31 Flowers

That is how many flowers I have so far for my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. I think I will need about twice that to make a full size quilt. I ordered some more fabric. I decided I needed some reds and some solids and different prints. Also, I am almost out of the first round of fabric I bought. I have decided to quilt this one by hand once I get to that point. I have the one my great grandmother made and I decided I wanted to make mine completely by hand as well.

The new fabric is from various collections. Everything but the Kitchen Sink, Storybook and Naptime just to name a few. I ordered these fabrics from Fabricshack. They have a nice selection of thirties prints. I also added some Kona solids, a yellow and green. The yellow is daffodil the green is escaping me at the moment (I think it's asparagus or some other vegetable name)

First Quilt of the Year

Here are the pictures of my Butterscotch Cake quilt finished. It came out to a nice throw size. I am hoping the weather will cooperate this weekend so I can get some good pictures of my quilt and another project I finished over the weekend. I have been busy and I never seem to have enough quilting time to work on all the things I want to do. Not to mention write blog posts about it.

If you have instagram follow me, michyisaquilter. Its so much easier and faster to snap a pic and post it, but I am trying to write more blog posts and I promise I am trying to take better pictures with an actual camera. It is a New Year's resolution.

 

I am hoping to be able to do a giveaway on this blog eventually if I ever get enough followers to warrant a giveaway. Giveaways are one of my favorite parts of the Blogging universe and I'd certainly like to be able to do that on my own blog eventually. I am hoping to be able to do lots of updates to this blog over the coming year and I hope you'll be following along!!

Valentine's Day and Charlotte trip

I took a few days off work last week and my boyfriend and I went to Charlotte, NC for a couple days. We have a wonderful time and I thought I'd share a few of the pictures with you. These are just a few highlights of our trip. My boyfriend LOVES racing. To the point that it worries me sometimes, so we decided to go to Charlotte and go to the Hall of Fame and some of the raceshops.

We only went to two of the race shops, Earnhardt Chip Ganassi Racing was the first one. (This car is my favorite driver's, Jamie McMurray) These are the cars he won the 2010 Daytona 500 and 2010 Brickyard 400 in.

We also visited Roush Fenway racing (Yes Fenway as in Fenway park, the gift shop even had some Boston Red Sox things)

We also visited the Charlotte Motor Speedway, we didn't take the tour because we didn't have time but it was HUGE!

And of COURSE I found a quilt shop and snagged some goodies!

Some Bonnie and Camille. the yardage is for the wallhanging I have been working on for my sewing room. The fat quarters I think will be matching totes bags like mine from the previous post, for my sister and I.

 

And some amazing Shore Thing by Michael Miller. I was so excited to fine the madras plaid print! I think these will make their way into a beach bag.

The day we spent in Charlotte sightseeing was in the 60s and sunny, we came home to this ^^^

Later this week I have an actual quilt to show you!

An Impromptu New Bag

My boyfriend and I have the possibility of a trip coming soon, and to match my Weekender bag I decided I needed a new purse, I've been needing one for a while because my current one developed a hole in the lining and even though I could have sewed the hole shut I decided I wanted to just sew a whole new bag. I decided to make a tote bag to match my Weekender. Its a little bigger than a normal purse, perfect for carrying around extra things like cameras and purchases while walking around being tourists. Here is what I came up with:

I'm basically in love. I added a few other fabrics that coordinated with the Chicopee and Hope Valley prints I used in my Weekender. I even added piping around the outside pocket to match too! Its just a basic tote bag with boxed bottom corners, but I quilted the panels onto canvas just like I did my Weekender to give it some strength and structure. I absolutely love how it came out, and I finished it all in a day!

In Transit

These two wonderful objects are currently in transit to my home.

 

Ever since I finished my Weekender bag I have been a lot more confident about my sewing abilities beyond making quilts and I've been wanting to make an "every day" bag.

 

As for the Heather Ross book I am VERY excited to get it. I love her prints, I unfortunately missed a lot of her fabrics as I just started quilting a little over a year ago. This book will give me a chance to enjoy her prints that I missed. I'm also pretty excited to see her tips for creating designs in Photoshop. I've been considering doing some of my own designs as I really love drawing but had no idea how to go about doing anything like that before. This way I can design some fabric prints and order them from Spoonflower, make my own label and logo, etc.

 

This is a test block for a quilt I am getting ready to start. A woman at work asked me to make a quilt to match her daughter's pillow cases and bedding. I needed something with pink, yellow and green and butterflies and flowers. I decided on Camille's Flower Girl quilt pattern and picked a few pink and yellow prints and some green prints from Flutter and Bella that have butterflies on them. I'm doing Kona Snow for the background. This block was just to make sure I had my measurements and everything right because I am modifying the size a little. This block may be made into a pillow because I made it from scraps I had laying around and the colors don't really match the fabrics for the quilt.

 

In other news I am thinking of buying a new machine. The one I have is a great little machine, but that is the problem. It is little. And it is hard to quilt big quilts on. I bought it to see if I was really going to stick with this "quilting thing" as my boyfriend says and since it appears that I am definitely addicted I think it is time to upgrade. I am waiting until I get my taxes back to make the purchase, and I am pretty sure I know which machine I want. I made a list of features I wanted and did a lot of research. But what do you use? I have a Brother right now and I LOVE it. It is an amazing machine. I spent 200 bucks on it at Walmart and it so worth SO much more than that. I mean, it sewed my Weekender bag! But what do you recommend? I still have some more research and trying out of machines before I make the final decision

A Sad Day

This blog is mostly about quilting, but its also an outlet for me. So I am going to share something that is weighing on me today

Today is the day my mother passed away. It marks 4 years without her here and it is still very hard. She tried teaching me to sew when I was younger, but I didn't have the knack for it. I would get to frustrated and couldn't get the hang of a sewing machine to save my life.

My sister and I had the conversation the other the day about it actually. She mentioned that a few years ago she was sure I would never have learned to use a sewing machine, and that mom must have left me her sewing talent.

This is a picture of my wonderful mother when she was a little girl. She really was my best friend, and knew me better than anyone probably ever will.

Butterscotch Cake

I got this idea from Pinterest. I saw a beautiful quilt made entirely of large squares. The quilting alternated horizontal and vertical lines from one square to the next. I loved that it let the fabrics shine through but the quilting was definitely interesting and I knew right away I wanted to do one for myself. And what easier way than with a Layer Cake? And since I love anything Fig Tree Quilts I snagged a Layer Cake of Butterscotch and Roses and thus Butterscotch Cake was born. (See what I did there?) I'm almost halfway through with the quilting. I have to admit that straight line quilting is not my favorite. I much prefer FMQ but I knew that the straight line quilting was what MADE this quilt. I'm hoping to have it completely finished by next week. Here are some snapshots of the progress so far.

 

 

I hope I'm not the only one addicted to Pinterest. (I'm sure I'm not)

 

 

Oh, and my one year blogging anniversary came and went and I didn't even notice. A few months ago I had considered doing a giveaway for it if I had enough followers, which I obviously don't. Maybe if I get 50 followers I will do a giveaway. Or maybe, someday,  I will do one regardless just because I want to ;)

 

 

Right now I really, really want some Posy by Aneela Hoey. After I got the jelly roll of Cherry Christmas I have just been in love with her fabric and Posy is just about the absolute perfect little girl fabric. There are several things I want to make with it, but I told myself I wasn't going to buy any more new fabric unless it was to finish an already started project. I tried to win some but didn't, so what is a girl to do??