Hop Hop Sew

I put all those triangles to use this weekend and a mini-quilt was born.  It still needs to be pressed, and then I think I’ll make it into a size we can use around the house.

The triangles were leftover from making these blocks:

The quilt turned out fab.

I got myself a bunny this weekend.  The kids think I got it for them… I didn’t.  As long as they clean out the cage though we’ll keep it our secret.

He’s a sweet little guy and very mellow…so he fits right in.   If I had my way I’d be running a full blown rabbitry by this summer….my husband loves my hobbies (not).   Forget Cluck Cluck Sew….Hop Hop Sew here I come!   ;)

Painted Rocker

A few people asked for painted rocker photos…and while the sun was out I remembered!

Sophie’s up there rockin’ her jammies at noon. 

Of course I was fully dressed/makeup/hair done as usual.

Just kidding about that last part.

This color is fabulous.  I see more of it in my future  (from Walmart ).

Just remember to read the can and not spray paint outside when it’s 30 degrees.  Turns out spray paint freezes.  So the chair needs some touch ups…or else I’ll just call it “character” and leave it.

I painted my red rocker pink to put in Sophie’s room.  She’s just getting big enough to love it.

(yes I got her dressed…2 days out of 3… we’re on a roll!)

I have no explanation for this one….just thought you should be jealous that I have Spiderman practicing airport ground control living at my house.

Jealous?  You should be.  ;)

Fabric and Radio

 

Dear Stella sent me this  summery bundle last month and I've been waiting for some extra time when my floor stays clean and my kid’s don’t need to eat so I can cut it up.  Ha.

Instead I’ll give you a close-up pretty picture of the fabric in the one cleared corner of my dining table, aka craft central.

 

It’s a good thing we have people over now and then or craft central would never get cleaned. 

Back to fabric…this fabric is begging to be made into a summer picnic quilt or throw. 

 

 

Those little garden tools and veggies make me want to dig in the dirt.

If you want to hear some quilt talk I’ll be on American Patchwork and Quilting Radio tomorrow with Pat Sloan. 

It will air Monday the 18th at 1 PM Pacific, 3 PM Central, 4 PM Eastern.

 

Listen to it here or visit Pat’s site here for the rundown.

Posy Squared

I heart this fabric. 

I spent my whole childhood packing around bunnies and chickens…dressing them up and pretending they were my babies…so this fabric was irresistibly cute. 

When you see the pinks alone they look like they would clash…but when they are together in the quilt they work perfectly. 

I made this quilt with 2 charm packs of Posy by Aneela Hoey for Moda, 3 coordinating solids (Tea Rose, Green, and Bunny Hill Pink Bella Solids) and a Riley Blake Green Herringbone that matched perfectly.  The solids help the prints stand out a bit.

The quilt is a Disappearing 9 Patch (tutorial here).

  To make a 38" x 46" crib quilt like this one you’ll need to start with 99 – 5" squares.  Sew the 5" squares into 11 – 9 patches.  Then after cutting the 9 patches in half each way you’ll use 42 blocks, laid out in 7 rows of 6 blocks each.

The backing is this adorable light blue print (the color in the pic is horrible!) and the binding is the coordinating pink stripe from the collection.

Just writing this post has me wishing for Spring!

Saving Scraps: Half Square Triangles

I’ve been using this trick to save my scraps and make half square triangles while I’m at it.  It’s a great method to use when your adding stitch-n-flip corners to a block.  

Lay the square in the corner of your block with the pencil line like so:

And stitch down the line as you normally would.  Instead of trimming and throwing that whole corner away, sew a second line 1/2" away from the previous seam towards the corner like so:

Then cut in between the 2 seams:

Press, and you’ve got your block with the triangle corner, and a half square triangle.

The half square triangle will be 1" smaller than the original corner square you sewed on.  So this corner square was 4", and my half square triangle is 3".   This is a great trick for patterns like Pow Wow where the corner squares are large and it creates a lot of waste. 

Then you’ll have lots of little tiny HST’s to make another project!!!  Because all you needed was another project right??!  ;)

Besides laundry…I’m:

* Planning and coloring quilts…it’s too hard to choose! (pencils from Target)

* Sewing a sweet baby quilt out of this:

* Smoooooshing these cheeks…after she empties every cupboard and drawer she can reach.

* Finally posting a picture of this book….I wrote it when that baby up there was just a bean!

(yay!)

*Making forts….we have no shortage of quilts and blankets:

* Keeping the super heroes/villains fed and happy:

* Sneaking in a little bit more of this:

…and then…I’ll do some laundry.  Maybe.