Blog Hop, Progress, and Spoiling

First off it's the final day of the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop.  Beth from Plum and June has put a lot of work into this hop and it has been running for quite some time.  The hop started in May and is now ending six months later.  It was a fun journey and I really enjoyed being a part of it and meeting so many other new bloggers like myself.  Here's my post from back in September.  The list of women for today/this week, is fabulous and found below...

         Cynthia from A Quilter by Night
         Stephanie from Smalltown Dreamz
         Cynthia from Quilt Doodle Doodles
         Diane from From Blank Pages
         Laura from Waffle Kisses
         Mary Ann from Rocknquilts
         Jaime from Stitches to Sprinkles
         Allegory from {sew} Allegorical
         Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts
         Lynne from Bouts Choisis
         Nat from Made in Home
         Francine from Mocha Wild Child
         Lyanna from Purple Panda Quilts
         Stacey from The Tilted Quilt


Now onto my progress.  I've been working hard on a quilt for my mother this past week.  I picked it up again last Tuesday after not working on it since July.  I'm getting to the part now where it's all coming together so quickly and getting bigger and bigger which is so fun!

Here's my progress with the center portion of the quilt.  There are to be 28 of each block.  I must now sew the three sections of the star block together and then assemble in a checker pattern.  I'm so excited with how quickly it's progressing!

To aid in the progression of this and other quilts my hubby spoils me enormously!  He's pretty cute about it to.  Tomorrow I turn 30 (I'm so excited, is that odd?) and he was worried he didn't have enough presents for me so he offered to take me to Joann's and supplement as well as use my 60% off coupons.  How could I refuse?!

He got me this new fancy yellow cutting mat.  It's HUGE!  I'm so excited to use it.  I put my old one on top for a size comparison.  The new one is 24" by 36" and a little slice of heaven.  He also got me a fancy new pair of Gingher scissors.  I'm in love.  They cut like a dream not like my cheap scissors that are about nine years old.  They make me want to make another HST quilt so I can cut out all that fabric with the nice ones!

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to hop around the last stops of the hop today!  I'm linking up with Plum and June for the Let's Get Acquainted Monday Link Up.

Let's Get Acquainted!

I've been excitedly waiting for my day of the Let's Get Acquainted blog hop to come around.  There have been so many fun stops along the way!  Earlier this week there was Anne from SpringLeaf Studios and Kristy from Cotton Addiction.  Today I share the spotlight with Chelsea from Pins and Bobbins.

In honor of the blog hop I wrote a fun tutorial on how to make this Handprint Crab Mini.  That's in the previous post.  This post is designed for you to get to know me and my blog a little bit better. 

Here's the link to the tutorial for this mini.  Isn't it cute?

I think the best way to get to know the crafty side of someone is to look at what they've made.  I love quilting.  It was my first crafty obsession.  Then over seven years ago while on bed rest while pregnant with my first child I picked up crocheting.  I'm pretty obsessed with both at this point.  There are some collages with links below but if you'd like to check out all of what I've made either click on the tabs at the top or follow the links here for Completed Quilts/Top and Completed Crochet Projects.

1. Hexagon Park   2. Double Wedding Ring   3. Owl peter/Paul   4. Plaid Apple Core   5. Tetris   6. Cartwheel   7. Disappearing Walk in the Woods   8. Argyle   9. Appliqued Animals.


To date I've made 41 quilts/tops.  It was hard to narrow it down but these are sure my favorites.  Now on to crochet projects.  I love crochet because it is so fast and there is no limit to what you can create!

1. Woven Scarf   2. Necklace   3. Viking and Crab hats   4. Dragon   5. Mama and Chick Pot Holder   6. Sock Monkey Hat also Here  7. Crochet Christening Gown (no. 2)   8. Homestyle Ripple Afghan   9. Christening Gown   10. Self-folding Hot Pads   11.  Preemie hats.


Another great way to get to know someone's crafty side is to see where they work.  This is where all the magic happens...

My sewing table.  Yeah, I totally cleaned it off for this picture.  It's not typically this clean but it's so nice to have this much space!

This is my paper-crafting area.  I love the shelves to store all my things!

I adore the big windows that let all the sun in but they also made it really bad for this picture.  It's a nice little space and with four kids and a hubby I'm lucky to have this much space to myself!

 Here's a bit of Q & A for your reading pleasure...

      - How long have you been quilting - I started with a Sunbonnet Sue quilt in 1997, I think.  It's hard to remember that long ago.  I was 14 going on 15 and really wanted to try quilting. With a fun quilt book in hand and many many cute fabrics I was ready to begin.  Or so I thought.  My Mom is not a quilter and I know of no one else in our family that attempted quilts before me.  Although I do come from a long line of women who sew they do mainly clothing and I even have an Aunt that makes and alters wedding dresses (she's AMAZING!).  This lack of quilting background really put me at a loss when quilting.  I had no idea there was such a thing as a rotary cutter or that it could be combined with a ruler and mat to create more accurate cuts.  I had a ruler, a pencil, and a pair of scissors.  My seams really didn't match up very well and the whole thing had a bit of wonkiness to it. I'm sorry to say I don't have the quilt or even a picture of it but I do have a pillow I made to match the quilt.  For the whole story on that go here.

       - Favorite quilting tip(s) - As I learned while making my first quilt you really need to have the right tools for the job.  That means having a rotary cutter, mat, and ruler.  Make sure your blade is sharp enough to cut.  Make sure you have enough thread that matches what you're working on.  Also, take your time.  Sloppy cuts = sloppy quilts.

       - Favorite blogging tip(s) - Remove the word veri-freaking-cation!  Everyone HATES having to tell if that's a EQGS or an EOGS.  Save them the trouble and just take it off!  I removed mine shortly after I started my blog and I've never had a spam comment.  As an extra precaution I've put up comment moderation for posts older than 30 days.  It seems that when I had problems on my other blog from spam comments it was always on the older posts.  Also link, link, link.  It's the easiest way to cite a source for anything and to help people find other posts in yours or others blogs.  It takes a bit more time but it's so worth it!

       - Favorite fabric (or wish list fabric) - Ruby by Bonnie and Camille for Moda jumped into my head first when I saw this question but there are a lot I'm loving right now.  I find this question amusing because it wasn't until October of 2011 that I even knew that designer fabric existed.  I'd never heard of Moda or Michael Miller or any of the other well known companies that I'm in love with now.  I always bought my fabric at Joann's or Hobby Lobby.  I never even thought to look at who made it I just needed to know if it matched.  I'm floored by the quality of the more expensive lines and I'd be hard pressed to go back.

       - Favorite craft book - I haven't bought a craft book in years!  I get most of my patterns online now and download them to my Nook or print them out.  Although the book I've found the most useful over the years is "I Can't Believe I'm Crocheting!"  It has so many pictures and runs though step by step.  I'm an avid crocheter now and I may even love it more than quilting thanks to this book.

You can get this book here or try the updated version here.

       - Favorite book (or book you are currently reading) - I adore Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It's quintessential science-fiction and even though it was written in 1953 he captures so many of the nuances of our day.  He predicted so many of the technological advances it's mind boggling.  In the book the people, in an attempt to create a balanced society, have banned books.  They feel without them people will be on the same level intellectually.  Thus, Firefighters instead of putting out fires start them to burn the books they find hidden around the city.  The novel follows one such firefighter as he struggles though life in this environment.

       - Favorite children's book - Who could pick just one?!  I'm loving Llama Llama Mad at Mama right now.  The illustrations are priceless and I love how it gives a glimpse into my child's mind.  The book follows little Llama as he goes to the store with his Mama.  It tells how he feels and what he experiences during the trip.

       - Favorite quilting tool - Again with the hard to narrow down!  I think it's got to be my rotary cutter.  How did I every survive without it?

       - Favorite music to listen to while quilting - I adore the various albums from Glee.  Seriously great music all in one place.  I find myself singing along while I happily work away.

       - Favorite TV show while hand stitching - I find that I am MUCH slower if I try to watch anything while hand stitching.  I just stare at the screen and have the needle limp in my hand.  Occasionally I'll pick up something I'm working on while watching TV but I don't turn it on while I'm quilting on purpose.  Instead I listen to music, see the above question, or enjoy a moment of silence if my four kids are asleep.

       - Binding - by hand or by machine? - I used to ALWAYS do it by hand.  Then I discovered machine binding (it's my lack of quilting heritage striking again) and it's pretty difficult to go back.  I bind by hand if it really needs to look perfect or if there are too many curves in the edge like this quilt.

       - If I'd only known - what you wish you knew about blogging before you started your blog - To take more pictures!  Before my blog I never took pictures during a quilting process and I usually only took one of the finish.  It wasn't always in the best light and didn't show off the quilt as it could have.  Now I know and I take all kinds of pictures during the process and when it's finished.  I take from different angles and in different light to make sure I capture its fabulousness for posterity.

Thanks for stopping by and sticking with me for this long post.  I tend to be thorough when blogging.  Be sure to keep scrolling or follow the link to the tutorial.  Also check out my blog hop buddy Chelsea from Pins and Bobbins.  Since my first ever attempt at a blog hop post is definitely trying a new thing I'm linking up with TNT Thursday by Melissa over at Happy Quilting.  I also made the collages in my blog and I've never tried that before.  Hurray for new things!

Handprint Crab Tutorial

As part of my stop on the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop I decided to write up a tutorial.  I've never done one this detailed before so I'm kind of nervous/excited about it.  I got the idea for this hand-print crab here.  The original was done with paint on regular paper but I easily converted it to fabric.  I'm linking up with the Oh Sew Baby! over at Fort Worth Fabric Studio Blog. Ready?  Let's go...

The is the end result you're going for.  It's 12.5" square.  The original had a mouth but I wasn't in love.  You can add one if you'd like.

Here's what you'll need.  One piece of paper - a pen or pencil - scissors - fusible web for iron on applique - sew on googly eyes - 3 fat quarters (one crab color, one sand color, and one ocean background) - a scrap of batting - matching thread.  Optional: embroidery thread for mouth and a marker.

Let's start by making the hands that will become the crab.

Step One: Grab your favorite small person and trace their hands with the pen or pencil onto the piece of paper.

Optional Step: Go over the tracing with marker.  This step is not required but it does make the next step a bit easier.

You can see the difference the marker makes while trying to trace the hands onto the fusible web.

Step Two: Trace the hands onto the paper side of the fusible web.  Typically I use pencil because it doesn't smear but I needed to use pen this time to make it show up in the pictures.  You end up peeling off the paper in the end so the smear doesn't really matter it's just a personal choice.

Step Three: Roughly cut around the traced hands.  This step doesn't have to be perfect in fact it's easier to cut it out like this and do the precise cutting after it's ironed on.

Step Four: Turn your iron on to the hottest setting with no steam.  Once your iron is ready make sure you iron your hands on the WRONG side of the crab color fabric.  That way when you peel the paper and iron it on to the background you have the right side facing out.

Step Five: Carefully cut out hands along the traced line.  If you notice a bit of wonkiness to your tracing you can trim it at this point to make it the perfect hand shape.

- Now your hands are all ready to go and it's time to create the background.  This is the easy part!

Step Six: Out of the sand color cut a piece that is 5" by 12.5." I used a fat quarter for this and cut the piece 5" by 18" then trimmed down to my needed 12.5."  Doing it this way left a larger scrap piece to use on the back side later. 

Step Seven: Out of the ocean print cut a piece that is 8" x 12.5"

Step Eight: Sew the sand piece to the ocean piece and press the seam either open or toward the ocean piece.  I hate pressing open (I always burn my fingers) so I pressed toward the fishies.

Step Nine: Peel the paper from the back of the hand piece.  This part can be a bit tricky to get started.  It really doesn't matter where you start the peel from so anywhere that you can get it to separate would be good.

Step Ten: Get the hands just where you want them to form the crab.  Make sure your iron is on all the way hot and again with no steam.  Iron the hands onto the background.

Now you're ready to stitch around the hands to secure them to the background.  I like a zigzag stitch and I do it at 4.0 width and 1.0 length.  If you're not sure what you like get a scrap of fabric and try out a few stitches with different lengths and widths.

Step Eleven: Outline the hands with the zigzag stitch.  I found it easiest to start at the bottom where the two hands go together and then go clockwise around the hands.  I finished up by going through the center of the crab where the top hand overlaps the bottom hand.  Wherever you start you need to make sure you stitch over every raw edge.

Optional: If you'd like your crab to have a mouth now would be the time to sew it on there.  I didn't like the smiley face so I left it off.  My family and everyone else I've asked has been totally split over the whole thing so it's really up to you.  There are eyes too but I sewed those on last so they wouldn't get in the way of the quilting.


Now it's time to quilt and bind it.

Step Twelve: Cut a background piece (I used the sand color) and a batting piece slightly bigger than your block.  Since the block is 12.5" I cut mine at about 14.5"

Step Thirteen: Once sandwiched quilt as desired and trim off the excess.  For my quilting I chose to free-motion quilt around the hands and then do a bunch of wavy lines everywhere else making sure to stop at the hands.

Here's the back side.  I really think it makes the hands pop!  Those wavy lines sure are fun too!

Step Fourteen: Bind and sew on the eyes.  I bound it in the crab color cutting four strips 2.5" by 18"  I had nearly one strip extra but that's better than it being too tight.  I sewed on the eyes last because I didn't want them to get in the way while I was quilting.

And you're finished!  One super cute crab animal made out of your favorite small person's handprints.  There are many variations to this.  You could also do owls, elephant, giraffe, eagle, and so many more.  The only limit is your imagination.  Try pinterest or a quick Google image search for more handprint craft ideas.

Since this is my first step-by-step tutorial I'd appreciate any feedback you may have to offer me. Thanks for stopping by!  Be sure to stop by the other hop stop today with Chelsea from Pins and Bobbins.

WiP Wednesday: Busy, Busy, Busy

I feel like I have so many things going on right now.  I have a few things I'm finishing up, some I'm in the middle of and a few I'm itching to start.  It's been a crazy week!  I finished up my Tetris Quilt, worked on my project for my first ever blog hop post on Thursday, did a little bit of work on the quilt for a good friend's baby born last week, and made another friend some booties and a hat for her baby that's coming today!!

In preparation for the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop I've overhauled my blog.  It took an entire day!  I added the About Julie page.  It was a lot of work but fun to do.  There are pictures of my craft space, a bit about me, and a fun Q & A section.  I also added the Tutorial and Patterns page as well as the Completed Crochet Projects page.  Finally I updated my Completed Quilts/Tops page which has all the quilts I've ever made on it.  It was so much work going through all my posts linking them up and adding the pictures to those pages but I think they will be a good resource.  It's totally a work in progress.

My whole life seems to be one big Work in Progress right now and I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced.

Now on to the projects!

I completed my Tetris quilt and I'm in love!  I even hand quilted it using cotton perle in a running stitch.  I love so much about it and am happy to have another quilt to snuggle with on the couch.  A family of six sure takes a lot of quilts to cover them!

Here it is getting a little sun while I took a few pictures.  See the full finish post with more pictures here.

I watched my friend's four kids all day Saturday as well as my four.  It was a crazy fun day!  I thought it would be just crazy and not so much fun but our kids are so good together I didn't mind having eight at all!  While they were here I decided to make booties and a hat for the new baby that is to be born today!  I know I'm a bit crazy trying to accomplish something while watching so many kids but they really are that good!

Aren't these booties just adorable!!  I found the pattern for free on Ravelry.  It was super easy and fast to make.  I love the ties!  So often it's hard to get booties just the right size and these ties sure fix that problem!  I can't wait to see them on her!

I honestly don't think you could find a cuter baby hat!  This is the second time I've made this Sock Monkey Hat and I'm just as in love with it as the first time.  The post for the first one (found here) is my all-time most popular post.  It goes pretty quickly and is so adorable!  I love everything about it!

UPDATE:  I got a picture of the baby wearing the hat.  Seriously could she be any more cute!  It was all I could do not to squeeze her and cover her chubby cheeks with kisses. 

Finishing up my Tetris quilt and working on the blog hop post has taken most of my time this week so there's not as much progress as I'd like on my friend's pink baby quilt.  I'm making a lot of HST and I'm still in the sew them together stage.  I've been searching around for various ways to do the layout and I'm still undecided, there's just so many choices!  Here's my progress so far...

I've sewn together four of the seven stacks of HST and pressed them open.  I hope to get the last three stacks sewn and pressed this week and a layout chosen.

Tomorrow (Sept 13th) is my day for the blog hop.  The theme for the hop is novelty prints.  I've been wanting to try to write a step-by-step tutorial and thought this would be a great time to try that out.  I've made patterns before and general tutorials but never really one this detailed.  It was a lot of work but so fun.  I hope you come back tomorrow and to tempt you here's a bit of a sneak peek...

My project for the blog hop - sneak peek.  Tutorial Here.

UPDATE: The blog hop posts are up now.  For the post on all you could ever want to know about me click here.  For the tutorial that matches the sneak peak above click here.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great day!

One Thing One Week Challenge: Pinwheel Victory!

 Last week I made a goal over at Amy's Creative Side's One Thing, One Week Challenge to finish the pinwheel blocks for my mother's queen-sized quilt.  Half the blocks are pinwheels and the other half are a type of star.  I'm happy to say that with the help of my wonderful hubby I finished my goal for the week and got a bit of extra sewing time in.  Hurray!

Here's my cute man lending a helping hand.  Isn't he amazing?  I sewed 112 squares together to make 56 that needed to be cut in half to form 112 HST.  (It's all for this quilt for my mother).  I was not looking forward to making it through that pile when my hubby came into my craft room and I enlisted his help.  He was a little leery at first but then I told him all he had to do was cut on the marked line and he probably cut about as many as I did.

While doing my recently completed Skill Builder Sampler series I found that my pinwheels came out so much crisper if I made them a touch big and trimmed them down.  I know it is a lot of work but I did this to all 112 HST blocks.  This step alone took up three days of my free time which wasn't very much last week with the holiday and my four munchkins in dire need of attention.

Here's one completed pinwheel block.  It measures 10.5" square.  I really liked these fabrics together when I bought the fabric but when I started piecing them together I randomly freaked out that they looked bad.  Now I think I'm back to liking them.  Either way my Mom likes them and that makes me happy.  What do you think?

Here are the 28 completed pinwheels all together.  I'm so happy I met my goal!  Now only if I had motivation to work on it again this week!  I could finish this top so quickly at this pace!

I'm linking up with the One Thing, One Week Challenge with Amy over at Amy's Creative Side.  I'm excited by all the other fun projects already posted.    I love seeing what everyone can accomplish in a week if they put their mind to it.

Also I'm linking up with Plum and June who is hosting the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop.  There is a fun giveaway again this week with $30 shoppe credit to Poppy Seed Fabrics!!  Also there is a link to a great advice post, tips on how to join Instagram, and a linky party for everyone's fabulous projects.  Later this week we get to visit the four stops on the hop...

July 10

    Jenelle from Echinops and Aster  

    Julie from Bedsheet in the Kitchen

July 12

    Rebecca from Sew Festive Handmade 

    Marti from 52 Quilts in 52 Weeks

Thanks for stopping by!

Free-Motion Quilting - Pass/Fail

 After completing the Skill Builder Sampler I was feeling brave and wanted to try my hand at free-motion quilting.  I was quite determined as you will discover in this post it was a real pass/fail kind of experience.  I had a few blocks left over from the sampler and an bit of extra batting lying around so I figured what better way to use my skill builder sampler blocks then to build a new skill doing free-motion quilting.  I'd heard a few things about it but didn't really know much.  I knew that you needed to lower the feed dogs and that you guide the quilt around with your hands to make shapes/designs.  I'd vaguely remember that you needed a special foot for this but I thought, "how much could that really matter?"  HAHAHA!  Read on for my adventure!

Here I'm all ready to go with my Improv House (Block #12) a bit of cotton batting and some backing that perfectly matches the body for my house.  This fabric is all from a quilt I made about 10ish years ago so I'm pretty happy I had enough to finish the mini.

Now we get to the really laughable part!  With my regular pressure foot and my feed dogs down my quilt would not move!  It was pinned by the foot in place.  With the foot up the needle would pick up the fabric and would make sloppy horrible stitches.  It was a mess.  Did that stop me?  No, but it probably should have.  I'm pretty stubborn so I used one hand to lift the foot up just a little so the fabric wasn't pinned but not wobbly either.  Then I used the other hand to move around the fabric (see the above picture).  It was pathetic.  At times I really needed my right hand so I'd wrap my left arm around the machine like a hug and lift the lever from the back.

I persevered and finished my 12" by 12" mini.  It's not perfect.  The grass is not consistent and there are parts in the meander that the thread caught but hey, look what I was working with!  I also learned that slower is not better for me.  I often would move my hands faster than the needle and ended up with some pretty large stitches.  When I sped up I noticed a lot more even stitches and it looked nicer.

Here's the front!  LOVE!  It's already been claimed by my cute kids to wrap up babies and stuffed animals.  They don't care that it's not perfect and it was fun practice.

Here's What I Learned:
- I am involved with the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop (my day is September 13) from Plum and June.  There are many many fabulous bloggers a part of this and they have put together an email list for any questions we have we just shoot everyone on the hop an email and they help us out.  I got 11 responses to my quest for finding the perfect Free Motion Quilting foot.  Many of them were new to the skill too and wanted to know more.  Here's the skinny...

- You need a special foot, often called a darning foot!  It's spring loaded, that's the important part. That's the bit I was missing on my attempt.
- There are different kinds!  It's important to get one that fits your specific machine.  While it doesn't HAVE to be made by your same company it's probably a good idea.
- I have a Singer Confidence 7470 and it's a low shank vertical needle.  When looking for a foot I had to make sure it specified that it fit my model and was a fit for the type of machine it was.
- Metal is better than plastic!  - Nearly everyone I've ever read anything on has agreed with this.
- Open foot is nice so you can see where you're going and a great selling point but if they don't make one for your specific machine it's not the end of the world.
- Ebay is KING!  I got my foot for half of what Singer said it should sell for and that included shipping.  The seller is a Singer authorized retailer and listed my machine specifically (with only four others) that this foot fits.  Hurray!

One last thing...
SewCalGal is doing a Free Motion Quilting Challenge.  It started back in January and goes through December.  The idea is that you learn new skills and practice each month.  They have experts on the blog to teach you new things.  There are prizes and giveaways if you play along.  It seems like just the motivation I need to keep up.  Thanks Ginny from Fish Creek Studio for the heads up!

Finished Disappearing 9-Patch Quilt Top

I finished my Walk in the Woods disappearing 9-patch quilt top on Friday (6/15) and I just love it!  It looks so fancy and was so fast and easy!  As part of the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop for new bloggers they have a link up on Mondays.  I thought this would be a perfect post to share to celebrate my recent finish.

I'm also linking up with Lynne at Lily's Quilts for Fresh Sewing Day.  I've seen a lot of the blogs I read linking up and I thought it would be fun to add my name to the list and to check out more of the bloggers there.

While there and linking up I found out about the Small Blog Meet.  It's for bloggers with fewer than 50 followers to meet other bloggers like them and get to know more people.  With 10 lovely followers I fit the bill!  I may be up all night reading all the fun posts that other bloggers have linked up to all these things! ;)

Now, on to the quilt.  I used four charm packs and one layer cake of A Walk in the Woods by Aneela Hoey for Moda.  I got the layer cake on a super sale around Christmas time but after working it out it would have been much easier just to get four charm packs instead of cutting the layer cake in fours.

I love reading about other people's processes so here's how the quilt broke down with fun pictures...

6/1 - I drew up my pattern based on the idea found here.  It came out to be 71.5" by 84.5" which will be perfect for my little girl's bed.  I relied on the pattern a lot for placement and to know which row I was on while sewing to keep track of it all. It was time consuming but well worth it.  The red dash fabric will be the binding and the gray will be the back.

I have a very organized and logical mind and really can't handle random.  I knew I wanted this quilt to be random but I just didn't know how to achieve that.  While thinking this through I stacked all of the charms by color then one pile of large prints, see how I just can't do random?  I just sat and looked until I came up with a great idea.

To create random I got a brown grocery bag and I recruited my family.  I gave my hubby and I two charm stacks each and then each of my big kids one stack.  We took turns putting our charms into the bag one by one.  Then we each stirred it up.  Voila!  Random and family fun in one!

There were some large prints that I didn't want to end up getting cut.  If they were to be cut down there wouldn't be enough of anything showing to make it work.  I put this in a bowl and stirred then make sure to use them in the corner pieces filing in the other pieces from the brown paper bag.

After sewing and pressing I laid them out into groups of nine.  I tried to keep with the random theme but I didn't let any of the same fabric touch each other.  It was kind of fun but difficult because each of my four kids tried to get involved.  I then stacked them up in groups putting each group in a different orientation so I could tell which was which.  I then cracked up my ipod and got sewing some more.

This is the end of one day's work.  The first picture was taken at 11:37am and this one was at 10:12pm with various stops in between to make dinner, do dishes, play with and get the kid ready for bed.  See what I mean about fast?!  I cut one of the nine-patch squares up so I could see what it would look like.  It's at the top of the picture.  I got through half of the pile of nine-patch sewing which was pretty good.

6/2 - By 9pm the next night I had all the nine-patches sewn and then cut and turned.  After a lot of playing around I ended with this layout.  I wanted it to be more or less random so I just grabbed bits and started putting them down.  The directional fabrics I kept all face up (my OCD taking over) and I balanced out the colors here and there.  It worked out pretty well.

 

6/15 - After my hugely productive two days I had to take a break.  There were other more pressing projects and this one was briefly put to the back burner.  However after two more days of sewing the quilt top was finished.  The rows took me about ten minutes each to sew including pressing (so fast!) and then to put the rows together with pressing took me an additional five minutes per row.  I was so happy with how fast it went together but how fun and complex it looks!

6/15 - Here's a fun jaunty angle.  Now I really have to get on taking that long arm quilting class so I can get this bad boy all the way finished!

Thanks for stopping by!  Head on over to Plum and June for some great blog advice and to see other links ups from the Hop!  Also stop by Lily's Quilts to see posts from Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet!