The Bunny Quilt: Front

Luna is a wonderful house bunny. She even helps me in the sewing room. Here she is in my scrap bins picking out fabric for me.


What she didn't know was that she was picking fabric for a quilt that will be hers. Now I know that making a quilt for my bunny sounds ridiculous but hear me out. We keep her condo in my sewing room and have the bottom lined with a blanket so she can't chew on the carpet. Here is her condo.


Up until now we have been using fleece blankets, but they are flimsy and she keeps biting holes into them so a sturdier option has to be found. Andrew suggested trying a drop cloth, which seemed to work. So I had the clever idea to make a quilt and back it in drop cloth material and leave it face down (so she won't chew on the pretty fabric). This was the focal block I came up with.


I had been wanting to try reverse applique, so I decided to give it a try.


This was the little bunny I came up with.


I had also wanted to try the strawberry paper pieced pattern from Sew Ichigo, so I made a couple of those.


And Luna loves eating flowers! So I made some of those too. I modified the pattern to make the stems taller and have them growing right out of the ground instead of a pot.


Actually I made three, but forgot to take a picture of the third one on its own.


And Luna's favorite thing to nibble on has to be greens, so I made her some leaves.


So then I set about organizing these blocks into a quilt front, and here it is! Now I just need to work on building up the courage to quilt this with drop cloth material on the back.

New Yorker Geese Pillow

I have been wanting to try my hand at more curved piecing lately, and decided the best way would be a New York Beauty block.  The paper pieced pattern came from over here. But I didn't want to commit to a whole giant block because I'm scared of curves, so I made 1/4 of a block for a smaller throw pillow cover.


Well when I finished the block I realized it would look really boring with part of a star in the corner of the pillow, so I drafted some flying geese to go around the edge. I guess you could say I started to get comfortable with curves. I did not mean for the geese to meet in the middle and wanted them to all go the same direction, but I actually like it more this way.


I even finished the back off with a hidden zipper closure.


Oh! Oh! The best part is that everything (fabric, zipper, AND pillow form) came from my stash! YES!

Spring Break: Part One

I am so thrilled to have a break from teaching for a week! My car is in the shop, so I am stuck at home and have been working hard to maximize my time, which would explain the project riddled, photo-heavy post. I'm going to try and be brief. It would also explain why I'm done with both of my LYoF goals for the month: My Pantone challenge quilt and my STBS tote bag. Both are in this post.

I finished the front of my Pantone challenge quilt. Here is a close-up fabric shot to see the Radiant Orchid-ness. Mmm, shot cotton.


Here is a shot of the whole front. If I have time to quilt it, great, but at least as a front, it is enterable. The top is 48" by 48". Once it is quilted, I am planning on binding it in that green color between the leaves.


I made my first Spoonflower fabric! Woot! You can find it here. It is a 19" x 24" map of Middle Earth. I have uploaded several different orientations and sizes, if you are interested.


I got the panels made and quilted for this round of Secret Tote Bag Swap.


I even finished the tote bag and made it to the post office to get it in the mail before my car went into the shop.


The boyfriend and I made some blueberry cornmeal pancakes. The cornmeal pancake might have been my favorite pancake ever! Recipe is here, but we didn't coat the blueberries in sugar.


I started on my mug rug for the March Mug Rub Revival Swap. I made up a paper pieced pattern for the block and will hopefully release it soon.


We also made a key lime pie and topped it with tequila lime whipped cream. (Recipes here and here)


We also made some spinach, caramelized onion, & mushroom grilled cheeses. I might whip up a recipe post for these.


Then the chickens were 27 days old and I caught a photo of two of them mid-flight.


We also made some Guinness stew and it was amaaaazing. Recipe here.


Then there were the dulce de leche stuffed cupcakes...


That turned into salted caramel cupcakes! Recipe post for these is in the works.


Then the chicks turned 4 weeks old. Here they are looking huge and waiting patiently while we clean their cage.


And here they are in their new cage with a perch! One little lady is even testing the perch out.


And we grew some broccoli.


Pfffew. I'm exhausted. Have you also been busy? If so, what are you working on?

Plenty to do

This month for LYoF, I am going to divide my attention between two main goals. First off we have my Pantone challenge quilt. This is my fabric haul for it. The two left fabrics are solids and the second from the right is a shot cotton. I have never used shot cotton before and I am loving it! I have a design and everything is cut. Stay tuned for progress!


My other main goal for the month is to finish up my bag for the Secret Tote Bag Swap. (Is it cheating is both of these HAVE to be done this month?) This is the main panel I have come up with. It is now trimmed and on its was towards becoming a bag.


While I was working on the boxed corners for the tote last weekend I broke not one...


But TWO needles! Dang. This second one was even a brand new denim needle! There are just so many layers in this bag. I might have been a tad overzealous in my plan. Oh well. With a third needle I was able to get the corners done!


I also served as a pattern tester for TartanKiwi and came up with this lovely badger (pattern is now available for free over here). I named her Constance after the badger in the Redwall books. She is going to be the focal block in a tote bag for a friend of mine who is ironically named Constance. (She goes by Connie and would kill me if she knew I just called her by her birth name!)


In an exciting twist of fate, I actually won something! Something gorgeous! I won all this fabric from Cuts of Cotton! I have no idea what to do with it.


Then of course we have the chickens. They are thriving. Here they are at 11 days old, learning the joys of napping in laps.


Two weeks old.


 Now 18 days old and huge!

Winter Prep: Part 2

In between teaching and grading I have managed to fit in some much-needed sewing. The sewing has been much needed because the projects have had time constraints and for stress release since I have one student who is being a total jerkface. I won't talk about that because thinking about it makes me involuntarily grind my teeth. Instead I will focus on the sewing!

I finished the matching mustache tree potholders for my BFF and I. The piecing process was detailed over here. First off, here is the detail on the star. The thread is metallic so it sparkles a little!

Then there is a close-up shot of the mustache stitching. The photo is at such an extreme angle to show how poofy the mustaches came out! It looks like trapunto (which I have no idea how to do!). The accidental way I pulled this off was by using fusible web applique for the mustaches then by machine quilting around them but not on them. If you want the mustache templates I drew up, let me know and I can send them to you.


Finally we have an overall shot showing both of them. Mine is the one without the hanging tab.


Over the weekend my boyfriend and I were able to fit in some homebrewing! This is a batch of Imperial Red IPA. Yum! Now we just have to wait for it to be ready.


There was also some marathon cooking going on. First off we have these strawberry basil grilled cheese sandwiches which were delicious, though we doubled the basil to ensure we could taste it. The cheese was a little lost, so maybe stronger cheese next time. Recipe over here.


We also made some amazingly delicious caramelized garlic tart. Seriously, this was one of the most delicious quiche things I have ever tasted. It could totally use some veggies though, like spinach or asparagus. The recipe is from Martha Stewart but we didn't use puff pastry for the crust. Instead we used the olive oil pie crust recipe from Vegan Pie in the Sky, which you can find over here. Or you can just buy the book and learn the secret to my peach basil pie!


Oh my gosh, it is so gorgeous!

I broke all my rules and took on another commissioned t-shirt quilt. The only commissioned quilts I have ever done are t-shirt quilts, and the only t-shirt quilts I have made are commissioned quilts. Because of this, I don't know if I hate making t-shirt quilts or commissioned quilts. Anyways, here is the initial layout, which was too long and skinny.

So I added some sashing from leftover t-shirt bottoms to make it a little wider and came up with this for the front. Now I just need to quilt and bind it so that I can deliver it in time for it to be given as a Christmas present. 

On a happy albeit unrelated note, Finn, our betta is finally happy! We got him a heater and he loves it. Check out this incredible bubble net he made to show how happy he is! 

The last bit of marathon cooking was pork loin roasted with veggies and mustard gravy (recipe over here). Ooo, this turned out so tasty! Our piece of pork was smaller so it cooked up very quickly.


The last bit of holiday prep sewing I have been working has been really fun. For background information, my family is super nerdy and if you put us all in a room together, it is likely that we will start playing Dungeons & Dragons. Because of this, I have an assortment of dice, trinkets and pencils to locate and pack prior to any family function. I really wanted a small bag/pouch thing to hold it all in so it could be contained and more easily packed. While searching for an appropriate bag, I discovered that nearly all dice bags are drawstring which seems silly to me because dice and pencils can fall out the drawstring. So it dawned on me that I could just make a totally awesome zippered pouch!

I decided to use part of a t-shirt for one side (stay tuned because that is staying secret) and a super cool dragon for the other side! The dragon pattern is from the book Spellbinding Quilts which is full of incredible stuff (seriously, you need to get this book. It might as well be called "Harry Potter and LOTR Paper Pieced patterns). I shrunk it down because the original block size was huge. This resulted in so many teeny tiny bits that needed to be paper pieced. It took about 3 hours! Sheesh! Hopefully I can still finish this in time to play D&D for X-mas!

So this is what I came up with. I bought the green/gold fabric in Ketchikan, Alaska while on a cruise with my family. We totally played D&D on the cruise ship (which is not surprising since we have played D&D in Japan and Hawaii). The purple fabric that looks blue was leftover from a baby quilt. I promise it is purple. For some reason, my phone cannot photograph this fabric as purple. My boyfriend's phone can, but the picture wasn't as clear! The same thing happened when I used it in a baby girl quilt. Everyone kept giving me grief for using so much blue in a baby quilt, but it was purple in real life!!

I have the dragon sitting in front of me right now, and this is what the purple actually looks like. I promise! 

Anyways, hopefully I can finish everything that needs to be done in time for their respective deadlines. I am completely caught up on grading until I administer final exams and my students submit projects next week. Wow! I actually get a weekend!