I am a Lucky One...

Sometimes people come around and remind you that there are good souls on this earth. We crafty folk seem to be the best of them. 

A good friend of mine always says "Out here (San Diego), the weather is warm and the people are cold. Out there (anywhere else), the weather is cold but the people are warm." I tend to agree with her. I can't wait to leave San Diego. 

Earlier this week I met an exception to that rule. I was on a local community website and put a request into the universe for fabric scraps. I'd like to start working on some charity quilts and am in need of some supplies. A local artist responded to my call for help and offered some scraps and remnants. So, ok. What do I do now? I've never done this before. It's kinda weird, but I couldn't pass up the offer. I agreed to meet after work. As the day goes on I'm starting to think I made a big mistake. San Diego's version of a storm is rolling in. The sky was like mud and it started to rain. My windshield wipers are shot. I don't know where I'm going. It's dark, I can't see.  I'm really starting to regret this... I find her house, which wasn't so bad, until I open my door to get out. This jackass and his car come barreling down the street and splash a ginormous puddle onto me and my open car door.... Yeah. We're not off to a good start here. 

So, She's waiting for me in the carport, bless her heart.  She walks me over to her storage area and, pulling a box out, offers me a HUGE sterilite bin full of fabric. I'm not talking scraps or remnants- I'm talking full yard cuts! "How much of this are you willing to part with?" I ask. "All of it."... Then she says " you wanna step inside? I wanna show you something," and I  start thinking of the Craig's List murders and I'm hearing the theme song to Friday the 13th play in my head. I'm picturing scenes from Bates Motel... I go anyway. What's wrong with me? She shows me this box on the floor. Oh god. What's in it? ... "You want it?" She says. Oh god. Do I say yes?  And then I see a label: Sewin' Machine. I can't believe my luck. It's brand new she says. Heck yeah! You bet I want it!

Good things happen to me. 😄

So I went home that night and played with all the pretty fabric. There were tropical prints 

And some upholstery fabric

And 

And a bucket of thread and four rotary cutters. 

Wow. Just wow. 

Ninja Stormtroopers

Progress on the Stormtrooper top:

Do you see them? ... They're like ninjas hiding in my brothers quilt. 

I need to put a border on it, cause it's way too small. So far I'm not a fan of borders, but I'm not too keen on sewing anymore of those little squares right now, either! 

I like the way it's turning out. :) 

Mini Christmas

It seems like quite a few of us weren't in the Christmas spirit this year. I didn't even open my Christmas decorations at home. At the office I tried to muster up a little spirit and made these cute stockings for my coworkers. 

This was my favorite: 

Sassy little leopard print for the sassiest girl in our office. And the one behind has scooters on it . Our P.A. Drives a scooter to work, so I thought it was a good match. The picture above was a bad angle, but they really did turn out kinda cute. 

So. That sums it up. That's about all the Christmas you're gonna get outta me this year, hahaha!

Hosting a New Swap on Swap Bot

I'm hosting a swap on SwapBot called Charmed, I'm Sure, Sender's Choice. 

If you like to swap fabric or want to give it a try please stop by swap-bot.com and check it out. 

The idea is to get a bunch of people signed up, you'll be assigned two partners when the deadline closes, and you'll mail out 8 charm squares to each partner. That's it. Quick and easy. This swap is sender's choice - whatever you want to send.

Right now it's still listed on the site under the "newest swaps" header on the left, but if you don't find it there you can look it up in either the fabric, quilting, or sewing categories. 

Hope to see you there :)

Storm Troopers

Storm Troopers!!!



I'm starting a new project, finally. It was supposed to be a surprise for my brother, but if anybody knows anything about me they know I can't keep a surprise to myself. I'm totally lacking self control there. When I saw this fabric I couldn't resist. It makes me think of my brother and for some reason that makes me think of when we were kids. I told him I was making it and sent him a sneak peek of the storm trooper fabric.

I've been wanting to make a scrappy quilt for a while, but my stash isn't too extensive and I don't have the variety that's really needed to make a nice scrap quilt. I picked up a few fat quarters- all black and white at first, but then I thought some gray would be nice, to make it a little easier on the eyes.

This is what I came up with:



I'm going to use the Arkansas Crossroads block, with bright red where the "x's" are going to be:

 

I'll post some update photos later with a link to a pattern I found. Luckily for me nobody knows about this blog and my brother doesn't read it, so some of it will be a surprise :)

A Quilt for Buddha

This is my daughter's quilt for her cat Buddha.

 

I wish I took more pictures of the process, since this was her first, but she's at that  age where she doesn't want any pictures taken  unless they're personally approved by her. In this case she didn't mind too much. She was pretty proud of it, as she should be. She did make the whole thing from start to finish - no help from mom. I gotta admit, I'm pretty proud of it, too.

 

(Ignore the messy house- we had quilting to do!)

 

 

 

 

 

(After a hard day's work, a well deserved cat nap)

 

 

To tell you the truth, I didn't think it was going to get much use, but Buddha really does love it. While it spends most of the time on the floor by the window, Buddha does like to lounge around half on, half off of it. She doesn't seem to mind, either, when my daughter decides she's cold and wraps it around her bed.  

 

Yay, kid! Good job! I can't wait for you to start on your next one : )

California Shop Hops

 

 

                                      

 My friend and I participated in the San Diego Crusin Quilter's Shop Hop both  this year and last. This year's theme was pirates and the fabric handout was a different 5" half strip from each shop. (Last year it was a layer cake square.)

The shops are all fairly local for us. We get to spend a day gabbing and come home with free patterns and fabric - as well as all the spoils of our shopping. This year I thought I got smart and made my daughter sign up for the run, too. I'll drag her along, sometime around noon I'll bribe her with a burrito, then we'll run around some more collecting extra fabric all along the way, right? Hmm. Somehow she threw a kink in my diabolical plans to take over the world. She decided she was just going to take her hard earned fabric and make a quilt for the cat all by herself. (More on that later.) What went wrong?!  Oh well. How could you be mad about that, right? There's always next year...  

 

But, do we really have to wait for next year? Light bulb! I just remembered something. While on that run I picked up a brochure for the Southern California Quilter's Run. It looked insane. There's about 26 shops and the event is sectioned into several parts with each section hosting special prize packs. I really wish I hadn't lost the brochure because the info on line isn't as easy to navigate and I can't find a picture to copy into this post. Luckily they have more info online now. This one offers free fat quarters of Prisma Dye fabrics by Robert Kaufman. Yay!

 

 Too bad the little pins don't show up in the map below. This is just part of the participating area.

 

 

 

While I was trying to look up the dates I ran into info for The Row By Row Experience. Holy geez. If I said the last one looked insane, I know this one is. In just 4 years this event blew up from just 20 shops in New York to  1250 quilt shops spread over 34 states ...and Canada! I can't compute.

 

While you don't get to pick up free fabric at this colossal event, you do get an opportunity to win a fat quarter bundle- Each shop offers a free pattern for a row. Collect as many as you can - no "passport" to keep track of and stamp - and make a quilt with at least 8 different rows. Be the first to turn it in at your local shop and you win the fabric stack! How fun.

 

Now, If I'm right, we may be able to kill two birds with one stone. The So-Cal run is June 18-21, and June 25th-28th. Row by Row is taking place starting June 21st all goes all the way through September 8th. If they don't put any restrictions on the first week because of the conflicting run, we can get the fabric for one run and the pattern for the other on the same trip. Woo-hoo!

 

Ok, kid. You're stuck with us again  ; )  And the cat isn't getting another quilt.

 

I'm still on the lookout for more fun. If you know of any active quilt shop runs in California, please leave me a comment below. I'd love to know! Thanks.