The King Size Quilt

I finished this quilt at least a month ago, but it's not the easiest thing to photograph.  Also, there is a lot I need to say about it and takes me a while to gather my thoughts. 

First, this all came about after my grandma passed away in March.  I was living with her and taking care of her, so I suddenly found that I had time to do things...any thing I wanted to.  So, I thought a quilt for our bed would be nice.  And that meant I was going to make a king size quilt...something I've never attempted before.  The sheer size of this quilt was really the challenge.  But first, I need to tell you that this is my own design.  I made a few sketches and then drew the whole thing in Illustrator.  I am a novice...or even less than that when it comes to this program.  But I have been learning all I can about it lately.  It all started when my Industrial Designer brother gave me a quick tutorial on the basic functions of Illustrator.  I've learned a lot since then...but there is so much much more I need to know.  I can't wait to show you what I've been working on next, but it takes time...and I have four kids.  So I'm slowly but steadily working on being a better designer.  I love it!

So after I made my pattern, pieced it all together, and sandwiched it, I decided to free-motion quilt it on my regular sewing machine, as I saw fit.  At first I was just going to use simple lines, but then they became more involved than I'd originally intended.  On top of that, I took a Craftsy course about swirls, pebbles and all kinds of things.  (Here is a link if you are interested.  It's taught by Angela Walters and I think she is a great teacher!) This class just inspired me to be brave.  I know it was hard while I was working on it, because the quilt was massive and sometimes slung over my shoulder, and you could probably barely see me from underneath.  However, I feel pretty happy with the result, so I don't regret it.  I just don't want to do anything this massive in a long time...unless by some miracle I have a long arm machine.  Yes, that would be a miracle.

One thing I want to say before you look at the pictures...don't look at the naked box spring.  It has no bed skirt.  I'm still living at my grandparents.  I'm going to make throw pillows and fix it all up sometime...one thing at a time.  

The only thing I regret about this quilt, is that I am not a photographer, and so the pictures didn't turn out so great.  I had this great idea to take it to Chamber's Bay, in Lakewood, WA.  It's a beautiful place with this cool bridge that goes out on the water.  My idea was to hang it there.  Well, the wind was blowing, and the lighting was bad.  I may as well share our attempts.

One more thing: I decided to use Quilter's Dream Wool batting for this and I LOVED it! I think I will use it more often.  It's a little more fluffy than than the cotton batting I usually use, and shows more texture in the quilting.  It's also very cozy!!!

Thanks for taking the time to look!

Vacation in the Northwest!

We recently returned from vacationing with my family in the Northwest, where I was raised, and I have so many fun pictures I thought I should share some.  Maybe it will make you want to go too! (This is my way of getting my Arizona friends and family to move up here)...maybe?! Pretty please!?  Regardless it is such a beautiful place, and I always tell everyone, ESPECIALLY in the summer!!!

We did a little canoeing, a little hiking, watched fireworks from the cove on Harstene Island (we even participated in a Fourth of July Parade on the island), s'mores, swimming, fishing, searching for sea critters on the shore, tree swinging, croquet, lots of good food, and good times with my family. 

There were daisy's everywhere growing wild and my kids kept picking them and giving them to people.  If you got one, you are really special. ;)

Had to throw that in there.  I still use my Mei Tai and she is just over a year. :)

The famous swing at Harstene Point (It's been there since I was his age...probably longer...but they have improved it since then).

On the way home we took a detour up to Sunrise on Mount Rainer.  It was a perfect day to go, soooooo BEATIFUL!!  Too bad the pictures aren't that great...they are a little blurry. 

The kids with Grandpa

My Family

Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a wonderful summer!

Pretty Little Horses

My baby's first birthday is coming up, and I decided that all she really needs is a nice snuggly blanket of course! She loves to cuddle snuggly things anyway so she'll be a happy camper.  I found the perfect fabric for it...well actually it was begging for me to buy it and make something pretty out of it, so I did!  And I do love the way it turned out.  The fabric is designed by Sarah Jane, and the collection is called "Wee Wander".  I absolutely LOVE this fabric.  It has horses, girls riding on horses, fireflies, pretty trees, deer, bunnies...just all kinds of whimsical happiness.  The girl petting the deer, yeah that was me as a kid.  Anyway, enough of this.  Here are the pictures!

My first quilt with a Minky back

So there is one thing that I wanted to tell you about.  I decided to use minky fabric for the backing, and no cotton batting in between.  This is the first time I've done this, and I really like how it feels. It's soft and cuddly, and not too heavy.  The only problem is, when I measured out my quilt, for some reason I outdid myself and made it too big for the back...just by an inch in the width.  At this point I figured I had two options: A: Make the front smaller, or B: Make a whole new quilt and save this one for later.  If only I had just ordered a little bit more!!!  Too late, I had to work with it.

After I put my baby down for a nap, asked my husband what he thought, and ate a sandwich...I finally decided that I would piece the back with some of the "Wee Wander" fabric.  I know, not ideal...but I figured out a way to make it work.  Since the cotton would be a little flimsy compared to the minky, I just put a piece of batting underneath that part and quilted it.  That was good enough for me, and I think it worked great actually...even though I wouldn't recommend it if you had the choice.  Next time I will buy enough minky, or make my quilt the right size!!! :)

Pieced Back of Quilt

Thanks for looking!!!

....OH and here are a few sneak peeks at my works in progress...not the greatest pictures but hopefully more are to come!

This is the Aviatrix Medallion Quilt designed by Elizabeth Hartman...you can read about her quilt along here!  I still have three more borders to go on this.  Love her stuff!

This is a quilt I designed in Illustrator for our bed.  It's actually almost ready to have the binding put on.  I need to get to work on this next!!

Easter Baskets, Part 2

My boys really did want me to make them Easter baskets, because the first thing that came out of their mouths when they came home from school was, "Where's mine?!".  So I let them pick out their fabrics (Except one son tried to have me use every single thing he liked...so I gave him a few choices).  Here they are, and it's a good thing I made them too because I couldn't find any of our Easter stuff from last year!

It looks like the bunnies are whispering to each other...

And guess what? Walmart finally came through for me with my rotary blades. Yay! So I now have the power to start cutting the pieces for my new quilt!

Happy Easter Baskets!

Yesterday I found this fun tutorial about making fabric Easter Baskets on a blog called Somewhat Simple.  If you want to check it out here it is.  I decided to make my baby an Easter Basket, but I actually used a different pattern I had from a magazine called "Sew-it...today".  It's on page 9 of Issue #9.  Don't ask me why I have it, I usually don't have magazines.  I didn't even think I was going to make a basket either, but they looked so cute on the Somewhat Simple blog that I had to give it a try.  Besides, I really needed to use some of my cute children's prints.

So first I thought I would make just one, since Easter is in two days...but then my 4 year old daughter wanted one too, so I though why not.  Now my two boys want one, and I don't know if I really have time now, but I'll see what I can do.  For now, I'm happy these are done, and they were really easy.  It maybe took 2-3 hours to finish these both. 

                                                                         ...Happy Easter!!!

Making Plans

I've been busy making plans and hoping to see them all through.  I don't really seem to have problems coming up with ideas, it's just making it happen that can be hard.  I don't always have the time, resources, budget, and well...sometimes I lose interest...but I hate to leave projects unfinished.  So I try my very hardest to finish what I start, even if sometimes my mind wanders to something else.  You know what I need is a big idea book, where I can write down everything I come up with because I hate to forget things, and that way I might be able to come back to it later.

Well anyway, I haven't posted anything since January, but that doesn't mean I haven't made anything!  In fact, I've been making a lot of things...mostly loads of knitted washcloths, or facecloths for my mom...because she really likes them and she asked me to.  I wish I had taken some pictures before I sent them off, because they were pretty nice.

What I'm really excited about right now is something I've been working on for a few weeks now.  My brother is a pretty awesome industrial designer, and has always offered to help me learn to use Illustrator.  Not too long ago, he was here for my grandma's funeral, and gave me a quick, and I mean maybe 30 minute, tutorial of Illustrator.  It was awesome!! And so now I know some stuff....kind of.  There is still so much to learn, but it got me designing.  And I decided to design a quilt for our bed.  This is going to be the biggest quilt I've ever made, but it also is going to be the first one I've ever designed in Illustrator.  It's exciting for me, I mean it took a lot of time calculating, making sure I had correct measurements, and enough fabric.  I really hope I didn't make any mistakes with that because you never know with me.  Sometimes I get carried away, but I'm usually pretty good at math.

So yesterday I had my pattern and directions for this quilt printed out, fabric was all washed, pressed and ready to go.  All I had to do was start cutting.

I lined up my background fabric like so on the lines, ruler all lined up,  rotary cutter in hand, and was ready to cut off the raw edge.

I ran the rotary blade across the fabric, and something just didn't feel right.  My suspicions were correct, the blade didn't cut a thing.  Not even a little teeny tiny piece.  Hmmm...maybe my blade wasn't on correctly. Nope! I tried again...maybe it was too close to the ruler...and again.  No, I felt the blade.  Completely dull...absolutely completely dull.  Not a big deal, these things can be fixed...except it is a big let down when you are about to embark on the tedious process of cutting strips and strips of fabric that you spent days calculating for.  Well, good thing Walmart...the only store in town...had one in stock.  Except that they lied to me! No big deal, they will rush ship one to me.  And by rush ship, they mean 3-5 days.  I'm so impressed...no not really.  Well it will get to me eventually.  And maybe I can mop the floor while I wait...yes the floor really needs some mopping anyway.  So this was just perfect really.

One more thing that has been on my mind.  I recently decided to join the Modern Quilt Guild, but just as an individual online.  The closest guild here is in Spokane, and I'm not driving all the way out there once a month, or whenever they meet.  I would love to be a part of one, but I can't make that happen right now.   The reason I brought this up is because they are having a conference they call Quiltcon in Auston, Texas.  There will be a quilt exhibit, lectures by AMAZING people, workshops and just all around awesome things happening.  I would love to personally attend this, but the lacking of funds will make that hard.  However, I am really thinking about entering a quilt in the show.  I really want to make this happen!!  I was so inspired by the few lectures I saw from Quiltcon 2013, through the Craftsy website.  (If you haven't heard of Craftsy it is awesome...go sign up it's free...and there a free classes too of all kinds...but you do have to pay for some and they are usually pretty good...I love Craftsy).  So yeah, Quiltcon is in the near future I hope.