hello, 2012!

well, i made a few resolutions this year. one is to keep up with this blog a little more! it's been pretty hard to fit computer time into my new schedule of hanging out with my dog and watching every bbc miniseries... i mean, sewing all day! that's what i'm doing!




i have been trying to get caught up on all my outstanding bee blocks. these are for the 4x5 modern quilt bee on flickr. these have been lots of fun to make!




and this is a farmer's wife block, my first! it's from the fantastic book, the farmer's wife sampler quilt. the patterns seemed so over the top and out of my comfort zone, but this one actually came together quite easily! granted, it's one of the most simple. but i'm glad i didn't get too intimidated for too long. only bought the book about six months ago... heh. it took a little while to get up the courage to get started.

well, here's to 2012 being a great year! i have lots of fun stuff in the works to share with you guys. i can't wait!

pink!

lately i have been working a little bit out of my comfort zone for some very special people. a couple that i know is currently fostering to adopt an adorable little girl. it's such a wonderful and selfless thing, and i really wanted to send them a quilt for their cute girl.




it's SO PINK. she loves the color, so of course that's what i had to use. i actually had a bit of it in my stash, but it took me a while to build up enough scraps and colors to make it the pinkest quilt, possible. i hope i accomplished that!

together

here is one of the first of many collaborative projects that i have been working on as of late. this one is for my friend lindsey's birthday. she had mentioned to me in passing that she would really like throw pillows for her new couch. i agonized and quizzed everyone i knew about whether to surprise her with pillows that i made, or to let her know on her birthday that i would be making her pillows. i opted for the later, and i'm so glad i did.

i really wanted to make sure that she ended up with something she would really love, and use! she came over after work one day and we went through all my fabric. i think my stash was pretty overwhelming to her. sometimes too many choices are not very helpful! we narrowed it down to the fabrics and colors that she liked and she left the rest pretty much up to me.

i had her look through some books to get an idea for what sort of pattern she'd like. she really liked the planetarium quilt in elizabeth hartman's a practical guide to patchwork, so i went with that one for the first pillow. then i tried to make another one that was less busy, but still complimentary.

when i first made the hourglass blocks (a day after she picked the fabirc!) i was not too happy with how they turned out. then this week the guilt of not getting it to her set in and i pushed ahead with the rest of the project. i think in the end it really came together nicely and i hope she likes them!

m.i.a.

well, hello folks! it's been a long time. i have become an awful blogger since i started being at home all the time. i'm never on the computer anymore. i've pretty much been sewing and hanging out with my dog all the time these days.

also, we unfortunately had a pretty sad event in our family. my sweet grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. a lot of time was spent going back and forth between san diego and los angeles before her passing. i wanted to see her as much as possible. she was such a big influence on who i am as a person and a crafter. she was really into needlepoint and counted cross-stitch and made stuff for our entire family. she was really a special lady and i miss her so much. if your grandma's still around, give her a kiss for me the next time you see her.




i really want to get back into blogging and i have a ton of projects laying around that are finished or close to being done! i promise to have more posts soon about the quilts i have been working on and will be making soon! until then, here's a stack of tops waiting to be quilted. some of these may look familiar. one is for me and the other two are gifts! more about them soon!

happy birthday to me!

i had an amazing birthday on saturday. first thing in the morning, my boyfriend gave me this beauty:




he is so good. i found it on etsy ages ago and fell in love with it. i even looked it up again a few weeks ago and was heartbroken that it had been sold! it's gigantic (86x100) and mostly hand-sewn. i plan on bringing it to the next meeting because it's 100000x prettier in person.

then later on in the day, i went and checked my mail and found even more goodies! my pretty {little} pouch swap was waiting for me, and i was totally blown away by how amazing it was!!! the super-sweet jen made me this great little wristlet that i used right away! it was filled with totally practical items that i would have ended up putting in there anyway. it was so thoughtful of her! i really love how she went out of her way to make something that was so *me*!




i mean, look how well she pegged me! an order i had just made from superbuzzy also came in the mail that day, with the same fabric she used in it! she really got my taste.