Posted in do. Good Stitches, quilt squares, tagged do. Good Stitches Charity Bee on March 30, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Happy to say as of right this very minute, I’m not only a stitcher for do. Good Stitches Charity Bee, but also a quilter…yahoo! July 2013 will be the first month I get to design and quilt. It’s very exciting. In the meantime, how about I show you my recent squares…
October 2012
November 2012
WE TAKE A BREAK FOR DECEMBER!
January 2013
February 2013
March 2013
Fun Fun!
♥ Robin
Posted in do. Good Stitches, quilt squares, Random Projects, Tutorials, tagged do. Good Stitches, Let's Get Crazy Quilt Block, Messenger Bag on July 25, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Last year, around this time, I had to bow out of my stitching role for the Love group at do. Good Stitches. At that time, my schedule was overwhelming and something had to give. I missed it and signed up again at the beginning of this summer. It took a little bit to find an open spot, but I now have a new home in the Grace group. Exciting! This is what I love about being part of a charity bee: It’s pretty easy to find yourself repeating the patterns and blocks you know. Being involved in this sort of quilting bee pushing me to explore things I wouldn’t normally do. This month is just that type of situation. Totally not my style. Nothing I would normally do. However, very enjoyable. Happy to be a small part of an extraordinary effort. And best of all, it’s for charity. Love that!
Let’s Get Crazy Blocks {Tutorial}
In other news, finished a messenger bag.
I’m still working on my ‘iHeart Cute Bots’ messenger bag & my lovely granny squares.
Perhaps the most exciting news of the week, I have under cabinet lighting. Hooray for me!
♥ Robin
Posted in do. Good Stitches, Family, quilt squares, Quilting, Scrap Projects, Tutorials, tagged Mod Mosaic Quilt Blocks on January 11, 2012 | 15 Comments »
In spending quite some time pondering ideas for a new quilt for our living room, I think I have the golden ticket! My hubby built me a really nice shelf/quilt hanger and I’ve just been using quilts I have at home for display. None of them are quite right and I’ve known a new project would be under way. But what?
Last year, I was excited to participate in do. Good Stitches {a charity bee}. One particular month, Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson was the quilt designer and I was lucky enough to be a stitcher. I fell madly in love with her mod-mosaic quilt blocks and had fun creating two of my own to contribute.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Oh yessiree, I’m ecstatic to make my very own for our living room display. This will be quite a bit of work, but I’m in no rush. Rachel at Stitched in Color is hosting a Scrap Attack Quilt Along and I think this will be a good opportunity to hold myself accountable for a completion date at the end of March 2012. I’ve never needed help keeping motivated, but it will still be fun to be part of a scrapping community. Speaking of scraps, I’ll be using various fabrics from my 2011 quilt orders and a few other projects. If you’ve ordered a quilt from me, you’ll probably spy your quilt scraps. And since most of my quilt orders are from sweet friends, this will end up being a sentimental quilt.
Luckily, I’ve been hording my scraps, in desired colors, just for this project. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough scraps for a queen size quilt , so I’ll cut into my stash. And since I always order just a little extra to stash away for my personal projects, I should have enough.
There’s a particular piece of artwork above our television that I love. I’m pulling all the same colors from my scraps and their larger counterparts that are stashed away. I’m going matchy-matchy, which I normally hate. However, since it’s a mosaic design with multiple contrasting colors, I think I’ll love it. To be sure before I pour a lot of hard work into a large quilt, I did a sample square. And baby, I think I’m in love.
Love is a funny thing. Sometimes you just know it’s the one. And sometimes you “think” you know it’s the one, but then it’s not. Do you know what I mean? So I turned this mod-mosaic square into a pillow and will hang out with it for a while to be sure. If I keep stealing glimpses from it, then I’ll proceed. If not, I’ll keep searching for another scrappy design. I’m 99.9% sure this is it!
Artwork & Coordinating Fabric
Fabric Scraps from Past Projects
{Larger Stash Pictured Above}
Scrappy – Mod – Mosaic Pillow
Imagine this square as a queen size quilt. Hard work? Absolutely! Worth it? I think, oh yes! And onto some super-duper cuteness, we got a puppy! She’s a golden retriever mix. And do you notice she’s the same color as my flooring? So on purpose! Wow, I did not realize a new puppy would be such hard work. I’m like seriously exhausted! We are house/crate training her. We’ve been very diligent and consistent with her training {thanks to inspiration from Cesar Millan}. Surprisingly, she has learned so much in just 5 short days. Luckily, I am taking her to work with me and hopefully that will lend to a very sociable and obedient dog. At least that’s the plan.
Our girl, Kona ♥
♥ Robin
Posted in do. Good Stitches, tagged Bubble Quilt, do. Good Stitches on July 26, 2011 | 2 Comments »
I’ve completed my square, oh yes I did. I’ve completed my square, how about YOU? Aren’t we all forcing ourselves {in some way} to get everything done we’ve committed to? For me finding the time is the biggest battle and when I do, I just love love love creating and sewing. This month Rachel at Stitched in Color requested one giant square with ooo bubbles ooo. Her inspiration came from “Block Party: The Modern Quilting Bee” by Alissa Haight Carlton and Kristen Lejnieks:
Inspiration
This one was complete joy. First off, easy! Second, open to interpretation. Third, just plain cute as heck! Almost always the backs of blocks are not so pretty…but not this time people. I thought it was fun. Fun enough to show you.
{Love} Bubble Square
{Love} Fun Back
Cute, ain’t it? My assignment was to use Kona Moss and the bubbles are colors of the ocean. The other squares are my bubble colors {more or less}, with their bubbles being of the same variety. I’m excited to see how Rachel puts it all together.
Ugh, so my college education resumes in approximately 3-4 weeks. It’s good, but sad really. How in the world I’m I going to keep up with everything? I’m sorry to say that I am contemplating resigning my position as a stitcher for do. Good Stitches {a Charity Bee}, at least until the school year is over. However, I’m going to hang on as long as possible. We’ll just have to see…
In the meantime, we had ZERO kids last night. Do you realize the rarity of such an event? After working all day, I got home at 4:30. Dinner was on the stove by 5:00. Cake was in the oven by 5:30. Whip cream was whipped up promptly after dinner. We ate cake. Just us. No kids. No noise, except Chef Ramsey yelling at his cooking prodigies on the telly. We slept like kings and queens without our littlest cookie monster waking me up at 1 am to snuggle. It was nice. Very nice. And happily we get to do that all over again tonight….yippy!
♥ R
Posted in do. Good Stitches, tagged do. Good Stitches, Hexagon Squares on July 11, 2011 | 5 Comments »
As I’ve mentioned in past posts, I’m part of the Love group of do. Good Stitches Charity Bee. Lee at Freshly Pieced was our quilter for the month of June & had us stitch hexies. This was my first time sewing around a hexagon and I loved it. Her instructions are perfection and so helpful. If you love the look of these squares, I certainly urge you to give it a whirl.
My Squares:
{Giraffe} Hexing Around
{Bumble Bee} Hexing Around
Love. Hexing Around
My Favorites by Ara Jane & Needle and Spatula {click the pictures}
by arajane
by needle and spatula
Do you see a unified color scheme? In no particular order, green, blue, orange, and yellow are debuted. Too fun…
♥ R
Posted in do. Good Stitches on May 26, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Natalie with Greenleaf Goods has already quilted our May charity project for do. Good Stitches. I’m so very impressed with her promptness and just look at this gorgeous quilt. Some little person is going to be oh so happy!
String Quilt
Thank you Natalie!
♥ R
Posted in do. Good Stitches, quilt squares, tagged do. Good Stitches, Triangle Quilt Square on May 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
And so they are done. Thrilled to have them mailed off yesterday while May 2011 still exists. What a miracle! I really loved making these squares.
Simple.
Triangle Squares in Turquoise
♥ R
Posted in do. Good Stitches, quilt squares, tagged do. Good Stitches, Triangle Quilt Square on May 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
There’s been a lot of modern quilting based around bottled rainbows, so why not a box of crayons? Melanie with Texas Freckles is our do.Good Stitches quilter for the month of May. I love her instructions: Pick a color from the “crayon” list, make ANY 2, 12.5 unfinished squares in just that color, and you’re done. Oh Melanie, I could kiss you! After seeing a few creations by my fellow stitchers, I decided on a simple triangle block in turquoise. A quick and painless project, which I need right now. Here are a few other squares that helped me make this choice. They are just so good!
Twee ✁cut to pieces: Grey
little cumulus: Black & White
Stitched in Color: Orange
TipToeTango: Turquoise
Did you notice I haven’t sewn mine together yet…
♥ R
Posted in do. Good Stitches, quilt squares, Scrap Projects, Tutorials, tagged do. Good Stitches, String Quilt on May 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Gosh, I fought through this month’s do. Good Stitches charity squares. Not because I don’t love them. I do. Not because they were hard. They’re not. Ugh, why? I honestly couldn’t tell you other than my same ol sob story, I’m busy yada yada. Plus, they were time consuming. I finished one square mid April and just finished the second today. Um oops, they were due in Michigan yesterday. WHAT A SLACKER! In my sad defence, once I did the first one I thought, dang that took half my day. So I just glared at my pile of scraps for the next two weeks dreading round two. Gosh, that’s so silly. I’m just getting back from the post office where I promptly mailed them off to Natalie with Greenleaf Goods. I can’t wait to see the finished product. I really really love string quilts {i prefer large scale} and the hodgepodge of color. Mmmm yummy color!
"Love" April Springy String Blocks
So I’m guessing you may want directions. Natalie used this tutorial to direct us. We were to use 9 4 1/2″ squares to assemble 1 large 12 1/2″ unfinished square. The tutorial does suggest using paper piecing and glue. Glue? No thanks. So what to do? I did cut 4 1/2″ squares out of tracing paper I found in my kids craft closet {shhhh, don’t tell}. I lined up my middle strip and pinned with 2 pins on the top and bottom. I then cut and placed my next strip face down onto the mid strip. This is the only time I sew through the paper. For all the other strips, I tuck the paper out of the way and just sew onto the next strip of fabric. It’s just as effective and leaves just one stitching line to pull paper from. But first, I trim my fabric down to my 4 1/2″ piece of tracing paper before I remove it. No glue necessary. It’s faster…trust me! Yes I do have patience, but why spend more time then necessary on things of this nature? I’ve got to get dinner going if you know what I mean?
Block 1
Block 2
Colors of Spring
I love wonky!
I’m so very happy May’s squares are nice and simple! It’s a lovely yet busy month. If mostestest worstest busiestest month ever is a word or words…that’s my May!
Yay for S.I.M.P.L.E.!
♥ R
Posted in do. Good Stitches, Quilting, Scrap Projects, Tutorials, tagged Bits & Blocks Square, do. Good Stitches on March 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Here’s to another do. Good Stitches charity block for the month of March. This block is completely representative of my March 2011. It’s been one block after another and I can only remember bits of it all. One wedding after another, oral surgeries, ortho appointments, spring break, mainland visitors, 100 cupcake order for a sweet birthday boy…it’s been one NONE STOP CRAZY MONTH! Although, this weekend finishes the 2nd wedding, luckily it is accompanied by a mini family vacation at the Sheraton Keauhou Bay in Kona, Hawaii. Aw, sweet joy! Bring on the 200 ft water slide that will entertain the kids while I sip a Mai Tai pool side. Yeah that’s so not going to happen, but a girl can dream right? No, it’s going to be, “WATCH THIS MOM”, “I’M HUNGRY MOM”, and “WHERE’S THE BAND-AIDS?” Isn’t that how all family vacations are? TOTALLY EXHAUSTING. Regardless, I won’t need to clean the house this weekend or make breakfast, lunch, and dinner…hooray!
Bits & Blocks was really enjoyable for me. I chose to use a lighter grey with mustardy yellow fabrics. Yellow fabric leaning towards green vs. orange was requested, but I had none. I even went to the local fabric store and NADA! Truthfully, I did try, but it’s wasn’t in the cards for me. And in the end, the colors really do it for me. I just hope they blend in well with the rest of the group’s fab creations. I loved loved this rectangle square. I’ll be using it in a quilt I started last night. Check out the bits & blocks tutorial here.
Bits & Blocks
Fun Fun!
♥ R
