A feature and an award

I got some fun stuff in my email this morning. 

First of all, I got a note saying that my doll quilt had been featured on a post about modern hand quilting at Falling for Pieces. Check out the other creations featured, they're pretty cool.

I also received a note from Leanne at she can quilt that she had awarded me the Stylish Blog Award. My blog is very happy to be considered stylish, even if the author isn't. 

As per the rules, I'm supposed to share seven things about myself and pass the award along to six other blogs.

Okay here goes:

 

1) I'm really not stylish at all. If I could I'd wear my pj's 24/7, but I'm always paranoid the Jehovah's Witnesses are going to come knocking and find me wearing cut off pajama pants and a ratty t-shirt. Oh wait, that's already happened. Twice. 

Let me just say It's really hard to argue theology when you're dressed like a homeless dude.

2) I like really nerdy things, like Star Trek and Star Wars and Stargate and other Star-related things.

3) The end of Toy Story 3 and Babe make me cry every SINGLE TIME I watch them. It's super embarassing.

4) I have exactly three quilts in my house that were made by me. If I watch tv at night, you can bet I'll be curled up under the cheap one I got out of the "as is" bin at Ikea. How wrong is that? But it's so fluffy!

5) Nearly every day of the week I subject myself to a lot of jumping, punching, and booty dancing to awful music. I have gotten a lot better at it, but not a lot skinnier. Drat.

6) Every single time I go anywhere, and I mean ANYWHERE, some person at some point will look at me and my kids and say, "Wow! Three boys, huh?" As if having three boys were some kind of bizarre anomaly. Or as if I should win some kind of special award for squeezing out three males.

7) If I could eat any food every day of the week it would be mangoes. Hands down. 

Okay, now to pass out awards of my own. I award.....drum rolll......

cotton lawn

Stitched in Color

Lily's Quilts

Don't Call Me Betsy

.you remind me of home.

from the trees a great parade

Some of these you probably know, some maybe not, not all are quilting/crafting blogs but I find them stylish nonetheless. So there. Duly awarded.

And I'm out.

The Heartbreaker

Anyone remember the old school Atari "Breakout" game? Well, for years now I've been wanting to make a quilt based on that game. I think it was the rainbow stripes that appealed to me the most. Anyway, at first I was planning on making a big one for my husband, but then I discovered that he wants me to make him something ridiculous and complicated that makes me want to curl into the fetal position and go night-night for a millennia or two. So the idea of a big one was scrapped. But after making my doll quilt I thought--why not just make a little one and get it out of my system?

So that's what I did. This took me a few days of leisurely putting around and gives me that happy, got-it-out-of-my-system, instant gratification feeling. Even with all the mistakes, miscalculations, and crooked quilting. I still love it. Plus I just think the heart is funny.

Now that I started and finished this little guy, I should probably get back to all the half-finished projects I've got laying around, dying for a lack of attention. But I don't wanna! I want more fast projects!!

Oh well.

Frankenstein, etc.

Okay, so remember when I promised to post some pics of the Ceylon dress I made? Here's one I took before it was completely finished:

I still hadn't sewn on the last four or five buttons, but when I did...disaster! I think the interfacing I chose is too heavy because all those buttons make the whole front of the skirt stick out in this really weird, crooked, irritating way. Plus when I took a good look at the back, the skirt is cut in such a way that when you stand really, really straight, it sticks out in this little tent right above the butt crack. Not attractive. Nobody likes a butt-crack tent. 

Needless to say, I was really bummed and annoyed about all this. I'm not really sure what to do about it just yet, and honestly I think I need some time away from it before I can even attempt to start altering it. :(

I also started (and finished) another dress. I really wanted to use some of the Innocent Crush voile to make a dress for Easter/just because. I picked this pattern to try it out:

 

Okay, don't ask me what I was thinking. Blousy, flowy, unstructured and lots of gathers does not go well on chubby chicks with big busts. Which I would have known had I not gotten lazy and opted not to make a muslin. Bad me! Oh well. After I lifted the waistline, chopped off the long cuffs on the sleeves, and attached an entirely different skirt to the bottom, it came out decent. And not even remotely resembling the original pattern. Which for my body is probably a good thing. I call the dress Frankenstein.

Please no comments on the horrible hair day I'm having, coupled with the fact that it's hard to get a good picture taken by a seven-year-old boy.

I've also been haphazardly working on my Charley Harper quilt--today I finished embroidering all the branches of the nerve cell and then fused all the pieces onto the white background fabric. I just need to get some thread to match all those colors so I can applique them on.

Humdeedoo. Hope you're all having a swell day.

Circular reasoning

Last night my husband was off having some man time at church, so I figured hey--might as well start on yet another project so I can have even MORE half-finished things laying all over my sewing room. So I went ahead and cut out all the petals for the Dresden quilt along. Just now I pieced them all together, and I have to admit it was satisfyingly fast.

Then I had the chance to try it against some different backgrounds to see which one I like best. Someone on Flickr suggested yellow, so I busted out my yellow Nicey Jane to try it out. BLECH. It was awful! The yellow "Wash Day Ticking" is one of my favorite fabrics ever and it nearly ruined it for me. I can't even describe how horrid and sickly and just...well...nasty it looked. So I decided to go for my old standby--gray!

I didn't want to go with Kona Ash because that's what I always pick, but decided instead on some Patty Young that I really like. I think the pattern is not so crazy as to make the whole thing too busy, but that could just be me.

On a related note, I am really bad about "skimming" directions. Things I especially don't notice are finished dimensions. I cut out enough for two circles, thinking, "Oh! These will be cute pillows!" But alas, the finished circle is hugemongous so unless that pillow is a floor cushion....wait....hmmmmm....

Light bulb.

Something winging your way

Today was the official earliest day to mail off the doll quilt I made for my partner. Naturally, I had to mail it today. I couldn't wait. And since I felt like a pincushion and quilt weren't enough, I made a little mug rug today to go with the package.

I like the way it came out, and while I am getting better at binding I didn't even notice that little pucker down there on the bottom left until AFTER I boxed the whole thing up. Arrgh. 

I realized I never took a picture of the label I made for the back of the quilt, so I remedied that oversight today.

Here's the whole package, already winging it's way north! Wink wink, nod nod. What? You don't think that's a very good hint since I live in Florida? Oh well. That's the best you're gonna get.

My Ridiculous To-Do List

I have no idea why I even make a to-do list, because as soon as I have the satisfaction of crossing off one thing, five more get added to the list. It's my own dang fault--I feel compelled to strike while the iron's hot when it comes to inspiration because who knows when it will come again. 

I recently joined yet another quilt along--this one is a dresden QAL from Lily's Quilts. I'm opting for the small, wall-hanging sized quilt because, well...I want to. And because I currently have way too many sewing projects to finish. Anyway, here are my fabric choices.

Lynne from Lily's Quilts commented on her blog that she is scared of making quilts from different fabric lines. I have the opposite problem. I feel like all the fun is sucked right out of quilting if I can't put completely unrelated fabrics together to see how it comes out. So far I've made exactly ONE quilt out of a coordinated layer cake, and it was so boring that I never even put the rest of it together. The quilt top is sitting on a shelf crumbled into a ball. That's how much I liked it. So while I have no idea if my weird fabrics are going to make a cohesive quilt, that is part of the fun for me. 

On a related note, I have a confession to make: I hate dresdens. I hate that they look like something my Granny would have had on her couch. I've been mentally and sometimes vocally hating on them for the past six months. But when I saw this quilt along I thought, wait! I didn't know they could be made sans pointy petals! I've been in love with the color wheel quilt on Purl for two years and that is basically a dresden that doesn't look like a flower. So of course I HAD to join this group, even if I already have too much on my plate, if for no reason than to prove to myself that maybe the hated dresden isn't so bad after all.

Charley Harper quilt along {a beginning}

Yesterday I started up my Charley Harper quilt. After very little deliberation I decided to go with the cell illustration--the microbes in the water seemed too fussy, and the satellite looks too much like the Death Star from Star Wars. 

I just happened to have all the Kona solids I wanted to match the picture (I still have no idea how THAT happened but I'll glad take the fortuitous fabric surplus) so all I had to do was fuse fabrics and arrange patterns. It was fun. And I have to say I LOOOOOVE where this is going--I have an obsession with cells and microbes, not to mention the mod, graphic style of the illustrations. 

I hope the end result is as fun as the starting was!

He loves us

I don't have TV, so I usually miss out on all the day to day news, things going on in the world, etc.

But this morning my sister-in-law emailed me about the earthquake in Japan, and it just makes me feel sick inside. It's hard not to feel sick watching fields, cars, houses, and airports being washed away by giant waves.

Part of the reason I feel so ill is that I don't know how to express my heartfelt desire that every person out there would come to know God as I have over the years. He is so good, He loves us so much. I know a lot of people would look at this disaster in Japan and say, "How could a God who loves us allow something like this to happen?" And the answer is that I don't exactly know. I won't pretend I understand Him completely. If I could then He probably wouldn't be God. But I do know, unequivocally and with no doubts, that He loves every one of us and wants us to love Him. He'll do whatever it takes to shake people out of their apathy. If you don't know God, then I ask--why not?

I am fully aware that loads of you are probably thinking, "Ewww...why did she have to bring all this religious stuff into it? I wanted a crafty blog!!" But for this very moment I'm gonna say too darn bad. I won't back down from this--I love God, I've seen over and over again in my life and in others' lives how much He loves us, and I won't be deterred from this opportunity to shout it out to my few little readers--God loves you! He loves all of you. He loves the people of Japan in the midst of this crisis. He loves the people of Haiti, and India, the people who lost homes in Tennessee. Bad events don't mean indifference or hatred on His part. Think of it as an intervention. It hurts, but if you accept it, it can heal.

Okay, I'm done.

Decision

I don't know about you all, but the first thing I ever learned how to sew was a pillow. Two squares of fabric, four seams, and some stuffing followed by some inexpert stitching closed of the hole...practical, yet not thrilling. Thus in my mind pillows were always some boring, ho-hum thing I'd sew once every few years when I got tired of my old ones. But in the process of making this pillow I began to realize how creative you can get and how fabulous the result can be when making them. When my friend Elizabeth and I decided to do this little one-to-one swap, and she suggested pillows my first thought was, "Ughhhhhh...pillows." But now I'm so inspired I want to make fifty different designs and have my whole house overflowing with pillows!!

So anyway, the debate about wood vs. white raged on both here and on Flickr, but nothing was helping. In the end I decided to just go ahead and ask Elizabeth which she would prefer. She was just as conflicted but ultimately decided on wooden. So today I sewed on 12 wooden buttons and made the buttonholes for the back. I also made a pillow insert since this isn't a standard sized pillow, and the washed the cover to make sure that it didn't shrink so much the pillow wouldn't fit inside. It came out great!

Here it is, all finished and sitting pretty.

Here's the back. You can tell from the bursting buttons that I stuffed this sucker to capacity. Nothing annoys me more than a floppy, half-full pillow. Yuck.

And here it is looking all pretty in my chair. It's telling me it wants to stay here forever, but I told it, "Tough noogies, you have to get out." It cried for awhile but I think it will like its new home. 

Here's to the happy dance that follows a successful finished product. Woohoo!

Indecision

I'm befuddled.

I don't know which to pick. Help!!

I really do think I like white better, despite the fact that I love wooden buttons with bright white and colors. Here's where you offer up your opinions on the altar of my indecision. I will await them with much nail-biting and stomach-squirming.

Humdeedoo....

The Fruit of an Icky Day

Yesterday was, for lack of a better word--ICKY.

Okay so nothing truly awful happened, and I know I have a lot to be grateful for...but still. It was one of those days where by the end of it you burst into tears for no apparent reason and it feels like you're wearing your shoulders as earrings cause you're so tense. 

Part of it was being stuck in the back room for half the day with loud children because the carpets were getting cleaned. Part of it was one of those children went HOURS past naptime because the carpet cleaning guy was extremely late and the room with the crib needed to be cleaned. Another part was having an ice-cold house with wet carpets all day. Part of it was waiting in a doctors office for over an hour just to have that doctor come in and say, Oh, you came in for nothing. Which is something to be grateful for on the one hand, but it did nothing to improve my mood.

The whole day was like one long, tense, loud, uncomfortable mess. BUT.

Since I was stuck in the back room which also happens to be where I sew, I figured I might as well work on some stuff. First off I made my blocks for this months do. Good Stitches quilt.

Then I worked on this little project. Yes, I really did try cathedral windows again. I was wondering if maybe making big ones would make them more fun. The answer is no, not really, but this time I didn't burn my fingers with the iron as much so that's good. And I do LOVE this look, so it makes the irritation of the process fade quickly when you behold the finished product.

I want to add buttons to the intersections but I can't decide if it would look better with white or light wooden buttons. Thoughts?

Looking for some quiet time

This last week has been nuts. Homeschooling, car buying, park day (my ability to go being thanks to the car buying--yay!!) women's conference at church, gardening, pressure washing...the list goes on.

With all this craziness going on I haven't even touched my sewing machine. I've got so many ideas floating around in the ether of my overly full brain but I can't seem to nail myself down to start any of them. 

I did manage to come up with MORE inspiration, though. For that day, sometime soon I hope, when I feel like doing something other than laying around with a book or vegging in front of the computer.

I was recently invited to take part in the Charley Harper Quilt Along on Flickr, and it's something I'm pretty excited about. Not excited enough to, y'know, start sewing or anything, but definitely excited enough to go, "Ooooooh....I'm excited." Ahem. Anyway.

I've really gotten into his illustrations over the last few years, but I don't really feel like making anything with a bird on it, thanks to my sister-in-law emailing me that video. And Charley Harper did a lot of birds. Instead, I find myself inspired by biology and space. Which is so totally out of character for me. I'm just shaking things up a bit. Breaking out of my rut. Going out on a limb.

On a side note, I find it difficult to convey sarcasm when I'm typing. That's something I'll have to work on. 

On another side note, having a car of one's own after 3.5 years of not having a car of ones own makes one feel very happy and liberated and relieved and did I say relieved already. 

On a further, additional, exceedingly important side note, I'm really, stupendously, totally starving. 

 I think I should go before I think of another side note.