LOVE cross stitch

I've finally finished something! What a good feeling. The pattern was a free download I found on this site a few months ago. A few days before Valentine's Day I thought it would a nice little project to complete before the holiday. Obviously my time estimate for the project was a bit under-estimated.



It's not a color palette I would normally gravitate towards, but it's always good to push yourself to try new things! I especially like the ornate lines of the L. I may have to buy the patterns for the whole alphabet.

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In other news, the oh-so-talented Nicole at Mama Love Quilts awarded me a Liebster Award!

I've seen these on a few blogs recently and I think it's such a wonderful way to connect with new blogs! The Liebster Award goes to a deserving blog that has less than 200 followers.

Here are my award winning blogs:

Krista Stitched - another EPP enthusiast!

Kelsey Sews - I just came across her blog the other day because I liked her paper pieced mixer. She's also another Ohio girl!

Twelfth Zodiac - I envy her curves!

Heirloom Farmhouse - I found Sarah's blog through the Oliver + S sew along (her puppet theater is amazing!)

Dee's Doodles - another rose star block party-goer. I love all the bright, happy fabrics I see in her work

Go check 'em out!

WIP Wednesday - 2/22/12

I feel like I've been working on things quite a bit lately, but not actually completing anything. I considered starting a small project–something I could finish in a couple hours–just so I could get a sense of accomplishment. But I decided my crafty ADHD just needed to be stopped.

Rose Star Quilt



Making progress. SLOW progress. Sewing the individual blocks together seamed (ha!) to go so fast, but putting the blocks together with the white patches is dragging.

Weekends Tumbler Quilt



I cut some solid aqua tumblers, and I think that has helped, but I'm still not happy with this quilt. It may need to be tabled for a bit until I think of some other way to jazz up the contrast between all those prints.

Cross Stitch



And here's a little cross stitch I started in the last week. Apparently aqua is my color of choice this past week!

Linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday Linkup!

Free Motion

I received a free motion quilting foot for Christmas and this weekend I finally carved out enough time to sit down and play with it. I'm on top of things like that. We still need to decorate our gingerbread house too. No joke, the kit is still sitting on the shelf. Procrastination makes Christmas last all year long!



At first, I just tried to wing the free motion thing. I wasn't getting great results so I did a little googling. The best advice I found from Leah Day's site-- DON'T drop your feed dogs. That's contrary to everything else I've ever read about free motion, but it definitely helped me get better stitches. If you set your stitch length to zero the feed dogs don't try to pull the fabric through, but they're still there with a bit of grip underneath. It made me feel like the fabric wasn't jumping around quite so willy-nilly on me.



I still need lots and lots of practice. And who knows how long it will take before I have the guts to use it on an actual quilt, but for now using up all my "ugly" fabric for practice is pretty fun!

WIP Wednesday

I've been hoarding saving some Erin McMorris Weekends fabric for quite a while and I decided I need to be less precious about my fabric and JUST USE IT ALREADY. I have a tendency to squirrel away fabric until I can think of the perfect project for it. So to break my bad habits I spent some time with a (borrowed) Accuquilt Go! cutter this weekend and cut out some tumblers.



The original idea was to cut out enough for a pillow or maybe a little doll quilt, but once I got started I couldn't stop and I ended up with this stack. I didn't have a whole lot of this fabric anyway, so I just cut everything I had.



Unfortunately, when I laid out a handful of the tumblers to get a feel for what I was working with, I don't like it. There's not enough contrast, or maybe it's too busy... I'm not sure, but it's not working for me. I'm considering the addition of some solid aqua or that pinky-purple (lilac?) for more contrast, but any other suggestions would be welcome!

I've also made a little bit of progress on my rose star quilt. I'm sticking with the mini size layout, otherwise I think this could be another one of my hand piecing projects that goes on forever!



K's third birthday is coming up, and after making her birthday dress last year, I think I'd like to make a tradition out of it. I love the way that dress came out, too bad she grew out of it approximately five minutes after the party. This past week I found the fabric for this year's dress and now I need to decide on a pattern.



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And, for the first time, I'm linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday Linkup!

Three More

I've finished three more rose star blocks!
[Part of the rose star block party hosted by self sewn]







I'm getting to the point where I need to decide how far to take this. I'm thinking of this layout:



Which means I would only need to make two more half blocks (and all the background connecting patches, of course). But, oh my, isn't this one gorgeous?

Fat Quarterly – Geared Up Robot

See this cute little guy? I designed him and the pattern is in the newest issue of Fat Quarterly!



Sometimes I'm lucky enough to do some sewing for my day job and this is something I created for Electric Quilt, using EQ7 (it's not just for quilts!).

The issue is all about paper, and foundation piecing (aka paper piecing) is a technique I love to use. All the parts of the robot are paper-pieced: arms, legs, head, and body. Very easy with super cute results! My favorite part? Those flying geese arms and legs!

So, go check out the newest issue of Fat Quarterly and, if you have EQ7, download the project file here!