artsy-crafty babe

in record time

My quilt is finished.  Yes, this is a record for me.  PLEASE don't think I'm super woman.  Really, I'm not.  This was a small quilt, and I had a good bit of kid-free time to myself - those two elements make a world of difference in productivity.

So here it is, the girly zig-zag quilt.  The print fabrics are all from my stash.  When I picked them out, I thought that I'd use a pale yellow or pink to fill in the diagonals.  While I was at the store picking them up, I spied the stripe across the room.  I just KNEW that it would work.  Once I got it all home I decided that a colored solid would be a bit much, so I went with white, which I think, looks perfect. (a little full of myself, maybe?)

Oh boy, do I ever love this quilt!  I love how it all came together.  My solids were not bought in vain - I used them all up on the back, along with a patchwork strip made of scraps from the front.

Honestly, I'm most impressed that I actually finished it!  You all know about the quilt tops (unfinished) that I have lined up, ready to go.  Now that I did a little quilting on Richelle, I'm ready for more.

Quilts, so addicting!!

lost

Remember in my last post I said that I started a quilt top?  I didn't get very far on it this weekend, but yesterday I got lost in it.  I couldn't stop.  It started with the piecing - more diagonals.  What can I say?  I'm a little obsessed with diagonals.  This time I made a "block", more of a rectangle, really.  At the end of the day, I had the top and the back pieced.

I was super satisfied with that, but then I had a little time while Matt was out picking up supper (no cooking - I was piecing!), so added the batting and pin basted it.  I must tell you now, this is not a large quilt, only about 44" x 54".  I was ready to call it a night, but I had to go upstairs to my sewing studio for something, and before I knew it, I was quilting.  Man, I LOVE quilting on my industrial sewing machine.  That baby is FAST.  I zipped through the quilting in no time (it helped that there were no interruptions).  This is a record for me.  Now I'm ready for the binding, which is my favorite part.  Shoot, this thing might be completed by the weekend!  I'd show it to you now, but since I'm so close to finishing it, I think I'll wait on it.  I know, I'm such a tease!!

weekends

Why is it that weekends go by so fast?  I'm not exactly sure where my weekend went!  Let's see, I started a new quilt top, went on a date with my honey, worked in my flower beds, and cooked dinner from my garden.  Yep, that's about it.  It went by in a flash.

On our date, we saw Away We Go.  LOVED it.  It was quirky, funny, and just plain perfect.  I'd see it again.

I think working in my yard was just plain stupid, but it was needed (gawd, it was HOT).  Our front yard was HORRIBLE.  It was quite embarrassing.  The house across the street is for sale, and I was beginning to think that maybe we had a little something to do with it not selling.  I'd hate for our new best friends to think that we're trashy neighbors based on how our house looked (don't you always wish that your new best friends would move in next door?).

That dinner from the garden was delish!  Right now I have oodles of tomatoes and eggplant, so I made a kinda-sorta eggplant lasagna, tomato & basil salad along with some pasta and grilled chicken breast,  YUM!  I wish we could eat like this every night.  Eating food from your very own garden is extremely satisfying, yes it is.  Speaking of my garden, it's about time that I pulled some things up (bell pepper plants) and started thinking about my late summer/fall crop.  There will definitely be more tomatoes.  I think at this point it's time I started canning or freezing  my overflow.  I'm pretty amazed at that!

Ah, so now I am spent.  I'm tired, but oh, so fulfilled.  I think I'll spend the rest of my evening relaxing and knitting, if I feel like it. Weekends, you may go by fast, but I sure do love you!

the people have spoken

With an overwhelming majority, the aqua purse won!  Thanks for all your input.  I should have listened to my gut - that was the bag I intended to make available in the first place, but then I started playing around, resulting in the orange one.  I do plan to revisit the design of the orange one, but in a larger size.  It really is a cute bag, but too small for me.  I should have used a tripod to take photos of the two bags because in the photos I posted, the aqua one looks larger, but in reality both bags are about the same size.  The orange one was just slouchier and taken from a slightly farther position.

As you can see, I whipped up another one.  This one is a smidge larger (I think I have a problem with small bags).  I took a photo with it on my shoulder so you can get a good idea of the real size. 

Do you recognize the fabric?  That's the fabric I designed and had printed at Spoonflower.  I had forgotten all about it - if I had remembered it, I would have used it in my quilt.  I love it!  I lined it with a brown & white Sis Boom print.  I think I'll go transfer all my purse stuff now (leaving some stuff out, of course):)

Over the weekend I'll make another one and take photos for the tutorial.  Hopefully I'll have the pattern ready for next week.  Sound good?  One more thing, anybody have a good name for the bag?  I'm terrible at naming things.  If you have any suggestions, let me know.

which one?

Thank you all for commiserating with me on yesterday's post.  That was really more of a 'get it off my chest' sort of post.  Usually, once I get it all out, I can think clearly, and that's exactly what happened.  Last night I sat down and made a list of all that I wanted to do and needed to do, then I let the kids eat junk and watch TV while I worked on what I wanted to do (it was worth it).  I ended up with that orange bag made from Lantern Bloom.  Isn't that fabric gorgeous?? 

 

My plan was to make another bag like the one on the right (below), but changed things up a bit, resulting in the orange bag, which leads me to today's question:  Which style would you prefer for a free pattern?

 

I like them both, which makes it hard for me to decide.  These are both on the smallish side - that mannequin throws off the scale, she is teeny tiny.  At the moment, all of my purse stuff wouldn't fit in either one of them, but sometimes I want a small bag for my wallet, phone and a tube of lipstick (all the essentials).  These are both in the early stages, so there is some tweaking to be done (so don't look too closely at them).  Which ever one you decide, I'll start working on that one, which makes one less thing to think about.  Thanks for your input! 

Survey Results - GlowDay.com

frustrated

I'm not sure that frustrated is the right word for it, but that's how I feel right now.  I feel like I have so much to share and so much to do, but I can't.  Or, maybe I don't want to.  Does that make sense?  Maybe this insane heat is frying my brain?

First off, I'm in quilt mode.  I want to finish my red quilt, then try out some other ideas I have in my head.  But that's fun stuff, and I have deadline stuff that I need to work on.  When I get the time to do anything creative (which is very hard these days with my kids' summertime night owl tendencies), I just sit there and knit.

And then, I have a simple bag pattern that I want to share with you all as a free download, but all I have is the pattern at this point with no directions and only 1 finished bag.  I'd like to make another one to make sure that the pattern actually works and take notes so that I can write accurate directions.  Oh, and this simple bag has started my wheels turning on another idea...

Like a true craft addict, in order to satiate all these ideas, I keep ordering more fabric and yarn.  Now I need an extra 8 or so hours in a day.  So yeah, I think frustrated is a good word for it!

Oh well, I'll just go stand on a bench (or chair) and take a photo of myself.  Happy Bench Monday :)

my week

Hi there.  How are you?  Things are fine over here at Maison Artsy-Crafty.  Kind of quiet, but nice (except when the kids are screaming at each other).  There's been a lot of staying indoors due to the heat.  Oh man, the HEAT.  Hot and dry with no rain in sight.  Just about all you can do is stay inside in the cool air conditioning.  Miserable.  A good thunder shower or two would be nice.  Watering my patio plants and my garden are a daily ritual.  My little garden is doing nicely - I'm getting at least 1 big ole ripe tomato a day.

All my staying indoors has resulted in a renewed interest in knitting.  I know it sounds strange to be knitting in the heat of summer, but it's a cooler activity than sewing.  When I sew there's a lot of getting up and down, the hot iron, etc.  Reclining on the sofa with my feet up and a ball of yarn is much more appealing. 

Having said that, if you need me, you know where to find me :) Happy Weekend, friends - stay cool!

P.S. the photos above are my photos from this week from my 356 photo challenge

red quilt top in progress

Yesterday I put a few miles on my sewing machine.  I sewed and sewed and sewed.  And I cut and cut and cut.  My red quilt top is almost done.  As much as I wanted to finish it yesterday, I ran out of fabric (hate when that happens!).

I went with diagonals.  I'm sure there's some trick out there to making these, but I couldn't find it.  Well, I suppose I could have done foundation piecing, but I didn't want to.  So what I did was sew random strips of red and white fabric, ranging in width between 1.5" - 3" and 44"-45" long (a width of fabric) together until I had a rectangle of strips about 24" (13-15 strips sewed together).  I then cut across the rectangle diagonally a few times to get two to three diagonal sections, then I sewed those together to get a longer diagonal section.  The sections were then sewn together.  That was it.  There was a good bit of waste - triangular shaped pieced sections, but I'm sure I can find something to do with those (pillows!).  Overall I'm very happy with it, and it is just the look I was going for.

I really want this quilt finished to drape over my living room chair, which might just be motivation enough to get it done!

a gift

Yesterday was my niece Berkley's birthday party (yep, Alex went to a birthday party on his birthday :)).  Last year I promised her a bag.  At the time, I didn't have the time to make one, so I gave her some cash along with a coupon for a bag.  That bag never got made, and now here it is another year.  I know, bad aunt!

This year I hopefully made it up to her.   I used my round yoke pattern, but I lengthened it about 4" (if you have this pattern and want to try this, I added 4" to the part where you tape the bottom pattern piece to the top, then angle the sides a bit to make a straight line).  At age 11, I figured you can't have enough tote bags to carry your stuff around in - sleep overs, to the pool, etc.  And a big initial only makes it better, right? I think she liked it, at least I hope she did - if she doesn't, I could always take it off her hands...

5

Today my boy turned 5.  Yep, that's a big one - a whole hand!  Gosh, where does the time go?  Today has seemed a bit anticlimactic because he had his big party last weekend, a shared party with his sister.  We did do our best to make this day special, HIS day - we started out with a birthday cake made of donuts.  He LOVES donuts.  I think he could eat a dozen all by himself, really.  He then spent a good part of the day splashing in the kiddie pool.  Oh yeah, and there was ice cream cake made by his grandma.

My sweet blue eyed boy.  Creative, sensitive, and oh, so inquisitive.  5 years old.  Wow.