WIP Wednesday: Beatrix Bunny

There still hasn't been any quilting progress since last week, for some reason I'm just not in the quilting mood right now, but I have still been sewing and making progress (albeit slow) on my first little bunny, who I have lovingly named Beatrix after Beatrix Potter who wrote the Peter Rabbit series. I was a big fan of Peter Rabbit and all his friends when I was growing up, and hope someday to be able to read the series to my own children. I loved the Wind in the Willows stories too. Does anyone else remember those?

We've been rather busy lately it seems, what with having a friend/coworker in from out of town and lots of socializing, making some headway on sorting through all the stuff at Kevin's townhouse to get him fully moved into my place, and of course we had to watch the AFC Championships on Sunday to see the Broncos win their place at the Superbowl. Woo hoo! Go Broncos! :o)

So, here's the latter part of the week in pictures...

I ended last week with a few scores at my local Joanns - some pretty embroidery thread and needles, as well as 3 yards of super cuddly cream colored flannel that was on sale. Yay!

Little Miss Beatrix is almost done, I just need to finish up her dress by gathering the sleeves and waist. I'm debating whether or not I want to make her the wee little boots that were included in the pattern I bought to make her. I also want to make her some sweet little bloomers, and maybe even a petticoat. 

Just so that there's never ever doubt that she was made with lots of love :o)

I treated myself to some pre-cut 1" hexie templates too so I can give this whole hexagon thing a whirl. I see them popping up everywhere online and decided that I just have to give them a try! I think I'll use some of my leftover Soft Glimma FQ bundle to make my first few.

I got a fabulous new haircut on Friday, and was reminded yet again that I absolutely adore having short hair :o)

And because work has just been a *delightful* little slice of hell lately, here's the Christmas present I got for myself. I keep hoping that I will attain calmness through osmosis. So far, it's not working.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Little Bunnies

There hasn't been much sewing activity this week as I've still had some funkyness going on with my head and we've been making an effort to be social and get out of the house, which is a nice change seeing as I barely moved off of the couch all weekend.

But that's not to say that there hasn't been any sewing going on. I stumbled across this darling little pattern for a rag doll bunny last week. It's put together by the very talented Alicia Paulson over at Posie: Rosy Little Things. I ended up going with the PDF pattern rather than the full kit because I have a weird thing about fabric textures and felt is just one of those fabrics I cannot stand the feel of, and because I'm impatient as all hell and hate waiting for packages to arrive.

I had some scraps of Bella Solid in Snow lying around and thought that a little cream colored bunny would be absolutely adorable. I also decided to machine stitch the various body parts and just hand stitch the details. When I make this again (because I am totally going to make a pair of them for my nieces, and possibly one for my Mum) I think I will opt to hand stitch the whole thing, but will probably still go with cotton rather than felt. While my embroidery skills are a little rusty (I haven't embroidered anything in over twenty years) I don't think I did too bad with bunny's little eyes and nose, which I had to make pink rather than brown as specified in the pattern, because I love pink.

Adorable, right? I love her, she's just so squee!

In addition to the pattern for little miss bunny herself, I also downloaded this pattern for a wee little pair of pants and a button down shirt. Those little buttons are so cute I could scream :o) In fact, I might have eeped a little when I first saw them.

Through the magic of Adobe Illustrator I was able to play with the pattern for the pants and shirt, and the dress that comes with miss bunny and work up some patterns for some bloomers, a petticoat and a couple different dress styles. I can't wait to start making them!

So, that's it so far this week. No progress on any of the quilts I have going, and another project added to my list for the year. I might be in trouble!

Oh, and because I'm trying to take more pictures per this post, here's Tuesday's picture. I told Kevin to show me his pretty face, this is what I got...

He's such a stinker, but I <3 him anyway!

Just A Couple Pictures

I keep meaning to be more active with the whole Instagram / taking pictures thing but generally fail miserably. I absolutely despise with every fiber of my being don't really like having my picture taken, which is probably why the picture I use for any and all online profiles is about 4 or 5 years old. Eep. Realizing that I figured that maybe I should try to take at least one picture per day, whether or myself, my honey, kitties, or whatever. Not too unreasonable, right? Right. I can do this...

So here are a couple pictures to get started. Just a couple things around my desk at work...

The beautiful Hyacinth that Kevin got me for our anniversary when the assholes we live with kitties decimated the roses he had originally gotten me.

Don't Panic and Carry a Wookie. Yeah, I'm mixing my memes but meh, I don't care.

Ugh, I'm so Thor from all this work. Yup, I'm a dork.

2014 Sewing / Quilting To Do's

Seeing as I've been in a bit of lull lately as far as quilting goes due to having gnomes invade my skull I thought that maybe taking another look at the list of projects I want to complete this year might inspire me to work on the few UFOs I have and/or get a start on some of the other projects I want to do. So here it is, my bat-shit crazy rather ambitious list of projects for 2014. It'll be interesting to see how many of these I accomplish by the end of December this year, and how many more projects I add along the way. So here it is, in no particular order...

1. 'Diamond Dash' lap quilt for Mum's birthday - HSTs pieced, rows pinned and ready to sew
2. iPad sleeve for Mum's birthday - Done!
3. iPad sleeve for Father's Day
4. Notebook cover for Kevin
5. 'Blue Boy Blocks' quilt for Kevin
6. 'Pea Jelly Jam' baby quilts for Evie & Grace - tops completed, ready for basting and quilting
7. Baby boy quilt for Tyler's birthday
8. Dino Hat for Tyler's birthday
9. 'King of Diamonds' quilt
10. 'Queen of Diamonds' throw
11. 'Jack of Diamonds' lap quilt/wall hanging
12. '12 Months Swoon Quilt' (using mini swoon blocks)
13. Grey, plum and white chevron quilt for Neil's birthday (brother)
14. 'Topsy Turvy Triangles' quilt for Ian's birthday (brother)
15. Suburban quilt kit
16. Red, green, and white pinwheel table runner for Christmas
17. Modern maples table runner and possibly matching place mats and/or napkins for Thanksgiving
18. Camping/RVing themed quilt for Michele & St. Paul
19. 'Spooky Cutey' Halloween quilt
20. Christmas tree skirt
21. Christmas stockings for Kevin and I, and Evie & Grace
22. Set of matching paint brush roll, pencil case and portfolio carrier for Louise's birthday (SIL)
23. Christmas toys for kitties
24. Christmas toys for Bonnie (Mum's dog)
25. Quilted potholders
26. Matching cushions for Father In-Law and wife
27. Seamus the Sea Turtle plushie for Evie & Grace
28. Toothless plushie for me (I'm a dork, I know!)
29. iPad/tablet sleeve for me
30. iPad sleeve using hexies for Meta
31. Dresses for Evie & Grace
32. Halloween costumes for Evie & Grace
33. Comic-Con costume(s) for me (and possibly Kevin)
34. Halloween costume for me
35. Assorted cushions
36. Bluebird Park quilt for me
37. Knitting needle roll for Mum

Yeah, and there are a couple other ideas rolling around in my head but I haven't decided yet if I want to tackle them this year. Am I being ambitious, or just plain insane to come up with a list like this? Do I need an intervention?

Hammering In My Head Don't Stop

Does anyone remember that Garbage song from back in '98? Yeah, that's how my head is feeling right now, and has been for the last four or five days. I'm convinced that a team of gnomes have moved into my skull and are currently mining for coal, or diamonds, or maybe they're just digging for snot. Yuck.

At this point I'm not sure if its a cold or allergies though I'm not sure how it could be allergies, seeing as you know, it's December... and everything is dead! And yet it doesn't really feel like a cold. Which means I'm probably being done in by the fact that a couple weeks ago I went from having four cats in my house to six.

Yup. You heard me right.

I'm now the proud mama to crazy cat lady owner/slave of six fuzzballs.

The recent additions to the house include Merlin, a 17-year-old Siamese who has been nicknamed The Crypt Keeper and Sammy, a 7-year-old tabby who is the only girl in the house. Poor lamb.

She's not terribly impressed by all of the boys, or maybe she doesn't approve of random pairs of jeans on the living room floor. You should probably ignore those...

Merlin and Sammy are my fiancé Kevin's kitties, and we're now all living under one roof which is awesome and super exciting. It's so nice when bedtime rolls around and he doesn't have to head home to his place, and no longer feeling guilty about either his kitties or my kitties being left alone all the time is great. I'm just hoping that the allergies settle down soon, or my boy Silas might not be the only one who gets semi-regular haircuts. 

Now I'm just wishing I could go in search of a dark and quiet room to curl up in.

WIP Wednesday: Pea Jelly Jam

If you saw yesterday's post you saw this little sneak peak at one of the projects I am working on...

Well, actually it's technically two projects.

I typically do not like yellow but there is something about this yellow and white print that is just so cheerful and sunny. I love it. 

For whatever reason they are showing up a bit darker than they really are. Hopefully next time I take pictures it will actually be sunny.

As I mentioned when I started this blog, it's my darling little nieces that prompted me to give quilting a second try and launched me full-bore into my quilting obsession.

I just cannot get enough of these happy little faces!

Well now Evie and Grace are about to turn 1 and I figured it was time I got my butt into gear and got a start on the quilts I'd been thinking about making since the beginning of October. I used the Jelly Roll Jam pattern from Fat Quarter Shop just like I did when I made this quilt for Kevin's Grandmother, so I got both tops pieced and pressed in an afternoon/evening. I haven't made any progress since then unfortunately seeing as we had to go back to work last week and I managed to pick up a cold somewhere along the way. Seeing as I'm feeling better now though I hope I can get back on the sewing machine and get them finished in the next week or so. They're not going to make it back to the UK in time for the girls' birthday, poop, but hopefully they'll give their favorite aunt a little bit of leeway ;o)

Oh, and that delightful pink pea pod fabric? I have that set aside as the backing for both quilts, because seriously, how could I possibly have resisted using it for my two little peas? :o)

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced Modern.

2013 Finishes Round-Up

Seeing as I was a bad monkey and didn't get any updates posted at the end of 2013 I figured I should take a moment to share some of the projects I managed to finish up in time for Christmas. The biggest (and longest) project was the Christmas quilt for my Mum that I had been working on for a while. Over the course of a couple of long days I was able to finish it up, and I have to say that I'm super thrilled with how it turned out.

Silas as always had to give his approval

The wonderful ladies at my LQS helped me pick out some adorable snowman fabric that made the perfect border and solved my no-Snowman problem.

I just *love* those snowmen!

I backed it with a beautiful snow white scroll-patterned minky that made it super cuddly and warm, not to mention, very heavy! My Mum is a wee little thing and is always cold so hopefully this will help to keep her cozy.

I was also able to finish up the table runner for Kevin's Dad and his wife. It came out quite cute, though perhaps a little simpler than I would have liked, but I think it's pretty cute and they liked it, which really is all that matters. 

All tied up and ready to be delivered :o)

I used a panel of Moonlight Serenade fabric I had in my stash that I think I inherited from my Mum for the top and pieced three fat quarters for the backing, and then trimmed it all with some red/burgundy binding. I used the gorgeous blue variegated Auriful thread for the quilting and did some simple straight line stitching around the graphic blocks. I was able to find some more of the fabric on Ebay as well as a ton of yardage of a coordinating fabric that is the same pattern as the little star blocks around the deer. My plan is to make matching pillow covers for them for Christmas this year, and maybe even some potholders or something if I have enough fabric. 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to finish the Blue Boy Blocks quilt I'm making for Kevin, which I kinda had a feeling was going to happen. So while I wasn't able to give him a quilt for Christmas he still got plenty of goodies from me and a bottle of his favorite whiskey from Santa :o) Again, the ladies at my LQS were very helpful and helped me pick out a couple of fabrics for borders on the BBB quilt. I've got one of them mostly sewn on and the other one cut and ready to sew. Hopefully once I have all the quilts done for the January birthdays I'll be able to set some time aside to finish it up. 

In the meantime I've been writing a list of all of the quilty/sewing projects I'd like to accomplish this year and have decided that as is my nature I am probably being more than a little over-ambitious. I stopped counting when I hit 20 items on my list and still had a lot more to go. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how many I get done.

First Finish of 2014!

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last update! Bad Amber, bad!

I hope everyone out there in blog land had a wonderful Christmas and happy New Year. We had a lovely holiday with a full two weeks off from work (yay!) and lots of time spent with our friends and family. It was a wonderful break and I was very sad to go back to work. Add to that the fact that I caught a cold over the weekend and its easy to see why I've been more than a little lazy lately.

I am happy to say though that I have my first official finish of 2014 under my belt and we're only a week into the new year. Not too shabby if I do say so myself :o) I've got a couple projects in the works as birthday gifts for my Mum and my nieces, both of which unfortunately are going to be late. Poop.

So instead of doing some work on the lap quilt I'm making for my Mum for her birthday (which was the 5th, d'oh!) I decided to whip up a sweet little padded iPad sleeve for her, so I could at least give her something for her birthday, and hopefully she'll be able to use it when she heads off to the UK later this week to celebrate my nieces first birthday with them.

I combined a couple of tutorials from One Shabby Chick and Freckled Whimsy as a guide for the sleeve. It came together very easily and only took a couple of hours. I'm sure that with practice they would go together even quicker. The fabric I used for the pieced top and lining is from the Glimma collection by Lotta Jansdotter for Windham Fabrics that I was able to get as a fat quarter bundle.

I love how it turned out and definitely want to make a matching one for myself, though seeing as I have an Asus tablet with a keyboard rather than an iPad I'll have to tweak the dimensions a little. I'm also thinking that I'd like to make a more masculine version of the iPad sleeve for my Dad using the darker fabrics in the bundle, and if I have enough fabric left, I'd like to make a coordinating version of this notebook cover for Kevin.

So, one week into 2014 and I already have one finished project and another two (or technically three) underway. Not a bad start to the year :o)

And here is a sneak peak of one of the projects currently in progress. Can you guess what it is?