Oooh it was payday and there were sales. And you know that's just never a good combination. This is my first full paycheck since the Great Unemployment Drought and I knew I'd have a little fun money left over. I got some charm packs that I'd been looking forward to (Breath of Avignon, Eden, Make Life) and some extra yardage from a couple of online places (some leftover Neesha to finish Steve's Bear Paw of Manly Manliness quilt, and two American Jane basics, some orange from Recess and some yellow from Happy Campers) but the real haul was, believe it or not, from JoAnn's.

They started a big President's Day sale this weekend with all their quilting notions and Fiskars cutting stuff at 50% off and I scarfed a 40% off one item coupon and a 20% off the whole order coupon and headed off at lunch. Traffic tried to thwart me but I still managed a good bunch of loot:

• Quilt in a Day Triangle Square Up ruler
• Quilt in a Day Small Flying Geese ruler
• Omnigrid 4X14 ruler (I needed a ruler that wasn't square and wasn't my basic desk ruler)
• Two packages of machine quilting needles
• 4 yards of white muslin
• 8x8" rotating mat (my other rotating mat is 14x14 and sometimes that's just too big
• 5pk of rotary cutter blades
• Embroidery scissors (so I'm not using my hand-forged iron Viking snips on my applique projects)
• Feather template that will fit the borders of the Strawberry Parfait quilt
• Pack of Rolos (I'm PMS'ing, do not lecture me about my food, just be glad it was only one pack)

Grand total: Less than $50.

I just wanted to giggle my fool butt off. Normally just the rulers would have topped that price so I'm feeling quite victorious.

Also, I figured out a solution to the only problem I have with my new machine. The legs on the extension table fold up under themselves when I'm moving a quilt of any size around. And then I get cranky. And then I do dumb stuff like sew through my thumb. I looked at some of the custom made acrylic ones and though I'm actually making money these days I couldn't bring myself to spend $80 on something I'd actually have to wait 4 to 6 weeks for. Then I remembered a few things. Like, I have a hardware store and a jigsaw and a drill. Also a Dremel. So hopefully a trip to the hardware store and $15 will have this problem fixed next week. DIY funtime pictures to follow. Hopefully not of me drilling into my ear or something.

I made progress on the WIPs, too. Strawberry Parfait is about 2/3 finished. I have to take it in bunches or my wrists just ache like crazy. I may wait to finish this one until the extension table project is done. I got Chloe's circle scrappy quilt backed, basted, and quilted. I have to pick out some of the quilting on the border and patch one little bit on the back and I can get it bound and off to daycare with her. I'm starting to feel like I'm at least keeping up with my WIPs, which is nice.

We're off to do one of Steve's favorite events this weekend. Frostburn wasn't much fun last year but this year it should at least be above zero. And there will be Chloe hugs. I've missed her little face so much. I haven't told Steve that there's a quilting shop about 5 miles from where we'll be camping. I don't think he needs to know that just yet. It'll be our little secret.

I sadly lack pictures for this post so I'll leave you with this one. It's peripherally related to my quilting in that this is one of the reasons I got so much done this week, these are what's waiting outside my front door. Death strikes from above:

I enjoy the designing (or tweaking of others' designs), I love picking colors and piecing and I even love binding. Quilting is calming and meditative and cozy. But the real reason I do it, is so that at the end i can see this:

A most productive weekend.

We planned ahead and managed to get ourselves snowed in with S&C. Their house is more comfortable, their cable is more plentiful, and their company is superb. It was a great decision. And as thirty inches fell over the course of Friday night and Saturday, C and I worked on quilts, bags, pillowcases, layouts, playing with our machines, you name it.

Which means I was able to knock three UFOs off my list. My lovely sister-in-law's table runner is finished and ready to be mailed. My girlfriend's daughter (and my adopted neice) is getting a pillowcase for college and it is ready to go in an envelope as well. I finished the first of my shopping bags and I'm ready to go for more. The red and white HST quilt I'm making for myself (we nicknamed it Strawberry Parfait) got a backing and got basted and ready to quilt last night.

Also, the circle quilt I made off of Make it a Wonderful Life's tutorial is finished with the piecing. I measured it so I can decide on a backing. It's going to be my daughter's summer blanket for daycare so as much as I like the texure and feel of things like Moda's Snuggles or a good soft flannel, I'm wondering if that's too warm. Bah! I am unable to make a decision. Thoughts?

So with that I've knocked off at least half of the unfinished items on my list and I am free again to buy fabric! Just in time for payday on Friday and the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show on the 27th.

I'm thinking of rethinking that trip. I'm going to check the vendor list against the Lancaster show in March and do the math on whether a trip to VA Beach is worth it. The bus ride isn't cheap, but it is just a daytrip and I could be in my own bed that night. Decisions decisions.

Anyway, I started some new ones as well. (Because what I needed was more projects in the works) I started on a remake of the Moda Bakeshop bear paw quilt that was put up last week. It's wonderful and easy and perfect for my husband. He's a traditionalist when it comes to quilts and he likes his fabrics even more traditional. I found a fat quarter from the Neesha line and he loves it. I'll get a couple more FQ or half yards from the line to finish it up. Luckily the blocks are big so it works up very fast.

I've added a simple circle quilt done with the Delft Remix green prints I got for Christmas. They were calling out for a design big enough to show off their patterns and I think this fits without being too visually overwhelming.

I also am trying my hand at needleturn applique for the quilt I'm doing for my daughter's room. It's going to be long and involved but it'll be exactly what I want when it's finished. I held her up to the computer so she could see what it looked like and i said "What's that?" She answered "A qui-ult." With two syllables and a tone of wonder. She is made of awesome.

Strawberry Parfait Part 2

Where were we? Oh yes, all the little lovelies all ready to go. I put them in a bag and shook it up and randomly pulled them out to sew on. I only put one back if it was exactly the same as one touching it. The randomness turned out really well.

Here's the first of the blocks assembled. The place where it looks like I accidentally added in another white triangle instead of a red (upper left of the center diamond) is really a white with red stars on it. It's reading really light but it's not a problem. I may embroider around it. I may decide I just don't care and anyone who is close enough to see and critique it is close enough for me to punch in the nose.

And here we are all laid out on the "design wall" (large piece of felt hung from my living room bookcases, but hey, it works!) and looking so happy. this is just the top half, the rest will go on soon. I'm so pleased so far. And I promise, after this, no more cell phone pictures on the web!

Summer Coins

I got inspired by the baby coin quilt recipe over at Moda Bakeshop at decided to try one of my own. About the same time Connecting Threads sent out a nice update about one of their new collections. The "Sip of Summer" line looked just like the kind of thing I needed to see in the depths of winter. And I had a gift certificate left over from Christmas. Clearly fate was speaking to me.

I futzed some of the original measurements to get to what I needed, but the concept is the same. Here it is all laid out on the Emergency Backup Design Wall/Primary Basting Surface/Living Room Floor. See, don't those colors just look so happy??

Plus! It gave me a chance to flex my new freemotion foot. I got lots of hairballs and lots of eyelashes but I also got some good learning points. Like, for your first quilt don't pick a design that stops and starts all over the place, you're just asking to accidentally get it knotted around your rings.

Also, and this was the important lesson: You can joke about sewing through your thumb all you want, but when you *actually* sew through your thumb? It's time to go to bed.

Here's the mostly-finished product out for a field trip on my office conference table. It's casually draped over the edge but don't let that fool you, it's nervous and just trying to look cool.

Another first, my first pieced back! I wanted to finish it off in a yellow (my favorite color) but the fabric I had was only 45". So I put in a row of strips leftover from the front. I LOVE the result. I was doing the hand part of the binding at work. One of my co-workers came around the corner and said "Oh! I saw the blanket and I thought you were asleep back here!" Hee!

Strawberry Parfait: The saga begins

I started working on a quilt just for me. I fell in love with a red and white HST up at (I think) Cluck Cluck Sew and I thought "I must have that." Coincidentally I had grabbed a FQ pack from my quilt shop earlier in the year. So I sat down and got to work.

Here are all the white squares all measured, marked, and ready to go.

God bless chain piecing.

Ahhh! Pile up on I-95! Call the - oh wait.. a little tug from behind and all is well.

The bad part about HST? Squaring up every. single. one. At this point the quilt very nearly ended up being about 3 squares wide and about 2 squares tall. Just because I hate squaring up so much.

Dad's quilt

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This quilt was a Christmas present for my father. My second quilt ever, so I stuck with paper piecing and hand quilting. I loved it when it was finished. It's got a nice masculine color combination and it's very very soft. He uses it every night when he's watching TV, you can't ask for more than that!