Fabric Binge

As part of my quilting class every student is given a one time 10% off all fabric purchased at Marden's. Today, I decided to take advantage of that. 

yummy fabric goodness

All of this totaling over 16 yards for under $40!! For those of you who don't know, Marden's is a surplus and salvage store with locations in Maine that has an excellent fabric selection; so, 10% off already highly discounted prices made me a very happy camper.

I got mostly quilting cotton, but the bottom three are vinyl coated flannel I'm planning to use on a new project very soon. I will share the details of that later, but for now off to wash all of my brand new fabric :)

Quilting Class Update

Ohio Star

 

Carrie Nation

 

I'm loving these bright colors, and my piecing is getting much better. I can't wait to put all the blocks together; I have a special plan for this quilt.

We also learned how to make a Cathedral Window by machine, I'm hoping to try that out soon, but in the meantime I'm working on my blue log cabin quilt. Making enough blocks for a queen size quilt is certainly taking some time!

Halloween goodies

So I know Halloween was a few days ago, but I still wanted to share what I did. Of course I waited until last minute to carve my pumpkin; it may not have happened at all except the M and I wanted the seeds really badly!

Pumpkin seeds, pumpkin, yummy applesauce I made earlier in the day

I found the most effective was for cleaning the seeds was to put them in  a strainer and  powerwash them with the sink sprayer. I admit it was kind of fun too.

After the seeds were clean, I patted them dry with a paper towel. To toast them I tossed them in a little olive oil, spread them out on a baking sheet, sprinkled them with salt and let the oven do the rest. After about 15 (very long) minutes, I pulled them out, and voila! Yummy, crunchy, salty, toasty pumpkin seeds.

 

Then came the carving. M did his freehand, while I opted for a pattern. They both came out great! Of course M and Zoe had to be in one of the pictures...

But I got him to turn out the lights for this one so you could get the full effect.

The view from the road on Halloween, M's pumpkin on the left, and mine on the right.

 Here's an up close picture of M's pumpkin. Pretty scary, right!?

And here's the up close of mine, I like the way it came out. A little less scary, maybe a bit more eerie.

I hope everybody had a fun and safe Halloween!

I just started taking...

A quilting class! :)

I used this as incentive to prewash all the fabric I've acquired through the years (I've never prewashed my fabric before, shhh  don't tell the quilting police).

 

I  made sure to use a couple color catchers since I was unsure about the origin of much of my fabric. Looks like it was a good idea too. v v v 

  

I figured I might as well iron and sort it all as well so it would be easy to find and ready to use in the future. It took a loooooong time.

 

I think one of my major problems was all the frayed threads getting tangled up, especially in my fat quarters. Do any of you have that problem when you prewash?

Sorry about the dirty ironing board, I really need a new cover

The next day I managed to get my first block for the class finished, I'm very happy with how it came out :)

I can't wait to show you all my other blocks, I'm really enjoying the class and it's a great way to get to know new people in the community (even though I'm the youngest in the class by at least 15 years).

Busy few weeks

So the last few weeks have been busy busy busy. I've still been sewing, but the blogging has taken a back seat. 

A week and a half weeks ago was my college's homecoming. Since M and I are both Alumni of the same school, and we are both members of Greek organizations we decided to take the long 3 hour drive to campus.  It would have been 3 1/2 hours, but the speed limit of our interstate was recently raised from 65 to 75 mph, yay!

Photo taken from the passenger seat

This past weekend a close friend of mine E and her adorable 15 month old daughter G made the 4 1/2 hour trek to come visit me. I know that long of a drive isn't easy with a toddler in tow, so I felt really special and had a very very fun weekend.

Little G wearing M's beloved Charlotte Hornet's hat

 Since E is from my hometown, my mother sent up a few Halloween decorations for the house....

and a costume for Zoe the dog

What a little angel

I live in a rural area on the US/Canadian border, so there are lots of pretty places to explore. We walked some nice trails and enjoyed the crisp fall air

The mountains in the background are on Canadian soil

I was sad to see them go, but glad to get back to my blogging. Before they left I just had to snap a picture of Zoe wearing G's coat. The things we put the puppy through... she's a good dog though, incredibly patient and well mannered.

This blog is supposed to be about my craft room though, right? If you look above Zoe in the last picture you can see a pink and orange Modular Star. I made this for little G using a tutorial from Kid Giddy. I love her blog! It is filled with the most precious projects. That is the only picture I managed to get of it if only by accident. I really need to get better about recording my crafts; I usually just have the "get it done" mindset and forget to take pictures later.

Multitasking

Is apparently not my strong suit...

To be almost finished the block and then burn it? Ugh.

I guess that's what I get for trying to work my computer and iron at the same time.

Trying something new...

 

Can you guess what it is?

 

Hmmm, it sort of looks like a chicken wing...

And a dress form...?

Oh wait.... here we go.

 

I bought the book "Introduction to Making Cloth Dolls" by Jan Horrox and it is one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen. The detailed directions and pictures helped me every step of the way and I am pretty proud of my first cloth doll. I did make a couple of changes to the design in the book, Jan creates dolls that are built with their "clothes" as part of the doll. I wanted to be able to dress the doll up and practice clothing construction, so I made just a "plain" doll. Since the book does not include patterns for clothing, looks like I will be attempting to draft my own patterns which I'm sure will be quite a trial and error process but I'm excted.

Do any of you have experience with sewing dolls or doll clothes?