Doing Too Many Things!

So I really have been trying to get back to put something new on my Blog. But Craziness reigns around here. Tis the Season. Right? I have several things in the works and thought I'd share pictures of some of the projects I am in the middle of right now.

First is the Grandmother's Flower Garden that I'm using Ami Simms Invisible Applique techinique to hand piece. I don't have pictures because I want to show a little tutorial when I get a chance. So keep checking back for that. I don't have her book but saw a clip of her teaching it on The Quilter's News Network. It works Loverly, and I'm addicted. I love it because I can sit and do it in my comfy chair in the family room while the family watches a movie.

Second, I've decided that my extended family members deserve a quilt from me. I've made some for nieces and nephews, but I kind of skipped my siblings. So I put a top on that I've had for a while. Here's a picture, but I can't say who it's for right now. I'm working on having a consistent spine. Usually I just freehand it, cuz it's easy. I love feathers. You'll learn this as we go along. I can't help myself I just have to feather things. This is the first time I've tried this curl thingy. I really like how it's turning out.

Then I started a quilted sweatshirt. I took a class at Innovations in Seattle a couple years ago and learned how to do this. I came home and made one. I gave it to my friend Niquie. She loves it and gets bunches of compliments on it. I've told myself TONS of times that I'm going to make more. Then last year I actually bought a couple sweatshirts and guess what? I never did it last year, so here I am doing this year. Basically you just cut the sweatshirt apart. First cut off the ribbing from the bottom, sleeves and neck. Then cut up the sides and the sleeve seam. Then fold the front in half and cut up the middle of the front. I bought a really cute woven stripe and I love it, but because the shirt lays out funky to be flat the stripes won't quite be vertical on the back or front. But I'm going to use the leftovers to do bias binding around the edges and that will look awesome.

My Niece had a baby in October and I promised her a quilt for her little girl, and so I actually purchased a pillowcase kit because they didn't have any yardage of the cute fabric in the kit. So I'm just adding borders and going to quilt that up. Here's a picture of it laid out w/borders. My niece likes frogs, so the center panel and the green border have frogs, insects and cute sayings.

This is Santa's little helper. NOT! This is my 2 yr old that keeps interrupting mommy's projects and probably why I have so many things going on at once, because I can't remember to go BACK to the one I was working on before and then I get started on something new.

Here's the pink quilt on the ironing board waiting to get the seams pressed. Oh Well. Someday.

Til then Happy Quilting!!!

Keep checking back, I have pictures for how I load my quilt and baste the quilt to zippers.