Getting back to the swing of things...

I'm trying to be more vigilant about my blogging because I have a lot of great stuff in the works!  

I signed up for another round of the Flickr 4x5 bee and couldn't wait to get started.  One of the hive members is the same as last round and I love her color choices of shades of purple with white and grey.  I just picked up my Modern Blocks copy from the library and decided my favorite pattern was Four Acres by Solidia Hubbard on p. 68-69.  So simple and bold!  I switched up the way the colors were arranged for my bee mate and am really pleased with how it turned out.

 Since I didn't want that block to be lonely, I decided to make one for myself at the same time.  It is bright, maybe too bright, but I'm leaving it alone for now to decide what to do with it.  I was having heart palpitations while contemplating cutting into my original FMF and KJR stash!  

Heather Ross at Quiltcon

Even though I live in Austin, I wasn't able to attend most of the lectures during Quiltcon because I was either volunteering or working.  When I saw the Houston Modern Quilt Guild was doing a review of Heather Ross' lecture on her design process, of course I wanted to read about it.  And then I found out they were giving away a copy of her new book, Prints, and guess what - I won the book!!  

I did get to take a peek at this book before, and am super excited I won because it comes with a CD that has tons of images of some of Heather's most popular prints that you can actually print yourself on your own home printer, Spoonflower, whatever you want to do with them!  How cool is that?  Mendocino mermaids, tadpoles - yes, please!!  I especially think this is a great book for sewers who, like me, started really getting into it after some of these cult favorite collections were sold out.  

Even though I didn't get to meet her in person, Heather seems like a very generous person.  My book copy is coming directly from her!  The Houston MQG isn't too shabby either, because they're going to be giving away a fat quarter collection of Briar Rose due to come out April 1 and some other things in the works, like an Anna Maria Horner give away as well!  Be sure to check them out and sign up.

Bee Block: Scrap Jar Stars

I'm a member of a quilt bee on Flickr and March is the month I'm Queen Bee!  I chose Amber's Scrap Jar Stars as my block and each member chose a color from the rainbow to make me 2 blocks.  At the end of the month, I'll have 20 rainbow colored blocks to turn into an awesome quilt.  Even though I didn't have to make any blocks for myself, I decided to do the purple blocks.  Here's what I came up with for the first one.

Here are some of the others that are being sent to me.  I can't wait!

Greens

Yellows

Red and another red 

Dark and medium blues

Happy sewing until next time!

Attempting the (supposedly) Impossible

Lately I've been thinking about making the Amy Butler Weekender Bag.  I know I'm late to the party, but I really like my Tula Birds and Bees so much that I want it on my couch and I want to wear it around town!  I've decided to make mine patchwork style like Elizabeth Hartman's tutorial here.  

So far I've cut out most of the pieces and made a million yards of piping using Steam A Seam a la Noodlehead.  I'm using a purple-winey colored linen blend for the piping.  Here's the front large pocket!  I love those squirrels - squeekity squeek squeeken :)  More on this later after more progress.

Flea Market Facified

I finally cut into my Flea Market Fancy and favorite DS Quilts prints awhile back when I found the perfect pattern.  This is called Perfect Points Sampler from Connecting Thread's website and can be found here.  I had a lot of fun making each of the different blocks, particularly my favorite Bear's Paw.  The quilt turned out quite green and orange - not exactly how I pictured it but that's what happens when I pick the fabric instead of letting Moda do it for me!

Winter Flickr Quilt Bee Blocks

I actually broke into the Flickr quilt bee world and signed up for the Winter Quarter 4x5 Modern Quilt Bee!  I am super excited because Elizabeth Hartman from Oh!Fransson is in my group!!!  I'm toying with having her sign my block :P  There are 5 other ladies in my hive, and these the are blocks I've finished so far.  I thought I saw a block like this somewhere, but I can't recall where and so I'm calling this an E.T. Phone Home original.  Each block is 12.5" square.  

Natural Sourdough Bread Starter Action

BF and I picked up a loaf of sourdough bread at the store last week that I found so tasty I challenged myself to DIY.  After searching through many starter recipes, I chose to duplicate this one at Naturally Knocked Up.  I started it on Monday and my has it grown!  

The first two days I used white all purpose flour.  Then I decided to switch to Bob's Mill rye flour to get more flavorful bread.  Yesterday it started to bubble a little bit but today it's full blown bubble action!  I don't want to have to buy a bigger jar to put it in so I may split it into two.  Researching sourdough is definitely interesting.  I'll probably make a simple loaf of bread first.  BF has been begging me to make chili lately though so maybe I'll tackle some sourdough bread bowls too!