Celtic Solstice progress

Everyone is finishing Bonnie's latest mystery the Grand Illusion. I have to admit I cut one strip of fabric in clue #1 and that is as far as I got. However I have printed all of the instructions and I do plan to work on it at some point because I like what I am seeing!! In all of this mystery excitement I got out my Celtic Solstice. I love this quilt and I am not even close to being finished. I am happy that I am making progress. I think I need to make about 15 more blocks and then I can piece the center. Yea! 

These blocks are just laid out so I can start to see the design. I LOVE IT!! I hope to finish it this year. 

New Year's Resolutions update: 

I am 6 days soda free. Today was the worst day so far. I am not sure why. I have been substituting a lot of juice/punch, which probably isn't much better than soda. My goal is to switch to majority water eventually. 

I have also gone 6 days without buying any fabric AND I even went to JoAnn's. I did buy some thread and two quilt pattern books :) My daughter told me I would probably spend less money if I would just buy fabric. Haha! She may be right but I did want these books. I'll blog about them another day. 

Hooray for keeping up with New Year's Resolutions!!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2015

Happy New Year!! Resolutions have been made and the year is off to a start.  What are my resolutions? I don't usually share because I typically fail miserably, but I'll tell you. I made two. #1 No more soda. And #2 Severly limit fabric buying. This is day 3 and so far so good. Lol! In keeping with the limiting of buying fabric I decided to join in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge at  superscrappy.blogspot.com January is blue. I started out with a tiny house and flower block. It's very cute, but oh what a challenge. I will likely turn this one into a potholder. 

On facebook I am in a group doing a block of the month, so I am combining it and the RSC. I love how this block turned out! Here is January's block:

And finally I decided I really want to make a rainbow house quilt. So I found a different house pattern to try. This one is from the pattern Dwell which is in the book Simply Retro. I like this one! I made it with a Mr. Magorium vibe. If you have never seen the movie Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium you should put it on your list to watch. It is a great movie :) 

I am going to try to make one or two more blue houses this month for RSC using the house patterns from Dwell. 

I have a baby quilt I need to sandwich and quilt and finish up. That will probably be what I work on in the coming days. 

May your 2015 be happy and healthy!

The Simple Joys

I love piecing quilts. I love seeing fabric come together and create a work of art. But what I think I love the most is the peace and quiet and only thinking about the project at hand when I am sewing. I treasure my sewing time. Today I got to spend a little time in the "shop" and I chose to work on my Celtic Solstice. I believe I managed to make 8 more blocks. It is slow going but I am determined that someday I will finish this quilt. I am loving my color choices! Enjoy this picture of my work in progress :)

PS- that is my binding bowl in the background and that pretty green binding is for my Rainbow Snot quilt which still needs to be quilted but I love that my binding is all ready to go :) My daughter found the binding bowl in a thrift shop somewhere. We are not sure what it's original purpose was. It has a small round hole on the other side and the wider slot you can see in my picture. When I sew my binding on I slip the end through the slot and it keeps my binding from rolling away! Perfect!! 

MIA

Nope, I'm not MIA, I'm still here! I haven't done as much quilt making as I would like to, but sometimes life gets in the way! I did however finish a queen sized quilt that was commissioned. To say it was a challenge for me is an understatement so I was so very happy to finish it!! I have also made more pouches and pillowcases for Christmas gifts. So I have been busy, just not really working on stuff I want to be working on. Here's a pic of the queen sized quilt I made:

And the back:

Weekend of not sewing

So this weekend I didn't do any sewing really! But I had fun otherwise. My daughters and I went shopping on Saturday. We picked out Christmas decorations for two soldiers stationed overseas. It was fun! On Sunday I spent the day doing laundry, helping with homework, and helping fill out college applications. Oh my! It can't be time for all this, can it? I'm afraid my girls are growing up. After all that we needed some fun so we went to see Big Hero 6. I have to say it was a better movie than I anticipated. Today I received the fabric I ordered for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt! Yea! I decided to go with all solids and I stuck with Bonnie's color choices. (Or pretty close. I'm not sure about the Aqua, but I ordered it online so I was choosing by my screen and the color names. I like it, so whether it is the same color as Bonnie's or not, doesn't bother me!)

I am excited! I still need to finish the mystery from last year. I sew a block or two about once every two weeks. AND I need to get ready for my pineapple blossom class with Bonnie which will be Saturday. So much to do so little time!

More little pouches

So I have had several friends order the little zipper pouches. Yea! I've made quite a few and still have about 11 more to make. 

I hope they will like them! 

I have attached the binding pictured in my previous blog post to the quilt and have started the process of hand stitching it to the back. One side finished! My goal is to have it completely finished by my next guild meeting. Can I do it?!

I have made 4 receiving blankets recently as well. The knight one was ordered. The 2 plaid with birdies is going to be a baby shower gift and the pink piggy one will likely be donated. All of these are made of flannel. So soft and cuddly!

Teeny tiny zipper pouches

A sweet friend gave me the cutest teeny tiny zipper pouch and encouraged me to try to make one using the tutorial she used. This is the link: http://youtu.be/OwyCPwYt-Mw These are so much fun to make! 

I made this one for my daughter! She is a Marvels fan.  

Five more little bags :)

Three more... The Marvel was sneaky and got in this picture too :)

One more, how cute!

And I also made the binding for a queen sized quilt. Don't you love rolled up binding? It always makes me smile!

Now on to a new month of sewing!! Happy November!