Apparently it’s been a very long time since I’ve visited this here blog. VERY LONG. How embarassing. And it’s not like I haven’t been busy sewing, I’ve been very busy. I’ve been sewing up a storm. I made some clothes for my girl, I made several quilt tops, I made some bags and embroidered some shirts. I had a booth in my first ever craft fair and sewed up a storm for that. And probably a bunch of other things that I can’t even remember.

But of all the things that I worked on in 2014, it was something that I started in 2013 that I may be the most proud of.

Way back in January 2013, I signed up to participate in Alyssa’s block of the month over at Pile o’ Fabric. There were many of things about this quilt that intrigued me. It was free motion quilting for the entire thing, but you broke it down and quilted each block individually. The great thing about this technique is that you can practice on a smaller scale, as opposed to sticking the entire quilt into the machine at once. I hadn’t done a lot of FMQ prior to this quilt and had been wanting to increase my skill set and get more comfortable. I think it’s safe to say that by the time I finished this king size quilt, I was pretty comfortable.

Alyssa also covered some techniques that I didn’t have a great deal of experience with and it was nice to have some instruction and insight from someone else. There was a bit of EPP (English paper piecing) applique that I hadn’t done much of, and that was very cool. I’m not sure I’ll ever make a full size hexie quilt, that block was a bear, but never say never.

This is by far the largest quilt I’ve ever made. It’s almost a full king, it’s a wee bit narrow. I don’t think it was supposed to be that big, I didn’t exactly follow the directions as they were written (not shocking considering I’m not the best direction follower). Alyssa’s blocks were 14″-ish when trimmed and mine were 16. Consequently, everything was bigger. No matter though, I LOVE this quilt. There are some glaring quilting errors and I didn’t follow some of the tried and true quilting “rules” but I don’t care. I LOVE it. It washed up beautifully and is perfect for my bed and these cold nights. I’m seriously motivated to keep it up and continue improving my skill set.

I picked up some fabric (shocking, I know) at my local quilt shop a month or so ago. They’d pre-cut the fabric and there were these adorable little bundles and it just screamed little girl quilt and so I bought some. Or maybe I’m just a sucker and I can’t resist ANY fabric. I think that’s more likely.

Anyway, I’d seen this quilt on Pinterest and I was all inspired. So I cut squares and then made triangles and then sewed them back together and then ironed this huge stack of fabric. And then I had to figure out how to lay them all out. So I played.

And then I played some more.

And some more…

And I felt I was getting closer but knew this wasn’t quite it.

And then I got it! I’m thrilled with how this is working. Except for the fact that I’m short fabric. HOW CAN I BE SHORT FABRIC!?!?!

But I did have a few extra blocks, just not in the right colors. I was thinking of making a couple of pillows but Patrick decided to make a bed.

(Please excuse my terrible pictures, this is what happens when you take pictures in your pathetically lit basement.)

Things have been moving slowly in my house the past several days. On Friday I had surgery, it was planned, and yet I was surprised at how it knocked my on my butt for several days. The doctor said I’d be uncomfortable but having never had surgery in my life, or at least the kind where they knock you out, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Apparently 3 days of complete exhaustion is what I should have expected.

My surgery was outpatient so I was home on Friday morning by 9:30 or so. But I spent all of Friday on the couch, as well as all of Saturday and all of Sunday. As a matter of fact, I felt far worse Sunday morning than any other morning. I did decide on Saturday night that perhaps the drugs I was taking were making me feel worse, crazy dizzy and lightheaded, so I stopped taking them and that may have helped. But the anesthesia. Ugh. Who knew that would be the worst part? Needless to say, here I sit on Monday afternoon and I’m still fall on my face tired but I have walked more today than the past 3 days combined. I mean, I walked ALL THE WAY to the mailbox, it was huge.

By yesterday afternoon I was able to do some work on my hexies for my block of the month quilt. I think I’ve decided that hexies may not be my thing. But at least I had them to work on because sitting on the internet for 48 hours was melting my poor brain. Poor, poor brain. And my poor fingers, this hand piecing thing is causing me sewing calluses! Gross.

I could not be more thrilled with how Courtney’s quilt turned out. It’s the perfect color pallete for her personality (and her room) – it’s bright, it’s sunny and it’s heavy on the purple – her favorite color! The quilt top itself was super easy to make. I was drawn to this fabric line for the colors and the spring like feel, I think I bought it in February and I was definitely channeling some spring. The jelly roll quilt 1600 is crazy easy to make and doesn’t take long – you sew, you chop, you sew, you chop and on and on and on – but that alone wasn’t enough for a twin size quilt. I went ahead and bought a charm pack (precut 5×5 squares) to make the flying geese around the edges. I added some white sashing and voila, my largest quilt to date!

At my Atlanta Modern Quilt Guild meeting a couple of months ago, a woman showed a quilt she’d made using flannel on the back, “good flannel” she said. I went ahead and bought some good flannel (aka expensive) while it was on sale at QuiltHome.com for the back. They were super helpful in helping me match the right colored back to the front and I’m THRILLED with how it looks.

Because this was my largest quilt to date, I wanted to go ahead and try it on a long arm machine. A local sewing machine store has one here that you can rent and I decided to give that a go. I learned a lot by using it. For example, I learned that we’d loaded it wrong and that it’s super important to drop the presser foot or you’ll spend 30 minutes taking stitches out… I used a meandering stitch on the top, which I think was perfect for my first long arm experience. There’s no right or wrong and you can’t really mess anything up.

I also wanted to leave a little note for Courtney on the bottom and that was crazy easy to do on the long arm…. 

Lastly, I went ahead and added a purple on purple polka dot binding. I wanted to incorporate more purple (favorite color and all) but almost any color for the border would have worked.

I’m really thrilled with this quilt, as simple as it was. I love how the geese add a little something to the top and how all the colors are just so happy together. I really hope that Courtney enjoys years and years under her new quilt and as she grows up, she’ll always think of me when she cuddles up with a good book and a cup of tea.