Shopping suggestions

Don't have a heart attack, but yes indeed, this is me blogging two days in a row! WHOA!

I'm very excited to be playing the role of sewing mentor very soon! The gal I take yoga from at the gym is having her second little boy in a few months, and we're going to make a quilt for him! She picked out this bundle from Fabricworm:

Vikings! How cute is that?? I can't wait to see it in person.

My folks have decided to come for Christmas, so I figured it's probably best that I make something for them as well (which really means something for my mom, since I'm pretty sure my dad's not huge on interior decorating). My mom pointed out several blogger bundles from Pink Castle Fabrics that she likes - unfortunately, most of them are out of stock!

They do have Hawaiian Sunset in stock:

And she also liked the Sea Glass Bundle and Summer Blooms (both out of stock!)...But I'm looking for a few more options. Where do you shop for pre-put-together FQ bundles that aren't necessarily from the same fabric line?

I may go with the Sea Glass Bundle - but rather than get the bundle, just get a couple prints, since I already have a TON of the Salt Air collection...hmmm....

Snippets

No photos today, sorry. Just snippets of my brain!

-I cheated on my fabric diet yesterday...but it doesn't count because it was just Kona White, it was less than two yards, it was 40% off with my Joann coupon. Solids don't count because I need them for projects.

Right?

-I have two dudes I want to make quilts for. One says he likes gray. The other will take anything I give him, I'm sure. Have any dude friendly pattern suggestions?

-I've been doing really good at the gym! I'm going every odd day and working my way through the Couch-to-5K running program. I'm up to 90 seconds running, two minutes walking intervals. Interval running is much better than just attempting to run, but let's face it, treadmills are boring.

-My head is full of acronyms. From work ones (PDI, UVI, RKE, LOF, ADP, CRM, and so forth) and now quilting ones, like HST and FQ! Sometimes I look at patterns and have no idea what they're talking about because of all the acronyms. The Swoon pattern's like that, so before I attempt to start it, I'm probably going to have to translate it into actual words!

Yeah, that's about it for today. What's rattling around your brain today?!

Tiny projects

I snagged these tiny, 1.5" squares from my aunt's stash back in August. They fall fairly neatly into rainbow colors. Some didn't, being too multicolored for easy sorting, but I went with whichever color they "felt" like.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with them - perhaps something similar to Rachel's "Bottled Rainbows" quilt-a-long, meant for scraps but I think this would work, too. Ticker tape quilts are fun, and I like the idea of setting them on point, I haven't done something like that before (I'm so new at this!). Maybe rather than try to match specific Kona solids, which I don't think I could do well with the limited number of scraps I have, I might do a from-light-to-dark sort of arrangement on a white background, framed in black. Sounds good to me.

For now, they're sitting on my desk, sorted by color...which means I can't avoid them for too long, since they're in my workspace!

Do you have any ideas for my tiny fabric swatches, other than tossing them up in the air like confetti (also a possibility, particularly if my cats come 'round!!)?

Smoothing things out

Last night, rather than work on any of the projects I have already started...I decided it'd be a great idea to iron out some new fabric and cut more strips. Sure, because who DOESN'T want to iron when it's 90+ degrees out??

Ugh.

Anyway, it has come to my attention that I should probably acquire some kind of ironing board. Last night I was ironing on a stack of fabric on my desk. Effective for fat quarters, but certainly not for yardage.

What do you iron on?

I should have stuck around for #talknt on Twitter last night, since they were talking about ironing, but I got distracted, as always. :(

Request - help!

Can someone point me in the right direction for a tutorial on properly squaring up a quilt? The process makes me REALLY nervous - I put all this work into this thing, and now I have to do what? Cut some off!? Yikes!

I'm working on some quilts with more intricate designs - half square triangles, hexagons (hey, I'm a beginner) and don't want to screw up more than necessary along the way. I know I've made the mistake of not squaring up all the HSTs before sewing them into rows...but I've learned the error of my ways...and figure I should probably square up the rows themselves before sewing them all together, right?

Thank you, and have a great weekend!

Bread

It's probably best not to consider the long-term effects of the amount of bread (fresh, warm, mmm) that I have just consumed/am in the process of consuming.

Jeff and I do not own a scale. His grandparents, however, do, and thus when we visit, I inevitably weigh myself while there. Of course, this inevitability usually occurs right after a large meal - in this case, Christmas dinner.

I wasn't exactly thrilled to see that I've really gained 20 pounds since meeting my husband.

He says it's a good thing; lots of it is muscle, in my legs, from a summer spent cycling (up to 25 miles at a time). It makes me look more "womanly," and then he said some other things that shouldn't be repeated.

It doesn't help that his sister recently lost probably 45 pounds and now has the "perfect" supermodel (read: tall and stick-thin) figure.

The New Year is a-comin', and with it its pledges and resolutions toward self-improvement.

This year's question ends up being: To join a gym, or not? Chico's weather is great a few months of the year; unbearably hot for maybe a month in the summer, and unpredictable and rainy during the winter. Theoretically, it would be good for me, but I fear that it would end up being a money-sink.

Thoughts, experiences?