A Very Merry Monday!

After a three day trek from Nashville, TN, I am at my dad's place in Richmond, VA! I stopped twice to spend some time with my Grandmother and my boyfriend, which is always nice. And CJ and I saw the new Hobbit movie on Saturday, which was super duper fun. He thought it was a little too cute at times, and I didn't like how many wide swooping panoramic shots there were, but overall it was a fun movie. I eat up the LOTR movies like they're movie theater popcorn, I love them.

But I'm here to show off the two swoon quilts I made for my stepsisters for Christmas! I started work on them back in July, before I left for my study abroad trip. The first quilt took around two and a half months to make, and the second one took two weeks. I was on a tight deadline, so I said goodbye to my social life and locked myself in the sewing dungeon (a.k.a. the basement of my mom's house) to get them both finished.

And here they are! And they're MASSIVE! There isn't anywhere big enough here in the house to take photos, and it's raining outside, and I need to wrap them soon to get under the tree...

I know for sure that the quilt on the left is made mostly with FQ's of Flea Market Fancy. The one on the right, I have no idea- my local fabric shop had a Fat Quarter Frenzy sale, and I just snatched up whatever colors I thought would work well together. 

This one is for the 8 year old...

and this one is for the 6 year old.

Both are bound with a solid colored binding- the upper is light blue, the lower is light pink. And I just realized I didn't take any photos of the backing, which is a gross oversight on my part. Sorry, all!

I am so glad they're done! I still need to clean them up a bit, but they're ready for Christmas morning :)

A victorious Finish!

Dear little girls,

I'm sorry I wasn't there this year to join you for Hanukkah, but I hope you enjoy these quilts I made you for Christmas!

Happy holidays!
Love, Kitty

Machine

I have succeeded. I sat myself down in the dungeon almost every night this week and the whole weekend, and finished  my quilting!

 In process. I'm watching the Magic Schoolbus right now.

There were some trials and tribulations, as there often are on long journeys. I broke a needle. I stabbed myself with pins. And my machine stopped working. I think I've been pushing it too hard, because it was groaning and groaning and finally just seized up and decided to not work anymore. Luckily, my mom has an old Husquavarna, and that thing is a TANK. I finished about four episodes of quilting in two episodes with that machine. 

I took apart my little Brother, but couldn't figure out what the issue was. I'm going to have to find someone here in Nashville who can play doctor to my machine. In the meantime, I plan on machine sewing on the bindings for both Swoon quilts tomorrow, and then packing them up for my trip to Richmond for Christmas!

A casualty

All squared up!

I feel like a tiny factory, a quilt making factory. I am the machine that sews and sews and sews and has BEEN sewing for WEEKS. I'm so glad this is almost done. And I'm a little glad my Brother pooped out on me, it's forcing me to take a break. I wanted to make a wedding quilt for some friends who are getting married on the 27th, but I wasn't going to have the time. And now I don't have the means, so haha! I was planning on making them some cute coasters as a placeholder for the quilt, so we'll see how that goes. I think I'll write them a nice letter instead- I don't want to deal with the stress of my machine right now.

I WANT TO BASK IN THE GLOW OF THREE SOLID MONTHS OF WORK.

THEY ARE READY FOR ME.

Keeping Schedule

As any of you who have been following me know, I'm busting my butt to finish TWO Swoon quilts in time for Christmas. I decided to make a calendar schedule to map out what I need to do and when so that my step sisters can open up a massive quilt on Christmas. It's a great calendar! Everything made sense, and it was all doable.

I had block #7 to finish and block #8 to start and finish for Wednesday. All the fabric has been cut, it's all assembly at this point. So I sat down before dinner to get a head's start and work on the blocks. Then mom called dinner, we watched Sherlock Holmes.... and I lost all motivation to start block #8.

womp womp.

So, I made binding for my Sisters' Ten BOM quilt instead!

Schedules are lame, anyway.

  

  

I'll finish on time, I promise.

Three Quilts for the Price of One!

Post #101! I'm hitting some crazy milstones- blog turning 1, 100 posts... My, how time flies.

I have been terrible about posting quilts I've finished! In the craziness of the summer, I was preparing for my trip abroad and trying to wrap up as many sewing projects as I could. In July, I finished my Scrappy Trip Along quilt, and right before I hopped on the plane to Iceland in August, I finished my beautiful Quilt Barf project.

 

Aren't they lovely? Haha!

During the summer of 2012, I had no job and a lot of time on my hands. I'd made two quilts already with my grandmother, and found sewtakeahike's String Quilt tutorial on StumbleUpon (yeah, it was that long ago!). I decided to start collecting fabrics for a string quilt, and this beauty was finished just in time for me to take it to my new apartment at college.

I don't think I named it...

When I was collecting fabric and such, I went ahead and cut everything into strips in varying widths and arranged it by color. After I had all the blocks done, though, I realized that I had a butt ton of scraps left over from this project. WAY too many. I decided I was just going to slap everything together and use it as the backing. But about halfway into that, I decided it looked ugly and I didn't feel like sewing anymore (I wanted to finish this before the move, after all). So, the slappy pieces got rolled up in a sheet and put away for a while.

I still had a ton of scraps, though. So once blog-land got hold of the scrappy trip along, I decided to hop on board! The pattern called for 2.5" strips, but I had more 1.5" strips, and decided to use what I already had. And so my teeny scrappy trip along was born!

It lives in Nashville with my mom

I STILL had scraps. And the slappy pieces. So, I put them all together and made Quilt Barf. I quilted it with straight lines every inch or so. It's a bright enough quilt, I didn't think it needed any fancy quilting.

 

The back is a neat flannel I got at a yard sale. 

So, one collection of fabric scraps, three quilts. And FINALLY I have used all of the fabric I cut for my string quilt.

Surrounded by Swoons

I realize I've been very absent on my blog lately. I could make excuses, but really I've been busy and tired from work and sewing. I'm busting my butt to finish two swoon quilts by Christmas. Can I do it? I hope so!

I will be excited to finish these. Hopefully they'll be under the tree by Christmas eve and two little girls will be over the moon to receive them!

I'm quilting the first Swoon with straight lines right now. Its really hard, this quilt is huge and it hurts my hands. I'm finishing up block 5 on the second swoon tonight!