Honey, I'm home!!

I've been gone - did you miss me?  I could blame it on a lot of things.  My children have, despite our best efforts, become those awful offspring who want to excel in everything, participate in everything and - as a result - drag their parents to everything.  My sewing time is being severely stressed by soccer games, basketball games, chorus and honors chorus, math-fest, science Olympiad, 4-H project achievement and field trips to every educational destination in a three state area!  I mean, come ON people...I have pillows to make!  Quilts to bind! Bees to keep up with!

If that weren't enough, my boss actually seems to expect me to work each day, and my husband has been hinting that hot meals in the evening would be appreciated.  And to round everything off, we've had not just one, but TWO rounds of severe storms in the last 10 days that knocked the cable/internet out for days at a time.  What's a girl to do?

But I'm back now, and despite my disgustingly talented kid's shenanigans, I do have a few things to show for my time spent AWOL from blogland.

When last we spoke, I was working to try to finish my Unwinding Stitches quilt (isn't that a clever name?  It's the Unwind pattern from Jaybird quilts, using Malka Dubrawsky's line Stitch in Color).  It looked like this:

Unfortunately, you are going to have to believe me when I say that once I got it quilted and bound, it looked gorgeous.  You have to believe me because being the genius I am, I finished it and took it straight to Intown Quilts to drop it off.  I won't have it back until mid-April, but I promise to take some photos then!  I used these the fabrics below for the back and binding.  To quilt it, I used lime green thread to stitch 1/4" inside each individual piece of the white stars, then did a medium sized stipple on the colored parts.  It really is lovely.  Take my word, lol.  If you happen to live in Atlanta and will be dropping by Intown soon or during the Shop Hop at the end of this month, you can even see for yourself!

You might remember that I made the quilt to participate in a challenge the shop had going, where they asked that you buy a pattern and fabric from a current line, along with anything else you needed for the quilt (thread, batting, specific ruler, etc) and then bring the completed quilt to them  to be displayed during the annual Shop Hop.  In return, they were offering 100% of your purchase price back in the form of a store gift certificate.  Sold!! My bill had come to $86, and I brought my 11 year old daughter Tia with me to go completely crazy do a little shopping.  She has recently developed an interest in quilting and learning how to sew.  Here is some of the loot fabric we brought home:

Washi!  Isn't it pretty????   I fell in love with it when the designer, Rashida Coleman-Hale, brought the line to my first Modern Quilt Guild meeting and talked a bit about the journey of bringing a design from the inspiration of  her kids washi tape designs to the finished product.  See that one on the bottom right, the charcoal with bright washi tape all over it?  That's my faaaaavorite.  Love it!!  Next up...

Wrenly!  (It was a "W" kind of day) By Valori Wells, it has lots of pretty colors AND birds.  Can't go wrong there.  I'm actually pretty sure I'm going to buy some more of the line while shop-hopping in 2 weeks. Because having played with it for a little while, I want.it.all.

I needed these dots for February's BeeJeebers bee block.  The queen bee, Lindsay, asked us each to make a block for a "Family Game Night" quilt.  I chose Chinese Checkers - hence the dots .

And I bought littttttle bit more of the Stitch in Color.  When I made the Unwinding Stitches quilt, (hahahahaha...I love that name...I'm such a dork) I cut vewy, vewy carefuwwy - and got enough blocks to make not one, but TWO quilts. Well - almost.  I was one lousy block short.  One 6" block!  So this little group of 1/8 yards became the one final block needed.  I haven't put the quilt together yet, though, since I don't have anyone in particular to give it to and have a lot of other projects going right now.

I just adore this fabric.  I have no idea what I'll do with it, but had to have a little FQ of it.  I did buy a few yards of a pretty oatmeal colored linen while I was there, too (no photo)...so maybe a zippered pouch??  Anyway, that's most of what we got at Intown.  My partner in crime daughter got 2 or 3 FQ to add to her cute little stash, but I'm not sure where they are so can't take photos.  Okay.  On to what I've been sewing!

I've made two of these - the borders have been sewed on since I took this photo - for a set of pillows.  My son has a new apartment that is sort of minimalist with black and white and some bright spots of red.  So I I thought these might look good on his new red couch.  I'm working on something kind of cool for the back and  I really hope it comes out the way I envision it...more on that later.

This is for another set of pillows for the same son.  I used these Kisses and Hugs pillow tutorials from Esch House, that came out around Valentines day.  This is (obviously) the kiss.  They will both be backed by that grey and black and red and white fabric you see at the top of the shot.

And here is the Hug.  My son has a sort of Asian look going on, so I thought these fabrics carry that through, a little.  I'm not sure how I'm going to send them.  Money-wise, I'd like to provide the pillow inserts for the pillows (they are each about 18" square.) but shipping -wise that would be a pain in the butt and a waste of money, too.  I will probably send them along with a little money to buy the inserts, I guess.

I made 2 Railroad blocks for a charity quilt the guild is putting together.  It's for a rescue home for victims of sexual trafficking in Atlanta - Wellspring.  My daughter worked for another home like this that will remain unnamed here, because I wasn't all that impressed with either their practices or their use of being a "Christian" business without seeming to have any discernible Christian values...but Wellspring seems like the real deal, and they do a lot of good work.  They have enough rooms for 24 girls, and the guild is taking on the task of providing quilts for each of the resident beds.  I want to make one of those.  The charity quilt above, though, is the kind that they will raffle/auction to raise money, and it's scrappy with a different fabric for each block.  It looked great all set out on the table at the guild meeting - can't wait to see it quilted up!

 Here is the second one - I love this fabric.  Do you recognize it as the long -searched-for binding for my rainbow batiks quilt?

Tia and I also went to the grand opening preview of Cottontail Quilts, in historic downtown Kennesaw, GA.  It's in the most amazing 100++ year old home, just a block or so away from the depot.  I actually teared up a little, imagining confederate soldiers the same age as some of my sons, standing on the platform of that depot, going off to war.  I'm not sure how old the house is, but wondered if a boy from that family could have been standing there, too.  They were having door prizes, and Tia won a rather expensive book on machine and free motion quilting.  It's a nice book, but I think she was disappointed - the people who had won before her had gotten fabric bundles and jelly rolls.  I think she had her heart set on a jelly roll, to get her little stash started ;)  Still, she found a project in the book on the way home that she thinks she can manage.  

Above is a photo of about 1/4 of the line waiting to pay / check out at the shop!  It loops around in a U here in the photo, then stretched back down a hall and into another room!  The owner was running the register and seemed very nice.  More telling, though, was the fact that I heard 2 of the employees confiding to people about how impressed they were with the owner, and her ethics and pricing practices.  I like a shop with more of a modern selection, but for just about anything else I don't think you could go wrong with Cottontail.  Check it out if you are anywhere nearby or passing through.  It's only about 3 minutes off of I-75, just north of Atlanta.  Google will give you directions :)

I'll be back tomorrow or Friday to talk about the 1600 quilt I'm making.  It's kind of freaking me out that I'm using THIS fabric/jelly roll to make it - but I'd promised my daughter a quilt out of that jelly roll, and the 1600 is the quilt she had her heart set on.  

See you soon - I promise!!