itching....

I am itching to work on something! We (my little family of 4) have been gone for the last 5 days on a little vacation in the Seattle area....we had such a nice time...but it it SO nice to get home...I am itching to buy 2 new books tomorrow on Amazon after my hubs gets paid (yeah!) I am itching to finish up a throw for my SIL's cousin, Jenny....I am itching for a birthday party for a special (berry special) 7 year old in our house and I am really, really itching to do some sewing!!

henna garden rainbow

I did a bit of fabric shopping earlier this week....I had to add to my "henna garden" collection. I love, love, love Sandi Henderson's fabrics, all of them...LOVE. The first patchwork quilt I ever made (for myself!) was from her Ginger Blossom line. Then she came out with a print in one of her collections that she calls "henna garden". I loved it the first time I saw it...had to have it...I don't even remember what color it was, the first henna print that I bought....She has several colors in it now. :) After my little fabric shopping earlier this week I THINK I have all of them now.

My most recent henna garden purchase.

Look at all of it...........a rainbow of henna.............SIGH, SIGH, SIGH :)

A close up :)

I am really thinking of getting this pattern....what do you think? With the henna print above? Or maybe the darker brown?

Eventually I want to make a quilt out of all of my henna fabrics...no hurry though....I have enough quilts in my house but there is always room for more....I am currently working on a special quilt for my sister-in-law's cousin. It is from pieces of her mom's clothing....her mom passed away in May and my SIL and her cousin (Jenny) wondered if I could make something out of some of her clothes....I am going to reveal it soon...I think she is going to really, really like it...I hope so!

a work in progress

I am finally getting around to working on my blocks for Penny's "quilt as you go" quilt a long....OH MY GOSH, these are so fun!!! I was a little apprehensive at first....I thought the blocks would look a little strange but I have fallen in love with making these.....the biggest reason? You use bits and pieces of fabric and lordy, lordy do I have bits and pieces of fabric!! Several years ago I started taking all of my scraps and cutting them into 2" strips....so I had these BOXES of 2" strips...I am finally getting around to using them! I have had such a good time reminacing about projects, gifts, stores, friends, specific times in my life when pulling out these strips....some of this fabric I bought when I lived in Seattle oh so lonnnnnnnng ago. I am so glad I kept some of this fabric, just makes me smile....some of the fabric in these blocks are from my most recent projects and it might be laying next to a strip from a baby quilt I made 10+ years ago....when this project is done it will be like having a fabric scrapbook or photo album of so many of my favorite things. (I love that!)

I also like the fact that I don't have to send this off to be quilted, I am doing it as I go! AWESOME! This will be a work in progress, I don't have to finish it any time soon, I can work on a block here and there but I know already this is going to be a very special quilt for myself when it is all finished.

My husband, kids and I went camping for 4 nights over the 4th of July weekend. On Sunday my parents came over to our camp site for the afternoon. I love the fact that my parents are good sports about coming out "in the great outdoors" and spending time with my family. (Neither of my parents have ever camped) we (my hubs and I) are going to get them out one way or another even if it means renting a cabin in the same campground as us so they can expierence a weekend of camping. :)

This is my family with my parents on the 4th of July.

not bad if I say so myself

Lookie what I have been working on....thank goodness for great pictures with the tutorial....I believe mine is backwards from the way Christina shows you how to do it....but hey I am known to be a little backwards sometimes anyways. :) I am not supposed to send off my quilt swap until mid August, that seems soooo far away....I will just work on finishing this up and might have to hang it up in my own home and enjoy it before it makes its long journey to its new owner......

for my partner

I joined the doll quilt swap again, this is the 9th round. (I believe this is the 3rd time I have done it) I decided to do a "circle of geese" mini for my partner. She likes bright cheery colors....after looking through her flickr pages and blog I decided on this color combo.

Oranges, aquas and pinks

Here is the paper piecing part for the block.......WISH ME LUCK! I have never done one before BUT I have faith and will be looking at this tutorial A LOT!

block 7

block 7
Originally uploaded by kristinemhanson

I have had these done for several weeks, I have block 8 done too....I have seen a few finished quilts in the flickr group with teeny, tiny pinwheels in the sashing....I have a ton of fabric left from this project so I will add the teeny, tiny pinwheels to my "to do list" now. Happy weekend!

pinwheel blocks

I joined Rachel's pinwheel quilt along....I am all caught up ready for block #7. What will I do with this quilt top when I am done? I have no clue, but I think I am going to like it! I am not a big red and black fan, usually feels a little too retro to me....but I must say I really like how these blocks are coming together with the cream, gray, reds and blacks. block #1......I like both of them

block #2....are o.k. not a huge fan of the HUGE pinwheel but I can live with it, my points don't exactly match up and I am not doing it over which is a big deal for me, the sewing perfectionist. It is what it is.

block #3, LOVE both of them, my favorite block of all so far, love them!

block #4, really like these too....simple yet elegant. :)

block #5....mmmmm not my favorites....I believe after all the blocks are done I will do these two over....I picked fabrics that are too similar for the contrast....I dunno....it is what it is...maybe I will keep them too....

block #6, I love anything that is "flying geese" enough said.

I finished the binding on my special project that I had quilted while in Portland by Christina. I LOVE it. I decided I am not going to post pictures of it until the new owner has it....I don't think this person even knows I have a blog but I don't want to risk blowing the surprise. :)

I joined another little swap, I already have planned out what I am doing for this one too....this is the first time I have done a swap that is not a secret. I was able to chit chat with Pam about her likes, dislikes and visa versa, will be fun to see what we whip up for each other.

1/2 way there!!!

In 2008 I joined a "block of the month". Don't ask me why, I had never done it before, don't know if I ever will again. :) The first few months I found it fun to get little padded envelopes in the mail....I never did anything with them other than open up the envelope look at the fabric, stuff it back in the envelope then throw it in a clear plastic shoe box. Then more months came and came and came...and if you read my previous post we had several deaths in the family and throw in the mix a hysterectomy for me at 35. So if you have caught on....I had never done anything with any of these blocks....until now. I have officially finished January-June, whoo hoo 1/2 way!!! At first I had to remind myself "why did I join this particular BOM?" (still can't remember) and "why did I choose this color way?"...the golds, browns, greens and blues, oh yeah....the other color way was pastels and I am NOT a pastel girl, I don't even decorate for Easter because I don't dig pastels (or the Easter Bunny for that matter).

After I finished the first block I was looking forward to the next, I whipped out 5 of these babies in 1 day (I had cut all of them out in January then stuffed them back in the envelopes until I was ready to sew, so glad I did, now I just empty the bag, look at the pattern and start going on it. Today I finished 1, and it was a pain!! it is the one on the top right of the photo above, June....I can't tell you how many times I sewed, ripped out, sewed ripped out, me no likie the June block.

So mom what do you think? I am actually really liking these now and think they will look great once sashed and put together for a big quilt, will this be good for the 40th Anniversary quilt I promised you? :)

If you want you can click on the photo to see up close....there are A LOT of triangles in these blocks, A LOT!

stack of au.then.tic

Lots and lots of triangles, au.then.tic by sweetwater. I have 3 or 4 quilts in the making right now, this is for one of them. I love this line, can't wait to get my hands on their newest line, make life .

Flea Market Fancy top ready to quilt

Well here it is!!!! I have my FMF quilt ready to go to the quilter later this week! I can't wait to have it in my hot little hands after it has been on the long arm....now....what to do, what to do?? How would you quilt it? I am thinking an all over feather stitch but am up for suggestions..... Here are a few of my favorite blocks.....

And here is the back!

We had 2 of our bedroom walls painted this past weekend, we had a DARK red/merlot color before....now we have this darkish robin egg blue....I l.o.v.e. it, love it, love it, love it!!!!! Did I mention I LOVE IT?

what would you do?

I finally cut into ALL of my Flea Market Fancy stash and I must say it feels good....I have been collecting this collection for over a year now and last month I realized that I just needed to DO SOMETHING with it....just sitting in a drawer for me to open every once in a while is silly, so cutting I did!! This is where I need a little help...I am 99% sure of which design I am going to use but wanted a few opinions....I have 42 blocks, they measure 11" x 11". I have a queen sized bed...with this option I had 7 blocks left over that I would use on the back with the fabric at the end of this post (that I got a KILLER deal on!) and a solid color, same as the blue/aqua in this line of the blue seeds/aqua bouquet. (those of you that know about this line know what color I am talking about, if you don't know about this line...read on!)
So here is the first option, white sashing around each block.
Here is an idea of the 2nd option, group them all together then have a large white border/sashing around all of the blocks (I would use all 42 blocks on this top, none on the back)
Here is the fabric I got a killer deal on, I just love it, click on it to see up close. :)

Like I mentioned above I am 99% sure of which choice I will go with but just wanted to find out any more opinions, likes, dislikes, ideas. Whatever I decide I will be working on this quilt this weekend and get it off to my quilter in the next week or so, I want this baby on my bed by early spring!!!

throw pillow

I made this pillow for my girlfriend Nissa for part of her Christmas present.  For her birthday I had made her this.  I had asked her to pick out some of her favorite prints from the quilt then made her this pillow cover to go with it, I must say I love the way it turned out especially the buttons!!  I got the tutorial from here.  LOVE her fabrics.  We got a new computer over the holidays, I am a dork and can't figure out how to download pictures from our camera with this new computer, I know that sounds so stupid....I have quite a few things I have been working on and want to post some pics....I will tell this...one is a baby quilt, one is a quilt for our bed of ALL Flea Market Fancy fabrics, one project is making all 12 blocks from 2008 when I had joined a block of the month, about time to get cracking on that!  I look forward to finishing a lot more crafty projects this year, I would like to be all caught up and have NO WIPS, can you imagine?  

non crafty post...

....but I did make the track! I am soooo not a good train track put togetherer, but today I did really well...had to take a picture of it I was so pleased....so was my son :)

I have not been sewing at all this past week or two....I have been doing a lot of scrap booking, uhg...I so wish I would have never started this "hobby". I wish I would have kept to my sewing all those years ago...but now that I have started it, I feel like I need to keep up with it....I am almost current which makes me feel really good, as of a few months ago I was 18+ months behind! So now that I am current I am going to stay current!

On a sewing note....I have several things I need to get off my WIP list, a few of them Christmas gifts, a baby quilt for a nephew being born in February, a wall hanging or two and another one of my WIP is the old antique quilt I posted about last month, I am picking it up on Thursday from the quilter, I.can't.wait!!

joy in the new year challenge

I am going to join this challenge, thank goodness it is not another swap! HA! Join me...it will be fun to see how may WIPS you can get finished by January 1!