Has it really been almost 6 months?

WOW!

I've been away for so long, and for good reasons :)

Please welcome our newest addition born July 22, William Anderson

I'm so in love! He, along with my 3 other children have taken up a lot of my free time and I have not had the chance to sew or quilt, but that will soon change! I've started a Grandmother's fan quilt for a customer and have several dolls to complete, along with projects that I have completed. I will have to post the pics---COMING SOON! PROMISE

I had to post and now doing a lot of catch up reading all of my favorite blogs!

Multi-tasking

Working on selective coloring--my daughter Bel wearing one of my bows and being a great model :)

Covered Button Pony Tail Holders & Snap Clips for a customer!

A stacked bow I made for my neice, Olivia

I made a woven headband for my daughter to match one of her tops

Top view of one of my rag bows

My friends daughter modeling it for me since my girls do not have enough hair :)

Quilt-a-long week 2 w/ my sashing---I'm choosing to go w/ blue, something different

So many different projects going on at the same, which is good for me in order to keep motivated and complete orders, above are some completed bows that I made for my neice and some of my friends daughter and me messing with selective coloring--I love the black and white photos and having a pop of color here and there!

I've also been keeping up w/ the quilt along--still working on my nine patch Amanda Jean!
I've decided it will not be a twin size, but rather a crib or lap--I don't think I have the strength to make a twin on top of several other quilts and crib set orders that I need to complete. Off to post the photo in my flickr group!

Quilt Along, Week one patches finished

Here they are, I've completed my first 7 blocks for the quilt-a-long w/ Amanda Jean of CrazyMomQuilts. My goal is to use up a lot of my vintage scraps that I have laying around. I wish I decided to use my designer fabrics that are more current and more modern, but I need to get rid of a lot of my vintage scraps.....so here they are, not my favorites, but it's just the beginning and maybe once I add my sashing and complete several more patches, it will start to look better. HOPEFULLY.

Korkers and clippies and boutique bows, OH MY!

I'm hooked! I wanted to make only a couple of clippies, but I just couldn't stop at 2. I stayed up until 3am making some really cute bows that I'm proud of and making quite a mess--who knew this little craft could be so messy, addicting, and frustrating, but so worth it at the same time?!
So I thought I would share the bows that I ended up making :)

My latest korker bow that I made to match a couple of Bel's dresses

A photo of my very first korkers...I've come a loooong way, almost to embarrasing to show these

Mini-clippies for both girls in solid colors for playdates--super no-slip!

This is my twisted, stacked boutique bow that is waaaaay to big to placed on either one of my girls hair, but I know the perfects little girl with TONS of hair to model this bow for me :)

So, that's it for now, I'll have to take photos of these bow and clips in action! Hope you liked my bows!

It's finally here!!!

My Four Seasons Quilt Swap 5 finally arrived! I started to give up on it, thought it was lost somewhere between Australia and here, but it came! Better late than never! It's just beautiful! Louisa from Lululollylegs made me such a beautiful quilt and added a ton of extras in it for me. Thank you Louisa! I LOVE IT ALL!
Sorry for the dark photos, couldn't get my flash to work right and well just plain too lazy to brighten and do a fix on photoshop....so that's my quilt!

My latest addiction

I had to take a short break from quilting & sewing, it seemed like almost everyday and every evening I was sewing something or quilting something....that's killer to my hands, arms & not to mention posture, I'm almost 7 months along in this pregnancy now and the swelling sucks!--I know time flies, I feel like I just announced we were having our 4th :)

A friend of mine from my mom's group introduced me to hairbow making--BIG MISTAKE, we all know how I am when I pick up a new hobby/craft--I go crazy! and that I did, a trip with a couple of my gal pals to the ribbon outlet and major purchases here and there from Joann's and Michaels has created a ribbon explosion, but the organized maniac and neat freak that I am couldn't let it sit that way for a very long time. All of my ribbon now is organized and separated into types and colors, all loose ribbon is rolled and I bought a perfect caddy to take along with me for when we all get together again for more hairbow making.

It's such the perfect side hobby right now with quick results and so very much needed with everything our family is going through. I love it, I'm just trying to perfect my techniques and make my bows look somewhat decent. Right now, I have two little girls with very little hair, happy to help their Mommy and model her finished bows!

Another one for the "Will never finish pile"

WHAT WAS I THINKING?!!! All by hand?

About a little over a year ago, I attended an auction of a quilter who passed away leaving 3 rooms full to the brim of fabric and notions. I was in heaven of course, and if I had the room to hold everything, I'm pretty sure I would have bid and purchased it all. In the many boxes I won, she did not have any pieces of fabric larger than 10" everything had been cut so I was in a crunch and wondered what to make with her vintage treasures.

A scrappy log cabin quilt completely made out of hand to practice my hand-piecing & hand-quilting is what I ended up on doing. I started out w/ a bang and stayed up many nights to cut my pieces and piece my strips together in no particular color scheme other than to maintain the red square in the middle for all blocks. Eventually, it became too overwhelming and joined the other abandoned projects.

Going through it, I realized I accomplished quite a bit, I counted 62, 9" blocks and 8, 18" pieced blocks. I don't think I will ever finish this quilt, so I'm wondering is there anyone who would like to take this over? Is there a quilter's guild that would like to have this to work on? If so, leave a comment here, maybe I'll split it amongst those interested. Have a look at the photos and see for yourself. I don't expect whoever does take this from my hands to finish it completely by hand, but I would love to see it finished :)

Look at the cute Holly Hobbie fabric!!

Anyone want these? Someone with a more trained eye can tell what years these fabrics come from. If you do know, pls. tell me, I would love to know!

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

Slowly but surely I'm getting back to where I was---well kind-of, I don't want the sewing like crazy to meet deadlines & the huge stash. I'm redesigning my website, re-doing my blog and eventually will be listing items back up on etsy & art fire. It's taking quite a bit of time & it would require me to sit in front of the computer for long periods at a time--I hate doing that! For some reason I feel like a lazy bum for doing it. 3 kids running around now & a growing belly keep me busy enough.

I took some time off to focus more on my family and work on my charity quilts for Project Linus, Warm up America & St. Judes Childrens Hospital. I have completed several and hope to make a couple more. I did participate in a couple of swaps during my hiatus just to keep the sewing juices flowing, and wanted to thank my swap partners for the wonderful items that were sent to me. If I didn't get to thank you before, I apologize. I really did mean to, but life kinda, sorta got in the way.

Here are photos of some of the charity quilts, silly me mis-placed my camera for some time & my deadline was nearing so I was not even able to take photos for my album :( It was soo hard to part with, but going to a good place.

So, those are the baby, crib quilts that I was able to photograph. I'm so in love with Rag Quilting now, I've started another fresh-cut quilt like the one above to make for my little girls. If you are interested in donating a crib quilt please let me know. I'm also participating in making pillowcases for the children's hospital with my local quilt shop---They have already donated over 200 pillowcases for the soldiers & are hoping to do the same, if not beat that amount for the children.

Well, that's it for now, it's off for some tidying around the house first & then catch up on some sewing!

What I've been up to

I'm not doing a good job at all w/ keeping up w/ blogging! So much has happened since I last posted on here--there isn't enough space to fit it all in this post, but I'll mention a couple of things....

--We have found out we are having a boy! So the family will be nice & even---3 girls & 3 boys in the house! HOORAY! The fabrics have been picked out & ready to be turned into a quilt for the new baby.

--Baby charity quilts are moving along--5 have been completed & turned in to St. Judes Children's Research Hospital, I have my last couple started, but have yet to complete them & only managed to take a photo of only some of the completed baby quilts before they were delivered.

--The sewing room was completed and organized, WHEW! It's been done for some time now, but I rarely found the time to sit and blog about it & post photos & we all know how I hate to blog and not post a photo along, but to refresh everyones memory--I dramatically decreased my fabric stash about a month or so ago & it left a big explosion of a mess for me to clean & organize. Besides working on charity quilts, taking care of the kiddos & trying to find time in between to rest & relax & enjoy for once a sickless pregnancy; it is finally complete. Here is how it all looks now:

The Complete View

Downsized dramatically the magazine stash & have kept my fav.

Even the books took a big hit

My solids have taken up now 3/4 of the top shelf, instead of the whole top shelf--mixed in w/ some of my children's cotton prints & flannels

My designer wall of fabrics fitting on one side of my shelf now :)

I call this my notions wall & felt section

Hundreds of $ spent on printer ink cartridges & printer paper have gone to this: Purchased patterns from Etsy, blog tutorials all printed out and organized in order within these 9 binders, working on my 10th now!

There's plenty more fabric behind the closed drawers & cabinets, but I'm just glad I no longer have totes everywhere. I divided the fabric amongst friends, donated several bags to schools & sold what I had the patience to photograph & list.

So that's where the stash is currently at, I've made a promise & commitment to myself that I will no longer purchase fabric just to have it, but when I have a certain project, I will only buy what I need. So far so good & my sewing area is still neat & organized. So that's it for now w/ the sharing, I'll have to come back & post later on the baby quilts & swap photos!

UFO's FOUND!! Not the ET kind :)

Before the fabric diet the organization was very deceiving....yes deceiving. Everything that I had, I had just thrown in bins to make room for more fabric not following the rules. "For every ONE new thing that comes in, take TWO out." I just stacked and put them away eventually forgetting what I had in what tote/bin/drawer. Back then I was able to handle 3 or 4 different projects at the same time, I can't do that so much now, but my works in progress from a year ago that I stashed promising to go back to when I had the time, only to be forgotten has now been found!

I forgot about these lap quilts. I will eventually go back and finish these, but it just brought a smile to face when I saw my quilt tops that I was so determined to do by hand. So I thought I would share them with you. There are some that I hand pieced and started to hand embroider, there is another quilt that I was quilting along as I go and quilt tops w/ teeny tiny 1" squares. Here is what I found so far.....I know I have more of these laying around somewhere. I may finish these and add these to my charity quilts!

So that's it, I'm not quite finished re-organizing and de-stashing, but it is great to find forgotten pieces of work, now I'll definitely find more things to do during this pregnancy