I Think I Need an Eye Doctor...

I was so happy when I got to the mailbox yesterday. I had been making great headway on my Embroidery 101 blocks so I knew I would be needing that tomato stripe fabric soon to correct my mistake. Lo and behold, there sits my package in the mailbox from SewLux.
So I tear into the package to ooh and aah at the yummies inside. Gorgeous! Love them all!

Then, all of a sudden, hmmmm....that looks odd. Is that right? Could I have...,no...,please tell me I didn't...,surely I would have double checked. Nope, obviously I did not double check.

I ordered the wrong colored fabric. I assumed from looking at the online pics that the fabric was the tomato stripe. So that's what I ordered without checking. So I get it in front of me next to the right fabric and it appears that, uh, um..., er, no, my fabric is not the tomato stripe. Uh-uh. Nope, not that lucky. The fabric I should have ordered appears to have been the jam stripe. One minute I'm feeling great for winning several things over the past several weeks; the next not so much for having to pay out to fix my mistakes. I don't mind keeping the tomato stripe. I'm sure I can incorporate it into the backing for this quilt since it's part of the same line. I just hate that I'm right back to waiting for my fabric to come back in. Oh well. It's not like I don't have a ton of other stuff to work on first.

I did get quite a bit done on the Embroidery 101 blocks. I'm only two short, and one of those is the one I'm missing the strip for. I think it's going to be very cute. I can't wait to see what we're putting in the squares. I'm working on the last two right now.

I've got to get ready for the day. Thing 1 has a birthday party/slumber party to go to Friday night and we need to get a gift. It's kind of cool. They are having a mystery birthday party where each girl is a contestant in a "Miss Teen" pageant. They each have a character to play and they have to figure out who stole the crown. She is playing a contestant who does magic for her talent. We're also supposed to supply costuming if possible but I'm not sure that's happening. Anyone got a prom dress to fit a 9 year old? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Must it be Monday?

I shouldn't really fuss about a Monday since all my days run together being home with the kids. Okay, so I have a little, "I can't believe what Thing 2 said," story for my mom to start with so, this one's for you mom! We're getting ready for dinner the other night and I put the kids' plates on the table. My sweet little son gives me a look of disgust and says, "I don't want that! I can see the bad taste in it!" I had to turn back around to walk in the kitchen. He kills me with stuff he says sometimes! What a goofball!

Yesterday afternoon my kids were invited to go to VBS for the week with one of Thing 1's friends. Really? Wow, that leaves me alone for 5 nights from 5:45 to 8:45. Whatever will I do with myself? Well, 4 nights really. Hubbie went on a trip and will be back Wednesday night. So needless to say, I was back home doing my best to get some work done. I finished cutting all the white for Embroidery 101 so all my fabric is cut. I started working on block construction so I will hopefully be ready to go when they post to start embroidery.

Here's where I have my fabrics set out for each block. And you know what's funny? I knew the blocks were going to be big, but I don't think I realized how big.

But they're also very pretty; a nice background to the embroidery yet to come!
I also laid out my X Marks the Spot quilt with all my leftover fabrics from it so I can start piecing a back for it. I don't want it to look too piecy (is that a word?) since the front is really precise.

How busy is your Monday?

Relaxing on Sunday

Not a lot of sewing going on here but I have been busy. So far I've cut out 188 hexie shapes so I'll have something to do later next month when we go to the beach. I like being prepared when we have a long drive ahead. Usually I take crossword puzzles for me and hubbie, as well as one of the card containers from the Trivial Pursuit game. That usually keeps us occupied. Oh, and our iPods. We are both podcast addicts. But I thought I'd like to take along some things that would make me feel productive. So I'm taking hexies, and if I can ever get them done, some of my Embroidery 101 squares to be embroidered. I like things that travel when you can't really take the old sewing machine.

I actually got a stack of fabric cut already too. I just used some of my bigger scraps so it's actually turned into a bit of a stash buster, which is nice.
Yesterday I got a little goodie in the mail. Did anyone else visit the greenbaglady during the Giveaway Day? Well, I did and she sent me a free bag to make and one to give away. She strongly encourages being 'green' by sending out fabric to others so they can make their own bags for shopping. The bag she made and sent is cute, but I love the fabric she sent for me to make one.

I think I'm going to add some of my fabric to make the handles a little longer so I can carry it on my shoulder. Not sure who I'll give the other one to. I have cloth bags already, some of which I've had for about 20 or so years. I've had mine since before they were 'trendy' or 'green'. I just like them. I have some the say "Earth bags" and I have some newer ones my hubbie got me from drug reps (he's a pharmacist). The ones he got me are cool because they are those nice lined bags for refrigerated items. Love 'em! But back to GreenLady's bag. I may take it with me to the grocery store and offer it to someone there. I like doing good deeds at stores. I always overpring coupons for Hobby Lobby and offer them at the register; I also like to cut out coupons I don't use and leave them on the item in the store. Maybe someone can use it.

Hope you have a nice relaxing Sunday! Thing 2 and I are alone. Thing 1 spent the night next door with a friend and hubbie went on a trip with his dad today. Car shows! Anyway, Thing 2 is adamant that he play under the sprinkler today so I may take some more hexies outside to cut. See you guys tomorrow!

It Is What It Is!

Okay, so after all my drama yesterday with my incorrect cutting, I finally had to suck it up and order more fabric online. Sigh... but I'm over it! Onward and upward, you can't cry over spilled milk, it's water under the bridge, yada yada yada. However, it ended up that I was able to pick up a few extras without too much trouble after all! I thought I would only be able to get the tomato stripe in a 1/2 yard; however, after playing around on the SewLuxe site I was able to figure out I could get it a fat quarter of it instead. If I had gotten the 1/2 yard I would have paid $4.10 + $5.00 for S/H. Instead, I got a fat quarter of it, and a 1/2 yard each of Maybe Tangerine

and Bubble Burst Turqoise

 

from Maria Horner's Innocent Crush. I was excited because my next design of my own is using blue and orange (yes, I know that's a bit more turqoise than blue but go with me here!). So instead of $9.10, I spent $13.05, but for only $4 more I got another 1/2 yard and a fat quarter. I consider that not too bad. When they come in I'll start collecting for the quilt in orange and blue.
I took the kids to the pool yesterday and ended up getting a bit burned. It is some kind of hot down here in GA! I didn't end up getting a lot of actual sewing done but I ended up being amazed at just how awesome you people in the quilting blog world can be. I ended up having some great email-ey conversation with Marlene from KissedQuilts about creating patterns; she is very knowledgeable. And her work is gorgeous. Check her out if you haven't already. Also, after all my griping about the tomato stripe, someone offered to help. I was amazed that someone who lives over 2000 miles from me was on her phone trying to locate that crazy fabric for me so she could send it to from where she lives! Isn't that cool? Linz, you rock!
I also got my Hideaway in the mail from CrazyQuiltGirl yesterday. She was very quick on the draw considering this was only a four day work week! Thank you Corinna! I love it! I'd have used you again for my Just Wing It I need but you only carry it in precuts.

This is the German/Austrian fabric for my baby quilt I'm making for November. It is just so cute and the colors are beautiful. I really like it; the colors are very gender neutral. There are greens, yellows, some blues, some reds.
You know for someone who needed to curb spending, I need to try harder to curb and actually produce something!

I Messed up...and I won...in the same day!

Okay, so let's do the mess up first so I can end on a happier note. I was cutting up the beautiful fabric I won from the Clover & Violet giveaway. It's for their Embroidery 101 quiltalong. Well, every piece is cut exactly the same. You would think this would be a no brainer. I kid you not, next to the last piece and instead of cutting the strip 6 inches, I cut it 5. Hello? What was I thinking? Where was my brain? Apparently not with me at the time. Argh and double argh.
I'm one of those people who is very hard on myself; can you tell? The other week when I broke my sewing machine and got a virus on my laptop? Yup, blamed myself for both things. Hubbie had to do some talking me down off the ledge when I had to turn both of those puppies in for repairs.
So what am I missing? Well, let's take a looksee, shall we?

See how I matched them all up to see what I still needed? One strip. One 18"x3" strip of the tomato stripe material. And guess what? I called one of the nearest quilt shops and they only carry it in jelly rolls and charm packs. Drat. I had an email in to another shop but they don't carry Moda at all. Double drat. If anyone knows of someone that is doing this quilt along and may have an extra bit of it about that long, please let me know! I looked to see what I had that was name brand that I could trade (I don't always buy name brand!) and I do have two 9x22 inch pieces of Denyse Schmidt Katie Jump Rope in Blue (the stripe with rows of polka dots) and two 9x22 inch pieces of Daisy Bunch in brown.

If there's interest, I'd love to trade! I don't want to have to buy 1/2 a yard to get one strip, and I don't even have enough scraps to make a strip that long. I also have a variety of small pieces I picked up during Shop Hop that I would be willing to trade if anyone has any of the fabric I need.

Thanks for looking. If worse comes to worst, I will just try to find a fabric that matches the others and change out that color. Sigh... I hate messing up.

Oh well, at least everything else is cut correctly. See?

Well, except for the white. I haven't cut the white yet. Let's just not go there. I don't think I could take it.


On a more positive note, I won some more fabric! I won the Japanese fabric offered by Leila for the kickoff of her Skillbuilder Sampler quiltalong. Man, what is it with me and quiltalongs? Anyway, I was so very excited because I have a friend I used to work with who is finally having a baby in November. He is Japanese/American and his wife's family is from Austria/Germany. I remember him coming in to tell me about a trip they were taking to Austria to visit his wife's family. He was trying to learn some German and thought maybe I could help him with his vowels. No, that's not kinky-weird; I'm a speech-pathologist by trade. When I'm working. Which is not now. And hopefully not anytime soon. Even  though hubbie asked about it the other day. Just so I can feed my quilting habit... ANYWAY!...
I got this idea to make them a baby quilt that incorporates how this baby will be a 'coming together' of their two cultures. I scavenged the fabric internet and came across Hideaway by Moda. Have you seen it? So very cute. So I ordered two charm packs of that.

I think technically it's supposed to be Switzerland but their sort of close and both places have villages and make clocks. It works, see?  I had decided to wait until they announced if it was a boy or a girl before choosing Japanese fabric. I was kind of excited about the Japanese fabric. I've almost never seen Japanese fabric I didn't like. So, I was going to wait, but God had another plan. He just decided to drop it in my lap! He's just cool like that. Especially when I need to cool it on my spending on quilting goodies.

Here's what she's sending me. I may have to be careful but I think I can get away with it for either gender. They're supposed to find out next week so I'll have a better idea.  But I'm excited. Again. Creating does that to me.

Ooh! One last thing. Our Walmart is remodeling so they were moving their fabric area around. I don't know why remodeling resulted in a fabric sale, but I'm not arguing. Lots of stuff for $1, $1.50, $2 a yard. I picked up 6.33 yards of material for $6.33 dollars (yeah, would have gotten more but for that whole curbing the quilt spending thing.

Not sure why everything has black and white in it. They had some springy colors but I wasn't sure what they would match. I may have to go back though. I sold some of the kids old clothes to a friend so there's a check in my purse that's burning a hole!

I Will Be Prepared...

I have been a little excited about attempting embroidery with quilting using Clover and Violet's quiltalong. Plus I have two small children who think they are going to spend the summer in front of the TV and the computer. So we got a little head start on embroidery yesterday. First I had them draw pictures of whatever they wanted.

Thing 1 (DD) drew a girl (head only), I drew my kids, and Thing 2 (DS) drew a monster truck. Look hard. It'll come to you. Maybe.

Anyway, our next step was to transfer it from the paper to the fabric. I just bought two yards of Kona White just to have because I seem to run out (imagine that!) so we used a little of that and a Marker Be Gone pen. I had them place the picture under the fabric where they wanted it and pin it together. Then we traced. Well, I traced. Thing 1 did hers but Thing 2 couldn't sit still so we sent him outside to rid himself of excess energy.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. I had a lot of embroidery hoops. I used to cross-stitch so I had several sizes. My MIL gave me some a few months ago as well. And where are said hoops? Um, well, I gave them away to the quilting guild for our Christmas raffle. Not a good move. I just had no idea at the time that I would use them again. I hadn't picked on up in YEARS so I figured it was safe to get rid of them. Obviously not. I had to go buy one to do the quiltalong, and that is the one you see in the picture.

One thing I've never been able to part with from my earlier years of cross-stitching; thread. I have a little bit. Well, maybe a lotta bit.

Yeah, okay, a lotta bit. But that means I don't have to buy more and I have my choice of what I want to use, right? Don't look at the white legs. Too much time in the craft room, not enough in the sun.
Thing 1 has been working on hers so I may take hers out, and quickly do mine so you have a finished project to see. My plan is to quilt around the pictures, maybe in hexie form. Ooh, wouldn't that be cute? To let the picture be the center and hex around block like Lee around it? How cute! I told them we'd make pillows for their beds. Here's her progress thus far. I thought she was doing pretty well.

I'll have to hit my little sister up with this activity. She has two scary artists for children. Her youngest is the same age as Thing 2 (we were pregnant at the same time). Last year we were at a little festival and they had places set up for the kids to do crafts. One was a drawing table. So the unsuspecting adults manning the table gave us supplies. I just remember one of the ladies staring at what my niece was drawing and finally being able to utter, "How old is she?" We said, "Four" to her complete shock. I think they could make some cool embroidery pictures.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that Thing 1 was the photographer for this lovely posting! I had to delete about 25 other pictures from my camera but I finally found these.

I will update on this as we finish. Happy summer projects!

WiP Wednesday #10

Wow. Hmm. Yeah, um, I don't know that I have any real progress to show. Well, just a little, but most of it I already showed earlier this week. Oh yeah, Lee is busy potty training this week so WiP is being hosted over at Don't Call Me Betsy this week. Don't forget to go check out everyone's work!

New Projects:
Well, yesterday I received my Giveaway Day prize from Clover and Violet: supplies for their Embroidery 101 quiltalong which I am going to start this week.

Isn't it yummy? I love that Just Wing It fabric. The only thing I don't have is thread, but I used to be a cross-stitcher. And even though I haven't cross-stitched in YEARS, I still have three cases of thread down in my craft room. I think I can find some thread to use!

I also played a little with Lee's new Hexing Around Block. LOVE IT! I did mine quickly with scraps cause I just wanted to see how it would come together. Now, I will say, I messed mine up. See the green stripes on the top and bottom rows? Yeah, it ended up being only 1" instead of 1.5" so it shortened those sides and made it more like Wonky Hexing, but I love how easy it came together.  It's also missing a row but I ran out of colors (I seem to use some of the same colors in my quilts; I need to branch out!). I can't wait to see how this design can be used! I think it would make a gorgeous pillow! Next time I will choose fabrics a bit better as well. Like I said, this was just scrappy.

Ongoing Projects:
I already posted about it this week, but I DID end up putting the 1 inch green border and 4 inch black border around my X Marks the Spot quilt. You can see that here. I feel like it's all I've blogged about lately so I need to finish up some other projects.
I did a little more quilting on my sister' quilt but haven't been able to spend as much time on that as I'd like. Considering her birthday was May 12th, I need to get that done.

Completed Projects:
Well, since I spent the week getting teacher's gifts done and getting an upcoming 4th grader and kindergartener acclimated to being at home for the summer, not a lot got finished. But I did finish all the mug rugs for teachers' gifts.

Goal for this week:
Finish something!