Ultra Special Wedding Quilt

Now that my best friend has received it, I can finally post pictures of my completed Bottled Rainbows quilt!  When I started this quilt it was for me and for fun (many thanks to Rachel for the QAL!).  I already had another quilt in mind to make my friend as her wedding gift, but as time went on, I didn't feel my original idea was special enough.  Then it hit me!  Duh!  I should make the Bottled Rainbows for her!  This is such a special quilt with so many special fabrics (not that she understands, but, whatever, I know they're special).  One block has special meaning for her (the pink one).  When my friend was getting back into the dating world after her divorce, she would journal about her dates and compare them to shoes.  I just KNEW I had to include some of the Heather Ross Munki Munki shoes in this quilt!

I opted to used a modified zig zag to quilt this one--mostly because I stink at straight line!  Since the blocks were quilt as you go, it didn't take long to do some minimal quilting over the seam lines.

I also machine stitched the binding down with invisible thread in the bobbin and light grey for the top--I sewed it to the back first then brought it around to the front.  I just started using this method for binding and I love how quick it is and how neat the binding still looks.  It's not as perfect as handsewing, but when I have a million projects on my plate, something has to give.

For the backing I chose an Alexander Henry butterfly print since the theme of her wedding was butterflies.  Really, that one was a no brainer!  The only downside I found was that because my backing had a light background, you can see the pressed open seams of the colored blocks.  I chalk this up to just one of the down sides to quilt-as-you-go.  It's still pretty from the front and I doubt anyone other than another quilter would be bothered by that. :)

Project Overload!

It's Friday night and I'm working on this

I had planned on finishing this

but I realized I didn't have a long enough zipper for the inside pocket so I'm stalled until tomorrow.  This is a bag my godmother commissioned and it's WAY past due.  I think I just got sick of this pattern (Sweet Harmony by Amy Butler).  I've done it so many times I don't need to look at the instructions anymore! 

I still have to finish these

This stack includes a quilt for our bed per my hubby's request of the Aviary 2 fabric (not exactly my taste, but if it'll make him happy!), a Bakeshop project, a trial run of my Bakeshop project, my Katie Jump Rope Kite quilt, the squares for my Warm/Cool QAL, and my blue/green HST quilt.  Whew!

I have broken my rule of only working on one project at a time and it's biting me in the butt!  I'm much less productive when I feel overwhelmed like this.  What's sad is that I have a to-do list with about 10 more things on it!  The list wouldn't scare me if I didn't have so many "in-progress" projects!  Time to go back to my one-thing-at-a-time sewing.  Back to my basting.....

Week In Review

I'm finally back home after a week-long visit to my in-laws in Missouri.  It was a great trip!  My in-laws are so great about helping with the kids!  I've put together a few pictures to summarize our trip:

Cian enjoyed his juice and his tunes on the flight!  Overall, our trip there was uneventful.  No one cried, all bags and car seats made it safely, minimal stress on us parents.  It was a long day (12 hours from the time we left the house to make our red eye flight until arriving at the in-laws), but we made it!

The trip was filled with firsts.  This is Roarke's first time on a bumper car!  He loved it!

Cian (with Daddy's help) had a blast too!

Hogpa (my father-in-law) gave the boys a wagon ride via his riding lawnmower.  Roarke loved it, but Cian wasn't so sure.

Roarke got to meet his first (and only) cousin, Ezra Stegosaurus.

Roarke got to drive for the first time!  This was on Roarke's great-grandparents driveway.  They live on a farm and have a long driveway so my father-in-law thought Roarke would love to take the wheel.  Obviously, Roarke had a great time.  He thought he could drive everywhere after that! 

Roarke also went fishing for the first time.  He caught three fish!

He reeled in that large catfish all by himself!

Roarke was too busy fishing to join in the family photo op.

Cian even caught a fish with Grandma's help.

Yes, even I joined in the fishing fun.  To say I'm not outdoorsy is putting it mildly, but I figured I'd give fishing a shot.  I was great at casting, not so good at reeling!  I lost two before I managed to get this one.  I wasn't going to touch it though!  I don't eat any type of seafood and I certainly wasn't going to stink up my hands with a live fish!

I did manage to squeeze in a little fabric shopping.  I ran across almost 8 yards of this Heather Ross West Hill print at a store near my in-laws.  There was not one other recognizable piece of fabric in the store--think batiks, Disney, camo, and denim!  They only had this because the town has a Frog Festival and the owners thought it would sell!  I'm going to be listing some in my etsy shop soon.  I have to say thank you to my hubby for making a U-turn and going to this shop.  I am constantly on the look out for fabric stores (I'm not the only one, right?) and we had already passed the store before I could yell out "FABRIC!"  He very nicely turned around and went back.  Awwwww!

When I returned home, I opened the most spectacular package from Ali for the Goodie Bag Swap!  Can you believe it?!?!?  She really outdid herself making this Amy Butler Weekender bag.  It's huge and perfect and MINE!  I love it dearly!  As if that wasn't enough, she also made me a grocery tote and included some great fabric!

Kaelin made my awesome pouch for the Pretty{little} Pouch swap and conspired with Ali to make matching items.  Swoon!  I'm so stinkin' lucky!

Yeah, the bag is monstrous!  I could probably fit my kid in there!

So that's it!  My week condensed!  I'm already busy sewing now that I'm back.  I've managed to cut out all my squares for a twin size Warm/Cool quilt for Jeni's quilt-a-long and I've started working on my pillow for Pillow Talk Swap 5.  Here's what I've finished so far--it's 24" square and made from linen, Heather Ross prints, and Flea Market Fancy.  It's paper pieced (block is from www.quilterscache.com).  I made some seriously stupid mistakes while doing this, but I managed to correct them after some seam ripping and cursing. :)  I can already tell this one will be hard to let go!

I'll leave you with a funny story from our trip:

On our way back to the airport--which we had to get up at 130AM to arrive on time for our 6AM flight--we stopped at Krispy Kreme for donuts and coffee.  The boys were asleep, but while we were waiting for the coffee, Roarke woke up.  He started talking loudly as he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.  Afraid he was going to wake up his brother, I quickly handed him a piece of donut to put in his mouth.  Unfortunately, he thought I was passing him a cloth to wipe his eyes and he rubbed the glazed donut in his eye!!!!  I was crying I was laughing so hard!  I will never look at a Krispy Kreme again without thinking about him smashing that donut in his eye!  Classic!

Raise Your Hand If.....

You've ever made a massive quilting boo-boo.  Anyone?  Well, I'm waving both hands in the air today!  I was so happy to be approved for another Moda Bakeshop project, but I had one slight problem.....I'd never made the quilt.  I have no idea how much fabric it will take or it's final size.  Yikes!  Due to some complicated math issues, there was no way (read: I wasn't going to hurt my brain with the math) for me to figure it out on paper.  Ok, no biggie, I thought.  I'll just make a practice version!  I sewed like a maniac yesterday with a pretty Verna jelly roll only to end up with this:

Yeah.  It's laying "flat" in this picture.  CRAP CRAP DOUBLE CRAP!  Stupid me forgot that I'd be sewing with a lot of bias edges!  Grrr.  Now, I'm worried about my ability to make one that does lay flat!  I *think* that using pins and laying the quilt-in-progress flat before I pin the next piece will solve the problem, but I'm having some major self doubt here.  If anyone has any great tips for this bias-challenged quilter (Tracey, this means you!) please tell me!

In more happy sewing news, I finished my June bee block for VIB's.  Meghan is making a patriotic quilt for her hubby who is in the Army.  I chose to do a paper pieced spinning stripes block.  The instructions said it finished at 12", but in reality, it finished at only 10"!  I guess I could have figured that out if I took a ruler to the pattern!  Since Meghan wanted the blocks to finish at 16", I knew I was going to have to add borders anyway, so the smaller size wasn't a big deal.  

I've also joined Jeni's QAL, Warm vs. Cool.  These are my fabric picks.  I did end up taking out some of the green, adding some yellow and blue.  I'm half way through cutting out the squares to make HSTs, but this project will have to be put on hold for a bit since I'm going out of town tomorrow for a week.  We're going to my in-laws in Missouri.  Though I'm sad to be away from my machine for a whole week, I get to meet my nephew (Ezra Stegosaurs) for the first time!  Plus, my MIL is super sweet and waits on us hand and foot! 

Bottled Rainbows Progress

I'm participating in Rachel's Bottled Rainbows Quilt-a-long.  The brilliance of this quilt-a-long is (1) you can use scraps and (2) you can go at your own pace!  I've had my scraps sorted for a while, but it took me a while to sit down and form a block.  The time consuming part of this quilt is all the cutting of scraps to fit into the block.  I'm too lazy to stand up and do this at my cutting mat, so my scraps are hand cut while I lounge on the floor.  This has resulted in some no so straight scrappy pieces, but oh well!  Here are my blocks so far:











Not all of these scraps came from my own stash.  I had to do a little swapping to round out my collection.....ok, a lot of swapping.  There are just some colors (like purple) that I don't have a lot of.  I love purple, but there isn't a lot of fabric out there in that color.  Oh!  I have a tip for you if you plan on making these blocks--do NOT stack the blocks on top of each other with the batting of one block touching the front of another block. YIKES!  I had to lint roll a few blocks.  Instead, stack the blocks with front sides facing. 

Oh, and I was nominated by the awesome and talented Weekend-bag-maker Ali and the lovely and sweet Australian Jan-Maree for a Stylish Blogger Award.  Nice, right?  It's basically saying "Hey!  I like your blog and think you're cool!"  You're supposed to share 7 things about yourself and pass the honor along to other bloggers you enjoy.  It's a great way to discover new blogs!

7 things about me:

1.  I do not eat anything that comes from the ocean.  Nada.  I've tried it all and I hate all seafood.  I can choke down some fried fish if it's heavily battered, but I don't like it.
2.  I chew my hair absentmindedly.  I don't know why.  It's just habit.  I'm doing it right now!
3.  I have never broken a bone or had a nose bleed, but I accidentally stabbed scissors two inches into my leg when I was fourteen
4.  My three favorite smells are coffee, bacon, and books. Now if only the Starbucks inside Barnes and Noble served bacon, I would never leave.
5.  I have never played on a team sport outside of mandatory gym class.
6.  I can stand completely straight, knees locked, with my feet pointing behind me.
7.  I name my kids after characters in Nora Roberts' books

6 Blogs to check out

1.  Lisa at Crafting My Way Through Life
2.  Daddy Geek Boy  this is the blog of a crafty friend's husband.  So funny!!!!
3.  Elizabeth at Don't Call Me Betsy
4.  Michelle at I like orange too
5.  Stefanie (who also sells fabulous stationery!) at My Name is Stefanie and I'm a Craftaholic
6.  Kelly at SewKellySews
I'll leave it up to them whether they want to pass this along since these things come around a lot. :)