Color coordination

Ever since I received Amy Butler's In Stitches, I have wanted to make the quilt, Patchwork Decorative Throw. I have had the idea of doing it in one color scheme instead of crazy patchwork type colors. I chose to do it in a dark blue. I have 9 fabrics so far for the quilt, they all arrived today in the mail. :) I am not sure about all of them though. I see these colors and realize that I need a middle blue, that it can't be all dark blues. I love the fabric with the red flowers, I think that definitely works. I also see that I have a lot of fabric with circles. I am not sure about the two light colored ones, only because they are SO light. Also, the white with diamonds is actually a sage green diamond instead of pale blue. So, I have some work to do with the fabrics but so far I have a good start.

Sweet Treats

Back in January, my Aunt Karen invited Chauntel and I to attend a quilt show in Ontario, The Road to California. I had no idea that the quilt show would inspire me to start quilting. At the quilt show, both of us purchased a quilt kit called a Sweet Treat. Each quilt takes 8 fat quarters plus fabric for the backing and borders. I cut and sewed mine together a few months ago when I was still flying high from piecing together my Chocolate and Blue quilt. And after only one quilt, I was the bomb when it came to cutting, sewing, just a total badass. Go ahead. You can laugh. I learned my lesson hard. When I went to square up my Sweet Treat top, turns out it wasn't square to start out. It was a trapezoid. A pretty strong trapezoid. I was devastated. I had no idea how to fix it. I took it to Idaho with me to talk with Lois, Chaun's mom. She said, "Consider this your learning quilt. You learned you need to be a better cutter and sewer!" So, with that in my head, it got put aside for, well, months. I finally pulled it out and assessed the damage. It wasn't as bad as I had it in my head of course, but it's definitely a trapezoid. So, I just sewed on the borders, adjusting where needed and ended up with this:


I love the colors and pattern of this quilt. It makes me feel calm when I look at it. I am going to send it off to Lois to quilt it for me. It's going to get polar fleece on the back and become one very warm quilt.

Charming!

P5222292, originally uploaded by tellen24.

It's a charm pack of fabric by Tula Pink. It contains 40 5"x5" squares. I bought it because it was on sale. And I love it! She designs her fabric in a Where's Waldo style. Each fabric in this line contains a bug. Moths, caterpillars, snails, butterflies, dragonflies.

Pink Lemonade

Pink Lemonade, originally uploaded by tellen24.

I love my little red and white quilt so much, I decided to make another one. This next one will be bigger and the colors, less bold. I have always loved the one shown in the book, Bend-The-Rules Sewing, so I am recreating it. I am going a little outside my box this time and not planning ahead. I am just going to cut the fabric into the strips and see what happens! I am a tad nervous... I will keep you updated.

On your marks, get set...

Twice a year, my company has a clearance sale. And it's always based around a theme, which involves us salespeople wearing t-shirts we wouldn't normally be caught dead in. We are all women in my office and tend to wear very nice clothes to work. This years event, "Final Floors Event!" started today. Before I get to today's outfit, let me just give you the slogans from our fliers:

"Hoop it up during the PSSB Final Floors Event!"
"Slam-dunk savings exclusively for members!"
"Make a fast break to incredible savings!"
"Get in on the PSSB Final Floors Madness!"
"The Sweet Six! It's down to these great offers that can't be beat!"

Do you get it yet? The whole basketball theme? Let's ignore the fact that in reality, it's March Madness for college basketball. And it's currently...May. Aside from that though, do you see where I am going? Let me give you another hint (accompanied with a photo made by my OhSoWonderful friend, Laura): All day long we have been getting this comment, "Oh, so do you guys work at FootLocker?" That's right!! We are Referee's!!! I even have a whistle. I am so lucky, I get to wear this shirt for the next 3 days. Life is good, isn't it!

*The head in the photo is from my 5k run a few weeks ago. Don't I look like I am scared out of my life??

Up and Coming!

P5102275, originally uploaded by tellen24.

Squares. Lots of squares.

Downtime

When I am hanging out at home, I like to wear comfortable clothing. I have been wanting to make the lounge pants out of In Stitches by Amy Butler for awhile now. I saw a photo on Flickr of someone's capri version and I thought, "That's it! That's what I need." So, I whipped out (and I use that term loosely. Very loosely) a pair of capris for myself AND a pair of shorts for Chauntel (she will need to show you, as I didn't take a photo of them) in two weekend sittings. For never having made anything wearable in my life, they turned out pretty decent!

Red and White

I made another quilt. This time, I did it all on my machine. I got the pattern from Bend The Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. It's a very simple, easy to put together pattern. My reason to make this quilt was to use a bit of my fabric stash (without having to buy any more) and to use my new walking foot. :)

I planned out my pattern on paper before I started:

Then I sewed it all together (need to work on cutting, it was about an inch off on one side) and pinned it to be quilted:


I went the easy route and used predone binding. I didn't like the backing I used for the quilt as a binding so solid red it was! The size of the quilt is 39"x41". I really, really like this pattern for a nice simple quilt.