February BOM

I have the twelve inch block completed for the Lucky Stars Block of The Month club. I also like to do a six inch block, and may end up using those as a baby quilt gift if the need should arise in the future. My baby girl will get the big quilt! Here are the color choices this month along with the animal theme: piggy :0) I think it looks really good, and the lines in the stripe fabric are heading the same direction, even though the colors don't match up. My little toddler sized critic seemed to like it so there you go :0)

Sashiko Shell Beach

This has been one of my favorite designs to quilt! Not only did it feel very natural, but moved along very quickly. I really like the texture it brought to the area I picked out. I was able to do the entire beach area today despite the extra weight that was laying on the quilt :0) So now to a portion of the mountains that will be done in concentric circles (a design I hear takes a little time). I will be starting that one tomorrow because the count down is on until we go to Hawaii and this quilt will travel with me to have a photo op on the real beach!

Calm Sea Quilted!

Ok it has seemed to take A WHILE to get this portion of the quilt done, but I am so glad I finally finished it up last night. I did seem to get better and faster the more I stitched out my version of calm sea. I was disappointed however that the seam line I wanted to disappear seemed to jump out more once the quilt was finished in that area. I also learned that when I was stopping and starting that I would get this little "jump" looking stitch b/c the weight of the quilt was pulling the whole thing over just a little. You can see it in some spaces until I figured out just to raise the needle from the down position before starting back up again after shifting (does that make sense) and then I was better able to control where to stitch. ANYWAY, I'm moving on to the beach area today and I am wanting to do a larger version of Sashiko shell.....Hopefully I can get through this section quicker being near the edge with less bulk to move around! Another thing I have been trying to do is hide my tails as i go as opposed to waiting until the end.... Sometime if the tail is long it will get stitched up in other areas and I hate having to pick it out or work around the long strings...

I did have to rip out one small section due to stitching messing up on the back....don't you just hate when you go through a section five by five or so and have to rip it all out! 

 If you look at this picture you will see the "jump" stitch I was talking about especially close to the bottom left area....

Hand Towels and a Jacket

I have had this jacket sitting by my machine waiting to be embroidered since the end of December! Every time I would look at it I would think...oh not today...or it's Friday maybe another day... so today I FINISHED IT! What a relief such a small thing can be! I have a recipient waiting on this coat so can't wait to get it to the owner~THIS IS A UFO THAT'S HAPPY TO BE FINISHED~

My husband and I are decorating Lucie's new bedroom (she will moving out of the nursery sniff, sniff ....to make way for baby #2) and I am embroidering some hand towels with her name, and Sara June's name on them to look cute! I am in the process of making patches to sew on the towels in the hopes that it will make the design pop more since the towel is such a busy pattern.

And we are painting furniture in the room as well....we have two base coats of primer on and now ready for the top coat.....next will be the wainscoting and desk...

Sleeping Beauty

                                                             And photography fun...

Valentine Fabric Book and Quilting Aloha FINALLY

I finshed the Valentine Fabric Book this week and this it turned out good....I am not not sure it was the best job I could have done with thread sketching but it was a great place to practice! I am excited to give the gift, and I know Lucie will like playing with it too!


cute little hands...

me and daddy!

top view...you can see the paper doll family in there too!

had to add Mama and Dada initials too!

She just had too much fun paiting!!! I just can't resist putting more than one of these pictures on here!

And here is the picture of Aloha I started quilting just this morning. It took quite a while to pin baste this together since I chose to have a scrappy back (more seam lines and areas to bunch up!!) But hopefully I will be able to see the difference in taking the time when finished quilting and seeing the end product. I enjoyed sitting down and using Leah Day's 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs Book to decide what designs I liked the best nad where I wanted to put them. Right now I am quilting "Calm Sea" in the water area. I like it so far!

granted this may not be EXACTLY like hers, but I like the way it looks!

OH and I almost forgot! I made this cute birthday outfit for a friend....She sent me some ideas that she liked and here it is! I made Lucie a diaper cover like this one as well and it is sooooo cute! 

Valentine Fabric Book

Right now Lucie and I are working on a Valentine for Bryon. I found an awesome idea here : VALENTINE BOOK  and I am adapting it of course to be what we want it to be. I am including pictures I printed onto fabric, hand painting, some words thread painted on, and some quilting. This tutorial does not show the pages as being free motion quilted, but what fun that would be! I am working away to make this a cute little book! Pictured above is my little Picaso! Isn't she just darlin'!

and here are some pictures of my pages...getting ready to applique them and then quilt them!

and here is a picture of my belly right now.....week 24 whew got a while to go so just wonderin how big is this gonna get?!

Kitchen Chair Covers and More

I have had this fabric just waiting to be stitched up...and I looked at the other day and said what are you waiting for?! I bought it at the Country Living Fair in Stone Mountain Georgia back in the fall, and had known exactly what it was to be for.....cushions for my bar stools in the kitchen. I have four stools, but only had enough foam padding to make two, so that project will hopefully be finished today as I was able to make a trip to the fabroc store yesterday! I have all fabris cut out and ready to be stiched up. I am in love with Chevron Fabrics right now. My Mom told me to lay the cushions out in the sun for a few hours and that would take the wrinkles out since this is oil cloth....not made for the iron!

Aloha Quilt:

 Bella the Dapple Dachshund.....oh! and the scrappy back

Bella and Willow fighting it out play style!

I was able to put together the scrappy back together...I have been so excited about how this project is coming along, coupled with the fact that I have not had to buy a single piece of new fabric..this is all from my stash! I also wanted to show the detail I added in the corner this week to the large leaves. I did not do this as I was quilting, it is more of an applique technique I guess...P.S.....this is what the cat and dog just love to do on anything spread out on the floor! It is like play time for them...I'm sure those of you with pets and small children understand this as well....

Baby Hexi Quilt:

And lastly I have made good progress on stitching together my Hexis into a large star, and some smaller flowers. Still a lot to do but I'm liking it so far!

 I have started to coplile a list of this that I want to do and it is SOOOOOO long! I think I'd rather sit on that list that public display it...it makes me overwhelmed reading it!