WiP Wednesday...Where All I see Are Rainbows!

I feel like I have been working on Bottled Rainbows for 3 years! I still love it but it has moved in my mind from being a bed quilt for my bed to one for the guest bed....and I'm still not done with it! So far I have all 20 of the blocks (yes, I said 20 cause I added 4 more) connected, and I've attached the bottom border.

I went with piano keys in all the existing colors from the quilt, plus a few extras. Basically its some of almost every Kona I own. I've got the top border ready for batting on my sewing table.

Then I will add right and left, finish the back, quilt it, bind it, and finally work on something else. I may end up putting it on my bed eventually, but right now I'm just at that stage of "I'm just so sick of looking at it can I please work on something else PLEASE!" Well, maybe not quite that strong. I do love how it looks now that it's sewn together. Isn't it weird how you can put it all together on a bed or a design board to get an idea of it, but it still looks so much better than you expect it to when you finally get it sewn together?

Oh, and a word of advice. If you are slightly klutzy like myself and have accidentally hit furniture when swinging your arms while walking through the house, take it as a sign not to wear watches in the house.

Pretty, huh? I couldn't just scratch the face...nooooooo. I had to completely decimate it. Annihilate it. Destroy it. Sigh..... Good thing I have 3 other watches. maybe I'll use the wrist bands to make more wrist pin cushions, but this time I'll make the cushions bigger. Hope you're having a good week!

A New Quilty Tool....Well, Sort of!

Okay, has anyone seen the commercials for Sherwin Williams new online Chip It tool? You can pull the button into your online toolbar and it will provide paint chip colors for what it sees.
Here is the picture I chose:

I clicked my "Chip It" button which put it on the screen, then clicked it again and it came up with colors.

If you don't like the colors it comes up with (I didn't like that it didn't include the green), you can select 'More Colors' at the bottom and it will expand to include all like it did above.

How cool is this? I was thinking it would be great for painting but also for quilts. You have to log in to save your chip it cards, or you could always print screen and save them into a document you have in your computer (oops, did I say that?).  I did figure out that it doesn't like to do Flickr pictures (you know how you can't pin Flickr pictures too?) but I sort of found a way around it.
Go to a Flickr picture you like. I used Paint to pull a print screen image from my own Flickr account to show you how it will work.

Say this is the image I want to "chip". You are supposed to run the mouse over the picture but it doesn't work on the larger image. It does, however, work on the small images in your photostream over on the right.
So find your image in the center there and roll over it. Then click "chip".

And there are your colors! I know, I wouldn't normally use a picture of a quilt to come up with color ideas but it worked for the demonstration. My neighbor's child loves peacocks so I found this one to try as well.

Now, it's going to be limited to the paint colors Sherwin Williams has but I thought it was such a great jumping off point if you have a picture that inspires you. It helps pull all the colors out so you can really see them separately. Have fun!

A Little BR And More Dr. Seuss

I got all my blocks done and sewn together for my Bottled Rainbows!

I think I've decided to put it on my guest bed instead of my own bedroom. I had already planned on using my Carpenter Wheels for my bedroom so this works out great for the guest bedroom. I'm still going to add a border to make sure it has good length on it.
I finally pulled out the fabric I bought for the backing and found an issue.
The first thing is that I planned on running it one direction but it's directional the other way. Then when I fully unfolded it, I found this.

This was an "end of the bolt" I bought that was 5 yards. About 3/4 of the way down, I find this area where the fabric had been sewn together. It's not too pretty in real life because it looks like it's trying to pull apart, so I guess I'm going to be working around it.

A little Dr. Seuss 'sign' I love is making it's way around Facebook. It's called "5 Lessons from Dr. Seuss.

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I'm thinking about trying to make it into an embroidery picture. I love number 5.

Lakes and Rainbows

We're back from our little visit to my parents home. I quickly got together the last few blocks I need to finish out my BR top. I already had jade and it's finished but I also made crimson red, and what I believe to be corn yellow and bubble gum pink (not sure exactly).

The blocks are done, I just need to fill three with scraps. Then it's sew them all together, add a border and sew on the back! I'm closing in on a finish!

While we were at the my parents we took the kids to the lake. They have a fake beach there so we took the kids. They had a blast.

While we were gone, hubby was busy. When we left the kids rooms and the bonus room were a wreck. We returned to find this...

which meant their rooms looked like this...

and this.

The bonus room looked like this.

I was so ecstatic that everything was clean!!! Well, everything except that stained up ancient couch. And yes, there's usually a quilt on my daughter's bed but he didn't put it back on there. Yahoo for an industrious hubby! Or a bored hubby! Either way is fin

Happy 4th of July!

I've noticed several people posting videos for today so I thought I'd share one of my favorite songs. Have a great day!!!

Mini Vacay!

Headed to my parents home to see them and my sister. She will be there with her kids so we thought we would make it a mini get together (minus the hubbies) so the cousins could see each other. I am also looking for fabric as a border for my Bottled Rainbows. I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for yet. Our LQS was closed this week while she visits her kids elsewhere so I looked at Hobby Lobby just to get ideas. I kind of liked this fabric...

but it got me to thinking about something. The back fabric has dark blue, almost navy as a base. Is it okay to do black on front and blue on the back? I know they're both what's considered 'neutrals' but I wasn't sure that's what I wanted to do. Not sure I would go with the this fabric anyway but it just got me thinking. What do you think? Would you put two different neutrals on front and back of a quilt?

Pattern Tester: "Read" Book Bag

A few weeks ago I signed on to be a pattern tester for Michelle at City House Studio. I finally pushed everything to the side and actually fulfilled my promise of making the bag, and I love it! It appears I was late in getting it done because she's already released the pattern, but I still love mine. It turned out so very cute.

The only reason it's sitting out like that is because I wanted you to see all the letters. I also didn't put anything in it so it's standing on it's own. There is an option to quilt the letters or applique. I chose to quilt since I have been wanting to try it.

I made mine in red canvas and used a brown canvas material I had in my stash. Actually everything in this bag was from my stash. My books have selvage titles (Love Birds, Yankee Doodle, and Seuss), an embroidered title (Holes) and an FMQ title (Cook). I didn't have any fabric that looked like wood for the bookshelf so I FMQed it to look like wood.

Kind of just swirly but gives the idea.
I modified a tiny bit by adding a taller pencil/pen pocket on the inside since I figured this would be for the library or I may use it take my script and stuff to play practice. The pattern called for a regular strip pocket subdivided into three which I also did.

I also modified the handles. I initially cut out the brown canvas for the handles but decided I didn't want to FMQ it all so I did one side canvas and one side the liner fabric.

I love how it turned out. You should SO check out this pattern!  She is giving one way right now so run over and sign up to win before July 4th!