Anniversary, a Yarn Shop, a Top Done, and Pets on Quilts!

John and I celebrated our 5th anniversary last Saturday, and mainly chose to just spend time together.

 

 

 

We went to the Tri-Cities, which is the closest thing we have to a big city in this corner of Washington, and wandered around the mall, Craft Warehouse, the motorcycle shop, and even went up to Prosser and visited the Sewing Basket.  I am pretty excited about the pillow case kit I bought, it's Coca-Cola fabric.  Their kit selection has grown immensely!  I only noticed because I managed to trip over a pile of them at one point.

 

As we were driving around I spotted a strip mall behind an Albertson's in Richland, and John said we should go explore the shops, as there was a specialty bicycle shop as well as a yarn shop.  The yarn shop was amazing!  Check this out:

 



 

They have a fabulous variety of color and type, I highly recommend visiting their website.  I linked the photos so you can click on any of them to be taken there.  And if you're nearby, I stop in and visit with the ladies and Winston the shop dog.  Nothing beats handling the fibers in person, or seeing the vibrancy of the colors.

We met Debra and Holly Folger when we stopped in, and Debra taught us about drop spindles, which I had not heard of before.  It was fascinating for me.



 

These vases and bowls are being made by a friend of Debra's (Robert Skiba is his name) and she's selling them for him.  I guess he was going to just throw them away... NOOO!  I'm so glad she talked him out of doing so.  I love this white and black one.  I ended up buying a skein of Merino Wool, the tag says "malabrigo" as the brand name.  I am not well versed in yarns, but I do crochet on occasion and this wool is SUPER soft, so I am making a surprise for my mom.  I have decided I want some red and green for myself, maybe enough to make a small lap blanket with, I am loving the feel of this wool.

 

My sister's birthday was Thursday, and I got the top of her quilt complete and given to her, as well as a pillowcase.  She got to keep the pillowcase, I made her give me back the top...

 

It was really windy after dinner, so this was Jen's initial way of displaying her quilt top.

She is only showing half of the quilt, it turned out to be a great size!  Lengthwise it will cover a person head to toe, sideways it can cover two people on the couch nicely.  She's excited for it to be finished up.  I just need to work on cutting out the pieces for the back.

 

Belle was helping me work on the layout for the back of Jen's quilt a few weeks ago, which reminds me...

 

Coming in August!  Click the picture to visit Lily Pad Quilting to learn more about the sponsors and their giveaways.  All you do is take a photo of your pet on a quilt, submit it to the linky party in August, then vote for your favorite after the linky party closes.  They also do random drawings for winners.  I was so fortunate last year, I was a random drawing winner for a $35 gift certificate to Abbi Mays Fabric Shop!  My favorite parts of the Pets on Quilts show is reading the funny stories, seeing all the different Quilt Inspectors, and all the amazing quilts.  Hopefully you will join in the fun this year!

 

Ok, I have laid in bed all morning, and the cats keep coming in and telling me to eat, so I best get on my way.  I'm surprised John has let me stay in here this long, he knows I have quilting to get done!

 

Let's all get out there and sew!

~Brandy

 

Or go soak up some sun!

Hearts & Flowers, Tiara Time, WIPs

I'm so glad to be back to sewing!  I had a break there for a bit, as I was preparing for my new job, which I have now been at for a whole month.  I am the new receptionist for an engineering firm, and am incredibly happy about my new job.  I get to learn about all sorts of different things involving engineering, biology, water flow rates, and my grammar/proofreading skills are going to increase exponentially. I mean, who doesn't want to know these things?  LOL  (FYI, I went to school for engineering and then for oceanography before I switched to art.)

 

On March 19th we had a sew-in for the Hearts & Flowers section of our guild.  I can't recall if I have shared what we do for Hearts & Flowers, so I will explain.  The guild asks our members to donate 6.5 inch blocks of nine-patches, heart, and flower themed blocks.  Then usually twice a year we get together and sew up the blocks into tops to then be quilted and bound by whoever donates their time to do so.

The ladies setting up.  I brought my White as I am most comfortable working with it for piecing, and I knew we'd be at it for at least 6 hours.

 

I received a great new sweatshirt from John for my birthday.

 

I dedicated this time to be Tiara Time.  To see the post that inspired the idea, visit my friend Ronnie at Road Home Quilting.  I read this on her blog a few weeks before the sew-in, and love the idea of when the tiara goes on, it's MY time.  I can see how this would be really applicable when a person has children.  The ladies at the sew-in also think the idea is pretty neat, we talked about sharing it with the guild at one of the meetings, I'll have to bring it up again.

 

After sorting through the stacks of finished blocks I found I was one short so I whipped this block up.

 

You can see my block in the upper right hand area.  I was drawn to the green and blue blocks that day.  Mainly because most of the other tops assembled were in the pink and purple range.

 

This was a top in process that Sherry and Kay were assembling.

 

 Mona assembled this one, she actually got at least 2, if not 3 together.  She was working with four-patches that consisted of 2 nine-patches and two heart/flower blocks, and they go together much faster than individual blocks.  Which may be why the group leader requested them, come to think of it...

 

Me plugging away at assembling my top.

 

The nine of us completed six tops, which is pretty amazing!

 

I took home fabric I had picked out for the borders, and finished my top in time for our next guild meeting, which was actually a Symposium.  So I dropped it at the front door then wandered around learning about all sorts of things, like different styles of applique and that a gentleman who just started quilting 7 months ago is hosting a sew-in at our local quilt shop and we will be making sailboat quilts.  I also picked up 4 packets of nine-patch makings for our guild's raffle quilt, which will be laid out as shown below:

 

Lots of nine-patches!  These are little guys, they will finish at 3 inches.

 

My current project is working on my sister's birthday present, her birthday is May 19, so I have a couple weeks to get this done!  The pattern is one a member of our guild created, and I was so inspired I immediately bought fabric to make one myself.  I do wish I could have taken her class, but funding prevents that from happening.  One of these days...

Last weekend I was able to get it up on the design wall and organize the four-patches into a comfortable setting.  It was more work than I thought it would be, and is probably why I don't usually go scrappy.  I had to walk away at least 6 times so I could be level-headed during this process.

 

Also, I completed my niece Susie's quilt!  We sent it down to Arizona, and my brother-in-law Shannon sent us a photo of her unwrapping it.  I hope she has many adventures with it!

I really appreciate John's help, every time.  Also, look at this sweet flanged binding!

 

Of course, the cat's have been terribly helpful:

 

I was really surprised, I could NOT get Thomas to leave this quilt alone!  He loved on it from conception, so I assume that it means my niece will also enjoy it.  By the way, I used two layers of batting with this one, and could barely feel the seams of the jean material from the top.  And it is really cozy.

Belle is giving very sage advise on how to attach the flanged binding: "To begin with, you need to cut off all that extra fluff, and then give it to me to tear into tiny bits".  No sweetie, not today.

 

I also gave my Grandma Kathy her table runner, and she loves it!  The quilting came out really nice.  She thought the fact that I used Insul-Bright as one of the layers was pretty clever, I just think it will be so handy to have a giant hotpad.  I'll have to remember to get a photo of it on her table, with the cup of flowers she placed on it.

 

Well, I hope you all have been happy and healthy and are enjoying this change in weather towards sunnier days!  I'm hoping to get my flower seeds planted tomorrow so we can enjoy them this summer.  Have a wonderful day!

 

~Brandy

A paper-pieced pretty

I offered to test a pattern for Sunshine in the Attic, she designed a Christmas Star Stained Glass block and I just loved how it looked.  Since I had just received my reward from Connecting Threads' drawing on Facebook (THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!) I was inspired to use some of the sea-themed batiks.  This is the fabric I received:

 

Isn't it gorgeous!?  This is their new line called Batik Paradise and I'm impressed.  The batik fabric is not as stiff as some others I've worked with from my local quilt shops, but I like the quality just as well.  And love the designs!  I feel very fortunate to have received this beautiful collection.  The funny part was I had just ordered the following stash builder from them the day I found out I had won:

 

This is for my sister's quilt, I needed to boost my red, white, and blue stash and this was the perfect way to do it.  I shall have to get started on the cutting so I can use it as a leader-ender project for now.  The idea is to have it finished by next May & her 25th birthday.

 

Anyway!  Here is the block and some pictures of playing with the layout of the center:

 

I have decided to name my block Sea Glass, I feel it is fitting with the sea-themed fabric and stained glass idea.  And I'm trying to decided if I want to go ahead and make a full quilt with this or just a wall hanging that can act as an indoor window... decisions decisions!  I'll ask John.

 

 





 

This was great fun to play with, and I look forward to seeing the color-ways the other pattern testers go with!  I may need to try this with actual Christmas colors and see how I like it.  And now seeing the red, white, and blue next to the pattern intrigues me as well, hmmmm...

 

Alright, let's get out there and play with color combinations!

 

~Brandy