Christmas Tree skirt

My new job with the school district has led to some wonderful quilting opportunities. The most recent being a Christmas Tree skirt for the PTO auction that's coming up next month.  I got the instructions from here.  It was easy to follow and a wonderful design idea.  Here is my finished product.  I'm SOOO EXCITED!

Kaleidoscope Quilt-a-long

I finished my blocks yesterday!! Woot woot!  I'm so thrilled with how they turned out.  They're all scrappy so none of them look alike. It's perfect scrap busting at its source. I do wish I had used the same color of neutral fabric, but I still enjoy how it turned out.  I have one block that I need to fix, but I think this might be close to the layout for stitching them together.  I got the instructions from Don't Call Me Betsy

Oh, and btw - Today is my anniversary!!!!!!!

Pillow sham

On the recommendation of my aunt, I found a pattern for a pillow sham at Dawn's Quilting Corner   I think it turned out pretty well, but let me know what you think!

Cranberry Fudge Quilt

I went to the fabric store (Hancock Fabrics) a couple days ago and low and behold, they were doing an inventory sweep and all of the fabrics were on sale!! Deeply discounted sale!!!!!!!!!!!!   I was in heaven!  I purchased three fabrics

I fell in love with the birds first and then found a couple complimentary colors.  I knew I wanted to make a quilt out of them, but.... what quilt?  I just got this book from a friend of mine: 

In it there is a pattern for this quilt: 

Now, I have a word of my own hesitancy.  This is my first quilt from a REAL pattern.  I'm kinda excited, but want to make sure I don't rush through it, I have a real tendency to want to just go get'em but then the quality isn't as good.  So, I'm gonna take this one slow and easy and hopefully do it up right!

Nightstand Placemat

Quick weekend project.  I whipped up this red and white placemat to cover a bad spot on the nightstand.  Very simple, just cut strips of varying sizes out of my red and white fabrics, sewed them together.  I squared it off, then added batting and a back and did a pillow style finish.  Quilted lines down each side of the white strips, and finished by topstitching around the outside in black zigzags :-)  I love how well it turned out!!!!

Homemade Pillowcases

Pillowcase Tutorial 

This is the video I used to make my pillowcases. It wasn't too hard. In fact, this one took about 45 minutes.  It probably would have gone faster, but my cutting wasn't even and was driving me crazy.  There's also written instructions, but they're not as detailed as the video.  If you want the written ones go here.  Without further ado, here is my finished product:

with my husband peeking out from above... he's a character.

Ruffle Quilt!

So excited!!  I finished my ruffle quilt last night.  :-)  I used a ruffle for the binding.  I machine quilted around the outside of the white blocks - stitch in the ditch quilting. So, except for the errors, the quilting is hidden. Let me know what you think.  Also, these fabrics I got from Sew Sara's scrap swap a while back.  Here they are... the wonderful pictures :-D

Finished!

Wooh!  I just got done finishing up this quilt top: 

It took me a couple hours for the quilting and binding, but I'm in love with this one.  I'll post pictures of the finished product tomorrow!  

New Quilt finish

This is my new finish.  I posted pics of the quilt top the other day. Yesterday, I quilted and finished this one!  Yippee!!  If you look closely, I quilted circles in the middle of each square. It was my first attempt at quilting circles.  Yes, I free-motion quilted, but I had drawn a pattern on the top.  The circles are far from perfect, but for my first attempt it wasn't too shabby.  Let me know what you think, please :-) Oh, and I got the instructions for making my own binding, from Crazy Mom Quilts.  Easy to understand tutorial and I think it turned out really good.

Scrap Swap product

This last week I finished up a quilt top that I made from a scrap swap.  SewSara held a scrap swap a couple months ago. With the exception of the white fabric (and future backing fabric)  This quilt is made entirely from fabric that someone sent me out of their scrap bin!  It's kind of exciting.  The size will end up being 36x36 inches perfect for a baby recieving blanket.  I LOVE the way it turned out. I think I might keep this one for myself. :-)  Thanks again to SewSara for hosting the swap.

My first Friday night sew in!!

I've been planning a quilt for my nephew Josiah and finally got all the fabrics cut and aligned, so I decided to join the Friday Night Sew-in from Handmade by Heidi.  It's finished size is hopefully going to be 54 inches by 72 inches. Minus a tad for seams :-)   I'm super excited, now all I need to do is figure out what arrangement to put my blocks in.  It'll be a 3block by 4 block set up.  I'm open for suggestions.  I found some of my material from Jody at the Fabric Shoppe   I got her info from KoolBeenz.  So, when all is said and done, I think I did pretty well tonight.  

Finished projects

Today I took pictures of my recently (almost) finished projects... drum roll please!!!!

Project 1 - Requested colors - pink and brown 

Baby quilt for a friend

Project 2: Random idea using jelly roll strips and scraps

Baby quilt for me someday.  

*I made this one with a pillow turn and quilted the squares. Not quite perfect, but getting there.

Project 3: PINWHEELS!!!!

Yes, I went for a different shape.  Again, not perfect, but getting there. :-)

Oh, and it will be quilted someday, but not quite finished yet.  

*This one is for a preggers friend as well.

Last but not least, my newest quilt block that I just made today.  Took an idea and tweaked it a little, but I cannot for the life of me remember where I got the idea from.

I have officially started a new quilt.  It is my first attempt at a pinwheel quilt.  Here's my first square.  I have eight more to go.  

All of the squares are going to be a combination of red, black and white.  I hope it'll be done in time for a baby shower, but GEEZ! pinwheels are hard to get lined up right.  I'm gonna have to do a little more research before I start my next one.  :-)  Anyway, kinda excited bout it and wanted to share.