It's The Little Things In Life

I needed a little cheer in my life and today it came in the form of a pink plastic Chick-fil-a glass. 

Color

 

Some quilters have an amazing eye for color and even the simplest quilts can look incredible. I don't have this particular talent but I am envious of all the amazing colorful quilts out there. 
 

Fabric Love

I love these Moda fabric sets that I found on JellyRolls2Go.com - a girl can never have too much fabric right?

Central Park

It's a Hoot

Plume

Strawberry Fields

Sugar Pop

Summer House

String Quilts

I think as soon as I finish my cathedral quilt a string quilt is next on my list. I think I will try using muslin as the foundation since I can't imagine myself tearing all the paper off if I used the paper method. I was even pondering doing it foundation free.

Childhood Memories

 


Did you have "sticky hand" toys when you were a kid? The ones that you could get out of the gum ball machines at the grocery store in the little bubble containers? I used to LOVE them - the result of my obsession is that I bought 50 of them at the Oriental Trading company for $6. BEST PURCHASE EVER!!! They are just as amazing as I remember, only now there are a lot more then just hands! Chase is just as impressed with them as I am / was.
 

Running Sucks Today

- 1 week until my race
- 87 degrees out
- 100 degree fever
- side pain for half my run due to too much dinner before exercising
- 1 full minute slower then my last 3.1 miles

Summary: Slow sucktastic run

I hope next week goes better.

House Updates

Wow!  It was a busy week at the house!  The walls and trim and doors are painted (just ceilings left), the railing is stained, the quartz counters are in, under mount sinks are installed, barn door mounting is up, and all of the closet rods are installed.  I am guessing white ceilings, back splash, faucets, and flooring are next. Very exciting!
 

Cake Decorating

 
We had a burst of creativity yesterday.

We started by making fusible animals - I think we spent over 2 hours doing this throughout the day. I used to love these when I was a kid.





We also joined Capricious and family for some cake decorating at a local bakery. The kids had a blast, Chase even made some yellow / pink somewhat decent looking flowers.







Here is what 3 kids sharing a tiny piece of cake look like - luckily Capricious' kids weren't nearly as interested in the cake as Chase was.



And the final products...




 

"Fake" Cathedral Windows

 
My friend sent me this link for how to make fake cathedral window blocks. I was inspired and wanted to try the technique on a baby quilt.



Here are the modifications that I made:
- I ended up making 11 inch finished blocks. I used 6x6 inch blocks of background color (5.5 inch blocks after they were sewn) and I used 11.5x11.5 inch blocks of the patterned fabric.
- In the tutorial she uses patterned blocks that are the same size as the background blocks which creates windows that are about half the size of the finished block - I prefer the windows to be the full size of the block and for the points of the windows to meet so I made the patterned blocks bigger.
- I ended up leaving the rolled edge stitching until I was actually quilting the quilt (rather then doing it when it was just a block) because I like the way the quilting looks. I wouldn't recommend this is if your project is bigger then a baby quilt because it may be hard to turn a bigger quilt through your machine.
- I did also stitch in the ditch to make sure there was enough quilting.

Here are the modifications that I would make if I were using this technique again:
- I would make the entire block out of the background fabric and then do the windows as you do with a traditional cathedral window block (where you tuck a square of patterned fabric into the solid border). This would help decrease the "wasted" pattern fabric which bugged me a bit about this block. Also it would give you more of the "window" look rather then just a curved diamond look.
- Interestingly I guess you could use one color for background, one for the window frames, and another one for the window itself. That may be worth trying...something like this.



- I was a bit disappointed with how the blocks looked because the windows are on a grid (rather then set diagonally) so you don't get the "flowers" in between blocks. You could always turn your blocks to get that effect.





My favorite thing about this quilt is the backing / binding. I love the way the binding really pops. I'm afraid the pictures may not do this quilt justice.



I am honestly not sure that this method is that much faster then the other method because you have to quilt and bind the quilt...

I think my next experiment with cathedral windows may involve HUGE blocks.


 

Dresses

I recently decided that I want to try to start wearing more dresses / skirts. I picked up this dress at Kohls and I'm debating returning it. I'm wondering if it is too "maternity looking" on me.

What do you think? Keep or return? Jeans or no jeans?

Sorry about the photo quality - I haven't mastered self-portraits yet.
 

Inspiration

I can't wait for my Drunkard's Path Die to come!!!  In the mean time here is some inspiration. 
 

Accuquilt Go! Fabric Cutter

 
I was having a retail therapy moment today and Jo Anns had a great sale ($349 down to $199) on the Go! Fabric Cutter which I had recently been eyeballing anyways. Well I had been somewhat eyeing the studio cutter but I realized that I couldn't rationalize the price difference.

So this baby found its way home today!


I got the Apple Core, 2.5 inch strip cutter (because who doesn't love jelly rolls), and the Drunkard's Path dies. I figured the Apple Core and Drunkard's Path pieces aren't exactly something you would want to hand cut yourself as compared to squares that can be cut with a rotary cutter. I will admit that I am interested in some of the triangle dies because I HATE cutting triangles and the dies even trim the corners for you!





I'll let you know how the cutter works out. Very excited!