Nurture circle quilts finally done!!!

I have finally finished the two quilts for the Nurture circle of Do.Good.Stitches.

I have a couple good reasons for why these are so late. In August I had a baby girl named Abigail Grace. She is a cute distraction that has been sucking up most of my free time and sleep. She is 7 weeks old now and starting to sleep a little better. Fingers crossed!!!

My other daughter Mirabelle turned one in July and has learned to walk and is running a muck.

The other thing that has been taking up my time is this crunchy masterpiece that we bought at the end of July. It needs many things and we are in the process of tearing up the inside.

And we are also finishing up a kitchen remodel in the house we are living in. Here is the awesome back splash we put in. God willing we will get this kitchen done soon. We started it back in 2015 when before Mirabelle was born!!!

In March we did this block by Patch the Giraffe called Picnic Pinwheel. I blogged about it here. I am not sure what about this quilt that caused me such trouble. But it seemed like I hit so many snags on this one. First I cut the backing wrong, so I had to piece it. Not a big snag but annoying to have an extra seam. Then I quilted it and bound it and right before I tossed it in the wash I noticed that there was a HUGE pucker. I tried to smooth it out but it was just too big. So in the end I had to unstitch oh so much of the quilt and quilt it again. Let me tell you that unquilting is much more time consuming than quilting. Especially when  you have the helping hands of a toddler. 

For the backing I used cross stitch in teal by Amanda Jean Nyberg of Crazy Mom Quilts.

For the May quilt I put together a scrap square that I called Hollywood Squares. I blogged about it here. This one was less trouble but I was holding onto it so I could mail both quilts together. 

For the backing I used a combination of solid Kona fabric in a dark teal (glacier) and a complimentary fabric that I dug out deep from my stash.

Both of these quilts are on the way to covered in love, the charity that we quilt for. I am linking up to crazy mom quilts Finish it up Friday,

June Blocks for Nuture Circle

For a variety of reasons I have been slacking on sewing and posting on here. Most likley it is the 11 month old that is cruising around my house and the baby that is on the way. The newest Peach is coming August 2016. I think with the second arrival I should just board up my sewing room and call it quits. I will hold out hope that with the help of my hubby and sneaking away late at night I will get some stitching in. 

Here is my most recent completed project. This month the Nuture circle of Do.Good.Stitches decided to make blocks for the people were effected by the wildfires in Fort McMurray Alberta Canada. The original post of from SLO Studio and can be found here. Although this is wrapping up at the end of the month you can always click on the link if you would like the tutorial to make the Maple leaf block. They requested the blocks in the colors of the Alberta flag (red, white, blue, yellow, and green). The fabrics could be solids or prints. I dug into my stash and found some fabrics from my "how did I end up with these fabrics collection". Great fabrics but for some reason they have been in my stash for too long. Usually fabrics that arrived in a scrap package, yard sale or clearance rack. Fabrics that I had a plan for and it didn't work out or fabrics that were too cheap to pass up. Hopefully these leaves will make the quilt recipients happy and warm. 

Posting at Finish it up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Feb Blocks for do.good.stitches

This block was a fun one this month. The post is here if you want to follow along. It was a good way to use up some scraps from the bin. I think this will make a nice quilt once it comes together. Next month will be my month to lead the group. Stay tuned for the fun and exciting block!

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

Of the Forest

This month we are back to quilting with the Nurture circle for do.good.stitches. This month was a tough one with paper piecing. We had to choose one block from the Forest QAL that can be found here. I choose the woodpecker as I thought it looked easier. I was also drawn to the roaring deer block. In hind sight I don't think it was the easiest block. It resulted in some serious cursing but on the plus side ate of some scraps from my bin. With the exception of the light blue all the fabric in the block came from my scrap bin. I can't wait to see what the other girls created but I am hoping for a much easier block next month.

Linking it up to Finish it up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

The best thing I've ever made.....

This project has been a long time in the making. My husband and I tried to start our family when we got married in 2009. We struggled to get pregnant but were able to in early 2014. That pregnancy ended in miscarriage and I had about given up hope that we would be able to have a child of our own. A few months passed and Thanksgiving day 2014 we found out that we were expecting again. I was hesitant to get excited until after we saw the doctor. The pregnancy progressed smoothly and we were planning for the baby to arrive in early August, Two weeks before I was due I was admitted to the hospital due to complications. Mirabelle made her way into the world on July 23rd. She is by far the cutest thing I have ever made!

Now that she is 8 weeks old and I am getting a little more sleep I have started sewing again. The best part is that if I bring her sleeper into my craft room the sound of my sewing machine soothes her right to sleep. If she isn't sleeping then she "talks" to me while I sew. Since Mirabelle was born I have finally gotten this quilt done for her. I have a few more in the works for her but they are behind a few more urgent projects.

This quilt originally started with inspiration from a quilt I had seen on the cover of Quilt Magazine called Spring Cleaning. You can find the original here. It started as a quilt I was making for our master bedroom and a way to work away at my scrap bin. In the end I changed gears and changed it to a smaller quilt for the baby. And although I used a lot of scraps I still have a mountain left.



I finished the top at the end of April. I had some trouble finding a backing I liked. It was one of the few times I was willing to pay full price for fabric but couldn't find anything I liked. I came across this fabric in Allegan MI. It was an end of the bolt clearance and they barely had enough to back the quilt. I love the storks and babies. I couldn't be happier with the fabric just got lucky and got it for a steal.

I think I auditioned every fabric I owned for the binding. I settled on blue with

white stars. 

I even broke out the manual and figured out how to do more than a straight stitch on my fancy machine to make a tag with her name and birthday. Pictures of the baby on the quilt coming soon. Linking it up to Finish it up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts.

Fantastic Finishes.....

Ok so it's been a hot minute since I posted. Here are some of the things I have finished up in the meantime.

August do.good.stitches Nurture circle blocks. The call was for any star blocks in red with a white background. I went with my favorite block, Scrap Jar Stars found here.

September do.good.stitches Nurture circle blocks. The call was for a block called Granny's front porch from Canoe Ridge Creations and the instructions are here. 

Using this color pallet

Here is how they turned out, I have blue fabrics a plenty!!!Wish I had more of that great purple in my stash.

Here is the finished top from July for the nurture circle of Do.Good.Stitches. The pattern is called Americana Rose. I blogged about it here. I have to quilt it and send it off to the charity group. 

That's all for now, more on the latest happenings will be posted soon.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts 

Finish it up Friday

Going through withdrawl....

My machine is on the mend. It is at the shop getting fixed and tuned up. Before I broke it I was able to finish up these two tops. 

This is the top for the March Nurture Circle of do.Good.Stitches, Triple Irish Chain pattern is an old but a goody. I love how it turned out.

Here is the top again outside in the spring sunshine.

I finished up this baby quilt top for the newest little peach. I couldn't get it to lay flat. It may not be as square as I had hoped. I figure the quilting will smooth it out. 

Linking it up to Finish it up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

Showing my stash who's boss.....

          When we moved back to Ohio and bought our new house I was able to snag one of the bedrooms for a craft room. Over the past year I have painted, decorated and selected furniture. I am now kicking my fabric organization into high gear. My husband said he is putting down his foot and I can't buy any more fabric until I get all my fabric unpacked and put away. The nerve!!!!

           In malicious compliance I spent most of the weekend folding fabric, adding to my scrap pile and putting it all away. My fabric addiction will not be stopped. I still have a long way to go but at least I am making progress. During my fabric folding fiesta I was taking breaks and cutting my scraps into a few specific size pieces. I've decided to fold fabric to 6.5" x 11" pieces. The only exception is large multi yard pieces that are too large to cooperate. Anything smaller than 6.5" x 11" goes to the scrap bin.

            From the scrap bin I have been cutting down 5" squares if the piece will allow, anything smaller than that I cut into 2.5" squares. So I have two growing piles of squares that will be easier to use for scrap projects. Anything that is smaller than 2.5" and larger than 1" goes into the bin I will be using for small scraps and strings. I figure this way I am more likely to produce projects if the squares are already cut.

     I am not sure what the 5" squares are going to be used for

These are headed toward a leader-ender project, eventually ending in a triple irish chain quilt. Some fabrics I love, some are so ugly I wonder how they ended up in my stash.

 The 2.5" squares get paired up and are used as leader enders

These squares will end up 7 squares by 7 squares. I am trying to use all different fabrics in each block. 

Other than sorting and cutting squares I have been working on the February block for my Do.Good.Stitches circle. This is a wonky block which is turning out pretty good. I am not so comfortable with the wonky process but I am trying to enjoy it more. The request was for solids but my stash is lacking in that area so I tried to pick prints that were tone on tone or at very least read as one color.

In the end the block should look like the picture below. The instructions for the block are here if you wish to make this block at home. 

Another project I accomplished while I sifting through my fabric this weekend was my first completed pillowcase. I am making these to package the quilts I made for my stepdaughters. I learned the technique on my last trip to My Very Own Blanket workshop. I still haven't put a pillow inside. I guess I should before I count this a success,

 Here is a detail shot of the cuff of the pillowcase. I find I have a shameful number of colors of this same fabric pattern. I love this Art Gallery fabric print!

 I am linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

Do.Good.Stitches Nurture August Final Pics

Here are the final pictures of the August quilt for the do.Good.stitches Nurture circle. It has been washed and bound for a minute but the weather has  been less than cooperative in Ohio.

I shared a tutorial for this star here. This will be headed to My Very Own Blanket in good old Ohio.

Here are pictures of the bug happy print I picked for the backing fabric. 

Linking it up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

This block makes me want to punch a puppy.....

This is the October block for the Nurture circle of Do.Good.Stitches. It is a Moda bakeshop pattern and you can find it here. When I first saw the pattern I thought kick ass, I really like it...and I do, but it has so many pieces. My circle was making the smallest one, so 64 2" squares. So many HST, so much trimming and much piecing. Let me be honest this is an eye crossing, swear spewing, time consuming block. Looks great when you are finished and I think if I I was making one of the bigger ones it would be much more rewarding. These are finished and going in the mail. Maybe one day I will make the big one but for now I need a break from this pattern. God speed evil blocks, may you make a beautiful quilt for a lucky foster kiddo. 

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced & Finish It Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

***No puppies were punched in the making of these blocks***

Friday finishes a touch late......

 Finished up last months blocks for the Nurture circle of do.good.stitches. Unfortunately the solids I had on hand were mostly pastels. 

I went back to the fabric store and bought some bolder solids, I still hate red and pink together and couldn't put them in the same block.

Last but not least I finished the sashing on the blocks from August do.good.stutches and put together the top. I will need to quilt it up.

Linking it up (late) to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday

Finish it up Friday - EPP for the littlest Peach

This is a quilt I started quite some time ago, might have been last year. When I found I was pregnant this spring I started working on it for the new baby. After I lost the baby I packed it up and shoved it in a closet. I took it out and finished up the top last night. I will add the fabric corners to square it off this weekend. I am not sure what I am going to do with it, maybe to charity, maybe for a future kiddo if we are blessed again...for the time being it is in memory of Georgia Peach our littlest Peach

linking it up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

Finish It Up Friday - How to make friends and alienate neighbors

       So a couple weeks ago I got the bright idea to be a responsible adult. I made a commitment to get my teefs in order and go get a cleaning. We had been slack since we moved to Wisconsin. So off I went got my teeth cleaned, had some stuff fixed, got a crown, spent all my fabric money on dental work. Last Saturday I got my permanent crown. It felt pretty good when I left but  then again I was all jazzed up on Novocaine. I flew to Evansville, Indiana and spent the next three days not being able to open my mouth wide enough to get a spoon in. Apparently there were some bite issues that kicked me on my butt.They have now been fixed....

       In celebration of being able to eat solid food again and finally not writhing in pain I finished putting together this scrappy star quilt top last night. It is destined to the fine folks at My very own blanket in Columbus. I am now frantically working on 3 Christmas quilts for gifts that I have been putting off all year thinking Christmas is so far away. Holy Moses it is September! Where did the year go????/

      My husband is working night shift this week and has just stumbled awake from his day of sleep when I was on my way out to take pictures of this top. He kindly offered assistance in holding the quilt for the photo but he was not quite dressed for outside activities. I said you will scare the neighbors, he said I was going to put on pants. Sure you were.....

Linking up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts....

Fresh Finish Friday!

This is a quilt top I have been working on for my step daughter Ellie. She is getting ready to go off to school this fall. All grown up and headed off to college. The pattern is an interpretation of Curlicue Crush by Chasing Cottons.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to go with the curves so I made some templates and started playing around with it. The cutting and piecing was slow going with this quilt. The seems hide a lot of sewing and cutting sins. I was compulsively buying purple and grey fabric for months. I wanted to use a different fabric for each swirly. I have a whole bunch of extra grey and purple fabric now. Now I just have to quilt this bad boy up. 

The backing is from Connecting Threads and its called Crystalline. They are sold out of a much of this collection which makes me sad cause there are so many prints I wish I would have bought. They still have this in an awesome Midnight Blue Color. 

I had trouble finding an area big enough to take a picture of this quilt. I need to figure out a hanging/pulley  system so I can take pictures outside by myself. In the meantime I have tried many locations inside. I made sure the dogs were outside and then blocked off the doorway to take pictures of the quilt. I forgot that I have a furry jerk living in my house.....

and his partner in crime....

Outsmarted by the cats. I accept defeat......

Linking up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts....

Don't forget about the $20 Connecting Threads gift certificate giveaway HERE!!!