Home at Last is Done at Last

While watching the game tonight with one of my friends from work, I ran off the last little bit of the binding on "Home at Last". I had done most of the work the other day and have been itching to get it done. After that, I cozied up under it while her and I watched the amazing ass whooping shut out the Jets played against the Florida Panthers. While we were watching the game, which Big D got to go to, I finished block 3 of the Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt.

I did a shout out to the members of my historical society for scrap material from the costumes everyone has made. The response was amazing and some people even gave large pieces of fabric. Eventhough I'm going for a scrap look, there should be a lot of colours matching through it which will be nice as well. I cant wait to see how all of the blocks turn out and how I'm going to lay them out. I am also very excited to do hand quilting!!

Blocks 1 and 2 on top, 3 and 4 on the bottom.  

They haven't been pressed yet so they don't look their best.

Well, its off to bed for some sleep before a long and stressful day of work. At least we are close to the weekend and it will be ALLLLLLL to myself to spend it quilting and being with Big D.

Busy Busy Busy

Once again, I have taken a hiatus from posting. Not only have I been working on my own projects like "Home at Last", I have been prepping for another year of Festival du Voyageur and starting on my custom quilt orders. I finished a hood for my Metis costume and a small pouch for my belt. I have been beading it as my project while I'm in the museum.

The quilt I'm making on order is for a one year old boy for his birthday. I am on a very tight one week deadline from start to finish because it has to be shipped out of province. It needs to be bound and it will be ready to ship. Im very excited about it!

Tomorrow is a busy day of regular work and then straight to Festival for another weekend of historical French fun. I'm sure I will be resembling something like the walking dead when the weekend is done, but it is worth it!

In addition to the Gryffindor quilt, Katie's Jump Rope quilt and Scraptacular (another of my own creation) I am thinking of starting The Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt. As if I don't have enough to do already! Lol.

On that note, I'm off to bed so I am well rested for my busy upcoming weekend.

Ooh! I almost forgot!!! I'm on Instagram now! Follow me @crazycraftingcatlady ....of course!

Another Day, Another Topper!

I think this is how I earn the "crazy" part in Crazy Crafting Cat Lady.  As I finish the top to "Home at Last" I started ANOTHER quilt.  If you're surprised, you must be new to following my blog!  My fabric stash has been getting out of control, so a scrap quilt was in order.  I have 13 of 30 blocks assembled from my progress tonight.  It's coming together nicely and I think the colours will complement each other.  I have scraps from my fall table topper, my brothers quilt, home at last, Tiny T's table topper and a few miscellaneous pieces.

Home at Last has been put on the back burner for the time being.  I have material for the backing but my plan to use up the remaining batting from my brothers quilt is not going to pan out.  There wasn't as much as I had thought.  For now, I think I'll focus on making the quilt tops for my scrap quilt, the Gryffindor quilt and Katie's Jump Rope quilt that I started back in early 2011.

A few of the blocks pieced and pressed for the Scraptacular quilt.

Home at Last quilt top assembled!

I have some very exciting news! My blog has been added to Quilting Gallery's blog list! This is a huge directory of some very wonderful quilting blogs and I feel quite honored to be included in this list!  Make sure you check out some of the other blogs listed there!

Home at Last UPDATE

As you can see, my blog received a bit of a make over.  I was tinkering with my website, getting it ready to launch with sales of my patterns and projects and I decided the blog just wasn't quite right in orange.

Some good progress was made tonight on the "Home at Last" quilt.  It seems that it will be much smaller than I originally anticipated.  I'm going to have to add a border to it.  With this quilt top nearing its end, I started thinking about a way to finish it on limited funds.  I have a small amount left of my gift certificate from Christmas, but not nearly enough to get the quilt done.  I rummaged through a few of my sewing bags and my closet and came up with extra batting I saved from my brother's quilt, and two curtains from the old apartment which were no longer needed.  It just so happened that they are a nice chocolate brown and barely used as I bought them only a month before moving.  Fabric is fabric curtains or not, and it should be perfect to finish off this quilt.  I only have one row left!! I'm so excited!

Cabin Fever Free Winter

Saturday night was intense!  I got so much accomplished with my two quilts and they are really coming together nicely.

"Home at Last" now has two rows done.  It doesn't seem like a lot of work done but doing the applique takes a fair amount of time.

Most of the plaid squares are assembled now.  I have enough to get most of the way down the quilt.  I figured it was time to start assembling!

Three rows done on the Gryffindor quilt.  Each row has 19 blocks so it's a decent amount of work to assemble each row.  I'm managing to do a fairly good job of keeping the seams lined up.

The new machine is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!  I love its features, how easy it is to wind a bobbin and how seamlessly you can transition between stitching.  This machine is a good investment even at regular price!

On that note, off to do more sewing! Weeeeeeee!

New Toy!!

After the scare of my sewing machine almost crapping on me before Christmas, it decided to start for real the other night.  Nessie came over for an evening of sewing to work on the Harry Potter house quilts on Thursday.  She was sitting on the floor cutting fabric while I assembled some of my plaid squares.  I paused to adjust my material and heard the faintest *pop*.  I thought it was possibly my tummy telling me I shouldn't have had so much coffee and let it pass.  When I paused a second time I heard *pop pop sizzle snap pop sizzle* coming from the ground.  Realizing that this was not digestive issues, I picked up my foot pedal.  It was HOT!  Turns out there was a short in the pedal causing it to go off when in use.

I consulted a friend in the MLHS who is our resident expert on all things sewing.  She advised she had a similar thing happen and managed to re-wire her machine and it worked fine.  I tend to be somewhat of a magnet for bad luck and decided that a 12 year gap in any soldering or electrical work was not the best idea.  The other option was to take it to her sewing machine guy to have him repair it.  I paid $25 for the machine two years ago and knew that repairs would be more than the initial cost.  The machine only does straight stitching and as my creativity evolves it was only time before I would need a new machine.

I had to pick up some things at Walmart tonight and decided to stop by the craft section and drool over the shiny new machines. (The 3 I've had in my life have always been used).  Wait...what's this!  A Brother sewing machine on sale for $99!  This must be too good to be true.  Sure enough, some poor associate failed to remove the tag from the sale that ended on January 6th. Darn, so close!! It was then that I thanked my Mom for all the little lessons in saving money over the years.  If it's tagged at that price, it must be given to me at that price.  My mind was made up, I was buying the new machine with it's extending table for quilting and 35 stitch option!  What I forgot was that Walmart adheres to the scanning code of practice, and at the register the cashier reminded me that I would also be getting another $10 off for their mistake.  What's more is when I stopped by my parents place for dinner and to show them my wonderful find, they offered to treat me to the machine for all my hard work and deal hunting!  So here, Ladies and Gentlemen, is my BRAND NEW SEWING MACHINE!!!!

It even has beautiful, quilt specific stitches!!

So of course, after unpacking the quilt and giggling like a maniac, I got right down to some sewing.  I got 4 blocks and the first row of the "Home at Last" quilt done!!  I feel like the luckiest girl right now!!

I really love how the beige thread makes it pop!

Four blocks complete and sewn together!

Time to get my ridiculously tired self to bed before work in the morning.  I'm happy that it's only a 4 hour shift, but they frown upon sewing machines at our desks.

Harry Potter Quilt

Welcome everyone to 2012!  I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate!) and a wonderful new year!

I have been working very hard on the Gryffindor quilt and Nessie has begun her work on the Slytherin quilt.  They are shaping up to be pretty darn epic and I can't wait to see more of it come together!

Cutting out the pieces using my new quilting supplies!

All cut out and ready to go!

Plaid pieces sewn together.  I folded them to get an idea of what they will look like!

Here we have Nessie cutting out her pieces.

Strips cut down into their smaller pieces for assembly!

I haven't done anything on the Gryffindor quilt since aside from starting to pin together all the tiny strips for sewing.  I went to Fabricland on the weekend and bought some more material with my gift cards.  A quilting magazine that I picked up during hunting had the cutest lap quilt called "Home at Last" featuring applique houses and hearts.  It showed it in rather modern colours, but I've always been a sucker for quilted items taking a log cabin feel to them.  I managed to clean out the Christmas clearance section for some great finds! 

Here is what I have cut out and laid out to make sure everything works.  It was VERY easy to cut out and was done in one evening.  It is machine applique with a zigzag stitch.  I've attempted one by hand so far as I don't have a zigzag capable machine.

A nice close up of some of the blocks.  This will be so nice when it's done!

Have a wonderful week everyone!  I look forward to sharing more quilting progress with you this week.  I have a hot quilting date with Nessie this week so hopefully we will have more to show you on the house quilt extravaganza!