Wow!

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted last. Since March I haven’t done much sewing at all. I’ve been spending a lot of time working on embroidery, things for family and orders, and I spent a lot of time at school towards the end of the school year. Both kids did wonderful the last few months of the year, Cassie graduated preschool and Alex has finished 2nd grade and is moving on to 3rd. He ended the year reading at an almost 6th grade level! Cassie hasn’t even started kindergarten yet and she can already read full books to herself! I’ve been doing lots of reading, while camping, at home and on our annual Virginia trip.

With just a little bit of time at home before our next trip, I decided I wanted to get something sewn this week. Over the last few days I’ve been cutting out the pieces needed to make another of the Harry Potter blocks, today I got the wand put together. This was a pretty easy one to do and I figured I had better start with something easy to get back into it. I was able to get a couple more bow tie blocks put together as leader and enders while working on this, I’m now up to 119 bow ties and I think for the design I want to do I need 128 bow ties. Just a few more to go!

Since we are going on vacation again I decided that I’m going to concentrate on hexie insanity exclusively for this trip. I have a big bag of prepped diamonds and flowers, they just need basted and put together. Between the long flight to California and back and time while visiting I think I might be able to work on these at least a little. I’ve been working on a cross stitch project at night, need to get that finished for a wedding gift – the wedding already happened and there’s going to be a party at a later date to celebrate but I still need to get the gift done! Hopefully by the time I get back from vacation I’ll have some more to show and maybe I can get another HP block put together before we leave, but I doubt that!

March Plans – Check!

Wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get everything done this month! Cassie turned 5 and she had a wonderful birthday weekend. Her first party with friends and I know she had a ball. Sad about the turnout, only 3 of 10 kids invited showed up, but we made it fun anyway.

So I wanted to get all of the O blocks cut out and basted in March. I did do that, and started putting them together as well. 2 are finished, only 10 more to go. Colors look funny on some of them because of the color of the card stock I used. Can’t wait to start putting this together! Cassie keeps asking when her quilt will be done, I guess I need to work on it more than I am already!

The main thing I wanted to get done this month was the first 7 blocks of the Harry Potter QAL over at Seriously I think it needs stitches. The blocks aren’t hard, well except for that car in the Whomping Willow that is. That one took me an entire day to do because I kept putting pieces together wrong and had to recut them and start over. As of today I just need to do 4 more blocks and I’m caught up, wonder if I can do that in the next week or so?

So I’ve been very busy this month sewing, I’m hoping to keep it up and maybe even get some work done on UFO’s. I haven’t touched any of them yet this year. I’m linking up to Elm Street Quilts for completing my March OMG.

March Plans

So I have a little girl that will be turning 5 this month, which means a party needs to be planned/held. Yet somehow my plans for this month are huge!

So first order of business is to get all the EPP pieces cut out for Cassie’s quilt and the fabric basted to them. In all likelihood I will work on getting the pieces put together as well, but the goal is just to get them basted. She hasn’t asked yet when it’s going to be done, but she gets so excited when I show her a new piece that’s put together!

You know I had to start working on a new quilt instead of finishing UFO’s right? LOL So I decided to do the Harry Potter quilt along over at Seriously I Think It Needs Stitches. In 2017-18 I made the Pokemon quilt based on Kellie’s pattern (yes I know it’s still in the UFO pile but I’m waiting for her awesome quilt back she promised us!) and I loved how her patterns just made the pieces go together so easily. When I saw she had a Harry Potter one coming I decided I was going to it. But when the SAL started in January I didn’t have my fabric yet and then I needed the background which was out of stock so I had to pick something else. Last week I got the first block done and now I have to get caught up on the rest. So the other part of this months goal is to get the following blocks completed: Ron Weasley, Cupboard Under the Stairs, HP monogram, Hedwig, Whomping Willow and Harry’s Glasses (out today no pdf to print yet).

So I’m a little ambitious this month with Cassie’s birthday, however the EPP is always worked on while the kids are playing or I’m watching tv/basketball games in the living room. Also, the kids are away at my sister’s this weekend, which means lots of time in my sewing room – except for our date this afternoon/evening!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts – OMG

One Monthly Goal – Finished!

I can’t believe I managed to finish all 20 X blocks this month! I was a little worried, but finished the last 2 after we got home from the skating rink tonight. Looking at this picture there’s a couple that I’m not sure if I want to keep them in it or not, I will probably wait until I get the O’s done and see them all together. Cassie keeps asking when her quilt is going to be done, she really doesn’t understand that it takes awhile to make a quilt, especially one that is being made by hand!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts

Updates and One Monthly Goal

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!

Hexie Temperature Quilt

Wow, it’s been more than a  month since I posted! I don’t think I took my sewing out even once while we were camping. I know that the week we were gone I spent a lot of time swimming with the kids, and reading. In the last month I’ve gotten 3 blocks completed, I think I need one more block and I can put the next row together. I need to start pulling fabrics for the rest of the year, hopefully I can do that once school starts and the kids are both at school.

I really want to get back to working on hexie insanity and Dear Jane EPP. But I need to get something finished!

Linking up to Sarah Did It.

Hexie Day

Sarah over at Sarah did it! has a HELP for Hexie-aholics post one day a month and I finally have something to link up! I’ve been working on my 2017 hexie temperature quilt lately, and I finally got the first 2 rows put together! I had pulled fabrics for the first half of the year awhile ago, and I have gotten enough hexie flowers put together that I can applique them to the background squares and do the framing of each block.

I have a good handful of hexies ready to put together into flowers, before I need to pull fabrics for the rest of the year. I’m hoping that I can get the flowers done next week while we are camping. I need to get working on all these UFO’s!

July Goals

Ugh! Has it really been 3 months since I’ve posted? May was so busy with end of school activities that I don’t even remember doing any sewing. As soon as school was out it was off to California to visit the in-laws, then another trip to Virginia for more family visits. Here it is already in July and we are home for 2 weeks before another camping trip. I’m really hoping it’s enough time to get some things done!

Last month I had plans to join the guild community sewing day, but kids halted that plan in it’s tracks. Alex had a fever and wasn’t going to be going to his Lego Camp so I had to stay home. So at the guild meeting I picked up a kit to make a small quilt for one of our community groups. I’d like to get this finished before our meeting next week.

I have 2 quilts that I need to do for my friend, both are signature quilts that won’t take long to put together, I’ve made at least 4 of them for her in the past, I just need to get moving on them! So this month I want to at least get them cut out and the tops put together. If I get more done great, if not that’s ok I’ve at least gotten some work done on them!

I hope to be doing more sewing, but summer is hard when the kids are here all day or we are gone camping. I’ve slowly been working on my hexie temperature quilt, but I have a LONG way to go on that one!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.

April Completions

I really need to start posting more, not just when I complete (or set) my goals for the month! It’s been a crazy month, getting things ready for the end of school year, teacher appreciation gifts, business items that need to be done, the list just goes on and on.

I did manage to finish Good Night Irene, put the last stitches in it last night while the kids started watching a movie. Threw it on them for a photo, then the dog got in the way. 🙂 Needs a good wash and then I can write on the label. Very happy to have this one off my list of to-dos. This was started January of 2014 and was supposed to be a SAL, well little Cassie was born and quilting, heck sewing!, was just not in the cards. Finally finished the top March 28 last year. I have GOT to stop letting these tops sit so long!

The commission quilt that was supposed to be done for May has been changed to May of 2019, so there’s nothing to work on for that anymore. I will probably get it done over the summer, along with the one due in October. The fabric is here and I can work on it when ever I have some free time – HA!

I did also get the 9 designs stitched out for my blue and white quilt for the guild quilt show. Not sure when I’ll finish the blocks or the alternate blocks, but at least I’ve made a little bit of progress on them! Maybe next months goal will to be to cut out all the pieces and start making blocks? We’ll see!!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.

IGSecretPals Swap

So last year I saw some of my IG friends getting packages every month and there were some really cool items in them. Mini quilts, spectacular mini quilts! So when the post went up for signups for 2018 I decided to join in! I’m having fun “stalking” Instagram and Pinterest for my partners each month and deciding what to make/buy them. I haven’t received my March package yet, not sure what’s going on there, but I’ve loved everything I’ve gotten so far! My February partner even sent something for the kids! I’ll continue posting as the year goes on, so far all my partners have liked what I sent!

February Sent
January Sent
February Sent
January Sent
January Sent
January Sent