Fabric Love

Picked up some fabric today from my local quilt shop. The just got in pearl bracelets and I couldn't not pick some up. The bottom 3 were on sale for just $5 a yard, so of course I had to get a yard of each at such a steal to build my stash.

I've decided to make a "50 shades" quilt for my husband and I. This is the beginning of 50 different shades of gray that I am going to use with simple patchwork for our king size bed.

WIP Wednesday

I think this might be my first time actually linking up at Freshly Pieced, but I thought I'd give it a try.

Just a few WIPs:

I started making little 8 patches with my mini Posy charms. The other minis are for 1" hexies and I will use Jubilee for another (like I need to make any more) baby girl quilt.


This is almost done. Started the other night with a charm pack and now I just need to top stitch the binding down to the front. I will have a whole finish Friday post.


And my last WIP this week is a table runner for my mom. I sent her some pictures and she liked this one. She originally wanted a St. Patty's Day runner, but I couldn't find any inspiration in the fabric she liked so we decided that this would be a good compromise.

I have a few more little projects here and there, but no good pictures. And I really don't have any more progress on my February finish goal. I still have hopes to finish on time though! Thanks for stopping by :)

We're Half Way There

We are over half way through February and I haven't even made a dent in my monthly goal. To be honest I was very ambitious. I set out to finish 4 baby quilts and I have only finished and bound one. I've worked a little on the other 3, but I keep finding little things that need to be fixed and it's frustrating me. I have finished all of my February bee blocks, made 3 triple zip pouches, and started piecing a new baby quilt with a new charm pack. So I guess I have been slightly productive--just not on my goal.

First Hexie Bee block.

Only have 2 strips of my Foxy Scout quilt together. Only 8 to go.

One of the bee blocks I'm working on.

I also have some exciting news! I've been accepted in to do. Good stitches. It is a modern charity bee. Someone had to drop out of a group and I am taking their place. My new group donates the quilts they make to project Linus. I am so excited to be able to help others with my new passion.

And later today I am going to a friends house to help her with her first quilt. I'm happy to be helping her, but it is kind of weird to tell her what to do since she is nearly 10 years older than me.

Finally this weekend my husband got a new car. He had been driving around a 1995 Mercury that he bought for $500 5 years ago. It had no ac, someone has knocked off the drivers side mirror, and it had manual locks and windows. I let him pick whatever he wanted and he bought a brand new Altima with all the bells and whistles-even a moon roof and nav system. I'm glad he finally got something for himself. He has been so supportive of everything I've done (and lenient on my spending habits!). How do your loved ones appreciate you?

I won! [The Liebster Award]

I was nominated for the Liebster award from one of my newest quilty friends Todd at This Guy Quilts. (Go check out his quilts, they are beautiful.)

Here are the rules for the Liebster Award--The blog must have less than 200 followers or must be less than six months old. Should the recipient accept the award, they must then write a post and:
1. List 11 random things about yourself.
2. Answer 11 questions posed by the nominator
3. Choose 11 blogs to pass the award on to and link them to your post (I don't know of 11, so I will just have to do as many as I can)
4. Create 11 questions for those 11 people to answer


Todd's Eleven Questions:
1. Favorite song of all time?
My wedding was full of Switchfoot music. I would say it's a tie between Only Hope(the one from A Walk to Remember) and This is Home(from Prince Caspian).





2. And...favourite film of all time?
Funny Girl. I could listen to Barbra Streisand sing People and Don't Rain on my Parade every day. (Also high on my favorite songs list.)


3. Which actor/actress do you least like and why?
My husband hates Nicolas Cage and every move he is in. I'm a lover, not a hater, so I am going to say I love Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightley. They are both so beautiful and amazing actors.

4. Are you a cat person or dog person... or both? and why?
Neither? I don't hate pets, but I just don't love them.
5. Your number #1 vice?
Judgmental people. I am always afraid of being judged so I try my hardest not to judge others.
6. The hardest decision you've ever had to make?
What I was going to do when as a 19 year old freshman in college when I found out I was pregnant. I am happy with the choices I made :)
7. The craziest thing you've ever done?
Other than get pregnant at 19? And have another baby a year and a half later... 8. What quality do you value most in other people?
How some people are just genuinely nice. It is so hard to find someone who is nice to anyone and everyone. 9. What is your greatest quilting achievement to date?
My lemon squares quilt. I am so proud of how nice the piecing is and that I FMQed it all myself.
10. The best piece of advice you've received?
Do what you love
11. What is the best thing about quilting?
I love being able to turn scraps of fabric into a big beautiful quilt that I can snuggle under. 


My 11 random facts:
1. I graduated high school with my associate's degree and over 70 college credit hours. 
2. I majored in math and graduated 4 days before my second son was born.
3. I am a 21 year old mother of 2 little boys.
4. I love crafting in all forms. I even took painting and pottery in college. I have dabbled in crochet and all sorts of arts and crafts to decorate the house.
5. I actually started this blog to follow my crochet adventures, but never really got it going since I was so busy with a newborn. I then fell in love with quilting and started writing about it here. Eventually I will get my crochet projects back out and talk about them here. After all this blog is about crafting, not just quilting.
6. No one else in my extend family is very crafty, so they all come to me when they want something. And they all expect something homemade for Christmas. And birthdays. (And, in the case of my mother, every holiday in between!)
7. I played the piano for 10 years. I haven't touched one in a few years, but I hope I will be able to teach at least one of my boys to play.
8.  My dad and husband have the same job: navigators for the US Air Force.
9. I am very shy when meeting new people and most times they see it as me being stuck up or stand offish. I am working to fix my first impressions.
10. Despite being a math major, I still count on my fingers. 
11. I'm not interesting enough to have 11, lol

Eleven Nominated Blogs:
Stacy from The Tilted Quilt
Trish at Love of Quilts
Jen from A Quilting Jewel (She has 216 followers, but no award, so better late than never!)
Kristan of Doodle Do Designs

Eleven Questions to Answer:
1. Why did you start quilting?
2. What is your favorite fabric line?
3. Did you have any cute nicknames as a kid?
4. Where is your favorite vacation spot?
5. What is your favorite quilting memory?
6. Brights or pastels?
7. What are some of your other hobbies?
8. Where would you like to live?
9. Which quilt project are you most proud of?
10. What do you hope to get on Valentine's day? Roses? Chocolates? All of the above?
11. Post a picture (and link) to a quilt that inspires you the most.

And thanks again to Todd for nominating me!

Slow week

It has been slow going around here. My little one is still pretty sick and not sleeping well and since nap time is my sewing time, I haven't been getting much done. I did get some shopping in though :)

Beautiful new Zebras from Alexander Henry. Snatched these up from
Hawthorne Threads as soon as I saw them in their newsletter. Not
sure what I want to do with them yet, probably a cute bag.

Life in the Jungle charm pack from Missouri Quilt Co. during one of their daily
deals. It will become another cute baby boy quilt, just don't know how yet :)

Got a fat eighth pack at Joann's. I am planning
on making a table runner for my mom.

And I guess I got a little work done:

From a (squared) w. Cute graph-ic paper pieced block that I am thinking
about using for her emerald challenge. Sorry for the crummy lighting.

Another triple zip :)

Granny square block for my We Bee With It bee. Just waiting for
some Kona Hibiscus for the last round.

The Inspiration Board - Triple Zip!

The Inspiration Board
I found this cute new website today. It's called the Inspiration Board. I thought it would be like a cuter pinterest where you get to put all your pins in a cute format. But you have to upload all your pictures from your computer and then it generates a picture like mine below. It's fun and super great for showing off projects and ideas, but I think I will stick to pinterest for now because I like linking to tutorials too much.

I do really like this though so I will probably be using it to display my projects around the blog occasionally :) Go have fun with it

Finish Friday

Baby Girl Starburst, a photo by ChelsieCreates on Flickr.

I got my first baby quilt finished this week! I feel so accomplished. Only 3 to go :) I made a little more progress on my scout quilt too.



I picked up this cute striped fabric this week. I saw this binding method on an episode of Quilty online. I used a narrow zigzag all the way around. I accidentally added the binding to the front instead of the back like I usually do, so I had to try something new. It was super easy, but I'm not convinced that I love how it looks.

A few more finishes this week: 2 triple zip pouches. The tutorial is super quick and easy. The first I made with some noteworthy fabric I picked up this week. The second is from the Bella line and I tried a little quilting on each.

I love the little coral/red scribbles

Triple Zip Finish!

I got to put together my triple zip today :) And I probably only spent about an hour on it (with lots of baby breaks in between.) I had first picked out some Bella fabrics, but couldn't find or decide on any zippers to match. So while at A&E I noticed they had Noteworthy yardage and it looked so cute I couldn't resist. I picked up 4 half yards to add to my stash and some coordinating zippers. Here is how my little pouch turned out:

By the way, I'm on Flickr too. I have a few more pics over there. You can find me here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chelsiecreates/
[I can't seem to be able to link my photos directly from Blogger, so I need to figure that out eventually]

I think I will probably make this again. Probably this week. It's fun and easy. The only thing I would change is make the largest lining a smidge smaller. Maybe it was because I had to use batting instead of the fusible fleece because I couldn't find mine. And since the bottom notebook paper fabric wraps around the back, it is upside down, so next time if I am using a directional print like this one I will put a seam together on the bottom so that they are both upright. Does that make any since? Anyways, I've also updated my WIP and page. I am going to keep it updated and link at least my finished quilts to their  final post.

Weekend Update

The weekend started out great. The Les Amis fabric arrived in the mail and I got all the strips cut for my pattern. I even picked out some binding for the pink starburst quilt and got it attached. I started to sew it on to the back by stitching in the ditch but I am pretty unhappy with it. I am either going to hand sew it or start over and go even slower. But then last night after getting all the Les Amis strips sewn and cut into diamonds I felt a cold coming on. Now this morning little baby boy and I feel horrible. Hopefully this will pass quickly and I can get back to sewing and taking care of my babies soon.

February Goal Setting

I am currently working on 4 separate baby quilts--all in different stages of done-ness--and my goal for this month is to finish all four.
1. My first one should be pretty easy. All I have to do is square it and make the binding. I purchased some of Michael Miller's dumb dot online, but it is more hot pink and I'm just not feeling it. I think that I'll use the same baby pink for the binding, but I'm still not positive. Or the gray and pink dumb dots. Any suggestions? Either way I am in love with this girl starburst quilt, but since I have no baby girls I will be trying to sell it over at my etsy shop when I'm done..

Little man had to get in on the shot too. It's not really this wrinkly, but I couldn't get it smoothed out with him running all over.
2. I started this pinwheel quilt last month and finished the top within a week. I got stuck after an afternoon of quilting and not having much success. I am trying my hand at FMQ and did a small, tight loopy meander.

Hopefully this will push me to finish quilting and throw on the binding.
3. I started a second starburst quilt, but in a boy version. I've finished all the HST and flying geese and now I've started putting them together. I just messed up the placement of some of them and now have to rip out some seams. Bummer.

4. I just got the fabric in for my Foxy Scout quilt today and I'm super excited! After seeing this blog and quilt:

I immediately purchased the pattern and a 1/4 yard of each print from the boy line of Les Amis by Patty Solinger for Michael Miller Fabrics. I have been eyeing this fabric since I first saw it online and once I saw this quilt I knew I had to make one for my boys. I am going to try to make it as large as I can to fit my son's bed, but we will see with how much fabric I can use. 

So that's my goal for February: 4 completely finished baby quilts. I am putting the pressure on! I need to get these done so I can try to sell  them (well at least the girl ones) to make up for all my fabric spending!