Minkee Back # 2

This is going to be a heavy quilt.





But the first one worked out really well so I'm diving in on a 96 x 84 inch quilt.

Anyone want to let me cut it at your house?



Update: my mom kindly offered the garage based on the fact it's my Dad's area so she won't mind the fuzz.

Japanese Fabrics

A long, long time ago, I worked with some Japanese medical students who were visiting San Diego for the summer. It was a really interesting project for NASA involving twins and vacuum chambers and other fun stuff. The advisor that was out with the students injured his leg so I was pressed into chauffeuring service. It was a really fun summer and they were great. My oldest nephew referred to them as his Japanese doctors. They were fascinated with him (2-3 year old at the time) and his curly blond hair. At the end of the summer they gave everyone thank you gifts for hosting. Back in those days I didn't sew at all but I just came across some of the fabrics they gave me.





Fun little bits, aren't they?

Location:Japanese Fabrics

Prepping for Guests

1, a photo by shanleytulip on Flickr.

I'm having a houseful of guests this weekend and what better way to prep than to fold fabric? My brother sent me a new bunch of comic book boards this week. Something to do with his concern over me opening up the comic books I have here for him.

I suppose some people actually make sure there is food in the house for guests but I'm not that crazy. I won't get a lot (any) sewing done this weekend but at least I know there are enough quilts to cover everyone. Probably.

Ready for Hand Stitching

I ended up pebble quilting this one. Sometimes even when I start with a plan on how I'm going to quilt, it just doesn't happen. I was going to straight line quilt this but when the needle was threaded it called out for circles.



I snapped this picture in the morning after I finished trimming it outside. Since my friends are all mean and wouldn't agree to me cutting minkee at their houses. Something about aqua blue fuzz everywhere.

Thanks to Susan, it's already labeled with our fancy San Diego Modern Quilt Guild logo.

Exquisite Beauty

I finished a quilt for my bed this week.  

 I used two layer cakes of Kate Spain's Fandango for a 72 x 90 quilt for my bed.  You can click on the labels section on the left of this site to see some of the progress pictures.

Please ignore the crumpliness of it, there's three other quilts and a down comforter under it.

Ok, now for the story of the label.  One of our favorite authors as kids was Bill Peet.  So when my sister had kids, I tracked down some of his books.  The one we read all the time is titled No Such Things.  Everyone in the family was assigned an animal from the book.  My mom is a blue-snouted Twump, the middle nephew is a pie-faced Pazeek, one sister is aspooky-tailed Tizzy while the other is a great Gullagaloop.  I lucked out with the cover creature, the fancy Fandango.  So when I found out that Kate Spain's new line (new at the time anyway) was called Fandango, I knew I had to make a quilt for me out of it.  I printed up the poem and the picture at Spoonflower for a label.   Please ignore the part that says I made this in Sept 10, that's when I thought I would finish it.

I'm linking up with the Blogger's Quilt Festival (check out tons of other quilts, I find a lot of new blogs to follow here) and Finish it Up Fridays (hosted by one of the nicest bloggers ever).  This is my 13th finished quilt this year, yay!

Steam A Seam Lite

If you know where I live, please don't buy Steam A Seam. Ever again. I just found a HUGE box. At the rate I'm using it (on a label tonight) it will take me approximately 37 gazillion years to use it up.

Who wants to appliqué something?

Weekend Sewing

I essentially stayed home on Saturday and puttered around the house. I did do a bit of sewing and sorting as well. I got a few labels on and I'll show those quilts in a bit. I finally got the rest of the strip sets together and then cut out all of the triangles for the Origins quilt I started at a guild meeting back in May.



The blocks are all ready to go now and after consultation with my BFF today, the blocks won't be mixed up. There are a million sets though so I may end up making one mixed and one not. We'll see.

Today I went to sew at my friend's house and mainly worked on hand stitching a binding. The kid agreed to take pictures for us but I was reading a magazine at the time so was required to make the picture more interesting. Don't worry, no quilts were harmed in the process.


And later we played a rousing game of Guess What I'm Drawing Without Looking at the iPad.



Nathan won. Partially because of the ship above and partially because we only guessed he would draw bikes. It makes sense if you know him, I have most of the kids we know convinced the man has no furniture in his house, only bikes. I test-drove writing a blog with a new iPad app and liked it enough to buy the app (psst, Mom - don't tell Dad :P). I did leave myself logged in over there which means, I can blame any wacky posts on her FOREVER.

Oddly, I did not get the binding finished yet.

iPad cases

iPad cases, a photo by shanleytulip on Flickr.

And no, I don't need to have costume changes for my iPad and I don't have 3 of them. One was made after reading a Moda Bake Shop tutorial, the middle one was made by FOLLOWING the tutorial. I'll put on the button tonight, as it's a gift for someone celebrating a birthday tomorrow. The top one was made just this week using this Fresh Lemons tutorial as a going away gift for a coworker. Ok, if I admit it all, it's the 2nd one I made with that tutorial. I just botched the first one so much that I started over again. The night before I needed to give it away. The zippers are supposed to be invisible but I'm settling for toothless. The little pocket is really handy for cords or what not.

This is shaping up to be a finishing sort of weekend and I managed this post just in time to link up with crazy mom quilts!

NICU quilt and a little experiment

photo.JPG, a photo by shanleytulip on Flickr.

I'm testing block sizes for a little quilt for the NICU. My inspiration was this one but I've got to decide between the sizes. It should be quick, easy and maybe adorable.

Now for the experimenting. San Diego is really letting us down in the way of flannels lately and I like the back of a quilt to be snuggly. So I used a coupon to get some aqua minkee on Sunday (egged on by SBoIC). I'm going to pit the quilting frame against the minkee and see who wins. If they turn out to be best friends, I'm going to need stock in minkee. Or just stocks of minkee. Of course, that stuff sheds like mad so all my quilt sizes will have to be based on me never cutting it myself.

A Little Bit of Progress

tag.JPG, a photo by shanleytulip on Flickr.

I got way more than this project moving this weekend but here's a peek at my brilliance. That's right, I don't want to forget what fabric I used on the backing so I stitched that sticker right on in. Nothing says Christmas like forgetting to take the tag off :)

Now to decide on the binding. . . .

tag.JPG, a photo by shanleytulip on Flickr.