Finished Postage Stamp Quilt

Last January I started a PSIQUILT postage stamp quilt-along.  I was super careful and pinned every single corner.  The finished top was awesome.  I’d never had so many corners match up so perfectly.  I decided I wanted to quilt it diagonally through all the squares.  But if I did that, I would have to pin together the quilt sandwich and quilt it with my regular sewing machine.   (Sewing straight stitches on my quilting machine is next to impossible.)  I don’t like to pin/baste quilts.  At all. So, my beautiful quilt sat there folded up in the corner for a year while I pieced and quilted about 12 other quilts.  Last week, I decided I was tired of looking at my poor sad quilt top.  The only way it was going to get finished was to put it on my quilt machine.  So, I quilted a large flower pattern on it instead.  It turned out beautifully!  And…. it’s finished.  Yeah!  It’s currently folded across the bottom of my bed so I can admire it all the time.

This is also the first large quilt I hand stitched the binding on.  I’ve always been so impatient to get my quilts finished, I machine sew it on.  But, I like the professional look of the hand stitching.  So, I think that’s what I will stick with.  (Even though it took me four hours!  Maybe my time will improve with practice.)

Stormy

Baby “Swoon” Quilt

A friend of mine is having her fourth baby soon. (Third boy!)  Her baby shower is this week.  At first, I was going to make her a couple of flannel receiving blankets, but then I started my “Swoon” quilt!  I said I was going to use the pattern to make a few baby quilts didn’t I?  So, here is the first one.  I was a little nervous about using gray as my background, but I think it turned out super cute. 

What do you think?  Does gray make a good neutral?

Stormy

Swoon-Along

I’m a big fan of Thimble Blossoms.  I just love Camille’s book and her patterns she puts out.  That’s why I was so excited to hear that a “Swoon-Along” just started on Flikr.  I bought the Swoon pattern a few months ago, and for Christmas I found an awesome Black Friday sale on the quilt kit as a Christmas present to (ahem)  myself.  I also just started piecing the big beautiful stars last week!  So, if you want to go check out what I’m talking about, go here.  If not, you can just look at my 3 new star blocks. 

 

It’s such a great block, I’m thinking of making a few baby quilts using this pattern too.

Stormy

Pride and Prejudice Vinyl Sign

Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite movies.  (The BBC version with Colin Firth of course.)  One of the most romantic movies ever.   I wanted to use my favorite quote in the movie somewhere in the house.  I found a sign that looked so cute I had to recreate it.  My sister has a fabulous friend with a vinyl cutting machine who said she would make it for me.  Yeah!  (She did an awesome job.) I found an old board that fit my square frame.  I painted it, didn’t like it, then painted it some more.  The final result turned out pretty cute (if I do say so myself).

Then, I added to my wall collage….

I like.

Stormy

Valentine’s Crafts

My family room mantel is starting to look much better!  Today I found some glass jars in the clearance section of Hobby Lobby and filled them with LOTS of Valentine candy.  (I still have my eye on one more.)   I found the cutest Valentine ABC picture somewhere and forgot to bookmark it, so I recreated, printed, and framed it today.  I also bought a super cute wood X and O and mod podged some scrapbook paper on them.  Overall, the effect is super cute.  Almost finished with my mantel!!

Stormy

Valentine Subway Art

I know, I know.  Christmas is barely over.  But, honestly…..I’m over Christmas.  Don’t get me wrong, Christmas is my favorite holiday.  But after the presents, the traveling, seeing family and more and more family (love you all), I’m ready to get back to normal life.  And that means decorating for the next holiday! 

While in Utah on a fabric shopping trip, I walked into a cute little cookie shop.  They already had pink and red hearts hanging from the ceiling and jars of Valentine candy displayed on the table.  It got me in the Valentine mood.

So, here is my first Valentine craft for the year.  I have a little shelf in my kitchen that holds a landscape 5x7 frame.  I also wanted the words printed in all black on a red paper with white dots.  Problem.  I couldn’t find any Subway Art online that filled my criteria.  So, I made my own.  It took about 30 minutes to find and download some fonts.  Then another 30 – 40 minutes to type and position all the words.  I think it turned out pretty cute.

I’ll take more pictures when I have all my crafts put together.

Stormy