Card Swap cards

You're getting two posts tonight, because my husband is teaching a class, and the computer is actually free. He has been such a computer hog lately, that I get no time to blog. Card swap is tomorrow, and here are my cards. I totally forgot to take pics of the baby shower invitations I sent out last week. I was running late with them, and just had to get them out of here. Maybe one of my friends kept theirs. The first card is using PaperTrey Ink's Butterfly Kisses for the flowers and their Garden of Life set for the sentiment and the stems. They're a little big, but it's all I had. They look a little like lollipops. Still cute, though, I think. This one uses PTI's Little Lady stamp set. You can't really see it, but I used Frosted Lace Stickles around the edge of the ladybug and then black (I can't remember the actual name) Stickles on the head and bottom. I also popped the ladybug up on a dimensional -- but the antennae are stamped on the card base.

We didn't do card swap in December, and I actually missed it. That's not to say that I would have had time to do it, but I'm looking forward to it.

Star Quilt-Along, week 2

So maybe next week I'll beat Jill. She's a speed demon. Now, Jann, what's goin' on, girl! You can still catch up. C'mon. You know you want to!

Updates on WIPs

Well, the cake for the baby shower was still in the oven, and I didn't feel like starting the icing for the birthday one yet, so I took some pictures.

This is what the red/green/khaki baby quilt looks like right now, but eventually it will look similar to the blue/yellow baby quilt (pictured below). All these plaids were precut squares given to me a while ago. I had sewn them all together, but the top wasn't big enough for anything, so I had planned to put borders on it to make it bigger. It has been in a bin for at least 4 years. I took it apart to make two quilts.

This is the block-of-the-month for my quilt group. It's just in strips that I haven't sewn together yet -- and it needs a border.

Blue and yellow baby -- for the baby shower tomorrow.

Ohio Stars and Bars -- I saw this quilt on Bonnie's website, and loving patriotic quilts the way I do, I had to do it. Unfortunately for me, I thought I needed 30 bars and 31 stars, but it was actually 40 and 41. Don't know what my problem is. I wrote it down correctly, but I just kept the wrong numbers in my head. Anyway, otherwise it would be done, but now I have to cut some more.

I did not take a picture of the blue pinwheel quilt, because it is seriously just a bunch of stacks of blue and white squares and even some strips that I haven't cut into squares yet. I think we have enough pictures like that here.

This quilt was inspired by Amanda Jean's aqua and red quilt. My husband wanted a quilt for our bed (so sad that none of ours are big enough -- it's king-sized) for Christmas, but he told me this about week before Christmas, and I don't have a machine that can quilt -- other than a walking foot. He was home sick so much that I couldn't lay it out and do a grid on it -- besides, I don't have an empty space in my house big enough to lay it out. Pinning it was a challenge. So that's the long version of saying, "It's not done yet." Field of brown is what I'm calling it for now.

I don't have a picture of the blue/burgundy applique, because, well, frankly, I forgot it was on the list, and now I don't want to go hunt it down and take a picture of it. I'll put it up another time.

Seaside Rose Hourglass -- still in its former state.

Simplicity Sawtooth -- still in its former state. This is the condition of my smoky mountain stars quilt -- also from Bonnie's website.

Blue and yellow ragged squares -- still in its former state. Future's so Bright

Lazy Gal Red

Applique Hearts needs a border. I'll show it when it's done.

Hand-quilted star is still being hand-quilted. Looks about the same.

Pink and green applique is almost done, so I'll give it its own post when it's complete.

City Girls -- needs a border

Pink and Brown Ohio Stars -- I have to make about 150 of these.

15 down . . . .

Star Quilt-Along, week 1

When Amanda Jean did her Star Quilt-Along, I had not yet discovered her blog. However, since I want to do it, I asked a few of my friends if they wanted to do it with me. I am just going to show the blocks since Amanda Jean already did a great tutorial on the whole thing -- which is what I'm using. I used Max and Nobie fabrics for the prints and just something I've had a long time for the background -- just a very pale pink.

I have plenty of other stuff I've been working on, but January has not been as slow as one would expect it to be. I don't know why blogging has been so hard this month, but I'm going to try to do better at that. I know I said I was going to finish stuff, and I am. I am focusing on that list on the side of my blog. I'll get some updates on those quilts for you hopefully next week. I have to make two cakes today -- Bob the Builder for my son's 3rd birthday tomorrow and a baby shower cake for my friend for Saturday. Happy quilting!

Animal print quilt

This was a gift for my mother for Christmas. I finished it before then, of course, but I didn't want to post it and ruin her surprise. I didn't get to see her face, because she's in a different state, but I think she liked it. I seem to recall her liking animal prints. Anyway, it wasn't a very difficult or involved quilt since it's just squares. (I think they were 8" finished.) What's remarkable about this quilt is simply that I finished it and finished it on time. And it's kind of big -- queen-sized.

Of course, I started it for Christmas two years ago, but at least it's finished now. I'm really working on it. You see my "Current Projects" list? It has 16 quilts on it. They are all in some form laying all over my sewing room. Three of them are finished quilt tops and just waiting to be quilted. Two of them just need borders, and then they'll be ready to be pinned. Three are partially quilted (one hand quilted, two machine). One I have all the blocks in rows, and I just need to sew the rows together. The other half of them (7) are partially cut out, partially sewn, whatever. That doesn't include the other 60 quilt tops waiting to be quilted or the other 20 or 30 partial projects I have in bins in my garage (and partially laying around my room too). I'm not exaggerating. When I say I'm not a finisher, I am not kidding. Part of the problem has been that I could get them to quilt top stage, but I didn't have a machine that could quilt, so they were all in line for hand quilting -- and we know how long that takes!

A couple of years ago I got a walking foot for my machine, so that has helped a little, but the backlog is so big, that I'm still quite a bit behind. Here is a close-up of the quilting on this quilt. I just did mostly vertical lines -- they are slightly diagonal, but they go from the top of the quilt to the bottom -- nothing left to right.

I had to piece the back, because I didn't quite have enough of the backing, and of course, I'm still on a fabric dearth -- well, there's no dearth around here, because there's a lot of it lying around, but let's say I'm on a fabric-buying moratorium still. I also did a scrappy binding for the above-mentioned reason. Somehow, I still have some animal prints left, so I can do something else with them in the future. I'll give it a rest for now and try to tackle my list on the side there. Maybe I will do pictures of everything on the list, so you can see where I'm at (and maybe I'll be motivated to finish)!

Okay. So I'm going to go finish some stuff -- although I have a bunch of baby quilts to make and some baby shower invitations. I know we haven't seen any cards for a while. I'll show you the invitations when they're done. Since I have to make something like 40 of them, I have a sneaking suspicion they're going to be relatively simple. Have a great day and do something fun (aka crafty)!

Bumblebee quilt -- Finished!

So I actually finished this a couple of days after I had it pinned, but instead of blogging, I have been making things, having Christmas, having the kids home from school, being sick, feasting, et cetera. My blogs have been severely neglected of late to be sure.

This was for my husband's sister and her husband, whose name we had for Christmas this year. I have loved this quilt top for a long time (even though, as I say repeatedly, I do not like yellow), and I just decided this year to finish it. It's twin size -- I didn't get the exact measurements before I sent it. I'm just glad I remembered to take pictures!

The back looks like a multi-colored polka dot, but it's really just white dots on a field of black. I took several pictures, and they all turned out the same. They look right in the full-size version. What're ya gonna do?

A close-up of the quilting detail on the back. I just quilted diagonally across the squares. I do that a lot with the quilts that are just squares. I like it better than stitching in the ditch.

That yellow floral is one that Jill sent me with that first batch of fabric. She sent me a second batch, but I don't think I even took pictures of that, and now it's all put away. Don't you worry, though. She sent me some great stuff, and you'll be seeing it in various projects here and there. I've started a BUNCH of new quilts -- which usually isn't good, because I'm not great at finishing. I'm going to work on that, though. I was talking to my husband about finishing things and I said, "What if I could not start anything new for a whole year and just finish all the projects I have now?" He said, "No." He knows me so well. It's not that he didn't think it was a good idea. (Finish things? He would be overjoyed if I finished even half of what's lying around here!) He just knows that ideas bombard me, and I just have to start them. Therein lies the problem with finishing. Well, I'm a work-in-progress as well. That, I guess, is one of my New Year's Resolutions -- to become a finisher -- in all areas, not just quilting. Hopefully it will go well, and you will see my progress here. I have some other things to show you that I've been working on, but that will be another day.