2009 Craftiness

2009 Craftiness, originally uploaded by Lucy & Norman.

I guess I was pretty busy this year! This is an important milestone for me because I only began sewing and knitting again one year ago after my mom bought me a new sewing machine for Christmas. The rest is history. I also made a lot more baby stuff than is shown in the mosaic, but I have been really lazy and cheap about upgrading my Flickr account so I can pull my older photos (put that on the to-do list).

I didn't make a New Year's resolution last year because I figured being pregnant was work enough. Maybe that was a good tactic because not only did I learn an absolute ton about the needle arts, I also gave birth to my beautiful girl and learned how to care for her. My proudest accomplishment yet!

Well back to the boring old classic New Year's resolution this year.....healthy living for weight loss. I want my body back! Probably just in time to get pregnant again, but if I don't get these last few hanger-on-ers off I am going to freak out. I am thinking of going for a farewell Red Mill burger today (you other Seattleites know what I mean!) and then lots of Champagne and pasta tonight. Then it is three days a week of cardio, two days of yoga and lots of fresh fruit, vegetables, lean protein and cutting back on the wine. Not too fun but we are going to Mexico in May and I need to be beach-ready!

My other resolution is to stay on my fabric diet :(. I will show you a picture of my stash soon, but it has really become quite obscene. Now if only Denyse, Heather and Anna would quit designing such must haves.

I am hoping to continue in a big way with my crafty streak in 2010 and looking forward to having another wonderful year full of inspiration from all of you. I truly couldn't have gotten to where I am without the benefit of all of you sharing your beautiful creations. Here is to a Happy New Year to all!

Garden Party quilt

It is finished! And just in the nick of time!

This is my mom's Christmas gift. It is queen size, by far the biggest quilt I have ever made. The thing was an absolute beast, and both my little machine and my body took quite a beating. I made this using Anna Maria's Garden Party line - my mom fell in love with them and I have been keeping this a secret for awhile now! I used 28 different fat quarters ordered from sewlovefabrics on Etsy. For the quilting, I used Gutterman %100 cotton thread and did a fairly close stippling, my first time doing free motion. It was time consuming but pretty fun and easy once I got the hang of it. The back is a pieced Cyan blue Kona cotton solid and it turned out a bit wonky so I don't want to show it to you. Luckily when it was washed and dried all the flaws mostly disappeared. Since I was in a rush I also tried machine binding for the first time, which for me was a disaster. I'm leaving it as is for now and then I will undo and hand bind it before it goes on her bed.

I hope she loves it! I am really excited to give this to her. I need to get in all wrapped up in time for tomorrow, so goodbye for now!

Wishing all of you and yours a very Merry Christmas!!!!!

What I've been up to......

Well, I can hardly believe Christmas is nearly here.....

I would really like to be posting more often here, but I haven't even finished shopping or begun baking! I am proud of myself for finally finishing the quilt top for my mom's Christmas gift!

Now please just wish me luck in the quilting and binding that will most likely consume most of my weekend!

During my down time, I have returned to making hexes in full force! I was sad to see my hexagon pillow leave, even though I am so happy my swap partner loved it, and I love my received pillow as well. But, I was inspired to start what I am calling "the five year quilt", because making enough hexes to make a nice big throw will most likely take that long. I like to call this quadrant "sunshine and lemonade" ...

And here is a nice big old pile of hexagon loveliness. Don't they make you happy?

And I'll leave you for now with another happy picture - my Christmas gift to myself! I have been on a strict fabric diet for a bit now, but just could not resist in ordering a fat quarter set of all the prints in Denyse Schmidt's new Hope Valley line. It will surely be awhile before I get to use them, but in the meantime they make lovely eye candy!

Two very wonderful swaps

Wow! I really didn't mean to be away so long. I'm sure most of you can relate, between the holidays, illness and just everyday life time gets away and so does creative time. That being said, I did cook Thanksgiving for twelve and my husband, then me, and then Lu all got taken down with a nasty virus. I am feeling a lot better now, but she is still totally congested. Her first cold!

I did have enough time this weekend to finally finish my pillow for the Pillow Talk Swap. Sorry it is late - hopefully all the hand-stitching will count for some understanding.

Here she is! Finally my pillow case for the Pillow Talk Swap is finished. I hope you love it partner,

because as you can see, she was quite enamoured with my own Pillow Talk swap piece I received......

This came fro Isa, and I am also in LOVE. My husband is quite taken with this pillow as well:) And here is my absolutely gorgeous Little Red Riding Hood piece from Sam for the Embroidery Swap. I LOOOOOOVE her!!!

And Sam also sent me some gorgeous wool embroidery thread and beautiful buttons along with the package! So generous. I am thinking LR is going to find her way into a throw pillow case soon!

I hope everyone is enjoying this holiday season, and I promise not to be away so long this next time!

Fairy Tale Charm Pack Winners Announced!

I am so sorry to have been keeping you all waiting so long......

The winners of the charm packs are Sarah and Liz B.! I am so happy to know they are going to homes who will love them and I can't wait to see what you make! (I will contact you both as soon as I get a chance between naps and other craziness around here.) Thank you to everyone who entered!

I have been way too busy this week. Husband and I decided to take our first mini vacation without Lucy! We packed up and headed down to Portland, one of our favorite cities, for a two night stay at Hotel Lucia downtown (a great place!). We spent two days walking around the Pearl and Hawthorne, drinking Stumptown coffee, drinking Oregon Pinot Noir, eating at awesome restaurants (Biwa, Apizza Scholl's, Kenny and Zuke's, Ken's Artisan Bakery and Pok Pok) and even got in a little shopping! Here are some purchases I made from some cute little quilt shops in Portland:

As if I needed to buy any more fabric!

Well, back to the business. Does anyone else feel like the holiday madness in beginning early this year?!? If I manage to get in any sewing this week, I hope to make some stockings from comfortstitching's fabulous new tutorial, found here!

Another Happy Day in Fabricland

Yipee! Yesterday I hit the Munki Munki Marshall's jackpot! Snowmen on flannel!

Shoes! Lipstick! Coffee! Polar Bears! Even the elusive OOP Coke Travelers! And full-length cotton poplin Camper Van robes! Lucky for me my mom is a Marshall's regular so she has been on the lookout. These are of course not all for me, some are for some of my lovely swap friends. If you have been searching Marshall's for Munki, too, now is the time to try because once they hit one it is only a matter of time before some of the other locations start receiving some too!

To top it off, I got a long-awaited parcel from Japan containing one of my all-time favorites, Little Peter Pan, and in three colorways. I couldn't resist buying a yard of each. These came from Sonatine on Etsy and she may have a bit left if you act fast. I'm pretty sure this line is long OOP and was too excited to see it pop up!

I also wanted to show you that, yes, I actually DO sew sometimes, not just shop for fabric! I have been trying to do a little work on this simple nine patch using all my Munki prints. It has been so much fun to cut into these fabrics. I am shooting for a twin size quilt for Lucy's big girl bed one day, so I have quite a long way to go, but I'm in no rush. I just wanted to play with the layout a bit, I am thinking of somewhat of a rainbow color-gradation.

I will be drawing the winners for the giveaway this weekend, too - so exciting! I can already tell from all your awesome comments they are going to wind up in a great home.

My First Blog Giveaway!!!!

I am so excited for this - my very first blog giveaway!!! As many of you know, I have been obsessed with japanese kawaii fairy tale fabrics for awhile now. I have scoured shops and the internet and spent way too much on shipping from Japan and Australia to acquire what I believe to be a lovely little collection. Oh, and not to mention the wonderful ladies who have swapped some of these to me! I really, really love these fabrics.

I know a lot of you love them too! Most of these are out of print or really hard to find. There is Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, Sleeping Beauty, Goldilocks, Pinocchio and many more. And don't forget Little Red. I have the fairy tale quilt I plan to make for Lucy all mapped out in my head but with all my other WIPs and the holidays looming that isn't realistic right now. Sooo, I needed an excuse to cut them - you! I really want to share and see what someone else would come up with.

So here is the giveaway - I spent tonight cutting 5 inch charms out of all my favorites - 25 different prints in total. TWO SETS are up for grabs! To enter, all you need to do is leave a message here about what you would love to make with the charms. If you sign up to follow me, you'll get another entry. And of course, the 25 great gals who have already been gracious enough to follow me will be entered a third time! I am thinking I will have my 11 year old niece help me to draw winners, the random number generator intimidates me! Comments will close Sunday evening November 8th at 10 PM Pacific.

Thanks again to everyone bothering to read my postings here. I am still so very new to this crafty-sewing-blogging-quilting-mama business and so many of you have been such a great inspiration to me. All your support and constructive comments are always appreciated!