Celtic Solstice Update

 

I'm still attempting to slowly chug away on the Celtic Solstice Mystery. This was a post I tried to get myself to post from the hospital but that didn't work out. This picture was taken the morning I headed to the hospital. It shows the completed parts for parts 1-4. Thanks to the most recent sew day and random 10-20 minute segments (some while holding Kyle), I have completed part 5 and have begun to put the larger blocks together. More pictures to come.

Been a bit busy

Sorry, I kind of disappeared again. I think I have a good excuse this time. Say hello to Kyle. He does not like to be put down very often. We've had a lot of tv time in the last few weeks. Our library has been helpful. Nate got to enjoy Cars 2 for the last week. And we now have Planes for a few days. My mom also introduced me to a good murder mystery show on Netflux, Murdoch Mysteries. Nate likes that one too.

Moose Quilt

This was the first of monthly mystery quilts that I got from my local quilt shop. They display the fabrics that they will use for the quilt (and offer in the kit) and we can sign up at any time during the month to be included. On the last Tuesday of the month, they reveal what the quilt looks like and you can pick up your kit. They are $29 and include everything for the top. It makes a generous lap size quilt.

This one is just waiting for me to put the borders on. I was very productive this day. That was the 3rd project I got to a finished state on that sew day (in November).

They ladies pointed out that it may have been part of my nesting period. Unfortunately, this may now sit around waiting to be finished for quite a while.

Scrappy Mountains Majesty

I decided for my next door neighbor's new baby boy that I would make him a quilt instead of trying to knit something, since I'm still working on a knit one for a baby girl that was born in May (oops). When I saw, Bonnie Hunter post a Scrappy Mountains Majesty that someone else had made on her Facebook page, I decided that that was the pattern I wanted to use for this little boy. Towards then end of the pattern, she offers a few variations on how to lay it out and one of those really struck me. I could see pinwheels trying to stand out in it. I then rounded up some of my more boyish fabrics (I have quite a few.) and picked the ones I thought paired well and played well together. I utilized the extra sew day my friends scheduled in December to get it done and even added borders. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Now to figure out how I'm going to quilt it (or get it quilted). What do you think?

2013 Challenge Quilt

Here is the quilt I finished for the 2013 Peteetneet Quilt Show Challenge Category. It was the only quilt I entered. It is foundation pieced, and each block represented a member of my family. On each block, I added the name of the person it represented, with the shell in the corner containing our last name (ok my old last name). I gave it to my mom for Mother's Day (very late since I didn't get it to her until my trip in October).

The fancy boat is my mom. The smaller boats are my 4 brothers and I. The 5 beach umbrellas are the 5 grandkids. The angelfish is my dear late sister-in-law Annie. And finally, my dad and my husband are the beach balls.

It is hand quilted (my first hand quilting project). It also was my 3rd finished quilt. I was very pleased with how it turned out.

Baby #2

Kyle Alexander was born at 4:21 pm weighing in at 8 lb 8.8 oz. He is 18.5 inches long. We are all doing well.

Baby #2

As of 10 am today, I am headed to the hospital to be induced for Baby #2. Hopefully, I will be able to post pictures soon of our new arrival.

Nate and the Animals

 During our trip to Leeds for Thanksgiving in 2012, we took Nate to the family farm to see the horses. Aunt Kay even let him sit on her horse for some pictures. It was very special for all of us, since the horse passed away before we made our next trip down in July for the family reunion.

 We were also pleased to find that a donkey had joined the farm. The donkey seemed really sweet, and Nate was completed enamored with him, and kept going back to see him over and over again.

Mass Hammock Production

At the moment, I have quite a batch of hammocks in process. Here they all are partially cut.

 Some have made it to a paired and pinned state.

 Others have made it through the first round of stitching, and getting flipped.

Others are merely cut and paired, waiting to be pinned.

I'm trying to get a good batch of them done before baby #2 makes his appearance.

Happy New Year

I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year.

As it is the time of the year for resolutions, I thought I would share a few that I have thought of for myself.

• I would like to complete at least 1 quilt every month.
• January's main focus will be my vomit quilt.
• I would like to add new items to my Etsy shop at least 1 time every month.
• I would like to learn to manage having 2 children.

Celtic Solstice Link Up 5

 I finally managed to get some more work done on each of the parts of the Celtic Solstice Mystery that have been sitting partially done. I got a chunk of sewing done for part 2, and finished pressing all of part 3 which finished it off. I also cut more for part 4 and began my cutting for part 5. I decided that I would give myself a half an hour for each part today. I just needed to feel like I was making progress instead of just falling further behind.

Here are parts 2, 4, and 5 looking all neat and organized waiting for me to come back to them again.

I'm hoping I can get back to them before the Link-Up on Monday, but we shall see. Baby #2 may make his appearance instead.

Update: Well Monday morning is here, and Baby #2 is not. I managed to get a bit more work done on part 2. I'm still not done with it, but today happens to be a sew day with friends, so getting caught up is my goal for the day. Maybe I will be able to post again later today, saying that I have managed to get caught up. Check out all the progress everyone is making. I am number 74.

Beads

Ok. He is definitely my son. I decided to get my collection of plastic beads out for him to play with, in an attempt to start working on colors. He was not interested in sorting in them, but had all sorts of fun seeing all of them and just running them through his fingers. It made a bit of a mess, but he had fun. He kept taking handfuls of beads between the 2 containers. He also keeps asking to play with them more. Maybe we will be able to work on colors soon. It's a good thing I don't need them organized in any specific way right now.

Faux Hexagon Table Runner

This supplies for this quilt were given to me by a friend of my mom. It uses half hexagons. I love the colors she had picked for it. I look forward to being able to use it to liven up my house.

Fabric was included for one border, but I felt it needed a smaller stop border before it, since it was a very similar fabric to one already found in the runner. Luckily, I had just the right fabric, in my stash.

Here it is all finished, and waiting to be quilted. It will be a high priority once I get my Janome working again, since it is so close to completion.

Christmas Quilts

 I completed all the quilts I planned to make for Christmas presents. These were started back in February, I believe. They were all random fabrics, with a focus fabric picked out for each small family based on the wife's favorite color. Each one consists of 9 patches alternating with a single fabric, with the focus fabric running through the 9 patches. While I was home in November, finishing these were our goals. The 9 patches were all finished, and they were in an appropriately arranged stack. But only one of the tops was fully pieced. In the 2 weeks I was home, I finished piecing them all. Mom quilted them. And I got most of the bindings done. This post is a bit picture intensive, since there were 8 quilts.

This was for my Mother and Father-in-law. Their color was blue.

This was for my Brother-in-law Brian, and his wife. Their color was green.

 This one is for my Sister-in-Law and her Husband, son, and daughter, and the colors were yellow or green.

 This one is for my oldest brother and his 4 kids. He said he likes all colors, so I actually had a fun print with surfing lizards in front of a cityscape that worked perfectly. It was mostly blue when cut into 2 inch squares, and you couldn't really see the lizards, so I made sure to add the last of the fabric to the back, so he would see what the fabric had looked like originally. This fabric was actually given to me after it's previous owner had won an ugly fabric contest with it. She was glad to be rid of it, and I thought it fit my brother quite well.

 This quilt is for my mom and dad. My mom's favorite colors are yellow and purple, so I found a print that had both. My dad's favorite color is green, so we used green thread to quilt it, which looked really cool on the peach backing we used. When quilting it my mom used it to try a few different free motion flower varieties. She then had me quilt the last little bit. Here is a flipped picture of the bottom where you can see that I put "Katie heart Mamo." It turns out that using her longarm was not as scary as I thought it would be.

 This quilt is for my Brother-in-law, Kevin and his wife. Her color was purple.

 This quilt is for my brother, Andy, and his wife. They wanted red. I thought the black and white added in would give it a good Mickey Mouse touch (as my brother is a big Disney fan).

And this quilt is for my Brother-in-Law, Grant, and his wife, and 2 little boys. She said that her favorite color is either pink or red depending on the day, so I chose a fabric with green and a deep hot pink that looks almost red in some lights.

I really hope they enjoy them. It was fun to see how each one turned out so differently while using the same pattern for each. Merry Christmas.

Celtic Solstice Link Up 4

Well, it's Monday again, which means it is time for the Mystery Monday Link-Up for Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice. I keep thinking that I want to try and get myself up higher in the list of link-ups, but when I checked her blog first thing this morning, I found there were already 67 other links. Wow. I guess that's what I get for living in Mountain Standard Time.

I haven't gotten much done on this this weekend, but I did get started last night. I started sewing the 2 inch strip sets together for the 4 patches that are clue 4. I also managed to finishing piecing the half-square triangles and pinwheels from clue 3. This is just what is waiting to finish being pressed. I just had a few things decide they wanted to take higher priority during the last week. Hopefully, I can get to part 2 soon, too. I think the pieces are getting sad that they are just sitting there waiting to be sewn. I'm number 87 this week.

Happy Sewing.

October Trip Home

 At the end of October and beginning of November I got to take a trip home to see my parents with Nate the Great. We got to be there for Halloween, a family reunion, my niece's baptism, and the first snow.

Nate the Great loved getting to see his grandparents. He really loved all the attention he got. Here he is swinging with Grandma.

The day I flew in we got to go to the Westfield Quilt Show, put on by the Quilters Guild of Indianapolis. There were a lot of really amazing quilts. This was one of my favorites.

We also managed to give Nate the Great a haircut. I love the look he was giving me in this one.

Tank Replication

 This is my favorite tank top for layering. It is actually a high enough neck that it adds nicely under lowcut shirts, and the straps are far enough to the sides that they don't show. Unfortunately, in my current larger state (and it's "I've been washed a thousand times" state), it no longer covers my belly. So since my mom is crafty, and I think I can be crafty, I decided to try replicating it.

 First, I tried to get a template to use. I tried laying it flat on the back and going that way, until my friend suggested trying to get the template of just the folded front and back. That worked a lot easier. I got 2 basic templates and pulled out some extra fabric I had. It was a knit that was so thin, I actually had to double it over.

I added measured a set length further down, pinned, and cut. The first attempt ended up being too tight. So I added some width to the second one as well. That actually ended up being too big, so I just kept making my seam bigger until I got it to a good size.

The tank is all finished except for the straps. The plan is to attach the straps in such a way that this can still be used while Baby #2 is breastfeeding.

Celtic Solstice Link Up 3

Happily, I got both of my sewing machines back this weekend. This meant I could do some of the sewing for part 3. I love how bright these half square triangles and pinwheels are.

Unfortunately, with everything else going on right now, I still haven't managed to start sewing on part 2 yet. But hopefully, that will happen soon.

So here is to another successful Link-Up. I am number 142 this week.

EPP Pincushion

 A new guild has been started in Salem, Utah. We are the Nebo Modern Quilt Guild. We meet the 2nd Saturday of the month at Gracie Lou's if any are in the area and interested in joining us. For our October meeting, the ladies decided that they wanted to learn a little bit about English Paper Piecing (EPP). Marion was going to teach them, but then had something come up, so I got to sub in for her. I think it went very well indeed. This is the sample I made up beforehand.

Diamond Candle

For my birthday, my sweet hubby got me a diamond candle. It was a wonderful Strawberry scented candle, with a very pretty ring inside. Nate has been fascinated with the ring. He likes to put it on each of his fingers. He doesn't play with it for long (I don't think he wants to lose it), but he will play with it if he is on my lap.