Quilt!

Back in the early years of my first sewing machine I started my first quilt. After setting the beginnings of it aside for a few years I decided to come back to it and finish what I started, and after as much fixing and tweaking as I could possibly do I ended up with this:

Despite its many flaws and cheap fabric, it is my first quilt, and I am proud of it.
Upon graduating college and starting out on my own I decided I should make a new quilt to not only show my improvements as a sewist, but to mark a new stage in my life. I guess some people make scrapbooks to document their lives, but it looks like I will make quilts.
I decided to try my hand at a log cabin style and started out by cutting strips.

Which I slowly pieced together to form squares:

Which I arranged in a way that pleased me.

I'm very very excited to finish this quilt, I think it's gonna be a beauty. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to quilt it. Any suggestions?

And I apologize for my dirty ironing board... I haven't gotten a place for picture taking set up yet and right now it's my only clear surface!

Sewing background

As far as getting started with sewing goes, I got pretty lucky. I grew up with the luxury of a stay at home mom, who also happened to be a former home economics teacher. As a child she would make my brothers and I Halloween costumes, frilly dresses (for me, not the brothers) that I loved, as well as the household curtains and furniture upholstery. As I got older I started taking more and more interest and learned how to use her sewing machine (under her watchful eye). Finally in eighth grade I decided I would like to have my own sewing machine, and for Christmas this lovely item was found under the tree much to my delight.
 

And boy did I run that thing ragged. After 8 years or so, and a few accidental spills down the stairs I decided that it was time to retire old faithful, and find a new machine to get to know. So after a few days of research and deliberation I decided to go with a Janome 8077.

This new machine is what inspired me to begin creating again and to start this blog. I can't wait to see what new and exciting projects take shape in the coming months and years.

First project!

My first project came more out of necessity than anything else. The man and I have been living in our new place for about a month now and we have been using towels/clothing/anything that won't melt or burn to take things out of the oven. So, I decided that the next thing on my agenda would be a potholder.
Inspired by the log cabin quilt I just started (more on that later), I thought that a quilted potholder would be best, and a few hours later I emerged from the craft cave with this:

Since I didn't have any batting on hand, I used a couple of old (clean) washcloths to insulate, quilted with some straight lines and voila! The binding was a little tricky, but with some quick thinking and this tutorial from Oh, Fransson! project potholder was a success, and there will be no more hand burning pulling things out of the hot oven.

Here it goes...

I guess the best way to start here would be an introduction. First, to state the obvious: my name is Allie and I plan on blogging about the goings on in my craft room. Well I don't actually have an entire craft room, I share it with my Mr. Man as an "office" but I still have plenty of room to get my craft on and that is exactly what I do.

Anyway. As I said before my name is Allie, I'm a 22 year old recent college grad with suddenly more time on my hands to do what I love, so I thought I would share with whoever stumbles across this little piece of cyberspace. I'm living and working in a little town in northern Maine and am pretty much loving life right now. So, with my iron hot, and my (brand new, yay!) sewing machine fired up I am ready to brave the blogging world one project at a time.