Too Long of a Weekend?

Currently listening to: Never Not Knitting Podcast: Episode 90: Sweatoo You!

This past week was filled with so many crafts! First off, it's only recently where I started getting two day weekends.  Well, because it was Thanksgiving weekend I actually got 5 days off and it was definitely needed!

For Thanksgiving, I didn't really do much.  I don't know if I mentioned this before but I'm currently a full time student and I work almost full time.  Well on Thanksgiving, I spent almost the whole day working on my paper.  Because of the deadlines I was not able to really spend time with family and what not but my boyfriend did bring me back some yummy food!

Well anyways, I was able to finish all of my school work since I had all day to work on it. The rest of the weekend consisted of my crafting!

As shown in my previous post, I got my background fabric for my Hashtag Quilt! So I wanted to get started on it as soon as possible so I can finish quickly and have a finished quilt.  Well... it took three attempts before I started getting it right! It was terrible!!

So the Hashtag quilt is my first quilt ever! That means I've never done any kind of quilting of any kind.  This also includes free motion quilting.  The first time I tried quilting, it seemed like either my hands were moving too fast and machine was too slow or the total opposite of where my hands were too slow and the machine was too fast! So I ripped everything out.  Unfortunately I totally forgot to take a picture.

Then I decided I'm just gonna use a decorative stitch on my machine and just go straight down.  Well.. I finished one line and I was super excited because I finally got something on my quilt! Well then I went to do my second line... and I have no clue what happened but I did take a picture!

Yeahhhh.... so I ripped out all of that.  Now you can understand my frustration... it's my first time doing any kind of actual quilting and so far it's been a horrible experience! Well, I went back to watching YouTube videos and my Craftsy classes and I attempted it again! And so far so good!! I'll have an update post when the quilt is complete!

Well, on Saturday I got pretty sick so I wasn't really able to walk around or use much energy so I decided to work on my English Paper Piecing! I'm planning on making this into a quilt! It's pretty tiny so far compared to my other English Paper Piecing but I'm making small progress.  It is pretty scrappy!

I don't have any specific way of making this.  I just make flowers from 7 hexies randomly then I just connect everything together. 

After I did some thinking! I absolutely love knitting but ever since I moved I just lost my knitting mojo completely! Well my boyfriend loves the socks that I make him so for motivation I decided to make him a pair of socks!

I'm using a beautiful sock blank from Gale's Art! This sock blank really inspired to knit because I want to know what the sock will look like from this cool sock blank!

 

I think my sock knitting mojo is back for a little bit and I'm definitely planning on buying more of these sock blanks!

Most of this past weekend involved me working on the quilt once I started feeling better but I feel like I got so much done! I never feel like this! Hahaha (: 

I'm going to try and hurry up and get the quilt finished so I can post up pictures!

Missouri Star Quilt Co. Haul: 11/25/15

Currently watching: Grey's Anatomy

By the time this is posted up, it will be the day before Thanksgiving! So Happy Thanksgiving!

Today's post is for a haul from Missouri Star Quilt Co.! The fabric I purchased for my Hashtag Quilt is finally here!!

All of the fabric purchased is from The Sweet Life Collection designed by Pat Sloan for Moda Fabrics!

The first fabric is for my border! The fabric is called True Blue Crosses.  From all of the yardage fabrics that were available this one really stood out to me! I thought it would be perfect for my quilt!

For my backing fabric I decided on the True Blue Dotted Bloom! I really liked how even though most of the fabric was a neutral color, there were still blue everywhere! I thought it would go perfect with the borders!

With my binding fabric I wanted something that would really contrast against the blue of my border fabric! Now, I may have made a terrible choice with using the Sappy Green Dainty Daisy yardage but I did say I wanted contrast!

When I think about it, I wish there was an aqua yardage available but hey, I'll live and learn!

The final item I got was a charm pack! There will be a future post about what I'm going to this with this charm pack!

Well that's it for the haul! I'm hoping to put up some update posts for my quilts soon!

Joann's Haul: 11/21/15

Currently watching: Grey's Anatomy

So earlier this week as I was procrastinating I came upon a really cute quilt I want to make that doesn't have a video tutorial! Shocker! Isn't it? The quilt I found is from the blog Sew Fresh Quilts who is ran by a lovely individual named Lorna! I have been subscribe to her blog for a short amount of time but I instantly fell in love with her adorable patterns! The quilt I came upon is called Dog Gone Cute!

Well anyways, I ended up purchasing the quilt pattern as well as some fabric for the future quilt! Now a quick disclaimer, I have no clue what the names of the fabric are.  I know I'm absolutely terrible but the names were not provided on the fat quarters that I purchased and I forgot to look at the name on the bolt! I know.. I'm terrible.

I wanted to make the dogs gray and tan/brown! When I was purchasing the fabric, I think I had like 20 minutes before I had to get out of the store and go to work with my next client! Here's the fat quarters I got!

The black fat quarter is for the nose and the pink is for the ears of the dog! I hope when I finally start working on it, the quilt doesn't look too crazy! I'm just a sucker for patterned fabric!

I also found this gorgeous blue fabric for the borders of the fabric! I wanted it to look like the sky! So I thought the little birdies really topped it all off!

 Surprisingly, that's the end of this haul! Like I said, I didn't really have time to look around as much as I usually do! 

Diamond Dash Quilt

Currently listening to: Knitmore Girls Podcast: Director's Cut: Nicky Epstein (I love listening to podcasts! This one is one from April 13, 2015.  I'm trying to catch up with all of my podcasts and I have such a long way to go!

This is a total procrastination post! I'm supposed to be doing my school work right now but instead I'm writing a blog post!

I'm currently in school for my Masters! I also work all the time.  It really doesn't need anytime for my crafting hence the reason for only working on my crafts during the weekend and at night (if I have time).  Well every morning (except weekends) I do my school work at Starbucks. 

So right now, I should be writing my final paper for my class but instead I'm writing my blog post at Starbucks. 

This blog post will talk about all the work I've done since my last blog post!

Last time I wrote a post, I was working on my Hashtag quilt.  I believe I needed 12 blocks? before I can start putting my rows together. Well I was finally able to get all 30 blocks together and even add my sashing!

The outer border have not been added yet because I'm waiting for the fabric to come in!  As mentioned in my last post the fabric used is from the Sweet Life collection by Pat Sloan for Moda Fabrics! 

When my fabric comes in, I'm going to do a "haul" post!

Well now that I'm finished with everything I can possibly do for this soon to be quilt, I started another quilt top! Like I've mentioned, whenever there's a new video from Missouri Star Quilt Company I watch it right away! This allows me to think about what I want to work on next, as well as learn little tips and tricks from Jenny Doan!

The next quilt I decided to work on is the Diamond Dash Quilt! While watching the video, I found that this quilt is going to be quick and definitely easy enough for me to accomplish! Well, I think this quilt top took two weeks to finish but it could've definitely been completed sooner if I didn't have to go to school or work! I decided to use a fabric line called Vintage Sundaes by The Henley Studio for Makower UK.  The dark gray solid fabric is Shadow by Free Spirit Fabrics.

Right now the size of this quilt is 79 x 83 inches.  It came out two inches larger all around then what was said in the tutorial.  I thought this quilt will be a lot smaller than it came out to be! It definitely fits my queen size bed without a problem! Over the weekend, I actually purchased the backing for this quilt! I will post a "haul" post when the fabric comes in! I only look a picture of half the bed because the bed was so messy and it had a bunch of my crafting stuff on the other half! The picture was taken before I added the top and bottom borders.  I wanted to know what it looked like!

I know that some parts of the quilt top has some puckering but I'm hoping it won't be so noticeable once I quilt it and wash it. Hopefully everything works out!

I absolutely loved making this quilt! It was definitely super quick and I loved that I can be random with what fabric went next to each other! I should've taken picture of the fabric up close but it totally slipped my mind. The picture below was taken when I was adding the sashing.  By the way, most picture I take of my work is on the bed because sadly, I don't have a lot of space.  The bed is the biggest space I have, besides the railing for the stairs.

Well this is all the updates I have for now! I can't wait until I have more to write about! I should really get back to my paper now!

Until next time!

New Beginnings

So this is the first post!

I only started this blog so I can reference back to it one day to see my journey!

Right now I'm very much into quilting!  Well making quilt tops since I never really quilted a whole quilt before.  I always wanted a sewing machine but never really had the opportunity to purchase one until recently and ever since my purchase I've made a couple of items.  After practicing with my scraps, the first two items I made were two pillow cases! The tutorial I used is from a video from Professor Pincushion!

Well after I made these two pillowcases I decided I really wanted to start making quilt tops! Before I purchased my sewing machine, I was very much into English Paper Piecing.  I tend to work on my English paper piecing during the weekends and my machine quilt tops throughout the week at night before I head to bed! Here's what I've done so far! It's just a bunch of hexagon flowers.

So before I got my sewing machine, I watched a lot of YouTube videos on quilting, specifically videos from Missouri Star Quilt Company! I came across the Hashtag Quilt video and I knew this one was going to be the first quilt I made but I really didn't like how tiny the hashtags were.  Well continuing my search for the perfect first quilt, I decided to purchase a Craftsy quilting class! And I found it!! The class I found was Pre-Cut Piecing Made Simple!  This class had the Hashtag Quilt but with bigger hashtags which is exactly what I was looking for!

For this quilt I decided to use a jellyroll from the Sweet Life by Pat Sloan for Moda Fabrics.

For this quilt you needed 30 hashtags! So far I have 18! I have 12 more to go!

I think for the fact that this is my first machine quilt top I'm doing pretty good! I know there are some mistakes here and there but everything is good so far!

 I do other things besides sewing.  I like to knit and crochet here and there.  I think that's all I really do.  Well I don't know when the next time I will post is but yay for the first post!