Feeling lucky

It's been a bit of a rough summer around here. My husband was laid off a few months ago. And as I've mentioned, my son is a terrible sleeper. I haven't slept more than 4 straight hours since his birth. Those of you who have dealt with a bad sleeper know it makes you slightly crazy. I've been quilting to keep myself sane and have some fun stuff to show in a while.

But, I had a bit of luck last week and won 6 yards of Denyse Schmidt Chicopee from Pink Chalk Fabrics. It came directly from Free Spirit Fabrics, and they send me 1 yard cuts of 6 fabrics!

As someone who generally buys 1/2 yard or fat quarters, I'm feeling overwhelmed with a whole yard! I'm thinking maybe some bags? What do you do with large cuts? Or am I the only one who doesn't buy full yards?

A few weeks ago my friend Susanne of 3 Beans Studio came to visit with her camera. She took some absolutely gorgeous photos of my baby and a few with me.

I mean seriously gorgeous right!?  She's just relocated to the NY area. So if you want photos done, check out her site. She's amazing.

When she was here, she loved one of my quilts and I sold it to her cheaply as a thank you for the photography. I guess she felt it wasn't enough and this package of loveliness arrived on my doorstep from her!!!

Yup, that's Tula Pink's Birds and Bees! I totally thought I was going to miss out on this line because I'm on a fabric diet until hubby is back to work. I'm totally overwhelmed by her generosity. And feeling so lucky to have such a sweet friend. I definitely got the better end of the deal on this one. Amazing photos and gorgeous fabric. I'm a lucky girl.

PSA: using Google+?

I've always been a "reply" blogger which means my email is available for people to reply to when I leave comments. I've noticed recently I haven't been getting a lot of responses. I just thought that maybe since it was summer people were too busy to reply. Then I got an email from Nicke asking if I knew that I was a 'no-reply' blogger? WHAT!?  I never changed my settings.

After a little digging, I found out that if you are using Google+ as your profile setting, you may also be a no-reply blogger. I never changed my reply status. I don't know why this happened or if it happened to everyone, but it's worth it to check your profile.

Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I'm going to direct you to Jenniffier who wrote this great post on how to check/change your status. So go check it out! I know I like to reply to bloggers who post on my blog, don't be that blogger!! ;)

And since I don't like to post without photos, here are my two little ones. Chilling on a quilt of course!

Bee blocks

I don't think I ever posted about the last round of bee blocks. For June, I was in charge of the Bliss group of do.Good Stitches. I chose string blocks that I had done in the Sew Modern Bee from this tutorial and asked for greens and blues.

These were my sample blocks.

It's been fun getting everyone's blocks in the mail. I love seeing the fabrics everyone uses!  As I've been looking at them all I decided that they need sashing to keep from being too busy. I'm still waiting for a few blocks to arrive, but I've started sashing the ones that I have in Kona Charcoal.

Then our group took the month of July off to catch up, but August is a scrappy HST block.  Even though my baby is almost 6 mths (!) he still isn't sleeping through the night (!!). So I'm still very sleep deprived. I started following her directions and doubled the amt of HST thinking that she gave directions for one block. She had given directions for 2 though so I wound up with 4! Oh well, double the charity this week!

Here are my four blocks.

I've got some more projects in the works. Just need to get some pictures taken and I'll be sharing them shortly!

Pinterest Report #1

Do you Pinterest? I'm totally addicted. You can follow me here if you are interested.


One thing I'm always curious about is whether people do the things they've pinned and how they turned out. So I thought I'd start doing some posts on the things I've done because of Pinterest and how they turned out. Hopefully you all will find this interesting.


First up, Kids Stuff:

From CarrotsareOrange.com she used water beads and a variety of cups and toys in a large bin as a sensory bin for kids. I go the water beads from Amazon.com and my daughter (3 yrs old) LOVED this. I put some small turtles in there, measuring cups, spoons and cups and she was busy for hours! And you get tons of water beads in a package so we can definitely do it again. I would highly recommend this activity.


Then I found these letter sheets here.

These were also a huge hit and I highly recommend them.

As for food and recipes, I've made quite a few things. I have a board where I put the recipes I've tried and my reviews. You can seem them all here.

This week I've done a few recipes that I haven't transferred yet. Crockpot bread was first.

The source is here. It worked very well and I had some really good bread. But I'm wondering about my crockpot! What was supposed to take 1 hour took 2 and I had the crockpot set on high. Maybe my high and lows are backwards? I've always had problems with my crockpot scorching food so it was strange that it took too long. I will definitely do it again though.

Last night I made this one, braised short ribs...

The link goes here. It was SO yummie. Again, me and my crockpot don't agree and I had to turn it off early. But everything came out wonderfully despite my equipment.

And at the moment I have sweet potatoes in the crock pot from this pin.

I'll let you know how that goes given my crock pot problems. They smell good though.

Are you pinning? I'd love to know what you've done from Pinterest!

Liverpool Top Finished

I don't even know how long ago I bought this pattern. But it's been in my stash quite a while. I finally bought the fabric to make it when I was out with some quilt friends a few weeks ago. I figured if someone actually knows I have the stuff to make this, then I have to do it!

Well, I made it. But I can't model it for you.

I thought since I was a medium in this AB top I would be a medium in the Liverpool. I should have done my measurements. The first top was a little tight around the chest, but was forgiving because of the way it hangs and the fact that it has no sleeves. This one is just too tight for me.

I've never done a top with this much detail/fit. I was nervous about it, but the directions are well written. If I can do it, anyone can!

Darting on the front (new to me!).

Darting on the back (is that what it's called??).

And a full on fancy collar and finished buttons!

So from what I understand, you can't sell things you make from Amy Butler patterns?? Does that count if you accidentally made it too small and now you have no use for it? sigh...

Whoops!

Okay, I'm all about sharing my mistakes as well as my successes. Yesterday I made a big boo boo and I found it pretty funny actually.

First off, let me say that I hate making curtains. And I've made over a dozen for our new house. I've been putting off the bay window in the great room for about a year now. Because really, who wants to make a 6 foot valance??

Yesterday I decided to finally just do it. Here is my end result.

Here are the valances in the rest of the room...

Do you see what's wrong?


I didn't notice until I was sitting down about 10 mins after hanging the big one. Yup, this is what happens when you wait a year to finish a project.

I though - oh, I have enough fabric to just use the length and not have to patch it all together. Whoops. The rest of the curtains are all cut on the width.



Guess I've got a date with my seam ripper tonight.

A fun summer swap

I just joined the Modern Scrappy Bits Swap to get my toes back in the swapping pool. I realized its been a long time since I've done a swap and I've met some really cool people through swapping!

So I'm sharing the word if you want to join in. Sign ups are open all week. It's a small swap, perfect for the summer. You send scraps (equal to at least one FQ) a small item like a pincushion or pouch and if you like, notions and a postcard from your region. Sounds like the perfect fun little swap to me! Hope you'll join in.

And because I don't like to post without a picture. Here's a current shot of my little man (aka, the reason I don't blog so much these days).