as I like to call my borrowed machine (mini-brother) and I have had  few words while trying to get to know each other the past two nights but now we are running along smoothly as though we've known each other forever.....

My new little buddy......

'tis late and I gotta work in the morning - until next time!!

My Birthday Blanket update

Before we went on holidays (and I forgot my Gmail passwords for a few months...!) I started back to work on my Birthday Blanket (hmmm, need to figure out a better name for it than that....but that will come later) and got another 10 or so squares done - only another 120 or so more to go!!

Originally it was my goal to have this done before my 31st birthday, hopefully I can stick to that plan although it seems like I keep getting more and more things on my WIP list and not nearly enough are going onto my Finish Projects list.  I think that is life though, and hopefully I can get this a few more things done over the next few months - after all, what else am I supposed to do when it looks like this outside:

Until next time my friends....!

Note to Self - DON'T FORGET YOUR PASSWORD AGAIN!!

I think baby-brain has finally got the best of me and after trying to rattle my brain for quite a while I couldn't figure out my password for the life of me!!  After a few e-mails and a text from Gmail I am back in business.....which is a good thing since I've got a couple things on the go that I'm sure I can share in the next few days!!!