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October Goals

Yay October! I <3 Halloween. 🙂 I actually had a pretty productive September! Let’s take a look.

  1. Windchime Block. I got the second block done, and I committed to a fabric for the fabric centers and bought it! I have the hardest time making decisions about this sort of thing. lol. I’m loving this project so much. I’ve even got the 3rd block all prepped and ready to EPP.

2. Butterfly Quilt. Well, I didn’t get 10 more butterflies appliqued, but I did get 5 more done bringing my grand total up to 8. I also prepped all of the red, green, and teal butterflies!

3. Caterpillar Quilt. Not only did I finalize the template design, I actually got 2 caterpillars appliqued!

4. Project Life. Not doing so hot on this one. Lol. But I did get 2 weeks done so that’s something.

5. Scrapping. I got July 2018 done!

6. Advent Calendar. I actually did spend one night working on this. 🙂 I need to step it up next month though.

7. Plan Halloween costumes. Xander keeps changing his mind. lol. The current front runner is a vampire bat which would actually be pretty easy to accomplish. I’m going to give him about one more week and then I’m going to make him commit. lol.

8. Plan September Girl Scout meetings. Done! And Kate finished her Junior Aide project! And she and her friend finished their Bronze Award project! She’s been working on these 2 projects since last April so I’m super duper thrilled that she (and I!) aren’t stressing about them anymore. Also super duper proud of her for working so hard to earn these!

9. Fall Break. Y’all. I was so focused on all of this Girl Scout stuff (see #8) that I totally dropped the ball on Fall Break. But you know what? THAT’S OK! (Plus, when I went back to recheck the dates, Kate’s fall break is not the same as the twins and I didn’t want them to miss that much school.) Once I finally accepted that Fall Break wasn’t happening this year, I was about 1000% less stressed.

10. Professional Development. So I’m not sure how this works, but apparently when they say that you have to renew your certificate every 5 years, what they really mean is every 6 years? IDK, but I’m going to stop fretting about this for at least another 6 months. lol.

Time for some October Goals!

1. Hexie Super Block #11. This is my Guild UFO for the month and I’m actually glad that I’m being forced to work on it because I really just want to start a new EPP project but I know that is insane. (Holy run on sentence, Batman!) I figured out how to hang them on the wall by my sewing machine which is for sure helping with the motivation. It also helps that I only have 2 more super hexie blocks to finish and then all of the hexies will be basted! Is it insane that I’m vaguely considering trying to finish both blocks this month? Yes! But we’ll just have to see what happens. lol.

2. Windchime Quilt. I would love to finish the 3rd block that I already have all of the prep work done on!

3. Butterfly Quilt. I would like to get a few more fat quarters of oranges and yellows so that I can finish prepping all of the applique. I’d also like to get at least 5 more butterflies done.

4. Caterpillar Quilt. Ditto prep work. I’d also like to get 1 more caterpillar done. And maybe a few more of the 9 patches.

5. Project Life. Dare I say June and July?

  • 6. Scrapping. ::sigh:: Maybe August 2018?

7. Advent Calendar. Time to ramp this up. I’d like to get the background done. Is it possible? Maybe?

8. Halloween! I need to actually make the kids’ costumes! I’m actually thinking that I might have Kate make her own as a fall break project…

9. Camping Trip! The Girl Scout insanity continues. lol. We are going camping in October and it will surprise none of you that I am not a camper. Luckily my Co Leader is amazing.

10. Pumpkin Patch Pictures. Actual good ones with my real camera! I might even take the kids to the real legit pumpkin patch over fall break, but the jury is still out on that one.

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Butterfly and Caterpillar Quilts

I’m making some serious progress y’all! I decided that I needed to buckle down and create the templates for the caterpillars and it ended up way cuter than I had even hoped for!

I need to redo the eyes because somehow they are facing opposite directions, and I need to add embroidery, but overall I’m pleased! Still a long way to go, but this is serious progress. 🙂

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Fabric Fabric Everywhere!

You’ll have to excuse my lack of a blog post last week.  I must confess that I was distracted by the arrival of this beautiful bundle of deliciousness.

::drool::  As I’m falling further and further down the quilty rabbit hole, I’ve discovered that my taste in fabrics in remarkably similar to my taste in scrapbook paper.  I adore large gorgeous prints, but I struggle to use them.  What I always find myself reaching for is small repeating prints so I set off in search of them at the local shops.  Sadly, neither one I went to had what I was looking for, but the internet did not let me down.  lol.  Then I just haaaaaad to get free shipping!  😉  Does anyone else suffer from this affliction?  RaptorDad says I’m going to bankrupt us saving us money.  lol.

I cut into it right away and started on the butterfly blocks for my Lori Hold inspired quilt.

Here’s my first attempt.  The black lines are showing where the block will finish.  I decided that the butterfly needed to be a bit smaller, so I redrew the template and tried again.

I’m much happier with the way these turned out!  Now I just need to add the embroidery on the wings and antennae.

Oh, and I love the butterflies so much that I’ve decided to make Mia a whole quilt of them.  lol.  What’s one more added to the list.  😉

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Keroppi Quilt

I finished my first quilt!!!  Well, it was a joint effort, but it’s done.  🙂

My quilt guild regularly has challenges to get people excited about making donation quilts.  This fall, the challenge was to take 1/2 yard of a novelty fabric and turn it into a quilt.  I was a bit intimidated, but when I saw the keroppi fabric I wouldn’t resist.

So I bought a low volume charm pack and started planning.  Initially my plan was the fussy cut the frogs and applique them onto the charm squares before sewing them all in rows.  After discussing with my quilt guru, Mimi, I decided to alternate the charm squares with some green swirly fabric.  I’m so glad I did!  I think it turned out super cute.  🙂

My grandmother helped me add the borders and then quilted and bound it for me so that I could turn in a fully completed quilt  Then she came with me to my guild meeting last night when I turned it in!  So much fun.  I almost wish I could keep it!  I guess I had better get busy on my next quilt.  🙂

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Adventures in Applique

Mia was struck down by a nasty ear infection and the flu this week.  Luckily, we started tamiflu right away so she recovered quite quickly and never actually felt that bad but I still kept her home from school all week.  Sweet girl is the best patient, she just wants snuggles and Daniel Tiger.  Usually I don’t let the kids have screen time during the week, but I let her have free reign with Daniel this week since she was sick.

Which gave me loads of time this week to clean learn how to do prepared edge applique!

I used the freezer paper technique to make this heart block for a raffle quilt my guild is making.  I was pretty pleased with how it turned out!  So I decided to try my hand at creating my own templates.

I am obsessed with the Lori Holt Bee Happy quilt.  I love the fabric, the style, the mix of techniques… but I’m just not a farm girl.  So I decided to use it as a template and design my own blocks.  She has an assembly guide on her website that gives the dimensions of all of the blocks and I used that to create a template with some graph paper.  I used this site to make the graph paper so that each square represents one inch.  It’s still a work in progress, but here’s what I have so far.

Some of the blocks are blank because I’m still pondering what to put in them.  And the drawings are really crude because I’m a terrible artist.  lol.  But you get the idea.  I drew the outline in marker and the blocks in pencil so that I can easily erase as I change my mind.  lol.  Notice anything else?  The avocados are colored in.  That’s because I’ve already finished those blocks!

I’m super pleased with how they turned out.  🙂  Now I’m back to working on my hexies while I ponder which block to tackle next.  16 blocks down, 20 to go.  🙂

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Quilty Goodness

It seems crazy that I’ve only been quilting for a year because my Work in Progress pile is multiplying at a prodigious rate!  What can I say, I love to start new projects.  🙂

This morning, I’m working on cutting out squares for a unicorn quilt I’m making for Kate.  It’s a kit and I’m learning so much while I work on it!  I think that hand work will always be my favorite, but there’s no denying that this is much faster.  lol.

And check out my hexies!  Here they all are laid out on my grandmother’s bed.  I think I’ve just about decided to make a wall hanging instead of a king size quilt.  My original plan was to make 64 of these blocks.  Each one is 75 hexagons and I have 15 of them done.

I currently have enough hexies basted to make a total of 36 blocks and I think I’m going to call that big enough.  I have other projects I want to work on!  lol.  Also, the more time I spend on this, the more I cringe at the thought of the damage it would sustain if I actually put it on my bed.  Once I have the 36 blocks made, I’m going to play around with the layout.  I might do 7×5 and put it above my bed, but I might do 6×6 and hang it on the wall in my living room.  Either way, I want to wrap it up because I want to start on a Windchime quilt!

I have about 10 other projects in the works as well.  lol.  What about you?  Do you finish 1 project before starting the next or are you a “serial starter”?