Beanie Helper

As promised, I made a little beanie helper to act as a sweet bookend for my recipe books above the pantry in the kitchen. I am in love with this little guy! He is filled with great northern beans and, even though he is small, he is a great little worker!

With a ribbon on the back to hold him together, he is functional and beautiful! This is a great project to use up your scraps from larger projects.

I also made a fabric litter bag for the car today - pictures coming tomorrow! It was lots of fun to do a couple of small projects that are done very quickly. I am so used to making quilts, that to finish a project in under an hour seems like a miracle!

My Home

I was looking around my house today and I suddenly realized that I don't have much of my work on display. Sure, there are quilts and such hanging in my sewing studio, but there aren't even any hanging in the quilting room, the place where I actually quilt the quilts!

So, I spent some time today rearranging the furniture in my living room, putting the couches on an angle so they look a little more interesting. And I've decided to make a new quilt for me, or rather, for my living room, to add a little creativity into the space.

I have a friend in my local quilt club who just adores the colour teal. I have to admit that I really don't like teal as a rule and I doubt I own more than 2 pieces of fabric in that colour. I love purple and green. My friend never uses purple. Today, however, I put a cute teal lamp in my living room to add a punch of a new colour and guess what? I love it! I guess I'll have to add to my fabric stash and buy some teal so I can make a quilt that will be friends with the little teal lampshade :)

I also found a new home for my recipe books on top of the pantry. They keep falling over and they are just begging for a new bookend to keep them standing up. I think tomorrow I will make a sweet fabric bookend, filled with rice. I am so excited to add some fabric touches my rooms, bringing more of myself into them.

Because, when all is said and done, it's simple. Fabric makes me happy.

So Many Ideas!

Once again, a day has gone by and I didn't find time to design anything. I truly love designing crochet patterns and I think next I will start designing quilt patterns next. Quilt patterns will be so fun, and I will get to play with all that fabric stacked on the shelves of my sewing room :)

So, what do I do with the simple fact that I don't have very much time right now to design? Make more time? But then, what doesn't get done - dishes, laundry? No, we really need that stuff! Hmm, I could console myself with the thought that winter is coming and that inevitably leads to more quilting time (and possibly more designing time) - what else are you going to do when it's 30 below??!!

Okay, so I'll just breathe, relax, and tell myself that tomorrow is another day. And, while I have promised the monkey that I will play *whatever* he wants to play tomorrow, I will also promise myself that I will find time to sew something.

What will you make time to do tomorrow?

15-year-old quilt top finally quilted!

Well, I have had this quilt in my sewing studio for almost 15 years now. It was missing 2 borders so I put those on and finally quilted this one up! I was using this quilt for practice while we were trying to fix my longarm so the quilting is not the best but I fixed the worst of it.

I'm excited now because I get to work on one I really love next! Yay for UFOs getting finished!!!!

Dolphins Baby Quilt finished!

I finished the Dolphins Baby Quilt today. I really love the colours in this one. Really, this should have been done a long time ago since I only needed to finish the edges. I'm not sure where this quilt will go. At first, it was to be for sale but I'm not very pleased with the quilting so then, I thought I would donate it, but now someone I know would like to buy it so I suppose I will end up giving it to my friend :)

The backing fabric looks like knitting!

Now, which UFO is next?

Ballerina Kitten UFO finished!

This little quilt top, that I pieced about 10 years ago, turned out cuter than I thought it would. I will donate it to Project Linus in the fall, with the rest of the donations from my quilt & craft club.

You can see the quilting a bit in this photo. This is my go-to swirl, when I just want to get something quilted quickly and I don't have to worry if it will look all right :)

I bought this fabric for $2.00/m - I'll buy almost anything for that price! It actually looks pretty good with the top, as it mimics the pinks and greens.

Now, which UFO next?

Second Quilt UFO almost finished!

A friend came over the other day and fixed my longarm (it has had a problem off and on for two years now so I'm super excited that my longarm is finally working perfectly!) so I was able to get the "I Nearly Lost My Mind This Christmas, 2009" quilt up on the frame and quilted. This quilt is crazy busy because all I did was grab my pile of 4 1/2" squares and keep sewing until I felt better :) I think it will be a great picnic quilt, since I won't care too much what gets spilled on it. It's only about 50" square so it's not very big but will be easy to take along when we go kite flying for the day.

I ended up backing it with a very tiny, busy print that is black with pink flowers. It was only $2.00 a metre (I'll buy almost anything for $2.00 a metre!) and I'm glad I found a quilt to use it on.

So, tomorrow, I'll finish the edges and then I'm on to the next quilt! It's feeling so good to get some of these quilts finished!

Happy stitching, everyone!