I’ve moved!

I decided to migrate my blog over to Blogger – long story behind that, but so it goes.  If you’re still interested in following along, please update your bookmarks to 

http://thefluffyflamingo.blogspot.com/

See you soon!  Happy crafting!

 

Christmas stockings in progress

I have been wanting to make Christmas stockings for my husband and myself since we got married. I decided to wait until after we had children to do it, though, so we could have a family set. I did not get to make them in time for Kiarda’s first Christmas, given that at that time I was averaging about three hours of sleep a night spread across the entire night.

Anyways, I finally made a decision about how best to create the images in my head about how I wanted them to look: wool felt! I’m about halfway done with them so far, so here’s a picture.

Each will have a white cuff with the person’s name on it. There will be a few embroidered details, as well as a few snowflake sequins added to the background of each one. I think I will opt for a “less is more” with these – I want them to be whimsical and too much detail can detract from that. The stockings will be lined. I may use fun prints for the insides…will have to dig through my stash and see what I can find!

Pillow for Kiarda

I finished my embroidered pillow case for Kiarda! The zipper is a bit wonky, but it was truly an afterthought so whatever. (She won’t notice, I think!) I’m pleased overall with how the embroidery came out. I have never done “fill” embroidery, and I clearly got better as I went along. I only have one picture right now, and it was taken with my phone’s camera as I lent my regular camera to a friend for the weekend. I’ll post close-ups when I get it back. The letters came out much better than the lady bugs, but I did the bugs first and well, there was a learning curve. You get the idea, though!

I’m alive!

So the kiddo has eaten up my crafty time…but I’m still here and have a few things in the works. If you would be so kind, please comment to this post to let me know there’s still someone reading out there? Please?

Turning 20 top completed!

I’m calling it “Turning 20 30″ as I celebrated my 30th this February. (The pattern is called “Turning 20” for the non-quilters out there.) I thought it fitting. Edit: I goofed. This is a Yellow Brick Road. I’ll have to come up with another name, DOH!

There’s a little bit of yellow in two of the fabrics that I wanted to bring out, so I added the thin inner border. I’m really pleased with how this came out! The black dot fabric was the perfect finish, IMHO, as all of the colors of the dots are in the center. I thought a plain black border would be too plain for the fabrics I used.

Been busy!

I haven’t posted in what seems like forever. Just as the weather was turning nice enough to open the windows (and therefore not die of heat exhaustion in my sewing room), we found out we were pregnant! Needless to say, the fatigue of the first trimester put an abrupt halt on any potential crafting. I’m hoping there’s still someone here to read! 😀

Now I’m almost to the third trimester (Kiarda Nicole is due July 11!), and I’ve been busy making stuff for the nursery as well as stash-busting. My sister is pregnant as well, and due about 5 weeks before me. I made a few things for my soon-to-be-here niece, Eva.

Brace yourself, lots of pictures!

First, the nursery fabric I picked out for Kiarda.

I’m glad I bought extra, because it doesn’t exist anymore. This was the Makower challenge fabric, and they told me that it has been discontinued. I can’t find it ANYwhere now. I love it! The walls will be the light aqua color, with an accent wall of the medium blue.

Here is the wallhanging for Kiarda’s nursery, which matches the one I made for my sister’s baby in design. The paisley looks odd from a distance, and the colors didn’t turn out quite right in the picture. The lighting in my sewing room isn’t the best for picture-taking!

Close-up:

Backing fabric and binding – it’s hard to tell but the design on the binding coordinates perfectly with the blue cupcake wrapper!

This is the one I made for my sister. The print fabric is what she’s using in her nursery.

Close-up:

I have been trying to do some stash-busting. As I started pulling out coordinating fabrics, I ended with enough for two tops of similar colors. I didn’t realize I had so much pink, turquoise, and lime green LOL.

A Snapshots by Atkinson Designs top. This will probably end up being a floor quilt/tummy time quilt for Kiarda. The dark pink border actually coordinates with one of the fabrics, but you can’t tell from a distance, or really, the close-up I took, oops! It will also be used for the binding. I couldn’t get the color to come out quite right – there is a pretty dark, royal purple and a chocolate brown with skinny black swirls on it. This entire quilt, backing included, is 100% stash!

Fabric close-up (see the flamingos?). The colors of the dots are pink, blue, brown, and green – so perfect for this top!

Backing for this top:

A Turning 20 top in progress (blocks), also by Atkinson Designs. I just finished piecing the top (sans border – need to get some black fabric) but took this picture once I got the blocks up on the design wall. The binding will be turquoise, which I have also already made.

Fabric close-up:

Backing fabric – LOVE these cute frogs!

Crochet baby car seat blanket

It’s been awhile since I last posted, but since summer nationals, I’ve a) been in a car wreck and getting over whiplash, b) had my sister’s wedding and all the craziness therein, and c) moved. Needless to say, I haven’t done much crafting! I did get this done, though.

I made two crochet baby car seat blankets, using a pattern by my friend Jennifer. One was blue and for my nephew-on-the-way and was given to his mom at a shower two weeks ago. I also did a purple one for a good friend, whose baby is due on Halloween that I’ll get to meet when I go to my conference in New Orleans in November. There is a hole in the bottom center so the car seat straps can hook through it. I took pictures of it on our friends’ baby, Mira. She makes a great model, don’t you think?

2009 Summer Nationals, Day 1

We headed to the venue after we dropped the dogs off at James’s house.
DH got his gear checked, as he fences tomorrow and didn’t want to deal with long lines early in the morning. It also allowed for time to fix stuff if it didn’t pass! Fortunately, he stuff passed and we didn’t have to buy a new lame or anything.

I found an AWESOME deal on some new blades. The blades I use are Uhlmann FIE BF (high-end, international standard; read: quality, but not cheap), and they usually cost about $150 each, withOUT being wired for electric scoring. Wiring with the better German points adds about $20-$25 each, depending on who you buy from. I found some, WIRED, for only $120! I got two, which replaces the two that snapped in May. Fortunately, the way that I fence isn’t hard on my weapons, so they last for years. DH got a new blade as well. I also bought my new knickers and had my name stenciled on them. I also got the tournament t-shirt, a hoodie, and some socks that DH has been drooling over for years. They put the fencers’ names on the back of the t-shirt as usual, but you had to choose first or second half of the alphabet – because of the way they did the names on the back (full names, in columns, in teeny-tiny print), they could only fit half of the 6,000 entrant names per shirt. They used to do the names in a big block, using only the first initial and last name. Yes, it was hard to find your name, but everyone’s name was on the same shirt!

We’ve already seen several folks we know, across all areas of the fencing world – competitors, bout committee, armourers, vendors, etc. I realized that we’re pretty well networked across the country, which is neat. We watched some of the men’s team epee, including a great match between one of the Texas teams and one from…Pennsylvania? Tomorrow, a good family friend is going to come out to watch DH fence and catch up visiting with me (and let me explain fencing stuff to him!), and then he and his wife (my HS French teacher) will come on Saturday to watch me fence. I’m really looking forward to seeing them.

More to come!

Looking for a fabric

I need two five-inch squares of the blue and white batik shown in this picture – if you have this particular fabric on hand, I’d gladly send you a FQ or other payment/trade in return. The FQs I had weren’t cut properly, so I barely don’t have enough to finish this!

Toni hooked me up with a FQ of the other fabric that was short (thank you again!!). I have pictures I need to post of my package from her, but need to locate the camera…

Neglect

I know, I know, I’ve been neglecting this blog. To be fair, I’ve been neglecting my quilting stuff too. *sigh* I haven’t been motivated to do anything creative lately, and I’m not sure why. I think it’s partly due to the fact that life has been very busy lately (most weekends out of town in addition to busyness during the week) and that I’m not getting enough sleep. Sleep-deprived = more mistakes, so I try to avoid providing those opportunities. It’s been a chore to get birthday blocks cranked out, and I have UFOs all over my sewing room. Maybe I’ll drag out something bright and cheery, or maybe finish an easy project..

BOMs

I may get in over my head – I think I may just do ANOTHER BOM this year! And this second one surprises me, as it wouldn’t typically fall into a “me” style or category. January’s is just so cute, though!
http://bunnyhilldesigns.com/dynamic/?page=Free%20Patterns

Hearts

I will have pictures in a day or two. I promise! The top is almost done…

Hawaiian Quilt

I finally have a (mini) Hawaiian quilt in the works. I have wanted to make one of these since I first saw one, but a) wanted my applique to look decent, and b) I wanted to know how to hand-quilt. (A) is still something of an issue, but I can do reverse applique ok – even with needleturn! Whee. I am taking this with me as we travel for Christmas, so I have something small for handwork. Here’s a sneak peek:

The colors are a deep, purple-y blue and bright turquoise. Traditional Hawaiian quilts are made of two contrasting solids – these are true solids, but they “read” like solids. I love the colors. 😀

AAQG Show

The Austin Area Quilt Guild biennial show was this weekend. There were lots of great quilts, including many made by friends and fellow bee-members. I did some volunteer work, including check-out at the end which was crazy hectic. My mom came down on Saturday from Dallas for the show. She behaved herself well overall, but some things are just never going to change…

I found multicolored variegated embroidery floss, which made me very happy! I also got three more mini wholecloth pre-printed quilt tops, a Halloween embroidery pattern, and a needleworked scissor case handmade by a guild member and sold in the boutique (all proceeds go to the guild). I’ll put pictures up tomorrow, as the camera is currently dead and I need to look for the extra batteries.

Here are a few of the quilts. I didn’t get pictures of all of them (there were more than 400!), but I got quite a few and put them up in a Photobucket album.

Here was the Best In Show. It also won Excellence in Design and 1st place in the Art Quilt Category. It was made by Bill Horne, who works at The Quilt Store here in Austin. He’s the first male quilter to win a BIS in Texas!

Here are my two quilts! I met my goal of not getting reamed by the judges. I have a few minor things to work on but overall I got good comments. I even got a “lovely hand stitching” from a judge who is known to have a critical eye for handquilting! Whee!

(My little one blended into the grey curtain, bah.) Not a good picture – can’t see the wholecloth design! Oh well.

Here are my favorite two – the picture came out small on one of them, though:

Here’s a close-up:

This Hawaiian quilt got Excellence in Hand Quilting and 1st in the large applique cateogory. This is my long-term quilting goal – to make a Hawaiian quilt. I can only hope it will be as intricate and beautiful as this one:

Wheeee!!

I’ve been slowly adding blogs to my Google Reader…and after I got my e-newsletter today from Ami Simms, I got to add another! Somehow I missed that link to her blog on her homepage some time back, but I’m caught up now. 😀 If you have never heard of this fabulous lady, go check her out!

*drool*

I am so totally going to have to buy all of BOTH the red and blue versions of Mark Lipinski’s upcoming Krakow line of fabric. I love them all!! Now what to make with them…

Whee!

Three noteworthy things from the weekend:

I got Jöran back! He’s all spiffed up and ready to go now. *cheers* I haven’t had a chance to see how he’s running, but I will tomorrow. I’m glad to have him back. While I love Jenny, my seams are waaaaay more accurate on Jöran.

I finished quilting Cookies & Cream! I am going to block it and get the binding made and sewn on the front tomorrow. It’s almost done, and there is still three and half weeks until the show. Yay!

Only five more blocks to embroider for a siggy swap I’m doing. They’re coming along quickly!

Tagline

Apparently, it’s the theme. This one (“Digg3”) only shows the name in uppercase and doesn’t show a tagline. I guess I’ll be diddling around with themes again. Darn.

EDIT: I think this one (“Connections”) will work. I’d rather it be blue than green, but I a) don’t know CSS, and b) don’t want to pay for the right to change it. So green it will be. The other option looks better visually, but you can’t use a custom header. And I want flamingos on my page! 😀

Heart…pounding…

…just watched the semifinal bout for Men’s Team Sabre between the US and Hungary (a sabre powerhouse). We came back from 36-40 to win 45-44!! OMG!! We still have to win another to get a medal, and if they lose the next round, they would have to fence again for bronze. But STILL.

We also got SILVER in Women’s Team Foil – again, UNHEARD of!!!! We’re SECOND in the fencing medal count this year – *SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

Fantastic Olympic fencing for Team USA.

Fun stuff!

I’m not at home this weekend, but I wanted to put up a quick post about fun quilty stuff from this week! I’ll post pictures in a few days, maybe Sunday night.

I need to check my mail more often – I got a surprise package from Toni! She had been collecting lots of cute flamingo things, and packaged them up just for me! Thank you thank you! I have no idea how long they were in my mailbox, as I’m bad about going to get the snail mail unless I know something is coming. 😀

I went to my sewing bee last night. There was a lady who was a dear friend of one of my bee-mates who recently passed away, and the lady’s daughter asked Mary to clear out the woman’s quilting room. Mary said there was TONS and TONS of fabric, and she brought a boatload of it to bee last night. We picked out the red, white, and blue fabrics for some Quilts of Valor, as well as some cute juvenile fabrics for baby bundles. After that, it turned free for all. I got probably twenty yards of fabric…free!

I took Jöran in today for his tune-up and bath. 😀 While I was there, Amber, the girl who sold me my machine, said, “Oh my gosh! I was thinking about you just two days ago, and your group of young quilters that you get together with. Rafaelle here is learning to quilt, and would probably be interested.” Raff and I hit it off instantly, and she’s super excited about coming to Squad. She’s working on her first quilt, a Stack-n-Whack, and is also interested in dyeing fabric. We exchanged information, so I’m going to do my part to keep in touch! Yay for new quilty friends. 😀