NuBees November

 I participated in the NuBees Block Swap again in November.  It is so fun to make blocks for people!!!  I still have to post the blocks I received for October and November..... eventually.  Below are the blocks that I created for everyone in my Hive.

I had a lot of fun putting colors together.  To make these blocks I cut strips of 4 1/2 inches wide.  Then I stacked the coordinating fabrics and cut them into various lengths between 3 and 5 inches.  Then I sliced the stack in a random diagonal and mixed up the pieces!  It was fun!  =)  I actually did this first on the Sewing Machine Cover that I made for my cousin.

Have a great day!

Sewing Machine Cover !!!

My wonderful machine is in a cabinet, and it does not come out of the cabinet.  Therefore, I had nothing to bring with me on my quilting retreat.... so my cousin Graciously let me borrow her machine!!!  I had a Great time sewing on it!!!  It's a wonderful Kenmore!  =)  As a 'thank you' I made her a sewing machine cover!  Please excuse the photo... this was a 'running out the door forgot to take a picture, picture'.

I just loved this grey fabric!  It is so beautiful!  Yay for Kona solids!!!  I just made a rectangle with ties on the sides.  To make the pieced strip I stacked up the fabric and then sliced an angle through all of them.  Then I mixed up the pieces.  I did a little bit of quilting on the pieced part.  

I can't wait to make one for my machine!!!! 

Potholders for my NEW KITCHEN

I made a new potholder for my 'new' kitchen!!!!!

This is not the new one... were you worried?  I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one that has potholders that look like this.  I have actually put them in the wash.....once or twice.  I guess its one of those things that you use and then shove in a drawer and never really 'look' at it.  ugh.

Yep, and here's the back.  Well, we having been refinishing our kitchen for the past couple months and these ugly, dirty potholders will have NO PLACE in our kitchen.  However, I did like the shape so I took one of them up to my craftroom to make some new ones!

Ah!!!!  This is better!!  Amy Butler has a special place in my kitchen!  I even used a Walking Foot for the FIRST TIME!  I got my Gram's Janome out and cleaned and oiled it all up.  I figured a potholder would be a great first project for the walking foot!

It worked out pretty well.  Binding is annoying, but I guess that's life!!!

 

Tada!!!

Quilted Postcard

My Grandmother's friend recently sent me a pattern that I was having a hard time finding.  She also wrote a ton of notes on it!  She's too sweet!!!  =)  As a 'thank you' I made her a quilted postcard.  I actually used my scraps from all of the cutting work Mr. T did.  (Don't remember him?  Check out my postcard post.)

I'm happy with how it turned out, however the lady at the post office said it wasn't legal.  She was perfectly nice about it and said to mail it anyway and take a chance if I wanted.  She said a lot of them aren't trained as much as her and don't know that a postcard is supposed to be .007 of an inch thick.  All of the postcards I've sent have worked.  I really hope this one gets to her!!!!

Fabric for My Curtains

I am SO SUPER EXCITED about my family room curtains!  I  arrived pretty early at our retreat so there were still some empty tables around.  I laid out my beloved fabric to cut it out!  I have a bazillion six windows in my family room.  We have very nice blinds that I do not want to take down.  I really want to add some color to the room, and cover the tops of the blinds with some sort of valance.  

I was looking for the perfect fabric.  In October on the Quilt Shop Hop I told myself that I wasn't going to impulse buy, and instead I was going to scout for fabric for my curtains.  When I was at Robert's Sewing Center in Crest Hill, IL I found the fabric pictures above.  It is an Art Gallery Print!

The background is light, light, teal (not white).  There are some small dark teal swirls that match our very deep teal accent wall in the family room.  I had decided a while ago that I wanted to use oranges as an accent color in the room, and this contains two oranges!  THEN the really bright green color that you see is the color of our kitchen walls.  AND lastly, the swirls match the rug in our family room.  This could not have been more perfect, so I bought a 1/4 of a yard to show my husband.  He liked it, and I promptly starting scouting for it online in case Robert's didn't have enough..... I quickly learned that it was an old print and was out of stock EVERYWHERE.  So I drove 40 minutes back to Crest Hill the next day and bought the bolt.....  the things we do for fabric.

Happily at the retreat I cut out all 12 of my panels and started serging the edges!  Slowly but surely serging the rest!

wow, that was a wordy post.  Thanks for sticking with me!