Wednesday...

Wednesdays always end up my longest day. The boys love to wake up extra early and the husband always works late. I think fate just works against me like that some days. I haven't gotten much accomplished this week. I've been trying to be a better wife with more cooking and cleaning and baking lots of cookies :) And my mother is coming this Saturday so that may be the main reason I want to clean this mess of a house. I never knew what she did all day. With younger kids a stay-at-home mom has a lot to do, but when my sister and I got into high school I have no idea what she did all day. Shopping and going out to lunch with her friends? I'm glad I will have so many hobbies to keep me entertained when my boys finally go to school.
Anyways, back on topic. I finished a few tote bags as Christmas presents and one cute wine gift bag from some fabric I found at Walmart of all places. I was hoping to at least get my sister's quilt top done this week, but no such luck with all the cooking and cleaning. (I didn't even get this post out on time. Oh well, it's not like I have any followers right now.) Well, hopefully I will have something more interesting for you after Christmas when I can get back to work!

Saving mulah

Quilting is a very expensive hobby. There are a lot of start up fees (especially when you buy a Bernina like me!) and then the cost of supplies adds up quickly. Here are my money saving tips and tricks when buying my fabric and other supplies.
1. Coupons! Use them religiously at big stores like Joann's. There is always at least a 40% off one item. I like to save up and wait until they have a big weekend sale with a special discount on top of their other sales. I can usually get my thread and batting at least half off retail. Another place to use coupons is online. Never ever checkout until you have searched "(website name) coupon code". Retailmenot.com is usually my favorite go to because they don't have so many ads. You can usually get at least another 10-15% off. And if you sign up at ebates.com you can get 4% cash back from fabric.com.

2. Buy online: for the same reasons I stated above about the coupons, but they also usually have a wider selection and slightly cheaper prices. Don't be afraid to make purchases. Most places have free shipping and some eve have free return shipping if something really isn't your cup of tea. Still afraid? Go to your local shop and pick out all your favorite fabrics. Then write down the information on the top of the bolt and go home and order them online. Another perk to buying online is that there are often custom bundles made by designers in case you are afraid to put different fabrics together yourself. And you can also find more fabrics in a coordinating line.

New cute micro mod fat quarter bundle from hawthornethreads.com

Here is an example of a recent purchase I made at fabric.com:
A. I routed through my ebates account so I would receive cash back
B. I waited to purchase my fabric until it was 15% off from the 12 days of Christmas sale
C. There is free shipping on orders over $35
D. Ran search for coupon codes and found one for an additional 15% off my entire purchase if over $40 (a great excuse to get that extra half yard I wanted)
E. so I ended up with over 5 yards of fabric for $34 and free shipping (because they are cool like that)
This is my favorite way to buy fabric.
My second favorite is of course browsing through my local fabric shop. Even though it is slightly more expensive I can't help but buy some while I'm there. The colors are just so bright and fresh and call to me. I try to get the stuff that they have on sale every month (usually 25-50% off certain lines or past years) and they always give ten percent on top off of all non-sale items.

Here are a few of my favorite online shops:
Fabric.com for their wide variety and free shipping over $35
Missouriquiltco.com always has a one day exciting deal
Fatquartershop.com is a new found love. They always have fun new stuff but mostly precut bundles
Hawthornethreads.com has the most modern fabric and you can search by color
And fabricworm.com has a great selection of Japanese prints

I'm also trying something new linking up to Tips and Tricks Tuesday at Sew at Home Mummy. I've just joined her simply solids bee and I'm super excited to get started.

Good luck on your savings, I hope you don't spend too much!

Yummmm

I used to be in love with baking. Almost every other day I was making something delicious from cakes to cookies or brownies, no wonder I gained so much wait during my last pregnancy! Don't get me wrong, I still love baking, but I just don't have the time for it anymore. Just the other day I made a cake, a simple box cake and some chocolate ganache frosting. By the time I put the cake in oven and finished the frosting and cleaned up after myself my little one was already up from his nap. Then I get all frustrated that I spent all that time cooking and cleaning and I haven't had a minute to myself. The baking is nice, but all the preparing and cleaning wipes me out. Thankfully today the little one slept a little longer so I could sit down and relax a bit. Right this minute I have Chocolage Chip Cookie Dough Fro-Yo cooling in the freezer. Can you say yum?! I had a little before I put it in and it already tastes great--I can't wait until it is ice cream consistancy. I'm positive it will be gone by tomorrow night. Here is the recipe if you want to make your own: http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2012/08/chocolate-chunk-cookie-dough-frozen-yogurt/

My first TGIFF!

This is my first Thank Goodness its Finished Friday! Last night I finished my mom's sea quilt. I did the last few waves of quilting then added the double fold binding. Ironing the binding took forever, then carefully sewing it on by machine took over an hour probably, but I'm rather impressed with myself. I don't think I would sell a quilt in a similar condition, but that is why I'm practicing on my family first. They all seem to think they are entitled to the stuff I make anyways. Do they realize how much fabric and batting is? And the time that goes into it? Probably not, but I love them and it is good practice.

I added a cute sandpiper print on the back and a little piece on the opposite side binding. My mom loves sandpipers (the little birds at the beach) and I liked the yellow and blues together.

I only have to add a label and wrap it up before Christmas. I know she will love it!

Also I realize that I didn't post this on a Friday. I had it all ready to go on Friday but I can never seem to find time to put my pictures onto the computer. So I downloaded the blogger app to my phone so I can hopefully add them more easily through here :)

Unfinished Quilts

You know what sucks? Finishing your quilt top and realizing you don't have enough fabric for the back. I even took some scraps and made a whole extra row of my lemon squares and I am still about 6 inches short on one side. I guess I'll just have to go back to the store and get some more. Puh-lease, they already know my little one's name there. They love him and talk to him the whole time. Although I am pretty sure they think I'm crazy. Over the past few weeks I have gone to my local quilt shop nearly twice a week. It's not my fault I am obsessed with all their adorable fabric and I keep starting new projects and not finishing them...Well maybe that part is my fault, but the husband has been home from work and that leaves me with extra time to sew. And really this quilting obsession is a lot healthier than the baking obsession I had this time last year ;)
But back to the point, I was excited to put my quilt sandwich together for my lemon squares but ran out of fabric. So I started chugging away at my mother's birthday/Christmas quilt. She picked a pretty simple one-the seaglass I posted last week. Well, I finished the top last night and I am waiting for this cute beach fabric to come in today so I can piece together the back. I knew it wouldn't match the front, but hopefully it will fit nicely on the back. Well, I'm off to twiddle my thumbs (and run after my little ones) until my package arrives. It feels like Christmas!

Oh, Saturday

Oh what a happy Saturday! I just bought a walking foot for my Bernina. I'm excited to finish up a few of my quilt tops so I can start using it. I did finish my Lemon Squares top, but I need to make a few more squares for the back because I am a few inches short.

But I need to put this project down and start working on my Christmas projects. My mom chose this seaglass quilt as inspiration. I am taking pictures as I go along so hopefully I can put together a little tutorial for an improv strip piecing. My sister wanted a zig zag and right now I just have the fabric cut into 6 inch strips. It is going to be a very big zig zag.

Also this week I finally finished my first quilt. I did the jelly roll race with a cute jelly that I picked up from my local fabric shop. I think it is called Meadow Friends by Moda, but it didn't have a tag. The top came together in a day, but I had to piece the back, then I quilted it by stitch-in-the-ditch, and then finally added the binding by machine. I knew that I would never finish it if I tried stitching the binding by hand. And really this is just for my little boys so I know they won't care if there are a few flaws.

 Whenever I try to grab pictures the lighting is horrible and my phone is not the best either. I really need to find the battery charger to my actual camera so I can get some better shots. But maybe it is better this way so you can't see all my flaws!

Well, hopefully this week I can put together my Chirstmas quilts so I can finish mine before the new year :)

A Beginning

It's been awhile since I started this blog. I am usually a pretty quiet and reserved person, so blogging doesn't come naturally to me. But I am determined to start sharing my quilts and projects. I am constantly looking around the internet for new tutorials and whenever I find a cute new craft or quilt I want to know exactly how it was made and most of the time there is no guide or reference. So my goal for this blog is to share my projects and more specifically share how I made each quilt and craft.

So with that being said, let's start off with WIP (work in progress) Wednesdays. I have a horrible habit of starting something and not finishing it. And then finding a new project and forgetting about the first one. Maybe I'm subconsciously terrified of finishing something and finding out that I messed something up. But here are some things I am currently working on:

My favorite project right now is my Lemon Squares quilt from fresh lemons. I am in love with yellows and oranges and when I found this pattern on Faith's blog after I had picked up some beautiful Dear Stella Mimosa fabric it was fate.

I first cut out all the pieces and separated them into each block. I then chain pieced two sides, pressed the seams, chain pieced the other two sides until each block was done. I have 6 sets of 6 blocks total. I am now currently piecing together 6 blocks into a row. I hope to finish all the rows this weekend and start sewing them together. I'm super excited to see it all done.

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I am also slowly sewing on the binding to this beauty by hand. It's my first real quilt and I used a quilt as you go method. It's in rough shape, but it's just for my boys

My husband and I used fabric paint and put my oldest's handprints all over a piece of canvas. It will become a bag for my grandmother once I wash it.

And here is a zig-zag quilt I am working on for my sister's birthday/Christmas present. Her birthday is the 22nd, so I usually just get her something nicer instead of two smaller things. She helped pick out the fabrics and lay out. It came together pretty quickly by using 6 inch wide strips. 

I realize it is now Thursday. I had all of these pictures on my phone, but I never got around to uploading them. I really need to get a new camera. These pictures are pathetic. Look out tomorrow for my first completely finished quilt! I will share the whole process (and only a few photos). Thanks!