Hello, Fabric Heaven!

Hello Fabric Heaven!

Hey there!

Recently I visited a fabric store in Maitland called The Sewing Studio.  I was on the hunt for a lace trim for soon-to-come veil making, and this shop seemed like a good place to check out. And let me tell you I totally caught a case of crafter's ADD when I walked in!

There was soo much fabric! And in sooo many different patterns and materials. It was uh-MAZE-ing.  They also have a discount shop with all sorts of fabric, trims, & notions.  I can't even express how cool the shop was... & the ladies working there were very helpful.

So yeah, enjoy this colorful fabric yumminess!

Needless to say... now I want to...

via:Savory Stitches

Not So Blue Monday #7

Good evening there :)

It seems that I've been bitten by the quilting bug and this Not So Blue Monday has been made better for it.  Work went well, which is great to say. But on to my list!

Good things for Not So Blue Monday

1. getting up an hour earlier than normal & easing into the day
2. work productivity
3. catching up with my photo-a-day on instagram
4. talking to one of my college friends after a long while
5. "Sew on & Sew Forth" poster for the craft area. (I got it -here-)
6. clean doggies
7. roommate being home & crafting with her
8. watching Coraline
9. sewing two more flowers into my quilt
10. telling my mom & dad about my quilt progress & them being happy about it
11. text msgs from Lamar about how he saved $2 on donuts

I feel like I could keep going!  Evidently, this was a really good Monday.  I think it was the easing into the morning that I did today. I took an extra long shower & spent most of it sitting down in the tub praying.  It was very relaxing... so much so that the annoying things that the office manager did today didn't bother me as much.  I guess I'll try to do this again tomorrow & maybe make it a regular thing... That is, if I stop having these late late crafting nights, lol.

But seriously... what are the chances of me crafting less??  Slim...
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I tried to create a collage of photos that go with my list, but I'm sleepy now & don't feel like fussing with it anymore tonight... Maybe I'll add it tomorrow.

Goodnight :)

Crafternoon 7

Hi there & good evening!

I've had quite the quilting crafternoon.  The day was spent finally purchasing/preparing my backing fabric, pinning the 'quilt sandwich' together, & then beginning the hand quilting. So, onto progress shots of the thrift store fabric quilt! ^.^ Hurrah!

The fabric is showing up off color in the photo, but it's a deep cranberry color.

Pins all in place. Lamar helped out on this step. Much appreciation to him :~)

Quilting template chalked on & hand stitching underway!

Finished motif.

The plan for the quilting is to do the largest flower in the middle of each block & a smaller flower where four blocks come together.  I'm pretty excited about how my 'proper quilt' is progressing.  Plus, I'm always really reassured when the workers in fabric stores are helpful.  The cashier at Hancocks (where I got my backing) gave me some tips on doing the binding.  I appreciated that because I'm feeling a bit anxious about that step, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it :)

Friday Night Project

Good afternoon :)

A few weeks ago, I snagged a HUGE bag of fabric from ThriftMart for $1.00 (originally $6, but I had a $5 coupon- yay me). When I took all the fabric out, I was so surprised at the amount that was in there. It was packed super tight ^.^ In addition to the fabric, there were quite a few handkerchiefs, cloth napkins, pieces of felt, & fabric place mats.

The majority of the fabric.

Anywho, I decided that after Amber's wedding I was going to try my hand at making a real patchwork quilt that is actually adult sized. (My last quilting project was tiny & is here.) My original idea for this quilt was to cut up all the fabric into 1'x1' blocks & arrange them in some kind of color-wise gradient pattern... I'm VERY glad I didn't do that. Why? Because once I cut up the red fabrics & laid them out I had just enough for a 5'x7' quilt... I spent something like 6 hours cutting & piecing together scraps to make full blocks last night.

This little guy was my left hand last night, lol.

I was determined not to waste a lot of fabric, so whenever I needed a few more inches on a block, I surged little pieces together.  Some of my blocks are actually made of 4 or more smaller scraps. I figure it's a scrap quilt so I might as well make use of ALL my scraps :)

As the night went on, and all my blocks were laid out, my trusty "crafting partners" came out to do their comfort tests...

Kiva & Toot

Evidently it passed their test, because they kept creeping back over to lay on it whenever I wasn't looking, chuckle...  Now that the layout was done, I started sewing them together.

**Wedding nails still hanging in there ^.^**

Strips all done.

By this time it was almost midnight & I definitely got in that mode where you're super tired, but you don't want to stop because the end is in sight. I almost gave up, lol...

Catnap time...

Okay! With the help of a marathon of "Storage Wars" I finished sewing together the quilt top. (That show is more interesting than I thought it was going to be.) I got Lamar to hold the top up for a photo. 

The finished quilt top.

You can see all the blocks that I pieced from scraps.  The extra seam lines make me think of Piet Mondrain.  I like that.  It came out really nice. Now I need to decide on a quilting pattern. I'm strongly considering hand-quilting it... mainly because I can't find a place to go & machine stitch it.  I don't want to send it off to someone to do it for me.

The next step is to get the batting & backing fabric & pin it all together.  I figure that that will be my crafternoon project for tomorrow. I'm nervous about the binding step, because my last 2 quilt bindings were a little shifty & fudged. So hopefully 3's a charm.

This post has gotten really long (sorry) but I hope you enjoyed seeing how I sewed my Friday night away.  Have a great weekend!