Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery quilt, Carolina Christmas, is almost done! I chose a different layout than what she designed, but I still like how it's turning out. Click on the badge below if you're interested in the directions for the mystery or just to check out Bonnie Hunter's great website!

I am so excited that Bonnie Hunter has decided to do another mystery quilt this holiday season! I just finished her latest mystery called "Christmas Lights" that was published in Quiltmaker magazine. It still needs borders, but that's pretty much considered done in my book ;)

The last thing I need is another project (how many of us do??), but when I found out that Modify Tradition is starting a quilt along I could not resist. I found this blog through one of my flickr groups and I'm already hooked. I love the look of modern quilts, but I love traditional quilts too! I'm excited to create something that blends old with new. Here's the first block I made. It's a traditional 9-patch made with the fabric line "Wonderland" by Moda.

Check out the new button on my side bar. It is for the Stash Busting Bee that started recently on Flickr. The US only group is full, but they are looking for participants who are willing to post internationally to fill a second group.

Memorial Day weekend was so relaxed that it turned into an unofficial sew-a-thon for me. It's slightly surprising that I had so much time to sew even with spending Monday at the beach and having family afternoon out at the movies and dinner on both Saturday and Sunday (We saw Night at the Museum II and Earth). So without further ado, here's what I got accomplished....

I finished quilting this:

I LOVED doing the swirls. It was so much easier than I expected. Here's some detail:

On Monday at the beach, I did the binding on this UFO:

I pieced these tops for Quilts for Kids from my own stash (as opposed to using their donated fabric). First is a Girls' I Spy Snowball top:

Here are 3 boys' I Spy quilts. The first was harder than I expected when it came time to put it together. I stuck with some easy 4 patches after that!! The first was a UFO that I finally finished. The second 2 quilts were easier and I pieced them over the weekend.

This weekend I put some borders on the baseball quilt and finished quilting and binding it along with the Spiderman quilt. I pieced ANOTHER top for Q4K and made myself a new ironing board cover. I LOVE IT!

Thanks for stopping by! Happy sewing to everyone :)

This is my most recently completed project. It is a Grandmother's Braid quilt made entirely from scraps. A portion of the scraps were given to me by Karen from Australia, who was my partner for the We the People Scrap Swap. She included the pattern because it is very scrap-friendly. Figuring that it was the perfect way to have a memory of the swap, I went straight to work on the project and LOVE the way it turned out. I used my embroidery module to quilt feathers down the braids, and I did leaves in the border freehand. I am very happy with how this quilt turned out!

A couple months ago I made a Japanese mini for a swap with the Swap 'till you Drop group on Flickr. This was the first time I had made anything Asian-inspired, so I googled Japanese quilts and came up with so many ideas that I ended up making 3 minis! Circles are used a lot in Japanese quilting so it was a great opportunity to use my circle ruler and Bernina circle stitching tool. I completely forgot to take a picture of what I sent my partner, but I actually liked it so much that I made a slightly larger version of it for myself:

My inspiration for it was a kimono that my husband bought me on one of his business trips to Japan:

Sea turtles are also pervasive in Japanese quilting. I had a batik scrap with a sea turtle on it, so put that with a few other batik scraps and, voila!, another mini was born.

In swapping news, I received a package from Nikki for the Seams to Me swap over on Itching 2 B Stitching. This girl spoiled me! She made me the Taxi Tote from Anna Maria Horner's new book, but she didn't stop there. The bag was filled with TONS of homemade goodies.
She included headbands and bracelets for my daughter, a funky fiber eyeglass case (my favorite!), an embellished wrist band and a bag full of crazy quilting goodies. Now, I'm all for sending your swap partner a few little extras, but this was completely above and beyond what I could have hoped for. I can't imagine how much time and effort she put into all these goodies. I looked through it multiple times last night like a kid looking through their Christmas presents. Each item has so many interesting details and embellishments. Too much fun! Thanks, Nikki :)

Here are 5 more quilts that will be donated to Quilts 4 Kids. These quilts are so satisfying to make. When I get to work on them, the colors and fabrics always brighten my day! And I love looking at a big stack waiting to be donated.

Here they are individually:

What did I do yesterday?

Oh, not much. I just whipped up 75 mini nine patch blocks for a swap:

A few months ago I made 100 green nine patches, and this time around the colors were red, orange and yellow. Guess what the bonus is. All of the red, orange and yellow fabric in these blocks is from my scrap bin! Not a single yard of fabric was cut into for these little babies (each one finishes at 3.5"). In keeping with the thrifty theme, I didn't even let the leftover bits go to waste so I made myself some scrappy blocks too:

On New Year's Eve I started Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt called Double Delight. It's been 3 months, but it's finally done! For some reason I did not want to post it until it was completely finished....

The finished dimensions are smaller than the original pattern. The first step involved making 180 units and then there was a step that required making 360 units or something obscene like that! I decided to start out by making half the units called for and then seeing how the mystery turned out. I'm glad I did because once we had the final block constructed, I realized that I was happy with the smaller size and only had to make 4 more blocks to complete the quilt. Here is some of the quilting detail:

I used the embroidery module for the setting triangle motifs and I did the stippling myself. That's a lot of stippling. On the back I decided to use some of the extra units to avoid piecing 2 widths of fabric together:

The colors are also different than Bonnie's recommendations mostly because I was trying to work from stash. Next month Bonnie is speaking to our quilt guild and I am bringing this quilt for show and tell. Guess I better fix all my little mistakes before then!

Today my youngest son was at his friend's house for the morning, so I took advantage of having the house to myself and decided to learn how to use the embroidery module that I got for my anniversary 2 months ago. What a great morning. I can't say that the Bernina manual is very user friendly, but I figured out the basics and was able to get some quilting done on a new quilt for my niece. I am calling it "Ava's-spring-out-and-about-quilt". OK, so I'm not the best at naming my quilts. Here is the quilting that I got done before I ran out of thread:
A little closer.....
The goal is to finish the quilt by Saturday, which is the next time I am visiting my sister's house.

I've been getting a lot of things done lately. Mostly I am trying to wrap up swaps before gardening/swimming season starts and I don't have as much time inside. I'll be continuing with my mini quilt swaps, but reducing the number of block and fabric swaps I take on. In other projects, I am furiously quilting my Double Delight quilt so that I can share it at guild next month when Bonnie Hunter will be our guest speaker. How exciting will that be??!?

Happy sewing :)

From the look of my blog you would think that I haven't been too busy with projects. In reality, I've been very busy, but haven't been able to post my finished projects because I was waiting for my swap partners to get the first look at them. Here is what I've been up to....

This mini was made for missmikol from my HGTV mini swap. Check out the beauty I received from her:

She really outdid herself on the machine quilting. Each section has its own motif.

The following mini was made for quiltinkimmie from the flickr group STUD (swap till you drop!). This was my first month swapping with this group so I felt a little pressure, but I really enjoyed making this one, which was for the Anything Goes category.

I also signed up for the Japanese category and finished tacking down the binding on that last night, so I can get that mailed off to my partner tomorrow. Then comes time to work on the April STUD minis. In addition to Anything Goes, the April theme is Spring Flowers.

There was another surprise on my doorstep last night. It was my Amy Butler weekender bag from Shari for the We The People Swap 4. I can't tell you what a phenomenal job she did on this bag. There is not a stitch out of place. Beautiful work!!

Today was a great day to ignore the housework and enjoy some sewing projects. First thing this morning, I decided to finally assemble some crazy quilting blocks for lesson 1 of an online CQ class I'm taking through joggles.com. Here is what I came up with:

It wasn't my favorite top to piece together, but I love learning new patterns and the people that attend the workshops are a lot of fun to be with. I do like how the final product turned out though.

In swapping business, I received my Teeny Tiny Squares Mini Quilt from Maria in Denmark! Maria said that this was her first mini and I think she did a great job. Each square finished at 3/4" and they were pieced together perfectly! Many thanks to Maria for the great goodies too. I am hiding the chocolate from my husband because he almost completely devoured one of the bags!

Today I received my first mini quilt from Kathy2859, my swap partner for March from the Flickr group called STUD (swap til you drop!). We are swapping Japanese-themed minis, and boy did she send me a beauty. Feast your eyes on it....

She also sent me some great swap goodies:
When my husband saw the goodies he said, "I hope you've been sending goodies out with your swaps!" I replied that of course I do, but I think his reaction was cute :). So, now I have swap anxiety!! What if my mini doesn't cut the mustard?? I can't post it here because I want Kathy2859 to be the first to see it, but I'm really hoping that she enjoys it. I feel very lucky to have received her work.

On 2/27, I left for Italy for three days. Even though it was short, it was a perfect weekend getaway. I made 2 gifts for our hosts: a table topper for Daniela and Leo, and a lap quilt for their daughter, Fiona.

The best compliment I received was when Fiona, their 2-year-old, asked to hold the quilts that I made, and she proceeded to wrap herself up in BOTH! So what if one was actually a table topper!!?? It was too cute and it was the perfect show of appreciation! I almost shed a tear when she opened up her quilt and said in a precious little voice, "Che bello." (How beautiful).

DISCLAIMER: If you are my partner for the Amy Butler weekender bag swap and don't want to see your bag, stop reading! If you do want to see it, then continue on....but don't tell me if you don't like it because I'll be crushed!

This bag was the most heavy duty sewing I have ever done, and that's considering that I do make a lot of home decor items with heavy fabrics. Not only is the fabric thick, but there are layers of Peltex, interfacing and cording, and that's just on one side of the seam! Try putting together 2 panels that are interfaced, Peltex'ed, and have cording in addition to 2 layers of fabric. I'll tell you what you get: A whole lotta broken needles and cursing. The actual make up of the bag was pretty easy: 2 main panels, a bottom panel, top panel with a zipper, handles, pockets and a lining all put together in your typical way, but the number of layers was BRUTAL! I am thrilled that I finished it. If this project hadn't been for a swap I would have put it to the side for a long time and probably forgotten about it. That's what I like about swaps. They take me out of my comfort zone. Anyway, here it is:

In other project news, I competed step 1 of my English paper piecing mystery, and received step 2 this morning. Here's what I have so far: