The Quilting has Begun...

I am on call this weekend and Charlie is in Buffalo for his brother's 30th birthday party. So I started on the quilt I promised myself I'd make waaaay back. I have the strips sewn together, next step is to sew the strips together.  Since this is a big project and my first one, I decided to go with a simple stripe pattern. Plus the fabric I got had larger print, so those little 4x4 squares cut into triangles wouldn't do the fabric justice.

I think it's going to be pretty awesome:)

One project down...

Here is my new and improved lunch box! It turned out OK, considering it was my first try. My new walking foot is awesome and really easy to use. The binding was not that easy. I decided to make my own bias tape, which is not really that hard, but it is never quite as even as the stuff you buy in the store. The corners of the bag were not that easy, I sort of ended up smooshing them down and sewing, which means that it's not the best look, but it works, and it's all a learning process anyways. 

I'm thinking of putting some more embellishments on it, maybe a button or two, some embroidery, but for right now it's good enough. It took me the better part of yesterday to do, which means that now I'm behind on my reading. Oh well. I'm going to try to catch up today.

Also, Charlie and I put in our registration to join St. Mary's in German Village today. It was actually his idea, not mine. He said that he wanted to join because he always feels good once he leaves and he thinks that it is a good time for reflection. Plus it gets us up Sunday mornings. We'll see if it lasts, but for now we're going to try to keep going. They talked a lot about Roe v Wade this morning because the anniversary of it is this week I guess. I just tune that out. I understand where the church is coming from, and I believe that abortion would never be the right choice for me. I just believe in keeping it legal and safe for those that do.

Anyways, enough of that, I have a lot of reading to do...

Quilting...

I've been wanting to teach myself how to quilt. I got a walking foot for Christmas and everything. Well, I'm going to do it. First I'm going to make a little quilted lunch box for myself from my One Yard Wonders book. Just to get the basics. Then, I'm going to make a quilt. A great big one. I may have bitten off more than I could chew, but I bought the fabric today, so it is going to happen. Plain and simple. Because you do not go to Sew to Speak and spend $80 on fabric and then not make a quilt.

Yikes.

Sewing

I have been on a sewing rampage recently. Seriously. It's bad. It had taken over my life before I finally made myself just STOP already and do something else!

It all started when I went to a sewing class last weekend. It was called Intro to Applique and Embroidery and I had so much fun doing it. Then I got online and found some really good sewing and crafting blogs. There were a ton of easy projects that I decided I needed to undertake.

It started with my curtains in my kitchen. I needed something to cover those windows and they had just the right fabric at Sew to Speak...

Then came my plastic bag holder. Because, really, you can't just have them all sitting around cluttering up the place.

Then there was the maxi dress tutorial from Sweet Verbena. You seriously just make a big pillow case out of white knit fabic, cut out a head and arm holes and then dye it any color you'd like with fabric dye. The belt give it some shape and it took me maybe an hour to do.

Next was another tutorial from Sweet Verbena. This one was supposed to be for a knit top. BUT, I found some beautiful orange linen fabric at Sew to Speak that was 40% off. And I wanted it to be a dress, not a shirt. I added a belt for good measure and we get this...

Which I was really happy with and feel like I could even wear someplace nice...

Next came what was supposed to be a knit skirt. Also, from Sweet Verbena this tutorial literally involved folding a piece of knit in half and sewing in a place for an elastic band, and then sewing it together. For real. And they had some organic bamboo knit fabric at Sew to Speak which was just the thing I needed. When I was done, it was either a long skirt, or, pull it up and add a belt and it is a dress, which I wore out to dinner with Charlie last weekend...

Sorry it's so blurry, I couldn't figure out why or how to make it better...

And the last project so far was a skirt. This tutorial I did not get from sweet verbena, but I did get it somewhere on the internet. It is super cute and even has an invisible zipper, which is not as invisible as I'd like but it was my first try, so I'm not going to be too hard on myself about it...

I got this fabric from JoAnn's, on the sale rack. I think it was $4 a yard or something.

I have more fabric to play with but I think I need to put it down for awhile. Other things are beginning to suffer...:)