Coming Soon

Okay maybe not soon enough. There are some new fabric lines coming out that I am really excited about and although they may be considered to be coming soon I still hate the wait. I mean really they tease us with these great creations and then make us wait. One thing I know for sure is that I am going to start saving my pennies now for lines that are set to hit stores in April. And just in case you haven't seen them yet I thought I would share some of the things I am particularly excited about.

Soulful (Photo from Mark's Blog)

This first line is one I just learned about thanks to a kind comment on my blog (Cara I hope he knows how lucky he is that you are spreading the word). Mark Sesarik's first fabric line is set to release with FreeSpirit and the best part of this one is that it scheduled to be released this winter. The collection debuted at Fall Market and I am sure it will be a success. A few of the things I love about this collection are the architecture of the prints. Mark used background elements of some of the larger prints to make stand alone prints or maybe he used stand alone prints in the background of some of his larger prints. I can't be sure which way it happened but I LOVE when designers do that. Of course I already did a google search and haven't found the fabric to be available as of yet but you can bet I am keeping my eyes open and will be one of the first in line.
Tap

Rhythmic Toss

Not to long ago there was a lot of buzz about a limited number of precuts being available for Sherbet Pips of course with the Holiday Season being in full swing and some of my friends being quicker on the computer I didn't snag any yet but I will be getting this line when it comes out in April. I don't sew clothes but I think pj's would be super cute made from this line. I can't wait to make a snugly quilt to cuddle under all next winter with this line. Aneela did an amazing job on this collection and judging from the buzz already your going to want to pick this one up when you see it. Something tells me there will be a Sherbet Pips Freaks group out there before to long.

Sherbet Pips (Photo from Aneela's Blog)

So there you have it just two of the lines making my heart go pitter patter. What about you guys, are there any lines you are excited for? Of course I need you to share because maybe I just haven't seen it yet.

Christmas Project's Revealed

Okay I know I promised to show you all what I was working on for the Holiday's. I made two presents for my mom this year and I didn't want to feature them here until she received them just in case. Turns out she knew the whole time anyway. One little sneak peak and she was already sure it was for her. I guess next time I can't even share a sneak peak. Sorry you guys but you can blame her.

The first gift was this table topper. I followed the pattern from Camille's book and it was super quick and easy to put together. The hardest thing was quilting it. I didn't want to quilt it super heavy since it was going to be a table topper. Although now seeing it finished I wish I would have done a little more. I guess we are still in the learning stage here so it's okay to make mistakes. The next time it will be better than the first. The back is the same floral print as the front. I of course forgot to snap photos of it so these were taken by my dad. Thanks dad!


The second little ditty I made for her was a cover for her sewing machine. Here it is on Bertha (my machine) and I'm hoping it will fit Birdie(my name for my mom's machine) a little better since it was based on her measurements. The back is a solid white and the variegated thread I used in bright yellow, green, and orange really stands out. I wanted this to just look sort of impromptu so I did straight line quilting but at somewhat of an angel so they aren't really straight and I cut all of the squares and rectangles on the front in different lengths. My plan was for it to look modern but I'm a little worried it just looks like I didn't know what I was doing.



Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and that you have a very Happy New Year. For now I am going to stay bundled up inside and hide from the snow. It's very pretty through the window.

Let it Snow Let it Snow Let it Snow

Some of you might remember last winter when I was super excited about the fact that we were getting a whole whopping 2 inches of snow. I was thrilled because we hardly ever see snow here on the east coast of Virginia being as close to the ocean as we are. But man that snow storm last year has nothing on what's going on around these parts today. At last check I had 10 inches of snow on my back deck. I thought at first it might have been in part due to a drift building up out there but after taking a quick peak at the cars and the roof of my garage I actually believe we have gotten that much snow. In even better news (well if you like snow) it is still falling. Nothing like the help of mother nature to make me want to stay inside with some Peppermint Tea and my sewing machine. I have been thinking a lot over the last few weeks about what I want my sewing goals to be for the upcoming year and I have a lot of ideas running around in my head. Because of that I want to make sure that all of my bee block commitments are current and that no one is waiting for me.

This picture is from about 10:30 this morning.

I had the privilege of being in two bees this year with Rachel and the poor thing had the last month in both of them. I received her fabrics last week and so I started there. First she is in my Spider Bee and she chose this great strip for the middle of her spider web blocks. One thing I really enjoyed about Rachel's fabrics is that the colors and textures of her fabrics were such a wide variety. She included everything from buttery soft voile to home deco weight fabrics. She did ask that we not sew the triangles together because she is considering setting her blocks on point. I thought that was a great idea for these fun little spider webs.


Next up we also shared the Modern Tradition Bee. For this bee Rachel included fabrics in much the same colorways and asked for Buzz Saw blocks. Here is what I came up with. I knew I didn't want the fabrics in the HST to repeat themselves in the same blocks so I ended up pulling quite a few fabrics from my scrap bin to mix along with those that Rachel sent. The great thing was she sent such a wide variety nothing really seemed out of place. And do you see that instruction sheet there in the middle. I called Rachel an overachiever but she really did out do herself with the personalized address labels she included on and in the package and the instruction sheets in full color on nice shiny paper. Don't get to jealous girls she is a graphic designer by day and used that as her explanation for the great sheets. I was just excited because it made the process of putting her blocks together super easy and enjoyable.

A Quilt for Christmas

Whew...the holiday rush is over. As much as I love this time of year the hustle and bustle seems to be taking more and more out of me each year. I thought I would spend the next couple of post sharing pictures of some of the projects I've been working on around here lately. I thought we would start with the chocolate and blueberries quilt that I had been working on for the hubs dad and girlfriend. I made this quilt following Karrie's recipe for Moda's Bake Shop. I made just a few changes to her pattern to make the quilt a little larger. I added an extra row and I cut my pieces larger so they utilized the full 10 inch square of the layer cake. I must admit I had a hard time giving this one away because it would have matched my bedroom so well. The hubs has already requested that I make another one for us so I imagine I will be duplicating at least the front of this one again in the new year. But there are a few projects that I need to complete first. Enjoy the pictures and I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas.

New Year, New Projects

I have been very busy this week trying to get the finishing touches put on Christmas gifts. I've done so much hand sewn binding that I feel like my fingers are ready to bleed and I still have another quilt to go. Oy! It will be well worth it though when I get to enjoy the recipients opening their gifts. What about you, feeling that last push to the Holiday's yet? As this year has been quickly winding down I've been thinking about the projects I want to take on next year. I am really hoping to have more finishes under my belt next year. I feel like this year I've spent a ton of time sewing but not much time actually finishing projects. I've got a few projects lined up already for next year just waiting to get started on but I came across a few this week that I am sure I won't be able to resist. If you haven't seen these yet be sure to check them out.



I already love pretty much everything I have seen by Sweetwater and I was already excited about their new line Sunkissed. I was imagining all of the great quilts I could make with this line. So when this quilt along came up and I saw it popping up on multiple blogs that I read on a daily basis so I knew it was bound to be good. I can't wait to see what this creative team comes up with.



And since I don't know how to do embroidery yet if anyone has helpful hints or a good place to start please let me know because I'm sure Cory will be full of creative genius and I don't want to miss out.

Distractions

Well I didn't do a whole lot of sewing this weekend but most of the projects I am working on right now I won't be able to show you until after Christmas anyway. But I did manage to get all but the hand sewing of bindings done on a couple different things which I promise to show you as soon as I can. In the mean time there are lots of distractions out there. Tomorrow Sew Mama Sew is hosting another giveaway day. I missed the announcement so while I'm not hosting a giveaway over here I will be hopping all over blog land during the next week and hoping I get lucky this time around. Last Christmas I managed to score some great swag from a few different places. But I also made some great friends by commenting on some profile photos. I mean really who can resist a bulldog (Hi Bea!). I also managed to crank out 1 set of bee blocks tonight and considering it is 3 minutes until tomorrow I think I am going to stop there. This whole not sleeping thing is getting old. Becky asked for simple half square triangle blocks. She sent along some Innocent Crush and a great espresso solid. It was nice to have such an easy block to wrap up the Bee Stitched Bee and since I have been working on Holiday sewing it was nice to have something that didn't take a lot of math skills and brain power. I love her inspiration quilt and in fact I have had a variation floating around in my head for some time now. I am going to have to get that from brain to fabric soon but first I have to make it through the holidays.

Be Not Forgot

I was talking to my mom the other day about what I was going to do for my sister in law for Christmas and she reminded me about the wall hanging I started for her last year. Those of you who have been with me since I started blogging just over a year ago may remember that this was the very first project that I posted about. You can read about it here. Well I am happy to report that I got it back out of the work in progress box and it is now 98% done. All that's left is to hand sew the binding. Last year I was going to attempt to hand stitch around the applique pieces and I had only made it around 1 of the trees and it wasn't looking so great. Thanks to a bee mate who asked for appliqued blocks last month I got a little practice and with the help of my machine's guide I think I'm making progress. It isn't perfect by any means but it looks a lot better than my hand sewing. Not to mention it is a lot faster, which is good if you are like me trying to crank out Christmas gifts still. T minus 3 weeks and counting. Lucky for me I don't have to ship any of our gifts so I can work on them right up until Christmas Eve, Eve which is good because I have a feeling it's going to take me that long.



Especially when the list is growing instead of shrinking. Right now I have this fun variegated thread in my machine doing some quilting. It's another one of those projects I'm not ready to show just yet but after the holidays I should have lots of good stuff to share. At least that's the plan.

Oh Christmas Tree

For the last 8 years my Christmas tree has looked the same. The first Christmas I was married I asked my husband to pick out the color ornaments he wanted, I assumed he would pick a shade of red or green. Instead he picked blue. So I decorated our tree in blue and silver for the last 8 years. This year I decided it was time for a change. Now that I have this great tree skirt with such a wonderful story behind it (you can read about it here if you missed it) I really wanted to do something different. I don't have many red and green ornaments because they don't match the tree but a few years ago after Christmas I got some red and gold stars from cracker barrel on clearance and I had some red and green balls I got for a table center piece once before. I decided to use these as the base ornaments for the tree and then just fill in with whatever other ornaments we had. You will probably all think I'm crazy but when I do the silver and blue tree the only thing that goes on that's not blue or silver are snowman. I know I can get away with it because I don't have kids yet bringing me homemade ornaments.

Here's a look at some of my favorite ornaments on the tree this time. This wire angel I'm pretty sure my mom made as decoration for our presents about 3 years ago. I have two of them on the tree but they just look so nice to me. They pick up the white lights and of course they are angels which makes them special by their own right.

Last year my mom started a tradition with my brother (well his wife) and I that we get to pick a ornament off their tree and then she writes the story behind it and passes the ornament on to us. This was my pick last year which turns out to be a good one because it hung on my mom and dad's very first tree. They made it using a kit from a local hobby shop in New Mexico where they lived at the time. I like it because even if I go back to my blue and silver tree it will still fit in and it has sentimental significance.

Last up is the angel that is on top of my tree this year. This angel has decorated the top of my parents tree for as long as I can remember until my mom gave her to me a few years ago. My mom made her the year I was born as she has a great family story behind her. So this is my sentimental tree from the skirt all the way up to the angel on top. And since I've been feeling a little like a scrooge this year having this tree around is a nice reminder not only of why I celebrate Christmas but because of the blessing it represents as well. I hope you all have a blessed holiday season.

A Tease

Just a little something to let you know I'm still here and sewing. As promised I wouldn't be able to keep this off my blog forever so here is a little sneak at just one of the projects I'm working on for Christmas. Never mind my messy stitches here they have since been corrected but it still gives you an idea. Also in this photo the lines I drew haven't been washed out yet so it looks a little gray around the stitches but that too has been corrected. Hope you are all having fun working on your various holiday projects. I'm sure it will be a little slow around here until after the holidays when I can show off in full force everything I've been working on quietly around here.