mmmmm, fabric

Mad About Patchwork recently celebrated their 6 year birthday and had a sale to go along with it.  Well.  It's a Canadian shop with very decent shipping costs and they were having a sale.  No fabric diets over here.

Pam also recently put together these wonderful stash bundles just in time for the sale.  So handy when shop owners group colours together for me.  I picked apart some of the bundles and ordered fat quarters from some of the blue, pink, and red groupings.  But this bundle needed to be bought in it's full glory.

May I present the Pink-Orange bundle courtesy of Mad About Patchwork.

I'd almost call these colours coral and I love them!

I almost wanted to buy a few more of her stash bundles, but I resisted.  I should really use some stash first.  

I am curating a bundle for a Modern Maples quilt to make for myself.  I'd love to have this quilt done for the fall.  It would add much needed colour to my living room and add a cozy feeling with such warm colours.  I'm slowly adding to this grouping. 

I've got some reds, teals, purples, oranges and browns.  I'm not sure how the teal fits in so great, but I can always switch it out later.

I've joined another round of the 4x5 Bee.  I really find this bee a little hit and miss.  I've done two rounds now and each time I get a little more specific based on what was sent to me the last round.  These are the blocks I plan to use.  

There are 7 here, two of which I made, meaning there are 5 that don't fit in very well.  What do you do with them?  I'm not sure.  They may become cushions over time for gifts or tote bag panels. 

For this round I am making this block.  I found this block on Flickr and loved it, so easy choice this time around.

It's actually a super easy block made by sewing strips together and layering and cutting and sewing back together.  The tutorial is here on Melissa's blog.  The only thing I changed was I took off the small outside navy corners and swapped them for yellow corners in keeping with my colour scheme of navy/magenta/splash of yellow.

And I'm finally making good progress on my Modern She Made swap item.  I decided to do a set of 4 placemats.  They are pretty simple in design, but I'm hoping they will get lots of use.

But before I continue on with these, I have to make two birthday gifts, one for my niece who is turning 7 and would like a purse and one for my daughter who will be 4 (!) next week.  I am hoping to finish up a backpack for her. And when did she grow up to be 4!!!

sewing with minions

Unexpectedly, I've been sewing more commission items now than when I wanted to.  Before I really caught the quilting bug, I had a small Etsy shop with some little girls dresses, and I was hoping sales would pick up, but I didn't have the patience or get-to-itness to keep up my shop.  It actually takes a lot of time to post things!  I had some sales via my shop, but I let all the listings expire and now I pretty much ignore it.  However, I also have a FB page attached to my shop and that's where most of the action is.  I have a couple customers who keep coming back and they keep me as busy as I ant to be because now between mothering, teaching, and quilting activities, I don't have much time for commissioned outfits.

In the end, I have a hard time saying no, and so when people ask, I make.

This set of three outfits is for a set of sisters aged 12, 3, and 1.5.  These girls' mom makes chunky bead necklaces and she will be doing a photo shoot in May with her girls modeling her necklaces.  She asked if I would make a set coordinating outfits for her girls.  

I am in love with the pink dress and I really want to make on for my girls now.

I was also asked to make another chef set for another little girls birthday.

D loves to model these for me when I'm checking to make sure the ties are long enough.

On the quilting side, I was asked to join the Traveling Quilts - Canada group on Flickr.  Really, how on earth could I say no to such fun!  I started with picking out colours - navy, lime, and aqua - and then got going on what my starter blocks would be.

I went with a 12" paper pieced star (I completely don't remember what pattern this is!) and then added a couple of things I love.

I did sew them all together, but after doing so, I saw that other members left their blocks separate and I kinda thought that was a better idea.  However, I was in no mood to seam rip and so I sent them as a whole.  If any of you Traveling Quilt members are reading this, feel free to take my blocks apart to make things work.

Yesterday we were given instructions for our do.Good blocks and since they were super quick and easy to make, I whipped them out and sent them off already.  April is going to be a busy month for me, so the less I have waiting, the better.

On the home front, D, who will be 4 this month, asked if she could sew on paper.  After a few trial runs on my dots, she came up with her own design.  She proudly informed me that this is a Y.

The other munchkin is also keeping me hopping.  Such a blurry photo, but this is really how she is 80% of the time. 

If you've watched Despicable Me 2 this will make sense - We call K our purple minion. Really, she does the whole 'BAAAA' thing too!