So I've had pictures for a while but the only working SD card reader is at home and for the past week I've been ready to just fall down, not get online and deal with photos. But now it's Friday and work today is data entry and so... picture time!

The scrappy circle quilt is finally finished. I need to pick out about 8" more of stitches from the failed decorative stitch but by Monday it will be ready for Steve to give to his department head, the proud new mother of a baby girl.



I pieced the back with a row of patches left over from the front fabric. I love working with this white, it's so soft and it has that lovely worn feel.




For the binding I picked a fabric that doesn't show up anywhere else in the quilt but it made me happy just to look at it, and I figured that was reason enough.



The other thing I finished last weekend was my baby pinwheel quilt with prairie points. I snagged the pattern from the Moda Bakeshop and picked A Breath of Avignon for the fabrics. It's like this great summer pop. I love it. It's on the way to live with my friend Ronnie.

No in-progress pictures because I whipped it out really fast. Steve and Chloe were having some time with Grandpa and I was home with my favorite sewing buddy and we just moved really fast on some stuff. I guess that's what happens when you're not responsible for wiping someone else's butt. ;)



Can you tell that I love these fabrics?




This weekend we're house hunting so I'm not sure how much sewing I'm going to get done, but I love this pinwheel so much that I want to make it out of every fabric I have. My next one will be all oranges. We'll see how it turns out. If nothing else I can use it to stop up the draft under the door.

I had a very nearly perfect weekend. Saturday there were hugs and cuddles with Chloe and then a whole afternoon and evening to MYSELF! Sewing! Cleaning! TV shows no one else likes!

I pulled out the Breath of Avignon charm pack that came last week and decided that the colors just made me too happy to put them back in a box. So I started cutting for one of the Baby Pinwheel quilts from the Bakeshop. They came together so fast! By Sunday night it was done with the binding ready to fold over and sew down. Should have it ready to go to it's new owner on Wednesday. Pictures to come!

At some point my bff showed up at we went shopping. Not girlie shopping, we're not that type. Home Depot shopping. I love how that place smells. We picked out some MDF and a nice thick dowel rod for Operation Make My Own Extension Table. While we were out we also test drove sewing machines for BFF. She and I have the same problem, we've done all our sewing on old (extremely reliable) mechanical machines. I think until I got my new machine in January neither of us had a machine younger than us.

I got to drive the Bernina 820 on the Inspira frame. BFF drove the Aurora 440QE. To be honest? We didn't like them. The BSR got in my way on the 820 and wouldn't let me move as fast as I wanted to, and the action on the Aurora wasn't as nice as BFF wanted. Plus? We currently are using our kidneys and can't sell them to pay for either of those machines.

Across the street from the Bernina dealer is a dealer who sells both Pfaff and Viking. There were test drives of the Sapphire 850 and the Grand Expression 4.0 QE. She walked out with the Pfaff. Well researched, well deliberated, and money well spent. She kept giggling as she tried out new stitches.

The one thing I didn't get done was the templates for my mariner's compass blocks. I had the absolute joy of taking a class on hand piecing that block from Jinny Beyer. What a lovely delightful woman. It was snowing like crazy during our class and she kept reassuring everyone that she had plenty of crash space. Plus, she had the most sympathetic look ever when she told me I'd sewn two of my pieces on upside down. Nothing warms your heart like hearing your idol say "I hate to tell you this, but they're upside down." :D

Anyway, I have plans for a quilt with hand pieced blocks and I keep not getting my templates cut out. Maybe tonight. The blocks I'm going to make are versions of the local Quilters Quest blocks from last year's quest. With 12 blocks to choose from and include the finished quilts are gorgeous. Here's the one hanging at Jinny's shop:



I love it so.

Ok, time for work so I can do binding at lunch. Pictures of pinwheels later!

My lovely little envelope from the Fat Quarter Shop arrived last night. I may have actually squealed a bit in the kitchen when I saw it. It was just a couple of random yards and some charm packs but I have plans for some and none for others and it just seems like a little package of possibilities.

I think it's important to make things seem accessible to kids. With that in mind we try hard to teach Chloe the safe way to interact with objects rather than to just tell her not to touch them and not give her any reason she can understand. Which means that I usually let her play with just about any of my sewing stuff she wants. The rotary cutter and scissors get put away but she can dig around in the chalk and the pounce pad and even the pin cushion. If you ask her about pins she says "Always hold them by the circle!" and so she does. She just wants to move all the pins out of the "potato" and in to the couch cushion and then back again.

So when I pulled the charm packs out she immediately wanted to see them, touch them, talk about the polka dots and the stripes and say "This ones is my quilt fabric." I love seeing her interested and fascinated and I hope she gets a love for the pure tactile sensations of it. Which is why I don't mind the aftermath.

Charm pack before Chloe:





Charm pack after Chloe:

Quilts in progress: The Scrappy Circle Edition

Chloe's been getting a touch too big for the quilt she uses at daycare so I wanted to make her a bigger one. I went for scrappy, machine quilted, and fast because I know that this will get serious use and some amount of beating up. She's a toddler, they're not known for being delicate with their things.

I dug in my scrap boxes and found some of the girliest, sweetest stuff I could. The border is kind of a random piano keys thing. I took leftover bits from after I cut the circles and made them all 2" wide and then just however long they wanted to be. So all the pieces of the border are different lengths. I think it both adds to the scrappiness and pulls it all together. This isn't a masterpiece but it makes me happy to look at it and I know that Chloe will be warm and cozy underneath it.

I've been bringing it to work to pick out the decorative stitch I put around the narrow pink border (mistake! mistake!) so I took the opportunity to get some pictures of it even though it's not bound yet and so the batting is hanging all over the place.

Here it is lounging around on the conference table, basking in the afternoon sun. It's so -OMG the glare! the glare! I have to quit taking cell phone pictures with direct sun shining on white muslin. Yikes.



Here's a decent shot of the borders and the basic loopy quilting. I love that pink paisley, it's so stinkin' girly.

But this one, this is my favorite. I don't know why but something about the juxtaposition of the kind of formal stripes with the bright pinks and yellows just floats my boat.

Ah, here's our darling out of the direct sunlight. I ended up draping it over a railing in the office and all the coworkers are like "Have you lost your mind?" Possibly. Quite possibly.

But I've enjoyed every moment.

New Sewing Rule: The more adorable a special decorative stitch is, the bigger a pain in the butt it will be to pick out when you get the length/width wrong.

These cute little daisies looked so great on the test patch.. and on about 3/4 of this border they look great. But that last 1/4? It's taking me hours to get them out. From now on they only go on sleeve cuffs. :) (Also, omg I need a new seam ripper so bad. This one is acting like it's been through the garbage disposal. And we don't even *have* a garbage disposal.)

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: