Howard's Shirts #1

This was the project that easily deterred me from working on my King.

A friend of mine from church lost her husband this past summer. This particular couple was an amazing example to us all. They are the kind of people that you wish there were more of in the world!

After a little time had went by, I sent her a message asking if I could make her a quilt using her husband's (Howard's) button down shirts.

Now, I hadn't spent lots of time with this couple outside of church, so I wasn't quite sure what type of fabric, or what types of pattern's I'd be working with; plaids, hawaiians, solids, etc.

I was so happy when she said yes!

To get to the good part, here is one of the quilts I made for her. She gave me lots and lots of solids, whew, and she gave me so many that I was able to separate the colors and make 2 different quilts.

Here is the lighter/pastels quilt. I quite like how it turned out.

I plan to start on the next one right after the holidays. Very excited to see how it turns out!

Part 6: Along For the Project - My First King

Lets just say that I really liked the varigated blue thread for the quilting that I choose, I wanted the quilt to be "different".

Lets also say that when I started quilting it, I really liked it. It looked good on the dark green.

Lets further say that I continued to quilt, that day during naptime, and made quite a bit of progress, quilting 4 of the 15 inch squares of the 25 total in the quilt.

The next day, I wasn't so sure I loved it anymore. So, I didn't want to work on it...

Yea

The day after that, I decided I didn't like it anymore at all. Enter the seam ripper, but not quite.

I completely lost my desire to work on this quilt, OHHH NNNOOOOO!!!

So, what was I to do???

What any sane quilter would do, I got out a large plastic storage bag from a blanket I bought quite a while ago, and I folded my giant, king-sized quilt up, placed all the extra fabric and scraps on top, put it in the bag, zipped it up, and put it away.

Crap, now I have ANOTHER ufo on my list...

This thought lingered, and so did my dreams of finishing this monster (noticed the transition...).

An idea!! I can just use white thread and do straight-ish lines on the quilt, that is after I take out all the blue...

So, I have been pulling quilted stitches out for about a week now, working on it while I wait in my rocking chair for babies to fall asleep. I think I will be done pulling it out within about 3 days.

Now I'm excited about it again.

And it only spent about a month in exile...

Friday Find: Fabric Organizers

Yay for the First Friday of FALL!!!

Needless to say, fall is my favorite season. I don't usually say autumn, not sure why... maybe it's because "happy autumn y'all" just isn't as cute as

Happy Fall Y'all!

On to the Friday Find!

Let me start by saying I wish I wish I had a ton of these!!! I just don't have a room for sewing yet, so no place for my stash to be pretty on these.

The Fabric Organizers are made by DeNiece's Designs.  They come in 2 sizes, large and small, and can hold lots of fabric! For all the specifics head over to their website: The Fabric Organizer.

(Photo from The Fabric Organizer website)

They even have a video with how they put their fabric on them.

All I have to say is: awesomeness!

My First Fabric Based Bus Trip- Eastern PA Fabric Shops

I really feel like I can call myself a fabric addict now. 

I went on a bus trip, sat on the bus for 2+ hours just to get to the destination, and woke up before 5am to get to the meeting point, all to BUY FABRIC! Oh, and look at tons of really awesome quilts too.

Wanna know where I went??

Lancaster, PA, of course!

Here's the shops that were on "the list":

• Sauder's
• Burkholder's
• The Old Country Store
• Zook's
• Bitty Kinna's
• The Quilt & Fabric Shack, Bird-In-Hand, PA
• Log Cabin

I think that Burkholder's, Log Cabin, and Zook's were my favorite, and in that order. Sauder's and Zook's had the best prices by far, and had a really big selection too.

I didn't get into Bitty Kinna's, but heard from the other ladies on the trip that it was quite nice.

Burkholder's was so pretty to just walk inside and look around. They had the store so well organized, it was almost like fabric heaven. They even had a playground outside, genius!

This is what one of their isles looked like, I wish they had a photo of what it looks like once you walk in the door, breathtaking. Just look:

(Photo from Burkholder's site)

The new "thing" in fabrics is fruits and veggies. These fabrics were everywhere! I got a FQ pack at Burkholders that was folded up like a 6 point star, so very cute. Here's a pic of the vast selection (so yummy, hehe):

(Photo from Burkholder's site)

I even took my soon-to-be eight-year-old (her birthday is next month), and she had fun too! She was much more well behaved than I even hoped she would be, woohoo! Kit had to come along too, of course.

I'll post a few photos of the goodies I got soon.

Sauder's had the cheapest prices of all the stores we ventured to (and I bought almost all of my fabric from this shop). The shop itself felt like someone's basement, with an attic room that housed their bolt sale. I totally didn't have a problem with it, but it just didn't give it any bonus points for me. Thanks for the Beatle's Panels for only $2 each! yea.

In the downstairs of The Quilt & Fabric Shack, they had lots of notions for really cheap! I found some sleeping bag zippers for only $8.75! For reals...

For lunch, we ate at the Kettle Cafe. They had a soup of the day that was Chicken & Corn soup, ohh so yummy!! And, my little LuLu had a chicken nugget meal which she got a coupon to decorate a gingerbread cookie, much fun!

We finished up the trip with dinner at CiCi's pizza. It was fun and totally great for kids. Miss LuLu got to veg out and watch SpongeBob, she was very happy.

Can't WAIT till next year's trip!!

Friday Find: The Stay Pincushion

This weeks Friday Find is another project. I just happened to stumble upon it, and really think it's quite awesome!

Madame Samm over at Sew I Quilt has a tut for this pin cushion that rests on the arm of your sewing machine.

(Photo courtesy of Sew I Quilt)

I really think this needs to go on the "to-make" list... maybe add some pretties to it, like maybe a wool flower.

My "New" Chandelier

When we bought our house, one of the I'd say top 10 things I really didn't like, at all, was the light in our dining room:

Yea, it's ugly. I don't do brass fixtures.

So, trying to not blow our budget last month, and not wanting to invest in a serious make-over by getting a thrifted light, I just went to Home Depot and picked up some spray paint (I could live with a splurge of about $4). I made sure to get the kind that sticks to everything, especially metal, since that's what I was gonna paint (I had no idea there were so many types of spray paint).

Down it came.

I put three coats of paint on it, and made sure it dried really well between coats. I took full advantage of a 100 degree day.

I also decided to use etching cream on the glass things that went over the lights (wow, that was technical... the thingy for the thingy right??).

I am very happy with how it turned out, actually, I think it's quite a nice light now.

The best part is: my husband actually likes it.