Life is good!

It's been a productive week!  I'm almost finished with the pillow for my sister's fundraiser.  I just need to get the buttonholes done, and then it's on to the final stretch. My daughter's Easter dress is nearly finished.  I just have one more piece of trim, and the hem.  Chances are, it will actually get done BEFORE Easter Mass!  And the Fat Quarter Shop was AMAZING when I told them about the troubles with the first fabric I went to use for the dress.  They gave me store credit almost immediately.  I shouldn't be surprised, those ladies are absolutely amazing.  They have my dream job. This finish has been done for a bit, but I finally got at least a couple of pictures taken.  I want to get some outdoor pics of a number of my quilts, since my little iPhone camera is all I have, but at least I have some photos now.  :)  This was from Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts.   It went together pretty quickly, and I love th...

Just to keep myself honest... Works in Progress:   Easter Dress for Isadora Pillow cover for Kelley's fundraiser Swoon (six of nine blocks done, finished cutting all blocks yesterday) Farmer's Wife (LONG term project!) Fat Quarter Shop BOM (eight of twelve completed) Summer Breeze Jewels Hugs and Kisses Ruby, Pearl and Opal (waiting for my bee blocks) Waiting for Binding: Reunion Stacks of Color Supersize Shoefly Pinwheels for Pop Planning: Heart of Mine 2 Simply Woven Salad

I went to cut out my daughter's Easter dress last night, only to discover that the lovely fabric she'd picked from my stash was NOT going to work.  I had five yards of a Michael Miller print from the Secret Garden line.  Beautiful fabric, truly.  But since it was going in apparel, I'd thrown it into the washer (cold, gentle cycle, alone) to preshrink it.  And it bled.  A lot.  The dark areas ran extensively, and there are spots of color just all over it.  It's basically unusable, unfortunately.  I emailed Fat Quarter Shop today, we'll see if they say anything.  I'd originally bought that much thinking it would be a good quilt backing, so I'm just glad I didn't use it for a quilt, THEN have it bleed all over a brand new quilt! On the bright side, I did at least have enough of another fabric that she liked, so I did get the dress cut out.  I'll have to run to Mom's to see if she has some suitable trim, and need to stop by JoAnn's...

After much hand-wringing, debating, and second-guessing, PB&J won out as the design inspiration for the family room.  The carpet is in the gold color in this line, and I went with two shades of blue and the reddish color for various walls. There are some really beautiful prints in this line, and I'm looking forward to making some accessories for the living room out of some of them.  I think one of the floral style prints will be panels for the windows, to start off with.  I got slipcovers in neutral for the couches, so I can have some definite fun with pillows, and I'll need to make a cover for the ottoman.  The top of it opens, so not sure exactly how I'm going to do that yet, but it should be interesting! Marc took leave for a four day weekend, so he is going to be a painting machine this weekend.  Isadora is going to Chicago with G&G, so I have just Gunner to keep an eye on.  Unfortunately, Isadora being gone actually makes getting stuff...

Even though I keep a nice, neat list of works in progress, it isn't uncommon to have one jump the list. When my about-to-be 90 year old grandfather asked for a quilt, it made it to the top of the list. (That one is at the quilters now, so hopefully will have it finished soon). My sister asked me to make something for a fundraiser for her kid's school.  She asked for a pillow. I had those charm packs that I picked up recently, and since I knew Good Morning was out of th e running as family room inspiration, it was the obvious choice to make a happy pillow. Hopefully it will be done in time for Finish it Up Friday!

Isadora, probably somewhat predictably, keeps getting taller.  At a rather alarming rate!  And few, if any, of her dresses from last spring/summer are long enough for her now.  Easter is coming, as are several spring concerts, so my goal for the weekend is to make her a spring dress.  I have far too many patterns (more than I am sure I will ever use), so I let her go thru them, and this was her pick: She wants view C, with the billowy sleeves.  I happened to have enough of several different fabrics to make this, and my mom has tons of trim, so I gave her a choice, and I think the end result will turn out well!  Simplicity patterns have always been wide in the torso, so I need to make sure to fit her BEFORE I cut things out this time.  Hopefully it will go together quickly!

It certainly doesn't look like there has been much change since my last listing!  I did a lot more work on the house than sewing, and Gunner has reached that age where he requires pretty much constant supervision yet is not old enough to be entertained by television.  So really, sewing only gets done during naptime (which he now violently resists) and after bedtime.  And then there's that pesky full time job that keeps taking up all my potential sewing time... :) Works in Progress: Swoon (six of nine blocks done, finished cutting all blocks yesterday) Farmer's Wife (LONG term project!) Fat Quarter Shop BOM (eight of twelve completed) Summer Breeze Jewels Hugs and Kisses Ruby, Pearl and Opal (waiting for my bee blocks) Top completed, not yet quilted: Pinwheels for Pop At the Quilters: Reunion Stacks of Color Supersize Shoefly Planning: Heart of Mine 2 Simply Woven Salad

I couldn't actually get to my sewing machine yesterday.  The drywall people came to spray the orange peel texture on the basement walls, so the place was still pretty wet.  It's amazing how quickly you can go into withdrawal!  With Marc gone during the week, Monday and Tuesday are usually my heavy sewing days (Wednesday being Faith Formation class and Thursday Tae Kwon Do) and I missed being able to make some progress.  But on the bright side, hubby and I got to watch two episodes of Dr. Who on Netflix.

This was a quick finish!  A friend had picked up the panel, but finally said she was never going to get around to it, and gave it to me.  Since I wanted to say that I actually FINISHED something this month, I took a bit of time last night and whipped it up. (Does anyone else have an obsession with checking things off on your to do list??) Next up, the matching hot pads! In other news, we've been making progress on finishing the basement.  The drywall is up, and soon it will be time to choose the paint.  Needless to say, this decision looms large!  I love color, but it seems like such a huge decision, and there is a LOT of wall space in the basement! I decided to take a little inspiration from my quilting.  The carpet you see is what is in the basement, so I picked up some charm packs that included yellow, and I'm going to use one of these fabric lines as the basis for the room.  I think I can say right away that Good Morning is out; the ...

My Hugs and Kisses quilt for Gunner is in progress.  I've finished up sewing the solids onto the strip sets, and they are waiting for a good session with the iron.  I wish that I'd picked a slightly darker navy for the center, but it's too late now!   That leaves me with the following: Recent Finishes (need good pictures!): City Weekend Batik Old Gold Works in Progress: Swoon (five of nine blocks done, finished cutting the background blocks yesterday) Farmer's Wife (LONG term project!) Fat Quarter Shop BOM (eight of twelve completed) Summer Breeze Jewels Hugs and Kisses Ruby, Pearl and Opal (waiting for my bee blocks) Top completed, not yet quilted: Pinwheels for Pop At the Quilters: Reunion Stacks of Color Supersize Shoefly Planning: Heart of Mine 2 Simply Woven Salad