Into the Woods Hourglass Baby Quilt

I must say that these past several months have truly been an adjustment for me.  Trying to find my new work / home / kids / quilting balance has been rather difficult.  Over the past month, I have finally gotten back into my quilting mojo again and it really felt great.  I have so missed this part of my life, and my New Year's resolution for 2015 is to make more time for it.  It definitely makes me a happier person!

Last Summer, I found out that the girl I used to babysit for was having a baby girl.  Talk about making me feel old!  During the summer, I had also purchased this fabric collection "Into the Woods" by Vanessa from Lella Boutique.  I had been eyeing this collection for quite some time because I was going to use it to make something for myself.  It has all the colors that I love in it.  I knew that it would be perfect for this new little baby girl as well.  Her mom shares my same favorite color red and everything about this collection just screams "Baby Girl".

The quilt pattern I chose was the Hourglass Quilt by Allison of Cluck Cluck Sew.  You can find the tutorial here.  It is one of my favorite quilt blocks to make.  I quilted it up using some wavy quilting to "soften" it up a little bit since it is a baby quilt. I must say it turned out awesome and I absolutely love it!

I chose the white floral pattern from the fabric collection for the back of the quilt.

The binding is a Moda Bells solid called Tomato Soup.  I like that I put a solid binding on it, so it didn't distract from the busyness of the quilt.

Now for the pics of my "adorable" little model.  Isn't she just precious.  I think she likes it and it will be a great quilt for her to have "playtime" on!  Happy 1 month old Birthday Sweetie!  You are definitely a keeper!

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday hosted by Heather and Megan from the Quilt Story.

Happy Quilting!

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"A" is for Announcement!

I am super excited to share some new information with all of you.  First of all, we all know that my job had gotten quite crazy over the winter.  After a lot of prayers and soul searching, I had put my notice in at work.  I had given them 9 weeks notice, but that turned into 12 weeks!  During our search for a new person, they had also convinced me to still stay on, but at a much lesser capacity.  I was able to pick my hours and what I wanted to do.  Win win I say!  So I went down from 36 hours a week to 12 hours a week, which means I get to spend a lot more precious time with the little kiddos above!  I also get to spend more time making my home into my "dream" home, which has been put on the back burner for the past several years.  And A LOT more time on quilting!  This means a lot more fun quilting posts coming your way.  I have projects that I want to make for my home, gifts for others, and more practicing on my free motion quilting!

Now on to my current WIP!  Many of you have seen all over blog land these adorable "Alphabet" quilts and I couldn't help but start to make one as well.  I want to make a "Special Alphabet Book" for each of my girls for Christmas using these Alphabet blocks.  The fabric line I am using is call "Scrumptious" by Bonnie and Camille.  The project calls for one Jelly Roll and a background fabric.  I am so excited to see this quilt come together.  Plus it doesn't hurt that these blocks are a lot of fun to make!

Linking up to Let's Be Social hosted by Lorna.

Happy Quilting!

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Star Quilt

One of the blogs that I follow, "Sewing by Moonlight", by Em had asked for help to finish a quilt for her dad who has cancer.  She had a very short period of time in which to work with and she wanted to give this quilt to her dad for his birthday.  She asked for volunteers to help her make some of the squares as well as help from a long arm quilter that would quilt it for her due to its large size.  I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for me to be able to practice my quilting.  In addition, I had never quilted a quilt that was that large and I really wanted to try that.  Em and I connected and she sent me the quilt several weeks ago now.  I quilted it up for her in a free motion loops and stars pattern.  I am so happy with how it turned out.  Here is a picture of the entire front of the quilt.

A picture of the back of the quilt.  This is the very first time I worked with a pieced back.  I was nervous at first, but I think it turned out beautiful!

Em did a really great job piecing this together, which makes my job easier as a long arm quilter.  I think it turned out great.  Here are some closeups of the quilting.

Quilt Stats:

• Size 60in x 72in
• 5 bobbins
• Quilting time was 4 1/2 hours.  

Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday hosted by Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation.  

Happy Quilting!

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Teacher Appreciation Week & Other Stuff

Well many of you know that this week is "Teacher Appreciation Week".  I am one of the room parents for my daughter's first grade class.  The room parents, my friend Becky and I, wanted to give her teacher something that could "brighten" up her classroom but still be useful.  She has a sink in her classroom, and we thought that she could use some fun new dish towels and cute antibacterial hand soaps to go with them.

I took my daughter, Melia, shopping with me and she picked out the soaps and the cute soap holder from Bath and Body Works.  I love that place.  I had a coupon and I needed more hand soap for our house, so that was a win win for us.  Next, we went to Bed Bath and Beyond and picked up a package of Microfiber dish towels.  Finally, our last stop was Joann's where she got to pick out some fun "teacher" fabric.  I think she made the "perfect" fabric choice.  Like mother like daughter right.  I sure am hoping!

To make the towels, I used the tutorial from Natalia Bonner from Piece N Quilt, which you can find here.  I love this tutorial.  She is so thorough and I think the project went together perfectly.  I had my friend Becky come over and help me.  She just bought an embroidery machine and is learning how to use it and I thought it would be a fun project to do together!  I must say it was!  I bought the embroidery patterns from Bunnycup Embroidery.  It is the School Sentiments collection.  Their embroidery designs always and I do mean always embroider up so nicely for me!  Didn't they turn out cute!  I think I need to make some for myself now!

I also have been doing some long arm quilting and will share more on that very soon!  It is my very first customer quilt!

I also wanted to let everyone know about "The 2014 New Quilt Blogger Blog Hop", hosted by Beth over at Plum and June.  You can find out more about the blog hop here.  I was a part of this blog hop last year and really enjoyed myself.  You meet a lot of great quilters and you can learn a lot as well, so I highly recommend you check it out!

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts.

Happy Quilting!

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April 2014 - Goal

Well I did make some progress on last month's goal, but I didn't quite get it completed.  I finished putting together the 20 4-patch blocks that I needed, but I did not get a chance to embroider the remaining five squares.  Here is the stack of 4 patch blocks I did finish.

Here are the blue / green combo blocks:

Here are the orange / brown combo blocks:

My goal for April is to embroider the 5 squares and then sew together the quilt top.  Wish me luck!

Linking up to Fiber of All Sorts.  

Happy Quilting!

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Quilt Sample Finished

I am incredibly excited to finally have this finished!  I turned it in to the quilt shop earlier today, so now they have a sample to show people who are looking for a long arm quilter.  Yea!!!  Finally things are starting to get checked off my list.  I quilted this using a pantograph called "Pumpkin Patch".  It was a lot of fun to do.  I am finding that I need a little bit more "detailed" pantographs because the ones that are a little bit more plain for some reason don't turn out as good for me.  Or I just don't like them, but you got start somewhere right.

Now here is the back side, which you can see the quilting even better on.

A close up of the pumpkin.

A close up of the leaves.

Linking up to "Fabric Tuesday" hosted by Meg and Heather at the Quilt Story.  

Happy Quilting!

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March 2014 - Goal

Another month another goal.  I am really hoping to finish this one on time!   My adorable nephew is 15 months old and never got a quilt from me when he was born.  Bad Aunty!  I make a quilt for ALL my nieces and nephews, and since he is going to be a big brother in August, I have to get his quilt finished!  Since I am going to have another baby quilt to make at the end of the summer.  My goal for March is to embroider 5 squares with dragons and his name on the brown fabric shown below.  

The other 4 fabrics that are shown will be used to make 4 patches for the remaining 20 squares.

Linking up to Fiber of All Sorts.  

Happy Quilting!

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Quilt Sample Update

I am pretty excited because I am actually making some "quilting" progress this month.  Over the weekend I was able to get my "quilt sample" pieced together at craft night with some friends.  Woohoo!

My plan is to get this sample quilted up over the weekend trying a new panto I bought about a month ago.  Can't wait to show you next week!

Linking up to "Needle and Thread Thursday" hosted by Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation.  

Happy Quilting!

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February 2014 - Goal

Okay, I hate to say it but I did not start the new year off very good, however, it isn't totally my fault!  I wasn't able to complete my January goal due to how crazy busy I was at work this past month.  The beginning of the year is usually hard for accountants anyways, but the person who works for me needed surgery, so I had to do her job as well as inheriting payroll because our human resource person left in December!  Ugh!  Let's just say I am definitely not a fan of payroll and every other Thursday is not a fun day for me!  With that being said, January is now over (Yea!!!) and the tax deadlines are met, so hopefully I can start to quilt again!

As you can see I didn't make it very far on my last month's goal of completing my quilt sample, so I am going to "repeat" my January goal for February.  The plan is to get this quilt sample finished and off to my local quilt shop, so they have one of my "pieces" to show potential customers!  So wish me luck!

Linking up to Fiber of All Sorts.  

Happy Quilting!

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