Tetris Finish!!

 I finished my Tetris quilt last night including hand quilting and binding.  I'm so happy I finished in time.  The day of the parade for this is Tuesday.  When I started doing the hand quilting with cotton perle I wasn't aware or didn't remember that I only had two weeks to get it done.  I panicked and basically ate, slept, and quilted.  It was insane but I finished with four days to spare.  I love how it turned out in the end but I'm so frustrated that I can't seem to get a picture of it.  I'm tried editing and several different light versions and nothing.  Oh well, I know it looks good, right?

This is my second quilt with red binding and I'm in love.  I'm considering making this a habit whenever possible.  I love the contrast of the red on the gray.

Here's the finished quilt out for an evening on the grass.  I tried to have my hubby hold it up while I took its picture but even though he's 6'6" he's just too short.  That doesn't happen very often so I had to take advantage of the grass.

Here's the best picture of the quilting I could manage.    I wanted the quilting to stand out but not be crazy in your face.  I picked a dark gray that was one shade off black thinking it would be good but it totally blends in.  I wonder if black would have been bold enough either.  I outlined each of the Tetris shapes.  The blank squares I went around each side.

Here's a closeup of the front side of the quilt.  You can sort of see the quilting or a hint of the quilting around each shape.

I just loved making the quilt following the Tetris Quilt-A-Long.  You can see previous posts on this quilt for the different blocks and the quilting progress here.  You can see other people's work on the flickr group.

WiP Wednesday: Just Keep Quilting

I've been working like a crazy person over the last week to try and get my Tetris quilt finished for the quilt parade on Sept. 11th.  I'm afraid my life has come down to eat, sleep, and quilt with not much in between.  When I decided to hand quilt my Tetris top I wasn't aware, or didn't remember, that I only had two weeks to finish between the put it together post and the parade.  When I found this out last week I only had about 40 of the 336 squares outlined.  Now I have about 290 finished.  I'm so close and have about a week left.  I figure it won't be a problem since I did about 250 this week alone.  It's surely a work in progress which gets me linking up to Freshly Pieced where Emily from Mommy's Nap Time is the guest blogger today.  She's got some great projects going and the linky is full of other wonderful WiPs so check it out when you're finished with mine.  Here we go...

I am over 80% finished hand quilting the top. It's quite difficult to see the quilting which is a huge source of frustration for me.  I wanted it to stand out because I outlined each and every Tetris piece to make them pop.  However, I didn't want them to be all crazy in your face.  I opted to go with the darkest gray that wasn't black and thought that would be good enough.  Now that I'm almost done I wonder if black would have been better for standing out or if it still wouldn't have been enough.

Here's a close up of the side.  I quilted a grid though all the gray squares and outlined the red piece not quilting between every square.  You can sort of see the quilting in the grid but do you see what I mean about it not standing out?

I quilted the top strip the same as the side.  Just a grid on the white and outlining the other pieces.

I tried several different angles and lighting variations to try and get a picture of the back quilting and it was quite difficult to make it so you could see what happened.  If you look closely you can see the different Tetris pieces that I outlined.  It's already getting wrinkly with all the shifting and such so it's even harder to see.  Oh well.  It is a little better in person and even though you can't really see the quilting I still love it.  It's not what I pictured but still fabulous and as long as the quilt doesn't fall apart that's all that really matters in the end, right?

I'm very excited about the binding on this one!  I did a red binding with my Walk in the Woods quilt and LOVED it so I had to try again.  This red is from the Bungle Jungle line by Tim and Beck for Moda.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

WiP Wednesday: Start and Nearing a Finish

 I have such a long list of quilts to make it's not even funny.  I have the fabric for eight in my house right now.  That's not just stash that fabric that was specifically purchased to make quilts.  Five are in some range from cut to completed but the other three are just in the planning stages.  The fifth one started this week.  Seriously I'm amazing how I get myself into these situations.  I suggested to a friend who is over 37 weeks pregnant that I make a quilt for her baby and she was so cute and so excited I knew I had to get on it.  Then the other six I was working on took a back seat yesterday and I got started.  I also have make some great progress on my Tetris quilting and I hope to get it done in time for the parade on Sept 11th.

Since both the quilts I'm working on are totally works in progress I thought I'd link up with WiP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced where Michelle from CityHouseStudio was kind enough to be the guest blogger this week.

 I'll start with my start and then go on to the Tetris quilting.

This is the beginnings of the quilt for my pregnant friend.  I know I probably should have gone with something a little simpler/faster than a HST quilt.  Especially this one where there are 560 little triangles to sew together into a baby quilt but I really wanted to try out a whole quilt make of HST and this seems like a really great quilt to try it out on since I don't have to look at it every day and see any imperfection it may or may not have in the end.  I cut all the triangles out with my accuquilt and it took me around an hour to cut out all 560!  Did I mention I love my accuquilt!!  I've sewn over half of them together already and I just started cutting yesterday morning.  It's going much faster than I expected.  I still don't know how I'm going to lay it out in the end but I'm sure I'll have fun playing around.

Now for a hand quilting tip:

First weave the needle through as you normally do.  Then...

Grab the needle with a set of pliers and start to pull it out...

Keep pulling until it becomes easier and you can do it with just your fingers.  Doing it this way has saved my fingers a lot of aches and pains.  I suppose I could try and use a thimble but I really don't like them.  These are part of a jewelery making kit so they are really clean and won't mess up my quilt.  I don't have to try to push the needle through or wiggle and pull.  It just comes so easily like only sewing through one layer.  Give it a try!

Now that I've shown you my method you can see the end result.  This is the extra white space at the top of my tetris quilt.  I'm quilting it in cotton perle in dark gray.  I'm loving how it's turning out!

Down by the pieces of the quilt I'm outlining each whole piece with the gray.  I love how it makes them stand out more and the fun shapes it makes on the back side.  I'm over 1/6 done with it and have only touched it three separate times so it's going pretty fast.

 Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out other posts in the WiP Wednesday linky.

Tetris Quilt-A-Long - Week 6 amd Top Finish

 It's the sixth and final block week for the Tetris Quilt-A-Long and I'm on fire!  Not only did I finish the block for this week but I also finished the whole top added borders with a fun twist.  I owe a big thank you to Melissa at Happy Quilting for not only putting on the quilt-a-long but also the charm swap that gave me most of my fabric.  Read on for the full story!

Here's the drawing portion of week 6.  I didn't have any carryover from the block below it so I just used the pieces she gave me and went with it.  I noticed last week I was short on fabric to finish the block but I didn't know what colors Melissa would use so I waited until this week to cut the extra.  I needed four of each: green, red, blue, and pink.  Apparently I'm too good at Tetris for the charm swap. *wink*

Here's the fabric version of week six.  The red, green, pink, and blue on the bottom are all from my stash.  The pink ones were already cut out.

After I finished the last block I was excited to put my border plan into action.  A few weeks ago I had this idea where I wouldn't just use the plain border suggested.  Instead I decided to make it a bit more like the game.

On the top I used my extra white squares as well as twelve from my stash to continue on the border.  They are the same 5" size squares just more of them.  I carried over the pieces that didn't get finished by the last two blocks into the top.  This took care of the top and bottom borders.  To make up for the side borders I added a bunch of gray with one red piece in the middle.  I wanted it to look like the preview of the next piece that you see in the game.  Now that I had my idea all drawn out it was time to plop it together.

I added three rows to my week 5 block which included the yellow piece that made it game over hitting the top line.

Then I added the three rows to my week six piece that I made today.

Finally I sewed up and attached the side gray border with the red piece and it was all done!  My handsome hubby and smallest munchkins helped hold it up for a picture.

Here they are peeking out.  Cute!

 I plan on spray basting it today then quilting it with perle cotton in dark gray by outlining each Tetris piece.  I'm pretty excited and can't wait to see how it all turns out!  To see my other blocks check out the posts for week 5, week 4, week 3, week 2, and week 1.

To see how other people are getting along check out the linky at the bottom of this post or the flickr group.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tetris Quilt-A-Long - Week 5

 Hurray for week five of the Tetris Quilt-A-Long over at Happy Quilting!  I seriously adore this and am sad we only have one week left.  I'm quickly running out of fabric choices because I'm playing with little to no white spaces.   Too bad I'm running out of the colored varieties and will have to cut some of my own next week.  Anyway, on to week five...

Here's my colored diagram for week five.  It's a bit blobby with the red off to the left but I've come across that before and with careful fabric selection I think it will be alright.

Here's the completed block.  The green flowers on the bottom are carryover from week four.  I think the pink one in the middle is too light in the picture and it looks kind of funny but I only had two pinks left and didn't want the light one on the outside.  I guess it is what it is.  I am loving how solid it is though!  All in all another fun week with tetris.

If you're curious about my past weeks see them here... week one, week two, week three, and week four.

To see what other people have done with this same week see the linky at the bottom of this post or the flickr group collection.

And since you're already hopping around check out the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop at Plum at June.  This weeks schedule is as follows...

Aug 14
      Sarah from Sarah Sews Quilting Blog
      January from Sew Sew Go

Aug 16
       Alison from Little Bunny Quilts
       Cathy from Blueberry Patch

Thanks for stopping by!

Tetris Quilt-A-Long - Week 4

 It's Tetris Tuesday again over at Happy Quilting where Melissa is hosting the Tetris Quilt-A-Long.  I love Tuesdays now because this quilt is so fun and it's coming together so quickly!  The block was so fun this week and I only have one white square.  I think that's quite the accomplishment.

I had the bottom middle red squares carry over from last week and I built it up from there.  There are three squares that will carry over to next week which will either make that one really easy or really difficult, it's hard to tell.

Here it is all sewn up.  I love how fun these blocks are!  I also like the variety of fabric so that even though the same colors touch each other in places it's not too much of a blob effect.

Here are all of my squares sewn together thus far.  Bottom row is weeks one and three and the top row is weeks two and four.  For previous posts follow the links to weeks one, two, and three.

 Thanks for stopping by!  Check out the linky party at this post for other peoples' blocks from this week or go to the flickr group.

Tetris Quilt-A-Long - Week 3

 I just adore the Tetris Quilt-A-Long!!  I'm so happy that Melissa from Happy Quilting decided to create and host this one.  I've been having so much fun and it's so fast and stress free!  When I woke up this morning I had to get going on my Tetris block.  It took a bit longer than I wanted it too because of frequent brakes to do things like feed my children (needy little buggers, lol).  But now it's done and I love it!

Here's the layout.  I was so excited with this one because I was making them fit like a dream.  I thought the last red one in the middle went the other way at first and that I was going to use all the shapes and not have any white spots.  Well, no such luck.  It did work out pretty well though and I'm going to have two squares of red to carry over to next week.

Here's the block for week 3.  I've got a curvy/circles thing going on this week.  Almost all the blocks contain circles except the green one on the top but it's pretty curvy so I think it works.  It was fun to have a sort of theme to the block this week.

Here are my three blocks laid out together.  I opted to put week three on the bottom again and I'm going to put week four on top of that.  I plan on saving weeks 5 & 6 for the top just in case I run out of colored fabrics I'll put white on the top and it will look like spaces ready to be filled in like a real Tetris game.  See the post from Week One and Week Two for how those came together.

That's for stopping by!  Be sure to check out other great blocks like mine on the flickr group or at this weeks post from Happy Quilting.

Tetris Quilt-A-Long - Week 2

 Hurray for Week 2 of the Tetris Quilt-A-Long hosted by Melissa at Happy Quilting.  I couldn't wait to make the block again!  Even though I just got back from a camping trip and I'm still covered in dirt I had to sit down and get to work.  Without further ado here's my fun block...

I carried over the orange squares from Week 1 on the bottom then I went to building.  Sadly I couldn't make the last block fit but I like it this way.  I love the flat top for great future building.  The colors also seem pretty well balanced.

Here it is all sewn together.  I used the hedgehogs again from last week to finish them off.  I really like the way these fabrics play off each other.

Here are my two weeks put together.  Week one is on the bottom and week two on the top.

Check out other fun blocks over at the Tetris Quilt-A-Long post or at the flickr group.

Tetris Quilt-A-Long - Week 1

I adore Tetris so when I heard Melissa at Happy Quilting mentioned she was going to do a Tetris Quilt-A-Long I knew I had to be a part of it.  After a fun charm swap (that Melissa also put together) I had everything I needed.  Today she posted the instructions for the first block and I whipped it up this morning.  Here's how it all came together:

First she had us print out a plain grid on a regular piece of paper...

Then she gave us the pieces we were to use, and their color, in order.  We all had the same pieces to work with we just had to pick where to put them.  The yellow square in the bottom left was the first piece.  I was rocking it up until the red one at the top.  It's my old Tetris competitiveness coming out.  We used to have tournaments when I was a kid with my four siblings and parents.  It was a blast!

Then we had to pick our fabric to match the chart and lay it all out.  I was worried with the two yellows together but I think these are different enough that you can tell they are different pieces.

Here's the completed first block!!  I love it!  I can't wait to make more and see it all come together!

I'm linking up with the Tetris Quilt-A-Long - Week 1 post over at Happy Quilting.  I'm also linking up at Plum and June for the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop Week 9.  There some fabulous advice on voice as well as a $40 giveaway!

Weekly Calendar:

July 17

    Katie from Kati's Quilting

    Claire from Sewing over Pins
    Caroline from Quilting in the Cold

July 19

    Jamie from Sweet Baby Jamie

    Janine from Rainbow Hare Quilts

WiP Wednesdayand TNT Thursday: Minor Mishaps

 I find that sewing, especially when I'm doing it, is filled with minor mishaps.  Nothing too life shattering but just enough to frustrate and then excite when they are overcome.  I had a week FULL of those.  I know I'm not alone as I've read about these on several other blogs recently.  I'm linking up with WiP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and with TNT Thursday at Happy Quilting where I know I'll find people who know what I mean.

Here's the story...

It all started with the Tetris Charm Swap.  It is my first ever fabric swap and I'm so excited!  I got my fabric from The Intrepid Thread last week and excitedly started cutting the 112 5" squares in each color.  Sadly I cut six of the red one 4" x 5".  I was so upset!  I only had enough fabric if I did it exactly right.  I was stressing out and went to Melissa from Happy Quilting to tell her my problem and that I may be a little late getting her the fabric.  I went back to The Intrepid Thread to get some more red to be shipped to me and they were sold out.  I shot them a quick email to see if they really were sold out or if Julie had enough for six charm squares she could send me.  Julie saved the day!  Not only did she have enough she sent it to me, including shipping, for FREE!  Yup, she's my hero and just earned herself a VERY loyal and happy customer!  In the end I got just what I needed and the crisis was averted.

Then we had our next crisis.  I have never seen such a huge spider in real life before.  I've seen ones that cover a larger area with long legs but this one was beefy.  My hubby was out mowing the lawn and spied this spider on our wagon.  He grabbed a jar and put it in there.  Seriously I wouldn't have been able to get that close to it.  The very thought makes me shudder.  You see all the tiny baby spiders all over the jar?  It wasn't like that when he first put her in.  She was huge and had a furry back.  A while later my daughter was looking at it and said she thought they might be baby spiders, sure enough they were.  At the point when I took this picture they had moved off the mom and were all over the jar.  We didn't know what to do with it now.  If we opened the lid they'd be everywhere and we couldn't squish them all.  The thought of this nasty anywhere near my house was not appealing so in the end we just threw it in the trash, jar and all, for the trash man to pick up today.  I was happy to see it go and wish them a happy life in the dump.

I'm on the last three blocks of the Skill Builder Sampler by Leila over at Sewn.  This is Block #34 - Newport Compass.  I found the pattern here for 99 cents.  They have a lot to choose from but I loved this one.  It's paper pieced so it looks pretty good but it wasn't without it's mishaps either.  When I paper piece I love to cut my pieces much larger than necessary so I don't have to worry about lining them up perfectly.  Well, seeing how these were the last blocks in the series I was running low so I had to cut them smaller than I'd like.  This led to several unpicking sessions after I didn't align them properly.  It all worked out in the end and I just LOVE this block!

Last week I started making hats for preemies in the NICU.  I had a lot of fun and made nine (post here).  This week I decided to make some for newborn sized babies too.  I had two babies in the NICU after their births and they would have been too big for the little hats.  I didn't have a pattern for the larger size so I had to make one up myself.  This led to a few unravels but in the end I got it just the right size.  Also I adore watching TV while I crochet and my lack of attention led me to a couple of missed stitches that I had to unravel back to and fix.  Just minor things, especially with a hat this small everything is minor, but a bit frustrating in the end.

Through this week I learned that stuff happens and there is usually an easy solution.  Either grab the seam ripper, email you new favorite fabric store, or unravel that yarn.  The world keeps on spinning so don't let it ruin your day and just try to make the best of those minor mishaps.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

WiP Wednesday: Getting Involved!

Oh my goodness I've had such a great week!  I've worked on and finished a lot.  Also, as you may guess from the title, I've been getting more involved in the blogger world and having a blast doing it!  I've made new friends (Hi Cynthia!), joined my first ever fabric swap (so excited!), joined two quilt-a-longs (Mario and Tetris).  That's all added to my regular to do list, keeping up with the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop, and the Skill Builder Sampler. I also added a bunch more blogs to my blog additions side panel.  Finally, I spent WAY too much money on fabric recently and it's beginning to arrive in the mail, hurray!

Today I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced where Sukie is stepping in for Lee this week.  As always it's the best place to be on Wednesday to find inspiration for future projects which I love even if I am a tad overbooked.

 I'll start with the Crochet projects.  I mentioned at the end of my last WiP Wednesday post that I was loving Rosie's Cozies and wanted to make some hats for my local NICU.  Well, I've made a bunch of progress with that!

Right after last weeks' post I decided to get going on the crocheted preemie hats.  I bought eight new skeins of I Love This Yarn! from Hobby Lobby and added that to a white one I already had at home and I was ready to go.  I went with pretty basic baby colors and think I may branch out in the future.

The lady at the Hobby Lobby gave me this GIGANTIC bag.  Seriously?  I only bought eight skeins!  they could have easily fit into two small bags without even trying.  This bag is so big my 5.5 year-old can fit inside!

We were having some more fun with the big bag and discovered my two smallest ones could fit at the same time.  You know that whole this bag is not a toy thing?  Yeah, we totally ignored that!  Don't worry though, I didn't let them play with it alone and sadly through all the fun it got a big hole in it so it can't even hold my stuff anymore.

Here's my first preemie hat finish.  Isn't it adorable?!  I used the pattern from The Dainty Daisy but I modified the ears a little bit.  She glued hers on but I worked them in with the backing color and they are double thick with the back used to create an edge.  Don't you love you tiny it is?  Yes, people can actually have heads this small.

Here are the nine hats I've finished so far, I finished the last two today.  I made one in each color with three bears, three with ear flaps, and three bunnies (although my kids think they are Kangaroo ears, odd).  I can't wait to make a bunch more!  I'll be making newborn size next because I know from personal experience preemies aren't the only babies in the NICU.

Here's a close up of the bunny using my little girl's favorite doll.  I created the ear pattern myself and in spite of my kids insisting they are Kangaroo ears I like the way they turned out.

Here's the bear variation.  I love the fat edge on those cute ears!  I took the ear pattern from the link above and modified it.  I may post my patterns later if there is interest, so let me know if you want them.

Here's the ear flap version.  LOVE!  Again I modified the pattern, I guess I just can't help myself.  I just took the last row of the ear flaps off so they were less pointy.

Now onto the Quilt projects...

I finished my Walk in the Woods Disappearing 9-Patch quilt on Friday.  See the full post here.  I just adore this quilt and so does my little Miya.  It went together so quickly!  All told I only sewed on it four different days!

I got a bunch of new fabric in the mail.  Here's my littlest man carrying my box that weighed eight pounds.  That's about 1/3 his total weight.  I certainly can't carry 1/3 my totally weight and smile at the same time!

Here it is!  YUMMY!  I got four jelly rolls of Sentiments by 3 Sisters for Moda for my SIL Suzi's quilt.  I got one jelly roll of Meadow by Blackbird Designs for Moda which will be for my MIL.  I got myself two rolls of Serenade by Kate Spain (LOVE HER!) and one of Leaf Bella solids which will turn into a bed quilt for me.  These rolls will need to be supplemented with yardage but I figured I'd get the rolls while they were on sale.   Judi The Green Fairy filled that order for me during her massive Jelly roll sale and threw in a pen.  Need I mention the fabulousness of the Green Fairy?  She's pretty awesome!  Also here is a bunch of yardage I got from Erica's (another store I love) from the Papillon line also by 3 Sisters for Moda.  They will become a quilt for my mother if I can uncover my cutting table this week.

As I mentioned above I also joined my first ever fabric swap this week.  It's the Tetris Color Charm Swap.  I don't think I could geek out any more about this!  We each buy two yards of fabric in two colors and cut them into 112 charms each for a total of 224 charms.  Then Melissa from Happy Quilting swaps them all around and we have all the fabric we need in all the colors for the Tetris quilt-a-long! The colors are assigned.  I received my color assignment this morning (red and orange) and jumped on it.  I picked out and purchased my colors with lightning speed and I just received an email from Intrepid Thread that they have been shipped.  I can't wait to see what other people picked and what I'll be getting!  Here's what I picked...

Fruit Slice - Digi in Tomato

Fruit Slice - Seeds in Tangerine

 As always thanks for stopping by and here's to another productive week!