My Mom's a Winner

My mom entered this website contest before Christmas and the stuff she won finally got here last week.  Check out the bounty:

She won 6 2 yard fabric cuts, a bajillion fat quarters, a jelly roll (which for my non-fabricy readers is a bunch of coordinated fabrics cut into strips and rolled together), lots of thread, some crazy huge batting scissors, gift cards to various websites, a new ruler, a book with a bunch of bag patterns in it, and (for some reason) a nail file!

I've been working on arranging these squares to my liking:

I think it's almost there.  I gave Josh artistic control over this one since it's for his cousin, and the quilts I make aren't always the most masculine.  Per his request, I'm going to move around a couple of the dark brown edge strips to make a more sensible pattern.

I'm Fancy

I wish this statement were true: Josh and I made a resolution to be fancier this year.  But we didn't.  I did however say we did when telling a story, because it sounded funny (it got a good laugh) and we are being fancier so far this year.  If I realized it a couple weeks into 2011, and we keep it going, can I say we resolved to be fancier?

Anyhow, I'm sure you're wondering about our first big event as fancy people.  On Saturday, we are going here

for an exclusive Cellar Club party.  Yes, we are members of this club.  Like I said, we're fancy.

On the quilting front, I finished sewing around the edges of all 480 leaves on the quilt for Emma, sewed all the blocks together, added a border, and made my first ever pieced back for it.  I'll add a picture soon.  I finally came up with a good plan for PJ's quilt and will start that this weekend while Josh is working in the ICU Sunday.  We do at least have a little weekend, he gets a whole 40 hours off starting tomorrow morning!

Sharing

We live with my parents right now.  And it's pretty awesome.  But whenever I say "my sewing room" or "my design board," I really mean "my mom's sewing room" and "my mom's design board."  Because she shares with me, I thought I would show you what she's working on right now:

We started quilting at the same time, when I took a class and then came home and showed her what the class did each week.  That was almost 8 years ago, and she is much more a quilting machine than I am now.  She's working on this one for her church auction/bazaar coming up in the spring.

Thanks for sharing with me, Mom!

I'm a Winner

I am the happy recipient of a fat quarter bundle from the Portland Modern Quilter's Guild!  There is a drawing for prizes at each month's meeting and this month I came away with four yards of awesome fabric.  Are you ready for this?

I learned that all the various animal prints were designed by a lady named Tammis Keefe in the '40s for her very popular handkerchief line.  Current fabric duo Michael Miller had them brought back for a tribute set to go with some of their own colorful prints.  Mostly I can't wait to figure out how to rock those alligators and those birds in a project!

Little Leaves Quilt

This pattern came out of Elizabeth Hartman's Practical Guide to Patchwork.  I've admired pictures of this quilt on her blog and was so happy there was a tutorial in her book!  I'm making mine 5 blocks x 4 blocks instead of 4x4, though.  Yes, that means I'm sewing 480 little leaves onto this quilt.  I've done 96 so far, and I'm ready to knock out the next 96.  Here are two rows up on my design board:

The top row has been all sewn on, and the bottom row's leaves have just been ironed in place.  The rest of the blocks are still in pieces.  I may change up the order once all my blocks are up there.  That's the beauty of the design board!

Here is a close up of one of the finished blocks:

 

To think last week, all I had was a big pile of blank 12" white squares!

Update: click here for a few pictures of this finished quilt.

Shout Outs

We got Josh's grandparents a little computer for Christmas so we could Skype with them since they're in Tulsa.  While Skyping last week, Josh showed them how to get to my blog, so I want to say:

Welcome Mema and Pepa!

I also want to give a shout out to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, from whom I learned the art of the shout out, and who I may or may not listen to on Hulu during my work day.  If my coworkers hear me laughing out loud, now we all know the reason.

I told Mema I would post my most recent quilt blocks tonight, but I have two more that I want to get together so I can post two full rows.  I'm going to work on them right now and will get them up tomorrow, I promise!

Work, work, work

I've been working almost nonstop lately.  I get up and go to work, I come home and work long distance for the Tulsa office until I go to bed so I can get up and work some more.  I have really liked working from home for Tulsa.  I curl up in my parents' living room on their oversized chairs, pop in a movie, and enter donor data to my heart's content.  That's the way to make a living! 
They won't need me much longer though, and my job here will start to need me more.  Our department shrunk by a couple people, and I'll take over their duties and get a promotion of sorts.  I'm quite pleased about it, but enough about boring work things.  All of this busyness hasn't left much time for crafting, but I do have plans.

I got a couple books for Christmas that I'm excited to try things from.  First, a cheese making book.  It's fantastic, and I'm going to be a cheese making machine one day.  Second, I got Elizabeth Hartman's Practical Guide to Patchwork which has some absolutely wonderful patterns in it.  I chose an applique leafy pattern for my next quilt, and so far all I've had time to do is practice a little:

 And choose the fabrics for my leaves:

Once I've got a block put together, I'll post it.  Unless it's ugly.  And then I'll post about my new ideas.