Sunday, August 31, 2008

Making the world greener one theft at a time

So get this, Steve and I went to Costco in St. Louis Park and put his totes in the cart. At some point, we both stepped away from the cart. Someone took that chance and took both totes out of the cart. Can you believe it? What is this world coming to?

I decided to make the bags even better than the stolen totes. Steve and I went to Crafty Planet for our fabric. Here is a link to their website. www.craftyplanet.com They have such cute fabric. I normally sandwich canvas between two fabrics to make the totes very sturdy. I decided to try and make the totes a little lighter. I used decorator weight for the lining of each tote. As you can see in the pic, Crafty Planet had some fun fabrics to use for this. I think both totes are cute, but I love the ladybugs. Steve likes the sock monkeys. What do you think?

Sunday, August 24, 2008

The Finish Line

Well, how appropriate is it that I finished my quilt the weekend of the closing ceremony on the Olympics.

I love how it turned out. I love the variety of the textures of the fabrics. I also love how the stars stand out because of the contrast between the dark fabrics and the light background. I also love the subtlety of the checkerboard sections of the quilt. You can't really tell in the picture but the background fabric in the checkerboard has a line in it, which I think enhances the pattern.

It will be going to the quilters on Monday. Can't wait to see what she does with the quilting.



Monday, August 11, 2008

Are we there yet?

Okay, so here is my updated pic of the progress I've made on my quilt. At this point it still isn't looking much like a quilt.

I've finished all the checkerboard piecing using my 4-patches. I've also completed all of the piecing of the 3 inch finished blocks into strips of 3, 5, and 6 blocks. I have also finished the cutting of the background fabric for the ohio star blocks.

I've also realized that my quilting date is Sept. 8 but I need to get it to my quilter a week in advance. That means I really need to have it finished by the end of the month. Aaaaah!

Wish me luck!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Quilting, The New Olympic Event

In honor of the upcoming Olympics, I am going to tell you about my race to the finish. I have scheduled a quilting appointment with my quilter, Carol Brown, for Sept 8. You may not have noticed, but trust me I have, it is already Aug. 3. I plan to devote my blog to the countdown to the quilting.

I'm making the Glad Creation's Quilts pattern "Twice As Nice". Here is a link to the pattern. http://gladcreationsquilts.com/patterns/twicenice.htm. I'm using the fabric from another quilt kit from the shop for the quilt. Here is a link for the fabric. http://gladcreationsquilts.com/kit/fourpatchfuntrad.htm. The color base for the quilt is red, green, brown and black.

At this point, I still need to cut out the background fabric for the star blocks. I need to sew all the 3" squares together. The quilt uses A four-patch blocks, with the background on the diagonal going down; and B blocks with dark fabric on the diagonal going down on the blocks. I've made all the four patch blocks for the entire quilt, and sewn the B blocks together to make half of the checkerboard sections.

Here is a picture of my table with all the pieces on it. I'm going to update the picture as I make progress. Wish me luck!