Hello Again!

Wow -- I didn't mean to take a three-month break from blogging.  That being said, it's been a pretty good break.  I went to Quilt Market, we finished up school, and summer vacation is in FULL SWING!  I'm really enjoying my kids being home this summer -- they only drive me crazy when they're fighting, and that's been mostly prevented by strategically-planned playdates. :)  Aaah, playdates -- a Mom's best friend!

I've also been working on some projects, and I still need to show-and-tell all about Quilt Market, but for today (since I have just a few minutes), I'll just show some pictures of a recent project I did.  Many thanks to two ladies -- Lori Holt from A Bee in my Bonnet and Angela Walters from Quilting is My Therapy.

Isn't it cute?! I thought I'd make a wintry table runner, and this was originally going to be the back side -- but in the end I just couldn't help but make a second table runner. The block I made is a Great-Granny Square, a super popular tutorial made by Lori Holt. It's like magic how this comes together! And a great leader/ender block -- although I generally notice that my leaders and enders are so much fun to work on that I scrap the first project so I can work on them. :)

^^I had bookmarked a tutorial, but I think it's no longer available, because she made a whole book about it.  The book looks so cute!

^^As my friend Marion says -- the back side is the best side!  See how I learned from my mistakes? A more plain (although still pieced) back is totally okay not to show all the time.

^^And the quilting was made possible by Angela Walters' book "Free-Motion Quilting", which I got from Amazon. It's really a great reference on how to make all sorts of motifs, including pebbles, flowers, and leaves -- all of which are in my little project!

I have always been pretty naturally good at a lot of crafty things -- knitting, crochet, scrapbooking, sewing clothing -- as long as I have a pattern or an idea of what I want to do, I'm good to go.  But free-motion quilting really stole a little bit of that confidence for a while.  My mother picked it up really easily, and I've had a bunch of friends that just do it, so I took a class at my local quilt shop, and I was just so naturally BAD at it that I didn't even want to try! Now that I'm trying my hand at pattern design, though, I'm really cranking out a bunch of new projects, and I really wanted to get good at it.  As you can see, I need a little more practice -- but for a first attempt at three different techniques, it's not too bad, if I say so myself!