Happy Easter... and some more fabrics

Happy Easter.  Today was a nice day spent with my family.  It was relaxing with church then dinner and then just chilling.  It is beautiful today so my Easter outfit was perfect.  About two weeks ago when I stopped in to Kohls to return something I decided to just take a quick look around.  I always have to check out the clearance section just to see what they have and I found a dress that started at $68 and was marked down to just $6.40!  It fit perfectly so I couldn't pass it up.  And just yesterday I went back to see if I could find a cute sweater to go with it and score, a cute one for just $12.  With my Kohls cash (which was left from January) and my coupon I paid just .39 for it.  So my Easter outfit only cost me $6.79.  I love sales!  My little silver shoes are from Aldo and were a gift from my sister for Christmas.  And I carried a little clutch that I made.

So I showed you some fabrics that I picked for my sister's quilt already, but I needed to find some more to add to it so I spent an afternoon and headed to another fabric store not far from me.  There I picked up some fabrics for a backing that I fell in love with (and wasn't looking for) that I will show when the quilt is finished (tehehe).  I wandered around for a while and found some great fabrics that fit with the theme that I have for my sister's quilt.

So these are the ones that I felt worked with the theme.  From the left we have Wild Thyme by Carolyn Gavin for P&B Textiles, then the top lighter one is Robert Kaufman "Fusions", below is something by Faye Burgos (it was cut off), top again is color splash by Hoffman California, and the blue is by Timeless Treasures.  The Color splash came out of my stash but I just realized that it fit with the others and I am totally kicking myself for only getting a half a yard of the Faye Burgos print... I may need to go get a little more.

All together I like the feel I get from them.  I guess I should get started on her quilt now that I have a good selection of fabrics to work with.

While I was out this week I also picked up a few fabrics to go with my I-spy swap fabrics.  I participated in an I-spy swap about a month ago set up by Midnight Maker.  I was very excited when my fabrics arrived in the mail and immediately laid them out to see all the fabrics.

Here is a selection of them.  I have some others to add in but was told that my nephews would not appreciate the pink dresses or shoes or purses.  Humph... I guess I will save those for if I need to make a girl I spy quilt.  But I think my flamingos are awesome

And these bugs totally rock

Oh and these little fish I picked up at the store the other day I just love

I also have some lobster fabrics and trains and some other ones that will work great.  I saw some blue crab fabrics that I need to pick up too because I mean we do live near the water.  And I found some more of the road signs but in a yellow on yellow form super cheap so I grabbed that too ($1.75 for a fat quarter!).

Well that is an update on my fabric habit.  I think I need to avoid the fabric store... except to go and get more of that one print, haha.  I guess I should go get sewing.

Getting the boat ready...

So I have been working my little fingers away on a fun project that I can't wait to share on here once it is complete and sent to its new special owner.  Cutting, pressings, sewing, pressing, sewing, pressing, arguing with iron, pressing again... keeps me super busy.

But I also have been helping as much as possible with getting the boat ready. (Which isn't much this year thanks to me knee :( )  So I sewed on some straps to the side curtains of the boat.  We then added some snaps to the straps so that when we take the back of the curtains off we can snap the sides so they don't flap in the wind.

The boat will be in the water in about a week.  Then it starts fishing season.  

When we took the winter cover off.

Now back to sewing that special little project!

New fabrics!

So yesterday I headed to my LQS to pick out some new fun fabrics.  You see, yesterday a new little someone made her appearance into the world and I just could not wait to pick out some fabrics to add to the once I already had picked out for her special quilt.  I am so excited for the new little family and I can't wait to meet the little one!  But I can't post up the fabrics I bought for her because I want it to be a surprise to her mommy :)  Lets just say that I am super excited for what I have come up with for her!  And it was perfect timing because this being my birthday month I get 20% off my entire order so I made sure to make it worth my while.

But I can post up the picture of the two other fabrics that I bought for a quilt for my sister.  She will be moving back to NJ soon after 10 years of being out of the state so this is a birthday/ welcome home quilt.

The fabric on the left is by Timeless Treasures and the one on the right is Eclipse by Exclusively Quilters.

Adding them to the two I have already collected for her we have this so far...

The orange one is Bliss by P&B Textiles and the blue is Nouveau by Moda.  I am planning a beachy, airy feel for this quilt.  I think the Eclipse will be more towards the outside to keep the feeling light.   I have two patterns in mind, one is Target Practice  (by Themodernquiltguild) and the other is Curious Nature (by David Butler).  If I did target practice, I might scale it up some, make it larger.  It is still up in the air and I need to collect some more fabrics for this.

I will be heading sometime soon to Stitch and Sew which is about 30 minutes from me because they have a crazy amount of cottons (and everything else you can imagine!) to choose from!  I mean crazy!  I was looking for black and white at one point and walked into that section and there were over 100 bolts that I could see and that is not counting the ones that were buried under the others that I couldn't see!  I'll have to take some pictures on my next trip.

So that is what I will be working on and once the special little someone gets her quilt there will be pictures up of that one :)

Happy Birthday to Me

This weekend was my birthday.  And I am happy to say that I was able to spend it with friends that I haven't seen in over 6 months.  Usually for my birthday we go kayaking because there is a release on the Tohickon Creek, but this year I was stuck on the bank.  The guys all boated, I played shuttle bunny.  Doesn't my car look cute with boats on it?  One more would make it better... a little red boat.  Maybe in a couple of months.


So at least we got to celebrate my birthday with a campfire, some vodka soaked gummy bears, and strawberry cup cakes.

A small group shot. (Steve, DJ, Soot, Me)

Now if I can only figure out how to get the camp fire smell out of my phone.

I have to head over to my LQS, Quilting Possibilities, to get my discount for my b-day... Yay!  I love discounts on fabrics!

Busy busy busy

So I haven't posted in over a week and that is just not like me, but it has been a busy week. Between tearing apart my room to re-organize the crafty tornado that hit, purging things and clothing like it's my job, and trying to get some projects completed time has just flown by.  Plus I have had my usual 12 hours of physical therapy a week and had multiple doctors appointments for my knee.

To start, last weekend I made it my mission to find a new pair of sneakers.  I have been wearing a super light pair of sneakers by Easy Spirit for all my physical therapy sessions since I started in November.  They are called Lightspeed. I like how light they are and they fit really well, but now that I am doing more at physical therapy I felt I needed something a little better to keep up with my slowly growing level of activity.  Maybe it is wishful thinking that I will one day run again because this in-activity is starting to drive me mad.

I went to the outlets and after trying every pair of sneakers in my sizes (both kids and adult - yes my feet are that little) I figured I would never find something because nothing fit right.  But I decided to hit up Kohls and I found 2 pairs!  Actually, there were many to choose from and I had decisions to make.  I hate decisions!  For many things I don't have to make many usually because there are almost never shoes to choose from in my size or if we are at a restaurant I don't eat meat so there are usually few choices for me... lets just say that I am indecisive.

Ok, back to the shoes.  The first pair I chose after trying on for what seemed like forever is a pair of Nike Alvord 9.  They are a nice trail running shoe.  They have a good tread on the bottom which I feel will be nice once I start to run again on the trails.  They fit nice and securely and have good cushion and support.  It is part of the Nike Air family, with extra cushion in the heel.  I am not used to the more cushion this sneaker provides, but it is super comfortable at physical therapy.  I think these will be great when I can run again because I am a heel strike runner, which will have to change, but for now I have the extra support.

The next shoe that I chose is the New Balance 310's, another trail running shoe.  This one has a little less cushioning in it than the Nike, but I like the feel of how light weight they are.  I believe that once I am running again (hopefully) that these will be great on the trail.  Walking around the house in them I can really feel what is under my foot.  The sole of this sneaker is similar to the New Balance 101's, but is more cost friendly.  I haven't worn these to physical therapy yet, but maybe one day next week.


I know, this was a random post about sneakers, but when you think about it they are important.  Especially right now that I am coming off of a knee injury and spending a lot of time trying to get myself back into shape.  And at least I found a couple pairs that were cute because we all know that is important to have a cute pair of shoes.  Sometimes, they do help you to feel a little better.

Modern Mini Completed!

So happy to say that I have finally completed my Modern Mini Quilt!  When I saw that Ellison Lane Quilts was having a modern mini challenge I had to jump on board and design one of my own.  I came up with this.

By the bridge that crosses the Cedar Creek at
Double Trouble State Park.

Now I decided to take the word challenge literally and go all out on this mini!  This mini quilt is made with hand appliqued hexagons  that I made out of quilters lame with paper templates.  Each hexagon is a different color.

Under the bridge.

After I hand stitched the hexagons on I decided to hand quilt the entire thing.  I began by stitching around the hexagons and then moved out in concentric lines, almost like ripples in water.  (I have a slight obsession with water!)  The stitching was done with a light pink pearl cotton.  (Did I mention that I love pink too?)

A nice up close of around the hexagons.

It took me a few days to complete the hand stitching and my goodness I am not sure if I will do this much of it again.

I bound this quilt with the quilters lame in the darker pink that I used as one of the hexagons.

A good closeup of the corner with the stitching. 

The backing is the same kona cotton in white that I used for the front and I used 100% cotton batting.  The finished size is 19.75" x 22.5". I added little tabs in the corners of the back to make it east to hang.

Hanging on an old building at Double Trouble State Park

Once it was all completed I decided that I just had to take the pictures by the water so I headed to the park and had some fun and almost dropped it in the creek at one point (and it is cedar water so that would have been very very bad!).  I'm not sure if you can tell that I had a lot of fun taking pictures of it at the park.

I think that this shows the stitching nicely.  

So now I will be linking up the the Modern Mini Challenge.  Go over and take a look at all the amazing quilts that were designed for this challenge!

Edit:  I am also linking up to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story.  More quilty goodness to admire!

Pot holders for Suzi

I have to say that I have some super fun cousins.  Of course, we live all over the country.  I'm in NJ, and then we range all the way from Florida to Alaska.

My cousins loved my mustache items that I have been making.  We all have a little quirky side being the closest in age.  So two of my cousins asked me to create things for them with mustaches.  Suzi wanted pot holders and requested something with yellow and green.  So I came up with these.

The background fabric is a yellow period reproduction that I picked up years ago when one of my favorite places was going out of business.  I have used it in a number of things including a quilt for my sister where it made up half of the entire quilt and I still have 6 yards left! I love it with its little green paisley and little flowers in pink on it.

I again zig-zaged around the mustaches and I made the fron and the back separately, quilting the fabrics onto the insul bright.  When I put them together, I serged the edges to hold it together for me.  Then stitched a rectangle around the mustaches to make sure it would all stay put.

For the back I used a small green plaid and I used the same for the binding.  I machine stitched the binding on.  And also made a little loop with the yellow to hang them with.  I think they turned out super cute and hope that Suzi loves them.  

Now, Payton will have something else fun coming to her.  I have a super fun idea for her mustache item and can't wait to try it out!

Update on my modern mini....

Yes this is a cell phone pic.  My camera card and I are no
longer on speaking terms!

Just a sneak peak of the progress.  Next time I decide it is a good idea to quilt by hand, someone please remind me how this moment because I am so unbelievably slow at this!  What was I thinking!  But it does look good.  Oh and also remind me to only draw what I will quilt in a day with my disappearing pen.  Thanks!

Oh and on a positive note.... I have made it through 5 physical therapy sessions without crying!  (and these are some crazy long, 4 hour physical therapy sessions) That is an amazing thing to me at this point.  It has taken 5 months to hit this milestone!  Spring is coming and maybe I will be able to enjoy it! :)