The First Quilt!

Since last we spoke I made it through hand warmers, warming packets, bath salts, TONS of cookies, notepads, and (that's right) 1.9 quilts!! 

Okay given that its almost a week after Christmas and I was supposed to give 2 quilts as gifts, that number really should have been slightly higher.  Oh well.  Thankfully my sister did not have my gift for me on Christmas either so I didn't look like too much of a schmuck.  I just need to finish the edges on her quilt, which should be done tomorrow since I have the day off. 

I'm here today to show you the finished product of my brother's quilt.  Previously I talked about the pattern and the start of the quilt and promised to be back soon to update you.  Well I was not back soon but I did come back and that's what counts, right?  Anway, pictures!!

I was mostly happy with the way it came out but it was nowhere near perfect and you could tell it was my first time.  My lines were very uneven and it could have been a lot more professional looking.  As a coworker likes to say though, you couldn't tell from the back of a trotting horse.  And more important than my critique of my work is that my brother LOVED it and I'm thrilled to be able to give him something that he will use and keep and love for years. 

Soon to come: My sister's brown and pink quilt. 

Its Been a While...Once Again

Once again, it's been a while since posted but now that I've started working on Christmas projects I thought it would be a good time to reconnect with you all.  That is if anyone is actually still reading. 

For Christmas I decided to make my very first quilt and give it to my little (21 year old) brother.  I found this great easy pattern and got to cutting!  I had to cut a total of 110 large rectangles and 10 half rectangles.  This seemed to take FOREVER and by the time I was done I had to go in and get a massage.  Given my house and furniture setup and options I spend my time sitting on the floor and cutting out squares which results in a lot of hunching and tense muscles.  One day I'll figure out a better setup for this all. 

Please excuse my hit and miss photography.  I'm working on it.  Here are some of the fabrics I'm using for the quilt.  I think I have around 15 different patterns although a few look VERY similar. 

I've gone heavy with the music note fabric in the quilt top.  Lil bro is a drummer so I thought it appropriate to have plenty of music in his gift. 

and here is a sampling of some of my stitched together rows.  I didn't really plan it out ahead of time, other than to know that there were some fabrics I had more of so I needed to use them regularly or even occasionally 2x in a row.  When selecting I just tried to make sure I used any of the fabrics that weren't in the previous row and tried to make sure the same fabric never touched.  It seemed to work pretty well thus far.  I've completed 6/10 rows and stitched 5 rows together.  I also went through the last of the fabric and picked which squares will be in which of the last four rows.  Thus far I'm really happy with what its working out to be.  I hope to have the top finished by the middle of the week and the quilt itself finished sometime next week.  We shall see though, after all it is my first one!!

I'm also planning a pink and brown colored quilt for my sister.  I bought the fabric for it, but haven't gone looking for a pattern I like yet. 

Check back later in the week for an update on the finished quilt top! 

Quilting and Chess

As you may have seen from my etsy shop, I've made a lot of cards and vinyl lately.  I went to a scrapbooking retreat a few weekends ago and got a lot of pages done as well as the new listings on my shop.  I also just took a basic quilting class last Thursday.  I just finished my first ever quilt block this morning and I thought that I'd share my results. 

 

After making this block and digging it so much, I think I may work on a full fledged blanket next.  Probably not of this star patterned type, but maybe strip quilting or just general squares.

I've also been working on refinishing dbf's chess set.  He has a really nice glass chess set but the felt lined bottom of it is coming off as you can see from the above pics.  The paper/felt lining to protect the glass from the glass just pops right off.  So to fix it, I bought some felt and glass glue.  

I cut circles out of the felt, glue them on, and then trim off the excess once they've set.  So now his chess board is protected from his pieces.  

I'm back in the craft game

I've been busy busy around the apartment lately.  I've been working on decorating and organizing and I thought I'd share some of the progress with you guys.

First off, my freshly organized cabinets:

My photography isn't so great on  my spices, but I love this "spice stack" that  I found at bed bath and beyond.  It fits perfectly in my cabinet and makes my spices a lot easier to find and much more accessible.














So beyond the boring but needed organizing, I've also been working on decorating the apartment a bit more, starting with some cute vinyl decals in my hallway from Target and a second one in  my kitchen.

And so far, definitely my favorite addition has been three fabulous photography prints from Amelia Kay Photography on Etsy.  Excuse my medicore photography of her fabulous photos. I set them up above the bed which I think is appropriate given the subjects of the pictures. 

I have also managed to get my etsy shop up and running during my slacking off from blogging, so hop on in and take a peek at what I've been up to lately!

Knitting and Scrapbooking

I'm starting to feel like I'm perpetually apologizing for my lack of posting, so I'm not going to do that this time.  :)  So back in the beginning of December I took an introduction to knitting class and since then have been furiously making scarves.  Okay so I was furiously making scarves around Christmas, now I've taken a bit of a break.  but anyway, here's a glimpse of the start of a scarf that I made for my father.  I was too focused on getting it mailed out to get to his house in time for Christmas to take a picture of the completed scarf but you can rest assured that it looked smashing!  Especially considering it was only my third scarf ever!

Very recently, I got bit by the scrapbooking bug and started back up on the scrapbook for our Europe trip in Spring of 2009.  I've been pretty focused on it and would probably be finishing it before the weekend if I hadn't had to last minute order more prints from snapfish. 

 

Here are a few of the pages that I managed to complete last night and this morning.

 

I'm definitely no scrapbooking expert, but I like what I've done with things.  I've considered adding captions, but I'm not really sure yet.  As it sits now I flip through and go "oh yeah and we did that" and "oh I forgot about that" and then tell myself the stories.  But I don't know if that will fade with time and I should add captions so I don't forget.  Any thoughts readers?