Goodbye 2009... Hello 2010!

Wow, this seems totally surreal to write - Hello 2010!!

May all of your new year wishes and resolutions come true.

Once, a while ago, my father told me that his resolution every year was to become a better person than he was last year. So Daddy, this one's for you: it's my resolution too, I will be a better person than I was last year.

I miss you Daddy. I can't believe that in May it'll be 3 years since you've left us.

And my other (hopefully stuck to resolutions):
~ Complete 4 baby quilts for Co-Workers
~ Complete my Coffee Quilt
~ Quilt the Red and White monstrosity.. (we'll see on this one)
~ Participate in at least 6 mini swaps
~ Get to 25 states for my personal mini challenge! :)
~ Make 15 mini quilts for the AAQI and my $1000 challenge
~ open up my own little store to sell mini quilt kits and mini quilts
~ Lose 25 pounds or more.

And on Monday - 6 mini quilts are getting mailed out!! So if you've been on my list of mini swappers (personal swaps) be on the lookout!

I promised Pictures!

And here they are!

My new baby:


And what I've made on it:
Well, I finally quilted the fall mini quilt swap. This'll be mailed with 4 other swaps this coming week, either tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on when I can get out of the house for a bit after Christmas clean-up.



Close up of the quilting:

Finally quilted. I chose to use the new machine and do a leaf motif in the white parts of the quilt, and then do swirly lines on the diagonal through the yellowy/orange squares.

I am totally thrilled with how this one came out. I only hope my partner is as thrilled as I am.

I have just enough of the gold/yellow to make myself one.. this one hurts to part with.. it really does.

This one I did hand applique for the leaf and some new decorative stitching around it. It's for Raesha on Flikr, but I'm still waiting on her address to send it to her.


And the back:

This is the back of the mini for Raesha. I just loved the center fabric and it was gold and brown and just "fall-like" to me.

And I kept playing more with the new machine. I signed up for the January STUD quilt swap with the theme of Rainbows:


I actually made my mini's top.. can you guess what I did with these fabrics?? :D

More pictures of Christmas coming soon - gotta get the photos off of my mom's camera and then I'll pick some good ones to post here!

And more

Thanksgiving has been here and passed.. and I'm still no where near more ready for Christmas. Mom and I went out shopping on Black Friday, and did most of the shopping then (I was in Kohl's three times!!!) and got most of my gifts. Now they're all hidden all over the house (so Bean doesn't find them, or the hubby) and I have to get them wrapped. Now all I need is more time! :)

Here's more of what I've been working on (instead of wrapping!!)

For Dee, only a little sneak peak: Yours is in the mail on Monday. I finished part 2! :)


This was the mini quilt that I sent to Maya for the Four Seasons Holiday Quilt Swap. She did receive it (so now I can post it!), but was away for Thanksgiving so it took her a little bit to respond.



This is the beautiful Mini I received in the swap from the extremely talented Sara:



Would you believe she said this was her first time doing embroidery?? It's too perfect, and already hanging up on our walls.

This was one I was late on, it was for STUD October to Kathy: (She did receive it in November, I just got around to uploading it.



And...
I conquered Triangles!!
I'm still nervous about making them, but I'm no longer scared.

Show N Tell

Here are the other things that I've been working on lately.

This mini is going to a lovely lady in a personal swap:



It actually has been bound already, just need to label it.

Here's a close up of the hand quilting:


And this real mini quilt will be going in the package as well:


For Scale:


For Aunt Pitty Pat's Christmas Swap:
I'm in 2 groups, so I need to make 24 9-Patch blocks.
Here are 12 for Group 2.


This shows a truer color:


4 Seasons Holiday Quilt Swap:
This is it unbound, I just need to upload one of it that was bound.


Idea for the Inspired by the Fall swap:


I didn't sew anything for it yet - just playing with some placement.

First Snowfall is DONE! And a WIP

I just have to add the label to it and then I can show everyone! Next time I get it in my head to hand quilt with metallic thread, just smack me. It was so tough to get the quilting right with it. After one swirl, I realized I needed to double the thread (I know Quilt Police.. I know) but I was constantly breaking the thread and the only way I could get it to work and not break was to double it up. But in the end I think the doubled up metallic silver thread really looks awesome, and it looks like swirly snowflakes quilted in..

Hehe.. you have to wait until tomorrow to see the final photos.

And now, I've got no idea what to do with it, or where to put it. Terry and I moved into our house at the end of June, so our walls are still pretty bare.. and I'd like to keep it up for all of winter I think.

And just for fun.. here's Terry and me:


This is the WIP I was mentioning before:


This is going to probably also be hand quilted - the blocks are 12.5 inches each. Terry wanted me to make it for our wedding - 3 years ago! Oops.. I never finished it. I'm unsure of what design to quilt in it, I was thinking in each of the larger blocks something that is representative of us.. maybe in one block an outline of the USA, and one of the UK.. maybe an airplane, I'm just not sure. The quilt is about 120x120 without an extra border, and maybe I won't add one. I'm unsure about that. What would you do?

Butterfly Garden - Is Flying

Butterfly Garden is flying to its new home in California. I got the binding on it, and I'm pretty proud of my binding and corners on this one. And the label I made into the shape of a butterfly.

I've got a few new things coming up for ya'll to see tomorrow..

But.. adios Butterfly Garden!






And.. one more corner of hand stitching to go, then I'm able to bind First Snowfall. Only 3 more swirls to go!




And for the back - you can see the metallic thread here better:

Practicing Machine Quilting (And Hand!)

By blog hopping by chance, I found this awesome site that helps show you how to do free motion quilting. And she's got some You Tube videos too: Free Motion Quilting

I've got an older machine, my trusty White, and it's been giving me some hiccups. I'm trying with it, but sometimes it's just sticking - and I've oiled it. So I'm going to practice with some of these new techniques that I've learned and hope my machine stitching gets better. But no matter what, I still love hand-quilting little projects. They're just so much fun and relaxing.

Speaking of hand quilting - I'm making more progress on "First Snowfall" It's almost totally done now, just a few (10 or so) more curly-q's.

Progress Photos:
The front of First Snowfall:


If you look close you can see the disappearing ink pen for my guide.

And here's the back:


I used the same white on white fabric on the back as I did on the front for the triangles and the borders. I'm really loving this quilt - but I'm not sure what I want to do with it when it's done. This was originally going to go to the Holiday Quilt Swap - but it's too small by 2 inches for the minimum size so that's out!

I'm working on the final one that will be going to my Holiday Quilt Swap Partner - that one is Penguins! And I'll have a photo of the 3/4 finished top soon - probably in a day or so.

And this is the floor after JellyBean reaches into one of her toy boxes.. Not that I mind in the least bit.

Phew - I can show off!

On Flikr there's a swap group called Swap Till U Drop (STUD) and I participated in my first swap with them for September. I picked the theme Anything Goes and got my partner, quiltinlady21. We were partnered up on the 1st, and I mailed out my quilt on Monday the 14th! Quiltinlady21 mailed hers out to me on Friday the 11th, and I got mine on Saturday.

Here's what I got:
The absolutely gorgeous front:


And the back:



And this is the one that I sent out. I called it Autumn Moon. It was inspired by a free stained glass pattern I found online. It was the first time that I'd tried a machine applique and hand-quilting on something this small! I'm super duper proud of it (It was so hard to let it go, but I know it's in a great new home)


Close up of the machine applique and hand quilting:


And the back. I wanted the label to be creative, so I free hand drew the same pattern on the front for the label.



And this one is going to be going to my Stitchers Angel. The theme is Roses, and I had some scraps of rose fabrics left, so I decided to make a mini quilt. It's teeny tiny - only 6" square. Super fun to make, I hope she likes it.


And, I won a coin purse from this giveaway!
Giveaway - Ends 9 Sept


I'm now patiently waiting for it to arrive in the mail. Well, maybe not so patiently, but I am waiting. :)

One Mini Quilt Top Done!

Whoo hoo! JellyBean went to bed last night at 8:30, and Terry went to bed right after because he was tired from all the driving he did on Saturday and playing in the pool with JellyBean and my mom yesterday so I got some sewing time in! I'm so excited.

I was going to send this quiltie away for the Holiday/Winter Quilt Swap, but I made another one that I think is going to be much better because it'll have some more space for me to quilt. So this is a quiltie that I'm going to keep and use as a wall hanging. But I got 2 mini quilt tops done yesterday, and the pieces for my grandmothers eyeglass case are cut out and ready to be quilted.

So here's my Quilt Top. I'm calling it First Snowfall.
I went from these:


To:


And finally:


To give you an idea of how tiny the blue pieces are, I cut them into 1 inch strips, so they're about a 1/2 inch finished.




And here's the only sneak peak that I'm giving for the Holiday/Winter Quilt Swap. I've taken most of your suggestions and am going to quilt this up in a day or so (maybe tonight?)


And a photo of my little dollar store pail that I filled with scraps and garbage during my quilting last night:


And if you get a chance - go here: Prairies Edge Primitives for a chance to win a gorgeous pin keep.

Sneak Peaks and more Progress

Whoo hoo. I realized as I was packing up my Scrappy Christmas Block Swap blocks to go to my partners, that they were 1 inch short. I thought I'd fixed them up, but I guess I didn't. So, I had to seam rip all of them and just have to add 1 more border to each block and then - off and mailing!

But here are the blocks so far:




And here is Aunt Janet's Dresden Plate in the process. The petals are sewn together and I'm appliqueing the center. No idea what color background it's going to go on, but I'm really liking it so far.



And as a possible quilt for the Holiday Quilt Swap - here's one sneaky peaky..


Possible Embellishments?



Or here's a pattern for the other idea I'm debating with: