Weekend Wrapup: Scraps and More Scraps

My scrap pile was getting unruly - so bad in fact I am a little ashamed of even showing it!  After hours of organizing and cutting and decision making ... and pure chaos, comes more scrap projects.  Don't you love scrap projects??? I know I do.  It does require a bit more work, planning and crossing your fingers - hoping you have enough of a certain fabric to complete the project you have planned in your head.

After a while of planning and organizing I have a (huge) neat pile of scraps for the shop and plenty enough to start my next quilt :).  Here's my scraps , cut to size and and for use:

A little while more things are beginning to take form - beginnings of many, many piecing:

Can you guess what quilt kind of quilt I'm making - here's my inspiration from Cluck Cluck Sew :)

Here's my first block - pinned on my design board:

Fun times :) Hopefully I get this one done soon! Have a great and production week everyone!

Weekend Wrapup: Star continues

This weekend I spent a lot of time NOT in the sewing room. Between end of summer events and wedding planning for my sister's wedding (next June) I was barely able to sew. I manage to finish up a few stars:


But have a bunch more to finish up:


I'm still in the process of transitioning over JAQS fabrics to www.jaqsfabrics.com. I have a bunch of fabrics coming in this months, so hopefully some 'free time' opens up one of these weekends so I could actually add them to the new shop. Oh yeah, did I mention the 10 quilt ideas I have swimming around in my head I still need to get on paper??? Lots to do :)

Have a safe and wonderful week - enjoy the rest of summer :)!

Weekend Wrapup: Seeing Stars

First off I am glad that my local post office is not closing.  News is that nearly 3,700 USPS post offices will probably be closing soon.  To check if your local post office is on the list go HERE.

In addition to closing offices they will also be canceling Saturday services. I wonder what kind of other changes are on the horizon and how this will affect small business like mine who depends on the USPS for shipping.  I guess we'll have to wait and see and keep our fingers crossed that changes are for the better...

On to some lighter discussions, I've been seeing a lot of star quilts around so I decided to make one of my own.  Never made these before so I was a little bit nervous about it, but so far they are so much fun to make! Here's my progress so far:

I still have a huge stack to complete:

I love quilting! :)

Weekend Wrapup (Belated and Productive)

You know you have got a lot done with you see this:

And a pile of fabric tags that is no longer tagging fabrics :)

How about a messy fabric closet?

Good times :)

Have a great and happy ... and productive week everyone!

Weekend Wrapup

This past weekend I did some rearranging around my cutting table. No more taping designs to the wall - now I have a fancy new cork board ;). (Notice a few pieces of paper is still taped to the wall on the far right ride!) Hopefully this will clear up some table space and help me to stay better organized...hopefully...

I just noticed from this picture that all my designs are along the bottom of the board...then I realize that I will not be tall enough to ever reach the top.  Ha!  I'll need to move this board a tad lower...

I am also in the little-quilt-mood.  After some big quilt finishes I am needing to work on some smaller projects.  So with a few simple designs in mind and some fabrics I've been dying to use I am on a quest for little (re: baby) quilt fun.  First on the line up is a simple little quilt I call "Little Man's Best Friend"

All pieced and quilted :) - I am loving these smaller quilts!

On a slightly larger scale I am making color #2 of the Modded: Animals quilt. Remember the first one had the orange polka dots? The second one will have green:



Have a great and productive week everyone!

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Weekend Wrapup: With a Teeny Bit of Sewing

Holiday weekends are great - lots of great food, lots of time with family and friends and even a teeny bit of sewing ;).

I finished making the rest of the binding for the Zig Zag quilts.  This is one of the fabrics for the binding - bright, colorful and playful :)



Once all the binding was ready I moved onto creating more circles for the upcoming Circle My Way quilts. They are quite fun to make but a little time consuming I must say. Here's a peak of the raw edge edges:



Have a safe and wonderful Independence Day USA readers :).

Oh yeah just a reminder that the JAQS Fabrics sale of 15% off (coupon code FABRICLOVE15) your entire purchase will end July 5th - come on in and take a look at the great fabrics available :)

-Q

Weekend Wrapup: Seeing Circles

Busy busy weekend. Besides from hanging out with my energetic family with chalk full of activities, there was plenty of room for some sewing room activities as well :) (YEH!)

So this is a peak at the next quilt on my cutting table:

Venturing into the world of circles for the first time. So far so good. Pretty fun, though a bit tedious to hand cut.

I am also on the finish line of completing the Zig Zag quilt - finish photos to come soon. This is the first of TWO big quilts and I also have to smaller ones too waiting to be pieced:

Working on this zig zag quilts as been FUN :)

This I am also putting together more cloth napkins for my JAQS Studio Etsy store.  I need some more for our kitchen as well so I'll try to make enough for both ;).

Have a great and productive week everyone :)

-Q

Weekend Wrapup: CATCHUP!

Yes I know - projects around here was taken a back burner lately.  We are FINALLY getting some California sunshine around here so a lot of outdoor time with the little ones are in order :).  I am also making it my priority these next couple of weeks to work on some much neglected sewing projects.

On the plate:

-finish up pattern for Pretty Blocks

-Work on Zig Zag Quilts

-Finish Framed Blossoms

-Add new fabrics to JAQS Fabrics

-work on some smaller projects

Got a kick start over the weekend :)

-Zig Zag Quilt #2 final piecing and almost ready for basting

-Framed Blossoms all quilted and machine binding here I come!

Here's to a great and productive week.

-Q

Weekend Wrapup: Zig Zagging

Not much sewing this weekend - time with family weekend :).  Lots of activities: tide-pool, beach, gardening, games, play-play-play, and just having fun.

One thing that I did manage to work on before the busy weekend was getting the #1 of the Zig-Zag quilt sandwiched and basted.  Now it is ready for some quilting - and no I haven't decided how I'm going to quilt it yet :P.  It's a huge quilt so I'm thinking free-motion?

Here's a peak of the Zig Zag quilt ready to be sandwiched:



Sandwiched and ready for basting - check out the many...many...many safety pins. I get a little paranoid the layers getting shifted, so I usually use A LOT of pins to keep all the layers in place. Better safe than sorry right? :)



Have a safe Memorial day everyone!

-Q

Weekend Wrapup - Belated

Had quite a productive weekend - niece's birthday party (HAPPY BIG 5!), spend some fun times with the boys, and even spend some time in the sewing room.

Made a lot of progress on the Zig Zag quilt:

A preview of the Pretty Bricks quilt COMPLETED :)

...and of course a messy messy sewing table to boot:

...don't forget the chaos that was the nicely organized fabric closet. 

This closet tend to get pretty darn disorganized pretty often - with the onset on new projects, more quilts and fabric orders coming in.  Don't worry this looks pretty neat a few hours after this photo was taken - I can't stand it THIS messy :P.

Have a great week everyone - happy sewing!

-Q

Weekend Wrapup - Half Triangles and Outdoors

This weekend was full was half triangle fun - for the Zig Zag quilts.

That means a lot of cutting and sewing:

...and pressing:


I could totally see how making these half triangles can be quite addictive.  More progress to show SOON :).

This weekend was also full of beautiful weather. Remember the little nest in our little planter box?  Well all five of those eggs have hatched and now we get to watch these 5 little birds grow up:

How adorable are they? They are just 2 days old in this picture and already they look much bigger...though still teeny tiny.

This is the first year ever that I have had any orchids re-bloom :).  This is the one outside in our walkway - 4 stems of beautiful orchids!



Have a great and productive week!

-Q

Weekend Wrapup and Washcloth Tutorial

This past weekend was very easy going.  We spent most of Saturday out and about - hanging out with great friends and enjoying the beautiful weather.  Sunday was family time and spending time around the house.

One of the small projects I'm working on are washcloths/burp-cloths.  I don't know why, but I LOVE making these things.  I guess they are like teeny tiny little blankets :).



And the results? A super cute, super soft, all-purpose...did I mention super cute??...washcloth/burp-cloth/all-purpose-cloth :). For the front I use some of my favorite fabrics around the studio - all 100% quality cotton of course. For the backing I used an French Terry 100% organic cotton.

Have you ever worked with French Terry before? It is the softest , coziest terry cloth I have ever used. Though I must say - it is a little troublesome to work with. The ends curl up a bit if you try to pull on it too much. The key is to keep it from pulling in any one direction too much and keep it flat. Here's an example of the curling:



Don't worry the curling isn't permanent and doesn't happen once the fabric is securely sewn in place.

I cut each of the fabrics - backing and front into rectangles - 10" x 15". The finished washcloth is about 9.5" by 14.5".



Put the right sides together, sew edges with 1/4" seam allowance leaving an opening about 6 inches wide. Using the opening flip the washcloth right side out, press all corners and edges flat and sew about 1/8" all the way around.

With a little bit of practice you too can make these little guys - great for use around the house, makes for a great baby gift and definitely eye candy for any room :).

-Q

I will be sharing these at THESE lovely Linking Parties.

Weekend Wrapup

You know you have had a productive sewing room weekend when this is how the room looks like by Sunday night:

Did I mention that is the NEATER part of the room? EEK!    A lot of organizing and cleaning up to do.  When the room gets this messy it's actually not all that productive to work in it.  I spend countless minutes shuffling through piles of fabrics, loosing design pages, random pins everywhere and rearranging the cutting table to get a few inches of workable space.  I don't know about you but I HATE it.  All the while I'm thinking I should stop now and clean up.  Next time I'm in that room I will tidy up!

With that said, I did manage to do a lot of cutting and sewing despite the mess.  Here's a sneak peak of two quilts I have been working on:

Framed Flowers - A look at the 'Frame'

Pretty Bricks

Here's to another productive week and some much-needed cleaning :).

-Q

Belated Weekend Wrapup :)

Been such a whirlwind around here I even forgot to give a wrap up of the weekend.

The weather was GORGEOUS this weekend. Our tulips popped in our new little tulip path. I even got a chance to plant some strawberries, beans and tomatoes. Love being in the garden again after a long winter. I also got in a shipment of Michael Miller fabric. Can't wait to start cutting and sewing with the new yummy fabrics :).



Speaking of cutting and sewing - I am well on my way to my next quilt. Can't wait to show it off.




There's also Spring Wheels #2. I finally finished up the quilting for it. Took way longer than the first quilt. You would think straight lines would be faster to quilt than curly right? Well that's what I thought at least and I was wrong. To quilt along each of the pinwheels took way longer than I expect.  But like any difficult project, the work is always worth it in end.

-Q

Weekend Wrapup

As a Californian pretty much my whole life, I am not used to extreme weather.  So with constant and rapid rain and wind this weekend, I felt a little...lost.  First off, the kids have been stuck inside the whole weekend.  Without any break in the rain, it was hard to keep them entertained.  We went through several of their favorite TV shows, read about every book in the house, the house itself is a MESS, and they were bouncing off the walls ... well not literally...sorta.  Hopefully we get a break soon and they could stretch their legs outside soon.

Luckily I was able to get a little bit of quilting done. 

Got some fabric ready for the next quilt:


Basted and quilted Spring Wheels #2 :). I am very excited about this quilt. The design and colors are a welcomed break from the gloomy weather and colors outside.


Added zippers to a couple of more Simplicity Pillows:


So that was my weekend in a nutshell. What did you work on this weekend?

-Q

My Weekend Wrap Up

This weekend, I had many chances to sneak away to the sewing room...and the results??

• My sewing room got a little messier :P

•  I got A LOT of cutting done. Cut up fabrics for THREE projects :). Super happy about that.

This is about 1/10 of the piles...

• I now have MUSIC in my life again.  I couldn't resist but I got a IPOD Nano and a little speaker setup.  Initially brought for jogging, this Nano has found a second purpose in the sewing room.

And yes - that is Keith Urban .... dreamy :P

How was your weekend? 

My next task?  Probably tidy up the sewing room a little :P...and then a whole lot of sewing...

-Q