Charming Travelers Winner!

Hi, Everyone!

Thanks for playing in the giveaway! I already let the winner know, but Mr. R#. Generator choose contestant #3 - Melissa! I appreciate everyone taking the time to comment, and I'll look into hosting another fun giveaway soon.

My weekend highlight was finding out that the bee blocks I thought I'd lost were in fact not lost at all and someone else had taken them home and just not said anything about it. (This was frustrating but good because that meant I could stop making those blocks!) :D

Tomorrow is the LA Modern Quilt Guild Meeting and I'm very excited! I'm going to actually bring a quilt to show - even though I'm quite intimidated by the level of talent in that room... I'll post a picture of my finished project this week so you all can see it too!

Have a great Monday. :)

Happy Sewing.

Charming Travelers Giveaway!

Hello, Everyone!

I'm excited to share a giveaway of sorts with you all today! I recently won the Charming Travelers, so it's my turn to pass it around.

This is a great way to get some new-to-you modern fabrics, then share the love with the next person! The rules are easy!

• winners must be active bloggers
• you must reside in the US or Canada, and you must be willing to ship to either country to enter the giveaway. 
• before sending the charm pack off to the next winner, there must be 56 - 5" x 5" squares of fabric inside - please no yucky fabrics
• to help keep the map updated, winners will fill out the quick and easy form to let me know where you are!
• if the charm pack arrives full of unwanted charms, let me know and we'll clear it out and fill it back up with some more beautiful fabrics!

Regarding that last point - you certainly have nothing to fear here! I refreshed each of the 56 charms with yummies from my stash, including some Field Study, Heather Ross Munki Munki, Robert Kaufmans, Tula Pink, and more.

I'm very excited to share this with you - but just a teensie bit nervous that only 4-5 people will enter, so please pass it on and share the love! I will pick a lucky winner on Friday, February 1st!

To enter:

• Leave a comment here on my blog! 
• For an extra entry, either follow my blog, or let me know if you already do. :)

I'm looking forward to sending these beautiful charms to a new home soon, and thanks for playing!

Happy Sewing.

A Ghastlie Good Time

Oh I love the Ghastlies. They're such a wonderfully weird, creepy family, and I just can't get enough of them. I made my first Ghastlies Quilt last year, and so when the new collection came out this year, of course I bought some. Then, like most fabric hoarders who carefully guard their protected stash, I let it sit. After a few months, my mom needed a christmas present, so I made her a Ghastlies Pillow with triangles. That was meant to be a small project, since everyone knows fussy cutting wastes so much fabric. But, after it was finished, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I wanted to make a quilt out of it! I scaled up my triangles a bit, and this is what I ended up with:

Originally I was going to cut the sides so they were straight, but I just couldn't bear to lose the people! They're just too fantastic. 

The back was again a work in improv piecing - someone please let me know if I"m totally wrong in my usage of improv. There basically was no plan, and I just started putting things together. I didn't feel very confident, but my IG friends encouraged me through it. Oddly enough, my favorite part is the big empty part in the middle where I put some more people. 

So, I realized during this process but didn't feel like changing it - there's Kona White and Kona Snow in this section, as well as another not-quite-white fabric. It sorta bugs me, but I'm going to practice  'Live and Let Live'  here.

I free motion quilted this quilt with loopy loops, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. This quilt has quickly made it's way up to the top of the list of my favorite things. I really like that I now have 2 Ghastlies quilts to snuggle under.

That's all I have to share today, but I'll be back soon to share my Sweet Pouch Swap contribution!

Until then, Happy Sewing!

2012 Wrap Up

I have a confession. The post was started 12 days ago. The photos were all taken, and I've just been awful about sitting down at my computer to upload them and finish typing everything out! hehe Anyway, without further ado, I wanted to share my last two quilts from 2012.

The first was for my little brother. He's 24, turning 25, and he's a very hip/cool kid. So of course when I was brainstorming what I could do for him, I knew it would have to be something modern, and less traditional. He has a little disney Vinalmation character inspired by Piet Mondiran - so that was what I ran with.

I really like how this quilt turned out, even though I don't think I would do it again!

Looking back, if I could change something about this quilt, it would be using colored thread in my bobbins when I quilted the colored blocks on the front. It doesn't look terrible, but I really don't like it very much. I do enjoy that working on this quilt let me try a few different free-motion quilting techniques though!

The next quilt was for my sister. She's 19, and we have very different tastes in style and colors. I'm usually wearing just about every color possible, and she's generally in blacks, greys and blues. So, when I first saw the Tula Pink Nightshade collection, I knew I needed to get it for her. Once I had it though, I was totally stumped. The girl fabric (Coven) was my absolute favorite, but it was just so big, and I couldn't figure out what pattern to use. After a few months of thinking about it, I decided I was just going to improv piece it, and see where we ended up. Here is the finished product.

I decided to back it in grey Minky - mostly because I have a quilt with minky backing, and it's my favorite to snuggle under when it's chilly. For quilting, I tried my hand at a spider web.

I do like the look of the spider web quilting, but next time, I'm going to make a few focal points on the spider web instead of just one. 

For the quilt, I also decided to try my hand at making a label. It didn't turn out the best, but I'm posting it here so that down the road I can look back and see if my quilt labels have progressed at all. 

I wanted sister to be surprised by the quilt, so at our pre-christmas party, I gave her this pillow. They look really cute as a set on her bed together now.

Have a great weekend, and until next time, Happy Sewing!

P-P-P-Penguin

Hi, Everyone!

This year, one of the most exciting things that I have on my plate is signing up to host some pay-it-forwards. Basically, I offered my IG friends the chance to sign up, and the first 10 will receive something handmade by me sometime this year. It may be cookies, a card, a quilting things... the possibilities are endless. The idea though is that each of them offers a pay-it-forward, and so on and so forth. I have felt so much love and support from the online crafty community, so I'm really excited about this opportunity to give it back.

Yesterday, I stumbled across the CUTEST tutorial on The Purl Bee. I have a particular affinity to this website, becuase I learned to quilt through their mini-quilts of the month that they did two years back. It's been such a fun venture, and becuase I quilt so much, I have become so much more confident on my machine. I know how to sew and I know I can create. Anyway, back to my point. I saw this adorable tutorial for a stuffed penguin, and I just knew I had to try it out.

I pulled some fabric from my stash and got to work. Here is my finished penguin!


Penguin, a photo by elisabew on Flickr.

I made a few changes, not to the pattern, but just to how I attached his arms. I added buttons, b/c i like the idea that his little arms are buttoned on, not just a visible stitch. :) I don't really love how his feet attach, especially since I didn't use felt for his beak and feet, but I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to address that yet. I also think that if/when I make another one, I will add less stuffing to his arms so they don't poof out quite a much. Overall, I totally love him, and I think he looks quite dashing!

I hope you all are having a great 2013 so far, and I'm looking forward to more sewing this year!

How I See It for 2013.

Hi, Everyone.

January 1st. Oh my gosh. Time is flying. Tomorrow I'll return to work after a lovely 2 weeks off. I'm ready to go back though, I love having a schedule and a routine. As I've had the time off, I've been thinking a lot about my blog space here and all the friends I've made this year in the quilting/sewing community. I'm so thankful for each and every one of you, and for the constant encouragement and inspiration.

One thing I've noticed is that some of these ladies (and gentlemen) are so great about photographing their work and regularly maintaining a fantastic blog. These are people with kids and pets and husbands and wives and lots of other things going on in their world. Over here, it's just boyfriend, dog and I. And yet, I frequently feel like I just don't have anything to say. Nothing extraordinary to share...

A few months back, I told myself that I was going to regularly post on Mondays and Wednesdays, and I was pretty good about it too. But over the last few months, it's felt like an obligation - like, oops, I have to post to my blog, so I have to stay up late to do it. I don't want this space to become a chore. So, I'm thinking I'm going to scale back, and I'll post when I have exciting updates, or fun completed projects, but not just with whatever seems to be happening right at that moment in time. :)

I'll still be overly-active on Instagram (elisabew), so please, feel free to stay in touch there. :D

Otherwise, keep an eye out, I'll be posting semi-regularly to share what I've finished!!

Happy New Year everyone. :)

My goal this year is to eat less candy. (psh).

Happy Sewing.

Holiday Recap Part 1

Hello Everyone, and Merry Christmas Eve!!

Today, I get to share with you some of the projects I've been working on leading up to the holidays. :) I know not everyone goes all-in for handmade holidays, but when you don't have a lot of spare cash, you do what you can.

This year, when I reflect on the holidays overall, I find that I made 5 quilts for gifts, plus an additional two baby quilts for a neighbor who had twin girls. I also made 4 pillows, one for myself, one for a swap, and two for gifts. :) I don't have all of the pictures of each of the quilts yet, as some of them have already gone home to their new owners. Here are some pictures of the ones that I do have. :)

Baby Quilt #1 for Neighbor.

Baby Quilt #2 for Neighbor

During the pre-holiday crafty shenanigans, I helped my momma with some sewing projects she was working on! :) While that does sound like fun, let me tell you - making 30+ yards of bias tape is not exactly my idea of a good time... but handing out with my momma is.

One of the projects I'm most fond of is the quilt I made for my best friend. She's a huge Disney fan, and I had surprising thrifting luck one day when I found this cool Disney sheet for $1. I put it to good use, especially seeing that her favorite color is blue. :)

The binding is my favorite part, it's red with tiny little white hearts. Simply perfect.

Here's a picture of us all under the tree with all the presents.

And here are some of the reaction pictures!

Bryan especially asked for something made with this fabric!

Here's Amy when she opened her quilt! :D

Tabitha loved her quilt, she actually screamed when she opened the box. Then she kept telling me I was so sneaky. 

I was surprised and excited to see the quilt that Amy created for me. It was something I knew she was working on, but oh man, it was so gorgeous in person.

She's actually still in the process of quilting it, but she wanted me to open it for the Holidays. :D I was completely blown away. I knew what she was working on, but she really took my breath away with the colors. 

Now, here's what I made for my mom (don't worry, she got other stuff too). 

Last year, when I made myself a ghastlies quilt, she was the one who kept telling me how much she wants it. So, this is what I put together for her for Christmas - using the new collection, of course.

I especially like the way they glare at each other. 

I hope you all are having a very Happy Holidays, and I'll be looking forward to sharing more things next year!! <3

Until then, Happy Sewing!