Trying to catch up on my BOM blocks

I finally took a break from the Mystery Quilt or as I affectionately call it “Jinxed”.  I decided I was rushing and making too many mistakes.  As much as I would like to finish something, I want to be happy with it too so I’ve decided to catch up on my Skillbuilder blocks. –I’m a tad behind.

So here is the Shattered Chevron–it took me way longer than it should have.  That happens when you have to re-do just about every seam you sew.  The only part of this block that worked for me was making the HST’s 8 at a time–the only way to make HSTs IMHO.  I love the look of HSTs but trying to get my machine to sew over all those seams, that’s another story.  Surprise!  I made a mistake on this one too and I’m not fixing it.  I know that sounds like a poor attitude but I kind of like the triangle effect in the bottom row so I’m keeping it.

The “modified” Shattered Chevron from Pile O’Fabric’s Skillbuilder BOM.

So, you know how you look at the back of some people’s quilts and they have those perfectly pressed seams?  Mine never look like that–I pin, I press every seam and starch the heck out of it but still it’s not pretty.  What am I doing wrong?

Next up is the Broken Arrow block.  It’s an improv block so I’m sure that I will enjoy it a lot more.    Hopefully, it won’t take me as long to catch up on these next blocks.  I hope your sewing time has been more productive.

Double Digits

made by my mom

So let me start out and say that I did not make this pillow.  It was made by my mom.  She made it for my son’s birthday yesterday.  Isn’t it awesome!  Mr. H loves it, he’s been carrying it from room to room to use ever since.  He did have one criticism about the pillow–it has 2 football players that are Tom Brady on it.  (My son is a huge Peyton Manning fan).  I wouldn’t have known so I know my mom didn’t know–they just look like generic football players to me.   So, you are all forewarned–if making a pillow for your little or big football player–take note of the players you are fussy cutting from the fabric.

the back of the pillow

So today Mr. H turned 10.  It’s hard to believe that my little cutie boy isn’t a baby anymore (although he’ll always be my baby as long as I’m alive).  He’s my favorite boy of fall.

Mr H at his game-they won!

I’m just giddy with this idea

Last week on IG (note that I’ve now become completely addicted to Instagram), I saw a teaser for making your own text fabric by Latifah of the Quilt Engineer blog.  My first thought was “cool, I don’t have to search all over for the perfect text print”.  But this weekend, I had one of those lightbulb moments that well, just made me giddy.  It’s what I love about quilting–that feeling that you have just come up with the most amazing idea. Do you feel that way too?

My idea involves Lil Bee.

Her eyes light up over paint.

She loves to make art and she does so in large doses.  Note the 6 paintings above that were done in probably 30 minutes.  I love that she wants to create things-it makes my heart warm and fuzzy.  That being said, I’m constantly finding art littered all over the house.  A few weeks ago, I finally convinced her that we couldn’t keep it all (I know, I felt like the biggest ogre but I honestly don’t want to be on a episode of hoarders a couple years from now).  So we went through and picked her favorites that we would definitely keep and hang up in the toy room like

She put this one in the school art show–it’s called Crazy…

The rest we took pictures of so that we could burn them to a CD or perhaps make a book on Shutterfly.

So anyways, I so want to encourage her creativity and nurture her interest in all crafts.  She so wants to be involved in my quilting/sewing and Latifah’s idea of making your own text fabric got me to thinking.  I could have Bee draw her own pictures on fabric with fabric paint/fabric markers and we could work together to sash all her masterpieces into quilts and give them as gifts to her grandmothers for Christmas.  Heck, it doesn’t even have to be an entire quilt, we could make coasters, hot pads, or placemats with her artwork.  I’m really excited about this idea and so is Bee.  I think it will be a great way to ease her into sewing.

So what do you think?  Stay tuned to see how this works.

So perhaps I too am a Drama Queen

or maybe my daughter just comes by it honestly.  After berating myself most of the evening yesterday, I got some much needed sleep.

Upon waking this morning, I pulled out my Step 2 directions and realized that I had used the directions for the blue colorway which was slightly different.   After a little more fabric cutting, it looks like I won’t have to unpick all 16 four patch blocks (just 4).  So my goof is just a minor bump rather than a huge pothole.

So instead of this,

It will look more like this

I’m fine with that.  Thanks for all your kind comments and commiseration.  I appreciated it.

Arrgh…this quilt and I have bad karma

From day one, this quilt has been determined to do me in.  It started off with the knockoff Tri-Rec ruler that has different measurements.  I had to re-cut all my triangles.  Next, it was the squaring up but  I pushed on and finished up all the star blocks and all my four patch chain blocks.  I was so excited.  I mean, I am almost finished.  I was going to get this done and work on a free and easy project.  It was so close.  But no.  I hung all my blocks up and WT (if you know me, I say this a lot).  I sewed every single four patch chain block incorrectly.  Really!  I looked at the picture sooooo many times to make sure I was doing it right.  How?  How can this be?

  I am still disgusted hours later.  It looks okay but I know it’s missing a huge chunk of the design.  Can I live with it???  I don’t know yet.