Working On WIPs

my life has been crazy lately.  to say the least.  
so to escape the craziness of life i sew.  

sewing is like therapy for me.  

the hum of the machine.  

the cutting of fabric.  

the steam from the iron.

the little successes that sewing gives me have been a HUGE benefit to my mental health.

i know that i will soon be packing up my house and moving into a temporary location for awhile.  a lot of my stuff will go into storage.  almost all of it.  with the exception of my personal items and sewing stuff.  my new sewing space will be small compared to the space i have now.  i know you can do a lot in a small space.  i am just use to my space.  which i won't have anymore.  heavy sigh.

with all of that being said i am feeling a push to get old unfinished projects a.k.a. WIPs done and finished up. 
i know i made my Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt.

a temporary moment of weakness is all i can say about this quilt.

oh, and the fact that it is finished.  yeah me.

so as of right now i have 4 quilts out to a quilter.  1 quilt waiting for the green light to ship it to a quilter.  2 quilts that i am planning on quilting myself and 1 quilt that i am not yet sure who is going to quilt.

binding ready to go

for the various quilts

so out of the 2 quilts that i am quilting myself this is the one i am working on now.

my Cartwheel quilt using Prince Charming from the class i took in Sisters from Tula Pink.  i am having fun playing around with different quilting designs on this quilt.  i hope to get it finished up soon and onto the 2nd quilt i have that i am quilting.

happy sewing

Quilted & Bound

i have completely finished my scrappy trip around the world quilt. quilted and bound.

the weather outside is icky so sorry for the pics.

i quilted it myself with just an all over swirl pattern.  simple.

for the back i used up the balance of my strips from my blocks making a row of patchwork and a section of the extra strips.  the rest is a Kona Cotton grey.

for the binding i used another DS print.  this one from the line that was in JoAnn stores.  so the whole quilt with the exception of the Kona on the back is DS.  i am very please with it.  it reminds me of a vintage/older quilt.  i am also very happy to have a completed quilt just 23 days into the new year.

my next WIP project i am working on is my Swoon quilt using Parisville from Tula Pink.  i have 3 blocks done and need to make 6 more.  i also have some quilting to get done on another Tula Pink project.  oh the choices.......

last night i worked on a Swoon block while i chatted on Twitter with other quilters.  every Tuesday evening from 6pm to 8pm pst a bunch of quilters get on Twitter and talk about a variety of things related to quilting.  if you haven't sat in on a #talknt on Tuesday night you might check it out.  its a great way to learn things and meet fellow quilters.

happy sewing

Scrappy Trip Around The World

my 1st finish of 2013.....

my Scrappy Trip Around The World quilt.  i first blogged about it here and i am very happy to say it is done.  not the whole quilt just the top but that alone feels GREAT!!!!

 

when i started this quilt i was just using Flea Market Fancy but then figured i would need some more fabric to make the size i wanted.  so i busted into my Katie Jump Rope stash.

 

i (as randomly as possible) put strip sets of 6 together.  sewed them up.  cut them apart.

 

unsewed.  and finally sewed the blocks together.

 

i started this at the end of December and i had 3 blocks done before i had to leave on a trip.

 

once back from my trip i got back to sewing, cutting, unsewing and then sewing again.

 

my stack of blocks grew.

and fairly quickly i had them all made and laid out and 

the rows sewed together.

 

and the quilt top finished.

 

i am very happy with this quilt.  i love, love, love how scrappy it is.  i also love the pops of dark in the quilt.  i think i did a decent job of scattering them throughout the top.

 

i am pretty dang happy with my first finish of 2013.  completed in under a month from cutting to a finished top.

 

tonight i will work on the backing which will be scrappy as well and then i will see about the quilting.  i might do this one myself.  thinking that a bunch of swirls would look good on it.

 

happy sewing

Resolutions & Words

i have given this some thought.

do i want to do resolutions this year or do i want to have a word for this year?

me being me thought... why not do both?

so, i am.

 

Ten Mile Beach Port Douglas Australia 

Resolutions

at the beginning of last year i made some resolutions.  i have decided that this year some of those resolutions will be carried forward into the new year.

 

1. to rise above the little things.

2. continue to live in the present. the past is just that. the past. the future is unknown so why spend time worrying about the unknown. it will be what it is.

3. spend my energy on the things that i can control

4. live for myself. make choices for myself rather then based on someone else's needs. i am not being selfish here. i just don't want to live how certain people think i should live just to please them.

 

with all of the changes that the past few months have brought me i have decided to stick with these guidelines for 2013.  to do my best to remind myself of these when things get tough or when i am challenged by something.

Words

around blogland i have read several posts where people have picked a word for the year.  i have thought about what word i would pick.  one single word that would help guide me as i take on the new year one day at a time.  several have crossed my mind and i have weeded through them.  i am not able to settle on just one single word, so i am going with two words.

 

change & authentic

 

i know that over the next several months there will be a multitude of changes in my life.  a lot of them are unknown at this time but i know that i need to be open to change.  willing to let things unfold and be able to face the upcoming changes with my best self that i can be.  which leads me to my second word.  authentic.  remaining true to who i am is at the core of it.  keeping the four resolutions listed above in mind will help me to stay authentic to myself and to others.

 

so there you have it.  no HUGE sewing "to do" list for me this year.  i think that my life "to do" list will end up writing itself as each day passes.

 

one small side note:  in my world (inside my head) i am still in 2012.  i want to start the new year off right with a fresh outlook and the feeling of newness.  however, there is an unresolved issue from 2012 that is still hanging around.  sort of like gum that you can't get off the bottom of your shoe.  i hope that it will be wrapped up in February.  so 2012 will have 14 months in it and 2013 will only have 10.  i plan on having a New Years Eve party on February 28th to ring in the New Year and i will be at quilt camp on that date - what a great place to be to celebrate the end of an extremely hard year and the beginning of a new one.  surrounded by friends and fellow quilters.

 

happy sewing

 



Tripping........

blogland has sent me tripping.........

i have been sucked into the super fun latest blogland/twitter/instagram/flickr craze.

scrappy trip around the world quilt

i first caught wind of this on twitter which lead me to various blogs and finally to the flickr page for it. once i saw all of those pictures there was no turning back for me. i wanted to make this quilt and i already had the perfect fabric for it.  

somewhere in my past i had won a set of fat eights of Denyse Schmidt's Katie Jump Rope and i had also won some fat quarters of Denyse's Flea Market Fancy.

two lines of fabric that go very well together.  i know its a scrappy quilt but i can't let go of that much control.  for those of you that know me you understand.

it has been a very therapeutic process for me.  sewing the strip sets together.  cutting them up.  unsewing them.  sewing them back together.

i have 28 blocks done and the last 8 are almost finished.  i will decide on the final layout once all of the blocks are made.

thanks to blogland for providing me with a much needed fun project.

happy sewing.

Traveling Sewing

last night i got home from Florida. came home to cold and snow. i want to go back to Florida...... who wouldn't?

when i travel i always take something along with me to do. sewing related or such.

so on my cross country trip and back i did some knitting.

some embroidery on the never ending quilt project.

and i made some hexi's which seems to be the latest craze in the quilting world.  i am hooked.  making them out of the ever loved Neptune doesn't hurt either.

happy sewing