Wow! I can’t believe it’s been over 5 months since I posted anything! My only excuse is that I’ve been really busy with my business and the kids. I spent a lot of time in November and December working to get my new website up and running. Check it out Grace Embroidery & Quilts. I’m still selling on etsy, planning on using them both. I don’t think I made any Christmas presents this past year, although I did give my sister my blue and white quilt that was in the quilt show. She saw it and loved it, and since I really didn’t have any plans for it myself, decided to gift it to her.
The picture is from our guild quilt show, and the only picture I got of it finished before I gave it to her. I don’t know why it’s turned wrong, it was the right way when I uploaded it. I’m still getting used to this new way of working in wordpress. I’ll figure it out someday! 🙂
So last month as I was scrolling through my Instagram feed I saw a really cute pattern called All the Hugs and Kisses quilt (#allthehugsandkissesquilt on instagram) and there was a giveaway. So I entered like I always do and promptly forgot all about it. About a week later as I’m scrolling I see there’s another post with winners. Lo and behold my instagram name was listed! Katrina had decided to give each of us that entered a free digital copy of the pattern! My plan was to make the quilt for Cassie for her big girl bed that I need to get from my sister’s house. I’m just not ready for her to be needing it! So I showed Cassie the quilt and she wanted to know if it was going to be ready the next day. My little one has no patience! So we pulled some pink fabrics, because that is her favorite color and last night I started cutting them into the pieces needed for EPP. That’s one of the reasons I entered the giveaway, it’s an EPP pattern and these days it’s almost all i have time for. Today we stopped and got background fabric at Joann’s and some heavy card stock at Staples for the EPP papers. They are all printed and I’m going to start working on cutting them out tonight during the Super Bowl.
So, my One Monthly Goal this month is to get all of the 20 X’s done for this quilt. If I can get started on the O’s that’d be great, but I at least want all the X’s completed by month end. Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.
I’m hoping to be around more this year, I’ve picked up my Dear Jane quilt again and will be joining a SAL (sew along) so I hope to have some progress on that quilt this year. And since I’m running the UFO challenge for guild I need to get some of my UFO’s done too!
This is going to be an interesting month for projects! I had hoped that I’d be able to spend the entire month quilting my hexagon diamonds quilt. Silly me, I talked with the head room parent in my son’s class and we are now making a quilt for teacher appreciation week! While I was at The Door Mouse Tuesday I picked out some purple fabrics and I found this really cute panel of teacher quotes that I can use in the border (far right side of the picture). So my OMG for April is making this quilt for the teacher – the main portion of the quilt is going to be the kids drawings bordered by the purple (and some greens that I need to buy still) and we will be working on that next Tuesday at school.
I also decided that I will be making sure that the label gets added to Cassie’s signature quilt this month. The quilt has been done for 2.5 years and so has the label, I just never got it sewn on. Now is the time to get it finished!
*sigh* This is not my year. I’ve been sick since the beginning of the year and as soon as I think I’m starting to get better I get worse again. I’m almost at the end of another bout of bronchitis and after a pulmonary function test my doctor told me I have asthma. Most likely it was brought on by all the bronchitis episodes this year! Needless to say, since I’ve been sick the last week or 2 I haven’t worked on too much. PLUS we had a birthday to celebrate this last week. My little princess is now 3 years old and I can’t believe how quickly the last year has passed. My sister and I took her for her first hair cut and then took her 3-year-old pictures. This is one of my favorites, although there aren’t that many bad pictures of her (yeah I know I’m biased)! We had a wonderful party and she gets upset when I start to take the decorations down now that celebrations are over.
I’ve been doing hexie swaps for the last few months and I’ve finally decided what I am going to do with mine. Each swap will be made into a block, about 60 hexies makes a 12.5″ square block. Once I have enough blocks sewn together I’ll sash them and put them together. All of the swap information will be put on the label so I’ll remember where the hexies came from. I just finished the first block last night, these are from the #xoxohexieswap. There weren’t enough to do the whole block, as we only swapped 30, so I pulled from my Valentine’s bag of squares to get enough to finish it. I have the next block planned and ready to start, but I wanted to work on Dear Jane a little before I started putting the next one together. I’m waiting on more hexies to arrive, but some of the swaps aren’t finished yet – I got mine sent in right away and now I have to wait for everyone else to finish and send theirs in. I’m pretty sure I can make 2 blocks from the typography hexies, at least one with the St. Patrick’s Day hexies and I have a few signature hexie flowers that I think I’ll figure out how to put into a block. PLENTY of work to do around here!
I started working on the last 2 commission quilts for my friend. I got all of the blocks cut out and put together for both quilts, I just need to get them put together. These quilts go together so quickly that I don’t mind that I’ve made so many of them. My friend is coming to visit this weekend, so I’d like to have the tops done before she gets here.
While I work on the commission quilts, I’m working on the border blocks for Good Night Irene, which has been in progress since 2014. I slowly worked on the top during 2014, but it was hard with a newborn in the house. The border blocks are just simple 9 patches, and use 162 white squares and 162 colored squares. My 2.5″ square bin doesn’t even look any emptier! I finished half the blocks needed, I hope to finish the other half today.
Cassie is LOVING playing with fabrics. She asks at least once a day if she can play with them. Sometimes she wants the 2.5″ square bin, sometimes she wants “her fabrics”. I have a container full of fabrics I’ve collected for her, including 3-4 Minnie Mouse fabrics. At some point I’ll make something with them, haven’t decided yet what it will be. I might wait until she gets her big girl bed and make a large quilt like I did for Alex. Her birthday is in 2 weeks and she’ll be 3, I still can’t believe how fast the last 3 years has gone by! I bought her some Minnie Mouse sewing cards for her birthday, I’ll start her sewing with something easy for her little hands.
