Almost there!

Ive had a productive week, now that baseball and swimming is officially over for the summer (thank god). The only sport we've still got going is gymnastics, and that is all year round. I repainted my living room and dining room ceiling as well as repainted 3 of the 4 walls in each room. This was a big achievement, considering our little (not little) Easter Fire was back in april 2011. That being said, the ceilings werent too bad just some gray smoke damage you could only see from across the room, but then again, the ceilings hadnt been painted in 7 years- since we first moved in! I scrubbed down the walls and baseboards and tried to remove all those fingerprints and pet hair. If you have animals or kids, or both, you know this is an ongoing chore!! I feel better for having part of my house deep cleaned, and hope to get the kitchen and upstairs cleaned as well before school starts up again! I picked up a canvas that was on sale at Joanns yesterday, as well as some clearance'd Alexander Henry "Rain Flowers" fabric, which i had see previously and loved, but didnt have anything to use it for. I decided to make an art hanging, and it worked out awesome, only costing me about 12.00!

So i know the placement is a bit odd, being so high up there on the wall, but it is cleverly hiding a hole from the wiring to our door bell which doesnt work. I like it, and bought the rest of the bolt of fabric, so i plan on using it for many other things! The fire flower was basted during the Olympics Opening Ceremony, and is almost done with the grid quilting i chose. I really need to check this one off my list for the summer because I have one more quilt to finish up before September!

Fire Flower almost done

It's mostly done, and I am okay with how it has turned out. I am going to add more blue on top for a sky and to lengthen it out since its almost a square. I went for the basic pixellated color scheme and im not totally in love with the way the dark orange turned out....but oh well!!

Mario Fire Flower

Next up on the project list? Mario Fire Flower for my son Gavin. I drew this pixelated pattern last Sunday....

Then i went to stock up on Kona solids for the quilt. I decided to make the squares bigger this time, since I find working with small cuts frustrating and difficult! I ended up with 4.5in squares instead of 2.5in, and it has worked out much better!

I chose whatever Kona that Joanns had in stock, since i was motivated to start the project and didnt want to wait for fabric to be shipped to me. I really hope i dont regret it! I used Kona Grass, Chartreuse, Tangerine (the darker orange), Candy Blue and Coal. I was really disappointed to find that they did not have any lighter orange on hand, and felt forced to buy an orange of some kind. Its not Kona, and I really hope i dont regret using it because i know its not the same quality. :( Hopefully it will turn out okay. More pictures to come of the WIP!

Finished Mario Mushroom Quilt and Summertime Scrap

I finished the Mario Mushroom quilt yesterday while sitting at the pool in the 97 degree weather. Ugh. It was too hot to have a quilt on the lap but i only had a little binding to finish. Here's my second born (only by a minute)boy with his quilt.

For the back, i used some scrap and yardage i had left from the front.

In the spirit of being annoying, here's a deliberate feet in the quilt picture for you.

Ok, enough of that. I started playing with more scraps, determined to dig in and make something out of my stash and a little out of my comfort zone. I made these blocks courthouse step-style and plan on ordering some kona yardage to make the quilt front and back predominatly solid. See how i contradicted myself? I said i would just use scrap, and then found a way to buy more fabric....

Meanwhile, I have a girl who is about to turn 9, and a boy with a complete 'fro.

Oh yeah, am i totally picked the Olympic Gymnastics team! :)

With the Olympic Trials coming up with weekend i thought i'd share my thoughts on who i think will make the Olympic Team for London. If i had to pick today, it'd be: Jordan Weiber (vault, beam, floor) Gabby Douglas (bars, beam, floor) Aly Raisman (vault, floor) Kyla Ross (bars, beam) and i cant decide between McKayla Maroney b/c of her recent injury, and Nastia Liukin because she did poorly on bars at the Visa's. Obviously, McKayla would be going for vault. Nastia would go for beam and bars. I guess we'll see come Sunday night!

A new cover!

Ive been meaning to make a new machine cover for about a year. I finally made one last night for my Singer Confidence Quilter. I used a simple tutorial on the web, and whipped it up in about 2 hours. it was super simple, and i just used scrap fabric from my stash. I really needed to do something easy and quick, seeing as I have one quilt to baste and another monster table cloth to sew. I made the cover double-sided, to suit my ever changing tastes in color. I found this fabric at a local quilt shop, its so cool! I bought only a yard, but its been sitting around asking me to cut into it, so i used it on a project i would see alot, every single day!

Catching up...

So I finished the block quilt for my friend who is getting married in July....going to give it to her at her Bridal Shower, which is this saturday. Here's a picture of it finished. Here's a pic of the back. I also am in the process of making a tablecloth for my dining room table, and i have the top finished. I have the fabric for the back, but havent started in on it yet. aaaannd...the mario block i was going to make turned into a mushroom block, that didnt turn out as i planned. I drew the pattern from a pixelated picture i found on the internet. Then i cut all the squares 2.5, and of course since i cut them by hand, they didnt sew right, and sewing long strips of tiny blocks and having them match up is not my strong suit. So....its not great, but my 10year old loves it, so i guess thats all that matters. I'm probably going to use a bunch of fabric i have left from the front to whip up a back, and them i'm doing simple quilting lines. I have been requested to make a "Boo" and a "Mario" quilt for my other two boys, but those little blocks just frustrate me so i might try to find a different method.