Quick Update

Lots going on in the sewing room lately!  Last week, I made a set of bibs for a friend who had a baby shower last weekend. 

I adore the owls!

I quilted big roses on each one, then appliqued a little purple heart.

So cute!

More owls

My cousin asked me to make some Easter baskets for her mother in law, so the EB sweat shop is back up and running.  :-)  I took a few minutes to whip up this mini basket for a friend who's having a long week.  It's a little early, but I figured I'd rather be early and relevant/useful than on time/late. 

Holds 3 eggs perfectly, with room to spare underneath for hidden chocolates!  The fabric is Chrysalis from Moda, which I simply adore. 

I also sold my treadmill last night, so a full half of my sewing room opened up!  I have my design wall again!  I have space to lay out/baste at least a full-size quilt!  It's glorious! 

SO MUCH SPACE!!!!  I might move the dresser (off screen, left) eventually, but for now I'm loving it!

Fabric Accountability

Last night I set up my ironing board so I could watch Michael Scott propose to Holly (I'm not ashamed to admit I teared up a little...it was surprisingly sweet and minimally awkward) and ironed 66 (yes, 66) fat quarters from last weekend's adventures.  I didn't bother ironing the yardage (about 4 yds) because I'm not using it yet and I hate ironing yardage.  It's a flaw.

This is the whole mess, minus 4 that didn't go with any of the three themes (batiks, animals, and civil war). 

Civil war prints, including one FQ that was actually a freebie that got lumped in there on accident, but I think works.  Can you spot it? These are going to become a replica of the 121 love letters quilt.  I'm saving the heart block for last (and for the back) so it'll be extra scrappy.

The animals.  Mom and I found these at the second store and started a quest to find the hippos, which was the only print they were out of.  4 shops later, we got the whole collection.  I have a couple FQs of footprints that I'm going to incorporate in there somehow too.  I'm thinking I Spy on these.

And finally, the batiks.  I couldn't spread these enough to really do them justice, so you'll just have to wait until I start using them to see each one in its full glory.  This stack alone accounted for half of the FQs bought.  I can't wait to use them...I have big plans for these.  I'm excited to see this one come to life.  This one and the civil war one will likely be slow progress over the summer, but I want to really enjoy them both, so I don't want to try and rush them out.  Speaking of slow progress, I really need to get the wedding quilt out this weekend.  I need to get hacking on the neighbors' quilt too.  So many quilts so little time!

First Shop Hop, Or: A Brief Introduction to Mud Season in VT

I'm hooked!  Shop hopping was SO FUN!!  My mom came up from Texas to hop in VT with me this past weekend, and we had such a blast!!

This hop had 17 (!!) shops, spread out over the whole state of VT (which sounds like not much since it's a small state, but a lot of the roads are backwoods and windy, and while they're beautiful, they're also not always terribly well-marked...)

http://vermontshophop.com/index.htm

So there's the shop hop map.  Originally, we'd planned to hit maybe 9 of the shops, if we were really ambitious.  It turned into an adventure and we ended up hitting 12 total.  Day 1 took us from point A through point E ("home"...more on that later).  Day 2 took us from point E through point L ("home" again).  And finally, day 3 took us from point L through point Q.  We actually only drove past point P, but it was integral in getting us back on the right road to get us home, so I left it on the map. 


View Larger Map

I'm having issues uploading pictures from my phone right now, and I don't have the majority of the pics (on my mom's camera), so these will have to suffice for the time being. 

 The spoils of war.  A new book, 5 total yards (20 FQs) of Civil War fabric, probably 10 total yards of batiks (all in FQs, including the shop hop fabrics), and 2 or so total yards of animal print fabrics which I'll need to get better pics of later.  There were some other misc purchases/free FQs as well. 

 One of my favorite quilts.  So fun!

I liked the colors on this one.

UPDATE: A few more pictures (in no particular order):

 The shop project from the last shop.  The star parts are all the shop hop fabrics (which I don't have a good picture of, but will get tonight...promise!)

 I love the modern, blocky feel of this.  It's simple but powerful. 

 Quilts quilts quilts.

 This one store had over 5000 bolts of flannel alone!  They also had thousands of fat quarter bundles...most were in the $45 for 17 range, but I snagged one (a Civil War one) for $35 for 20! Inspiration for that one is coming.

 More bundles.

 Most of the shops were little houses converted into shops.  Love love love.

 Here are 4 of the 6 SH fabrics, but still not a great picture.

 Inspiration for the CW quilt.  There are 121 blocks, and I'm going to make them all...eventually.  I figure I'll QAIG and do a block here and there when I have time/inspiration.  Have I mentioned my sewing room needs serious reorging?

 Cute cute placemats.

 More inspiration.

 I loved this one!  I'm starting to think my next endeavors are going to be sampler quilts.

 This was called something like "butterfly house"...you're looking into the butterflies' home, from the window.  Can you see the shutters and clapboards?

 More inspiration.

One of the stores was a bar converted into a shop!  LOVED IT!  There were even still booths for the menfolk to take a break, and the quilts were hung from glass racks! 

There are dozens more where those came from, but for now this will have to suffice.  I've got big plans for the fabrics I got (3 whole new quilts came out of this weekend!  At least!) so stay tuned for design walls galore.  I also need to reorganize my sewing room...anyone want a treadmill??

Easter Baskets

I spent my weekend whipping up baskets for this year's Easter festivities...as far as I remember, this will be the most people I've celebrated Easter with ever. I might be wrong though...there was one year in New Orleans that I think was Easter and there were like 20 people. This year there are 9 of us, from both sides of our newly-formed family. Last year, Nick told me not to worry about putting together baskets for folks because it "wasn't a big deal".  I got TWO baskets last year and had none to offer.  This year, I'm making up for that lapse, with a vengeance.  This weekend up put together 11 baskets (2 extras for my best friends in other states), all using a super simple pattern that you could use to make just about any kind of basket if you wanted.

The first one was deemed "too girly" by Nick, so I tried again.

More masculine, but there were cries for pirates.

So we got pirates.

And more pirates.

Back to the girly stuff...

More girly stuff...

I think this was 7 of them.

Another variation on the pirates...

And the whole heap!  I can't wait to get plastic grass and eggs and candy to fill these!

If you're interested, these are for sale on my etsy site.  Convo me if you're looking for particular colors/patterns and I'll see what I can do to make it work!