Another Semester Begins

Today is Monday, Martin Luther King day it is the last Monday off that I have for the next sixteen weeks. I want to be able to accomplish several projects as well to complete while I am in classes. So here is my list of projects that I hope to be able to work on and keep going while I am in classes.

1. My Mardi Gras Girl I have her going but need to continue to work on her and keep making progress.

2. Keep working on organizing my sewing space.

3. A very special baby blanket, hopefully have it completed and mailed by the third week of February if not definitely finished by May 19th.

4. Keep working on Pat Sloan's block of the month-it is only one block a month

5. Finish crocheting my ornaments. I have 4 full boxes of glass ornaments to cover and 2 more in a box of six to complete.

6. Continue to blog and make progress in that area as well.

7. Get my projects organized and put the fabric and the patterns and ideas together that way I don't use the material for something else and then wonder hey what happened to .. you know what


So those are my desires for this year with my textiles. And while I am doing all that I need to be able to keep up with my classes and hopefully be able to transfer to the San Marcos University this fall to get my bachelors and my teaching credentials. Sometimes I really think I bite of more then I can chew. But you only live once, and I have a life I thoroughly enjoy today.

What to do with this block

This is January's block for Pat Sloan's 2016 Quilt along. I am very happy with the center block and the colors go well together. However, I am thinking I am going to redo this block it took me a full day to complete this block because I am working on my accuracy with cutting and sewing. This block is suppose to finish at 16 1/2 X 16 1/2 and I am close but not exactly where it should be. One of the good things I did accomplish with this block is I did not lose any of my points. I also have a quarter of an inch to join this block with another and that is a bonus because I won't lose my points there either.

Now the draw back is that I don't have enough of this fabric I believe to complete the quilt and the fabric that I used even though it is cotton it is more like the weight of a nice light linen dress. So it won't hold up to a lot of wear and tear.

Another drawback is I am not a pastel kind of girl I guess because though I like the way it came out I am just not over joyed with it. 

Pat Sloan's quilt along can be found here: http://blog.patsloan.com/2016-my-secret-garden/

Pat gives both written instructions and has pictures so her patterns are fairly simple to follow along. Take  your time cutting and lay out all your cut pieces and you should be ok.

I did it! I did it!

I finished my queen size quilt! I have had the fabric to make this quilt for over 4 years. I bought the fabric to match my room. Originally I meant to make a lone-star quilt but it was a bit beyond my skill set at the time. One day I hope to be able to make one of these amazing quilts. This is a lonestar quilt. not only the piecing makes this quilt amazing but the quilting makes it amazing as well. One day.

Rather than giving up and saying ok this will  never happen I chose instead a different pattern this one is by Pat Sloan and can be found here:

http://blog.patsloan.com/2015/09/pat-sloan-quilt-show-scrap-happy-little-wishes-free-pattern.html

This was Pat's version and below is my completed quilt. This was a quilt that I started a few months ago and was determined to finish it before my Spring Semester of College started and I succeeded in doing just that. There are still many projects that I have started and so want to finish, but I did finish some things and most importantly I finished our quilt. 

Now it is time to clean up my room and look at what else I want to do and see how I can manage to do this while I am still in class.

Titles are always difficult for me.

So I have been very busy this break. I have completed 4 wall hangings. I got my scrap happy blocks finished and got borders on them. I also got it pin basted yesterday and will be quilting it today on my Janome domestic machine.

I got a brother scan and cut last Christmas and did not really have the time to play around with it as much as I wanted to until this break. I finally managed to successfully cut some letters and numbers out of fabric with it and now that I have succeeded once I am sure I will be able to advance with what I want to do with it.

Sometimes I struggle with the amount of ideas that flow through my brain even as I attempt to focus on what I am working on at the moment my mind still jumps to the next project. So I will keep it simple today and go and start quilting my scrap happy queen size quilt.

Only 9 more days before my winter break is over.

On January 19th, 2016 I begin another semester of college, which means that my fun time will be shortened drastically. I have been very busy though during this break, I have finished up some projects and been thinking of new ones. So far I like my project finish ratio, I am usually always late for Christmas because of my classes, this year is no different. I am working to change that for the next Christmas though. I like to match my Christmas gifts to the people I am giving them to. I also like to give homemade gifts. Each year it gets a little better as my skill increases and improves.This year I did wall hangings and a table topper. My husband built the wall hanging display racks and I will post a picture of that soon as well.

 I also found another project that I wish to start this one will be for my daughter as she is a huge fan of the Nightmare before Christmas with Jack Skeleton.

I also have my new bed quilt that I am getting ready to baste and quilt today and will hopefully have it completed by next weekend. So busy busy.

The Progress of Organization

In March of this year, I began the process of really going through all my craft supplies and attempt to put some order to them. I have made progress but I realized that I would be at this non-stop because not only do I go through supplies I keep buying more supplies, the key I have found is when I get more supplies is that I put those supply's away right away.

I cleaned up my fabric shelves so it works better. But I have also finished some projects up as well. I finished quilting and binding my Globetrotting Quilt design from Pat Sloan. And I pieced together another top by Pat Sloan her vacation time quilt. I used a lot of batiks in this quilt and really like how it came out. I still need to quilt and bind it but it is going along.

Below is my fabric shelves that I organized by wrapping my fabric around comic book boards. It really helps a lot.

 I got a new Accuquilt Go for Christmas and it is on its own little stand. I re-purposed an butcher block cabinet on wheels for my Accuquilt Go.

 My husband resized my cutting table again for me so that it fits better in the space available to me it about 36 inches by 72 inches. It works much better as I am short so it was difficult to reach across the table to the window.

 And he built me a nice shelf for my serger and a rack for some of my rulers. It is coming together for me in my sewing room.

Becoming organized is not an easy thing for me as I have so many projects that interfere with the process. The more I attempt to organize the more more projects I begin to think about as I run across stuff. However, I am determined to one day have it well organized.

Living Life on Life's Terms

Between Life which for me is taking care of my family, going to school and building a sewing room that is just perfect for me. Every day I wake up and I get to live the life I always dreamed about as a child. It was a long time in coming for me you see I had to get over my childhood first. Today is different for me, today I have a loving husband, loving kids, I have a home that is coming together that actually fits my husband and I.

I have a small break in between semesters and I plan on making the most of it. I have been working on several projects some are further along then others, however, all have made progress. My current obsession is what I call my Mardi Gras Girl, she was a picture in a coloring book and I wanted something larger than that so I created her out of fabric.

 Then at first I attempted to cut the design out of freezer paper and realized that I was doing a lot of extra work when what I really needed to do was trace the design on the heat n bond and adhere that to the fabric and then cut out the design.

 This is the fabric that I chose to go behind the main design. It is really nice fabric but it does have a few problems the silver in it is like tinsel for a Christmas Tree so it is very delicate and can be difficult to work with but I did manage to keep going at it.

 I cut the design out of a heavier denim like fabric with an exacto knife that took about a week to do in between my classes.

 I then added a white satin for the face and a green sateen for the eye color and red cotton fabric for the lips. I then proceeded to zig zag around all of the cuts so that they would remain fairly intact. That took me approximately 9 days to do. It was really difficult to get the zig zag around all those crazy curves. At first I used a blue thread and I really didn't like that so I had to take that out and then proceeded with the black so that it would blend in with the main background fabric.

 This is a semi close up of the eye. Not bad for never having done this before.

 A look at the face.

 This is it under my needle on my sewing machine.

 Here is where I have attached some straight ribbon but then I got the idea that I really wanted some spiral ribbon on here. So that began the search on how to get the ribbon to spiral and someone gave me the perfect method to do it.

 And here are some of my spiral ribbons.

 here I attached the spiral ribbons and I like it but I am thinking that I want to do a combination of spiral and straight ribbons so she is still hanging on my design wall until I figure out exactly what I want to do next with her.

 And here are two wall hangings that I completed for our dining room and the fantastic quilt hangers my husband built for me to display them with. The quilt hangers are made from Knotty Alder and they are just perfect as quilt hangers and they give me some additional shelf space for my smaller knick knacks.

So I have a few weeks before my next semester starts and the second to last at the community college. Then I will know by March if I have been accepted at the university of my choice to continue on to get my bachelors. We shall see. What I do know is that I will be spending most of my time in my sewing room until the next semester begins.