Finished Quilts!!

I finally got around to placing the binding on these three quilts. I don't know why I was procrastinating so much. After I made my own binding and put it on the first quilt, it just clicked. Now it goes rather quickly and smoothly. The Barbie quilt has a binding made from all the pieces that are in the quilt. The two ABC quilts have a turquoise color binding that I made from the remnants of a sheet that I used to make my nieces quilt.

The only thing that gave me a hard time was squaring up the Barbie quilt. I learned (the hard way of course) to square everything up BEFORE I quilt it. Since both the front and back are pieced neither matched up. I laid it out on my kitchen floor and used the 12 inch ceramic tiles to help me square it up. Not saying that whoever laid the tiles got them square, but it was close enough to work for me.

I'm pretty sure one of the ABC quilts will be going to our Grandson Nathan for Christmas. He will be one in June and I think this would be a nice quilt for him. I have no idea about the other two. I guess they will be put in my ArtFire shop later this week.

You Can Quilt This

The crafty people over at You Can Make This are starting up a new website called You Can Quilt This. It is scheduled to be up and running in April. While we wait, we can take a chance at winning a Marie Osmond Quilter’s Companion sewing machine from Janome. I love YCMT and I'm sure the new quilting site will be just as informative.

Chemistry

Freely Educate is hosting a give-a-way from Friendly Chemistry. We love to do chemistry experiments and this would be a great resource. There are so many fun things to learn about chemistry/science that it is nice to have some guidelines to go by. Although it has been fun learning as we go. It has made for some very interesting days.

I like how they have this saying on the top of their page:

Because everyone wants a "painless" way to learn chemistry.

Kenny the Frog

Robbie always likes to make a weird face when I take his picture. Crazy kid!

I have a few skeins of spring green yarn sitting around waiting to be made into something. I looked at it one day and decided...DUH!! It needs to be a frog!

I love Kristie's patterns and was lucky enough to be a tester a couple years ago for her Piggy Back Pals 2 pattern. I highly recommend any and all of her patterns - even for beginners. She designs some fun and easy to follow patterns. Her Backpack Baby is a great pattern for the little girl in your life. With Easter coming soon, it might be a nice alternative to all the candy the kids are hoping to get.

In the binding pile

The Barbie quilt is made from a stack of fat quarters I've had laying around for a couple years. Trying to find different ways to use up the stack. I've put a pretty good dent in it now.


I have two of these ABC quilts done. I bought this fabric over a year ago and thought it would make great pillowcases or something. Then, I needed a quick quilt for a co-worker to take to a baby shower. This fabric works great for a baby quilt. The alphabet repeats twice on it. I love the vibrant colors and the different things each letter represents.


I have three quilts waiting for their binding. I am so proud of myself for actually get this far. When I first started thinking about making quilts, it was very scary and overwhelming. Now, I spend most of my day thinking of different things to make and how I might quilt them.

I'm really getting hooked on free motion quilting too! Even the family loves all the squiggles that show up on the back. These three quilts just have some straight stitches though. With the design of the quilts, I figured it would be better to just make a few lines.

The Barbie quilt has strips and pieces of the Barbie fabric for its backing. The ABC quilts have some fabric I dyed a turqouise-ish color for their backs.

I have the bindings cut for all three, just not sewn together and pressed yet. That will probably be done this weekend. My asthma is flaring again and I'm afraid to do anything to big right now. I have a tendency to get a bit wobbly with my sewing when I'm not breathing right. Don't want to be too friendly with the seam ripper :)

Butterflies in flight

A week or so ago I finished Savannah's butterfly quilt. I'm just waiting for the correct spelling of her whole name so I can add it to the label. I plan on sending it out as part of an Easter package. I still need to make a few headbands for her and her sisters. Her little brother will be getting a little something to, just not sure what yet.




I love all the butterflies on the back! It was so windy out the day I took the pic of the front, Robbie had to lend a helping hand or two. He was very concerned he would be seen in a photo holding a girl's quilt. I told him nobody would know it's him. I guess I let the cat out of the bag...hehe. Oh well, I'm sure he will survive :)

A wannabe hoodie is now an afghan

Sometime last year I was crocheting granny squares to make a hooded sweater for my granddaughter Mariah. Well, time and ambition got away from me and I never did make all 80 or so squares. I decided to just stitch them all together and call it a day. Now I have a nice squishy baby or doll afghan in my shop.

Rapid Cart on ArtFire

Have you seen the new Rapid Cart widget to the right of my blog? This is a new feature on ArtFire . This little widget allows customers to purchase my goodies directly, without being redirected to another website or requiring them to create an account anywhere. Makes things easier, right? You can put this widget on just about any website, turning the website it into a mini store.

Have you signed up for an ArtFire seller's account yet? If you haven't now is the time to sign up. Instead of charging listing and selling fees, Art Fire charges a monthly membership fee. The normal charge is $20 a month, but they are offering a limited number of accounts for only $7 a month. If you sign up now, you'll get to keep that discounted price for life.


REGISTER ON ARTFIRE

Viking Hat Pattern

I've decided to make my Viking Hat pattern available to purchase through both my Etsy shop and my ArtFire shop. Right now I only have the baby (newborn) and toddler size listed. I still have to type up the child and adult sizes. These are all crochet. I want to also put up the knit versions, but I need to make a couple hats to check the patterns(s) first.

The Farm Chicks Surprise Give-a-way

I love reading The Farm Chicks web journal. There's always something good to look at. They have some delicious looking recipes that are on my to do list.

Anyways....they are having a surprise give-a-way. We don't know what it is yet, but I'm sure it will be great!