Keeping busy

I've been having a lot of fun following my mojo! Now that I can breathe again (thank you antibiotics!!!), I'm actually doing some stuffs. I'm still working on the binding of the wedding quilt (finally in the home stretch on that), but I've also started working on a couple of UFOs.

Around Christmastime, I put together a cute little baby quilt top. Today, I started in on the quilting. It is small, so it should go pretty quickly.

I also have plans to quilt up my Fall Mystery Quilt top. I finally put together a back and got it basted the other night.

I just realized that I never even showed the finished top. Now the mystery is revealed! Working on the new Spring Mystery Quilt is definitely motivating me to get this one finished.

Lastly, I've been shopping the stash and choosing fabrics to make a new bag.

Not sure when this will actually get made, but I'm happily planning away and gathering materials.

Go, mojo, go!!!

Spring Break!

This year, Spring Break for the bears was April 15-19. Unfortunately, my husband and I spent most of the week being sick. Ugh. But, the boys and I did get out a little bit:

And this is one of the good pics! Ha! We had a fun time at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival one day this week.

Truly, the tulip fields are just spectacular!

Yesterday and today, I finally felt good enough to do a little bit of crafting. So I spent some time catching up on my Spring Mystery Quilt clues.

Here are Clues 1 and 2 completed. I ended up adding the bright green in when I realized that Clue 2 would have resulted in a big block o' white for me in my initial fabric selections. But this works out on another level as well, since I didn't actually have enough white to cut those center squares. So, I'm making it work. Woo!

I also managed to bind about 2/3 of one side of the wedding quilt. Not much, but it is at least a start! Hopefully, I'll start getting some energy back so I can stay up past 8 and actually sit and work on it soon.

Works(!) in progress

That's right-- works is plural! I actually focused myself and got busy on two projects this weekend.

The first is the baby quilt I shared with you last week. It is now fully quilted and bound and is awaiting the label. I'm torn between just doing a generic label that will allow me to present the quilt now, or waiting until baby is born so I can do a personalized one... any thoughts?

The second work in progress is the wedding quilt I started quilting in January. I finally quilted the inner and outer borders and have attached the binding. Woo!!! I plan on finishing the binding with handstitching, so it not quite complete but shouldn't take too long. I am excited to have some simple handwork to do in the evening.

So, the plan for this week: work on that binding, get going on clue #1 in the Spring Mystery Quilt, and stay in hot pursuit of my crafty mojo! :)

Spring Mystery Quilt!

As she did last fall, Heather Spence is hosting another mystery quilt along to benefit a family that is working through the challenge of a child with cancer. The sign-up cost for the program is only $15, and all of the proceeds go to help that designated family. Every week Heather posts a "clue"-- the next piece of the instructions to create a quilt. What that quilt is going to look like in the end? That is the mystery!

I really enjoyed the Fall Mystery (the facebook group especially was a lot of fun!), so I've gone ahead and signed up for the Spring edition. The first clue came today! I haven't started cutting, but I've gone through my stash and chosen my fabrics (yay for using the stash!):

The focus fabric is "Merryville" from Michael Miller's "Tot Town" collection. The orange accent is from Riley Blake's All Stars 2, and the background will just be a bright Kona white (mostly because that is the only fabric I have enough of in my stash; but I also think it will help the colors to really pop). The focus fabric is directional, so I'm not sure yet how it will work, but another mystery quilter has asked Heather about the suitability of directional fabrics, so I imagine I'll hear for sure soon. No worries, though. I have a back-up plan if needed.

Feeling adventurous? It is not too late. Sign up now!

Baby Quilt is GO!

Baby quilts are a lot of fun. They are an excellent excuse to use super fun fabrics, happy colors, and they usually are quick and easy (if for no other reason than that they are small-ish). I try and create baby quilts with the idea that they are meant to be used and loved (i.e.-- dragged, chewed, and generally beat up) by baby. So I tend to pick designs that are pretty simple.

For this new baby quilt project, I knew I wanted to utilize some of the fat quarters I had from Kellie Wulfsohn's "Peak Hour" collection from Riley Blake Designs. But one of the designs really kind of had to be fussy cut, and I could only get so much from each fat quarter. I didn't think I'd have any luck finding a pattern that would work, so I looked about the interwebs for inspiration and found a happy quilt by Quokka Quilts. With that in mind, I worked out my design:

Simple and fun! So simple that it was a breeze to cut out and sew together. And now I'm even into the quilting...

Woo! I'm feeling the mojo-- and it feels GOOD!

Another birthday...

...another pillow! This time, it is for one of Little Bear's preschool friends who just turned 3:

The pillow is yet another iteration of the awesome Personalized Name Pillows pattern from Kimberbell Designs. I have made this pillow many times, and it is always very well received. On this one I tried something a little different and made the outside border slightly wider. I really like how it frames the center and shows off the prints a little better.

On the back is a super-soft Moda cuddle fabric (brown is one of Charlie's favorite colors... can you guess the others?). And look-- you can also check out my mani! I seem to spend a lot more time on my nails lately than on sewing. (Lately I've been thinking I'd be posting more if I had a nail blog rather than a crafty one!) But a finished project is typically a good motivator for me, so hopefully I'll find myself doing more stitching. If nothing else, another friend is having a baby-- so a baby quilt is on the agenda. Woo!

There has been a lot of talk lately about the demise of Google Reader. As it was my blog reader of choice, I am sorry to see it go. I recently switched over to feedly, and while it is definitely not the same as Reader, it isn't too bad. (High praise, right?) Ugh. Change is hard. LOL!

It seems that a lot of peeps are putting their stock into Bloglovin'. If you are one of those, you can also Follow my blog with Bloglovin.

My new toy!

For my birthday last month (39!), my husband gave me a Kindle Paperwhite. I decided I needed to make a cover for it.

Not long after purchasing my first Kindle (second generation), I found the "Padded e-reader cover sewing pattern" by BirdfulStitches on Etsy. I never actually made one though, because my husband gifted me with a fancy leatherette one with a built-in book light. So the pattern just sat in my stash until I received my latest toy. I went back to BirdfulStitches to see if she had an updated pattern that would fit the smaller Paperwhite. She did indeed have one, and she actually sent it to me at no charge. How friendly is that? Yay!

The pattern is very straightforward and requires only a few basic supplies: 3 coordinating fabrics (she calls for fat quarters, but you could get away with large scraps for the Paperwhite cover as it is so small), interfacing, batting, thread, and a button.

My only criticism is that the pattern includes only pattern pieces. As all of the pieces are square/rectangular, I really would have preferred measurements for easier cutting with rotary tools/rulers. I understand why the pattern is done with pieces-- to ensure that it is usable without any special tools-- but it would be cool if designers would include the information so sewists could just choose what works best for them. I went ahead and measured the pattern myself and then used my rotary tools to cut.

Other than that, the pattern was straightforward and very easy to follow.

I decided to finally use some of my Castle Peeps fabrics. Happy!

I actually ended up making a couple of dimensional changes, as I felt like maybe it would be a little too loose, and the corner triangles potentially could cover the screen. I cut 1" from the width of the cover, and 3/4" from the length. If I had it to do over, I would have only cut about 1/2" from each, as it is definitely a little tight now. I cut the corner triangles down by 1/2", which seemed to fit pretty well. (Or rather, I should say I tried to cut the triangles this way... I was anxious to get the cover done, and evidently didn't pay attention as well as I should have, resulting in some mis-matched triangles. But they still work!)

I had this button in my stash. It just seemed to work with the castle theme.

Here is a gratuitous shot of my new Kindle with its new cover under my lovely stained glass lamp (made by me, before children, when playing with cut glass was an acceptable hobby to do on the kitchen table... ha!).

And I totally LOVE my new Paperwhite. The built-in light is awesome and perfect and I love that the screen still feels like paper to my eyes. LOVE!