Signs of Life!

It's been a scorching 38 degrees here in Illinois with enough sun to kinda-sorta make it bearable to be outside to start cleaning up the planting beds. Parker and I have been busy lifting up leaves and dead grasses to find (gasp!) "signs of life!" He loves to scream "SIGNS OF LIFE!!!!" out loud like he just discovered a secret den of hidden leprechauns. I love this time of year - it gives me hope for flip-flops, tank tops, bbq's, margaritas, and increasing my overall freckle count in the sun.

I hope you've been able to get outside to discover signs of life, too!

In other news... I'm trying to hop on the productivity bandwagon again. I finished my Strip Quilt top!!! The next step is to create the back of the quilt and prepare it for batting - quilting - binding.

AND I've been working on 3 fleece blankets for family and friends. Maybe I'll get a chance to get back to making more items for my etsy shop next week? I certainly hope so! It's been looking pretty feeble-geeble-gobble lately. 

Here's to seeing more sun and warming up for spring! CHEERS!

Kitteh on a Rainy Day

Sometimes I wish I could be the Kitty-Kitty... lounging all day on warm blankets... dreaming of smacking birdies out of the air. I've had a 3-week long sinus infection workin' magic way up in the ol' schnoz - finally was put on steroids of all things to get the dang infection to go away. But still. Wouldn't it be nice to be a kitty for a day? Relaxing until the cooties go away?

At least that's my excuse for not doing any sewing for a week! I have 3 custom orders and a baby gift I need to work on... so I better hop to it!

Nifty Gifty Set

I've been meaning to do something like this ever since I started making baby gifts over 4 years ago - a gift set with a boppy cover, baby blanket, and burp cloth. I keep working on the burp cloth designs... my problem is that 1) I don't have a serger (yet) so I have to do a sewing serge stitch on the decorative fabric edges instead of a real serger finish to try and prevent the edges from fraying (too much)... and 2) since I don't have a baby anymore, my burp cloth testing is limited (read: nonexistent!).

But I digress! Here's my first set made with Amy Butler fabrics. I made it for my son's school fund raiser to be raffled off this Friday. I hope my pretties will go to a good home and cherished forever! I wonder if these would sell well on Etsy?

Vosges: A Foodie Chocolate-Lover's Dream!

This totally has nothing to do with sewing, knitting, or crocheting... BUT it does have a little something to do with my love for amazing foods. My Eric surprised me with a super-special treat when he flew back from a conference this week: Vosges "Haut Chocolat" the exotic collection. If you haven't had these chocolates yet, you NEED to... It's a MUST! These will make you think of chocolate in a whole new light.

We're talking wacky combinations of chocolate with spices, herbs, fruits, nuts, and other pairings... like sweet indian curry powder + coconut, Mexican chillies + organic pumpkin seeds, and ginger + wasabi + black sesame seeds!!! Sounds totally weird but the flavors mixed with chocolate are CRAZY GOOD! 

I can't wait to bite into these beautiful chocolate delicacies. I mean, look at them! They're like a work of ART!

Plus, Vosges is a Chicago-based, woman-owned business - she travels around the world discovering new flavors to pair with her chocolates. Um... may I have her job, please?

AND Vosges is a sustainable business, too: they operate 100% on renewable energy, their facility and production processes have been certified as an organic manufacturing facility, they use organic products whenever possible, and they recycle out the wazoo by using recycled packaging, printing, and shipping materials. 

I'm a recycling nazi and I compost too... so green-friendly products get me all a-twittered. FYI: They only have store locations in Chicago, New York, and Las Vegas - but you can order them online, too. I don't get anything out of promoting this ever-so-sexy chocolate - they're just too gorgeous and delicious to not photograph and share with my friends...

Enjoy your weekend!

Two New Discoveries

As I figure out how to blog, I keep coming across new ideas, how-to's, gadgets, widgets, and thingamajigger's. The two biggies I'm most excited about this week are:

1) I learned how to make ruffles on my sewing machine! All you have to do is turn the thread and pressure foot tension to the max whilst using a basting stitch - who knew?

2) I discovered Picnik.com! I can edit the quality of my photos, add different picture frames around my photos, add words with cool fonts and colors, make photo collages, and much, much more. (The only annoying thing is that when using the free site, there are pop-ups asking you to upgrade.)

To top off all this excitement over amazing discoveries (well, to me it's exciting - I love learning new tricks!), I'll be uploading my two ruffley blankets pictured here to Etsy tonight. Woot!

My first blog post... My first quilt!

Why not have my first blog post be about my first quilt project? I've never made a quilt but have always wanted to... and trust me, I've collected quite a few scraps over the last few years from making the boppy covers, baby blankets, and patchwork balls that I sell on Etsy. Luckily, my fabric group decided to try a quilt-along using fabric scraps. It's called a "strip quilt" because it uses hundreds of fabric strips... um, not because I strip while sewing it!

I spent quite a few hours cutting strips of scraps in various widths:

...and even more hours sewing the strips together using the "paper piecing" method (basically sewing the fabric strips on the diagonal to a 9" square of paper for stability, then trimming each block down to the size of the paper, then tearing the paper off the back):

I've made 48 squares (6 squares across, 8 squares down) with the intent of making a lap sized quilt to keep me warm when I watch American Idol. And there you have it: I have officially confessed that I watch American Idol. I feel so FREE!

Anyway - here are a few pictures of all 48 squares laid out together. I still have to tear the paper off and sew them all together. I'll keep you posted as progress continues. I still have to make the back, sandwich some batting in the middle, quilt the layers together, AND add trim to everything. At least I think that's the order of what I have yet to do...!

So, how did I do for my first posting?