our weekend

my husband lost his dad this morning.
please keep my husband and his family in your prayers.

his dad had a heart attack on saturday morning.
we had one last chance to visit him for a bit yesterday.
for that we are thankful.

sewing room friday

it all looks innocent enough.....


.....until you look at the floor.


My husband walked by and said "oh, my!"
It's not my fault he came home early. :)

I'm working on this quilt right now. I am enjoying it immensely.
As if you couldn't tell from the mess.

quilt-a-long week 7

Welcome to week 7 of the quilt-a-long!

This block goes together pretty quickly.
For this one, I pressed my triangle seams open to reduce bulk.

Cut 8 squares 3.5" from the background fabric
Cut 4 squares 3.5" from the colored fabric

Cut 2 squares 3 7/8" from the background fabric
Cut 2 squares 3 7/8" from the colored fabric
(these 4 will be used for making the triangles)

Use the same method for making the triangles here that we used in the previous weeks.

layout as shown

sew together

and you have your completed block.

Any questions will be answered in the comments.


For those of you who are interested, I am already thinking about the next quilt a long. I am planning on making another sampler type quilt in all different star blocks. I'm gonna have to get over my triangle phobia once and for all. :)

thanks for quilting-a-long with me!

2007 in review

2007 has been a good quilting year for me. :)

I had a few quilt goals for 2007...

1. Make no quilts containing just plain squares.

I made this quilt, so I didn't make this goal. Considering I have had the fabric for 5 years, I was just happy to complete it.

2. Make a 2 color quilt.

Finished just under the wire.

3. Make a quilt with squares on point.

Here.

4. Finish 12 quilts.

My total was 17. That doesn't count doll quilts.

5. Do more improvisational piecing.

I made 8. A great plenty.

6. Use new patterns.

yep.

7. Make a sampler quilt.

I started one for the quilt a long.

8. Complete at least one scrap quilt.

I made 4.

2 of them were completely scraps, no extras.

2 were scraps with borders or stash added.

Out of 17 quilts completed, I gave 9 away.

All in all, I think I did pretty well with my goals.

Now, looking ahead...

I made some quilt goals for 2008.

Make more charity quilts.

I have a few friends that I have known for a long, long time that don't have an Amanda-made quilt, so that needs to be remedied.

Finish the 4 quilts that I currently have in progress.

Make more quilts with triangles in them.

Make another 2 color quilt.

Beyond that, I just plan to do more of the same quilting that I have been doing...scrap quilts, improvisational piecing and pretty much quilting like crazy. And working on my list.

Happy New Year!

hearts all around quilt

I had to squeeze in one more finished quilt before the end of the year.

I finished the top of this quilt this summer and since then I have debated adding borders to make it larger, but I decided to keep it as is. The finished size is about 36" x 36". The backing is solid cream, so it is a genuine 2 color quilt. It was hard to restrain myself to just those 2 colors, but I think that the results are stunning, so I am glad that I did. The curves are hand appliqued. (I am not good at it.)

It will be a wall hanging in little A's room after the walls are painted. (It was really hard to photograph since the colors are so light....double clicking on the photo might help.)

Hope you have a great and safe New Year's Eve.

sprucing up the house, part 4

Up until 2 days ago, my front window looked like this....(I'm not into the lace valances....)

so I sewed up some little panels and now I have some updated (and a bit loud, according to my husband) curtains.

here is a night time shot...
(do you have any idea how hard it is to photograph windows?)

This fabric is the perfect choice, since my walls are currently light blue and will eventually be a shade of red. The fabric is bangle dots by Alexander Henry. I love it.

I finished these curtains up an hour before my company arrived on Friday night. Gotta love a deadline!

I think this is the end of the sprucing up the house posts, at least for now. Thanks for all your kind comments. It's been fun to share it will all of you.

merry day after christmas

I hope you all had a great Christmas. Ours was pretty quiet...well as quiet as it gets with 3 kids. :) We stayed home and tried to keep things fairly laid back. The highlight of our day was going sledding as a family. We had so much fun. Even little A went (and loved) sledding. We had the perfect lazy snowfall for a good part of the day. It was magical.

Now that it is after Christmas, I can show you this funky quilt that I made for my friend Heather. I used the happy hour pattern and I would highly recommend it! I was able to sew the top together in a few hours. I think it took longer to cut out the pieces than it did to sew them back together.

I used mainly holly jolly fabrics from Moda with a few other random fabrics mixed in.

The backing...

and the binding! (oh, I love a striped binding....I can't figure out why I haven't done one before.)

And this is my favorite square.

I made this quilt from start to finish in one week.

The hardest part of making the quilt (besides keeping it a secret!!!) was to pick out 20 different fabrics that go together. Especially with these shades of red and green. Finding the backing fabric (on a budget) was also a bit distressing. But I am very happy with how it turned out. And so is Heather. Yay!

FYI...we are taking a week off from the quilt-a-long, so those of you who are behind can have a chance to catch up. I plan to post a block 7 next week. (maybe on Wednesday.)

Merry Christmas

Hope your day is filled with love and warmth.

spurcing up the house, part 3

Way back at the end of May when I finished this quilt, Anina asked, "What are you planning for the pillows?"

Here I am, 7 months later, with my answer.
The throw pillow is inspired by glittergoods.
The king sized shams are quilted, of course.



And here it is all together.
(I am grinning from ear to ear, I love it so!)

I promise the next post will be a picture of something besides a bed.

sprucing up the house, part 2

pillowcases made from a vintage sheet bought at an estate sale

I love the mix of vintage and modern. Now I am wondering what took me so long to get around to sewing these pillowcases. I think I was able to make all three in a few hours, which includes interruptions. These look so much better than the khaki and navy cases we were using before.

I used a wonderful tip from this tutorial while making these. Sew a quarter inch seam around the raw edge to use as a guide for ironing. Such a time saving tip! Thank you Chara Michele.

One thing that I can cross off my list.

sprucing up the house, part 1

We have family coming in a few days after Christmas and then for New Year's Eve, so we are scrambling to get the house in order before our guests arrive. It's good to have company coming to light that fire under your rear, as Mama Urchin put it in this post. We moved at the beginning of November and are still trying to settle in.

Last summer when I was walking with the kids we stopped into a thrift store and scored this fabulous metal bed for $20. (I talked them down from $25.) My husband wasn't quite as thrilled as I was at my fantastic deal. And that is putting it mildly. But how cute is it for my little girls room?

My original intent was to assemble the bed today so I could measure how large to make this quilt for her bed.
But lo and behold my pretty moda quilt, which is a queen size, works perfectly on this bed. I love it when things work out like that.

My little girl won't be using this bed for awhile, but at least it will be an extra bed ready for when our company arrives. And it can sit there and be pretty in the meantime.

More sprucing up the house tomorrow. Nothing like starting a blog series (and company coming) to keep ya' going. :)

quilt-a-long week 6

Welcome to week 6 of the quilt-a-long! Here are my first 6 blocks. (They are not sewn together.) I wanted to lay them out to see how they look, and I am thrilled with how pretty they look when they are together. I can't believe that I have waited this long to make a quilt with 30's fabrics...I'm loving them.

for this weeks block:

cut 8 squares 2" from your background fabric

cut 8 squares 3 1/2" from your background fabric

cut 8 squares 2" from a colored fabric

cut 4 squares 3.5" from a second colored fabric

layout as shown

sew together

and you have another block. (we're half done!)

happy quilting!