Farmer's Wife Friday!

Well, I have jumped into the fray of the farmers wife craze!  Check out my first two blocks:




The basket weave block came out a bit wonky. Both are paper pieced.  I am planning to paper piece all of the blocks. This is my first time paper piecing and I like it so far!

The Long Beach Quilt Festival is happening now and I took the day off work to go down to enjoy my first ever quilt show.  I got a few fun items and saw some beautiful quilts. 

This one was made by a seven year old girl with ad/hd.  She is a part of the only childrens quilting guild in soCal.



This one was made by a 12 year old boy from the same guild:





Just amazing.  I really really enjoyed the show. The market place was sooooo crowded.  I got to try out the Elna 720 and viewed some Janomes as well.  I confirmed with the Janome guy that my kenmore is indeed a Janome!  I ordered some feet for my Kenmore machine and they arrived in a Janome box, so that was my first clue.

I loved the elna and I plan to save toward an upgrade for about a year and hopefully, when the show rolls around next year I will be able to purchase a dream machine at the show. They have great deals!

Thats all for now.  I will be back for WIP Wednesday next week, I hope!

A Finish on WIP Wednesday!

Happy in Cali is done! Unfortunately, its late and the pics did not come out well so I will post a pic of the full piece when I get some outdoor shots of it.  In the meantime, check out the quilting and the binding:



At first, as I was making the binding, I was thinking that I had made the wrong choice. But when I started stitching it on with my walking foot, I knew I had a winner.  I really love this quilt.  Its backed with yellow flannel.  I really like the way flannel feels on skin so I choose it more often than not to back my quilts.  I usually stock up on it at Joann's on Black Friday because its always on sale then. : )





 

 I quilted the entire thing myself. I decided to free hand some flowers in the borders. I heard an interview over on  Craftsanity and the artist was speaking about how doodling helped her come up with some of her fabulous embroidery designs.  I also reviewed some videos on free motion quilting and they talked a lot about practicing by drawing out the design on paper so that your brain can get used to what you want your hands to do. Well, I have been doodling this same flower since I was in elementary school so my figured my brain should be pretty familiar with it by now, since I am now over 40! I made some booboos but I am overall very pleased with my first attempt. I am so happy I dove in because now I feel energized to finish my other projects!


And go on over to Freshly Pieced  to check out some more fabulous work from  the WIP Wednesday Participants!:

Works In Progress Wednesday!

Well,  I finally got up the courage to start quilting Happy in Cali!.  I was hesitant because I am a fairly new quilter and have only attempted straight line quilting with my walking foot as well as crazy quilting with the decorative stitches on my machine.  I was going to simply grid quilt this one and at the last minute I decided that I had to try it at some point. Happy in Cali is for me so it really does not have to be perfect, as if its going to judged. So I decided that the only way to learn to stipple is to stipple so I did it!  I have to say, I am so happy with the results.  I know that there are many mistakes in this quilt and one day when I look back on it years from now, I might sort of roll my eyes at all the mistakes. But today, I AM SOOOOOO HAPPY WITH THIS QUILTING!

Lord knows I will not be winning any prizes for these photos! Not so great but here they are:








I know its really not stippling but more like loop-d-loops.  I still love it!  Thats all that matters, right? 


Stats:

5 current projects

1. The baby tube quilt needs to be bound
2. The baby rag quilt needs the ragging to be finished up and then washed
3. The Jelly Roll 1600 will get two additional borders before its sandwiched
4. The other Jelly Roll 1600 needs the piecing completed
5. Happy in Cali needs the quilting to be completed and then it can be bound!

I have no new projects at this time but I am starting to think about some quick lap quilts for family Christmas gifts.

Still working on the masters and still planning to be finished soon and very soon!

Other than this, I am sort of drawn to the Farmers Wife Quilt along that are going on right now.  I am planning to purchase the book and to attempt to make this one over the next what will likely be several years of my life!  At first,  I was turned off by the fact that its done with templates. Then I heard over on the Hip to Be Square Podcast that there are paper piecing patterns out there. So, now I really think I am going to do it!

Thats my progress. Pop on by Freshly Pieced to see what everyone else is up to!

Works In Progress Wednesday!

Wow, its been a while. I have not been able to craft because I was so focused on working on my Master's Degree. I think I wrote 3 papers and completed my capstone project which included a video presentation, over the last 4 weeks. So, I am now on the brink of finishing my MBA!  Just two more exams and I am done!  I cannot wait until I can't count this as a finished project.  My goal is to be done done done by the first day of fall. For me, taking exams is easier than writing papers so I really think I can do it by then. 

We are on vacation this week and my mother is in town so we have been having a lot of fun with our little guy and he is enjoying his granny and she is enjoying him. I am getting spoiled because my mother is doing lots of cooking and cleaning!  Yeah! Hey, I did not ask...its just what she does. Who am I to stop her?  Seriously, I am so so grateful for her. 

Since we are on vacation, I got a chance to do a little crafting today. This is a combination of the Jelly Roll Race Quilt seen  here:



And some fence rail blocks for borders.  I think this is the final incarnation of my red, black and white quilt. I will probably add an additional solid red border and make a scrappy binding for this one.  I did not work with a jelly roll. I cut a ton of red/black/white strips and just followed the process seen in the video.  I had already made several fence rail blocks because I was originally planning an entire fence rail quilt. But I really like how this is turning out so far.  Check it out:



The lighting is terrible but it really is turning out nicely. I like the scrappiness of it all!

Finally, take a look at my two favorite fellas on Father's Day. We went to see Sesame Street Live and a good time was had by all!



Since I will be studying intently over the next few months, I am not sure when I will participate again in this WIP Wednesday Linky party. But I will be checking it out every week and so should you if you are looking for inspiration!